February 20, 2018

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Tuesday

February 20, 2018 T: 582-7800 | F: 582-7044 www.arubatoday.com

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Aruba’s ONLY English newspaper

School Shooting Puts Pressure on Florida Lawmakers to Act

By T. SPENCER TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The deadly shooting at a Florida high school has put pressure on the state's Republican-controlled Legislature to consider a sweeping package of gun-control laws in a state that has resisted restrictions on firearms for decades, lawmakers said Monday.

The legislative effort coalesced as 100 students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School prepared to ride buses more than 400 miles to the state capital Tuesday to urge lawmakers to act to prevent a repeat of the massacre that killed 17 students and faculty last week. The suspect, 19-year-old former student Nikolas Cruz, made his first appearance in court Monday.

Wearing a prison jumpsuit, he kept his head down and did not appear to make eye contact with the judge or others in the courtroom, though he responded briefly to someone on the defense team. A previous appearance was by a video connection from jail.

Nikolas Cruz appears in court for a status hearing before Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Monday, Feb. 19, 2018. Cruz is charged with killing 17 people and wounding many others in Wednesday's attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, which he once attended.

(Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, Pool)

His lawyers have said he will plead guilty if prosecutors agree not to pursue the

death penalty. No decision has been made on that.

Soon after the shooting,

several legislative leaders were taken on a tour of the school to see the damage

firsthand and appeared shaken afterward.

Continued on Page 2

A2 UP

Tuesday 20 February 2018

FRONT

Florida:

School shooting puts pressure on lawmakers Continued from Front

The attack seemed to overcome the resistance of some in the state's leadership, which has rebuffed gun restrictions since Republicans took control of both the governor's office and the Legislature in 1999.

However, there is still strong resistance by many in the party to any gun-control

"We need to make sure everything is working and to learn from the experience," said Galvano, who was among those who visited the school.

The Senate is also considering boosting spending on mental health programs for schools and giving law-enforcement greater power to involuntarily hold some-

lican Sen. Dennis Baxley.

Referring to gun-control advocates, he said: "Sometimes I wish they were right, that this would fix it, but it won't ... We have a terrible problem with obesity, but we're not banning forks and spoons."

Democrats believe raising the age limit and creating a waiting period to buy ri-

Konstantine Anthony, left, joins other grassroots protestors during a rally against gun violence in downtown Los Angeles on Monday, Feb. 19, 2018. Hundreds of sign-carrying, chanting protesters have converged on a downtown Los Angeles park, demanding tougher background checks and other gun-safety measures following last week's deadly school shooting in Florida.

(AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

measures, leaving the fate of new restrictions unclear.

Sen. Bill Galvano, a Republican and the incoming state senate president, said the Senate was preparing a package that would include raising the age to purchase any firearm to 21, creating a waiting period for purchasing any type of firearm, banning bump stocks that can allow semiautomatic guns to spray bullets quickly and creating gun-violence restraining orders.

Authorities said Cruz had a string of run-ins with school authorities that ended with his expulsion. Police were also repeatedly called to his house throughout his childhood. Cruz's lawyers said there were repeated warning signs that he was mentally unstable and potentially violent. Yet he legally purchased a semiautomatic rifle.

one considered a danger to themselves. The body will also look at a proposal to deputize a teacher or someone else at school so they are authorized to have a gun.

Galvano said senators want to examine ways to protect schools that do not have resource officers — often armed law enforcement officers — on site.

State House leaders and Gov. Rick Scott also are considering possible changes to firearms rules but have not given any details. Scott planned meetings Tuesday on school safety, and said he would announce proposals on mental health issues later in the week.

Still, some Republicans questioned whether additional gun restrictions are the answer. "I really don't want to see this politicized into a gun debate," Repub-

fles isn't enough.

"That's unacceptable.

That's a joke," said Democratic Sen. Gary Farmer of Broward County. "I don't see that as a restriction. It never should have been that an 18-year-old could buy an assault weapon. No Floridians should be able to buy an assault weapon."

Since the attack, students from the school have become increasingly vocal in their demands for gun-control measures. Many have pointed out politicians who take financial support from the National Rifle Association, and some have lashed out at President Donald Trump, saying he was busy blaming Democrats for failing to pass gun restrictions while taking no action of his own. Students are also calling for anti-gun violence demonstrations in Washington and other cities March 24. q

Few states let courts take guns from people deemed a threat

By RYAN J. FOLEY DON THOMPSON SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The warnings around Nikolas Cruz seemed to flash like neon signs: expelled from school, fighting with classmates, a fascination with weapons and hurting animals, disturbing images and comments posted to social media, previous mental health treatment.

In Florida, that wasn't enough for relatives, authorities or his schools to request a judicial order barring him from possessing guns.

Only five states have laws enabling family members, guardians or police to ask judges to temporarily strip gun rights from people who show warning signs of violence. Supporters of these measures, deemed "red flag laws" or gun-violence restraining orders, say they can save lives by stopping some shootings and suicides.

Florida, where Cruz is accused of using an AR-15 assault weapon to kill 17 people at his former high school, lacks such a law. He was able to legally own the semiautomatic rifle, even though his mother, classmates and teachers had at times described him as dangerous and threatening, and despite repeated police visits to his home.

Red flag legislation has been introduced by Democratic state lawmakers, but it hasn't been heard during this year's session, and its fate is uncertain in a state Legislature controlled by Republicans who generally favor expanding gun rights.

After Wednesday's shooting, Republican Gov. Rick Scott said he will work to make sure people with mental illnesses don't have access to guns, but offered no specifics. Florida's GOP Sen. Marco Rubio — facing criticism from support he has received from the National Rifle Association — is going a step further now.

Rubio said on a Sunday morning show that state legislators should "absolutely" consider enacting a law enabling family members or law enforcement officials to ask a court to remove guns from a person who poses a danger. Rubio, who once served as Florida's House speaker, told Miami CBS affiliate WFOR that it's an "example of a state law" that could have helped prevent the Florida shooting.

In 2014, California became the first state to let family members ask a judge to remove firearms from a relative who appears to pose a threat. Its legislature took action after a mentally ill man, Elliot Rodger, killed six students and wounded 13 others near the University of California, Santa Barbara, before killing himself.

California's law also empowers police to petition for the protective orders, which can require authorities to remove firearms for up to one year. Connecticut, Indiana, Oregon and Washington also have some version of a red flag law.

More than a dozen others, including Hawaii, New Jersey and Missouri, are considering bills to enable family members or police to petition the courts to take weapons away from people showing signs of mental distress or violence. The Florida shooting has revived debate about whether teachers and school administrators should have that authority as well, given that people at Cruz’s high school witnessed much of his erratic behavior.

California lawmakers voted to expand their law in 2016 so that high school and college personnel, co-workers and mental health professionals can seek the restraining orders, but Gov. Jerry Brown called the effort premature and vetoed it. State Assemblyman Phil Ting, a San Francisco Democrat, said he plans to reintroduce the bill. q

U.S. NEWS A3

Tuesday 20 February 2018

Trump offers support for limited effort on background checks

By CATHERINE LUCEY MARIA DANILOVA Associated Press WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — From the confines of his golf club, President Donald Trump offered support for a limited strengthening of federal background checks on gun purchases Monday while staying largely mum in the last few days about the victims of the Florida school massacre and the escalating debate about controls on weapons.

One side of that debate was represented outside the White House as dozens of teens spread their bodies across the pavement to symbolize the dead and call for stronger gun controls, a precursor to a march in Washington planned next month by survivors of the Parkland school shooting and supporters of their cause.

At his Florida club just 40 miles from a community ravaged by the shooting that left 17 dead last week, Trump gave a nod toward a specific policy action, with the White House saying he had spoken Friday to Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, about a bipartisan bill designed to strengthen the FBI database of prohibited gun buyers.

Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders qualified the support, stressing that talks continue and "revisions are being considered," but said "the president is supportive of efforts to improve the federal background check system."

The main action Trump has taken on guns in office has been to sign a resolution blocking an Obama-era rule designed to keep guns out of the hands of certain mentally disabled people.

The president has voiced strong support for gun rights and the National Rifle Association.

The bipartisan background check legislation would be aimed at ensuring that federal agencies and states accurately report relevant criminal information to the FBI. It was introduced after the Air Force failed to re-

Demonstrators participate in a "lie-in" during a protest in favor of gun control reform in front of the White House, Monday, Feb. 19, 2018, in Washington.

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

port the criminal history of the gunman who slaughtered more than two dozen people at a Texas church.

The White House statement comes as shooting survivors and other young people press for more gun control in a rising chorus of grief and activism. Their "March for Our Lives" is planned March 24 in Washington.

Ella Fesler, 16-year-old high school student in Alexandria, Virginia, was among the students at the "lie-in" in front of the White House.

She said it was time for change, adding: "Every day when I say 'bye' to my parents, I do acknowledge the fact that I could never see my parents again."

But previous gun tragedies have not produced action in Congress. After the Las Vegas massacre in the fall, Republicans and Democrats in Congress talked about taking a rare step to tighten the nation's gun laws. Four months later, the only gun legislation that has moved in the House or Senate instead eases restrictions for gun owners.

Kristin Brown, co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said the measure Trump discussed with Cornyn would help to enforce existing rules but would not close loopholes permitting loose private sales on the internet and at gun shows. She's

pressing for a ban on assault-type weapons and for laws enabling family members, guardians or police to ask judges to strip gun rights temporarily from people who show warning signs of violence.

“We need a comprehensive system,” Brown said. “One of these isn’t enough.”

Trump, who visited first responders and some victims Friday, has focused his comments on mental health, rather than guns.

The White House says the president will host a “listening session” with students and teachers this week and will discuss school safety with state and local officials. But they have offered no further details on who will attend those sessions.q

A4 U.S.

Tuesday 20 February 2018

NEWS

Pennsylvania's new congressional map could boost Democrats

By MARC LEVY HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania's high court issued a new congressional district map for the state's 2018 elections on its self-imposed deadline on Monday, potentially giving Democrats a boost in their quest to capture control of the U.S. House unless Republicans are able to stop it in federal court.

The map of Pennsylvania's 18 congressional districts is to be in effect for the May 15 primary and substantially overhauls a congressional map widely viewed as among the nation's most gerrymandered. The map was approved in a 4-3 decision, with four Democratic justices backing it and one Democratic justice siding with two Republicans against it.

Most significantly, the new map likely gives Democrats a better shot at winning seats in Philadelphia's heavily populated and moderate suburbs, where Republicans had held seats in bizarrely contorted districts, including one labeled "Goofy Kicking Donald Duck."

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, center, accompanied by state House Minority Leader Rep. Frank Dermody, right, D-Allegheny, and state Rep. Joe Markosek, left, D-Allegheny, discuss state budget negotiations at the state Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Democrats quickly cheered the new map, which could dramatically change the predominantly Republican, all-male delegation elected on a 6-year-old map.

"It remedies the outrageous gerrymander of 2011, and that's the important thing, that the gerrymander be over," said David Landau,

the Democratic Party chairman of Delaware County, which was ground zero for the "Goofy Kicking Donald Duck" district. "All that zigging and zagging is all gone, and it makes Delaware County a competitive seat now."

Republican lawmakers are expected to quickly chal-

lenge the map in federal court, arguing that legislatures and governors, not courts, have the constitutional responsibility to draw congressional maps.

Mark Harris, a Pittsburghbased GOP campaign consultant, echoed the reaction of Republicans in bashing the new product.

"It's a straight Democratic gerrymander by a Democratic Supreme Court to help Democrats," Harris said. Meanwhile, sitting congressmen, dozens of would-be candidates and millions of voters have to sort out which district they live in barely a month before the candidates' deadline to submit paperwork to run. Petitions are due March 20, a two-week delay to accommodate the redrawing process.

Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who had backed the court’s decision to throw out the 6-year-old map, called the court’s map an “effort to remedy Pennsylvania’s unfair and unequal congressional elections.”

He said his focus would become ensuring that his administration update the state elections bureau’s systems and ensure processes are in place to help candidates. The new map will not apply to the March 13 special congressional election in southwestern Pennsylvania’s 18th District between Republican Rick Saccone and Democrat Conor Lamb.q

Gorsuch deciding vote in key labor union funding case

By MARK SHERMAN WASHINGTON (AP) — America's union leaders are about to find out if they were right to fiercely oppose Neil Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court as a pivotal, potentially devastating vote against organized labor.

The newest justice holds the deciding vote in a case to be argued Feb. 26 that could affect the financial viability of unions that are major supporters of Democratic candidates and causes. The unions represent more than 5 million government workers in 24 states and the District of Columbia who could be affected by the outcome.

The other eight justices split 4 to 4 when the issue was last at the court in 2016.

The court is being asked to jettison a 41-year-old ruling that allows states to require government employees

This Sept. 28, 2017 photo shows Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch speaking at the Trump Hotel in Washington.

(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

who don't want to be union members to pay for their share of activities the union undertakes on behalf of all workers, not just its members. These so-called fair share fees cover the costs of collective bargaining and grievance procedures to deal with workplace

complaints.

Employees who don't join the union do not have to pay for the unions' political activities.

Conservative anti-union interests are backing an Illinois government employee who says that being forced to pay anything at all violates his First Amend-

ment speech rights.

"I'm not against unions," said the employee, 65-year-old Mark Janus, who is represented by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31. "I don't oppose the right of workers to organize. But the right to say no to unions is just as important as the right to say yes." He said he opposes his union's fight for wage and benefit increases when the state is "in pretty terrible financial condition right now."

William Messenger, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation lawyer who is representing Janus at the Supreme Court, said everything the union does, including its bargaining with the state, is political and employees should not be forced to pay for it.

The issue might have been settled in Janus' favor two years ago. In January

2016, the court heard an identical complaint from California teachers and appeared to be ready to decide that states have no right to compel workers to pay money to unions.

But less than a month later, Justice Antonin Scalia died and the court soon after announced its tie, in effect a win for the unions.

“Are you going to lose some people?” asked Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “Sure. I’m not going to lie to you.”

Three Nobel Prize-winning economists and 33 other scholars described the potential fallout as a classic free-rider problem. “The opportunity here is to reengage in a way that the reason for unions in the first place becomes a prominent reason again,” Weingarten said.q

U.S. NEWS A5

Tuesday 20 February 2018

Republican state senator charged with extorting page for sex

By MICHELLE R. SMITH PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A grand jury indictment unsealed Monday accuses a Republican state senator of extorting sex from a page in the Senate's page program.

The indictment was unsealed as Senate Minority Whip Nicholas Kettle was arraigned on two counts of extortion in Providence Superior Court. Kettle, of Coventry, is accused of extorting a male page for sex multiple times. He pleaded not guilty and was released on $50,000 personal recognizance.

The news prompted Democratic Senate President Dominick Ruggerio to again call for Kettle to resign immediately. He said he was "horrified and disgusted by these allegations."

"We in the Senate are deeply shaken," he said.

If Kettle refuses to step down, the Senate will pursue his expulsion, Ruggerio said. He said he also asked the Senate's chief legal counsel to conduct an immediate review of the page program.

"We have spoken to most of the pages to ensure that they are aware of their rights in the workplace as well as procedures for reporting anything inappropriate," Ruggerio said.

Kettle, who's 27 years old, was indicted last week, but the details of the extortion counts remained sealed over the weekend. State police separately charged Kettle with video voyeurism on Friday, and his lawyer has said he denies any wrongdoing.

Rhode Island Senate Minority Whip Nicholas Kettle, appears in Superior Court in Providence on Monday, Feb. 19, 2018. A grand jury indictment unsealed Monday accuses Kettle of extorting sex from a page in the Rhode Island Senate page program. Kettle, 27, of Coventry, pleaded not guilty and was released on $50,000 personal recognizance.

(Steve Szydlowski/Providence Journal via AP)

The indictment says Kettle extorted the page into sex on two occasions in 2011.

The indictment names the page, but The Associated Press does not identify people who may be victims of sex crimes unless they come forward and agree to have their names published. The page's LinkedIn profile says he served as a page from February 2011 to May 2012.

Kettle, who's among five Republicans in the 38-member Senate, did not speak to reporters outside court and did not comment on whether he would resign, but his lawyer described the page as a political rival of Kettle's. State elections

records show the page ran against Kettle as an independent in 2014, three years after the extortion is alleged to have occurred.

House Minority Leader Dennis Algiere also has called on Kettle to resign.

Senate spokesman Greg Pare said the Senate page program includes 67 pages, all hired at the recommendation of senators. The pages, who usually range in age from 15 through college age, help lawmakers with errands at the Rhode Island Statehouse. Pare said the page Kettle is alleged to have extorted for sex did not lodge any complaints while he was a page.

One of the Senate's 38

seats is open, and a special election is scheduled to fill it.

The House runs its own page program. A spokesman for Democratic House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello said there have been no complaints about the House program. Mattiello last week designated a former long-term page and current General Assembly employee to serve as a liaison to the House pages in case any concerns arise, spokesman Larry Berman said.

A state police affidavit on the video voyeurism charge released Monday afternoon said Kettle sent naked pictures of his then-girlfriend without her knowledge to a friend in New Hampshire. Zachary Brennan, of Springfield, New Hampshire, then sent back naked pictures of his wife, according to the affidavit.q

A6 U.S.

NEWS NYPD Special Victims hunting for child rapist Tuesday 20 February 2018

By COLLEEN LONG NEW YORK (AP) — The 12-year-old girl was in her school uniform, wearing pigtails. She clutched her princess lunch box as she got off the Bronx bus after tutoring, and that's when the rapist grabbed her by the arm.

"If you scream, I'm gonna kill you," he said, according to police. The stranger dragged her roughly, turning down an alley where he brutally attacked her.

The crime took place on Feb. 24, 2015. And, despite DNA evidence and surveillance footage of the attack, no arrests have been made. As the anniversary nears, the Special Victims Division detective on the case is pleading for anyone with information to send a tip through the CrimeStoppers website or call the hotline.

"She was just a baby," said Det. Diane Crowley. "This is the worst of the worst."

Surveillance footage shows a young man in tan cargo pants, wearing a blue jacket with a hood and a hat. His face is blurry, but it's not impossible to recognize. Part of the problem, Crowley thinks, is the suspect was also young, probably 14 to 16 years old. She thinks people are afraid of being wrong and turning in an innocent kid.

"Obviously with the forensic evidence, there's no way the wrong kid will go to jail for this," she said. "I just think after three years, you told somebody, you told part of it to somebody. A mom saw it. Someone knows

This image taken from a Feb. 24, 2015 surveillance video and provided on Feb. 17, 2018 by the New York City Police Department, shows a man being sought by the NYPD in connection with a rape three years ago. New York detectives are again asking for help in solving the 2015 rape of a 12-year-old school girl who was brutally attacked in the Bronx.

(NYPD via AP)

something."

There's a reward of more than $22,000 for any tips leading to an arrest.

Crowley is haunted by the

case. She said when she arrived to the hospital, the little girl in a bed, still in her uniform, but it was ripped and dirty. Her glasses were

askew.

She had a hard time explaining the attack to police.

"She had to describe things that happened to her that she didn't even have the vocabulary for," Crowley said. "She'd never seen a male body before."

She was on the BX 19 bus to East Tremont, where she transfers to another bus to go home. She said he grabbed her when she got off, then walked her into an alley at 2064 Daley Avenue, the first building off 179th Street.

The alley is sunken — not something easily seen from the street, but there’s turf covering one of the walls.

After the attack, she ran and called her mother and they went to the hospital, which collected forensic evidence. Crowley set to work. It took police days to find the crime location because the little girl didn’t know where she was.

They followed up on hundreds of leads, talked to any gang members in the possibility it was some sort of initiation. They combed through bus footage. The victim didn’t remember seeing him at school, but it looked like he might have also have been wearing a uniform. “I think most sex crimes are about opportunity. She happened to be an easy target,” Crowley said. “But when you find a 12 year old and you saw I’m going to kill you ... it’s a real cowardly attack,” she said. “I would love nothing more than to bring her and her family justice.”q

NYC:

Rape case prompts calls to close police loophole

By DAVID KLEPPER ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The 18-year-old woman was driving with two friends near Coney Island in September when the two plainclothes detectives pulled her over and found marijuana. The officers released the two male passengers, handcuffed the woman and told her she was under arrest, prosecutors say.

Then, investigators say, detectives Eddie Martins and Richard Hall repeatedly sexually assaulted her before releasing her. The woman went to the hospital, where prosecutors say DNA was obtained that matched both men.

But the officers have pleaded not guilty to rape and other charges, and the case has highlighted an

apparent loophole in the laws of New York and many other states that may allow police to escape sexual assault charges by claiming sex acts were consensual. While New York law already bars sexual contact between corrections workers and inmates, it doesn't apply explicitly to police.

"I was shocked," Democratic state Sen. Diane Savino

said of when she learned of the oversight. "It should be clear across the state for officers from every department, that when someone is in custody they do not have the ability to consent to sexual activity." That total didn’t even include New York or California because those states didn’t track the number of officers fired for such offenses. q

Wildfire forces people to flee rural California BISHOP, Calif. (AP) — A wind-driven wildfire in rural central California forced mandatory evacuations and threatened hundreds of buildings Monday, including a historic railroad station, after it tripled in size overnight, officials said.

The blaze scorched 3½ square miles (9 square kilometers) of chaparral bush and shrub oak in the small town of Bishop on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada that is popular for hiking, fishing, climbing and hunting. Firefighters made some gains against the flames, which they found had burned a slightly smaller area after doing more accurate mapping.

It comes as California has seen some record-high temperatures and little rain after emerging from a fiveyear drought, helping fuel some of the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in state history late last year.

U.S. drought monitors this month declared parts of Southern California back in severe drought.

In the most recent fire, several communities and campgrounds in the Pleasant Valley Reservoir area were ordered to leave and persistent winds were expected to pose a challenge, said Cathey Mattingly, spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

It's not clear how many people had to evacuate after the blaze started Sunday, Inyo County sheriff's spokeswoman Carma Roper said. But at least 500 structures were threatened, including the Laws Railroad Museum, a railroad station built in the 1880s, Mattingly said.

"We had pretty heavy wind activity overnight and we are expecting more windy conditions today," Mattingly said. "That is hampering firefighting efforts." The fire broke out shortly Sunday afternoon near the Pleasant Valley Reservoir and quickly grew to 900 acres. q

U.S. NEWS A7

Tuesday 20 February 2018

American Living:

What to wear at polls? High court will have a say on that

By JESSICA GRESKO WASHINGTON (AP) — A "Make America Great Again" hat. A tea party Tshirt. A MoveOn.org button.

Wear any one of those items to vote in Minnesota, and a poll worker will probably ask you to remove it or cover it up.

Like a number of states, Minnesota bars voters from wearing political items to the polls to reduce the potential for confrontations or voter intimidation. But that could change. The Supreme Court on Feb. 28 will consider a challenge to the state's law, in a case that could affect other states, too. Wen Fa, a lawyer with the Pacific Legal Foundation, the group behind the challenge to Minnesota's law, says voters wearing political apparel shouldn't have to hang up their hats, turn their T-shirts inside out or put their buttons in their bags just to cast a ballot.

Wearing political clothing is "a passive way to express core political values," said Fa, who said the case is "about the free speech rights of all Americans."

Minnesota sees it differently. In court papers, it says the law is a "reasonable restriction" that preserves "order and decorum in the polling place" and prevents "voter confusion and intimidation." "I think what's important to understand is the purpose of this prohibition is to protect the fundamental right to vote," said Daniel Rogan, who is arguing the case for the state and said he doesn't know of anyone being issued a fine of up to $300 allowed under the law. Lower courts have sided with the state.

Beyond Minnesota, state laws vary in their fashion policing of the polls.

Some states allow voters to wear whatever they want.

Others bar campaign clothing directly related to candidates or issues on the ballot. Minnesota has a broad law that also bans "political" attire, including clothing promoting a group with understood political views, such as the tea party or MoveOn.org.

The sides in the Supreme Court case disagree about which states have laws similar to Minnesota's, but each side's number is roughly 10.

Elections officials in states with restrictions say it's not a big issue. Most people who wear prohibited items to the polls just aren't aware of the law or forget, officials say, and comply with requests to cover up.

Will Senning, Vermont's elections director since 2013, said he can't remember any Election Day calls about people refusing to comply with his state's law.

Elaine Manlove, who has headed elections in Delaware since 2007, couldn't think of a single prosecution under her state's statute nor could Mark Goins, who has overseen Tennessee elections since 2009.

But Goins said he'd be concerned about allowing clothing supporting candidates or political parties at polling places.

"I think you run the risk of having political disputes inside the polling location and sometimes these disputes can get pretty loud," Goins said.

The Supreme Court last considered the issue of free speech at polling places in 1992 when the court upheld a Tennessee law prohibiting the display or distribution of campaign materials within 100 feet of a polling place.

Andy Cilek poses with a Tea Party shirt at his home in Eden Prairie, Minn. Cilek was one of two voters who defied elections officials after he was asked to cover up a tea-party shirt and button. A Minnesota law that bars voters from wearing political hats, T-shirts, buttons and other apparel to the polls is about to get a look from the Supreme Court.

(AP Photo/Jim Mone)

The case now before the justices began in 2010 when several groups sued

after Minnesota officials made clear they wouldn’t permit residents to vote

while wearing tea party apparel or buttons that said, “Please I.D. Me.” The buttons referred to legislation then under discussion in the state and ultimately defeated that would have required residents to show photo identification to vote. Two voters who defied elections officials — one who wore a “Please I.D. Me” button and another who wore both a button and tea party T-shirt — were asked to cover up or remove the items. He’s passionate about his politics, he said, but if given the opportunity to lawfully wear political clothing to the polls, “I probably would just wear regular street clothes,” he said.q

A8 WORLD

NEWS Germany's Merkel brings possible successor to Berlin Tuesday 20 February 2018

By FRANK JORDANS BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Angela Merkel proposed Monday that the governor of Germany's tiny western state of Saarland run her party's day-to-day operations — putting her in prime position eventually to succeed Merkel as leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union.

Merkel said she wants the party to elect Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to the post of general-secretary next Monday. The party's current general-secretary, Peter Tauber, is stepping down after facing health issues. Speaking alongside Kramp-Karrenbauer at the party's headquarters in Berlin, Merkel said the 55-year-

old Catholic would bring a lot of experience and credibility to the role at a time when the Christian Democrats are under pressure to define their political positions. Conservative voters have abandoned the party in recent years, partly over Merkel's welcoming stance on immigration, even though it still came first in

last September's election with almost 33 percent of the vote. "We are experiencing one of the most difficult political phases in the history of (post-war) Germany," Kramp-Karrenbauer told reporters, explaining why she was willing to leave her post as governor of one of Germany's 16 states to devote her energy to the

party's headquarters in Berlin. Kramp-Karrenbauer has been governor of Saarland on Germany's western border with France and Luxembourg since 2011.

During that time she worked to make French a second language in the state and improve economic, cultural and political ties with France. q

Banker: "Nightmare" dodging extortion attempts in Latvia

By CARLO PIOVANO LONDON (AP) — Latvia's top banking official, a key member of the European Central Bank, has been accused by local bank Norvik of seeking kickbacks, trying to launder Russian money and retaliating against the bank when it refused to play by the "rules of the game."

In a high-stakes drama for the tiny Baltic country, Ilmars Rimsevics was detained Saturday by Latvian anti-corruption authorities and questioned for hours into the night. State TV showed him walking free on Monday, without charges, though he is still being investigated for suspected bribery.

Norvik bank has filed an international legal complaint against Latvia in which it alleges that a "Senior Latvian Official" repeatedly sought "to extort monetary bribes," and threatened the bank when its owner and chairman, Grigory Guselnikov, refused to pay up.

"The high-level official mentioned in our request for arbitration is Rimsevics," Norvik's CEO, Oliver Bramwell, told The Associated Press.

This photo dated Aug. 22 2010, obtained by The Associated Press shows Ilmars Rimsevics, the head of Latvia’s central bank, second left, and Dmitry Pilshchikov, at 3rd left, who was then the head of the Russian arms company Research Institute of Information Technology. Ilmars Rimsevics, the country’s top banking official and a key member of the European Central Bank was detained Saturday Feb. 17, 2018, amid swirling accusations of bribery and money laundering schemes in Latvia that reach to Russia.

(AP Photo)

Guselnikov confirmed that it was Rimsevics.

Rimsevics' lawyer told Latvian TV that he promises to provide more information about the case on Tuesday. The ECB declined to comment on Rimsevics' status.

The threat of criminal charges against the man who has been at the top of the country's banking sector since 1992, in the wake of the Soviet collapse, has plunged the small Baltic nation into turmoil.

Rimsevics' detention is par-

ticularly sensitive as he sits on the top policy-making council of the ECB, Europe's most powerful financial institution, and is privy to the state secrets of Latvia, NATO and the European Union.

Any connections to money

laundering would raise concerns of the risk of blackmail from Russia's secret services or organized crime, and come at a time when Latvian security services warn that Russia is actively trying to obtain state secrets from Latvian officials to weaken the European Union and United States.

Guselnikov said he first met Rimsevics in 2015 after he was introduced to a man called Renars Kokins, who was said to know the country's legal and political landscape well. Kokins invited Guselnikov to a meeting in a large villa in the suburbs of the capital. Soon after Guselnikov got there, another man arrived, on foot, and entered without knocking: it was Rimsevics.

He was brief and to the point. He told Guselnikov he could help him because the nation's financial regulator was loyal to him personally. All he had to do was "cooperate" with Kokins, Guselnikov recalled.

Rimsevics left 10 minutes later and Kokins sat Guselnikov down at a table.

He pulled a pen out and wrote on a piece of paper: “100,000 per month.” q

Catalan politicians in Spanish court in secession probe

By ARITZ PARRA MADRID (AP) — A Spain Supreme Court judge set bail Monday for a prominent Catalan politician who faced possible jailing during the ongoing investigation of people involved in the Catalonia region’s push for independence last year. Left republican ERC party Secretary Gen-

eral Marta Rovira was questioned by an investigating magistrate for her role in the October defiance that triggered Spain’s severest political crisis in decades.

Her bail was set at 60,000 euros ($74,600.)

Fellow politician Marta Pascal, the leader of the conservative PDeCAT party, was also questioned on

Monday.

Judicial police have identified Rovira and Pascal as key players in the staging of a banned independence referendum and the declaration of secession Catalan lawmakers made based on its results.

Both told the judge Monday that the Oct. 27 independence had symbolic

value, but no legal effect, according to witnesses of Monday’s court proceedings.

More than two dozen people, including politicians, elected lawmakers, and the regional police chief, are also under investigation for possible rebellion, sedition or misuse of public funds.

In Spain, a judge can keep suspects in custody before deciding if they should be formally charged at the end of an investigation.

Four suspects, including former regional Vice President Oriol Junqueras, remain in custody. The central government remains in charge of the region’s daily affairs.q

WORLD NEWS A9

Tuesday 20 February 2018

British judge sentences prolific pedophile to 32 years

By DANICA KIRKA LONDON (AP) — A British judge sentenced a prolific pedophile to 32 years in prison Monday in what the U.K.'s national law enforcement agency described as a watershed moment for coming to grips with technology's ability to support and spread depravity.

Geophysicist Matthew Falder admitted to 137 offenses, including blackmail, voyeurism and encouraging the rape of a child.

Posing as a female artist looking to do life drawings, Falder, 29, lured victims into sending him humiliating images, many of which ended up on the dark web. He approached 300 people worldwide, some of them teens advertising for babysitting or dog walking jobs online. Falder also hid cameras in bathrooms to record women and girls naked. He even set up a camera in the home of his parents.

In an online post titled "100 things we want to see at

least once," he listed "a young girl being used as a dartboard," and the production of a video depicting a child's bones being "slowly and deliberately broken." Judge Philip Parker branded Falder an "internet highwayman," whose behavior was "cunning, persistent, manipulative and cruel." "The damage is ongoing for these individuals," Parker said of Falder's victims. "It will never end, knowing the abuse caused by you still exists in other unknown persons' computers." Britain's National Crime Agency said Falder's crimes required unprecedented levels of resources to stop.

The agency worked with the country's electronic intelligence agency, U.S. Homeland Security, the Australian Federal Police and Europol to crack the case. At one point, some 100 investigators were involved. “In more than 30 years of law enforcement, I’ve never come across

This handout photo issued by the National Crime Agency shows Dr Matthew Falder. A judge in Britain has on Monday, Feb. 19, 2018 sentenced a prolific pedophile to 38 years in prison in what is being described as a watershed moment for authorities coming to grips with technology’s ability to spread depravity.

Geophysicist Matthew Falder admitted 137 offenses, including blackmail and encouraging the rape of a child.

an offender whose sole motivation was to inflict such profound anguish and pain,” Matt Sutton, a NCA senior investigating officer, said. “I’ve also never known such an extremely complex investigation with an offender who was technologically savvy and able to stay hidden in the darkest recesses of the dark web. This investigation represents a watershed moment.” Falder had been working as a lecturer at the University of Birmingham when arrested by the NCA last year. Adept at covering his tracks, he used 70 online identities — careful not to leave tracks on the social media. He had an account on the Hurt 2 The Core network, an encrypted site on the dark web taken down by the FBI, which alerted British police.

The NCA, the British equivalent of the U.S. law enforcement agency, had little to go on save the online alias “inthegarden.”q

Court video shows kidnapped model revisiting scenes of crime

By COLLEEN BARRY MILAN (AP) — Video of a British model retracing her movements from a city studio where she was allegedly grabbed to a farmhouse where she was held for six days was played Monday at the trial in Italy of a Polish man charged in her kidnapping for ransom.

In the video, 20-year-old Chloe Ayling walks investigators into the supposed photographer's studio in Milan where her agent had arranged a modeling job.

She signaled to police a spot near a doorway where she said she was grabbed from behind.

Images showed Ayling's suitcase, phone and clothing that were found by police investigating her disappearance last July.

According to prosecutors, Ayling was drugged at the studio, zipped inside a canvas bag and transported to a farmhouse near Turin, where she was held captive.

Only two suspects have

been identified in the case.

A 30-year-old Pole, Lukasz Herba, who was arrested after releasing Ayling at the British consulate in Milan, is being tried for the kidnapping. Italian prosecutors are seeking to try Herba's brother, who is in Britain.

Investigator Gianluca Simontacchi told the court that Ayling broke down in tears as they reached the farmhouse, and had to be calmed by her lawyer before being able to continue.

Inside the building, she pointed out a piece of furniture where she said she had been cuffed by her hands and feet overnight the first night. She then showed a bedroom, where she said later she shared a bed with her kidnapper; a photograph entered into evidence showed a blanket folded to create a boundary down the middle of the bed.

Finally, she showed investigators where she accompanied her kidnapper

to buy food and a pair of sneakers in a nearby town before her release.

In court testimony, the grocery store owner’s son said that Herba had come to the store several times to buy fruit and vegetables, and that Ayling waited outside once.

A neighbor of the farmhouse where she was held testified that he had seen Ayling with Herba at least twice, and from a distance that it looked like they were a couple.q

A10 WORLD

NEWS Qatar: Israel and Gaza militants want calm

Tuesday 20 February 2018

IS ambushes Iraq Shiite-led force, killing 27 fighters

By QASSIM ZAHRA BAGHDAD (AP) — Islamic State militants ambushed a group of Iraq's Shiite-led paramilitary fighters, killing at least 27 more than two months after Baghdad declared victory over the extremist group, officials said Monday The Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella group of mostly Shiite militias, said in a statement that the attack took place southwest of the northern city of Kirkuk, where the paramilitaries were conducting overnight raids.

The attackers were disguised in army uniforms and manning a fake checkpoint, the statement said, adding that ensuing clashes lasted for at least two hours and that some of the militants were killed while others fled the area.

Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, an Iraqi military spokesman, blamed IS "sleeper cells" and said Iraqi forces were searching the area to find the perpetrators.

IS claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement carried by its Aamaq news agency.

Karim al-Nouri, a PMF spokesman, described the attack as a "heinous crime" and called for greater scrutiny of Iraqis returning to areas liberated from IS. He said the attackers had taken advantage of heavy rains overnight.

Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of the Badr Brigade, one of the most prominent Shiite militias, vowed "revenge."

Speaking at a military airfield in Baghdad where the bodies were being flown in, he called on security forces to be vigilant, saying "the war against terrorism is not over yet."

Prime Minister Haider alAbadi's office put out a statement expressing condolences to family members of those killed. It said it had issued orders to hunt down those responsible and other sleeper cells, and to investigate the incident and take any required steps.q

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A Qatari envoy said Monday that both Israel and Gaza militants want to contain cross-border violence that has flared in recent days, as he detailed a new emergency fund to

aid the blockaded territory.

Earlier Monday, Israel's military struck what it said was an underground militant infrastructure site in Gaza in response to rocket fire. The military has struck various targets in Gaza in recent

days and killed two Palestinians who tried to infiltrate Israel after a bomb on the border wounded four Israeli soldiers. There were no reports of casualties from the latest strike. "We confirm through our relation-

ship with the two sides that they are not interested in escalation or engaging in a confrontation that could ignite the entire region," the Qatari envoy, Mohammed al-Emadi, told reporters in Gaza City.q

Iranian rescuers find wreckage from plane crash

Rescue and search team members search for wreckage of a plane that crashed on Sunday in the Dena mountains in southern Iran, Monday, Feb. 19, 2018. Iranian search and rescue teams on Monday reached the site of a plane crash the previous day that authorities say killed all 65 people on board, Iran's Press TV reported.

(Alireza Vasigh Ansari/Tasnim News Agency via AP)

By AMIR VAHDAT TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian search and rescue teams on Monday reached the site of a plane crash that authorities say killed all 65 people on board, Iran's Press TV reported.

The Aseman Airlines ATR-72, a twin-engine turboprop used for short-distance regional flying, went down on Sunday in foggy weather, crashing into Mount Dena in a remote area of southern Iran. The airliner said all on board Flight EP3704 were killed, including six crew members.

The crash of the aircraft, brought back into service only months ago after being grounded for seven years, was yet another fatal aviation disaster for Iran, which for years was barred

from buying necessary airplane parts due to Western sanctions over its contested nuclear program.

Press TV said search teams reached the crash site before dawn on Monday. The station said the weather had improved, though it was still windy. The semi-official Tasnim news agency cited the military as saying Russia had helped locate the crash site. Russia and Iran are close military allies.

The TV broadcast footage of a helicopter joining the search and showed ambulances and rescue vehicles preparing to reach the site on Mount Dena, which is about 4,400 meters (14,400 feet) tall. The site is reportedly at a height of 3,500 meters (11,500 feet).

Other Iranian news outlets

and officials did not confirm that the crash site had been reached. State radio said five helicopters and five drones are active in the search operation. Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency said that more than 150 climbers have joined the operation.

Transport Minister Abbas Akhoundi left Tehran on Monday to visit the site of the crash, state TV reported. Footage posted on independent news websites showed him in the cockpit of a plane taking part in the search. State TV quoted him as saying the cause of the crash was still "not clear."

Reza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for Iran's Civil Aviation Organization, said a sevenmember delegation from

France is to arrive in Tehran on Monday to investigate the cause of the crash, the official IRNA news agency reported. Jafarzadeh said the delegation includes four officials from FrenchItalian aircraft manufacturer ATR. High winds have made it difficult to fly helicopters and drones, hampering search efforts.

The 2015 nuclear accord with world powers lifted international sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear enrichment program, allowing Iran to purchase airplanes and airplane parts. The country has since signed deals to purchase tens of billions of dollars' worth of new aircraft. However, President Donald Trump's refusal to recertify the deal has injected uncertainty into those sales.

The ATR-72 went down near its destination, the southern city of Yasuj, some 780 kilometers (485 miles) south of the capital, where it took off. It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the crash, although weather was severe. Dense fog, high winds and heavy snow in the Zagros Mountains made it impossible for rescue crews in helicopters to reach the site in the immediate aftermath, state TV reported.

Aseman Airlines spokesman Mohammad Taghi Tabatabai told state TV that all on board Flight EP3704 were killed. The plane had 59 passengers and six crew members, the state-run IRNA news agency reported late Sunday, lowering the initially reported death toll of 66. The United States expressed condolences over the crash in a Farsi-language statement posted on social media Sunday.q

WORLD NEWS A11

Tuesday 20 February 2018

Philippines: Risks rising with China challenging US at sea

By JIM GOMEZ MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The risks of a "miscalculation" and armed conflict have risen in the disputed South China Sea with a militarily stronger China now able to challenge the United States, which used to be the dominant power in the strategic waterway, the Philippine envoy to Beijing said Monday.

Ambassador Chito Sta. Romana said the balance of power was shifting with the two global powers vying for control of the waters, adding that the Philippines should not get entangled in the increasingly tense maritime rivalry.

China claims virtually the entire South China Sea, where the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also have overlapping claims, and it has built seven mostly submerged reefs into islands that reportedly can be used as forward air naval bases and have been installed with a missile defense system.

The U.S. Navy has sailed warships on "freedom of navigation" operations near the artificial islands,

which China has protested as U.S. intervention in an Asian conflict.

"Whereas before the South China Sea was dominated by the U.S. 7th Fleet, now the Chinese navy is starting to challenge the dominance," Sto. Romana told a news forum in Manila. "I think we will see a shift in the balance of power."

"It is not the case that the South China Sea is now a Chinese lake, not at all," Sto. Romana said. "Look at the U.S. aircraft carrier, it's still going through the South China Sea," he added, referring to the USS Carl Vinson that recently patrolled the disputed waters and is currently on a visit to the Philippines. He compared the two powers to elephants fighting and trampling on the grass and said, "What we don't want is for us to be the grass."

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's policy of befriending China has worked, Sto. Romana said, citing Beijing's decision to lift its blockade around Philippine-occupied Second Thomas Shoal, where the Philippine military can now freely send new supplies to

Philippine Ambassador to Beijing, Chito Sta. Romana, speaks at a forum on the South China Seas Monday, Feb. 19, 2018 in Manila, Philippines.

(AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

Filipino marines guarding the disputed area.

China has also allowed Filipino fishermen into another disputed area, Scarborough Shoal, after Duterte visited Beijing and raised the issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Xi reportedly told Duterte, "Give me a few days, I'll take care of this," Sto. Romana quoted Duterte as saying about the

meeting with his Chinese counterpart a few months after he won the Philippine presidency in 2016. Duterte said in a speech late Monday that Xi promised him that China won’t build any structure on Scarborough and added that the Chinese leader should be trusted because “he’s a man of honor.” The president jokingly told an audience

of mostly Chinese Filipino businessmen that the Philippines could solve its money problems by being turned into a province of wealthy China, though he erroneously referred to it as “the Republic of China,” which is Taiwan’s official name.

China rejects any insinuation that Taiwan, which it considers a province, is an independent country.q

Maldives president wants vote to extend state of emergency

By M. SHARUHAAN MALE, Maldives (AP) — The president of the Maldives asked Parliament on Monday to extend the state of emergency that has helped him reinforce his power, as political turmoil continued to churn in the Indian Ocean nation.

A vote of the 85-member Parliament was postponed pending approval from a national security commission. It's likely to be taken before Tuesday evening, when the current state of

emergency expires.

President Yameen Abdul Gayoom declared the emergency after the Supreme Court ordered the release of a group of his imprisoned political opponents, who had been convicted in widely criticized trials. Yameen asked Parliament to extend the state of emergency by two weeks.

Under the emergency law, Yameen had two Supreme Court judges arrested, accusing them of corruption.

Later, the remaining three

judges annulled the order to release Yameen's opponents. The judges on Sunday also delayed an earlier order to reinstate 12 proopposition lawmakers who were expelled after siding with the opposition. Yameen's party would have lost a majority in Parliament had they been allowed to participate in the vote.

Yameen's half-brother and former dictator Maumoon Abdul Gayoom also was arrested after the emergency decree, accused

of conspiring with the opposition to overthrow the government. Maldives became a multiparty democracy in 2008 after decades of Gayoom's autocratic rule. But Yameen has rolled back much of the country's democratic gains and freedoms after being elected to power in 2013.

The country's traditional political alliances have been upended in recent years. Gayoom, now an opposition leader, is allied with exiled former President

Mohamed Nasheed, who unseated him in the 2008 elections.

Nasheed, Yameen's most prominent rival, is among the politicians ordered freed by the Supreme Court. Maldives is an archipelago of more than 1,000 islands. More than onethird of its 400,000 citizens live in Male, the crowded capital city. Tourism dominates the economy, with wealthy foreigners flown directly to hyper-expensive resort islands.q

A12 WORLD

Tuesday 20 February 2018

NEWS

Rio could be 'laboratory' for solving Brazil's crime crisis

By SARAH DiLORENZO SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian leaders said Monday that the use of the military to combat rising violence in Rio de Janeiro could serve as a model for other violent areas of Brazil.

The armed forces officially took over Rio's police on Friday under a decree signed

by President Michel Temer.

The measure still requires congressional approval, and the lower house was scheduled to debate it Monday evening. But an opposition party asked the Supreme Court to suspend the vote before the session got under way, saying Temer had not followed the rules for issuing such a decree and saying the move had "political and electoral motivations." It was not immediately clear if that would affect the planned debate.

Temer's extraordinary decree came after Rio's governor asked for federal help following an exceptionally

A soldier stands in guard on a street, before a meeting with Brazil's President Michel Temer and local authorities about the implementation of a decree that has placed the military in charge of Rio's state security, at the Guanabara palace in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, Feb. 17, 2018.

Temer said he plans to create a public security ministry to coordinate security operations in the entire country.

(AP Photo/Leo Correa)

violent Carnival. During the holiday, there were several muggings, armed robberies and violent confronta-

tions.

Temer met Monday with ministers and lawmakers to discuss the intervention.

"It's important to understand that Rio de Janeiro is a laboratory," Institutional Security Minister Sergio Et-

chegoyen said after the meeting. "It's the outward manifestation of a structural crisis."

According to the Brazilian Forum of Public Security, Rio de Janeiro isn't the most dangerous state in Brazil: In terms of violent intentional killings per 100,000 people, it ranked 11th in 2016. But Rio is in many ways Brazil's face to the world and carries major weight within the country as home to much of its media and entertainment industries.

Secretary-General Wellington Moreira Franco, a key Temer adviser, said what happens in Rio will hopefully spread throughout Brazil.

“I believe that this is one more step along the road of being able to restore security, order and, above all, confidence to residents of Rio de Janeiro state,” Franco said. “This spirit is being mobilized so that ... this conversation, this methodology can spread throughout Brazil.”q

Judge grants $300M loan for Puerto Rico power company

By DANICA COTO SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A federal judge on Monday approved a $300 million loan for Puerto Rico's power company that officials say will help keep the troubled agency operating until late March.

The ruling comes just days after the judge had rejected an initial $1 billion loan request made by a federal control board overseeing the U.S. territory's finances.

The judge had said officials did not provide sufficient evidence proving Puerto

Rico's Electric Power Authority needed the money, so the board submitted a revised request for $300 million on Friday.

Hours before the judge approved the request, Gov. Ricardo Rossello maintained that the company still needed a $1 billion loan to keep operating in the months ahead.

"There's no money," he said.

"We're in a precarious situation."

The board did not immediately respond to requests for comment after the loan

was approved. It had said in a previous filing that it plans to request more loans in upcoming weeks.

Gerardo Portela, director of Puerto Rico's financial authority, said in a statement that the power company will keep seeking all kinds of financing sources to help fund its operational and reconstruction needs.

He also praised the judge's ruling.

"The approved financing will provide PREPA with a much-needed lifeline while safeguarding the opera-

tion in the near term," he said.

The initial $300 million would come out of the government's general fund, but officials needed permission from the court to do so given that the island is undergoing a bankruptcylike process to restructure a portion of its $73 billion public debt amid an 11-year recession.

Rossello stressed that the U.S. territory is running out of money and also needs a separate, billion-dollar loan that U.S. Congress

approved in October for disaster recovery. Federal officials said in December that they were withholding the funds because they believed the government still had enough cash available.

The federal control board recently warned that Puerto Rico's power company could see a $1.2 billion loss in revenue in the first six months after Hurricane Maria, which hit on Sept. 20 and destroyed two-thirds of the power distribution system.q

A13

Tuesday 20 February 2018

Aruba Fishing Charters Report Phenomenal Online Revenue Growth -Online bookings soar as captains embrace new ways of doing business

Charter captains from Aruba have risen to the occasion, and it certainly shows. According to data from Fishing Booker, an online booking platform for fishing trips all around the world, the last three years have seen an increase of almost 270% in total earnings from online booking sites. The total number of fishing trips arranged online has achieved comparable growth, going from 176 in 2015, to as many as 647 in 2017.

Another noteworthy piece of data is about where the customers making these bookings come from. An astounding 95% hail from the USA, the biggest number of which are from New York City. Canada, The United Kingdom, Germany, and The Netherlands make up the rest of the top 5. Europeans definitely know about Aruba, and it’s safe to say they like it too. However, the fact that The Netherlands make up less than 1% of all trips booked online is surprising as Aruba remains a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The potential for growth is there however, and it remains to be seen whether Dutch anglers can be incited to visit in greater numbers. The captains are very optimistic about it. Online booking websites have definitely helped attract people who might not have even heard of these businesses otherwise. “We get people of all ages and from different countries. It’s been very good for us,” remarks Captain Michael.q

By Joris Zantvoort ORANJESTAD - Aruba is well known with anglers all over the world for its abundance of various game fish and good weather during the entire year. The Blue Marlin fishery is the finest around, meaning there’s always someone out near the east coast looking for Billfish. The inshore flats are also rewarding fishing grounds. The abundance of Barracuda, Tarpon, Jack Crevalle, Snook, and plenty of other fish is sure to keep even the most experienced angler busy.

Recent years have seen a sharp rise in the number of fishing trips in Aruba booked online. This comes as no surprise, as online services have made inroads into other marketplaces because of their sheer convenience. “The way people do business has changed,” notes Captain Glenn from Hatts Off Charters, and points out that “small operators like ourselves can’t survive without the internet.”

Booking a fishing trip was not so easy before the internet revolutionized the way we approach travel in general. If you were going to a different country on the other end of the planet, you had no choice but to visit the marina yourself and hope to find a good captain. It was both difficult and time consuming to find good info about Aruba if you’re in a small European country, for example.

These days, customers have unparalleled freedom when it comes to comparing options and getting the best value for their money. Captain Michael from Kristel Fishing Aruba has experienced that from the customer side as well. “In March, I’ll be going to Thailand. I’m already looking online to charter a boat there. It makes your life so much easier. One of the first things I will see are the reviews, and they can help me choose the right boat.”

Things have changed on the captains’ side too. They can now attract customers from around the globe without leaving their chair. Captain Glenn is quick to point out that “fifteen years ago, you’d have to sit on the pier and wait for customers who walk by to get a charter. 99% of our business is done through the internet nowadays.”

A14 LOCAL

Tuesday 20 February 2018

At Costa Linda Beach Resort:

The Annual Teddy’s Cup Double Elimination Tournament 2018 EAGLE BEACH - The Teddy’s 13th Annual Horse Shoe Classic Tournament began in 2005, created by Teddy Pappas and Pietro di Pietro playing horseshoes just having a good time.

The original participants from Boston, Jim Grady and Doug Cohoon brought in the trophy, and since 2009 it became a classic.

The participants’ number this year was 36 with a total of 18 teams, more than previous years. The horseshoe competition goes on for one week with the tournament being held in one full day.

Pete di Pietro, Teddy Pappas and Ross Trovato are the organizers of the event together with Hetty Herts, Activities Coordinator.

Continued on Page 15 Teddy, Pete, Ross and Hetty, the organizers.

The Winners

Second Place

LOCAL A15

Tuesday 20 February 2018

Teddy’s Cup Continued from Page 14

They celebrated with BBQ ribs, chicken and corn, beers, sodas and the famous Grappa.

Their generosity extended to the Costa Linda employees sharing the BBQ with them.

Teddy, Ross and Pietro surprised Hetty with a birthday cake during the BBQ. First place winners went to Jerry Fournier and Bruce Gasiewski. The second place honor went to Ken Erban and Gary Heid.q

A16 LOCAL

Tuesday 20 February 2018

Happy Winner at Luxury Bingo Standing Jackpot PALM BEACH – The Casino at The Ritz-Carlton, Aruba had a new lucky winner in the house. Vilma Abela recently won 50.000 florin playing the ‘Luxury Bingo’.

While many were enjoying the grand carnival parades of Aruba, some chose to spend their leisure time in the Casino at The Ritz-Carlton, Aruba. At a certain moment Vilma shouted out loud: “Bingo!” It turned out to be her lucky day as she won the Standing Jackpot of 50.000 florin.

The ladies and gentlemen of The Casino, referring to the resort’s staff, always celebrate together with their visitors and thus the team of Guest Relations, together with Marketing Manager Maya, handed over the check to happy Vilma.

With a big smile she expressed that she always enjoys the ambiance in the luxury casino, but this day was the best. Congratulations to Vilma!q

Dragonfly’s Chef Anyi Loves the Diversity of Sushi “Some people have the idea that sushi is all about eating raw fish, but nowadays the trend is more tempura and fried sushi,” she tells us. At Dragonfly she directs five colleagues: two at the sushi station, one at the tempura station, one at the wok station and a colleague who specializes in desserts and salads. Her personal favorites include the salmon sushi and the eel tempura. The diversity of sushi making is keeping her intrigued and fascinated.

Anyi started at brand-new Dragonfly a year ago; the restaurant in the Arawak Garden opened its doors on February 24, 2017. Its Asian cuisine is getting rave reviews and Dragonfly’s specials are a hit with visitors and locals alike. Dragonfly is a wonderful addition to the mix of restaurants at the Garden, where it is flanked by places specialized in tapas, meat, fish and pizzas. There is nightly live music and even a sing-along piano bar around the corner.q

PALM BEACH - Sushi is her passion and her life evolves around it. Even her partner is a sushi sous-chef: please meet Dragonfly’s Anyi Yulieth Fernandez. Born in Pereira, Colombia, the 35-year old moved to Aruba a few years ago in search of culinary challenges.

As a few family members already lived here, she felt at home immediately. When she got a job in the kitchen of one of the island’s sushi restaurants, she knew she had found her métier and she became fanatic about creating perfect sushi rolls.

A17

Tuesday 20 February 2018

U.S. women will meet Canada in hockey final

Bubba Watson poses with his trophy on the 18th green after winning the Genesis Open golf tournament at Riviera Country Club on Sunday, Feb. 18, 2018, in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles.

Associated Press

Bubba Watson trending in right direction after Riviera win

By DOUG FERGUSON AP Golf Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bubba Watson says he was contemplating retirement.

The two-time Masters champion had gone two years without winning. He fell out of the top 100 in the world ranking for the first time in 10 years. He was losing power and losing confidence, and didn't matter which color golf ball he was using. Worst of all, he was losing weight from an illness he still doesn't want to talk about.

About all he had were options.

"I have a car dealership, a candy store and a baseball team," Watson said.

"We had something to do."

He wound up sticking to golf, as if that was never an option. One week at Riviera was a reminder that "Bubba Golf" remains a best seller. “The last year-and-a-half, almost two years give or take, it’s been a struggle because I want to be at the top,” Watson said.

Continued on Page 23

NORTHERN EXPOSURE Dani Cameranesi (24), of the United States, celebrates with Dani Cameranesi (24) and Emily Pfalzer (8) after scoring a goal against Finland during the first period of the semifinal round of the women's hockey game at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Gangneung, South Korea, Monday, Feb. 19, 2018.

Associated Press Page 19

A18 SPORTS

Tuesday 20 February 2018

Fit to be tied: Canada, Germany share 2-man bobsled gold

Driver Justin Kripps and Alexander Kopacz of Canada, above, celebrate as they cross the finish area, and driver Francesco Friedrich, right, and Thorsten Margis of Germany celebrate after they tied for the gold medal during the two-man bobsled final at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Monday, Feb. 19, 2018.

Associated Press

By TIM REYNOLDS AP Sports Writer PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) — Justin Kripps and Alexander Kopacz were thoroughly confused when they crossed the fin-

ish line. They knew they had just won an Olympic gold medal for Canada, and were puzzled why the rival Germans were running their way to celebrate.

Eventually, it made sense.

The closest Olympic sliding race in history had two sets of winners Monday. Canada and Germany will share gold from the two-man bobsled event at the Pyeongchang Olympics after Kripps and Kopacz finished their four runs in the exact same time as the German duo of Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis.

The winning time: 3 minutes, 16.86 seconds.

“I managed to see the clock that said No. 1 on it,” Kripps said, as the German team sat to his right after the race. “At first I thought that we won outright, and then these guys jumped over and they were superexcited. And I was like, ‘These guys are really happy for us.’”

Well, technically, they were.

Kripps, the final driver on the track, had the lead for much of the fourth heat.

But with the margins so close, Friedrich started to think that a shared gold was somehow possible.

Turns out, he was right.

“We saw he was one-hundredth in front, two-hundredths in front, three-hundredths in front,” Friedrich said. “I thought we would tie or we would get silver.

We tied and it was fantastic for us.” It was Canada’s second gold medal in twoman bobsledding — both coming in a tie. The Canadians shared gold with Italy in 1998, with Pierre Lueders driving that sled for Canada. Lueders was there Monday night, since he now coaches the host South Koreans.

“Pierre is actually the guy who taught me how to drive a bobsled,” said Kripps, who was born in Hawaii, calls Canada home and also holds an Australian passport. “It was pretty cool that he was here to see it.” Latvia got bronze, with Oskars Melbardis and Janis Strenga finishing 0.05 seconds back to complete the closest three-sled finish in Olympic history. And afterward, Kripps, Friedrich and Melbardis all not only had similar times — but similar thoughts.

“It’s crazy,” Kripps said.

“It was crazy,” Friedrich said. “Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy,” Melbardis said.

Perhaps even more unbelievably, it was the third time a two-man competition ended in a tie. The other was in 1968, when Italy got the gold over West Germany even though they

finished with the same time.

Italy got the win that year because of a tiebreaker that’s no longer in use, with the edge going to the sled with the fastest heat.

Nico Walther and Christian Poser of Germany, the leaders after Sunday’s first two runs, were fourth — only 0.20 seconds back.

Johannes Lochner and Christopher Weber, also from Germany, were fifth in 3:17.14.

“This is what makes the sport amazing,” U.S. bobsledder Nick Cunningham said. “Anyone can win on any given day.”

Or on this day, two different anyones.

“It’s really special that we managed to come out on top and tie with such a good team,” Kripps said.

“We pushed hard from the first heat to the last and in general I thought we executed better as we went ... and we needed every bit of it, too.”

Based on their World Cup two-man results this season, the logjam going into the finale wasn’t a total shock.

Kripps finished no lower than fourth in every twoman race all year and was the World Cup overall champion.q

Lorentzen puts Norway back on Olympic speedskating map

By RAF CASERT AP Sports Writer GANGNEUNG, South Korea (AP) — At an Olympics where almost everything is going Norway’s way, even its speedskaters are back on top.

Havard Lorentzen proved that a program which has been in disarray for two decades is on the up by winning the 500-meter gold Monday in an Olympic record time.

To make it even better, the Dutch were nowhere in sight, totally shut out in an event which they swept only four years ago.

“We don’t like it when the Dutch win that much,” Lorentzen said of their century-old rivalry for skating

Gold medalist Havard Lorentzen of Norway celebrates setting a new Olympic record during the men’s 500 meters speedskating race at the Gangneung Oval at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Gangneung, South Korea, Monday, Feb. 19, 2018.

Associated Press

supremacy. “It is good to beat them. This is as a good as it gets.”

The 25-year-old Norwegian speedskater gave his

country, a powerhouse best known for its Alpine and cross-country skiers, its 10th gold medal and 27th overall. Germany later

added a 10th gold in the two-man bobsled, but Norway moved back in front with an 11th in ski jumping’s team event.

Lorentzen won in 34.41 seconds at the Gangneung Oval. He beat Cha MinKyu of South Korea, who had equaled the Olympic record earlier, by 0.01 seconds. Twenty-year-old Gao Tingyu of China took bronze.

Ronald Mulder, the twin brother of 2014 Olympic champion Michel Mulder, was the best Dutch skater, finishing in seventh place.

The Norwegian frustration at being unable to compete with the best sat so deep that Lorentzen had barely left the ice when he

started to spout the damning statistics.

“It’s been 20 years since the last Olympic gold medal,” he said, referring to the 1998 win over 1,500 by Adne Sondral.

And there was more.

“It is 70 years since the 500 meters,” he said, remembering Finn Helgesen, who won at the 1948 St. Moritz Games. “Long enough.”

The last great Norwegian speedskater was Johann Olav Koss, who won three gold medals at the 1994 Lillehammer Games.

Speedskating in Norway then went into a steady decline, without a single medal at the 2010 Vancouver Games or in Sochi four years ago.q

SPORTS A19

Tuesday 20 February 2018

U.S. women back in gold medal game after win over Finland

By TERESA M. WALKER AP Sports Writer GANGNEUNG, South Korea (AP) — The Americans played their way back into the only women’s hockey game that matters: a showdown with Canada for the Olympic gold medal.

The Americans are back in the title game for a third straight Olympics after shutting out Finland 5-0 on Monday in the semifinals.

They will face their archrival on Thursday, and the Americans will be trying to win their first gold since 1998 when women’s hockey made its debut in the Olympics.

And yes, the Americans understand the United StatesCanada playing for gold is what everyone expects to see.

“Definitely the rivalry has been there since I think I was born, so everyone’s looking forward to that,” said 22-year-old Dani Cameranesi.

This will be the third opportunity at gold for six Americans: captain Meghan Duggan, Hilary Knight, Gigi Marvin, Kacey Bellamy and twin sisters Monique

Lamoureux-Morando and Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson.

“It’s honestly a dream come true,” Knight said.

“This is the world’s biggest stage. This is the game that you want. This is the game we’ve been dreaming of and to have another opportunity to get back here, it’s huge.”

Canada is the four-time Olympic champion and has won the last five games against the U.S. The Canadians know a battle is likely.

“You never know what you’re going to get,” said Jennifer Wakefield, who scored twice in Canada’s 5-0 semifinal win over the Russian team. “It’s going to be heated. You’re going to see a lot of good skill working. It’s best on best and that’s what the Olympics are for.” Olympic newcomer Cameranesi scored two goals and added an assist to lead the Americans past Finland. Marvin started the scoring, and Lamoureux-Davidson and Knight both scored during a 5-on-3 34 seconds apart in the second period. Maddie Rooney made 14 saves

Hilary Knight (21), of the United States, shoots the puck past goalie Noora Raty (41), of Finland, for a goal during the second period of the semifinal round of the women’s hockey game at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Gangneung, South Korea, Monday, Feb. 19, 2018.

Associated Press

for the shutout.

Finland remains winless in eight games against the Americans at the Olympics. The Finns, ranked third in the world last year, will try to take home the bronze medal for the first time since 2010.

“We’re got one thing on our mind, and that’s to get a medal,” said goaltender Noora Raty, who made 33 saves. “They’re the best in the world (U.S. and Canada). We just need to get more girls involved so we have more to choose from.”

The Americans opened these games a 2-1 loss to Canada wrapping up pool

play.

“This was really a goldmedal preparation for us because they’re a darn good team, and we had to be ready to play,” U.S. coach Robb Stauber said of Finland.

The Americans wasted no time getting on the board.

Captain Meghan Duggan found Marvin alone in the slot, and she beat Raty stick-side for the easy goal just 2:25 into the game.

Finland lost defenseman when she had to be helped off the ice and to the locker room after a knee-on-knee collision with Duggan. She was knocked off balance before crashing face-first

into the boards, snapping her head back.

When play resumed without a penalty, some fans booed.

Savolainen returned in the second period.

Stauber said the referee immediately came over and said it was a collision.

Duggan said she was really happy Savolainen got up and that any decision about a potential suspension was out of her control.

“There’s been some other plays that haven’t been put into question, and so I can’t imagine that there would be any disciplinary action just based on other things that have been let go,” Duggan said.q

Johansson leads Norway to Olympic ski jumping team title

By JIM ARMSTRONG AP Sports Writer PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) — The red handlebar mustache finally has a golden accoutrement.

After winning two bronze medals at the Pyeongchang Olympics, Robert Johansson helped Norway win the large hill team ski jumping title on Monday.

Johansson leapt 136 meters with the final jump as Norway relied on its depth to accrue 1,098.5 points and overwhelm 2014 champion Germany, which finished 22.8 points behind for silver.

“I saw that we had 22 points and that made me a bit bothered,” Johansson said. “So I was nervous but I just tried to calm myself

and tell myself I could do it and it was a fantastic feeling after.”

It’s been quite an Olympics for Johansson, the 27-yearold Lillehammer native with the distinctive red facial hair.

“This is way more than what I expected from my first Olympics,” Johansson said.

“It’s a special situation to be in and to top it off with gold in the team event is a dream come true.”

He also won bronze medals in the normal and large hill individual finals to become the first ski jumper since Gregor Schlierenzauer of Austria in 2010 to win a medal in each of the three men’s ski jumping events at a single Olympics.

With strong jumps from

Daniel Andre Tande, Andreas Stjernen and Johann Andre Forfang, Norway was able to build up a 22-point lead heading into the final round of jumps.

Andreas Wellinger, the normal hill gold medalist from Germany, had a jump of 134.5 meters in the next-tolast jump to lift his team to 1,075.7 points, but Johansson went further to secure the gold. Poland took the bronze with 1,072.4 points.

Norway has won three of the four men’s team events in the World Cup this season and had the deepest team, with its four jumpers all in the top 12 in the standings. It has also won three of the four men’s team events in the World Cup this season.

Norway’s Daniel Andre Tande, from left, Andreas Stjernen, Johann Andre Forfang and Robert Johansson celebrates after winning the gold medal in the men’s large hill team ski jumping competition at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Monday, Feb. 19, 2018.

Associated Press

Poland had never claimed an Olympic medal in the team event prior to Monday’s event. Large hill gold medalist Kamil Stoch had

two strong jumps and has now tied Adam Malysz for the most Olympic medals by a Polish ski jumper with four.q

A20 SPORTS

Tuesday 20 February 2018

Connor McDavid has hat trick, Oilers top Avalanche 4-2

By The Associated Press DENVER (AP) — Connor McDavid had his third hat trick of the season and the Edmonton Oilers beat the Colorado Avalanche 4-2 on Sunday to snap a sixgame losing streak.

McDavid has 11 goals in the last nine games and two hat tricks. His first two goals tied it, and the third was into an empty net with 1:26 left. He has five goals in two games against Colorado this season.

Ryan Strome also scored, and Cam Talbot had 24 saves to help the Oilers snap Colorado’s 10-game home winning streak. Tyson Jost and Alexander Kerfoot scored for the Avalanche.

PENGUINS 5, BLUE JACKETS 2.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Riley Sheahan scored two goals in the first period and rookie Tristan Jarry made 35 saves in Pittsburgh’s victory over Columbus Blue Jackets 5-2.

Jake Guentzel had a goal and two assists, and Brian Dumoulin and Zach AstonReese also scored for the Penguins. They have won five straight and 10 of their last 12. The win in front of a sellout crowd at Nationwide Arena moved them past Washington into first place in the Metropolitan Division.

Artemi Panarin and Alexander Wennberg scored for

Edmonton Oilers center Connor McDavid, front, drives downice with the puck as Colorado Avalanche left wing Gabriel Landeskog pursues in the second period of an NHL hockey game Sunday, Feb. 18, 2018, in Denver.

Associated Press

Columbus.

MAPLE LEAFS 3, RED WINGS 2 DETROIT (AP) — Auston Matthews scored with 30.2 seconds left to push Toronto past Detroit.

Matthews took William Nylander’s pass and snapped a high shot into the roof of the net from a sharp angle for his 27th goal of the season, but just his fourth winner.

James van Riemsdyk and Mitch Marner also scored for Toronto, and Curtis

McElhinney made 27 saves.

Anthony Mantha and Henrik Zetterberg scored for Detroit.

FLYERS 7, RANGERS 4 NEW YORK (AP) — Travis Konecny broke a tie late in the second period and Alex Lyon made 25 saves in relief to help Philadelphia beat New York.

Claude Giroux and Jori Lehtera scored in the third to finish off the win, Lyon’s first in the NHL. Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist allowed all seven goals.

Andrew MacDonald, Scott Laughton, Brandon Manning and Nolan Patrick also scored for the Philadelphia.

The Flyers have six of seven and are 22-8-3 since Dec. 4. They have won five in a row in the road.

Kevin Hayes, Rick Nash, Mats Zuccarello and Peter Holland scored for New York.

SHARKS 5, STARS 2 SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Mikkel Boedker scored twice in San Jose’s four-goal first period and the Sharks beat

Dallas for their fourth victory in five games. Joe Pavelski, Melker Karlsson and Justin Braun also scored and Martin Jones made 26 saves.

Gemel Smith and Tyler Pitlick scored for Dallas. Ben Bishop was chased after allowing four goals on five shots, and Kari Lehtonen made 22 saves in relief. The Stars had won six of their previous seven.

DEVILS 3, HURRICANES 2, OT RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Taylor Hall scored on a rebound with 22 seconds left in overtime to lift New Jersey past Carolina and extend his NHL-best points streak to 11 games. Keith Kinkaid stopped 40 shots, and Nico Hischier and Pavel Zacha added goals.

Teuvo Teravainen and Jeff Skinner scored for Carolina.

JETS 7, PANTHERS 2 WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) — Kyle Connor scored twice, Blake Wheeler and Tyler Myers each had three assists and Winnipeg beat Florida to take the Central Division lead.

Nikolaj Ehlers, Mark Scheifele, Bryan Little, Mathieu Perreault and Patrik Laine also scored and Connor Hellebuyck made 25 saves to help the Jets win their third straight. They are 6-2-1 with a game left on a 10-game homestand. Denis Malgin and Aleksander Barkov had power-play goals for Florida.q

Kasatkina slows Radwanska comeback in Dubai first round DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Former champion Agnieszka Radwanska lost in the first round of the Dubai Championships for the first time in nine years on Monday.

Daria Kasatkina of Russia beat Radwanska 7-5, 6-4 in two hours.

Radwanska, who reached No. 2 in the rankings in 2012 after winning in Dubai and finishing runner-up at the Wimbledon, endured a frustrating 2017 after a foot injury and a virus scare. Not until the end of the year did she feel healthy.

Also, eighth-seeded Kristina Mladenovic of France was dismissed by Japanese wild

card Naomi Osaka 6-2, 6-2.

There was no issues for seventh-seeded Johanna Konta, who beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 7-6 (2), 6-2 and will play another Russian next, Kasatkina.

Elena Vesnina of Russia topped Peng Shuai of China 6-4 7-5 and lined up French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko, who has a bye into the second round.

Radwanska lost the decisive break in the 11th game of the first set from 40-15 up.

Kasatkina broke the Pole twice more to lead 3-0 but Radwanska came back to level. She lost her serve again to go down 5-4 and

Daria Kasatkina of Russia celebrates after she beats Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland during the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Monday, Feb. 19, 2018.

Associated Press

Kasatkina served out. Radwanska said getting back into the top 10 was her goal for 2018, but the winner of 20 WTA titles admitted it was going to be difficult.

“Well, physically, I am actually feeling much better than last year. November, December and January, it took me those three months just to be healthy again, get back to my weight. But everything takes time,” she said.

“It’s tougher than it was before, especially playing against the young ones. You are playing longer, good matches, which is tough physically and mentally.”q

SPORTS A21

Tuesday 20 February 2018

Team LeBron edges Team Steph 148-145 in NBA All-Star Game

By GREG BEACHAM LOS ANGELES (AP) — LeBron James and Kevin Durant swarmed all over Stephen Curry in the final seconds, preventing the NBA's best shooter from finding even a patch of open air to launch a tying 3-pointer.

Defense? In an All-Star Game?

That was just one of the many exciting surprises created by a big change to the league's midseason showcase. After James and Curry got to draft their own teams, this exhibition really seemed to matter to basketball's best.

And LeBron picked a winner.

James scored 29 points and hit the go-ahead layup with 34.5 seconds to play, winning his third All-Star Game MVP award while his team rallied to win an uncommonly entertaining edition of the event, beating Team Stephen 148-145 Sunday night.

For the first time in 67 AllStar games, the league abandoned the traditional East-West format used since 1951, instead allowing the two captains to pick their sides. That twist turned a sometimes staid event into the world's richest pickup game, and the intrigue was reflected on the Staples Center court, where a real basketball game broke out.

"I think the format was great," said James, who added 10 rebounds and eight assists in front of LA fans salivating at the still-remote possibility of the Lakers landing the superstar as

a free agent this summer.

"The great thing about our commissioner (Adam Silver), he's absolutely OK with trying something new, to change the format, and it definitely worked out for everybody," James added.

"It worked out not only for the players, not only for the league, but for our fans, for everybody. It was a great weekend, and we capped it off the right way."

Both teams played real defense for long stretches and contested many shots, with LeBron's group even picking up full-court late in the first half.

And after an entertaining dunk contest won by Donovan Mitchell and a record-setting effort by Devin Booker in the 3-Point Shootout, the All-Star weekend ended with a recent novelty for the main event: a thrilling finish.

“The game was so good,” said a grinning Durant, who scored 19 points in his ninth All-Star Game. “It was so competitive. It was the best one I’ve been a part of.”

Team LeBron rallied from an 11-point deficit with six minutes to play, finishing the game on a 25-11 run.

James tied it at 144-144 on a step-back 3-pointer with 1:31 to play.

LA native DeMar DeRozan hit one free throw to put Team Steph back ahead, but LeBron claimed the lead with his layup after some sharp passing by his teammates. DeRozan then made a turnover on an attempted pass to Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Russell Westbrook broke out for

Team LeBron's LeBron James, second from left, of the Cleveland Cavaliers, shoots as Team Stephen's Draymond Green, left, of the Golden State Warriors, Klay Thompson, second from right, of the Golden State Warriors, and Stephen Curry, of the Golden State Warriors, defend during the first half of an NBA All-Star basketball game, Sunday, Feb. 18, 2018, in Los Angeles.

Associated Press

a layup with 10.7 seconds left. Team Steph had one last chance, but even the usually unguardable Curry couldn’t elude James and Durant, who forced him to give up the ball to DeRozan, who couldn’t score over Durant’s arm in his face.

“That was great defense by myself,” said a grinning Durant, who scored 19 points in his ninth All-Star Game.

“I’m patting myself on the back.” Curry finished with 11 points on 4-for-14 shooting. “Two tall giants out there not letting me shoot,” Curry said with a laugh when describing the last play. “Tried to make a play, and it just didn’t work out.”

The All-Stars’ shooting per-

centages and final scores were way down from recent seasons, reflecting the effort on the floor. The relaxed All-Star vibe was still at Staples, however: Curry chowed down on a box of popcorn on the bench during the third quarter, and the stars made time and room for plenty of good-looking dunks and alley-oops. “They put on a show, but they gave the crowd something to root for rather than just wilding with dunks and lobs,” said Paul George, who scored 16 points for Team LeBron.

Each member of the winning team made a cool $100,000, a distinct raise from previous seasons in another attempt to make

things more interesting.

“It was better,” said Team Steph’s Klay Thompson, who scored all 15 of his points on 3-pointers in his fourth All-Star Game. “At the end, it was 100 percent.

Throughout the game, it was probably 70, but guys were competitive and they really wanted to win that game.”

UP NEXT The 68th NBA All-Star Game will be in Charlotte on Feb. 17, 2019. North Carolina was scheduled to host the 2017 All-Star Game, but lost it in July 2016 because of the state legislature’s Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, which is considered by many to be discriminatory. q

sports NASCAR’s youth movement may be good for business A22

Tuesday 20 February 2018

By JENNA FRYER AP Auto Racing Writer DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Daytona Day was nothing short of a rousing success for NASCAR, which was able to celebrate both its storied past and youthful future on its biggest stage.

The Daytona 500 is the most important event of the year for NASCAR. With Austin Dillon’s victory in the famed No. 3 and Bubba Wallace’s history-making, secondplace finish, NASCAR got perhaps its most promising glimpse to date of the next generation.

Dillon wrecked Aric Almirola on the final lap in overtime at Daytona International Speedway to drive the car owned by his grandfather, Richard Childress , back into victory lane 17 years to the day that Dale Earnhardt was killed in an accident on the final lap of the season opener. It came 20 years after Earnhardt’s only Daytona 500 victory, and in just the fifth appearance for the No. 3 in “The Great American Race” since Earnhardt’s death.

Dillon and much of his Richard Childress Racing crew celebrated into the wee hours Monday by getting tattoos, permanent ones, on their buttocks.

Wallace, driving the iconic

Austin Dillon, right, is congratulated by his grandfather, Richard Childress, after winning the NASCAR Daytona 500 Cup series auto race at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla., Sunday, Feb. 18, 2018.

Associated Press

No. 43 for Richard Petty, was the first black driver in the Daytona 500 field since 1969. His finish was the highest of any black driver in the 500 since Wendell Scott was 13th in 1966.

Wallace has rocketed to fame in the last month and won new fans following an emotional, post-race scene that included a long, tearful embrace with his mother that symbolized the struggles Wallace has faced on

the road to NASCAR’s top series. Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron called him before the Daytona 500, and Lewis Hamilton, the only black driver in Formula One, tweeted he would be cheering for Wallace.

When told about Hamilton’s well-wishes, Wallace admitted to “fan-girling out.” “I look up to him. He does so many great things in the F1 world. ... Then he sent out a tweet and I got

weak at the knees,” Wallace said.

Wallace noted what the kind words from Aaron and Hamilton really mean for the sport. “People are tuning in and hopefully noticing the new face and the new change that’s coming to NASCAR,” he said.

Wallace entered the season without sponsorship for the full season, but NASCAR Racing Experience announced Monday it would

be the primary sponsor for the No. 43 Chevrolet this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

There has been much angst over NASCAR’s problems, and there are many issues, including the disappointing television rating for the Daytona 500. The 5.1 overnight for Fox was down 22 percent from last year.

It’s problematic, and NASCAR needs to find new reasons for fans to watch.

There had been much hand-wringing over the retirements of Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Danica Patrick , but it may have been unnecessary worry.

Why? Because their replacements are really racy and showed Sunday they aren’t content to simply turn laps in a pack, collect a paycheck and take a chartered flight home.

Wallace sparred with 2016 winner Denny Hamlin on the final lap, then criticized Hamlin afterward.

Ryan Blaney led a racehigh 118 laps and wrecked Kurt Busch, last year’s winner, trying to win the race.

Chase Elliott was wrecked racing for points at the end of the first stage. Alex Bowman started from the pole and was the top Hendrick Motorsports driver.q

Christian Coleman breaks world indoor record in 60 meters

By GLEN ROSALES Associated Press ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Christian Coleman broke the world indoor record in the 60 meters in 6.34 seconds Sunday to win his first U.S. title in the final event of the USA Track & Field Indoor National Championships.

Coleman had run a worldbest a month ago at the Clemson Invitational, but the mark was not recognized because electronic blocks were not used.

This time there was no doubt when he put on an extra burst about midway through the run, pulling away from former champion Ronnie Baker, who finished with a personal best of 6.40.

“I was just trying to come out with the win,” Coleman said.

“I knew it would take something special with a great group of guys in the field and so I was just running to win. The world record was just icing on the cake really.”

Despite the record, he said there’s room for improvement.

“My start was decent but every time I feel like I got a lot of work to do,” Coleman said. “And so, when I transitioned and I stood up, I felt as good as I have ever felt.

I kept running and saw that tape and got that line. It was a world record and it was pretty special. A pretty special race.”

When the time was posted, Coleman celebrated, raising his arms and bouncing back down the track.

“I just love this sport and it’s so competitive,” he said.

“Either you’ve got it or you don’t on this day.

And I love racing in the big races when everybody is watching. I just flourish in those moments. It’s not really my personality but when the lights are on, it just comes out.”

Sharika Nelvis set the crowd buzzing with an American record in the 60 hurdles at 7.70.

“I feel great,” she said before getting a hug from a fellow competitor.

“It’s been a long road. I finally got my break and I’m happy. I’m never about

numbers, I’m about winning. You win, it gets you on the team. I don’t focus on numbers, I focus on winning my race.”

Nelvis had to come from behind to win it, surging over the final hurdle to kick it to the finish.

“The thing is, I’m always backing off coming off the last hurdles so I just say, ‘You better run your ass off,’” she said.

“I came off that hurdle and I just took off.”

For Nelvis, Coleman and most other winners and runners-up, at stake was a spot on the U.S. team that will compete in the world championships March 1-4 in Birmingham, England.

Among those who will make the trip, Vashti Cun-

ningham won her third straight high jump, clearing 6 feet, 5 1/2-inches, then received her championship medal from father Randall Cunningham, the former NFL quarterback.

“That was a good moment with my dad,” she said.

“I’ve never really accepted an award from him or anything like that since I was a little kid.

It felt good to have him there with me.”

In other performances of note, Shelby Houlihan duplicated her feat of last season by sweeping the two distance races, this year winning the 3,000 and 1,500, and Paul Chelimo did the same on the men’s side, becoming just the second man to do so.q

SPORTS A23 Anderson beats Querrey to win New York Open title Tuesday 20 February 2018

By BRIAN MAHONEY UNIONDALE, N.Y. (AP) — Kevin Anderson had already dealt with the disappointment of falling short in a final in New York.

His surprising run to the U.S. Open final last summer jump-started his climb back into the top 10, but his loss to Rafael Nadal was a painful reminder that he kept coming up short at the finish line.

Back in New York this week, he finally got the ending he wanted.

The top seed won the first New York Open on Sunday, beating No. 2 seed Sam Querrey 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (1) for his fourth career ATP Tour title.

Anderson came into Sunday 3-11 in ATP Finals, with one loss already this year.

"I have been runner-up quite a few times in my career," Anderson said. "One of the big goals I had for this year was to try to be a bit more successful in that final stage. I fell a little short earlier this year in India and it feels great to come through and get today's win. So, gives me a lot of confidence for the year."

The South African dominated the tiebreaker after BUBBA WATSON Continued from Page 23

Watson ended his longest drought of the decade — it was two full years since he last won a tournament — with a game perfectly suited for the classic layout off Sunset Boulevard.

He shaped shots to the right and to the left, figured out how to make the right putts, holed a bunker shot and closed with a 2-under 69 for a two-shot victory in the Genesis Open that changes his outlook.

"The last year-and-a-half, almost two years give or take, it's been a struggle because I want to be at the top," Watson said. "I was top 10 in the world for a few years, and so not being there, you feel like, 'Is this it? Is this my old man moment where I can't play golf again?'"

When he won at Riviera for the second time in 2016, Watson was at No. 4 in the

Kevin Anderson, of South Africa, reacts after winning his finals match against Sam Querrey, of the United States, at the New York Open tennis tournament in Uniondale, N.Y., Sunday, Feb. 18, 2018.

Associated Press

a tight third set, winning the first six points and leading Querrey to slam his racket to the court in frustration.

Anderson will move to career-high ninth in the ATP rankings Monday, continuing a strong rise that began in nearby Flushing Meadows when he reached his lone Grand Slam final as the world's No. 32 player, the

lowest-ranked U.S. Open finalist since the inception of the rankings in 1973.

He won his first title since 2015, when he made his only other appearance in the top 10 when he was ranked 10th for one week in October. Anderson won four consecutive three-set matches in the tournament's first year at Nassau

world. The following week, he finished one shot behind at the World Golf Championships event at Doral.

Over his next 36 starts on the PGA Tour in stroke play, he had two top 10s.

Among the low points was the end of 2016, when he was No. 7 in the world and still didn't make or was picked for the Ryder Cup team at Hazeltine. Watson still joined the American team as an assistant captain, and loved it so much that he has asked U.S. captain Jim Furyk for the same job in France this year.

He was pestering Furyk about it at Riviera and said the captain told him: "No. You're too good. You need to be on the team playing."

Next up for Watson is to see how far this goes.

He spoke Saturday evening, when he had a oneshot lead, about trending in the right direction even if he didn't win the Genesis

Open. The victory is sure to be a jolt of confidence, especially the way he won.

Eight players either had a share of the lead or were within one shot over the final round Sunday. Watson was one shot behind Patrick Cantlay heading to the back nine, which starts with his least favorite hole in golf: No. 10, regarded as one of the best short par 4s in the world. Watson is so befuddled by it that he considers it a par 5 and suggested his 4 felt like a birdie on Sunday.

He was just warming up.

Watson effectively won the tournament over the next four holes. He got upand-down from a bunker by making a 10-foot birdie putt on the par-5 11th, which was critical because Cantlay had a 20-foot eagle putt. Cantlay missed, Watson made, keeping the deficit at one shot.

On the next two holes,

Coliseum after moving from Memphis, Tennessee.

“Obviously, during U.S. Open was a terrific few weeks for me. It was tough to lose in the finals so it feels very special to get today’s win,” Anderson said.

Querrey remained at 10 ATP titles, snapping a threematch winning streak in finals. He would have risen

to a career-best No. 11 with a victory. Querrey had held serve in 37 of 38 games entering this week before Anderson broke him in the second game of the final for a 2-0 lead. Querrey broke right back and broke Anderson again later in the set to move ahead.

The second set started the same way. Anderson broke again in the second game, but this time held in the third to seize control of the set en route to a 5-0 lead.

“I just kind of lost a little bit of momentum,” Querrey said. “He picked his game up, he started making a few more first serves.

Feel like he was hitting the ball a little bigger, making a few more. Then I kind of got some momentum back at the end of the second there but it was kind of too little, too late.”

In the doubles final, the second-seeded team of Max Mirnyi of Belarus and Philipp Oswald of Austria edged Wesley Koolhof of the Netherlands and Artem Sitak of New Zealand 4-6, 6-4, 10-6 in a match tiebreaker. For the 40-year-old Mirnyi, it was his 100th career ATP Tour final, with 96 having come in doubles.q

Bubba Watson pumps his fist after making a putt on the 13th hole during the final round of the Genesis Open golf tournament at Riviera Country Club Sunday, Feb. 18, 2018, in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles.

Associated Press

Watson came up short of the green and both times saved par with 8-foot putts as his challengers were dropping shots.

Kevin Na in the group ahead and Cantlay alongside him made bogey on both of them. Suddenly staked to a one-shot lead,

Watson found the left bunker on the par-3 14th to a left pin. He splashed out of the sand and the ball rolled into the pin and disappeared into the cup for an unlikely birdie.

Not to be overlooked is the Masters, where Watson is a two-time winner. q

A24 TECHNOLOGY

Tuesday 20 February 2018

UK unveils new technology to fight extremist content online

By DANICA KIRKA LONDON (AP) — The British government is unveiling new technology designed to remove extremist material from social media, amid mounting pressure on companies like Facebook and Twitter to do more to remove such content from their platforms.

The software, developed

by ASI Data Science with funding from the government, was announced Tuesday by Home Secretary Amber Rudd ahead of meetings with technology executives and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen this week in Silicon Valley. The program will be shared with smaller companies that don't have the resources to develop such technology, the agency said.

"I hope this new technology the Home Office has helped develop can support others to go further and faster," Rudd said before the meetings. "The purpose of these videos is to incite violence in our communities, recruit people to their cause, and attempt to spread fear in our society."

This is a Thursday March 23, 2017 file photo of Britain's Home Secretary Amber Rudd speaks during a vigil in Trafalgar Square, London.

Associated Press

Governments and law enforcement agencies have been pressing social media companies to do more to prevent extremists from using their sites to promote violence and hatred. British Prime Minister Theresa May has called on internet companies to remove extremist propaganda from their sites in less than two hours.

But extremist content is only one type of objectionable content on the internet, with governments struggling to stem the flow

of everything from child pornography to so-called fake news. The importance of the battle was underscored during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, during which Russian entities sought to influence to outcome by placing thousands of ads on social media that reached some 10 million people on Facebook alone.

Social media companies have struggled to respond.

Because the companies see themselves not as pub-

lishers but as platforms for other people to share information, they have traditionally been cautious about taking down material.

Amid growing pressure, Facebook, Twitter, Google and its unit YouTube last year created the Global Internet Forum to Combat Terrorism, which says it is committed to developing new content-detection technology, helping smaller companies combat extremism and promoting "counter-speech," content meant to blunt the impact of extremist material.

Unilever, a global consumer products company and one of the world's largest advertisers, on Monday demanded results, saying it wouldn't advertise on platforms that do not make a positive contribution to society. Its chief marketing officer, Keith Weed, said he's told Facebook, Google, Twitter, Snap, and Amazon that Unilever wants to change the conversation.

"Consumers ... care about fraudulent practice, fake news, and Russians influencing the U.S. election,"

he said at a digital advertising conference, according to excerpts of a speech provided by Unilever. "They don't care about good value for advertisers. But they do care when they see their brands being placed next to ads funding terror, or exploiting children."

So far, though, the technology needed to detect and remove dangerous posts hasn't kept up with the threat, experts say. Removing such material still requires judgment, and artificial intelligence has not proved good enough to determine the difference, for example, between an article about the so-called Islamic State and posts from the group itself.

The software being unveiled Tuesday is aimed at stopping the vast bulk of material before it goes online.

Marc Warner, CEO ASI Data Science, which helped developed the technology, said the social media giants can't solve this problem alone.

"The way to fight that is to cut the propaganda off at the source," he said. q

Facebook to verify ads with postcards after Russian meddling MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) — Facebook will soon rely on centuries-old technology to try to prevent foreign meddling in U.S. elections: the post office.

Baffled in 2016 by Russian

agents who bought ads to sway the U.S. presidential campaign, Facebook's global politics and government outreach director, Katie Harbath, told a meeting of the National Associa-

tion of Secretaries of State in Washington on Saturday that the company would send postcards to potential buyers of political ads to confirm they reside in the U.S.

In this June 4, 2012 file photo, a girl looks at Facebook on her computer in Palo Alto, Calif.

Associated Press

The recipient would then have to enter a code in Facebook to continue buying the ad. The method will first apply to ads that name candidates ahead of the midterm elections in November, said Facebook spokesman Andy Stone.

The plan was unveiled a day after special counsel

Robert Mueller charged 13 Russians with interfering in the presidential election.

Mueller's indictment described how Russian agents stole social security numbers and other information from real Americans and used them to create bank and PayPal accounts in order to buy online ads.q

BUSINESS A25

Tuesday 20 February 2018

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A currency trader passes by screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the exchange rate of South Korean won against the U.S. dollar, center right, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Feb. 19, 2018. Asian markets were higher on Monday following Wall Street gains last week, as market jitters showed signs of easing. Many major markets were closed on holidays.

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By The Associated Press LONDON (AP) — European shares drifted lower Monday as investors paused for breath following a sizeable rally last week. Despite the move lower, there are few signs of the turmoil that gripped stock markets earlier this month. U.S. stock markets are closed for Presidents Day. KEEPING SCORE: In Europe, Germany's DAX was down 0.3 percent at 12,412 while the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares fell 0.3 percent to 7,276.

The CAC 40 in France was 0.2 percent lower at 5.269.

CALM DOMINATES: Earlier this month there were real concerns that global stock markets were poised for a sustained period of weakness. However, sentiment has recovered over the past week or so, with many traders adjusting to the altered economic environment. ANALYST TAKE: "So far, global equity markets seem to be adjusting to the prospect of higher inflation, presumably on the basis that increases in corporate pricing power will be positive for earnings rather than of the cost-push kind that dents profit margins and result in a stagflationary economy," said Neil MacKinnon, global macro strategist at VTB Capital.

ASIA'S DAY: Earlier, Asian stocks performed strongly as they caught up with Friday's further advance, particularly on Wall Street.

Japan's Nikkei 225 jumped 2 percent to 22,149.21. The Tokyo benchmark ended the day just 2.7 percent below where it started 2018, having recouped most of its losses during the recent global rout. South Korea's Kospi advanced 0.9 percent to 2,442.82. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.6 percent to 5,941.60. Chinese markets were closed for Lunar New Year. OIL: Benchmark U.S. crude rose 46 cents to $62.01 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange while Brent crude, used to price international oils, was up 25 cents at $65.09 a barrel in London. CURRENCIES: The euro was down 0.1 percent at $1.2397 while the dollar rose 0.2 percent to 106.60 yen. q

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A26 COMICS

Tuesday 20 February 2018

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

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A28 SCIENCE

Tuesday 20 February 2018

Medical examiner taps DNA science to find missing persons

By VERENA DOBNIK NEW YORK (AP) — For families who have searched years for missing loved ones, donating a sample of their DNA is often a last, desperate act to confirm their worst fears.

New York City's medical examiner is leading a nationwide effort to collect genetic material and match it with unidentified human remains. It's a way to finally give family members some answers and maybe some solace.

"People will not rest without answers, at least some answers," said Dr. Barbara Sampson, the city's chief medical examiner.

Over the last decade, thousands of DNA samples have been donated to the city's medical examiner's office.

Most include swabs of saliva from close relatives, but also DNA taken from items used by the missing persons themselves, including toothbrushes, combs, razor blades and, once, even a sanitary napkin.

They've led to the identification of about 50 missing people each year, all of whom had been found dead. But for many who have submitted samples, the wait continues.

"Part of you hopes they never call you, because if they call, that means it's over," said Rose Cobo, who submitted DNA to the program after her adult niece vanished in 2016 after being treated at a Brooklyn hospital for postpartum depression following the birth of a son. Chelsea Cobo's whereabouts are still unknown.

The program helped end Luis Merchan's quest to find his younger brother, Manuel, who was reported missing in 2015 after he left his native Ecuador

In this June 4, 2010 file photo, a criminalist examines for DNA evidence at a lab in the NYC Office of Chief Medical Examiner, Friday, June 4, 2010, in New York.

Associated Press

and crossed the U.S. border from Mexico. DNA matched with the remains of a 35-year-old "John Doe" who succumbed to exposure and dehydration in the Texas desert.

"It's sad," Merchan said. "We hoped Manuel would call one day. But we at least know what happened."

On any given day, there are as many as 100,000 active missing-persons cases in the U.S., according to the FBI's National Crime Information Center. Most of those people are eventually found safe. The medical examiner's office program is open to people whose loved ones have been missing 60 days or more.

The New York City medical examiner's office has been a pioneer in advanced DNA techniques since 9/11, when it was tasked with using genetic evidence to identify and sort tens of thousands of small pieces of human remains found in the rubble of the World Trade Center.

One such advance, Sampson said, was learning how to get good genetic material out of bone fragments.

DNA testing once required a large sample of blood or saliva that was often destroyed in the process. The latest genetic technology allows a few cells to be reproduced for DNA that lasts indefinitely.

Pulverized genetic material is spun in a centrifuge and turned into a clear liquid that's poured into test tubes on a robotic assembly line.

The tubes are bar-coded and padlocked in metal cages in a secure vault.

Genetic profiles developed from the tests are plugged into the databank called the National Missing and

Unidentified Persons System. The system is capable of searching for unique similarities in DNA strings that indicate two people are related.

"Our job is to help identify your loved one and return them to you, no matter where in the United States.

They don't have to have died here in New York City," says Mark Desire, assistant director of the medical examiner's Department of Forensic Biology.

Mary Lyall submitted her DNA to the New York City medical examiner, along with her husband's, as part of her hunt for her missing daughter.

Suzy Lyall was 19 when she disappeared in 1998.

She was last seen on the University at Albany campus getting off a bus. After she vanished, her mother sifted through her room at home looking for clues. In a wastebasket, she found a sanitary napkin Suzy had wrapped and discarded amid crumpled paper. Two decades later, no match has been made. "I still look out the window and think, 'Where is she?'" Lyall said.q

Experts: Underwater archaeology site imperiled in Mexico MEXICO CITY (AP) — Pollution is threatening the recently mapped Sac Actun cave system in the Yucatan Peninsula, a vast underground network that experts in Mexico say could be the most important underwater archaeological site in the world. Subaquatic archaeologist Guillermo de Anda said the cave system’s historical span is likely unrivaled. Some of the oldest human remains on

the continent have been found there, dating back more than 12,000 years, and now-extinct animal remains push the horizon back to 15,000 years. He said researchers found a human skull that was already covered in rainwater limestone deposits long before the cave system flooded around 9,000 years ago.

De Anda said over 120 sites with Maya-era pottery and bones in the caves sug-

gest water levels may have briefly dropped in the 216mile (347-kilometer) -long system during a drought about 1,000 A.D. And some artifacts have been found dating to the 1847-1901 Maya uprising known as the War of the Castes.

Humans there probably didn’t live in the caves, de Anda said, but rather went down to them “during periods of great climate stress, to look for water.”

Sac Actun is “probably the most important underwater archaeological site in the world,” he said. But de Anda said pollution and development may threaten the caves’ crystalline water. Some of the sinkhole lakes that today serve as entrances to the cave system are used by tourists to snorkel and swim. q

PEOPLE & ARTS A29

Tuesday 20 February 2018

NBC searches for Olympic clips to go viral

By DAVID BAUDER AP Media Writer STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) — In a room lined with computer terminals buzzing all night during the Olympics, an intern raises a hand.

He’s spotted an amusing piece of film footage of a dropped walkie-talkie skittering down a mountain closed to competition because of bad weather, eluding the grasp of a couple of skiers trying to stop it.

A producer edits the film into a brief clip and sends it electronically to a room down the hall, where a social media team posts it on NBC’s Olympic website, Facebook, Twitter and other social media destinations. Within a few days, it has been seen more than 1.6 million times.

Welcome to NBC’s Highlights Factory, responsible for culling the best and oddest moments of the Pyeongchang Olympics and blanketing the world with them.

The network, which paid $963 million for the rights to show the Olympics in the United States, has built a facility for some 2,500 staff members in Pyeongchang.

But it also has around 1,000 people working in an office

off the Connecticut Turnpike, and for each Olympics it is increasing its domestic workforce, said Tim Canary, vice president of engineering.

The curling and cross-country competitions are called by announcers working in booths in Connecticut, not South Korea. The popular online “Olympic Zone” show is fully staffed here, and the office opened in 2012 is the nexus for everything its cameras collect.

Then there are the sleepdeprived staffers of the Highlight Factory, who are responsible for combing through and cataloguing every piece of footage shot by NBC and the Olympic-run feed for other broadcasters. There are some 778 hours of live competition in the games, said Eric Hamilton, director of digital video production.

“Pretty much every moment is the most important moment in somebody’s life, some athlete’s life,” he said. “It’s the moment that they’ve prepared for for years, and they have just a few seconds in which to do it. Our job is to draw the curtain back on that and let everyone see it.”

The staff members pro-

Red Gerard, of the United States, jumps during the men’s slopestyle final at Phoenix Snow Park at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Sunday, Feb. 11, 2018.

Associated Press

duce the typical clips of game-winning goals and gold-medal runs down the mountain. A recent 12-hour shift that ended at 8 a.m. produced some 130 videos for dissemination online.

“We train the interns to note not only the obvious stuff, but to see through things that are hidden in plain sight,” Hamilton said.

Cameras catch the competition, but also the moments before they start and when they’re over.

They follow coaches biting

their nails in the stands and family members who have followed loved ones across the globe. At the figure skating rink, cameras go into the workout room and the booth where competitors wait for scores. They catch final conversations between coaches and athletes.

Through these backstage moments, Hamilton has found that the young athletes competing in the extreme sports that made traditionalists wince — the

halfpipe, the slopestyle races — display some of the best camaraderie and sportsmanship at the Olympics. Hamilton never would have predicted that 6 million people would watch a video from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games of an athlete trying to drink out of the wrong side of a water bottle. Those are the moments that make the Olympics become more than a sporting event and a part of culture, upon which NBC’s business depends.q

Bill Paxton family sues hospital, doctor for wrongful death

By ANDREW DALTON Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — The family of Bill Paxton has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against a Los Angeles hospital and the surgeon who performed the actor’s heart surgery shortly before he died.

The suit filed Friday against Cedars-Sinai Medical Center alleges the surgeon, used a “high risk and unconventional surgical approach” that was unnecessary and that he lacked the experience to perform, and that he downplayed the procedure’s risks.

And it alleges the hospital knew the surgeon, Dr. Ali

Khoynezhad, tended to “engage in maverick surgeries and show suboptimal judgment.”

The misguided treatment caused Paxton to suffer excessive bleeding, cardiogenic shock and a compromised coronary artery, the suit alleges.

Paxton’s death certificate says he died Feb. 25, 2017, from a stroke, 11 days after surgery to replace a heart valve and repair aorta damage. He was 61.

“Bill Paxton and his family trusted the physicians and staff at this medical facility but instead Cedars-Sinai betrayed their trust,” the family’s attorney Bruce Broillet said in a statement.

“The surgeon’s actions resulted in this tragic and preventable death.”

Paxton’s widow, Louise, and children, James and Lydia, brought the lawsuit. It seeks unspecified damages and reserves the right to add more defendants who work for the hospital as their roles and names become clear.

Cedars-Sinai said it could not offer public comment about Paxton’s case.

“State and federal privacy laws prevent us from commenting about patient care without written authorization,” a statement said. “Nothing is more important to Cedars-Sinai than the health and safety

In this May 31, 2015 file photo, Bill Paxton arrives at the Critics’ Choice Television Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Associated Press

of our patients. These remain our top priorities.

One of the reasons for our high quality is that we thoroughly review concerns about any patient’s medical care. This process ensures that we can con-

tinue to provide the highest quality care.”

Khoynezhad has since left Cedars-Sinai for another hospital. An after-hours message left seeking comment from him was not immediately returned.q

A30 PEOPLE

Tuesday 20 February 2018

& ARTS

Film showcases historically black colleges and universities

By DEEPTI HAJELA NEW YORK (AP) — Filmmaker Stanley Nelson knew he wanted to tell a story about the nation's historically black colleges and universities — not just about individual HBCUs, many of which have their own celebrated histories, but about what they collectively have meant to black people.

And in making the documentary "Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities," Nelson said, something quickly became clear: HBCUs never were just about learning what was in books.

From their beginnings in the years after the Civil War, the nation's HBCUs have been driving forces for AfricanAmerican economic and political advancement.

"As we were making the film, it became for us a look at American history, and African-American history, through this lens of HBCUs. They were involved in so many central events," said Nelson, who wrote, directed and produced the film, which made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival

In this March 2, 1965 file photo, The Rev. Martin Luther King speaks at a Charter Day ceremony at Howard University in Washington.

King discussed his civil rights movement theme, "We shall overcome."

Associated Press

last year and is getting its national broadcast debut through the PBS series "Independent Lens" on Monday.

Before the Civil War, schooling for enslaved black people was largely outlawed in

many Southern states. After the war, newly freed black people were allowed to learn but were far from welcome at institutions of higher education serving white people, leading to the creation of colleges and universities to cater to them, predominantly in the South.

According to the federal government, an HBCU is an accredited learning institution started before 1964 that had a primary mission of educating black people, and there are about 100 of them today. Though HBCUs were started for blacks, today they accept students of all races and their student populations are 78 percent black.

Nelson's film explores those HBCU origins and how their campuses became safe spaces for African-American intellectualism to flourish and places where larger societal issues also were felt.

In part of the film, viewers are introduced to how college educations became a front in the ideological conflict between two prominent African-Americans, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois.

Washington, a graduate of Hampton University, became president of another HBCU, Tuskeegee

Institute, and emphasized self-sufficiency for AfricanAmericans, focusing on acquiring industrial trades and skills and earning the respect of whites through labor and hard work.

But Du Bois, who attended another HBCU, Fisk University, before going to Harvard University, had a different view for HBCUs and society at large. For him, colleges and universities were places to educate African-American leaders and thinkers, to be in the forefront of political and civil rights efforts pursuing equality.

Another part of the documentary shows how one of the most fundamental aspects of the civil rights movement, the case-bycase legal dismantling of the separate-but-equal system of segregation, came from the efforts of Thurgood Marshall and his mentor Charles Hamilton Houston, who taught him and other black students at Howard University's School of Law, another HBCU. Other efforts that were fundamental to the civil rights movement, like the lunch counter sit-ins that started in Greensboro, North Carolina, also were connected to HBCUs — the first four men who asked for lunch

service at a Woolworth's counter in February 1960 were students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.

Nelson, who's black, also has made movies about the Black Panther Party and the Freedom Summer. He attended an HBCU, Morris Brown College, for a term, and said it's "no accident" that so much civil rights effort and energy came out of HBCUs. "It almost is not going to come from anywhere else," he said. "These are safe black intellectual spaces."

The film closes with a look at HBCUs today, their students and some of their challenges, like the plight of Morris Brown, which lost its accreditation in 2003 but still has some students.

It doesn't delve deeply into those challenges, which Nelson described as a "complicated question" that could be its own movie.

Overall, the film is meant to give people a grounding, said Nelson, whose parents attended HBCUs. "I think that there are just a few institutions that have sustained the AfricanAmerican community," he said. "Black colleges and universities are certainly one of them."q

people & arts A31

Tuesday 20 February 2018

Letitia Wright steals show in ‘Black Panther’ breakout role

By LINDSEY BAHR AP Film Writer BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Letitia Wright still can’t believe she made the “Black Panther” poster.

The 24-year-old actress has an out-of-nowhere starmaking turn in the Marvel superhero film as the whipsmart Shuri, teenage sister to T’Challa and top scientist in Wakanda. Vibrant, funny and cool, it’s the kind of performance that has already left audiences wondering who she is and where they’ve seen her before. Tessa Thompson has tweeted her praises, as has Diddy, Common and “Deadpool” actress Brianna Hildebrand.

“She’s the scene-stealer of the movie,” said Jamie Broadnax, who created the website Black Girl Nerds. “(Executive Producer) Nate Moore has said she is the smartest person in the Marvel universe. She can take folks like Tony Stark to task.”

But Wright is still genuinely surprised that her face on the promotional materials, prominently displayed alongside the likes of Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong’o, Angela Bassett and Michael B. Jordan.

In this Jan. 30, 2018 file photo, Letitia Wright poses for a portrait at the “Black Panther” press junket at the Montage Beverly Hills in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Associated Press

“It’s crazy, I didn’t expect to be on the poster,” Wright said the day after the ‘Black Panther’ premiere in Los Angeles, looking up at herself as Shuri, armed and set for battle. “She’s just ready! Everybody is getting ready and she’s ready.”

Born in Guyana and raised in London, Wright has had a few roles on British TV shows,

like “Humans” and “Doctor Who” and “Black Mirror,” but has really just begun to make a name for herself in U.S. films, with small roles in “The Commuter” and Steven Spielberg’s upcoming “Ready Player One.” She’ll also reprise the role of Shuri in “Avengers: Infinity War.” She’s said she was inspired to pursue a life on screen

after seeing Keke Palmer in “Akeelah and the Bee” and Saoirse Ronan in “Atonement” and “Hannah.” But a career in acting didn’t even seem like a possibility for Wright at first. Her mom, while supportive, thought of it as more of a hobby.

“I was born in Guyana, South America. An acting career is not really some-

thing that’s seen as making a living,” Wright said.

“I don’t come from a creative background. I don’t know anyone in my family who is a musician or actor or singer. It’s a lot of teachers, lawyers. Professional stuff like that.”

Wright said it was her own drive and determination that made it happen for her, and her ambitions remain high. She wants to be the best and work with the best. “(Saorise Ronan) been playing leading roles for a very long time. That’s something I would love to do — Play leading roles and really hold it on my own in those leading roles,” Wright said.

She also wrote down a list of directors who she wants to work with. She’s already checked two off in Spielberg and Ryan Coogler, though she hopes to perhaps work again with Spielberg in a bigger part. Also on her list? Ava DuVernay and Lynne Ramsay.

Starring in “Black Panther” has been a “dream come true.”

“I hope people take something positive away from it,” she said.q

Court told Geoffrey Rush inappropriately touched actress SYDNEY (AP) — A lawyer accused Oscar-winning Australian actor Geoffrey Rush in court Monday of touching an actress inappropriately on an Sydney stage three years ago while he was starring in a production of “King Lear.”

Rush is suing Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph newspaper in Federal Court for defamation over articles last year which alleged inappropriate behavior and touching during the Sydney Theatre Company production in 2015.

The newspaper’s lawyer, Tom Blackburn, told the court on Monday that Rush, now 66, touched an actress who has not been identified on five consecutive nights in the last week of the production in a way that he had not done before and that made her un-

In this Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013 file photo, actor Geoffrey Rush poses at the photo call for the film The Best Offer at the 63rd edition of the Berlinale, International Film Festival in Berlin.

comfortable.

“She said stop — he didn’t.

He went on doing it. Our case is that that in itself is inappropriate,” Blackburn told the court.

But Rush’s lawyer, Richard McHugh, told the court the

accusations were vague.

Blackburn is fighting Rush’s request to have the newspaper’s truth defense struck out.

Justice Michael Wigney delayed his decision on that request to a later date.

McHugh told the court that parts of the defense lacked specificity and did not detail Rush’s alleged behavior.

The inappropriate behavior is alleged to have occurred when Rush and the actress were required to touch on stage, McHugh said.

“To this day, it’s not clear what they’re saying. Not just unclear, it’s completely opaque,” McHugh said.

The newspaper’s lawyers have previously told the court that the articles did not allege Rush engaged in inappropriate behavior of a sexual nature.

Blackburn said for the purposes of the defense it wasn’t important where Rush touched the actress, but the fact she allegedly asked him to stop — and he didn’t stop — made it inappropriate.

Rush, who was not in court on Monday, has denied behaving inappropriately.

Rush announced in December he was suing the newspaper over its reporting of the actress’s complaint of what the theatre company described in a statement as “inappropriate behavior.”

The company said the complaint was made after the production closed. The actress had not wanted Rush informed of her complaint, the company said.

Rush has performed in the Sydney Theatre Company for 35 years.

He won the 1997 best actor Academy Award for “Shine” and has three other Oscar nominations. He is perhaps best known as Captain Barbossa in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films.q

A32 FEATURE

Tuesday 20 February 2018

New exhibit examines Native American imagery in U.S. culture

By FELICIA FONSECA Associated Press FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Bold. Visionary. A spectacular success.

The words in an online promotion for a new museum exhibit in Washington, D.C., describe an 1830 U.S. law that forced thousands of American Indians from their lands in the South to areas west of the Mississippi River.

Provocative, yes, says the co-curator of the exhibit "Americans" that opened last month at the National Museum of the American Indian. Bold and visionary in imagining a country free of American Indians. A spectacular success in greatly expanding wealth from cotton fields where millions of blacks worked as slaves.

"When you're in the show, you understand bold and visionary become tongue in cheek," co-curator Cecile Ganteaume said.

The exhibit that runs through 2022 has opened to good reviews and pushes the national debate over American Indian imagery — including men in headdresses with bows, arrows and tomahawks — and sports teams named the Chiefs, Braves and Blackhawks. The NFL's Washington Redskins logo on one wall prompts visitors to think about why it's described both as a unifying force in D.C. and offensive.

The exhibit falls short, some say, with an accompanying website and its characterization of the Indian Removal Act. The online text is a perplexing way to characterize an effort that spanned multiple presidencies and at one point, consumed onefifth of the federal budget, said Ben Barnes, second chief of the Shawnee Tribe.

The law led to the deaths of thousands of people who were marched from their homes without full compensation for the value of the land they left behind.

And it affected far more tribes than the five highlighted online, he said.

"It made it seem like it was a trivial matter that turned out best for everyone," he said. "I cannot imagine an

A woman looks at a section of the "Americans" exhibit that explores the historical context of the Trail of Tears, at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, Friday, Feb. 9, 2018, in Washington.

Associated Press

exhibit at the newly established African-American museum that talked about how economically wonderful slavery was for the South."

Ganteaume said the website isn't encyclopedic and neither it nor the exhibit is meant to dismiss the experiences of American Indians.

Instead, it challenges the

depths at which people recognize indigenous people are ingrained in America's identity and learn how it happened, she said.

An opening gallery has hundreds of images of American Indians — often a stoic chief in a Plains-style headdress or a maiden — on alcohol bottles, a sugar bag, motor oil, a missile

mounted on the wall and a 1948 Indian Chief motorcycle.

Dozens of clips expand on how the imagery has permeated American culture in television and film.

But when historic or cartoonish images are the only perception people have of what it means to be Native, they can’t imagine Ameri-

Objects using imagery of Native Americans are on display at the "Americans" exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, Friday, Feb. 9, 2018, in Washington. A new exhibit uses images of Natives to show how the population permeates American culture.

Associated Press

can Indians in the modern world, said Julie Reed, a history professor at the University of Tennessee.

“Even when I’m standing in front of students, identified as a Cherokee professor, making the point from Day 1 that I’m still here and other Cherokee people are still here, I still get midterm exams that talk about the complete annihilation of Indian peoples,” she said.

Ganteaume said that while Native people have deep histories in other countries, the United States is more often fixated on using images of them.

Side galleries expand on what’s familiar to most Americans: the Trail of Tears, Pocahontas and the Battle of Little Bighorn.

An orientation film on the invention of Thanksgiving starts with a once widely used television screen test featuring an Indian head and then questions the hoopla of the national holiday when America already had Independence Day. Eden Slone, a graduate student in museum studies in the Washington, D.C., area, said she was impressed by the exhibit’s design and interactive touch tables. She never realized that Tootsie Pop wrappers featured an image of an American Indian in a headdress, holding a bow and arrow.

“I think the exhibition was carried out well and it definitely makes you think of Native American imagery,” she said. “When I see images like that, I’ll think more about where it came from.”

Reed, University of Tennessee professor and Cherokee woman, fears people will get the wrong impression about the Indian Removal Act from the website. An essay puts a positive spin on what Reed calls ethnic cleansing.

Yet, she plans to visit.

“I think there is legitimacy to say, come look at this exhibit. That’s a fair response to criticism,” Reed said. “I want to go and give the exhibit a fair shake because it may be brilliant and could do everything the website does not.”q