w72920

eEdition

PARTLY CLOUDY 65 • 51 | WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 2020 | theworldlink.com

Follow us online:

facebook.com/theworldnewspaper

twitter.com/TheWorldLink

instagram.com/theworldlink

Elementary gets a health center JILLIAN WARD The World

HAUSER — When school reopens, North Bay Elementary will have a school-based health center.

Lance Nelson, chief innovation officer at the Waterfall Community Health Center, said that the elementary clinic was in the works since last fall. It is a collaboration between Waterfall, Advanced Health and the North Bend School District.

“North Bend Schools is providing the space, Advanced Health is funding the remodel to make empty classrooms into a

health clinic, and Waterfall will provide a nurse practitioner and a mental health therapist to work with the kids,” Nelson said.

Nelson explained that the school-based health model is popular across Oregon and that the North Bay Elementary principal seemed invested in the idea.

“Everything fell together where we said, ‘let’s give it a try,’” Nelson said. “(Waterfall) has been doing school-based services for years and years, sometimes in the school itself or outbuildings.”

The new North Bay Elementary center will be inside the

school.

With having the center on site, Nelson said “one of the nice things is a licensed provider on site. We’d be working with pediatricians in the community and our nurse practitioner has pediatric experience.”

“If there is a patient that comes in with a sore throat, they could get a rapid strep test and find out if there’s strep and get some medication called in without ever leaving the school,” Nelson said. “We do immunizations, can send referrals to different specialists if needed, do a lot of vision and hearing screenings, and a lot of education on good

hand washing techniques and good nutrition.”

With the new coronavirus pandemic now picking up in Coos County, Nelson believes having a medical professional on campus may ease parents’ minds, someone who can monitor the environment and be an on-spot advisor. And though Nelson said it will be rare to test for COVID-19 through the clinic, “it would be available.”

The center will also have mental health services through a counselor station on-site, who has childhood counseling experience. Nelson said she will be able to help students with needs

such as emerging symptoms of ADHD or who are presenting with depression or anxiety.

Construction for the center begins next Monday, Aug. 3 and is expected to be finished by the end of October or early November. Though the center may not be open if school starts before then, Nelson said Waterfall staff will be available on site as soon as students return to classes.

“It’s nice for Hauser because those folks have to make a little more commitment to get their kid to a doctor or a therapist, but now the student won’t miss half a day of school to get that done,” he said.

Man’s life saved over suspicious vehicle

Fourth of July sunset

The World

Amy Moss Strong, Bandon Western World

The sun sets as people await an unexpected fireworks display on the Fourth of July in Bandon.

COOS COUNTY — A man’s life was likely saved after a concerned citizen called in a suspicious vehicle last week.

According to a press release from the Coos County Sheriff’s Office, Deputy Levi Noel was dispatched to a report of a suspicious vehicle on Thursday, July 23 at 2 p.m. The vehicle was reported to be at the end of Crown Point Road.

When Noel arrived, he was “subsequently assaulted due to the medically altered mental state of the man inside the vehicle,” the release said.

The man, whose name was withheld by the Sheriff’s Office, locked himself inside the car and refused to interact with first responders.

“Officer Matthew Parrish from Coquille Tribal Police Department, members from Charleston Fire Department and Bay Cities Ambulance also responded to the scene for assistance,” the release said. “As a result of fast thinking by these first responders the man … was successfully removed from the vehicle and given necessary medical attention, likely saving his life.”

The Sheriff’s Office thanked the citizen who called the vehicle in, as well as the first responders who assisted.

Students may not get back into classrooms this fall Governor releases new metrics for schools to reopen during pandemic SALEM (AP) — Under new COVID-19 metrics released Tuesday, students in most Oregon counties may not be able to return to their classrooms this fall, officials said.

In order for a school district to commence any form of in-person learning, the county must have 10 or fewer new cases per 100,000 residents over seven days, Gov. Kate Brown said

during a news conference. In addition, the countywide and state test positivity rate must be 5% or less over the span of a week.

“Currently, in Oregon we are not where we need to be to safely reopen schools,” State Epidemiologist Dean Sidelinger said.

In the past week, case rates across Oregon were about 50 per 100,000 people, and the state’s test positivity is approaching 5%.

“Our current case rates are higher than they need to be and higher than they were in other countries that began to reopen schools,” Sidelinger said. “But, we can suppress COVID-19 and

return to levels where we reopen schools.”

Following Brown’s announcement, Oregon’s largest school district, Portland Public Schools, said that it will have online classes only until at least Nov. 5.

In addition, Beaverton, Salem-Keizer, North Clackamas and Tigard-Tualatin districts also said they will be holding classes online.

Sidelinger said at this time there is only one county that meets the criteria for reopening school with in-person instruction, if the statewide positivity rate remains below 5%. But, there are some exceptions to the state metrics.

For kindergarten through grade three classrooms and rural school districts with fewer than 100 students — the metrics are looser.

In these cases, in-person instruction can begin if there are fewer than 30 cases per 100,000 and if COVID-19 is not actively spreading in the school. They must still have a positivity rate of 5% or less.

Based on these exceptions, 13 counties would be eligible for in-person learning — if the state positivity rate remains under 5% — Sidelinger said.

The new metrics for school reopening came as the Oregon Health Authority reported a re-

cord number of COVID-19 related deaths in a single day — 14.

The previous record was nine.

Dr. Patrick Allen, the director of the Oregon Health Authority, described the increase in deaths as a “stark reminder of the work all Oregonians need to do to bring this pandemic under control.”

The total amount of confirmed and presumptive cases in the state since the start of the pandemic has surpassed 17,400. At least 303 people have died. Of the state’s total positive cases, more than 2,400 are among people younger than 20.

Health officials said younger Please see Classrooms, Page A2

Governor Brown says US agents will start leaving Portland PORTLAND (AP) — Federal agents who have clashed with protesters in Portland, Oregon, will begin a “phased withdrawal” from Oregon’s largest city, Gov. Kate Brown said Wednesday.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said in a statement the plan negotiated with Brown over the last 24 hours includes a “robust presence” of Oregon State Police in downtown Portland.

“State and local law enforcement will begin securing properties and streets, especially those

surrounding federal properties, that have been under nightly attack for the past two months,” Wolf said.

The agents will begin leaving the city’s downtown area on Thursday, Brown said.

Before departing Wednesday for a trip to Texas, President Donald Trump insisted federal troops would not leave Portland until local authorities “secured their city.”

“Either they’re gonna clean up Portland soon, or the federal government is going up, and we’re gonna do it for them. So

either they clean out Portland — the governor and the mayor, who are weak — either they clean out Portland or we’re going in to do it for them,” he said.

The U.S. Marshals Service and Department of Homeland Security had been weighing this week whether to send in more agents. The marshals were taking steps to identify up to 100 additional personnel who could go in case they were needed to relieve or supplement the deputy marshals who work in Oregon, spokesman Drew Wade said.

The nightly Portland protests

began after George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police and have grown to include the presence of federal agents in Portland and other Democratic cities.

They often spiral into violence as demonstrators target the U.S. courthouse in Oregon’s largest city with rocks, fireworks and laser pointers.

Federal agents respond with tear gas, less-lethal ammunition and arrests.

Protesters have tried almost every night to tear down a fence erected to protect the building,

set fires in the street and hurled fireworks, Molotov cocktails and bricks, rocks and bottles at the agents inside. Authorities this week reinforced the fence by putting concrete highway barriers around it.

Demonstrators near the courthouse Wednesday were met before dawn with tear gas, pepper balls and impact munitions fired by agents, the Oregonian newspaper reported.

The developments came as the American Civil Liberties Union in Oregon filed a mo-

Please see Agents, Page A2

eEdition

Oregon has record 14 virus deaths reported Tuesday The World PORTLAND — Oregon’s death toll due to the COVID-19 pandemic crossed 300 with a new daily high of 14 lives lost, bringing the total to 303, the Oregon Health Authority reported Tuesday.

Oregon Health Authority also reported 342 new confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19 Tuesday, bringing the state total to 17,416. The new confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases reported were in the following counties: Benton (3), Clackamas (15), Clatsop (3), Coos (3), Crook (2), Curry (1), Deschutes (7), Douglas (2), Harney (1), Jackson (10), Jefferson (9), Josephine (9), Klamath (2), Lane (6), Linn (5), Malheur (15), Marion (40), Morrow (7), Multnomah (74), Polk (13), Umatilla (75), Washington (31), and Yamhill (9).

A message of condolence “As we surpass 300 deaths related to COVID-19, including the

14 deaths reported today, I wish to extend sincere condolences on behalf of everyone at OHA to the families who have lost a loved one to this disease.

It is a stark reminder of the work all Oregonians need to do to bring this pandemic under control.

Together we can slow this disease and prevent this terrible loss of life.”

— OHA Director Patrick Allen Oregon’s 290th COVID-19 death is a 77-year-old male in Multnomah County who tested positive on June 19 and died on July 22 at Portland Adventist Medical Center. He had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 291st COVID-19 death is a 79-year-old male in Multnomah County who tested positive on July 3 and died on July 20 at Portland Adventist Medical Center. He had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 292nd COVID-19 death is a 77-year-old female in Jefferson County who tested positive on June 30

and died on July 23 at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend. Presence of underlying conditions is being confirmed.

Oregon’s 293rd COVID-19 death is a 94-year-old female in Clackamas County who tested positive on July 19 and died on July 26 in her residence. She had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 294th COVID-19 death is a 54-year-old male in Malheur County who tested positive on June 24 and died on July 15 at St. Luke’s Nampa Medical Center. He had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 295th COVID-19 death is a 26-year-old male in Yamhill County who died in his residence on July 10.

The death certificate listed COVID-19 disease or SARS-CoV-2, as a cause of death or as a significant condition that contributed to his death.

Oregon’s 296th COVID-19 death is a 91-year-old female in Clackamas County who became symptomatic

on July 22, after close contact with a confirmed case, and died on July 26. Location of death and presence of underlying medical conditions are being confirmed.

Oregon’s 297th COVID-19 death is an 88-year-old male in Deschutes County who tested positive on July 23 and died on July 25 at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend. He had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 298th COVID-19 death is a 78-year-old female in Deschutes County who tested positive on July 12 and died on July 23.

Location of death is being confirmed. She had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 299th COVID-19 death is a 64-year-old female in Jefferson County who tested positive on July 14 and died on July 27. Location of death and presence of underlying conditions are being confirmed.

Oregon’s 300th COVID-19 death is an 82-year-old female in Jefferson County who tested

Portland fines government for unpermitted fence blocking lane

positive on July 20 and died on July 26. Location of death is being confirmed. She had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 301st COVID-19 death is an 87-year-old male in Marion County who tested positive on July 14 and died on July 26 at Salem Hospital. He had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 302nd COVID-19 death is a 66-year-old female in Marion County who tested positive on July 14 and died on July 24. Location of death is being confirmed. She had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 303rd death is an 84-year-old female in Umatilla County who tested positive on July 22 and died on July 25.

Location of death is being confirmed. She had underlying conditions.

Facebook Live Wednesday with testing experts On Wednesday, OHA testing experts Melissa Sutton, MD and Tom Jeanne, MD, will take

Classrooms From A1

PORTLAND (AP) — Portland Commissioner Chloe Eudaly said Tuesday the city is fining the federal government $500 every 15 minutes until it removes an unpermitted fence blocking a bike lane on a street near the federal courthouse.

Eudaly oversees the transportation bureau and said Tuesday the government hasn’t responded to her demand to remove the fence, which surrounds part of the courthouse, The

Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

She said the bill is now $192,000 “and counting.”

The fence has become the focal point of nightly protests as ongoing marches and demonstrations devoted to racial justice and curbing police violence escalated in recent days with the arrival of federal law enforcement teams.

The charges come as the Trump administration announced Monday it would send additional fed-

eral officers to Portland.

Also Monday, Mayor Ted Wheeler and Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty called for a “cease-fire” amid the ongoing crisis.

Eudaly said that transportation crews would normally “remove such an obstruction,” but she would not “send workers into harm’s way” to do so.

“Yes, I am afraid to direct workers to do their job and enforce our laws against the federal government—I hope that gives

everyone reading this pause,” she said.

Last week, the transportation bureau issued a cease-and-desist letter to the federal government.

She said Tuesday that she’s received no response.

According to the bureau’s rules, it can assess a $500 fee for obstructing the public right of way without a permit and levy that charge every 15 minutes, hourly, daily, weekly or monthly.

students get the virus at lower rates, get less sick, and spread the virus less than older students and adults. However, if cases surge, schools that have reopened will be forced to close again.

On Monday, hundreds of Oregon teachers held a car caravan protest in Salem, calling for no in-person classes until counties report 14 days of no new COVID-19 cases. The nation’s largest teachers union on Tuesday authorized its members to strike if their schools plan to reopen

Agents

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli to personally appear and show why they should not be sanctioned for contempt.

The organization cited numerous instances in which agents have violated the order by firing impact munitions and using pepper spray against people clearly marked as journalists or legal observers.

The motion was filed after U.S. Attorney General William Barr defended the aggressive federal response to Congress, saying “violent rioters and anarchists have hijacked legitimate protests” sparked by Floyd’s death.

The ACLU accused federal agents of acting

unlawfully in Portland.

“This administration claims to be defending the federal courthouse, but won’t obey the orders coming out of it. What purpose are these agents actually serving then?” said Kelly Simon, interim legal director of the ACLU of Oregon.

One journalist, Jonathan Levinson of Oregon Public Broadcasting, said in a statement to the court that while he was trying to take a photograph Friday, he saw a federal agent raise his weapon, aim it at him and fire several rounds.

“My camera and lens were splattered with paint,” Levinson said.

“Based on my position and the position of people around me, there is almost no chance the agent was

aiming at anyone other than me.”

Levinson, who has covered conflicts worldwide and was deployed to Iraq as an Army officer, said he was wearing a press pass and a helmet that says “PRESS” in big letters on the front and back.

Kat Mahoney, a legal observer with the ACLU, said a federal agent fired a paintball at her, hitting her in the head Friday.

The next night, an agent sprayed her and three other observers in the face as they told him they were legal observers and pointed to their credentials.

There was no immediate comment from the federal agencies on the motion and accusations.

Two groups also have sued the Department

of Homeland Security, alleging it violated the Constitution by sending federal law enforcement to disperse crowds with tear gas and rubber bullets.

The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit from the Wall of Moms — a group of self-described mothers — and the Don’t Shoot Portland group.

Members of the group of mothers have “been tear-gassed night after night, left vomiting and unable to eat or sleep because of the toxic poison blasted at them,” the lawsuit said.

Wheeler and City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty had asked Wolf on Monday for a meeting to discuss a cease-fire

From A1

tion alleging that the militarized U.S. agents are attacking journalists and legal observers with riot-control munitions, despite a federal court ordering them to stop.

Last week, the U.S. District Court in Portland — located in the same federal court building that’s been the focus of protests — temporarily blocked federal officers from targeting journalists and legal observers at the protests.

The ACLU asked the court to sanction and hold in contempt federal agents for violating the temporary restraining order. It also asked the court to order

Advertise Your Business for $20 per week. 2 Days in The World, 1 Day in The Link and 5 Days a Week in The World Online! Call today to get your custom ad started Licensed & Bonded

CCB# 210749

Branching Out TREE SERVICE

ALPHA M OV I N G

& Landscape Maintenance

HAZARDOUS TREE REMOVAL

• Trimming • Falling • Limbing • Hedge Care • Brush Clearing • Land Clearing • Excavator

Free Estimates!

Call Today!

541-260-8837

Local & Long Distance Moving Solutions Call Today For A Free Estimate!

(541) 661-7883

Scheduling@alphamovingco.com

FREE ESTIMATES FREE INSTALATION Blind Repair Availilble

Knox and Ginny Story 541-271-5058

To join in English: https://www.facebook. com/OregonHealthAuthority/posts/311452287525111 5 To join in Spanish: https://www.facebook. com/OHAespanol/live_ videos/ Stay informed about COVID-19: Oregon response: The Oregon Health Authority and Oregon Office of Emergency Management lead the state response.

United States response: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention leads the U.S. response.

Global response: The World Health Organization guides the global response. without proper virus safety measures.

Students who do return to the classroom will be required to wear masks, along with teachers and school staff. Last week, the Oregon Department of Education announced that it was allocating $5 million to distribute face masks to school districts to meet the requirement.

“Closing schools in the spring was one of the most difficult decisions I have made in the pandemic,” Brown said. “As COVID-19 continues to impact both our urban and rural communities, it’s been clear that this school year will not look like any other school year.” and their desire for the removal of the extra federal agents deployed to Portland.

The same day, U.S. Attorney Billy J. Williams insisted that the agents will remain as long as protesters keep attacking the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse.

Protesters have tried almost every night to tear down a fence erected to protect the building, set fires in the street and hurled fireworks, Molotov cocktails and bricks, rocks and bottles at the agents inside.

On the 60th night of protests, demonstrators near the courthouse were met with tear gas, pepper balls and stun grenades fired by agents early Tuesday.

541-266-6060

Coastal Window Coverings Quality Products at Competitive Prices

questions from the public via Facebook Live on COVID-19 testing from 1:30-2 p.m. From who can should get tested, how to find a testing location and beyond, the doctors will help demystify testing in Oregon.

There will be simultaneous translation in both Spanish and ASL.

Rod’s Landscape

Coos County Family Owned

Crushed Rock Topsoil Sand Serving Coos Bay, North Bend, Reedsport, Coquille, Myrtle Point & Bandon Kentuck

541-756-2623 Coquille

541-396-1700 CCB# 129529

541-266-6060 www.theworldlink.com

Maintenance Gutter Cleaning Pressure Washing Tree Trimming Trash Hauling and more!

Lic. #7884 Visa/MC accepted

541-404-0107

eEdition

Biden vows to fight inequality with economic agenda WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden promised Tuesday that his economic agenda would combat long-standing racial inequalities as he sought to draw another sharp contrast with President Donald Trump.

Biden said the Republican president is exacerbating social discord across the country, including by sending federal authorities into major cities under the pretense of addressing crime. And he said Trump has little interest in addressing the racism that Biden said has been laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic, which disproportionately claims people of color as its victims, or in an election-year reckoning with police violence against Black men.

“He can’t turn the economy around. He’s determined to stoke division and chaos,” Biden said, speaking in a community center gymnasium in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. “It’s

not good for the country, but Donald Trump doesn’t care.

His campaign is failing and he’s looking for a lifeline.”

Biden countered with a litany of proposals to steer federal money and tax credits to small business and economic development programs for minority-owned firms and disadvantaged neighborhoods. Biden also said he’d encourage home ownership to help close wealth gaps among minority communities and push the nation’s banking system, including the Federal Reserve, to more directly address economic inequality.

Many of his proposals — and the billions in federal spending needed to pay for it — had already been promised as part of previous, larger Biden plans to jump-start the economy when the coronavirus outbreak begins to recede.

But as protests against institutional racism and police brutality have swept the country in recent months, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is at-

tempting to show voters that he’s committed to implementing specific remedies that can promote racial and economic equality should he win the White House in November.

Biden’s speech and his subsequent question-and-answer session with reporters – just his third extended news conference in four months – come as he nears a decision on a running mate.

Biden came prepared to talk about at least one of the top contenders: California Sen. Kamala Harris.

An Associated Press photographer captured Biden’s handwritten notes with talking points on several issues. Topping the list was Harris.

A recent Politico story alleged that Biden’s longtime friend and vetting committee leader Chris Dodd, a former Democratic senator like Biden, had raised concerns about Harris going after Biden last summer on the debate stage and showing “no remorse” in conversations with Biden’s campaign.

On Biden’s notepad, he’d written below Harris’ name: “Do not hold grudges” and “Great respect for her.”

Biden did not field a question specifically about Harris. But he has praised her extensively, and he’s confirmed in recent weeks that his short list for vice president includes several women of color. His decision is expected to have unusual importance given his age, 77, and the fact that he’s a white man leading a diverse party.

Recent polls have shown Biden leading Trump nationally and in many competitive states that determine the Electoral College outcome. But Biden’s aides are keenly aware that Hillary Clinton lost key battleground states four years ago in part because of a drop in turnout among nonwhite voters from what President Barack Obama drew in 2012.

As part of his attacks on Trump’s approach to race, Biden blasted the president for ordering federal

authorities to intervene against protesters in places like Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, while small businesses around the country continue to struggle or shut down because of the coronavirus.

The president, Biden said, is trying to distract and scare voters. Biden said most demonstrators are “peaceful protesters” who don’t require a response from the federal government. “Arsonists and anarchists should be prosecuted,” Biden said, and “local law enforcement can do that.”

Still, Biden said, “This election is not just about voting against Donald Trump. It’s about rising to this moment of crisis, understanding people’s struggle and building a future worthy of their courage and ambition to overcome.”

And he said that means thinking about every policy debate in terms of structural inequalities.

Maurice Mitchell, a prominent figure in the

Movement for Black Lives and national director of the Working Families Party, said there are some “promising items” in Biden’s proposals, but added, “There’s more we need.” Looking beyond the campaign, Mitchell said, “It’s not a matter of what’s in Biden’s platform.”

Instead, he said, “The power of the movement in the streets will dictate the results of a Biden administration.

Fortunately, the movement for racial justice has never been stronger.”

Specifically, the former vice president wants to take $30 billion, or 10% of the federal investment he’s already promised as part of larger economic plans, and funnel it into a “Small Business Opportunity Fund” designed to leverage $5 of private investment for minority owned enterprises for each $1 in public funds allocated. He also plans to spend $50 billion to provide startup capital to help entrepreneurs of color start businesses in disadvantaged areas.

(AP) - President Donald Trump is painting a dystopian portrait of what Joe Biden’s America might look like, asserting crime and chaos would ravage communities should the former vice president win the White House in November.

Left unsaid: A recent surge in violent crime in several American cities has happened on his watch.

“Irony is way down the list of things that President Trump worries about,” said Robert Spitzer, a political scientist at the State University of New York College at Cortland whose research focuses on gun politics and the American presidency. “He’s turning to the old playbook — appeal to the fears of Americans and then associate those fears with the Democratic Party, specifically Joe Biden.”

Trump’s attempt to cast Biden in that light follows a pattern seen throughout his presidency, where he attempts to shift responsibility, often to President Barack Obama, even more than three years after taking office.

With echoes of Richard

Nixon’s law-and-order campaign in 1968 — when American streets were rife with racial protests and Nixon campaigned vowing to crack down and restore order in an appeal tailored to white voters — Trump is trying to energize his conservative base while also making an appeal to a small patch of undecided voters by posing the question: Which man will keep you safer?

By leaning hard on select scenes of violence, Trump is banking on that unrest continuing. But the protests could wane. Violent crime around the U.S. has been on a downward trajectory for the better part of the last three decades.

Lanae Erickson, a senior vice president for social policy and politics at the center-left think tank Third Way, said Trump’s attempt to use the Nixon playbook and tap into anxieties about crime is odd given that, unlike Nixon in 1968, Trump is already in the White House.

“Trump is the incumbent, so if bad things are happening right now, they get blamed on him,” Erickson said. “I don’t know

how he can persuade voters that it’s Joe Biden’s fault.”

Trump has tried to paint Biden as captive of his party’s most liberal elements who’ve called to dramatically reshape policing in America.

His campaign has aired advertising in battleground states showing a woman calling police for help as an intruder breaks into her home and getting a voice recording informing her that, because the police have been defunded, no one is available to take her call.

The Republican president recently tweeted a warning to “Suburban Housewives of America” that “Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your American dream.”

“With Biden, our country wouldn’t have a chance,” Trump told reporters Wednesday.

Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York have seen spikes in violent crime and homicides this year. And Trump has dispatched federal agents or announced plans to send agents to Albuquerque, New Mexico, Chicago, and Kansas City, Missouri, to try to stop the unrest. He’s

also sent federal agents to Portland, Oregon, to try to forcibly quell protests around the federal courthouse.

Trump, who has repeatedly fumed that cities hit by crimes spikes are all led

by Democrats, has tried to argue that Biden, at least implicitly, would condone unchecked violence.

Last week, Trump said he’d like to flood Chicago, which has seen a 51% increase in homicides and a 47% increase in shootings compared to the same time last year, with “50,000 or 75,000 people” and “solve it like you wouldn’t believe.”

But Trump said he wouldn’t do it because of a lack of cooperation from the city’s leadership.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Trump, despite his tough talk, has shown little interest in addressing a central issue driving the

violence in the city: About 60% of firearms recovered in crimes committed in Chicago were purchased outside Illinois.

“We need you, as President, to take a leadership role in enacting meaningful and common-sense gun legislation, which you so far have refused to do,” Lightfoot, a Democrat, wrote to Trump last week.

At the center of Trump’s attempts to cast Biden as weak on crime is pushing the unfounded notion Biden wants to defund the police.

In an interview with “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace, Trump incorrectly cited a charter between Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that was signed as part of the Unity Task Force, an effort to find common ground between the more moderate Biden backers and Sanders’ liberal supporters.

But the task force’s

recommendations for the Democratic platform doesn’t mention defunding police. Trump was unable to show Wallace language in the task force document that said as much.

Still, Trump campaign spokesperson Hogan Gidley hammered on the point during a Monday call to update grassroots activists on strategy.

“He has consistently been silent in the midst of communities devolving into lawlessness,” Gidley said of Biden. “The only time he does pop up out of his hidyhole, he says we’re going to defund the police.”

Peter Scharf, a criminologist at Louisiana State University School of Public Health who has advised the New Orleans Police Department’s reform efforts, said Biden’s stance on policing is complicated and one Trump will look to further muddy.

As crime surges, Trump warns of Biden’s America

Barr defends aggressive federal response to protests WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General William Barr defended the aggressive federal law enforcement response to civil unrest in America as he testified for the first time before the House Judiciary Committee, pushing back against angry, skeptical Democrats who said President Donald Trump’s administration is unconstitutionally suppressing dissent.

The hearing, held Tuesday as the late civil rights icon John Lewis lay in state steps away outside the Capitol, highlighted the wide election-year gulf between the two parties on police brutality and systemic racism in law enforcement. Massive protests have sparked unrest across the nation following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, and calls for police reform are growing louder.

But Barr said “violent rioters and anarchists have hijacked legitimate protests” and argued the violence taking place in Portland, Oregon, and other cities is disconnected from Floyd’s killing, which he called a “horrible” event that prompted a necessary national reckoning on the relationship between the Black community and law enforcement. But he also

said there was no systemic racism in law enforcement.

“Largely absent from these scenes of destruction are even superficial attempts by the rioters to connect their actions to George Floyd’s death or any legitimate call for reform,” Barr said of the Portland protests.

The hearing marks Barr’s first appearance before the committee after 18 months in office, bringing him faceto-face with the panel that voted last year to hold him in contempt and is holding hearings on what Democrats say is politicization of the Justice Department under his watch. But little new ground was uncovered; fuming Democrats often used their five minutes to lay out their frustrations and cut Barr off as he attempted to answer questions.

The hearing comes during a tumultuous stretch in which Barr has taken actions cheered by President Donald Trump but condemned by Democrats and other critics. Among them: the Justice Department’s decision to drop the prosecution of former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn and Barr’s urging for a more lenient sentence for Trump ally Roger Stone, a move that prompted the entire trial team’s departure.

Trump later commuted the sentence entirely.

The top Republican on the panel, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, used his opening statement to show an eight-minute video that spliced together images of violence by protesters around the country.

Democrats retorted with a video of their own of more peaceful protesters, shown

by Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline.

“We fought for democracy, for the right to speak freely and you are attempting to take that away,” Cicilline told Barr. “What’s worse, you’re doing it for the sole purpose of furthering the president’s political agenda and generating footage for Trump campaign commercials.”

Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said the Trump administration had “twisted the Department of Justice into a shadow of its former self,” serving the powerful before average Americans.

Nadler said Barr had “aided and abetted” Trump’s worst impulses and excoriated him and the Justice Department for turning a blind eye to necessary reforms to police departments, for dismissing Black Lives Matter protests and for flooding streets with federal agents to stop protesters.

DEAR ABBYBy Abigail Van Buren Man smitten by second cousin hides relationship from wife DEAR ABBY: Three months ago, my husband ran into a second cousin he hadn’t seen in 40 years. They were close for a short time during high school and saw each other a couple times after that.

I was not aware until recently that he had looked her up on social media and has been communicating with her every day since then. I didn’t think much of it when he did tell me -- until one night when he stayed on the computer with her until 3 a.m.

He has lied to me about the number of times he has been online with her and, if she calls or texts, he tells me it is someone else. She sent him pictures -- which I saw -yet he denied receiving them. One time he forgot to sign off on a message he sent and, of course, I read it. To my shock, he was confiding a lot of things he has done while married to me that I was unaware of. It hurt me deeply, and I told him so.

Recently I was in the hospital. When I called him a couple of times at night, he claimed he didn’t pick up because he was “tired.” I found out later he was on the computer with her.

I have asked him more than once why this relationship is so private, and he says they are just friends. But when I asked to see some of the things he has written to her, he refused to show me. I said fine, then I will ask HER. Well, he blew up!

When I told him it hurts me that he spends so much time with her in the evening, he didn’t give an answer. Am I overreacting? If so, can you please tell me how to settle down and deal with what is happening? -- COUSIN TROUBLE IN THE MIDWEST DEAR COUSIN TROUBLE: You are not overreacting. It’s time to do what you said you were going to do -- call the woman and ask her what has been going on.

After she fills you in, ask yourself if you still want to be married to a man who has cheated on you emotionally and probably physically.

If you feel there is any hope of saving your marriage, offer your husband the

option of seeing a marriage and family therapist together. However, knowing he has no compunction about lying to you or any respect for your feelings, you might prefer to simply consult a lawyer about what your next steps should be.

DEAR ABBY: I am an 18-year-old woman. My parents are divorced. My father says I should be out having fun and I owe no explanations to anyone. My mother, on the other hand, is very strict. I respect her wishes and don’t do what most people my age would do. I try to be very careful with what I say in any conversation with her, but it always ends up with her very angry toward me. I want to live my life or at least try to. What do I do? -- CLUELESS TEEN IN TEXAS DEAR TEEN: An 18-year-old should be carefree and engaged in self-discovery.

But people of every age are having to hunker down and curtail their social activities these days because their lives could depend on it. And as to owing no explanations to anyone, until you are self-supporting and on your own, you WILL have to be accountable.

Your mother may be feeling insecure because her daughter is now a young adult rather than her little girl who needs protecting. She may also be reacting to the “advice” your dad is doling out. You are going to have to figure out what triggers your mother’s anger during those conversations and find a happy medium.

------------------------------Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby. com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

To order “How to Write Letters for All Occasions,” send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $8 (U.S. funds) to: Dear Abby -- Letter Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. Shipping and handling are included in the price.

eEdition

GOP’s jobless benefit plan could mean delays (AP) - A Republican proposal to slash the $600 weekly benefit boost for those left jobless because of the coronavirus shutdown could result in weeks or even months of delayed payments in some states.

Older computer systems that took weeks to set up for the initial federal unemployment enhancement would need to be reprogrammed again twice under the GOP plan.

In Florida, state Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat from Orlando, said the state has not even gotten the original supplemental benefit to everyone entitled to it.

“So the idea of changing the current process that has taken us months to put into place, that is still not even perfect, is a scary thought,” she said.

“These changes, whatever they end up being, are going to create more bureaucratic layers for people to get the relief they need. Meanwhile we have bills to pay, we have to put food on the table, we have medical expenses and a lot of people are

suffering.”

How to handle unemployment is a fiercely contested part of the debate as Congress negotiates the latest relief legislation.

Democrats want to bring back the federally funded $600-a-week unemployment bonus that is expiring, saying it’s a way to keep families and the economy afloat in a time when there are far more people out of work than jobs available.

Republicans argue the current amount is so high that it encourages people to remain on unemployment. They want to reduce it in two steps: First, by cutting the benefit by twothirds — to $200 a week through September. Then they want to switch that flat rate to a percentage in which the unemployed would receive benefits equal to no more than 70% of their previous incomes in November and December.

The debate isn’t only about the economy and ideology. It’s also about what’s doable technologically, especially on software many states use

that dates to the 1970s.

Some states took a month to figure out how to process the initial $600 a week benefit when it went into place this spring, leaving laid-off workers in the lurch as the numbers of unemployed skyrocketed.

Last week, more than 16 million Americans were receiving unemployment benefits.

“Anything other than a flat rate would take time to program in our system because it would require individual income calculations for hundreds of thousands of Ohioans receiving unemployment benefits,” Bret Crow, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, said in an email.

He said it wasn’t clear how long it might take to switch the system.

In Tennessee, the Department of Labor and Workforce Development says it would need “ample time” to make changes; just how much depends on what the policy is.

Washington was among the first states to implement the $600 benefit boost. But Mike Faulk,

a spokesman for Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, said large-scale changes would slow down benefit payments and “put a significant burden on state unemployment agencies.”

The state’s employment security commissioner, Susan LeVine, wrote the state’s congressional delegation this month telling them, “Simply put, state unemployment systems cannot flip a switch overnight on August 1, 2020, and will require a transition period.”

In Louisiana, Gov. John Bel Edwards said he doesn’t believe any states’ unemployment systems could handle a variable federal benefit tied to a person’s previous earnings. He has encouraged Louisiana’s congressional delegation to back a flat unemployment benefit instead.

“If they go beyond that, I will tell you it will be very, very difficult to administer,” he said.

Democratic California Assemblyman David Chiu said the state is struggling to provide benefits on time as it is.

“I have no confidence they’ll be able to adjust,” he said. “To me, this is why I really hope that Congress will simply extend the $600 a week to make this as seamless as possible.”

Annelies Goger, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, a left-of-center public policy organization, said even a change in the flatrate boost could be delayed because states need to wait for federal guidance before implementing changes.

Switching to a percentage of income would be even harder, she said.

For instance, it would be hard to gather the data needed to determine the previous incomes for people who were self-employed or were gig workers. Such workers are generally not eligible for unemployment benefits, but they are under coronavirus relief legislation.

And Goger said it would take a lot of resources to modify a program twice that is scheduled to end in December.

“Most states are still very overloaded with initial claims every week

and are struggling to keep up with bottlenecks in the adjudication process and getting payments out accurately in a timely manner,” Groger said in an email.

“Any resources diverted from getting through those backlogs will delay getting relief to families that are struggling to pay rent and put food on the table.”

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said on the Senate floor Monday that the fallout from both delays and benefit reductions could be significant.

He pointed to an analysis from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute that found cutting the boost to $200 a week would result in 3.4 million more layoffs.

“The economy crashes, people are hurt, they get kicked out of their homes, they can’t feed their kids,” Schumer said. “The Republican proposal on unemployment benefits, simply put, is unworkable.

It will delay benefits for weeks if not months as we slide into a greater degree of recession.”

Trump administration won’t allow new DACA applications CHICAGO (AP) — The Trump administration said Tuesday that it will reject new applications and shorten renewal periods for an Obama-era program that shields young people from deportation, taking a defiant stance after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to let it be scrapped completely.

The move, detailed in a memo from Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, ended a month of uncertainty about how the administration would respond to its Supreme Court defeat in an election year that has President Donald Trump looking for ways to energize his base.

Wolf said the administration may try to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program again, casting it as a law enforcement issue that could contribute to illegal immigration. He said the federal government needs more time to consider next steps, presenting the measures as a temporary change.

“DACA makes clear

that, for certain large classes of individuals, DHS will at least tolerate, if not affirmatively sanction, their ongoing violation of the immigration laws,” Wolf wrote in the memo.

About 650,000 people are part of DACA, which allows young immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children to work and shields them from deportation.

Roughly 66,000 people meet age requirements to apply, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.

The government will deny all new applications, limit renewals to one year instead of two, and deny requests by DACA recipients to visit their home countries unless there are “exceptional circumstances.” Recipients may seek permission to return home for family events, such as funerals or weddings, and other reasons, though the Trump administration has generally denied them.

The Supreme Court ruled last month that

Trump failed to follow rule-making procedures when he tried to end the program, but the justices kept a window open for him to try again.

The White House has been devising plans to make another push to end DACA, though it was not immediately clear whether he would make the politically sensitive move before November’s election. Democratic rival Joe Biden wants to keep DACA unconditionally.

A federal judge in Maryland ruled earlier this month that the program should be restored to its original form, but the administration was mum until Tuesday on whether it would start accepting new applications. The White House anticipates legal challenges.

The administration’s monthlong silence had unnerved many DACA recipients and those who wanted to join. U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm of Maryland, an appointee of President Barack Obama, has given the administra-

tion until the end of Friday to update the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ website and start adequately explaining why applications are rejected.

Legal experts were skeptical of the Trump administration’s authority to roll back parts of the program.

“This is a move that is in defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling and a federal court ruling,” said Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, an immigration law professor at Penn State Law in University Park, Pennsylvania. “It’s a lawless landscape that we are in.”

Immigrant rights advocates blasted the move as cruel.

The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition accused the administration of further marginalizing immigrants. The American Business Immigration Coalition called it economically harmful. And the American Civil Liberties Union vowed to continue its yearslong fight to prevent the program’s

demise.

Laura Mendoza, a program manager at The Resurrection Project in Chicago, joined DACA in 2013 and will have to renew next year. She said the $495 annual renewal fee would be difficult for many to pay.

“It’s infuriating that we continue to be the punching bag for the administration,” she said of fellow DACA recipients. “The administration is slowly dismantling the program.”

Wolf, the Homeland Security chief, acknowledged that the $495 renewal fee will be a burden on DACA recipients who will have to apply annually instead of every other year, effectively doubling the cost. He said the department would consider lowering the fee.

Trump has tried unsuccessfully to work with Congress on a broader immigration package that would couple DACA with tougher enforcement measures. He has said lately that he would announce sweeping new steps on

immigration, a promise he reiterated Tuesday.

“We’re going to work with a lot of people on DACA,” Trump told reporters. “And we’re also working on an immigration bill, a merit-based system, which is what I’ve wanted for a long time.”

Trump said he would make DACA recipients “happy” without saying how.

Top Democrats urged for a legislative solution that would allow for a pathway to U.S. citizenship.

“With the presidential election just three months away, it’s clear the president will do everything possible to rally his supporters at the expense of Dreamers,” according to a statement from U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, referring to the name often used for DACA recipients.

“They shouldn’t have to live under the constant fear that DACA protections will be ripped away at any moment.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials say Russian intelligence officers are spreading disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic through English-language websites, trying to exploit a crisis that America is struggling to contain before the presidential election in November.

Two Russians who have held senior roles in Moscow’s military intelligence service known as the GRU have been identified as responsible for a disinformation effort meant to reach American and Western audiences, according to U.S. government officials. They were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly

and spoke on condition of anonymity Tuesday.

Russian officials on Wednesday rejected the accusations as “conspiracy theories” and a “persistent phobia.” One of the sites singled out by the U.S. posted a response denouncing as “categorically false” the American assertions that it was linked to the Russian military intelligence service or was involved in propaganda.

The information had previously been classified, but U.S. officials said it had been downgraded so they could more freely discuss it. Officials said they were doing so now to sound the alarm about the particular

websites and to expose what they say is a clear link between the sites and Russian intelligence.

Between late May and early July, one of the officials said, the websites published about 150 articles about the pandemic response, including coverage aimed either at propping up Russia or denigrating the U.S. Among the headlines that caught the attention of U.S. officials were “Russia’s Counter COVID-19 Aid to America Advances Case for Détente,” which suggested that Russia had given urgent and substantial aid to the U.S. to fight the pandemic, and “Beijing

Believes COVID-19 is a Biological Weapon,” which amplified statements by the Chinese.

The spread of disinformation, including by Russia, is an urgent concern heading into the November vote. U.S. officials want to avoid a repeat of the 2016 contest, when a Russian troll farm launched a covert social media campaign to divide American public opinion and to favor then-candidate Donald Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The U.S. government’s chief counterintelligence executive warned in a rare public statement Friday about Russia’s continued

use of internet trolls to advance their goals.

The pandemic and race relations and protests across the U.S. have offered fertile territory for misinformation or outfight falsehoods. Trump himself has come under scrutiny for sharing misinformation about a disproved drug for treating the coronavirus in videos that were taken down by Twitter and Facebook.

Officials did not say whether the effort behind these particular websites was directly related to the November election, though some of the coverage appeared to denigrate Trump’s Democratic

challenger, Joe Biden, and called to mind Russian efforts in 2016 to exacerbate race relations in America and spread corruption allegations against U.S. political figures.

U.S. officials have warned before about the spread of disinformation tied to the pandemic. But on Tuesday, they went further by singling out a particular information agency that is registered in Russia, InfoRos. It operates a series of websites — InfoRos.ru, Infobrics. org and OneWorld.press — that have leveraged the pandemic to promote anti-Western objectives and to spread disinformation.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Having endured what was surely a record-shattering slump last quarter, the U.S. economy faces a dim outlook as a resurgent coronavirus intensifies doubts about any sustained recovery the rest of the year.

A huge plunge in consumer spending as people stayed home and avoided shopping, traveling or gathering in crowds as the virus raged is estimated to have sent the economy sinking at a roughly 32% annual rate in the April-June quarter.

That would be more than

triple the previous worst quarterly economic fall, a 10% drop set in 1958. Depressed activity in such areas as business investment, home construction and government spending also likely contributed to the worst quarterly contraction on records dating to 1947.

On Thursday, the government will issue its first of three estimates of economic activity, as measured by the gross domestic product, for the April-June quarter.

So dizzying was the contraction last quarter

that most analysts expect the economy to manage a sharp bounce-back in the current July-September quarter, perhaps of as much as 17% or higher on an annual basis. Yet with the rate of confirmed coronavirus cases now rising in a majority of states, more businesses being forced to pull back on re-openings and the Republican Senate proposing to scale back the government’s aid to the unemployed, the economy could worsen in the months ahead.

The Trump administra-

tion is betting against that outcome in asserting that the economy will undergo a V-shaped recovery in which last quarter’s plunge would be followed by an impressive rebound in the current quarter — a hoped-for dose of good news that would be reported in late October, not long before Election Day. Yet many economists are talking about a different letter of the alphabet.

Noting that the economy can’t fully recover until the pandemic is defeated or a vaccine is widely available,

they envision a W-shaped scenario, in which a rebound in the current quarter would be followed by a sustained period of tepid growth or even outright recession.

“The markdowns are coming because of the clear economic damage the virus is doing,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, who said he believes the economy is losing jobs this month after two months of gains.

“We are going in reverse here,” Zandi said.

Analysts warn that the

outlook could darken still further if Congress fails to enact enough financial aid to replace the expiring $600-a-week federal boost in unemployment benefits or provide sufficient help for businesses and state and local governments. Senate Republicans released a $1 trillion proposal on Monday that falls far short of a $3 trillion measure the House has passed, leaving an enormous gap for Democrats and Republicans to bridge as some elements of Congress’ earlier emergency relief programs run out.

US officials blame Russia for spread of disinformation

US is expected to report record-breaking economic plunge

Timbers advance in penalty kick shootout LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Portland goalkeeper Steve Clark made up for his mistake late in the second half with a key save in the penalty shootout, and the Timbers advanced past FC Cincinnati into the quarterfinals of the MLS is Back tournament on Tuesday night.

Portland beat Cincinnati 4-2 in the shootout after the sides played to a 1-1 draw in regulation.

Clark’s blunder led to a penalty and Cincinnati’s tying goal in the 81st minute from Jürgen Locadia. But in the penalty shootout, Clark smothered Locadia’s attempt in the third round to give the Timbers the advantage.

Cincinnati’s Kendall Waston hit his shot over the crossbar in

the fourth round and Jaroslaw Niezgoda scored to close out the victory.

“If you knew Steve Clark, you would know he doesn’t need support. I love his personality,” Portland’s Sebastian Blanco said through an interpreter. “Steve knew about his mistake and he knew that he would save us.”

Diego Valeri, Felipe Mora and Blanco also scored in the shootout for Portland. The Timbers became the fifth Western Conference team to reach the final eight of the tournament and will face New York City FC in the quarterfinals on Saturday night.

“It wasn’t easy. The last few minutes were tough,” Portland coach Giovanni Savarese said.

“But we were able to go through and against a difficult team in a match that we knew was going to be very tough.”

Niezgoda gave Portland a 1-0 lead in the 67th minute. Blanco found Niezgoda open in the middle of the penalty area. Niezgoda controlled the pass with his right foot and poked the shot with his left past Cincinnati goalkeeper Przemyslaw Tyton. It was the first goal allowed by Cincinnati since the opening match of the tournament.

Portland’s goal came only a few minutes after Cincinnati appeared to take the lead. Mathieu Deplagne’s goal off a free kick was disallowed after a video review determined Deplagne was offside.

But Clark’s mistake gave Cincinnati a chance. Rather than picking up a loose Cincinnati pass, Clark attempted to play it with his feet. The ball bounced too far away and he clipped Allan Cruz while diving for the ball. Locadia converted the penalty to pull Cincinnati even.

Clark nearly gifted another goal five minutes later when he mishandled Siem De Jong’s shot from distance. But Locadia made an equally awful mistake in the 88th minute when he missed a wide-open attempt from inside the 6-yard box, sending his shot over the crossbar.

Cincinnati coach Jaap Stam thought his club was the dominant side in the latter stages of the match.

“I think we were the better team. We created. We dominated.

And then we got the equalizer eventually by getting the penalty,” Stam said. “And then after that we had a very big opportunity with Locadia to make the second one. Unfortunately, the ball didn’t go in and then you go to the penalties. Penalties, it’s always a gamble.”

Quarterfinals Thursday, July 30 Philadelphia Union vs. Sporting Kansas City, 5 p.m.

Friday, July 31 Orlando City vs. Los Angeles FC, 4:30 p.m.

Saturday, Aug. 1 San Jose Earthquakes vs. Minnesota United FC, 5 p.m.

New York City FC vs. Portland Timbers, 7:30 p.m.

Marlins season suspended through Sunday MIAMI (AP) — Major League Baseball suspended the Miami Marlins’ season through Sunday, and the Philadelphia Phillies will remain idled by the coronavirus pandemic until Friday, while the rest of baseball forges ahead with trepidation.

“There’s real fear, there’s real anxiety for me, for all my teammates,” Milwaukee Brewers slugger Ryan Braun said Tuesday. “I think we’ve found it very difficult to focus on baseball at all the last couple of days.”

In the wake of a virus outbreak that infected half the Marlins’ team, Braun said MLB players are constantly assessing whether they should keep playing. Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said the season could be in jeopardy.

But MLB came up with a patchwork schedule for the rest of this week and said that among more than 6,400 tests conducted since Friday, there were no new positives involving on-field personnel from any team other than the Marlins.

In a statement, MLB said it wanted to allow the Marlins time to focus on providing care for their players and to plan for a resumption of play early next week. MLB also postponed the three remaining games in this week’s Phillies-New York Yankees series.

The Marlins remained stranded in Philadelphia, where they played last weekend. The Phillies-Yankees games were postponed “out of an abundance of caution,” MLB said, although no Phillies players have tested positive.

The Marlins received positive test results for four additional players, bringing their total to 15, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press. The person declined to be identified because the results had

what happens with other teams on a day-by-day basis.”

His comments came before word of the Marlins’ latest test results.

“Major League Baseball — the players, the owners, the managers — have put a lot of effort into getting together and putting protocols that we feel would work,” Fauci said. “It’s very unfortunate what happened with the Miami (Marlins).”

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, speaking to reporters in

his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, expressed reservations about sports such as baseball and football being played during the pandemic, especially in the wake of the Marlins’ wave of infections.

“It seems to me that when you have to travel, when you have to be in a hotel room and places that are different than you’ve been the day before, when you are in a position where you’re walking, going into an area where there is a high concentration of spread of COVID, all those things add up to a real problem,” Biden said, “and we’re not going to really overcome that until we follow science and get a vaccine.”

In Cleveland, Chicago White Sox manager Rick Renteria returned to the team Tuesday after awakening with some COVID-19 symptoms a day earlier and being isolated for 24 hours.

And everyone across baseball seemed to be feeling uneasy.

“It’s important that we are able to provide a source of entertainment and an outlet for people who are dealing with such a challenging time in their lives,” Braun said. “But at the same time, the health and safety should be the top priority for all of us at all times. ...

“You think about all the hotel employees, bus drivers, pilots, flight attendants, anybody else all the Marlins guys might have come into contact with, and it’s obviously scary.”

The Marlins planned to remain in Philadelphia until at least Wednesday. The Philadelphia Department of Public Health said it was working with the Marlins and Phillies on contact tracing to contain the spread of the virus.

“All of our players, coaches and staff are, understandably, having a difficult time enduring this experience,” Marlins CEO Derek Jeter said.

There will be many instances where three games are happening at once. And there will be days that have games running for more than 10 consecutive hours.

After no basketball for what seemed like forever, a hoops smorgasbord awaits.

“It’s the biggest and best AAU tournament ever,” New Orleans coach Alvin Gentry said.

The biggest names are here: reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Bucks, LeBron James of the Lakers, scoring champion James Harden of Houston, plus the reigning Finals MVP and All-Star Game MVP in Leonard. Of the 25 players on this season’s All-Star rosters, 23 are at Disney and a 24th — Indiana’s Domantas Sabonis — may return if his injured left foot heals.

Also here: the defending champions. Toronto lost Leonard and Danny Green to the Clippers in free agency this past offseason — more than a year ago now. And then the Raptors laughed off suggestions that they

wouldn’t be good enough to make the playoffs. They enter the restart holding the No. 2 seed in the East, looking every bit like a team capable of another very deep run.

“We’ve been through it,” Raptors guard Fred VanVleet said.

“We never got the respect before the last couple months of last season. We’re not used to getting pats on the back or flowers, so it’s not really that different.”

There are eight teams not here — Golden State, which went to the NBA Finals in each of the last five seasons before sputtering through an injury-plagued year this season, among them.

The others whose seasons ended March 11: Minnesota, Cleveland, Detroit, Atlanta, New York, Charlotte and Chicago.

Ratings for the games at Disney are expected to be big. Every game will be televised, as usual.

A sprint to the playoffs is about to begin.

The longest timeout in NBA history is finally over. Game on, again.

Yankees-Phillies series suspended due to virus PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The remainder of the Phillies’ home-and-home series against the New York Yankees was postponed amid coronavirus concerns Tuesday in the wake of an outbreak involving another team.

The Phillies were supposed to host the Yankees on Monday and Tuesday and play them in New York on Wednesday and Thursday. Instead, the Yankees are planning to head to Baltimore to start a series against the Orioles on Wednesday.

“As of right now, we get to continue our season and we’re excited about the opportunity,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “2020 is unlike anything we’ve experienced.”

The Phillies were having a second round of COVID-19 tests Tuesday following an outbreak among the Miami Marlins, who played a weekend series in Philadelphia.

“The fact that we haven’t had anyone test positive yet is great, but there’s too much at stake when you talk about players and their health and their family’s health,” Phillies manager Joe Girardi said in an interview with MLB Network Radio. “There are guys that have little children at home or wives that are pregnant or a parent that is high risk. There’s too much at risk here not to say: ‘Hey, we’ve got to back off for two days and let’s make sure.’ I think it’s smart what baseball is doing here and then we’ll go from there. We had some players that probably had some trepidation (playing against the Marlins) on Sunday because there’s close contact.”

The Yankees spent Monday in a hotel in Philadelphia after the opener of the series was not been publicly released.

Nine players on the 30-man roster, two taxi squad players and two staff members tested positive earlier.

The Marlins had been scheduled to play at Baltimore on Wednesday and Thursday.

Instead, the Yankees will play at Baltimore on those days.

Miami’s three home games this weekend against Washington were postponed. Nationals players had voted against making the trip, manager Dave Martinez said.

“We all decided that it was

postponed. They were going to return to New York on Tuesday before rearranging the schedule to go to Baltimore.

Boone said some of the team’s equipment was en route to New York before being rerouted.

The Phillies are set to host Toronto on Friday, a series originally scheduled to be on the road that had to be switched because the Blue Jays’ temporary home ballpark in Buffalo, New York, isn’t ready yet. That series is pending the results of the team’s latest COVID-19 tests.

Blue Jays reliever Anthony Bass said the team has changed hotels so it won’t be staying where the Marlins did in Philadelphia. The Blue Jays were displaced from Toronto because health officials in Canada were worried about frequent travel by players throughout the U.S., one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic.

“There’s concerns from everybody, everywhere. We’re all trying to be safe,” Toronto manager Charlie Montoyo said.

Girardi said he had “anxious moments” waiting on his team’s test results.

“My fear always is, if there’s one person who has it, there’s probably more,” Girardi said. “I think we have to be really smart about this and after thinking about it, I think that this could happen more than one time with an organization.

If everyone doesn’t play 60 games, I think that’s all right. We want to get to the playoffs. That’s the important thing. If a team plays 57 games, you go by winning percentage to take the playoff teams and you go from there.”

probably unsafe to go there,” Martinez said. “It had nothing to do with the Miami Marlins. It was all about Miami and the state of Florida, this pandemic. They didn’t feel safe.”

The Marlins underwent another round of tests Tuesday, as their outbreak raised anew questions about baseball’s attempts to conduct a season.

“This could put it in danger,” Fauci said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “I don’t believe they need to stop, but we just need to follow this and see

NBA finally set for games that count again Thursday LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Games were canceled.

Practice facilities were shuttered.

A season ended unceremoniously for eight teams. The draft process was delayed, as was free agency.

Some players tested positive for the coronavirus. Many more took to the streets and used their voices to demand justice and equality as racism and police brutality sparked a nationwide conversation.

The world has changed since the NBA stopped on March 11.

For 22 franchises, however, there is a goal that remains in place.

The NBA, at long last, is officially back. A re-opening night doubleheader inside the bubble at Walt Disney World awaits Thursday, when New Orleans takes on Utah before a matchup of the two teams in the Western Conference — the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers.

There won’t be any fans in attendance, health and safety protocols that were painstakingly written in response to the coronavirus pandemic will be paramount, and teams can’t

even shower in the arena after games. But after 20 weeks of waiting, wondering and worrying, the 2019-20 NBA season is ready to hit the restart button with a champion scheduled to be crowned in October.

“Nobody’s life is pretty much how they planned it to be at this point with the pandemic, so you take it for what it is,” Clippers forward and reigning NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard said. “Everybody is happy that a champion will be crowned this year, and if that’s the 2020 championship, then we want it. You know, that’s how I look at it. This is what the layout is, as far as to go out there and complete this journey.”

The field for the 16-team playoff bracket that will be finalized next month is already largely filled — 12 of the 22 teams at Disney have clinched spots and Dallas is on the brink of another one. It leaves three teams vying for two spots in the Eastern Conference, and six teams for one spot in the Western Conference.

For the front-runners like the

NBA-leading Milwaukee Bucks and West-leading Lakers, the eight remaining games before the playoffs are about tuning up their games. For most of the other teams that have clinched berths, it’s about securing the best possible playoff seed. And for the hopefuls, it’s about finding a way to get into the field and stay at Disney at least a couple weeks longer than planned.

“We want to get back to work,” said San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich, whose Spurs will aim to become the first franchise in league history to make 23 consecutive playoff appearances. “We want to do what we’re all used to doing. We want to do as much as we can, safely, to energize the country, to play the games we all love. And as long as we can do that safely, it’s a big win for everybody.”

Starting Friday and running through Aug. 14, there will be at least four and sometimes as many as seven games per day, spread out over a three-arena corner of the Disney complex.

FOUR-DAY FORECAST FOR NORTH BEND TONIGHT THURSDAY FRIDAY

Partly cloudy

Times of clouds and sun

LOW: 51° 65° LOCAL ALMANAC

67°

55°

Yesterday Year to date Last year to date Normal year to date

0.00" 27.95" 41.56" 36.86"

SUN AND MOON

Sunset tonight Sunrise tomorrow Moonrise tomorrow Moonset tomorrow

Last

New

City

Florence Reedsport

50/65

51/70

8:42 p.m.

6:05 a.m.

5:47 p.m.

2:10 a.m.

First

South Coast Tonight Thu.

51°

64°

62°

56°

62/92

10:10 a.m.

9:20 p.m.

Charleston 10:15 a.m.

9:25 p.m.

Coos Bay 11:41 a.m.

10:51 p.m.

Florence 10:59 a.m.

10:09 p.m.

Port Orford 10:07 a.m.

9:00 p.m.

Reedsport 11:07 a.m.

10:26 p.m.

Half Moon Bay 10:28 a.m.

9:30 p.m.

95°

Klamath Falls

52/94

67/104

Thursday ft.

Low

4.9 7.3 5.3 7.9 5.1 7.6 4.5 6.8 4.9 7.6 5.1 7.8 4.8 7.4

3:38 a.m.

3:10 p.m.

3:36 a.m.

3:08 p.m.

5:04 a.m.

4:36 p.m.

4:34 a.m.

4:06 p.m.

3:25 a.m.

2:44 p.m.

4:38 a.m.

4:10 p.m.

3:49 a.m.

3:15 p.m.

ft.

-0.4 2.7 -0.4 2.9 -0.3 2.5 -0.3 2.3 -0.4 3.1 0.1 2.8 -0.4 2.8

95°

Friday

High

ft.

Low

11:15 a.m.

10:15 p.m.

11:20 a.m.

10:20 p.m.

12:46 p.m.

11:46 p.m.

12:04 p.m.

11:04 p.m.

11:09 a.m.

9:54 p.m.

12:12 p.m.

11:20 p.m.

11:32 a.m.

10:25 p.m.

5.2 7.3 5.6 8.0 5.4 7.7 4.8 6.9 5.3 7.7 5.3 7.9 5.2 7.5

4:36 a.m.

4:15 p.m.

4:34 a.m.

4:13 p.m.

6:02 a.m.

5:41 p.m.

5:32 a.m.

5:11 p.m.

4:22 a.m.

3:50 p.m.

5:36 a.m.

5:11 p.m.

4:47 a.m.

4:21 p.m.

North Coast Tonight Thu.

52°

71°

0s

Snow

10s

NATIONAL CITIES

63/97

Medford 65/100

-0s

Showers

Flurries

20s

30s

Ice

Cold Front

40s

National high: 120° at Death Valley, CA

55/92

Ashland

64°

-10s

Rain

50s

60s

Warm Front 70s

80s

Stationary Front

90s

100s

110s

NATIONAL EXTREMES YESTERDAY (for the 48 contiguous states)

Chiloquin

Willamette Valley Portland Area Tonight Thu. Tonight Thu.

58°

T-storms

Beaver Marsh

Butte Falls

66/101

High

Shown are tomorrow’s noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.

54/92

Toketee Falls

53/91

Gold Hill Grants Pass

54/94

Crescent

64/97

Bandon

67° 104°

La Pine

Canyonville

66/100

Rogue Valley Tonight Thu.

57/96

60/92

63/95

Powers

Location

59/99

Sunriver

Oakridge

Roseburg

Port Orford

52/62

Bend

Oakland

Coquille

54/64

60/99

58/94

58/93

50/70

Sisters

Cottage Grove

57/91

51/65

TIDES

71/52/c 101/53/s 64/50/pc 93/53/pc 95/54/pc 94/49/s 101/61/s 104/66/s 59/45/c 105/69/s 95/63/pc 102/56/s 95/60/pc 95/57/pc 106/70/pc

Curry Co. Coast Tonight Thu.

52°

58/95

55/86

59/84

Thu.

REGIONAL FORECASTS

67°

58/95

Drain

Elkton

Coos Bay / North Bend

50/63

Hi/Lo Prec. Hi/Lo/W

Astoria 68/56 0.00 Burns 93/50 0.00 Brookings 65/51 Trace Corvallis 93/57 0.00 Eugene 94/59 0.00 Klamath Falls 91/53 0.00 La Grande 93/59 0.04 Medford 102/69 0.00 Newport 46/37 0.00 Pendleton 102/72 0.00 Portland 89/61 0.00 Redmond 95/58 0.00 Roseburg 98/65 0.00 Salem 91/61 0.00 The Dalles 98/74 0.00

54°

Springfield

Eugene

Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2020 Yesterday

67°

Bandon

Aug 11 Aug 18 Aug 25

OREGON CITIES

Periods of clouds and sunshine

57/93

Gold Beach Aug 3

Mostly cloudy

Halsey

Yachats

65°/53° 65°/53° 73° in 1940 43° in 2010

PRECIPITATION

SUNDAY

Shown is tomorrow’s ow’s weather. Temperatures are tonight’s lows and tomorrow’s highs.

48/62

High/low Normal high/low Record high Record low

Full

Sun and areas of low clouds

52°

North Bend Tuesday

TEMPERATURE

NATIONAL FORECAST SATURDAY

ft.

-0.8 2.8 -0.9 3.0 -0.7 2.6 -0.7 2.4 -0.9 3.2 -0.2 2.9 -0.8 2.9

Central Oregon Tonight Thu.

56° 102°

Thu.

Fri.

National low: 38° at Bodie State Park, CA

Thu.

Fri.

Thu.

Fri.

City

Hi/Lo/W

Hi/Lo/W

City

Hi/Lo/W

Hi/Lo/W

City

Hi/Lo/W

Hi/Lo/W

Albuquerque Anchorage Atlanta Atlantic City Austin Baltimore Billings Birmingham Boise Boston Buffalo Burlington, VT Caribou, ME Casper Charleston, SC Charleston, WV Charlotte, NC Cheyenne Chicago Cincinnati Cleveland Colorado Spgs Columbus, OH Concord, NH Dallas Dayton Daytona Beach Denver Des Moines Detroit El Paso Fairbanks

96/67/s 72/58/pc 85/73/t 89/75/pc 96/76/pc 95/73/pc 94/63/c 84/72/t 106/72/s 87/69/pc 81/64/pc 84/64/pc 78/61/pc 84/52/s 88/76/t 85/69/t 89/73/t 75/53/s 81/67/pc 81/68/t 82/65/pc 83/56/s 86/69/pc 87/60/pc 95/78/s 85/68/pc 90/75/c 85/57/s 80/65/t 82/63/pc 105/79/s 79/55/pc

89/64/s 67/57/c 88/72/c 82/73/t 98/74/s 90/74/t 94/65/s 89/72/pc 104/67/s 85/69/s 80/63/pc 83/67/pc 76/56/c 86/52/s 92/77/pc 83/68/t 90/72/t 79/53/s 80/64/pc 82/65/t 79/63/pc 81/57/s 83/65/c 86/61/pc 89/74/t 81/64/c 93/74/pc 84/58/pc 82/63/pc 81/63/pc 98/74/s 76/56/pc

Fargo Flagstaff Fresno Green Bay Hartford, CT Helena Honolulu Houston Indianapolis Kansas City Key West Las Vegas Lexington Little Rock Los Angeles Louisville Madison Memphis Miami Milwaukee Minneapolis Missoula Nashville New Orleans New York City Norfolk, VA Oklahoma City Olympia, WA Omaha Orlando Philadelphia Phoenix

83/62/s 90/54/s 103/70/s 78/57/s 90/65/pc 93/60/pc 87/75/pc 94/78/c 81/69/pc 79/66/pc 91/83/s 111/85/s 79/67/t 89/71/t 90/68/s 78/71/t 80/58/pc 85/74/t 93/81/t 77/67/s 82/62/pc 97/58/pc 81/74/t 92/78/c 92/72/s 94/76/t 88/68/t 91/53/pc 83/64/t 91/75/c 94/74/s 117/89/s

85/62/t 91/56/s 103/70/s 77/57/s 89/65/pc 95/62/c 88/75/s 96/78/pc 80/66/pc 79/61/c 89/80/s 112/87/s 81/65/t 84/67/t 94/68/s 83/67/t 79/58/pc 86/72/t 93/79/pc 76/63/pc 83/64/s 99/58/c 85/72/r 93/77/pc 84/72/t 92/77/t 81/65/t 79/53/c 84/63/c 93/76/pc 86/71/t 116/91/s

Pittsburgh Pocatello Portland, ME Providence Raleigh Rapid City Redding Reno Richmond, VA Sacramento St. Louis Salt Lake City San Angelo San Diego San Francisco San Jose Santa Fe Seattle Sioux Falls Spokane Springfield, IL Springfield, MA Syracuse Tampa Toledo Trenton Tucson Tulsa Washington, DC W. Palm Beach Wichita Wilmington, DE

85/66/pc 94/53/s 87/68/pc 91/70/pc 90/72/t 78/59/t 102/65/s 98/61/s 94/71/pc 97/59/s 83/68/t 100/71/s 99/74/s 80/69/pc 72/55/pc 81/57/pc 92/60/s 88/62/pc 84/61/c 102/69/pc 79/65/pc 88/62/pc 82/64/pc 92/79/c 85/64/pc 93/71/pc 109/83/s 89/69/t 95/76/pc 91/79/t 84/66/t 93/71/pc

82/65/pc 98/55/s 82/66/s 85/68/sh 90/73/t 83/59/s 103/65/s 97/60/s 89/73/r 98/59/s 80/64/t 102/77/s 97/70/t 83/69/pc 73/57/pc 81/58/s 84/56/s 81/60/c 85/64/pc 101/66/s 79/62/pc 88/63/s 83/63/pc 93/78/t 83/62/pc 86/68/t 110/82/s 79/66/t 88/76/t 91/79/pc 83/63/t 86/70/t

Weather (W): s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain, sf-snow flurries, sn-snow, i-ice, Prec.-precipitation.

NASCAR champ Johnson excited about IndyCar Driver in his final season of NASCAR tests out IndyCars JENNA FRYER

Associated Press

Jimmie Johnson finally fulfilled his childhood dream of driving an Indy car with a test session Tuesday. When the seven-time NASCAR champion finished turning laps, he was sold on figuring out how to race next year in the IndyCar Series.

“It only lit the fire more.

I want to do this more than ever before,” Johnson said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “It was something new, something different. NASCAR has been so good to me and I am so proud of the success I’ve had. But to try something new, man, this was really cool.”

Johnson initially thought his racing career would take him into IndyCar, the series he followed as a child, but the path instead veered into NASCAR. He’s put together one of the

most successful careers in series history, but the 44-year-old will retire from full-time NASCAR competition at the end of this season.

He won’t stop competing, though, and Johnson has already put in motion a plan he hopes will get him into some IndyCar events next year. An initial test with McLaren was canceled when sports shut down in the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic; Johnson’s positive coronavirus test earlier this month pushed a test with Chip Ganassi Racing to Tuesday.

Even as he headed to Indianapolis Motor Speedway at the start of the day, he fretted that something would spoil his long-awaited opportunity.

“Third time was a charm, but I was worried something would jinx it,” he said.

Nothing spoiled his day, which Johnson likened to a “first day of school.” He drove the same car Felix Rosenqvist raced on the Indy road course earlier this month and had five-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon on hand as his driver coach.

“He was very impressive.

There was no trying to do too much,” Dixon told AP. “He was texting me last night, asking me all sorts of questions, if there were tricks for getting out of the pits, how to handle a turn, those kind of things. He was just super amped up and just excited to finally get there.”

It was a busy session for Johnson, who was trying to learn the car while also testing new cockpit cooling advances for the series. The Ganassi team had five sets of tires for the session and with the track temperature nearing 140 degrees, the degradation came quickly.

Johnson also spun twice during the day — once in the first turn of the road course when he had too much rear brake and a second time in the fourth turn when he just lost the car. He took pride in keeping it out of the grass both times, but he flat-spotted an already limited allotment of tires.

“By the end of the day they were mix-matching tires, giving me mixed sets, just to let me have more laps,” Johnson said.

Johnson had previously said this test would determine if

pursuing IndyCar was worth his time — he had joked he’d know quickly if he was any good at it — and after nearly eight hours with the Ganassi team, he was undeterred.

“When I got in the car, I needed two sessions to let my eyes adjust. Things were coming up on me pretty quick,” Johnson said. “Right before lunch, we started finding a groove. In the beginning of the day I was finding big chunks, but the track was going away while my ability was increasing.”

Dixon was impressed with Johnson’s ability to process information and apply feedback, particularly since he’s one of the most accomplished NASCAR drivers in history. Dixon said it was difficult to assess Johnson’s pace because the track was green and the temperatures were so hot but estimated Johnson was running similar to how series regulars were earlier this month in “the mid-to-late stint of the race we had. But you’ve got no benchmark. It’s a big unknown.

“For a guy who has done what he’s done, he was still

Racial equality statements begin to unfold amid NHL restart

League plans to feature social justice issues during opening ceremonies STEPHEN WHYNO Associated Press

Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins players lined up shoulder to shoulder during the U.S. and Canadian anthems before the first exhibition game of the NHL’s restarted season, while members of the Boston Bruins plan to lock arms for the songs to promote racial equality.

The league said it would feature Black Lives Matter and other social justice issues during opening ceremonies this weekend in Toronto and

Edmonton, Alberta. NHL executive Steve Mayer expects other demonstrations to happen organically.

That began Tuesday afternoon with orange and white jerseys alternating along the two blue lines at Scotiabank Arena. Flyers center Sean Couturier, who scored during his team’s 3-2 overtime victory, said players discussed it before the game.

“It was something for equality and justice, (anti) racism,” Couturier said.

“It was to respect people, your opponent. We’re a pretty big rival, but at least it shows the way that we have respect for each other, the same as in life.”

Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby highlighted that “a lot has happened” since the last NHL game in March before play was halted by the COVID-19

pandemic.

“We felt, both teams, that it was important to show unity given what’s gone on and just wanted to be part of the solution moving forward,” Crosby said.

Earlier Tuesday, the Bruins became the first team to announce its intentions to highlight racial injustice as part of what players said is “a sign of solidarity with the Black community.”

“Over the past several months we have been trying to educate ourselves and learn more about racial injustice in our country and around the world,” Bruins players said in a statement. “This action is solely intended to be a positive sign of support for the Black community and a way for us to use our platform to help end

NORTHWEST NORTHWESTSTOCKS STOCKS Closing and 8:30 a.m. quotes: Stock Close Open Intel 49.22 48.27 Kroger 35.21 34.97 Microsoft 202.24 203.81 Nike 96.26 97.25

NW Natural 55.09 55.06 Skywest 29.21 28.42 Starbucks 74.72 77.62 Umpqua Hldgs 10.84 10.86 Weyerhaeuser 27.26 28.30 Xerox 15.20 15.06

racism.”

Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Seth Jones hinted Monday at a possible arrangement with the Bruins, their opponent in an exhibition game Thursday.

“We may do something with them before the game and just show a united front that we’re all here, we all care and we’re all trying to make a difference in the world,” said Jones, who is Black. “Obviously we’re trying to create a cultural change, not just in hockey but around the world.”

The NBA painted “Black Lives Matter” on courts at Walt Disney World for the basketball season’s restart and allowed players to replace the names on the back of their jerseys with references to racial injustice.

Major League Baseball inverted its initials on the field to read “BLM” for Black Lives Matter last week.

The NHL has signs saying #WeSkateFor Equality inside the arenas where games are being held.

Mayer, the league’s chief content officer and senior executive vice president of events and entertainment, said tributes to COVID-19 front-line workers and the Black Lives Matter movement will be part of a “powerful opening evening” Saturday.

“We’ll see how our players react naturally to what we will present opening night, but there will be some moments within the opening night ceremony that will touch on Black Lives Matter and social justice,” Mayer said.

pretty excited,” Dixon said. “The passion that he has for racing and trying something different, he was typical Jimmie, just the way he applies himself. He’s never pushy. He’s constantly asking questions, how to be better, how do I do this.

“He was really methodical, he was really good at being able to copy stuff and he was really adaptive, which isn’t always easy, especially at our age.”

Johnson still hopes to test with McLaren later this year and is determined to get into road or street course races in 2021. He’s softened his stance toward racing on ovals and the Indianapolis 500 because of IndyCar safety advancements, but said Tuesday that 2022 is probably the earliest he could consider expanding his schedule.

He also noted that his IndyCar future is contingent on finding sponsorship and hoped a successful first test will spark conversations about funding.

“Hopefully today was the day to create a springboard,” Johnson said. “The more I can be in a garage, the more excitement I can generate, the better chances.”

Mahommes invests in Royals KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes is joining the ownership group of the Kansas City Royals.

The Royals announced the addition of Mahomes, the star quarterback who led the Kansas City Chiefs to a Super Bowl title last season, on Tuesday. Mahomes was once a baseball prospect and was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in 2014.

“I’m honored to become a part owner of the Kansas City Royals,” Mahomes said in a statement. “I love this city and the people of this great town. This opportunity allows me to deepen my roots in the community, which is something I’m excited to do.”

NORTHWEST STOCKS LOTTERY Levi Straus 12.57 12.40 Dow Jones closed at 26,385.18 NASDAQ closed at 10,402.09 S&P 500 closed at 3,218.27 Provided by Coos Bay Edward Jones

MegaMillions July 28 17-20-27-31-34 Megaball: 19 Multiplier: x4 Jackpot: $22 million

Powerball July 25 5-21-36-61-62 Powerball: 18 Multiplier: x2 Jackpot: $126 million

Megabucks July 27 3-8-20-25-36-42 Jackpot: $4.6 Million

Win For Life July 27 6-10-13-16 Pick 4 July 28 0-9-0-5