w080520

eEdition

BECOMING CLOUDY 68 • 57 | WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2020 | theworldlink.com

Follow us online:

facebook.com/theworldnewspaper

twitter.com/TheWorldLink

instagram.com/theworldlink

Worries about accuracy of Census grow Prize ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The U.S. Census Bureau is cutting its schedule for data collection for the 2020 census a month short as legislation that would have extended the national head count’s deadlines stalls in Congress. The move is worrying researchers, politicians and others who say the change will miss hard-tocount communities, including minorities and immigrants, and produce less trustworthy data.

The Census Bureau said late Monday that the door-knocking and ability for households to respond either online, by phone or by mail to the questionnaire will stop at the end of September instead of the end of October so that it can meet an end-of-theyear deadline to turn in numbers used for redrawing congressional districts.

Census experts, academics and civil rights activists worry

the sped-up count could hurt its thoroughness and produce inaccurate data that will have lasting effects through the next decade.

The count determines how $1.5 trillion in federal spending is distributed and how many congressional districts each state gets.

“This move will rush the enumeration process, result in inadequate follow-up, and undercount immigrant communities and communities of color who are historically undercounted,” U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, wrote Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham in a letter Tuesday.

In the letter, Maloney, a Democrat from New York, requested interviews before her committee with eight Census Bureau officials, including two recent additions to the bureau’s leadership whose appointments by the

Trump administration have been sharply criticized as politically driven.

But Dillingham said the agency aimed to have the same level of responses as past censuses.

“We will improve the speed of our count without sacrificing completeness,” he said.

If communities are missed, it will have “a large downstream impact” not only on apportionment but social science research and other Census Bureau surveys that rely on the once-a-decade census, said David Van Riper, director of spatial analysis at the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation.

“It’s interesting that this is happening now because all of the COVID databases are using population data from the census,” Van Riper said. Data used from an inaccurate count during

a pandemic like the one the U.S. is experiencing “would give us a false perception of what’s going on on the ground,” he added.

As of Monday, 37% of U.S. households hadn’t yet responded to the census questionnaire.

Some of the 500,000 door knockers hired by the Census Bureau have begun visiting those households, but they weren’t expected to go out in force until next week.

An analysis by the CUNY Center for Urban Research shows that 10 states currently are trailing their 2010 self-response rates by 5 to 10 percentage points, meaning they will require a greater share of door-knocking than they did a decade ago.

Those states are Alaska, Montana, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Please see Census, Page A2

Myrtle Point High School demolition

John Gunther, The World

An excavator for Staton Companies of Eugene moves debris from the first portion of Myrtle Point High School to be demolished this week. The work to tear down the condemned portion of the building that opened in 1925 started on Monday and quickly the part of the building that used to house the cafeteria, among other rooms, became a pile of rubble.

Study: Many Americans don’t have enough assets to withstand 3 months without income MOLLY ROSBACH

Oregon State University

CORVALLIS — A new study from Oregon State University found that 77% of low- to moderate-income American households fall below the asset poverty threshold, meaning that if their income were cut off they would not have the financial assets to maintain at least poverty-level status for three months.

The study compared asset poverty rates in the U.S. and Canada. Canada’s asset poverty rate has improved over the past 20 years while the U.S. rate has worsened, but still, 62% of lowto moderate-income Canadians also fall below the asset poverty threshold.

The implications of these findings have become starkly apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic, said David Rothwell, lead author on the study and an associate professor in OSU’s College of Public Health and Human Sciences.

“The fact that the U.S. safety net is so connected to work, and then you have this huge shock to employment, you have a system that’s not prepared to handle such a big change to the employment system … It results concretely in family stress and strain, and then that strain and stress relates to negative out-

David Rothwell comes for children and families,” Rothwell said.

The study, published last week in the journal Social Policy Administration, looked at financial assets such as stocks, bonds and mutual funds, rather than real assets like houses and property, because financial assets are easier to cash in and use in an emergency. Existing research has found that U.S. wealth inequality is more pronounced that income inequality.

Researchers used data from nationally representative financial surveys in Canada and the U.S. from 1998 through 2016, looking at low- to moderate-income households, defined as

those in the bottom 50% of income distribution in each country, headed by working age adults age 25-54.

Rothwell and co-authors Leanne Giordono from OSU and Jennifer Robson from Carleton University in Ontario, Canada, were investigating how asset poverty changed over time in the two countries and how that change was affected by changes in transfer share — the portion of household income that comes from government assistance.

They chose the U.S. and Canada because of their close geographic proximity and similar legal traditions but significantly different welfare policies.

In 1998, Canada’s asset poverty rate among low- to moderate-income households was 74%, compared with 67% in the U.S. The two rates were nearly identical in 2005, then Canada’s kept falling and the U.S. rate kept rising, arriving at 62% and 77% in 2016.

Canada spends twice what the U.S. does on financial assistance for families, and much of it is spent in cash benefits, rather than in-kind benefits like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP, formerly food stamps) in the U.S. In 2016, 96% of low- to moderate-income Canadian households received some transfer income from the government. In the U.S., that number was 41%.

For the most part, results showed that more generous welfare policies were associated with greater rates of asset poverty in Canada, Rothwell said. There, as the government reduced the amount of public assistance families received as a proportion of their income over time, asset poverty improved.

However, he said, this relationship between welfare generosity and asset poverty should be interpreted as correlational, not causal, and the topic warrants further study. Because the levels of public assistance are greater in

Please see Income, Page A2

found in Treasure Hunt The World The search is over in the Coos County Treasure Hunt.

Michelle Lee of Charleston found the treasure over the weekend and earned the $500 prize.

“I’m so excited,” Lee said.

“It’s been the joy of my life.”

Lee and her husband, Robert, followed along with the clues, at one point looking for broken bridges in the Coquille area before narrowing their search to John Topits Park.

“There for a while, we were really overthinking it,” she said, adding that the couple followed the clues for the past several weeks. “This brought us back to Empire Lakes again, but we were not sure what we were looking for.”

“We looked for a couple days.

I was at work and my husband called me and said, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s in a stump between the trail and the water.’

“We pulled in. It was like 11 a.m. on Saturday and there was nobody there. He was at pole No. 22 and I was at Pole No. 24. We called each other and just kept talking as we went.”

Lee said she saw a lot of wildlife while searching for the stump, including a squirrel that ran over her foot “It was a woodsy experience,” she said. “I was shocked. I saw this hole in the stump. I saw something shiny. I thought I would put my hand in there.”

Trump signs Great American Outdoors Act WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed legislation Tuesday that will devote nearly $3 billion a year to conservation projects, outdoor recreation and maintenance of national parks and other public lands following its overwhelming approval by both parties in Congress.

“There hasn’t been anything like this since Teddy Roosevelt, I suspect,” Trump said, seemingly comparing himself to the 26th president, an avowed environmentalist who created many national parks, forests and monuments that millions of Americans flock to each year.

Supporters say the Great American Outdoors Act is the most significant conservation legislation enacted in nearly half a century. Opponents countered that the money isn’t enough to cover the estimated $20 billion maintenance backlog on federally owned lands.

At a White House bill-signing ceremony, Trump failed to give Democrats any credit for their role in helping to pass the measure, mispronounced the name of one of America’s most famous national parks, blamed a maintenance backlog that has been decades in the making on the Obama administration and claimed to have deterred a march to Washington that had been planned to tear down monuments in the nation’s capital. No such march was ever planned.

The Great American Outdoors Act requires full, permanent funding of the popular Land and Water Conservation Fund and

Please see Act, Page A2

eEdition

342 new COVID-19 cases, 5 new deaths PORTLAND — COVID-19 has claimed five more lives in Oregon, raising the state’s death toll to 333, the Oregon Health Authority reported Tuesday.

Oregon Health Authority also reported 342 new confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19, bringing the state total to 19,699. The new cases reported today are in the following counties: Baker

Oregon’s 329th COVID-19 death is an 89-year-old woman in Malheur County who tested positive on July 19 and died on July 27 at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. She had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 330th COVID-19 death is an 88-year-old woman in Yamhill County who tested positive on July 30 and died on August 1 in her

residence. She had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 331st COVID-19 death is an 87-year-old man in Clackamas County who tested positive on July 7 and died on July 28 at Kaiser Permanente Westside Medical Center. He had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 332nd COVID-19 death is an 88-year-old man in Morrow County who tested

positive on July 27 and died on August 2 at Good Shepherd Health Care System. He had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 333rd COVID-19 death is a 96-year-old woman in Malheur County who tested positive on July 27 and died on August 2 at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Presence of underlying conditions is being confirmed.

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.

Income Canada than the U.S., it’s hard to extend results from one country to the other, but when controlling for demographic characteristics, researchers found that decreasing transfer share has no impact on the risk of asset poverty in the U.S. “What stands out there is, so few American families receive any type of transfers at all, compared to other countries, and small adjustments to an

already minimal safety net was not related to asset poverty in this study,” Rothwell said. In contrast, Canadian families receive a child benefit, a monthly cash payment of several hundred dollars to help with the cost of raising a child.

Many safety net programs, including Medicaid and SNAP, also disincentivize saving because they impose asset limits on people seeking assistance. Rothwell calls these a “poverty trap.”

“If you have someone who’s low-income and they are working hard trying to save money but you’re telling them that they’re going to lose benefits if they save over some given threshold, that’s a disincentive to accumulate wealth,” he said.

Rothwell notes that asset poverty rates are much higher among people of color, due to decades of discriminatory laws and policies that prevented Black people, in particular, from buying and owning homes

or securing well-paying jobs.

“This is the story of COVID, as I see it — it’s just exposing these existing inequalities, and the people who are most vulnerable going into the crisis are magnified in their vulnerability getting through it,” Rothwell said.

A study coming out later this year from the same research team will look specifically at racial and ethnic asset disparities and how they impact people’s health, he said.

the “last administration.”

The House and the Senate cleared the bill by overwhelming bipartisan margins this summer, including significant support from congressional Democrats. No Democratic lawmakers attended the ceremony and Trump, in his remarks, credited only Republicans.

Asked why Democrats weren’t recognized, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said it was because Democrats and Republicans — including the administration — have yet to agree on extending now-expired coronavirus relief payments and protections.

Her answer focused on Senate Democrats’ rejection of a proposal by Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., for a one-week extension of a special federal unemployment benefit. She ignored that Senate Republicans themselves are divided over how to proceed on a larger relief package.

“The only thing we’re recognizing about congressional Democrats right now is how appalling it is that there are Americans who are going without paychecks because they refused to partner with Martha McSally, Republicans and the president in ensuring that those payments go out.”

Among the bills’ congressional champions are Republican Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Steve Daines of Montana. Both are among the Senate’s most vulnerable incumbents, and each one represents a state where the outdoor economy and tourism at sites such as the Rocky Mountain and Yellowstone national parks play an outsize role.

Daines and Gardner persuaded Trump to support the legislation, which Gardner has made the cornerstone of his reelection campaign.

Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington

state, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Tom Udall of New Mexico all were instrumental in getting the bill passed. Cantwell has spent years working to reauthorize and fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and she worked with Gardner and Daines to make it happen.

“For all of us who’ve fought for years to protect our public lands and invest in our outdoor recreation economy, today is a historic win for America’s beloved shared spaces,” Cantwell said in a statement that criticized environmental and public health rollbacks

by Trump that benefit the oil and gas industry.

The law’s mostly Republican opponents complained it would not eliminate an estimated $20 billion maintenance backlog on 640 million acres (259 million hectares) of federally owned lands. The legislation authorizes $9.5 billion for maintenance over five years.

Lawmakers from Gulf Coast states also complained that their states get too small a share of revenue from offshore oil and gas drilling that is used to replenish the conservation fund.

Ivanka Trump, the Republican president’s daughter and adviser who supported the legislation, described it at the ceremony as a “great legacy” for the administration as well as the country.

In discussing the beauty of national parks Tuesday, President Trump tripped over one name when he referred to Yosemite’s towering sequoia trees.

He twice mispronounced “Yosemite’s” as yoh-SEH’mytz instead of yoh-SEM’it-eez.

Trump also claimed an executive order highlighting the threat of up to 10 years in prison for defacing federal monuments was the reason a march to Washington for the sole purpose of destroying statues was

canceled.

People protesting racial injustice after George Floyd’s death in police custody in May began toppling monuments around the country of Confederate and other figures considered racist, but no such march to Washington was ever planned.

“They were having a march on Washington to knock down a lot of monuments, and I signed it before the march,” Trump said of the executive order he signed June 26. “We announced it at a news conference that you go to jail for 10 years if you knock down a monument, and the march to Washington never happened. I don’t know — that’s strange how that all works. Isn’t it, though?

Isn’t that a beautiful thing?”

The Rev. Al Sharpton is planning a march on Washington for Aug. 28, the anniversary of the 1963 march in the nation’s capital led by Martin Luther King Jr.

Congress should task an independent institution to measure whether the 2020 count matches the outcomes of previous censuses, and if not, recommend what steps should be taken, said the letter signed by Vincent Barabba, Robert Groves, Kenneth Prewitt and John Thompson.

Facing delays caused by the pandemic, the Census Bureau had earlier this year pushed back wrapping up field operations for the once-a-decade head count from the end of July to the

end of October.

The bureau also asked Congress in April to extend the deadline for turning in apportionment data used for drawing congressional districts from Dec. 31, 2020, to April 30, 2021. Top Census Bureau officials have said it would be impossible to meet the end-of-the-year deadline, and that the bureau expected bipartisan support for the request.

The request passed the Democratic-controlled House as part of corona-

virus-relief legislation but it hasn’t gone anywhere in the Republican-controlled Senate. The chamber’s inaction coincides with a memorandum Trump issued last month to try to exclude people living in the U.S. illegally from being part of the process for redrawing congressional districts.

Civil rights groups, states, cities and individuals have filed at least a half-dozen lawsuits challenging the memorandum as unconstitutional and an

attempt to limit the power of Latinos and immigrants of color.

The request to Congress also asked that the deadline for turning in data used for drawing legislative and local districts be extended from March 30, 2021, to July 31, 2021, but the Census Bureau is now aiming to finish those responsibilities by the end of March.

Maloney on Tuesday introduced an update to the legislation pending in Congress that would give the Census Bureau more

time by pushing back the deadlines to the later dates.

Critics say the move to speed up the deadlines is just the latest Trump administration effort to politicize the 2020 census, starting with a failed attempt to add a citizenship question to the form.

“This is nothing but a disgusting power grab from an administration hell-bent on preserving its fleeting political power at all costs,” said Julie Menin, census director for New York City.

(2), Benton (3), Clackamas (21), Clatsop (1), Columbia (5), Coos (3), Crook (1), Deschutes (8), Douglas (5), Harney (2), Hood River (5), Jackson (17), Jefferson (13), Josephine (1), Klamath (2), Lane (12), Linn (1), Malheur (33), Marion (23), Morrow (11), Multnomah (57), Polk (4), Tillamook (2), Umatilla (61), Union (4), Wasco (1), Washington (29), and Yamhill (15).

Sawdust Theatre seeks board members The World COQUILLE — Those interested in serving on the Sawdust Theatre Board for the next three years are asked to contact vice president Butch Schroeder at butchschroeder@gmail. com or 541-756-4572, or secretary Susie Breuer at

Act From A1

addresses the maintenance backlog facing national parks and public lands. The law would spend about $900 million a year — double current spending — on the conservation fund and another $1.9 billion per year on improvements at national parks, forests, wildlife refuges and range lands.

Trump in the budget proposals he has sent to Congress had previously recommended cutting money allocated to the fund, but reversed course and requested full funding in March.

Interior Secretary David Bernardt said the law will help create more than 100,000 jobs.

The maintenance backlog has been a problem for decades, through Republican and Democratic administrations. Trump falsely claimed it was caused by

Census From A1

Texas and Wyoming.

Four former Census Bureau directors who have served in both Democratic and Republican administrations warned in a letter that cutting short the door-knocking phase would force the bureau to rely on administrative records and statistical techniques to fill gaps on a much larger scale than in previous censuses.

susietyner@yahoo.com or 541-297-1292 Contact must be made with one of them before 7 p.m., Aug. 11.

Per board approval at the August meeting, candidates will be placed on the ballot for the Sawdust Theatre general meeting on Sept. 8.

From A1

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!

Licensed & Bonded

CCB# 210749

Branching Out TREE SERVICE & Landscape Maintenance

HAZARDOUS TREE REMOVAL

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

Free Estimates!

Call Today!

541-260-8837

Rod’s Landscape

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

Lic. #7884 Visa/MC accepted

541-404-0107

Coastal Window Coverings Quality Products at Competitive Prices FREE ESTIMATES FREE INSTALATION Blind Repair Availilble

Knox and Ginny Story 541-271-5058

Call today to get your custom ad started

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

541-266-6060

CCB# 129529

541-266-6060 www.theworldlink.com

eEdition Tropical storm Isaias kills at least 6 WINDSOR, N.C. (AP) — At least six people were killed as Tropical Storm Isaias spawned tornadoes and dumped rain Tuesday along the U.S. East Coast after making landfall as a hurricane in North Carolina, where it caused floods and fires that displaced dozens of people.

Two people died when Isaias spun off a tornado that struck a North Carolina mobile home park. Another person died in Pennsylvania when their vehicle was overtaken by water and swept downstream.

Two others were killed by falling trees toppled by the storm in Maryland and New York City, and a sixth person died in Delaware when a tree branch fell on them, authorities said.

Isaias sustained top winds of up to 65 mph (105 kph) more than 18 hours after coming ashore, but it was down to 45 mph max winds as of 10:50 p.m. EDT Tuesday, according to the National

Hurricane Center. The storm’s center was about 45 miles southeast of Montreal, moving northeast into Canada at about 38 mph (61 kph).

As Isaias sped northward, flooding threats followed. The Schuylkill River in Philadelphia was projected to crest early Wednesday at 15.4 feet (4.7 meters), its highest level in more than 150 years. By Tuesday night, the river had already topped its banks in low-lying Manayunk, turning bar-lined Main Street into a coffee-colored canal.

Aerial video by WRALTV showed fields of debris where rescue workers in brightly colored shirts picked through splintered boards and other wreckage of the Windsor, North Carolina, mobile home park where two people were killed. Emergency responders searching the area Tuesday afternoon found no other casualties, and several people initially

feared missing had all been accounted for, said Ron Wesson, chairman of the Bertie County Board of Commissioners. He said about 12 people were hospitalized.

“It doesn’t look real; it looks like something on TV. Nothing is there,” Bertie County Sheriff John Holley told reporters, saying 10 mobile homes had been destroyed. “All my officers are down there at this time. Pretty much the entire trailer park is gone.”

In eastern Pennsylvania, a 44-year-old Allentown woman was killed after encountering high waters on a street in Upper Saucon Township that swept her vehicle downstream Tuesday afternoon, the Lehigh County coroner’s office said.

While in New York City, a massive tree fell and crushed a van in the Briarwood section of Queens, killing Mario Siles, a 60-year-old construction contractor who was inside

the vehicle, police said. A woman in Mechanicsville, Maryland, died when a tree crashed onto her car during stormy conditions, said Cpl. Julie Yingling of the St. Mary’s County sheriff’s office.

In Delaware, authorities said a woman was outside assessing storm damage when she was hit and killed by a falling tree branch.

Isaias toggled between hurricane and tropical storm strength as it churned toward the East Coast. Fueled by warm ocean waters, the storm got a late burst of strength as a rejuvenated hurricane with top sustained winds of 85 mph (136 km/h) before coming ashore late Monday near Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. Its tropical storm status was sustained, but weakened, as it headed north into Canada on Tuesday night.

Before making landfall late Monday, Isaias killed two people in the

Caribbean and battered the Bahamas before brushing past Florida.

Tornadoes were confirmed by the National Weather Service in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey. Power outages also spread as trees fell, with more than 3.7 million customers losing electricity across multiple states as of 10:15 p.m.

EDT Tuesday, according to PowerOutage.US, which tracks utility reports. New York City’s power utility said it saw more outages from Isaias than from any storm except Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

In Doylestown, Pennsylvania, officials said four children were treated for minor injuries after high winds partially tore the roof off a day care center. Also in the Philadelphia suburbs, rescue workers in Delaware County were searching for a young person who fell or jumped into the fast-moving water of a swollen creek, said Timothy Boyce,

the county emergency services director.

In New York City, fierce wind and rain forced the Staten Island ferry and outdoor subway lines to shut down. The New Jersey Turnpike banned car-pulled trailers and motorcycles.

Some of the worst damage Tuesday seemed to be east and north of where the hurricane’s eye struck land in North Carolina.

“Fortunately, this storm was fast-moving and has already left our state,” Gov. Roy Cooper said Tuesday afternoon.

In North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the storm sent waves crashing over the Sea Cabin Pier late Monday, causing a big section to collapse into the water as startled bystanders taking photos from the pier scrambled back to land.

“I’m shocked it’s still standing,” said Dean Burris, who watched from the balcony of a vacation rental.

Fireworks, Ammonium nitrate likely fueled Beirut explosion (AP ) - Fireworks and ammonium nitrate appear to have been the fuel that ignited a massive explosion that rocked the Lebanese capital of Beirut, experts and videos of the blast suggest.

The scale of the damage — from the epicenter of the explosion at the port of Beirut to the windows blown out kilometers (miles) away — resembles other blasts involving the chemical compound commonly used as an agricultural fertilizer.

But the compound itself typically doesn’t detonate on its own and requires another ignition source. That likely came from a fire that engulfed what initially appeared to be fireworks that were stored at the port.

Online videos of the disaster’s initial moments

show sparks and lights inside the smoke rising from the blaze, just prior to the massive blast. That likely indicates that fireworks were involved, said Boaz Hayoun, owner of the Tamar Group, an Israeli firm that works closely with the Israeli government on safety and certification issues involving explosives.

“Before the big explosion, you can see in the center of the fire, you can see sparks, you can hear sounds like popcorn and you can hear whistles,” Hayoun told The Associated Press. “This is very specific behavior of fireworks, the visuals, the sounds and the transformation from a slow burn to a massive explosion.”

Jeffrey Lewis, a missile expert at the Middlebury Institute of International

Studies in Monterey, California, offered a similar assessment.

“It looks like an accident,” Lewis told the AP. “First, there was a fire preceding the explosion, which is not an attack. And some of the videos show munitions what I could call popcorning, exploding like ’pop, pop, pop, pop.’”

He added that “it’s very common to see fires detonate explosives.”

“If you have a fire raging next to something explosive, and you don’t put it out, it blows up,” he said.

The white cloud that accompanied the massive blast appeared to be a condensation cloud, often common in massive explosions in humid conditions that can follow the shock waves of an explosion, Lewis said.

Orange clouds also followed the blast, likely from toxic nitrogen dioxide gas that’s released after an explosion involving nitrates.

Experts typically determine the power of the blast by measuring the crater left behind, which appeared massive in aerial footage shot on Wednesday morning by the AP. The Beirut blast, based on the crater and glass windows being blown out a distance away, exploded with the force equivalent to detonating at least 2.2 kilotons of TNT, said Sim Tack, an analyst and weapons expert at the Texas-based private intelligence firm Stratfor.

What initially started the fire at the port remains unclear. Beirut was sunny before Tuesday’s explo-

sion, with a daily high of 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit).

Lebanese Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi, in comments to a local TV station, made no mention of ignited fireworks but said it appeared the blast was caused by the detonation of more than 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate that had been stored in a warehouse at the dock ever since it was confiscated from a cargo ship in 2014. That amount could cause the explosive force seen in the blast Tuesday, Tack said.

Based on the timeline and the size of the cargo, that ship could be the MV Rhosus. The ship was initially seized in Beirut in 2013 when it entered the port due to technical problems, according to lawyers involved in the case. It

came from the nation of Georgia, and had been bound for Mozambique.

“Owing to the risks associated with retaining the ammonium nitrate on board the vessel, the port authorities discharged the cargo onto the port’s warehouses,” the lawyers wrote in a 2015 article published by shiparrested.com. “The vessel and cargo remain to date in port awaiting auctioning and/or proper disposal.”

It remains unclear what conditions the ammonium nitrate had been stored in — or why tons of an explosive chemical compound had been left there for years. Lebanon already was on the brink of collapse amid a severe economic crisis that has ignited mass protests in recent months.

Oregon summer church DEAR ABBYBy Abigail Van Buren camp has virus outbreak Dad feels helpless to mend PORTLAND (AP) — At least 25 campers and staff members at a camp east of Portland, Oregon have tested positive for COVID-19.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports the virus was first detected July 18 at Trout Creek Bible Camp near Corbett when a staff member tested positive, and the camp shut down for the season July 21.

Multnomah County health officials say the outbreak has grown to a total of 11 campers and 14 staff members -- all age 20

or younger.

The camp’s executive director, Joe Fahlman, said the camp followed all requirements set forth by the Oregon Health Authority. Those include daily temperature checks of all campers and staff, frequent hand washing, hand sanitizer stations spaced throughout the 265acre grounds and dividing children into static groups of 10 campers or less who didn’t mingle with campers from other groups.

Under rules set forth by

Gov. Kate Brown and the Oregon Health Authority, campers until late last month couldn’t be required to wear masks -- and most didn’t, Fahlman said. Most of the camp was held outdoors.

The Oregon Health Authority hasn’t reported any other outbreaks at summer camps in Oregon, although the agency says it won’t make public positive tests at camp or daycare settings unless at least 30 students attend and at least five cases have been detected.

BOSTON (AP) — Fourth of July gatherings, graduation parties, nomask weddings, crowded bars — there are reasons the U.S. has racked up more than 155,000 coronavirus deaths, by far the most of any country, and is fast approaching an offthe-charts 5 million confirmed infections, easily the highest in the world.

Many Americans have resisted wearing masks and social distancing, calling such precautions an overreaction or an infringement on their liberty. Public health experts say the problem has been compounded by confusing and inconsistent guidance from politicians and a patchwork quilt of approaches to containing the scourge by county, state and federal governments.

“The thing that’s maddening is country after country and state after state have shown us how we can contain the virus,” said Dr. Jonathan Quick

of the Duke Global Health Institute. “It’s not like we don’t know what works.

We do.”

Confirmed infections in the U.S. have topped 4.7 million, with new cases running at more than 60,000 a day. While that’s down from a peak of well over 70,000 in the second half of July, cases are on the rise in 26 states, many in the South and West, and deaths are climbing in 35 states.

On average, the number of COVID-19 deaths per day in the U.S. over the past two weeks has gone from about 780 to 1,056, according to an Associated Press analysis.

In Massachusetts, health officials are investigating at least a half-dozen new clusters of cases connected to such events as a lifeguard party, a high school graduation party, a prom party, an unsanctioned football camp and a packed harbor cruise trip.

One recent house party on Cape Cod attended by

as many as 60 people led to more than a dozen new cases and prompted some restaurants to close or limit service at the height of tourist season.

Hot spots around the U.S. are popping up in what once seemed like ideal places to ride out the outbreak: rural, less populated and with lots of outdoor space. In South Dakota, a spike erupted at a Christian youth summer camp in the Black Hills, with cases growing to 96 among 328 people who attended.

“We’re at a point where there’s enough spread of COVID-19 that people throughout the U.S. are at an increased likelihood of encountering the virus and getting exposed,” University of Florida epidemiologist Dr. Cindy Prins said.

She added: “This is a behavioral disease right now for a lot of people.”

Prevention means “changing our behavior, and it’s so hard for humans to do.

We’re social creatures.”

US nears 5 million virus cases

teenager’s crisis of identity

DEAR ABBY: My 14-year-old daughter recently came out of the closet, and it has made my husband and me quite upset. She says she is “bicurious, pansexual and polyamorous.” She now insists everyone call her by a gender-neutral name, gave herself a side shave and dyed her hair pink after we repeatedly told her not to. She wants us to refer to her as “they” and not “she.”

Boys used to like her, and she used to have friends, but she threw it all away to be “unique.” You may think we should let her be true to herself, but in the process, she is disrespecting us and ruining her image. She thinks she’s all grown up and can do whatever she wants, and I just can’t get through to her.

She is also letting herself go. She used to be in good shape, but she quit track and field because it was a “gender-conforming” sport. She is now getting chubby, looks horrible and is depressed.

Help! -- DAD WITHOUT ANSWERS DEAR DAD: Your daughter may, indeed, be depressed. She’s at an age where she is trying to figure out who she is, and because she has lost her friends and her parents are mad at her, I can understand why.

It is very important that you not panic.

Her hair will grow back; her gender identity and sexual orientation will be confirmed with time. The most important suggestion I can offer would be to love your daughter, stop criticizing her and make an appointment for you and your husband to talk with a psychologist with expertise in adolescents. Above all, she needs the support of her parents right now.

DEAR ABBY: I met this beautiful woman online three months ago. We haven’t met in person yet, but plan to.

We spend at least eight hours a day online together, and our relationship has really advanced. I know she’s real and not a “catfish” because we talk about everything. We even tell each other the L word.

My dilemma is, she has a second Facebook account and absolutely refuses to accept my friend request. She says she needs her privacy, and it’s none of my

business. She also tells me her friends on that page are all male co-workers.

She said she prefers to have mostly male friends in her life.

Am I wrong to be upset if she refuses to let me see that profile or be one of her friends there? Am I asking too much? I asked her what happened to transparency, but she won’t answer that question either. What’s going on here? -- STUCK ON HER IN PENNSYLVANIA DEAR STUCK: Although you have spent a lot of time online with this woman, your relationship is still new. As your relationship proceeds, how will you feel about the fact that most of her friends are other men?

I DO think there is something going on, which is the reason she doesn’t want you to see that account. The most important question is: Do you trust her?

You won’t know the answer to that until your relationship has developed further.

So stop using the L word until you know her much, much better.

DEAR ABBY: My husband of 11 years told me that when his former mother-in-law dies, he would like to go to the funeral. He was friendly with her before he married her daughter. I’m not OK with this. What do you think? -- UNUSUAL IN THE SOUTH DEAR UNUSUAL: If your husband feels the need to pay his respects to his former mother-in-law, he should do it.

And when he does, it would be nice if you were at his side, supporting him in his grief.

------------------------------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.

For an excellent guide to becoming a better conversationalist and a more sociable person, order “How to Be Popular.” Send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $8 (U.S. funds) to: Dear Abby, Popularity Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Shipping and handling are included in the price.)

eEdition

Progress remains slow on virus relief bill WASHINGTON (AP) — Frustrated Senate Republicans re-upped their complaints that Democratic negotiators are taking too hard a line in talks on a sweeping coronavirus relief bill, but an afternoon negotiating session brought at least modest concessions from both sides, even as an agreement appears far off.

Top Democrats emerged from a 90-minute meeting Tuesday with Trump administration officials to declare more progress. The Trump team agreed with that assessment and highlighted its offer to extend a moratorium on evictions from federally subsidized housing through the end of the year.

“We really went down, issue by issue by issue slogging through this. They made some concessions which we appreciated. We made some concessions that they appreciated,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “We’re still far away on a lot of the important issues but we’re continuing to go back.”

White House chief

of staff Mark Meadows said Tuesday’s session was “probably the most productive meeting we’ve had to date.” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the two sides set a goal of reaching an agreement by the end of the week to permit a vote next week.

“I would characterize concessions made by Secretary Mnuchin and the administration as being far more substantial than the concessions that had been made by the Democrat negotiators,” Meadows said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., issued a pointed reminder that she and Schumer are “legislators with long experience” and a track record of working complicated deals — a rejoinder to critics complaining that they are being too tough and that the talks are taking too long.

“We agree that we want to have an agreement,” Pelosi said. “Let’s engineer back from there as to what we have to do to get that done.”

Another glimmer of hope emerged as a key Senate Republican tele-

graphed that the party may yield to Democrats on an increase in the food stamp benefit as part of the huge rescue measure, which promises to far exceed a $1 trillion target set by the GOP. Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said Tuesday that “you can make an argument that we need some kind of an increase” in food stamps and that he’s raised the topic with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He added that an agreement on that issue could lead to further overall progress on the legislation, which remains stalled despite days of Capitol negotiations.

“They are taking a look at it and I think we can get a positive result,” Roberts told The Associated Press.

“If we can get a breakthrough on that, it could lead to some other stuff.”

The food stamp issue — left out of earlier relief bills — is a top priority for Pelosi, among other powerful Democrats, who have passed a 15% increase in the food stamp benefit

as part of their $3.5 trillion coronavirus relief bill.

The overall talks are grinding ahead slowly, though urgency is growing among Senate Republicans, several of whom face tough election races and are eager to deliver a bill before heading home to campaign this month.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Monday that the chamber should not go on recess without passing the huge relief measure, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., offered a jobless benefit proposal that’s more generous than a pending GOP alternative. Both are facing closer-than-hoped reelection bids in states that should be easy holds for Republicans.

Multiple obstacles remain, including an impasse on extending the $600-per-week pandemic jobless benefit aid to the renters facing eviction. The benefit has helped sustain consumer demand over recent months as the coronavirus has wrought havoc.

Pelosi wants to extend it through January at a $400 billion-plus cost, while Re-

publicans are proposing an immediate cut to $200 and then replacing the benefit with a cumbersome system that would attempt to provide 70% of a worker’s “replacement wage.”

They are also pressing for funding for the Postal Service. Schumer and Pelosi summoned Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to the Capitol on Wednesday to discuss the agency’s worsening performance and need for emergency funding.

“We’ve seen the delay of mail, and we’re very worried about that affect on the election,” Schumer said.

On the Senate floor, McConnell, R-Ky., continued to protest that Democrats are taking too tough a line.

But he signaled he’s far more flexible now than he was weeks ago.

“The American people in the end need help,” McConnell told reporters.

“And wherever this thing settles between the president ... and the Democrats is something I am prepared to support even if I have some problems with certain parts of it.″

Most members of the Democratic-controlled House have left Washington and won’t return until there is an agreement to vote on, but the GOP-held Senate is trapped in the capital.

Areas of agreement already include another round of $1,200 direct payments and changes to the Paycheck Protection Program to permit especially hard-hit businesses to obtain another loan under generous forgiveness terms.

The House passed a $3.5 trillion measure in May, but Republicans controlling the Senate have demanded a slower approach, saying it was necessary to take a “pause” before passing additional legislation. Since they announced that strategy, however, coronavirus caseloads have spiked and the economy has absorbed an enormous blow.

The Senate GOP draft measure carries a $1.1 trillion price tag, according to an estimate by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Republicans have not released any estimates of their own.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Republicans on Tuesday nominated Rep. Roger Marshall for the Senate over polarizing conservative Kris Kobach, heeding the party establishment’s advice as it tries to keep a normally safe seat out of play in what could be a difficult year for the GOP. Marshall prevailed comfortably in a crowded primary field with the backing of major farm, business and anti-abortion groups but without a pre-election endorsement from President Donald Trump sought

by Senate Majority Mitch McConnell and others for the two-term congressman for western and central Kansas. Marshall overcame Kobach’s reputation as a conservative firebrand and informal adviser to Trump.

Marshall will face Democratic state Sen. Barbara

Bollier, a former lifelong moderate Republican who received national attention at the end of 2018 by switching parties. GOP leaders have worried for months about Bollier’s ability so far to raise more in contributions than the top GOP candidates combined.

Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state, is nationally known for advocating restrictive immigration policies and alienated independent and moderate GOP voters in losing the Kansas governor’s race in 2018. Marshall and his allies made that loss a key issue as he and Kobach battled atop the GOP field.

Bob and Debbie Rosenberger said Kobach’s loss in 2018 was on their minds as they cast their Republican primary ballots for Marshall at a southwest Topeka church. The retired 62-year-

old postal worker and his wife, a retired, 63-year-old nursing home supervisor, said they are Trump supporters and believe Marshall will help him in the Senate.

As for Kobach, Bob Rosenberger said, “Bottom line, I just don’t trust him as much as Roger Marshall.”

The race for retiring four-term Republican Sen. Pat Roberts’ seat had national implications even though the GOP hasn’t lost a Senate contest in Kansas since 1932. Republicans are trying to keep their 53-47 Senate majority with competitive races in other states, including Arizona, Colorado and Maine.

Marshall immediately called for party unity at a watch party at a winery southwest of his central Kansas hometown of Great Bend. He told his supporters that the GOP’s Senate ma-

jority is at stake in his race and said he was strengthened by the contentious primary.

“I’ve always believed in this iron sharpening iron,” Marshall said in his livestreamed remarks. “After this primary, our swords are sharp and our shields are thick.”

Kobach said in his concession speech that he had faced a “very steep, uphill struggle” after telling reporters earlier in the day that the GOP establishment had a recent history of crushing conservatives like him. But he urged Republicans to get behind Marshall.

“We will hold this seat, and I will do everything I can to make sure that happens for the Republican Party,” Kobach said, speaking from Leavenworth, where he kicked off his campaign more than a year ago.

Even with Marshall as the nominee, the GOP faces a potentially competitive Senate race. Bollier had raised more than $8 million through July — and her campaign said Tuesday night that the total is now $9 million — a big sum in a low-cost media state like Kansas, with donations flooding in from outside the state.

Bollier said in an online primary victory speech each of the Republican candidates demonstrated that he would be a “yes man” for the party, calling it “the last thing we need right now.” Bollier has positioned herself as a “commonsense” political moderate, but the GOP is likely to try to paint her as too liberal for the state.

Bollier is a retired Kansas City-area anesthesiologist, while Marshall is an obste-

trician.

Marshall raised about $2.9 million and Kobach, a little more than $1 million.

Bob Hamilton, the founder of a Kansas City-area plumbing company, largely self-funded a campaign heavy on television ads with $3.5 million in personal loans. Those figures were all dwarfed by PAC spending in the primary, which totaled about $11 million.

Hamilton had a strong showing in running behind Kobach and Marshall in early returns.

Marshall, Kobach and Hamilton and eight other candidates made the field the largest for the GOP since the state began holding Senate primaries more than 100 years ago. Kansas has no runoff elections, so Marshall could win the nomination with 40% or less of the vote.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an abrupt reversal, President Donald Trump now is encouraging voters in the critical swing state of Florida to vote by mail after months of criticizing the practice, and only days after threatening to sue Nevada over a new voteby-mail law.

His encouragement follows a surge in Democratic requests to vote for mail in Florida, a state that Trump almost certainly must win to secure a second term.

Democrats currently have about 1.9 million Floridians signed up to vote by mail this November, almost 600,000 more than the Republicans’ 1.3 million, according to the Florida Secretary of State.

In 2016, both sides had about 1.3 million signed up

before the general election.

“Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True.

Florida’s Voting system has been cleaned up (we defeated Democrats attempts at change), so in Florida I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail!,” Trump tweeted Tuesday.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany rejected the notion that the president has changed his views. She said he supports absentee voting by mail for a reason, as opposed to states mailing out ballots to all voters regardless of whether they requested them. Most election officials say there is little effective difference between absentee voting

and voting by mail.

Trump elaborated on why he supports voting by mail in Florida, but not elsewhere.

“They’ve been doing this over many years and they’ve made it really terrific,” Trump said.

“This took years to do,” he added. “This doesn’t take weeks or months. In the case of Nevada, they’re going to be voting in a matter of weeks. And you can’t do that.”

Yet Florida hardly has a history of flawless elections, most notably in 2000 when the state’s disputed vote count had to be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court, delivering the presidency to George W. Bush over Al Gore.

Trump cited a New York race as an example

of what can go wrong, claiming no one could know the winner. In that race, a judge ruled Monday that about 1,000 disputed ballots should be counted. That will likely not affect the outcome since the incumbent, longtime Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney is leading her closest challenger by about 3,700 votes.

“I think they have to do the election over. That election is no good,” Trump said.

More voters during this year’s primary elections opted to vote by mail, and several states relaxed restrictions for voting absentee through the mail.

Trump himself voted by mail in the Florida primary earlier this year.

Five states have relied

on mail-in ballots since even before the coronavirus pandemic raised concerns about voting in person, but there is no evidence to support Trump’s assertion that voting by mail leads to widespread fraud.

Trump has gone so far as to suggest by tweet that the November election should be delayed “until people can properly, securely and safely vote.”

States that use mail-in votes exclusively say they have necessary safeguards in place to ensure that a hostile foreign actor doesn’t disrupt the vote.

Election security experts say voter fraud is rare in all forms of balloting, including by mail.

With Florida’s large retirement population, voting by mail is expected

to become a more popular option this November. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., was asked Saturday if he had concerns about the option.

“No, I’m not concerned about mail-in voting in Florida,” he said tersely.

Florida GOP officials welcomed Trump’s tweet.

“Thank you for the clarification Mr President!

This is very helpful,” said Joe Gruters, the chair of Florida’s Republican Party.

“Florida will deliver you the 29 electoral votes!”

Florida is considered a must-win state for Trump’s reelection prospects. Its presidential contests are usually close, with Trump winning by just 1.2 percentage points in 2016, and George W. Bush winning Florida by just 537 votes in 2000.

Marshall wins key Kansas GOP primary

Trump encourages mail voting in Florida

Protest leader Cori Bush wins Missouri primary (AP) - Cori Bush, a onetime homeless woman who led protests following a white police officer’s fatal shooting of a Black 18-yearold in Ferguson, ousted longtime Rep. William Lacy Clay Tuesday in Missouri’s Democratic primary, ending a political dynasty that has spanned more than a half-century.

Bush’s victory came in a rematch of 2018, when she failed to capitalize on a national Democratic wave that favored political newcomers such as Bush’s friend, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

But this time around,

Bush’s supporters said protests over the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis and outrage over racial injustice finally pushed her over the edge.

An emotional Bush, speaking to supporters while wearing a mask, said few people expected her to win.

“They counted us out,” she said. “They called me — I’m just the protester, I’m just the activist with no name, no title and no real money. That’s all they said that I was. But St. Louis showed up today.”

Bush’s campaign spokes-

woman, Keenan Korth, said voters in the district were “galvanized.”

“They’re ready to turn the page on decades of failed leadership,” Korth said.

Bush, 44, also had backing from political action committee Justice Democrats and Fight Corporate Monopolies this election.

She campaigned for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders during his presidential bid.

Bush’s primary win essentially guarantees her a seat in Congress representing the heavily Democratic St. Louis area. Missouri’s 1st Congressional District,

which encompasses Ferguson, has been represented

by Clay or his father for a half-century. Bill Clay served 32 years before retiring in 2000. William Lacy Clay, 64, was elected that year.

Clay didn’t face a serious challenger until Bush.

This year, he ran on his decades-long record in Congress.

“This election is a simple choice,” Clay said in a Monday statement. “Cori Bush’s Empty Rhetoric, or my record of real results and real reforms for the people.”

Both Clay and Bush are

Black, and Black residents slightly outnumber whites in the district that includes St. Louis and north St. Louis County.

Bush became ill while pregnant with her second child in 2001 and had to quit her job at a preschool. When she and her then-husband were evicted from a rental home, the couple, their newborn and 14-month-old son lived out of a Ford Explorer for several months.

Eventually, the couple divorced. Bush earned a nursing degree. She also became a pastor.

Michael Brown’s death

in 2014 in Ferguson vaulted her into another role: activist. She became a leader of some of the many protests that followed the fatal police shooting of the Black, unarmed 18-year-old. She was back on the streets in 2017 after a white St. Louis officer was acquitted in the shooting death of a Black suspect.

She continues to lead protests.

“She’s being buoyed by this movement, and the movement’s origin is in Ferguson,” Justice Democrats spokesman Waleed Shahid said.

Big Ten will begin season Labor Day weekend ERIC OLSON

Associated Press

The Big Ten released its 10game conference-only football schedule beginning as early as Labor Day weekend but cautioned Wednesday there is no certainty games will be played.

The Big Ten was the last of the Power Five conferences to announce its schedule as college football navigates how to play games amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’re approaching this entire process on a day-to-day basis,” Commissioner Kevin Warren said on the Big Ten Network.

“We’re gathering medical information daily, we’re communicating with all of our constituents in the Big Ten and communicating with student-athletes. This will not be a straight line this year.”

Under the revised schedule, teams will play conference opponents they originally were set to

meet and will have one additional cross-division game.

The regular season starts the weekend of Sept. 5 and runs through Nov. 21. There is a builtin cushion allowing for makeup games to be played, if necessary.

The 10 games would be played over at least 12 weeks, with each team having two open dates.

Nov. 28 also is available for makeup games.

If the coronavirus situation dictates, the season could start Sept. 12, 19 or 26.

The Big Ten championship game in Indianapolis remains scheduled for Dec. 5 but could moved as late as Dec. 19.

The conference will allow teams to begin preseason practices Friday, or earlier if a team’s season begins before Sept. 5.

At least four Big Ten football programs have been impacted by COVID-19. Outbreaks forced the shutdown of voluntary workouts at Ohio State, Michigan State,

Rutgers and Northwestern.

“In making this announcement, the Conference acknowledges that there is much work to be done on our campuses, in our communities and across the country to gain control of a virus that continues to spread at an alarming rate,” the conference said in a statement. “While the Conference remains hopeful for a September 2020 start in all fall sports, including football, issuing a schedule does not guarantee that competition will occur.

While our strategy is to continue planning for all fall sports, if the virus continues to spread among our students despite our many preventative measures, including testing and quarantine protocols, we are also prepared to delay or cancel competition pursuant to local and state public health orders or the recommendations of our medical experts.”

Please see Big 10, Page B3

UConn cancels football season STORRS, Conn. (AP) — UConn canceled its 2020-2021 football season Wednesday, becoming the first FBS program to do so because of the coronavirus pandemic, as other schools had taken the Huskies off their schedules and the governor was reluctant to allow UConn to travel to states with high infection rates.

“After receiving guidance from state and public health officials and consulting with football student-athletes, we’ve decided that we will not compete on the gridiron this season,” athletic director David Benedict said. ”The safety challenges created by COVID-19 place our football student-athletes at an unacceptable level of risk.”

UConn had been scheduled

to play its first season as an independent after leaving the American Athletic Conference.

The Huskies had already been taken off the schedules of Illinois, Indiana, Maine and Mississippi by those schools, and games against North Carolina and Virginia remained uncertain, UConn officials said. Many of the Power Five conferences are playing league-only games this season.

The Huskies began spring practice on Feb. 4 and were one of the only teams in the country to complete a full spring schedule. The team returned to campus in early July and no one has tested positive for the coronavirus, UConn officials said.

Please see UConn, Page B3

Portland holds off Houston in NBA restart LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Damian Lillard scored 21 points and Carmelo Anthony hit a big 3-pointer late to help the Portland Trail Blazers to a 110102 victory over the Houston Rockets on Tuesday night.

The Blazers led by one before Lillard made one of two free throws. Anthony’s 3 then extended the lead to 107-102 when less than a minute to go.

Lillard raved about the contributions of Anthony, who found a home with the Trail Blazers after spending several months without a team last year following a brief stint with the Rockets.

“I think it’s more disappointing that people are surprised by it,” Lillard said. “He’s a Hall of Famer ... he’s a great teammate and that’s what we expect from him.”

Coach Terry Stotts loves how Anthony has evolved to help his team.

“Earlier in his career, the ball would have been in his hands to start with,” Stotts said. “He has assimilated to his role and this team. He loves the game. He loves the camaraderie, he loves being in the NBA.” Lillard added two free throws and Anthony, who had 15 points and 11 rebounds, made one in the final minute to secure the victory for Portland, which is fighting for a playoff spot.

“We understand what’s on the line and we know what we got to do to to give ourselves a chance in the postseason,” Lillard said.

“And that’s what we’re doing.”

James Harden led Houston with 23 points and nine assists on a night he was slowed by foul trouble.

“I couldn’t be as aggressive as I

Race for eighth playoff spot in West is wild Blazers among teams battling for the final berth LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Devin Booker does not like the notion that the Phoenix Suns, whose playoff chances were beyond slim when the season was suspended, should simply be happy to be in the NBA’s bubble.

He sees it quite differently.

“People can say we have a nothing-to-lose mentality,” Booker said. “We don’t look at it like that.”

Hard to argue. The Suns, like a lot of other teams out West, have much to play for right now.

The best race in the bubble is the race for the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference — and the right to face LeBron James, Anthony Davis and the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs starting in a couple weeks. The Lakers have already clinched the No. 1 seed, and now get to sit back and watch the mayhem that’s about to happen.

Here’s the scenario: There

are nine days left in the race, with six teams, all with five games remaining, fighting for one spot. It’s looking more and more likely that a play-in series, which will occur if the teams finishing eighth and ninth are within four games of one another when the regular season ends, will happen.

And Booker, who fended off both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George on what became the winning jumper as time expired in Phoenix’s victory over the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday, has the Suns — who haven’t been to the playoffs since 2010 — right in the thick of things.

“This whole experience, just being here in the bubble, we wanted to come down here and make some noise,” Booker said. “And that’s what we’re doing.”

Memphis still has the upper hand on the No. 8 spot, though the Grizzlies’ grip is less than secure there and Portland got within 1 1/2 games of them by beating Houston on Tuesday night. Memphis is 0-3 inside the bubble, still has a brutal schedule and lost Jaren Jackson Jr. for the remainder of the sea-

son on Monday to a meniscus tear in his left knee.

As play starts Wednesday, the Grizzlies are still eighth — though Portland, San Antonio, Sacramento, New Orleans and Phoenix are all within that four-game cutoff to force a play-in series.

“We’re fighting,” San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said.

The Spurs are trying to become the first team in NBA history with 23 consecutive playoff appearances. Like the Suns, they were in a precarious spot when the season was halted because of the coronavirus pandemic on March 11.

But a couple wins in the bubble, combined with the play-in opportunity, has breathed new life into the Spurs’ chances as well.

“We’re here for a reason,” Spurs guard DeMar DeRozan said. “We’re here to compete no matter who we have, young guys, older guys, whoever.

Guys have been doing a great job stepping up, taking on the challenge. We’ve been going out there trying to compete for 48 minutes.”

Please see West, Page B2

wanted to being in foul trouble,” he said. “But we had a lot of open shots that if we make those those it’s a different ballgame.”

Jeff Green added a season-high 22 points as the Rockets lost for the first time in the

bubble after winning their first two games.

The Blazers were up by six midway through the final quarter after CJ McCollum and Lillard made consecutive baskets. But Green scored all Houston’s

points in a 7-1 spurt that tied it at 98 a minute later.

McCollum finished with 20 points as the Blazers pulled within 1 1/2 games of eighth-place Memphis.

“Our biggest problem with

Cases have continued to rise — steadily in Indiana and specifically in Marion County, where the speedway is located — and Penske told The Associated Press on Tuesday the reversal on the spectator policy was “the toughest business decision I’ve ever made in my life.”

“We didn’t buy the Speedway for one year, we bought it for generations to come, and it’s important to our reputation to do the right thing,” Penske said in a telephone interview.

He said the financial ramifications of not hosting spectators — which even at 25% capacity, the mammoth facility could have held about 80,000 people — played no part in his decision.

Rather, the continued increase of COVID-19 cases in Marion County made shutting out spectators the responsible decision.

“We need to be safe and smart about this,” Penske said. “Obviously we want full attendance, but we don’t want to jeopardize the health and safety of our fans and the community. We also

don’t want to jeopardize the ability to hold a successful race.”

As part of the plan introduced two weeks ago for 25% of fan capacity, spectators who had purchased badges that granted them access to the garage and pit lane was going to be permitted, as well as infield access. Although the speedway, which can hold at least 350,000 spectators, has the space for social distancing, Penske did not want to put fans or competitors at risk.

The situation was compounded last week when IU Health, the state’s largest health care system and a partner of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, said it opposed fans attending the 500.

“Until we sustain better control of this virus and its spread,” IU Health said in a statement, “we strongly encourage IMS to consider an alternative to running the Indy 500 with fans in August.”

The letter blindsided speedway officials, who had worked with health officials on the comprehensive safety plan that included

mandatory wearing of masks at all times inside the speedway.

IU Health said it “appreciates” the speedway’s safety plan, but risks remained too high to host a large cluster of fans.

“We have concerns about the risks of infection beyond the scope of the IMS plan, including social gatherings, travel, restaurants, bars, accommodations and other event-related activities,” IU Health said. “This could lead to a spike in COVID-19 infections as we continue to see cases and hospitalizations increase every day.”

Penske said the IU Health letter was “disappointing” but did not force his hand. Instead, it simply came down to metrics of how the coronavirus is spreading through Indiana.

“The number of cases in Marion County has tripled while the positivity rate has doubled.

We said from the beginning of the pandemic we would put the health and safety of our community first, and while hosting spectators at a limited capacity with our robust plan in place was

the whole game is first of all we didn’t come out with a lot of energy, and our defense was pretty slow to start,” Houston coach Mike D’Antoni said.

The game was tied again later in the fourth when Gary Trent Jr. made a 3-pointer to put Portland up 103-100. A driving layup by Harden cut the lead to one with about 2 minutes to go.

Danuel House made a 3-pointer to get the Rockets within two midway through the third quarter.

Lillard then scored all of Portland’s points in a 9-3 run that pushed the lead to 82-74 with about 3 ½ minutes left in the third.

Lillard had a three-point play and then sank 3s on consecutive possessions to allow the Trail Blazers to build the lead. Harden spent the last five minutes of the third quarter on the bench after picking up his fifth foul on the three-point play by Lillard.

Hassan Whiteside had four points for the Trail Blazers late in the third, but Austin Rivers capped the quarter with a 3-pointer to get Houston within 86-80 to start the fourth.

TIP-INS Rockets: G Eric Gordon remains out with a sprained left ankle. ... Russell Westbrook made just 5 of 12 free throws and finished with 15 points and nine assists to snap a streak of 36 straight games with at least 20 points. ... Green made five 3-pointers.

Trail Blazers: Trent had 16 points and made four 3s. ... Jusuf Nurkic scored 18 points and had 19 rebounds.

UP NEXT: Rockets: Play the Lakers on Thursday night. Trail Blazers: Play Denver on Thursday.

Penske reverses course, closes Indy 500 to spectators JENNA FRYER

Associated Press

Roger Penske has reversed course and decided not to allow fans at the Indianapolis 500 later this month. The 104th running of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” will be the first without spectators, who showed up at Indianapolis Motor Speedway every year, even during the Great Depression.

It was a flip for Penske, who purchased the iconic speedway in January and has spent every day since upgrading his new showplace to prepare for his favorite race. The pandemic forced the race to change dates for the first time, from Memorial Day weekend to Aug. 23.

Penske had initially said he wouldn’t run the 500 without fans. But as the pandemic continued to spread across the nation, the decision was made to limit capacity to 50%. The speedway then lowered that number to 25% and presented an 88-page manual on how to safely host spectators.

appropriate in late June, it is not the right path forward based on the current environment,” the speedway said in a statement.

The first inkling that Penske’s group was waffling came Monday when the speedway confirmed to the AP that the opening day of practice scheduled for next Tuesday had been scrapped.

The first day of practice will now be Aug. 12. The only other change to the schedule right now is the elimination of the Pit Crew Competition traditionally held on Carb Day, two days before the race.

The pandemic has obliterated the IndyCar schedule, with the series shutting down just two days before its March 15 scheduled season-opener. The schedule has undergone numerous alterations since, with a West Coast swing to Portland and Laguna Seca canceled last week and doubleheaders added to MidOhio, Gateway in St. Louis and the road course at Indianapolis.

Please see Indy, Page B3

FOUR-DAY FORECAST FOR NORTH BEND TONIGHT THURSDAY FRIDAY

Becoming cloudy

Times of clouds and sun

LOW: 57° 68° LOCAL ALMANAC

52°

Mostly sunny; becoming windier

Mostly sunny; becoming windier

68°

69°

68°

54°

Halsey

Yachats

56/75

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

Florence

57/66

Reedsport

58/69

0.00" 27.95" 41.56" 36.93"

8:34 p.m.

6:13 a.m.

10:30 p.m.

9:09 a.m.

First

Full

Roseburg

59/79

Astoria Burns Brookings Corvallis Eugene Klamath Falls La Grande Medford Newport Pendleton Portland Redmond Roseburg Salem The Dalles

Thu.

Hi/Lo Prec. Hi/Lo/W

Location

High

71/57 0.00 92/47 0.00 67/53 0.00 88/57 0.00 91/56 0.00 90/50 0.00 89/50 0.00 94/62 0.00 63/54 Trace 93/55 0.00 88/61 0.00 93/49 0.00 88/62 0.00 89/57 0.00 95/62 0.00

68/53/pc 83/40/s 68/52/pc 76/49/pc 78/48/c 78/40/s 79/45/s 83/54/s 61/47/sh 80/49/s 74/55/r 75/38/s 79/53/pc 75/49/sh 77/55/pc

Bandon

2:02 a.m.

3:14 p.m.

2:07 a.m.

3:19 p.m.

3:33 a.m.

4:45 p.m.

2:51 a.m.

4:03 p.m.

1:41 a.m.

3:03 p.m.

3:11 a.m.

4:20 p.m.

2:14 a.m.

3:30 p.m.

REGIONAL FORECASTS South Coast Tonight Thu.

52°

68°

TIDES

Yesterday

Curry Co. Coast Tonight Thu.

53°

67°

Florence Port Orford Reedsport Half Moon Bay

Rogue Valley Tonight Thu.

58°

83°

78°

-10s

Thursday ft.

Low

ft.

45/78

6.7 8:45 a.m. -0.5 6.0 8:57 p.m. 1.9 7.3 8:43 a.m. -0.6 6.5 8:55 p.m. 2.0 7.0 10:11 a.m. -0.5 6.3 10:23 p.m. 1.7 6.3 9:41 a.m. -0.5 5.6 9:53 p.m. 1.6 7.0 8:27 a.m. -0.5 6.2 8:36 p.m. 2.3 7.3 9:55 a.m. -0.2 6.5 10:06 p.m. 2.2 6.7 8:55 a.m. -0.6 6.0 9:06 p.m. 2.0

62°

74°

Friday

High

ft.

Low

2:43 a.m.

3:47 p.m.

2:48 a.m.

3:52 p.m.

4:14 a.m.

5:18 p.m.

3:32 a.m.

4:36 p.m.

2:22 a.m.

3:35 p.m.

3:54 a.m.

4:54 p.m.

2:55 a.m.

4:02 p.m.

6.3 6.0 6.8 6.5 6.5 6.3 5.9 5.6 6.6 6.2 6.9 6.6 6.3 6.0

9:18 a.m.

9:41 p.m.

9:16 a.m.

9:39 p.m.

10:44 a.m.

11:07 p.m.

10:14 a.m.

10:37 p.m.

9:00 a.m.

9:21 p.m.

10:31 a.m.

10:51 p.m.

9:28 a.m.

9:49 p.m.

North Coast Tonight Thu.

58°

67°

0s

Snow

10s

NATIONAL CITIES

Klamath Falls

58/83

-0s

Showers

Flurries

20s

30s

Ice

Cold Front

40s

National high: 116° at Death Valley, CA

54/78

Medford 55/80

Rain

50s

60s

Warm Front 70s

80s

Stationary Front

90s

100s

110s

NATIONAL EXTREMES YESTERDAY (for the 48 contiguous states)

48/75

Butte Falls

Willamette Valley Portland Area Tonight Thu. Tonight Thu.

55°

T-storms

Beaver Marsh

Ashland

56/83

Coos Bay

49/70

Chiloquin

Gold Hill Grants Pass

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

46/69

Toketee Falls

44/71

54/81

53/67

47/70

Crescent

55/77

Powers

Charleston

La Pine

Canyonville

Port Orford

Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2020

City

48/71

Oakridge

55/76

58/71

Sep 1

49/74

Sunriver

50/68

Coquille

57/67

Bend

Oakland

57/68

56/70

50/72

55/75

54/74

55/74

57/74

Gold Beach Aug 11 Aug 18 Aug 25

53°

Sisters

Cottage Grove

Drain

Elkton

Coos Bay / North Bend

57/66

Sunset tonight Sunrise tomorrow Moonrise tomorrow Moonset tomorrow

OREGON CITIES

55/78

Bandon

SUN AND MOON

54°

Springfield

Eugene

67°/57° 65°/53° 85° in 1932 45° in 1988

PRECIPITATION

New

Mostly sunny; becoming windier

56/63

High/low Normal high/low Record high Record low

Last

SUNDAY

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

North Bend Tuesday

TEMPERATURE

NATIONAL FORECAST SATURDAY

ft.

-0.1 1.8 -0.1 1.9 -0.1 1.7 0.0 1.5 0.0 2.2 0.2 2.1 -0.1 1.9

Central Oregon Tonight Thu.

48°

75°

Thu.

City

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

91/65/pc 64/54/c 89/70/s 80/72/t 98/72/s 83/70/t 93/62/pc 89/72/pc 92/57/s 83/69/pc 79/61/pc 79/60/pc 77/58/s 93/56/pc 88/73/t 84/64/pc 89/70/t 85/58/t 80/62/pc 80/62/pc 77/61/pc 88/60/t 81/61/pc 83/57/s 98/79/pc 79/60/pc 88/74/t 91/63/t 80/66/pc 77/60/s 101/76/pc 71/50/pc

Fri.

Hi/Lo/W

91/68/pc 64/54/r 91/72/s 81/73/t 97/74/pc 86/70/t 88/59/pc 92/71/s 86/56/s 76/66/pc 79/62/pc 81/62/pc 81/58/pc 93/53/s 91/75/t 86/64/pc 89/70/t 90/58/pc 83/66/s 83/62/pc 79/61/s 90/62/c 84/61/pc 79/59/pc 97/79/pc 82/61/pc 88/75/t 95/65/pc 84/72/c 81/61/pc 100/76/pc 70/50/c

National low: 34° at Bodie State Park, CA

Thu.

Fri.

Thu.

Fri.

City

Hi/Lo/W

Hi/Lo/W

City

Hi/Lo/W

Hi/Lo/W

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

82/67/pc 81/48/s 90/64/s 79/59/c 85/65/pc 87/56/t 88/77/pc 95/74/pc 78/58/s 82/69/pc 90/82/t 102/74/s 82/61/pc 86/68/s 77/59/pc 83/64/pc 78/59/pc 87/69/s 92/79/t 77/61/pc 80/67/pc 87/50/pc 88/66/pc 94/77/s 82/69/s 87/75/t 88/75/pc 72/49/r 84/69/pc 91/75/t 84/71/t 109/82/s

87/67/pc 82/48/s 95/67/s 81/63/pc 82/64/t 84/52/s 90/77/sh 93/75/s 82/62/s 86/74/t 89/82/s 102/76/s 86/62/pc 87/72/t 78/61/pc 86/67/pc 80/65/pc 90/72/pc 91/79/t 79/67/s 83/70/pc 80/44/s 90/68/pc 92/77/s 80/70/t 89/74/t 93/75/pc 76/52/pc 87/73/pc 91/76/t 85/71/t 110/84/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

80/61/pc 79/61/t 92/56/s 88/52/s 83/63/s 80/65/pc 87/68/pc 80/67/t 88/70/t 88/70/t 89/60/pc 93/62/pc 94/67/s 101/67/s 90/57/s 91/61/s 85/70/t 88/69/t 87/60/s 90/59/s 81/65/s 85/70/pc 98/73/s 93/68/s 103/71/s 101/75/pc 71/62/pc 73/64/pc 71/56/pc 72/55/pc 76/59/pc 80/59/pc 92/58/pc 90/60/t 70/55/r 77/57/pc 84/67/s 86/71/pc 78/49/pc 75/53/s 79/57/pc 82/64/c 84/62/pc 81/62/pc 79/61/pc 79/64/pc 91/78/t 92/78/t 79/57/s 82/59/pc 80/68/sh 80/68/t 102/79/s 105/78/s 87/76/t 93/77/pc 82/72/t 85/73/t 90/77/t 89/77/t 84/73/pc 96/76/pc 80/69/t 83/70/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.

Retooled Marlins win in return from layoff BALTIMORE (AP) — Finally back on the baseball diamond after enduring eight days of virus testing, hotel room service and lengthy bus rides, the Miami Marlins scratched out a victory worth savoring.

Following one final delay in their effort to return from a miserable coronavirus-induced hiatus, the Marlins found enough power and pitching within their vastly overhauled roster to beat the Baltimore Orioles 4-0 Tuesday night.

Francisco Cervelli and Jesús Aguilar homered for the Marlins, who had their season halted after 18 players tested positive for COVID-19 following the opening series in Philadelphia.

All the happiness that playing baseball brings was displayed when Cervelli slammed a 3-1 pitch from John Means over the left-field wall to give Miami a 1-0 lead in the fifth. The players in the dugout cheered, and Cervelli saluted them as the

rounded third and headed for home.

“These guys love to play, right? That’s what you see,” manager Don Mattingly said.

“We’ve been in a hotel for a long time. Guys are happy to be out.”

Pablo López threw five innings of two-hit ball and the bullpen allowed just one hit in Miami’s first shutout victory since Sept. 8 against Kansas City.

“Give him credit. He threw a really nice game,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said of Lopez. “We just didn’t swing the bats well.”

Late Tuesday afternoon, the Marlins were still awaiting the result of further COVID-19 tests, a process that stalled their arrival at Camden Yards and pushed back the scheduled 7:35 p.m. start by 41 minutes.

Once they finally got back on the diamond, the Marlins backed up the assertion of president of baseball operations Michael Hill, who said beforehand: “We

expect to win games.”

So does Mattingly.

“We lost some guys, but we like our guys who are coming up.,” he said.

Who knows how it will play out? For now, however, Miami stands atop the NL East in terms of winning percentage. Before this season, the Marlins have never been in first place after June 30.

“Finally we got out on the field and we do what we’re supposed to do,” Aguilar said. “Now we’ve got to keep going.”

Miami put a whopping 18 players on the injured list and showed up with an equal number of replacements on their 30-man roster — some from their minor league camp, others obtained via trade and a few plucked off the waiver wire.

Mattingly wrote up his lineup card, there’s a good chance he had to introduce himself to a few of the newcomers.

“We’ve just got to try to hold

Ohtani won’t pitch again this year Associated Press Shohei Ohtani won’t pitch again this season for the Los Angeles Angels after straining his right forearm in his second start, manager Joe Maddon says.

Ohtani likely will return to the Angels’ lineup as their designated hitter this week, Maddon said Tuesday night before the club opened a road series against the Seattle Mariners.

The Angels’ stance on Ohtani is unsurprising after the club announced he had strained the flexor pronator mass near the elbow of his pitching arm. The twoway star’s recovery from the strain requires him to abstain from throwing for four to six weeks, which covers most of the shortened 2020 season.

“I’m not anticipating him pitching at all this year,” Maddon said. “Any kind of throwing program is going to be very conservative.”

Ohtani was injured Sunday in the second inning of his second start since returning to the mound following Tommy John surgery in late 2018. Ohtani issued five walks during the 42-pitch inning against the Houston Astros, with his velocity dropping later in the frame.

The arm injury is another obstacle in Ohtani’s path to becoming the majors’ first true two-way player in decades. He made 10 mound starts as a rookie in 2018 before injuring his elbow, but he served as the Angels’ regular designated hitter last season while recovering from Tommy John surgery.

Ohtani has pitched in only three games since June 2018, but the Angels still believe in Ohtani’s ability to be a two-way player, Maddon said.

“I’m seeing that he can,” Maddon said. “We’ve just got to get past the arm maladies and figure that

out. But I’ve seen it. He’s just such a high-end arm, and we’ve seen what he can do in the batter’s box.

Now maybe it might get to the point where he may choose to do one thing over the other and express that to us. I know he likes to hit. In my mind’s eye, he’s still going to be able to do this.”

The veteran manager believes Ohtani will benefit from a full spring training and a normal season.

Ohtani wasn’t throwing at full strength for a starter when the coronavirus pandemic shut down spring training in March because he wasn’t expected to pitch until May as he returned from surgery.

“Going into a regular season with a normal number of starts and all the things that permit guys to be ready for a year, that’s what we need to see is some normalcy before you make that kind of determination,” Maddon said.

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

down the fort and get some guys back, survive this trip and see where we’re at,” the manager said. “This one felt good. We’ve been through a lot.”

To say the least.

“I’m going to have to write a book after this one,” Mattingly said. “You get tested and you persevere and you learn from a lot of situations.”

There were plenty of rookies in the dugout, but the only one in the starting lineup was highly touted prospect fielder Monte Harrison, who played center field and went 0 for 3 with three strikeouts in his major league debut.

A matchup between two teams that each lost more than 100 games last year was oddly intriguing because it was Miami’s first game since July 26 and the Orioles were coming off a threegame sweep of Tampa Bay that lifted them into second place in the AL East.

Orioles starter John Means

West From B1

The Suns’ playoff drought is the second-longest one in the league, topped only by Sacramento. The last time the Kings played a postseason game was 2006.

As with the other clubs in the West’s race for No. 8, the Kings are also feeling like they’ve got a shot.

“We got five games left and if we figure it out — we run these five off — who knows where we are,” Kings forward Kent Bazemore said. “We’re still right in the thick of things.

There isn’t a team who’s too out in front. ... We’re right there. The optimism is still there.”

The league was smart in setting up the schedule.

Everybody in the race for eighth, in either conference, is done with their seeding games on Aug. 13, one day before the regular season ends.

If play-in series are needed, those games

(0-1) allowed one run and two hits in 4 2/3 innings. He retired 13 in a row before Cervelli’s first long ball of the season ended the left-hander’s night.

Lopez was better, striking out seven and permitting just one runner past first base. The bullpen was also impressive, including Richard Bleier, obtained from the Orioles last week.

The Marlins went up 3-0 in the sixth, and Aguilar hit his third homer in four games.

After the final out, the Marlins lined up and did “air” high-fives in which they didn’t make contact with their hands.

Because of Miami’s precarious situation, the Orioles had two games in Florida postponed and opened at home against the Yankees instead of Marlins on July 29-30. In this anything goes, wacky baseball season, Miami will be the home team for the final two games of this four-game series.

would happen on Aug. 15 and 16. So, by giving all those possible play-inbound clubs Aug. 14 off, it assures that no team would have to play three consecutive days.

The East race is much simpler: Brooklyn and Orlando lead the way for the last two unclaimed spots on that half of the bracket, and Washington — off to an 0-3 start in the bubble — needs to go at least 4-1 in its final five games to have any chance at forcing a play-in series there.

That means the East field could be finalized in the next couple days.

The West, that looks like it’ll go down to the wire.

“Still have a chance to get the playoff spot,” Kings guard De’Aaron Fox said. “Just don’t let go of the rope.”

Or maybe more aptly, don’t let the bubble burst.

WHO’S LEFT A look at the remaining schedule for each contend-

er for the No. 8 seed in the West: Memphis — Utah (Wednesday), Oklahoma City (Friday), Toronto (Sunday), Boston (Aug. 11), Milwaukee (Aug. 13).

Portland — Denver (Thursday), L.A. Clippers (Saturday), Philadelphia (Sunday), Dallas (Aug. 11), Brooklyn (Aug. 13).

San Antonio — Denver (Wednesday), Utah (Friday), New Orleans (Sunday), Houston (Aug. 11), Utah (Aug. 13).

New Orleans — Sacramento (Thursday), Washington (Friday), San Antonio (Sunday), Sacramento (Aug. 11), Orlando (Aug. 13).

Phoenix — Indiana (Thursday), Miami (Saturday), Oklahoma City (Monday), Philadelphia (Aug. 11), Dallas (Aug. 13).

Sacramento — New Orleans (Thursday), Brooklyn (Friday), Houston (Sunday), New Orleans (Aug. 11), L.A. Lakers (Aug. 13).

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

Spieth maintains quest for career Grand Slam SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The spotlight on Jordan Spieth should be bright enough to cut through the marine layer blanketing Harding Park this week at the PGA Championship.

Win this major and he joins the most exclusive club in golf with the final leg of the career Grand Slam. Only five other players — Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen — have won all four majors since the Masters began in 1934.

This is his fourth chance, and each year becomes more difficult. The longest anyone went from winning the third leg to completing the Grand Slam was three years by Player and Nicklaus.

And hardly anyone is talking about it.

It’s not because Brooks Koepka is trying to become the first player to win the PGA Championship three straight times in stroke play, or because Tiger Woods is going for his record-tying fifth PGA. It’s not even because golf has returned

amid a coronavirus pandemic that has kept spectators away from a major championship for the first time.

Spieth has become an afterthought because he hasn’t won since he captured the British Open three years ago.

Who would have guessed that?

Certainly not the 27-year-old Texan.

“If you told me that, I’d probably say that guy is kind of a jerk and I’d walk the other way,” Spieth said with a smile. “But here we are. And I hope to end that as soon as possible.”

So much has changed since his last visit to the TPC Harding Park. That was in 2015 for the Cadillac Match Play. Spieth was the newly minted “Golden Child” in golf as the Masters champion. He would win the U.S. Open the following month, miss a British Open playoff by one shot at St. Andrews and be runner-up at the PGA Championship.

No one ever made such a spirited bid for the calendar Grand Slam.

Now, the world ranking tells the story. Spieth was No. 2 after winning at Royal Birkdale and getting his first shot at the career Grand Slam in the 2017 PGA Championship (he tied for 28th).

He was No. 8 in the world going to Bellerive for the PGA Championship the following year (he tied for 12th).

He was No. 39 going to Bethpage Black last year. He played in the final group with Brooks Koepka on Saturday, albeit eight shots behind, and fell back quickly. He tied for third.

Now he has plunged all the way to No. 62, out of the top 50 for the first time since he was a 20-year-old rookie.

More troublesome than not winning is that Spieth has rarely contended. He has not finished within three shots of the lead since his remarkable rally in the final round of the Masters two years ago left him two shots behind Patrick Reed.

Is there hope? He has no doubt. Is there a chance at Harding Park? He has experience.

“Majors aren’t necessarily totally about form,” Spieth said. “They’re about experience and being able to grind it out, picking apart golf courses.

So I feel like I probably have more confidence going into a major no matter where my game is at than any other golf tournament.”

Exactly what went wrong is a topic of debate and discussion. He was ill all of December before going into the 2018 season. His alignment got off.

His putting, the hallmark of his game, went sideways. And he’s been trying to put back the pieces ever since. The last two years he hasn’t made it to the Tour Championship.

His only real success of late has been a more positive attitude.

Spieth used the word “grace” at Colonial, his way of saying he will learn to shrug off mistakes and keep going.

“I almost feel at times like the game is testing me a little bit right now,” he said.

Last week, he spoke of a shot that hit a tree. Whereas it used to

bounce in the fairway, this one went off a cart path and out-ofbounds. The same thing happened at Hilton Head.

“I feel like you can look at it a couple ways,” Spieth said.

“You can get really upset and complain about it — which I’ve done and that’s not helpful — or you can look at it like, ‘Hey, this is part of the game testing you, and the better you handle these situations, the faster you progress forward.’”

Spieth says he is in no hurry.

At 27, he has plenty of golf ahead of him in his career. As brilliant as his 2015 season was, he’d like to think his best years are ahead of him.

But there’s only one PGA Championship this year. One shot at the career Grand Slam.

“It’s something that I really want,” Spieth said. “It’s probably the No. 1 goal in the game of golf for me right now is to try and capture that. I’d love to be able to hold all four trophies.”

The way the last three years have gone, any trophy would do.

Defending champ Nadal will skip US Open amid pandemic Associated Press Defending champion Rafael Nadal will skip the U.S. Open because of the coronavirus pandemic, putting on hold his bid to equal Roger Federer’s men’s record for Grand Slam titles.

Nadal explained his decision in a series of tweets sent in Spanish and English on Tuesday.

“The situation is very complicated worldwide, the COVID-19 cases are increasing, it looks like we still don’t have control of it,” Nadal wrote.

The 34-year-old from Spain called sitting out the tournament scheduled to begin Aug. 31 in New York “a decision I never wanted to take,” but added that he would “rather not travel.”

“Rafa is one of the greatest champions in our sport and we support his decision,” U.S. Open tournament director Stacey Allaster said.

The current No. 1-ranked woman, Ash Barty, already had announced she would be missing the U.S. Open.

The U.S. Tennis Association’s entry list announcements Tuesday noted that 2019 women’s champion Bianca Andreescu is in the field — at least for now; players can withdraw until the start of play — but made no mention of Nadal.

The professional tennis tours have been on hiatus since March because of the COVID-19 outbreak, with play resuming for women on Monday in Palermo, Italy. The first men’s event

on the main tour is scheduled to be held later this month.

Nadal’s plan to skip the U.S. Open came shortly after the Madrid Open, scheduled for September, was canceled because of the pandemic.

“We know that the reduced tennis calendar is barbaric this year after 4 months stopped with no play,” Nadal wrote on Twitter. “I understand and thank for the efforts they are putting in to make it happen.”

In last year’s thriller of a men’s final at Flushing Meadows, Nadal edged Daniil Medvedev 7-5, 6-3, 5-7, 4-6, 6-4 in 4 hours, 50 minutes. That gave Nadal four titles at the U.S. Open and a total of 19 across all the Grand Slam tourna-

ments, just one away from Federer’s career mark.

Federer will be absent from the U.S. Open, too, but because of two operations on his right knee this year.

The last Grand Slam tournament contested without either Federer or Nadal was the 1999 U.S. Open — four years before Nadal made his debut at one of the sport’s four most prestigious events.

The USTA has given repeated indications it intends to go forward with the U.S. Open, despite the spikes in cases around the United States, saying in a news release last week: “New York State continues to be one of the safest places in the country as it relates to the COVID-19 virus.”

That is currently true

— although the area was a major U.S. hot spot early in the pandemic, so much so that a building at the U.S. Open site was used as a temporary hospital.

New York hospitals saw more than 18,000 patients with COVID-19 at a time in mid-April when infections surged and more than 750 patients with the illness died each day in hospitals and nursing homes. Those figures plunged in May, and rates of hospitalizations and new positive COVID-19 cases have been relatively stable since June.

There are still concerns about travel, as Nadal noted.

The USTA is planning a doubleheader of sorts at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

Pac-12 players meet with California governor Big 10 RALPH D. RUSSO Associated Press

A group of Pac-12 football players with the #WeAreUnited movement met with officials from the California governor’s office Tuesday to discuss concerns about their schools’ COVID-19 protocols and protecting their college eligibility.

Meanwhile, the NCAA’s highest governing body put off a decision on whether to conduct fall championship events, and is moving toward passing on making that call altogether.

The Pac-12 players hope an executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom could mandate player-approved, third-party oversight of COVID-19 rules at the Pac-12′s four California schools and ensure players who opt out of the coming season because of coronavirus won’t lose a year of eligibility.

The Pac-12 has said athletes who opt out will stay on scholarship this season, but whether they would be allowed to preserve their eligibility in that situation is undetermined.

“We really want to be able to move a little faster in getting heath guidelines out there for us,” California offensive lineman Valentino Daltoso told AP during a conference call with several players from the group. “The eligibility piece is huge for us. If you were to opt out without eligibility guarantees you could be effectively ending your eligibility. The governor’s office can help us with that.”

A request from comment from the California governor’s office was not immediately returned.

After about a month organizing behind the scenes, the players took their movement public Sunday, issuing with a lengthy list of demands related

Indy From B1

Then, days after announcing the latest schedule updates, the MidOhio events scheduled for this coming weekend were postponed. IndyCar has run just six events since the season resumed June 6. Limited spectators have been allowed at doubleheaders at Road America

to healthy and safety, racial injustice and economic rights. They say if the demands are not addressed they will opt out of the season.

Elsewhere in college sports, the NCAA Board of Governors met Tuesday to consider canceling or postponing fall championships — in sports such as soccer, volleyball and lower-division football — in all three divisions.

“In order to ensure the health and well being of college athletes, we have to consider all the implications when determing our next steps, and we plan to provide an update to our membership and the public (Wednesday),” NCAA President Mark Emmert said in a statement.

A person who was briefed on the board’s discussion told the AP that the board members decided each division will determine what to do with their fall championship events. The Division I Board of Directors will consider the topic Wednesday, the person said.

The NCAA does not control regular season competition, the conferences do. And the NCAA has no say whatsoever in major college football.

Whether the football season — or any college sports — can played in the pandemic is still to be determined, but conferences are putting plans in place.

In the Pac-12, football practice is scheduled to start Aug. 17, with the season slated to begin Sept. 26.

The players with #WeAreUnited are expected to meet later this week with Pac-12 officials, but hope the California governor can expedite their initiative.

“The season is creeping up on us and we have no answers,” Stanford reciver Elijah Higgins said.

Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott responded Monday to the group’s request for a meeting with conference

in Wisconsin and at Iowa Speedway, where Penske had to be the race promoter for the event to be held.

Penske, just the fourth owner of national landmark IMS, has spent roughly $15 million on renovations to the historic property that he eagerly awaited showcasing for fans. His doubleheader weekend with IndyCar and NASCAR in July was held without fans and access to

officials with an letter, which was obtained by AP. Scott detailed how the Pac-12’s response to COVID-19 and the school’s attempts to play through the pandemic have been guided by the conferences Medical Advisory Committee.

“This committee is comprised of leading experts in the areas of infectious disease and public health,” Scott wrote. “Additionally, the Pac-12’s return to competition plans have always been subject to and in accordance with the advice of public health officials and all relevant government orders, and are continuously evaluated based on the best available science and data.”

Stanford defensive end Dylan Boles said the players are seeing discrepancies in how guidelines are implemented and enforced from campus to campus. That’s why players are demanding they have approval over a third party that would provide oversight of protocols, especially in testing.

“Everybody wants to play football, but the circumstances are not ideal,” Boles said. “It puts us and our families at risk.”

UCLA defensive lineman Otito Ogbonnia said: “A lot of people feel a lot pressure to not tell when they see guidelines are being broken.”

The Pac-12 has said that any player opting out because of health concerns will remain in good standing with his team. But preserving eligibility is complicated. The NCAA allowed schools to give back a year of eligibility to spring sports athletes who had their regular seasons cut short because of the pandemic shutdown earlier this year.

Whether that can be applied to football players who opt out of a season that is played seems doubtful.

the property was limited to the competitors inside the facility.

He said “the place looks even 50% percent better than it did in July” and takes solace that the IndyCar paddock will be able to get a closer look at the upgrades when the track opens next week. As for fans?

“Look, this is a longterm investment for us for many generations to come,” he said.

UConn From B1

The football team will remain enrolled in classes either in-person or virtually, and will keep access to facilities and support services under NCAA rules.

“We engaged and listened to the concerns of our football student-athletes and feel this is the best decision for their

The Western & Southern Open, a hard-court tournament normally played in Cincinnati, was moved to the U.S. Open site this year because of the pandemic and is scheduled to be played Aug. 20-28.

That is supposed to be followed by the U.S. Open itself. And then, two weeks after the U.S. Open closes on Sept. 13, the French Open is scheduled to begin in Paris, having been postponed from its usual May start.

“I know our fans will be disappointed to not have Rafa playing this year’s Western & Southern Open and U.S. Open,” Allaster said. “However, for the fans and and the sport, we look forward to being inspired by him when he decides he’s ready to play.”

Big Ten competition start dates for men’s and women’s cross-country, field hockey, men’s and women’s soccer and women’s volleyball have been postponed through at least Sept. 5. Conference-only schedules for those sports will be released later.

The conference also released its medical policies and protocols for all sports on testing requirements, and quarantine and isolation. Testing will be managed by a third-party laboratory to ensure consistency across the conference.

Testing frequency will be based on the level of contact risk within each sport and is required for athletes, coaches and staff depending upon exposure to the athletes.

Sports that have a high risk of contact will have a minimum of two tests per week during the competitive season. All other sports will have a minimum of one test per week.

The Big 12 announced this week that its teams would play nine conference games beginning in mid- to late September, with one home nonconference game before that.

Atlantic Coast Conference teams will play 10

conference games and one nonconference game that will be held in the state of the ACC team, with first games the week of Sept. 7.

The Southeastern Conference and Pac-12 are playing 10-game conference-only schedules beginning Sept. 26.

“It would be purely speculation for me to sit here today and say this is what percent I think we’ll have a season,” Warren said. “I know from my standpoint I’m taking this entire process, this entire journey, on a day-to-day basis.”

How many fans will be in the stands remains a question.

Rutgers already has announced that all athletic events would follow state guidelines limiting outdoor gatherings to 500 people or fewer. Maryland said Wednesday it is preparing to begin the season without fans.

Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez sent a letter to season ticket holders saying the school “is preparing for the reality that it will not be appropriate for thousands of fans to gather in Camp Randall on Saturdays this fall.”

Illinois noted that current state guidelines allow for attendance up to 20% of stadium capacity.

Other schools indicated they’d announce ticket or attendance plans later.

health, safety, and well-being,” coach Randy Edsall said. “Our team is united in this approach and we will use this time to further player development within the program and gear ourselves to the 2021 season.”

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont had expressed reluctance to allow the football team to travel to any state with a high virus infection rate. He said the team would be subject to

the state’s 14-day quarantine rule upon its return to Storrs from away games.

Connecticut, New York and New Jersey have travel advisories that require visitors from more than 30 states and Puerto Rico to quarantine for 14 days, with certain exceptions.

UConn officials said they will be reaching out to season ticket holders in the coming days to explain refunds and other options.

From B1