The Iola Register, July 13, 2023

Thursday, July 13, 2023

From cars to groceries, inflation pressures ease

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) —

Squeezed by painfully high prices for two years, Americans have gained some much-needed relief with inflation reaching its lowest point since early 2021 — 3% in June compared with a year earlier — thanks in part to easing prices for gasoline, airline fares, used cars and groceries.

The inflation figure the government reported Wednesday was down sharp-

ly from a 4% annual rate in May, though still above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. From May to June, overall prices rose 0.2%, up from just 0.1% in the previous month but still comparatively mild.

Even with Wednesday’s better-than-expected inflation data, the Fed is considered all but sure to raise its benchmark rate when it meets in two weeks. But with price increases slowing — or even falling outright — across a range of goods and services, many economists say they think the central bank could

ACC projects carry big price tag

By RICHARD LUKEN

Iola Register

Allen Community College trustees crossed some pricey items off of their “to-do” lists Tuesday.

The most significant expenditure — $2,335,745 — will provide a new student information systems program.

The Jenzabar, Inc. system offers a comprehensive, yet streamlined information system better equipped at data gathering, explained Cynthia Jacobson, vice president for student affairs.

She noted a team of faculty and administrators have spent the past six months exploring options, including sending out requests for proposals to three providers.

The Jenzabar system, which was favored already by most of the team members and other Allen faculty, was the less expensive of two bids.

The college will dip into its reserves to pay for the system, College President Bruce Moses noted.

IN ADDITION, trustees approved a $51,268 bid from DH Pace, of Wichita, to reconfigure the four entrances to the college gymnasium.

The issue, aside from the aging doors, is the gym floor is about 2 ½ inches higher

Crews use Bobcats equipped with sweeper brushes to clear dirt and debris from the recently milled Allen Community College parking lot driveway. The entire parking lot is due to be resurfaced this month with a fresh layer of asphalt. REGISTER/RICHARD LUKEN

than the connecting corridors, making accessibility an issue for handicap visitors.

Crews will extend concrete ramps to the two interior entrances, while also extending a sidewalk from the two exterior doors to make it eas-

ier to bring large pieces of equipment into the gymnasium, and to lessen congestion for crowds to file out of the building, explained Ryan Sigg, plant operations director. The DH Pace bid was high-

Court: Senator can cross neighbor’s land

By TIM CARPENTER Kansas Reflector

The Kansas Supreme Court ruled this month that Kansas Sen. Dennis Pyle can cross a strip of a neighbor’s land in order to access a field he owns in northeast Kansas. KANSAS REFLECTOR/ SHERMAN SMITH

TOPEKA — The Kansas Supreme Court reversed a decision of the Kansas Court of Appeals in a protracted land dispute involving state Sen. Dennis Pyle and a neighboring farmer that pivoted on access to crop fields in northeast Kansas. The case pitted Pyle against neighbor James Gall Jr., who didn’t want Pyle driving farm equipment and other vehicles across a thin strip of the Galls’ land to access a field owned by Pyle. Pyle has served in the Senate since 2005, was stripped of committee assignments in 2022 for not voting

for the GOP majority’s redistricting map and mounted an unsuccessful independent campaign for governor in November.

Pyle prevailed in the district court and with the panel of judges on the Court of Appeals in 2022 on his request for title to a piece of boundary land that had been claimed by the Pyles and Galls. The Gall family had attempted to thwart Pyle from reaching his tiny field by building a fence 20 feet beyond the traditional dividing line and by directing Pyle to stop driving on their property. Those actions led to the lawsuit filed in district

See PYLE | Page A4

hold off on what had been expected to be another rate hike in September, should inflation continue to cool.

“It takes the second hike off the table, if that trend continues,” said Laura Rosner-Warburton, senior economist at MacroPolicy Perspectives. “They’re probably on hold for the rest of the year.”

On Wall Street, investors cheered the encouraging news, sending stock and bond prices higher. Investors have been eagerly anticipat-

er than a $40,325 bid from Humboldt’s Hofer and Hofer, but was still the preferred choice because crews can begin work on the doors immediately, in order to have the

See ACC | Page A4

Former deputy faces charges

Tanner Porter, a former Allen County sheriff’s deputy, will be arraigned in September to face a charge of aggravated indecent liberties with a child.

Porter, of Moran, waived his right to a preliminary hearing on Tuesday in front of Montgomery County Judge Jeffrey Gettler, who was assigned to hear the case. Gettler scheduled an arraignment hearing at 1:15 p.m. on Sept. 6. Porter is accused of engaging in sexual relations with a child between the ages of 14 and 16 on July 15, 2021. Porter was with the Allen County Sheriff’s Department at the time. Porter, who joined the Allen County force in

- Since 1871u nic i p a l B a n d

See INFLATION | Page A4 i o l a

At the bandstand • JENNA MORRIS, director Program for Thursday, July 13, 2023 • 8 p.m.

Star Spangled Banner ........................................Francis Scott Key

Phantom of the Opera....................................Andrew Lloyd Weber

Swanee..............................................................George Gershwin Woodchoppers Ball...............................................Bishop/Herman River City Blues........................................................Steve Hodges Everglade Sugar March.............................................F. G. Sturchio

A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody......................................Irving Berlin

Play A Simple Melody.....................................Arr John Edmondson

Gotham City Municipal Band Swing................................Neal Hefti

The Thunderer March.........................................John Phillip Sousa

In case of rain, the concert wi be at 8 p.m. Friday at the bandstand.

DREAMSTIME/TNS

The

Flooded New England communities shift to recovery

ANDOVER, Vt. (AP) —

Floodwaters receded in Vermont cities and towns pummeled by a storm that delivered two months of rain in two days, enabling people to focus on recovering from a disaster that trapped residents in homes, closed roadways and choked streets and businesses with mud and debris.

The water drained off in the capital city of Montpelier, where streets were flooded Tuesday by the swollen Winooski River, and lingering concerns about a dam just upstream eased as water levels there appeared to stabilize.

“It looks like it won’t breach. That is good. That is one less thing we have to have on our front burner,” Montpelier Town Manager

Bill Fraser said.

Fraser said the city of 8,000 has shifted into recovery mode, with public works employees removing mud and debris downtown and building inspections to come as businesses begin cleaning up their properties. Brown water from the Winooski reached the tops of parking meters downtown, inundating basements and ruining the contents of lower floors. Similar scenes played out in neighboring Barre and in Bridgewater, where the Ottauquechee River spilled its banks.

Gov. Phil Scott planned to tour areas impacted by the flooding with Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, on Wednesday, a day after President Joe Biden declared an emergency for Vermont and authorized federal disaster relief assistance.

The slow-moving storm

dumped between 7 and 9 inches of rain on parts of New England, New York and Connecticut. New York’s Hudson River Valley was hit hard, and towns in southwest New Hampshire and western Massachusetts also had heavy flooding and road washouts.

Much of that water was flowing through Connecticut, carrying debris including entire trees on its way south to Long Island Sound. Major waterways including Connecticut River overflowed their banks, and were expected to crest Wednesday at up to 6 feet above flood stage, closing roads and riverside parks in multiple cities.

MORE RAIN was forecast Thursday and Friday, but Peter Banacos, a meteorologist

with the National Weather Service, said the area will be spared any more torrential downpours.

There have been no reports of injuries or deaths related to the flooding in Vermont, where swift-water rescue teams aided by National Guard helicopter crews performed more than 175 rescues, Vermont Emergency Management said Tuesday. One woman died in Fort Montgomery, New York, as she tried to escape her flooded home with her dog.

About 12 Vermont communities, including the state capital, were under a boil water alert due to the floods. The American Red Cross of Northern New England succeeded in getting food and water to its shelters in Barre, Rutland,

and White River Junction.

Attendance was down at the Barre Municipal Auditorium shelter, 58 as of Wednesday morning, compared to more than 200 on Tuesday.

Many people were passing through to recharge their phones and get something to eat, said John Montes, regional disaster officer. Red Cross volunteers from across the Northeast were arriving to help with everything from disaster assessment to handing out clean-up kits to homeowners, he said.

“There’s more rain coming tomorrow, so it’s best for us to be leaning forward and be ready,” Montes said. “We can handle any additional impacts we get from the weather this week.”

Gov. Scott said floodwaters

Renegade sea otter terrorizes California surfers

By SUSANNE RUST Los Angeles Times/TNS

It was Joon Lee’s fourth time surfing on Sunday.

The 40-year-old Apple software engineer from San Jose had rented a board and driven south to Santa Cruz to catch some waves off the coast of the iconic surf town.

But about 90 minutes into his session, he was attacked — by a sea otter.

Since mid-June, an otter — which remains nameless — has been attacking and terrorizing surfers off the Santa Cruz coastline — in at least one case, stealing a board.

In recent days, the attacks have grown increasingly aggressive.

Lee said he’d been surfing near an otter for most of the time he was there — in Steamer Lane, off Cowell Beach. “It was being peaceful and friendly, and all of us surfers were like, ‘Oh, it’s so cute,’” he said.

But then another otter appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and swam at another surfer.

“At first, we were like, ‘Look how cute?’ But then it bit down on the board and chewed off a piece, and we were like. ‘What’s going on?’” he said.

That’s when it turned its eyes on Lee and made a beeline for him.

“I was scared. I was trying to swim away, but before I was able to get far, it bit my leash,” he said, describing the tether surfers wear around their ankle that connects them to the

board. “So I panicked.”

He said the otter jumped on his board and began biting it. He tried to flip the board, but the otter got right back on — and started lunging at him.

He was ultimately able to get to shore, but not before being fully terrified and drained from exhaustion.

According to Mark Woodward — a photographer and social media influencer who goes by the name @NativeSantaCruz on Twitter, Instagram and Threads — the attack is not isolated.

Woodward said he’s documented a number of similar episodes and believes they have been escalating in ferocity since mid-June.

He said he’d heard a report last year about an otter grabbing a surfboard off the coast, but it wasn’t until Juneteenth that he saw it with his own eyes — and the thieving spree really got underway.

Woodward was standing on the bluff by a lighthouse, photographing a Black Santa surf event off Cowell Beach, when he saw a hefty sea otter torpedo toward a surfboard, wrest it from the startled surfer, and then catch a few solo waves.

An adult sea otter can weigh 30 to 100 pounds, and reach 5 feet in length.

Since then, Woodward has witnessed three more encounters and has heard about plenty more. He said the otter — which can be identified by the blue tag on the webbing between the toes of its

left foot — seems to be growing increasingly aggressive. Woodward videotaped Lee’s encounter while standing on a bluff high above the scene. It was unnerving to watch, as otters have powerful jaws that can crack through the shells of crabs, mussels, sea urchins and other food sources.

“It’s a little scary. They seem so cute and docile, but these animals are predators.

Their bite is as strong as a wolverine’s,” Woodward said.

Although it’s not true that an otter has a more powerful bite than a wolverine, it is much stronger than the bite of a human. The force of an otter’s bite has been estimated to be 615 pounds per square inch, while a wolverine’s can reach 1,720 pounds per square inch. The average person’s bite force is about 162 pounds per square inch.

In the wake of mounting incidents — which were first viewed with amusement — federal

and state wildlife officials have decided they need to remove the young otter from the wild, before it hurts someone — or itself.

A city worker posted signs Tuesday morning along West Cliff Drive warning surfers of an “aggressive sea otter” in the area and to enter the water at their own risk.

“I would start just by saying that this is very unusual and rare,” said Jessica Fujii, scientific and operational leader of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sea Otter Program. “I would not characterize this as a common behavior for sea otters. We have seen similar instances, you know, over the last several decades ... but the persistence and pattern of this particular otter is fairly unique.”

Five years ago, there was an otter in Monterey Bay that approached kayaks. That otter, Fujii said, had probably been fed illegally by people — a common trigger for this kind of aggressive behavior.

surpassed levels seen during Tropical Storm Irene. Irene killed six people in Vermont in August 2011, washing homes off their foundations and damaging or destroying more than 200 bridges and 500 miles of highway.

Atmospheric scientists say destructive flooding events happen more frequently as storms form in a warmer atmosphere, and the planet’s rising temperatures will only make it worse.

In Ludlow, a central Vermont town of 1,500, residents focused Wednesday on reopening roadways, checking on isolated homeowners and cleaning out mud and debris from water-logged businesses.

“We sustained catastrophic damage. We just really took the brunt of the storm,” Ludlow Municipal Manager Brendan McNamara said.

The town’s water treatment plant was out of commission, the main supermarket and roadway through town remained closed, and McNamara couldn’t begin to estimate how many houses had been damaged. Scores of businesses were damaged, and the town’s Little League field and a new skate park were destroyed.

“Thankfully we got through it with no loss of life,” McNamara said. “Ludlow will be fine. People are coming together and taking care of each other.”

Colleen Dooley, a retired teacher, returned to her condominium complex in Ludlow to find the grounds covered in silt and mud and the pool filled with muddy river water.

“I don’t know when we’ll move back, but it will certainly be awhile,” she said.

Lawmakers say tax prep firms shared data

WASHINGTON (AP)

— Three large tax preparation firms sent “extraordinarily sensitive” information on tens of millions of taxpayers to Facebook parent company Meta over the course of at least two years, a group of congressional Democrats reported on Wednesday. Their report urges federal agencies to investigate and potentially go to court over the wealth of information that H&R Block, TaxAct and TaxSlayer shared with the social media giant.

In a letter to the heads of the IRS, the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and the IRS watchdog, seven lawmakers say their findings “reveal a shocking breach of taxpayer privacy by tax prep companies

and by Big Tech firms.” Their report said highly personal and financial information about sources of taxpayers’ income, tax deductions and exemptions was made accessible to Meta as taxpayers used the tax software to prepare their taxes. That data came to Meta through its Pixel code, which the tax firms installed on their websites to gather information on how to improve their own marketing campaigns.

Simon Jennings, of Montpelier, Vt., removes mid-20th century mannequins from the flood-damaged antique, art, and furnishing store J. Langdon he shares with his wife, in downtown Montpelier, Vt. Tuesday. A storm that dumped two months of rain in two days brought more flooding across Vermont. (AP PHOTO/STEVEN SENNE)

Attorney: Lawmakers botched the drafting of anti-trans law

By JOHN HANNA The Associated Press

TOPEKA,

Kan. (AP)

— Kansas legislators

botched the drafting of a new law aimed at preventing transgender people from changing how their sex is listed on their driver’s licenses, a state agency’s lawyer argued in a court filing made public Tuesday.

The attorney in Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration made that argument in asking a state court judge to lift an order barring such changes because of a lawsuit filed by Republican state Attorney General Kris Kobach.

Five transgender Kansas residents also want the order revoked, arguing in their own court filings that their constitutional rights are being violated.

Kelly announced last month that the state would continue changing transgender people’s driver’s licenses to reflect their gender identities, despite an new anti-transgender rights law that took effect July 1. If Kobach’s lawsuit is successful, Kansas would become one of the few states that don’t allow such changes.

“It is a poorly written law,” said Adam Kellogg, a 20-year-old

University of Kansas student, one of the five transgender people, who are seeking to intervene in Kobach’s lawsuit. “It was meant to be hateful.”

Kansas Department of Revenue attorney Ted Smith argued that the new law conflicts with another governing what appears on driver’s licenses. The department’s motor vehicles division issues driver’s licenses, and Smith said the division still must follow the older law because it applies specifically to driver’s licenses. The new law does not mention them.

Kobach filed a lawsuit in state court on Friday against the department’s head and the motor vehicles division’s director.

District Judge Teresa Watson issued an order Monday directing the state to stop allowing such changes, acting at Kobach’s request and without a hearing.

The order expires July 24, though the judge could extend it. Smith’s filing, dated Monday, asked Watson to rescind her order, and she set a Zoom hearing for Wednesday.

“There is a remedy available to the Legislature,” Smith wrote in his filing, saying lawmakers can consider

Public notice

changing the driver’s license law next year. They have adjourned for this year.

The Department of Revenue says more than 500 people have changed the sex listing on their driver’s licenses since July 2019, including 172 last month alone.

The new Kansas law defines male and female based on the sex assigned a person at birth for “any” other law or state regulation — preventing legal recognition for transgender people’s gender identities. It was part of a wave of anti-transgender legislation in Republican-led statehouses across the U.S., and the GOP-controlled Legislature enacted it over Kelly’s veto.

The Kansas driver’s license law says each application for a license must include a person’s “gender,” even though the listing on the license is “sex.” Smith says that language has been in place since 2007 and was clarified by a 2011 policy that Smith himself outlined in a memo to driver’s license examiners.

Two states that don’t allow changes for transgender people, Montana and Tennessee, have specific provisions regarding driver’s licenses.

Webb Space Telescope reveals stellar births, dramatic close-ups

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The Webb Space Telescope is marking one year of cosmic photographs with one of its best yet: the dramatic close-up of dozens of stars at the moment of birth.

NASA unveiled the latest snapshot Wednesday, revealing 50 baby stars in a cloud complex 390 light-years away. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles.

The region is relatively small and quiet yet full of illuminated gases, jets of hydrogen and even dense cocoons of dust with the delicate beginnings of even more stars.

All of the young stars appear to be no bigger than our sun. Scientists said the breathtaking shot provides the best clarity yet of this brief phase of a star’s life.

“It’s like a glimpse of what our own system would have looked like billions of years ago when it was forming,” NASA program scientist Eric Smith told The Associated Press.

Smith pointed out that the starlight visible in the image actually left there 390 years ago. On Earth in 1633, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei went on trial in Rome for saying that the Earth revolved around the sun. The Vatican in 1992 acknowledged Galileo was wronged.

This cloud complex, known as Rho Ophiuchi, is the closest star-forming region to Earth and is found in the sky near the border

of the constellations Ophiuchus and Scorpius, the serpent-bearer and scorpion. With no stars in the foreground of the photo, NASA noted, the details stand out all the more. Some of the stars display shadows indicating possible planets in the making, according to NASA.

It “presents star birth as an impressionistic masterpiece,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a tweet. Webb — the largest and most powerful astronomical obser-

vatory ever launched into space — has been churning out cosmic beauty shots for the past year. The first pictures from the $10 billion infrared telescope were unveiled last July, six months after its liftoff from French Guiana.

It’s considered the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, orbiting Earth for 33 years. A joint NASA-European Space Agency effort, Webb scans the universe from a more distant perch, 1 million miles away.

The first anniversary image released Wednesday by Space Telescope Science Institute Office of Public Outreach, shows NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope displaying a star birth like it’s never been seen before, full of detailed, impressionistic texture. The subject is the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STSCI, KLAUS PON VIA AP)

Inflation: Pressure eases on used car, grocery prices

Continued

ing the eventual end of the central bank’s rate increases.

The Fed has raised its benchmark rate by a substantial 5 percentage points since March

2022, the steepest pace of increases in four decades. Its expected hike this month will follow the central bank’s decision to pause its rate increases last month after 10 consecutive hikes.

Excluding the volatile food and energy prices, so-called core inflation was lower last month than economists had expected, rising just 0.2% from May to June, the smallest monthly increase in nearly two years. Compared with a year ago, core inflation does remain relatively high, at 4.8%, but down from a 5.3% annual rate in May.

In just the past two months, overall inflation, measured year over year, has slowed from nearly 5% in April to just 3% now. Much of that progress reflects the fading of spikes in food and energy prices that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last spring. Inflation is now significantly below its

peak of 9.1% in June 2022.

Gas prices have fallen to about $3.54 a gallon on average, nationally, down from a $5 peak last year. Grocery prices have leveled off in the past three months and were unchanged from May to June. Milk prices, having dropped for a third straight month, are down 1.9% from last year.

Eggs, which had skyrocketed last year after an outbreak of avian flu decimated chicken flocks, have dropped to

$2.22 a dozen — down more than 7% just in the past month. Egg prices had peaked at $4.82 in January, according to government data. Still, they remain above the average pre-pandemic price of about $1.60 a dozen.

Economists say inflation isn’t likely to keep falling at such a rapid pace. On a 12-month basis, inflation could even tick up in the coming months now that big drops in gas prices — they’re down 27% in the past year — have been

achieved..

In particular, airfares plunged 8.1% just from May to June, hotel costs

2% and car rental prices

1.4% — sharp drops that aren’t likely to be replicated.

And the cost of some services are still rising and likely to stay high this year, potentially keeping core prices elevated. Auto insurance costs, for instance, have soared, and are up 16.9% from a year ago. Americans are driving more than during the pandemic and causing

more accidents. Insurance is also costlier because vehicle prices are much higher than before the pandemic, and cars are therefore more valuable.

Restaurant prices are still moving up, having risen 0.4% from May to June and nearly 8% from a year earlier. Restaurant owners have had to keep raising wages to find and retain workers, and many of them are passing their higher labor costs on to their customers by raising prices.

Chrishon Lampley, owner of the wine brand Love Cork Screw, says more expensive restaurant prices have led her to cut back on taking prospective customers out for meals. Instead, she gives potential wine buyers small gifts.

The cost of printing labels for her wine bottles has nearly doubled in the past year, Lampley said, mostly because of higher labor costs. She’s reduced her travel costs as a result. Lampley now chooses extended-stay hotels with kitchens rather than regular hotels, and she rents smaller cars even though she often carts

Pyle: Court rules he can cross neighbor’s land

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court.

The Supreme Court decision issued July 7 didn’t alter the lower court decisions establishing Pyle acquired the disputed land by adverse possession.

The Supreme Court did decide the question of whether Pyle had an easement over a 60-foot strip of Gall land for the purpose of reaching a nearly 2-acre piece of Pyle property separated from his other holdings by Walnut Creek.

The district court said Pyle could legally traverse the strip to plant and harvest crops, but the Court of Appeals disagreed because Pyle hadn’t demonstrated exclusive use of the corridor leading to his tiny field in Brown County.

Justices of the Supreme Court decided Pyle had established the legal right to cross the neighbor’s land and overturned that portion of the Court of Appeals’ decision.

In the opinion by

Justice Evelyn Wilson affirming the district court’s perspective, she wrote Pyle had openly established an easement over the years by continuously using the Galls’ land for “a unique purpose over a set prescriptive period.” It’s significant the Galls waited many years before trying to stop the Pyles from using the access point.

Wilson said the Supreme Court was interested in the case because over the past

ACC: Expenditures OK’d

Continued from A1

work done before the fall sports season begins in August.

Trustees also approved the purchase of a 16-foot mower from Machine Shed out of Iola for $24,457.82, after attempts to purchase a 20-foot mower from Keast Enterprises out of Henderson, Iowa, fell through.

Trustees in May approved the Keast mower buy in May, but the company failed to deliver the machine, Sigg said, and could offer no guarantees when one would be available. He expected a $22,000 refund this week.

IN OTHER budget news, Moses told trustees the college administrative team is putting the pieces together for ACC’s 2023-24 spending plan, which is due in September.

Even with the large expenditure for the student information system, the college’s ad valorem tax levy will decrease slightly, Moses said. The college will schedule a budget hearing in August for final approval in September.

THE COLLEGE is look-

ing at an enrollment decrease for the upcoming school year, Jacobson said.

As of Tuesday, the college had 40 fewer students enrolled than at this point last year.

She attributed a portion of the drop to the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed some athletes an additional year of eligibility at Allen.

“We knew numbers were going to go down,” Jacobson said. “Part of what made that large bump, students had two recruiting groups who all showed up for COVID, and we kept a lot of the students from the pandemic.”

But with the pandemic two years in the rear view mirror, all of those double-classes have since cycled out, Jacobson noted.

Other factors included the college’s decision to tighten its rules for international students, and requiring all athletes to live on campus, Jacobson said.

She said Allen will get a better handle as the summer progresses, noting large clusters of students, including those from Shawnee County, have not yet

enrolled. Additionally, most of the online students won’t enroll until after Aug. 1.

“Those will make a big difference,” Melanie Wallace, dean for academic affairs, agreed.

TRUSTEES approved several hirings at the conclusion of Tuesday’s meeting.

Dr. Kara Wheeler is the new vice president for academic affairs. Wheeler was formerly dean of instruction at Labette Community College for the past three years, after having worked as ACC’s director of admissions and marketing for the 201920 school year.

Tonya Johnson was hired as Allen’s vice president for finance and operations, as well as the trustees’ board clerk. She and Wheeler will both begin work on July 24.

Also hired were Laura Magleau as assistant women’s soccer coach and residence hall director, Jim Papen as assistant women’s basketball coach and bus driver for athletic teams; Nicholas Olson for the college bookstore and Tina Mader as a custodian.

50 years or so the legal basis of a prescriptive easement had become blended with definitions of adverse possession, which was a related but distinct doctrine of property law. For example, the Court of Appeals issued conflicting opinions on this type of easement within a fiveyear period.

The idea embraced by the Supreme Court was that exclusive use of a prescriptive easement didn’t mean the property wasn’t accessible to other people.

Instead, the Supreme

Court’s preferred test was tied to whether the general public was forbidden from using the easement. In this case, Pyle used the easement exclusively for farming. The Galls had allowed usage of the access point for people engaged in farming, hunting or fishing on their own fields.

“Importantly, the Pyles’ use of the land was unique to them,” the Supreme Court said. “Moreover, no one else had a similar right to use the Galls’ land as a corridor to the (Pyle) field.”

around cases of wine.

“Everything has just become way more frugal,” she said. “I’ve got to pull back.”

Chair Jerome Powell and other Fed officials have focused their attention, in particular, on chronically high inflation for restaurant meals, auto insurance and other items in the economy’s sprawling service sector. It’s a big reason why several Fed policymakers were still talking earlier this week about the likelihood of two more rate hikes.

“We’re likely to need a couple more rate hikes over the course of this year to really bring inflation back into ... a sustainable 2% path,” Mary Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said on Monday.

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2017, later resigned from the department in order to take a job with the Kansas Highway Patrol, but that job offer was rescinded as a subsequent investigation into the 2021 incident by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation unfolded.

Porter also faces drunken-driving charges from an incident May 7 in Greenwood County. He stands accused of driving while under the influence of alcohol, possessing a loaded firearm while under the influence, reckless driving, passing in a no-passing zone and with insufficient clearance. A status conference on the Greenwood County cases is scheduled for Tuesday.

Porter

~ Journalism that makes a difference

Local

officials lose sight of the goal on recycling

Set the goal, and work backward.

That’s how big decisions get made. Otherwise, the details can be overwhelming.

At Monday’s Iola Council meeting, Mayor Steve French said Iola needs to recycle its waste.

“Do we need to recycle?

Absolutely,” he said, but then drifted off topic, letting the politics of working with county officials spoil the idea.

According to French, keeping local waste out of the landfill helps the county make money because it extends its lifetime. And the longer the county can accept out-ofcounty waste, the more profitable it is.

A side benefit of recycling — that it extends the landfill’s lifetime — would appear to most as a winwin.

French, however, called it “a double-edged sword.”

That sounds like sour grapes.

IN TERMS of cost, we’re talking about a pittance.

Last week, county officials proposed they split the pay with the city for a part-time employee to oversee cardboard collection for a 90-day trial period.

Peek into the storage facility on East Street and you’ll see mountains of it.

Instead of accepting the partnership, Iola council members chose to chase its caveats.

What if the county expects the city to provide

equipment?

After all, “it’s not like we have spare trucks lying around,” French said.

Other council members were equally disingenuous, suggesting the volunteers with Allen County Recycling, a nonprofit organization, apply for grants, tap local businesses for donations to handle their cardboard waste, or use inmates at the county jail to do the work.

Volunteer Janie Works of Humboldt graciously weathered Council’s “suggestions,” as it became increasingly clear they preferred to let the details derail them from what others had hoped would be the first steps of a municipal service.

FOR ALMOST 30 years, locals have relied on the Iola Rotary Club to conduct recycling.

In 2019, they expanded the program to include plastic and glass. The most recent tally was 1 million pounds of cardboard, 160 pounds of paper, 90,000 pounds of plastic and 120,000 pounds of glass.

In 2021, Rotary stopped the program due to the overwhelming response by local residents.

“It became too big for us,” said Rotarian Dan Davis at a meeting last summer to discuss the situation.

Clearly, locals want a recycling program.

Our elected officials should see that it happens.

— Susan Lynn

A look back in t me. A look back in t me.

60 Years Ago

July 1963

Carpenter Street between Sycamore and Jefferson, north of the Lincoln Elementary School, will be closed by the city in an agreement with the Iola Board of Education. The school board has purchased the four lots north of Carpenter Street and intends to block the street in order to use the area as a playground.

*****

Howard Gilpin, Iola banker, was elected chairman of the School Planning Board for Allen County. Fred Cunningham Jr. of Elsmore was elected vice chairman. Robert Stadler of Humboldt was selected as attorney for the board. They agreed to meet the first and third Tuesdays of each month until their work is completed.

*****

Voters of the Deer Creek Watershed voted yesterday to organize a watershed district, it was reported today by Tom Maxwell, Allen County farm agent. He said this will allow the district to begin a study that will include mapping the topography of the watershed, determining the location of dams and their size and cost. Following the study, a plan incorporating the findings will be submitted again to the voters, Maxwell said. He indicated that it will take

Sterling wrong to fire librarians

It used to be you could get fired from a government job for being too prejudiced.

Now, in Sterling, Kansas, you get fired for not being prejudiced enough.

Last week, the town’s library board sacked both the library director, Kari Wheeler, and her top assistant, Brandy Lancaster. Their offense? They didn’t cater enough to the board’s anti-LGBT agenda.

According to the former librarians, the friction started with a dispute over whether to shelve one of the books in the William Allen White Reading Program, which happens to include a gender-nonbinary character.

Each year, the program publishes a list of award-winning books for the elementary and middle-school levels. It’s a big deal in a lot of school districts and there are often rewards for reading the entire list.

When my sons were in school, the reward was a field trip to Emporia to see White’s former office at the Emporia Gazette and learn about the revered newspaperman, who won the Pulitzer Prize, rubbed elbows with presidents and was one of the leading voices for middle America from the late 1890s into the 1940s.

Dion Lefler

tionale, such as it is: “I do not want any kind of rainbow display … especially in this month. We are in Pride month. People are on display. We have a conservative town and as a library, do not need to make political statements like Target and Bud Light.”

While we’re at it, maybe we should change the unofficial theme song of this state to “Somewhere Over That Thing We Can’t Talk About ‘Cuz It’s Too Gay.”

And speaking of Bud Light, many of my conservative friends were rejoicing online yesterday at the news that the boycott over the brand hiring a transgender influencer is forcing the closure of two glass factories that make Bud Light bottles.

to be public and is a matter of public record. I asked for the library board’s budget, to see where they get their money and what they do with it. It turns out they haven’t done a budget for years and there’s no way to tell what they’ve been doing with the $60,000 or so they get from city taxes each year, plus state and nonprofit support.

The city government owns the library building and allocates the bulk of the money to run it. But that’s about the extent of its involvement.

The board is largely self-appointed. Members decide who they want on the board with them and the mayor trots the names over to be rubber-stamped by the City Council.

Given the process, it’s not hard to see how this became the Book Ban of the Month Club.

more than a year before the study is completed and the plan put before the voters again.

*****

Wilbert F. Dreiling, formerly of Hays, is the new president of Piqua State Bank at Piqua. Mr. Dreiling purchased controlling interest in the bank from the heirs of the late John H. Wille, who had operated the bank for 54 years.

*****

A thousand hot lunches a day will be produced in Iola’s new “Science, Economics, and Food Center” when Iola schools inaugurate a full-fledged hot lunch program, Ennor Horine told members of the Iola Kiwanis Club last night at the Kelley Hotel. The food will be transported to each of the school buildings in carts and will be served to all children in the entire school system who desire them. The cost to the children will be 25 cents a meal in the grades, 30 cents in the high school, and 35 cents in junior college. No child, however, will be denied lunches for lack of ability to pay. Substantial amounts of “surplus commodities” will be donated by the federal government from month to month. With this assist, he said, the program is expected to be self-supporting financially so far as operating costs are concerned.

Wheeler had a donor who offered to buy the library the entire set of William Allen White books for this year. One of the selections is “Flight of the Puffin,” a novel including a nonbinary teen who lives on the streets after being shunned at home.

A board member told Wheeler to go ahead and order the books, but to hide “Flight of the Puffin” in her desk drawer and not check it out to anybody.

It’s an order no librarian worthy of the title would ever follow.

The rainbow incident seems to be the last straw.

In a small display case at the entry to the library, Wheeler and Lancaster were putting together a diversity display when library board Vice President Michelle Miller showed up and laid down the law: No rainbows, because they’re associated with LGBT rights. Now, neither of the rainbow images for the display case had anything to do with that.

One was a collage of a girl in a wheelchair sitting in front of a rainbow and the other was the international symbol of autism awareness, a rainbow-colored infinity symbol.

In a June 22 board meeting that Lancaster recorded, Miller explained her ra-

The factories, which aren’t owned by the beer-maker, are in Louisiana and North Carolina. Modelo, a Mexican beer, has taken over from Bud Light as the No. 1 beer in the United States.

Board members serve four-year terms. I asked who they answer to for their decisions and the answer I got was “the state Constitution.”

It’s a total abuse of power, it’s discrimination and it’s bigoted and we need a change.

— Brandy Lancaster, assistant librarian

So the Bud Light backlash just destroyed 600 blue-collar jobs in red states and is creating jobs in Mexico. Hard not to see the irony there.

I SPENT Monday afternoon in Sterling and found myself dealing with one of the most insular, secretive and generally incompetent government bodies I’ve ever encountered.

I had to go there in person because Sterling’s mayor, Bob Bolt, who serves on the eight-member library board, hung up on me as soon as I introduced myself. The president, vice president, treasurer and secretary of the board didn’t return phone calls.

One board member chewed me out for calling her six weeks after she lost her husband — although I had no way of knowing that and she had participated in the special library board meeting where the librarians were canned.

Of the two board members willing to give me the time of day, neither would tell me how they or anyone else voted on the librarians’ firings — citing executive privilege — although under state law the vote is required

The state Constitution was unavailable for comment.

So I’ll just quote Lancaster instead: “It’s total abuse of power, it’s discrimination and it’s bigoted and we need a change.”

She’s not wrong.

Board members say they fired her and Wheeler because they’d lost confidence in them.

They’ve got some nerve. If anybody in this sorry scenario doesn’t inspire confidence, it’s the board members.

The only things they seem to be good at are censorship, clandestine decision-making and stonewalling.

They fail miserably at the open-mindedness, transparency and stewardship of public funds that community members should expect from the people running their library.

A local citizen, Samantha Corwin, has launched a petition to try to reinstate the librarians. It’s got about 200 signatures so far.

William Allen White’s most famous editorial was about how Kansas was falling behind the rest of the country in population and wealth, because back in his day it was run by a bunch of ignorant “clodhoppers.”

The piece was titled, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”

Ask me that today and I’d give you a one-word answer. Sterling.

The Sterling Carnegie Library is picturesque, but poorly run. DION LEFLER THE WICHITA EAGLE

The Wichita Eagle

Bus crash kills 3; 14 hurt

HIGHLAND, Ill. (AP)

— A Greyhound passenger bus crashed into three tractor-trailers parked along a highway exit to a rest area early Wednesday in southern Illinois, killing three people and injuring 14 others, some seriously, state police said.

The bus was traveling westbound along Interstate 70 in Madison County around 1:55 a.m. when it crashed into the three semis, Illinois State Police said, citing an initial investigation.

Four people were taken to the hospital by helicopter and at least 10 others were taken by ambulance, state police said in a news release. Police did not immediately release details about those who were injured and killed.

No one in the three trucks was injured in the crash near the city of Highland about 25 miles east of St. Louis, police said.

State Police spokesperson Melaney Arnold said those killed and injured were all on the Greyhound bus. She was not sure if the bus driver was among those

killed or injured or if all of those involved were passengers.

The crash closed westbound traffic on I-70.

Photos and TV footage show the side of the bus peeled open, the roof crumpled. A second tractor-trailer appears to have made contact with the right rear of the bus while a third tractor-trailer appears to have crashed into the rear of that second semi.

Passenger Edward Alexander of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he helped a pregnant woman get off then bus then was searching for his phone “and realized smoke was coming in the bus. I was like, ‘forget that phone,’ and went on and jumped out the window.”

Greyhound spokesperson Mike Ogulnick did not immediately respond to calls and emails from The Associated Press but told the Post-Dispatch in an email the bus was traveling from Indianapolis to St. Louis, where it was scheduled to arrive

at about 2:20 a.m. It was carrying about 30 people, including the driver, he said.

“Our primary concern is ensuring we care for our passengers and driver at this time,” Ogulnick said. “We are working closely with local authorities and a relief bus is on the way for passengers.”

Another bus was sent to transport passengers who were not hurt, Ogulnick said.

It is illegal in Illinois for trucks to park on exit ramps. But trucking industry experts say semis often stop there for the night because overnight parking is hard to find at rest stops and other places, such as truck stops.

“And that’s not only dangerous for them but it’s dangerous for the motoring public because they do need their rest and they deserve their rest,” Lewis Pugh of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association said at a May hearing before a House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee.

Iowa Republicans approve 6-week abortion ban

DES MOINES, Iowa

(AP) — Iowa’s Republican-led Legislature passed a bill banning most abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy during a marathon special session Tuesday that continued late into the night. Gov. Kim Reynolds immediately said in a statement she would sign the bill on Friday.

The bill passed with exclusively Republican support in a rare, oneday legislative burst lasting more than 14 hours over the vocal — and sometimes tense — objections from Democratic lawmakers and abortion advocates protesting at the Capitol.

Just after 11 p.m., lingering protesters in the gallery booed and yelled “shame” to state senators in the minutes after the bill was approved.

Reynolds ordered the rare session after the state Supreme Court declined in June to reinstate a practically iden-

Wray defends ‘Real FBI’ from GOP critics

WASHINGTON (AP)

— FBI Director Chris Wray defended the “real FBI” during a contentious congressional hearing Wednesday, dismissing a litany of grievances from Republicans who are harshly critical of the bureau, threatening to defund some operations and claiming the Justice Department is unfair to political conservatives.

Wray refused to engage in specific questions about ongoing federal investigations, including those involving former President Donald Trump and Hunter Biden. The son of President Joe Biden recently reached an agreement to plead guilty to misdemeanor federal tax charges; Republicans have derided that as a sweetheart deal.

In testy exchanges with Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, Wray rejected the GOP assertion that the bureau was favoring the Biden family and said the notion that the bureau was involved the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was “ludicrous.”

“The work the men and women of the FBI do to protect the American people goes way beyond the one or two investigations that seem to capture all the headlines,” Wray said in his opening remarks.

The director spelled out the bureau’s crime-fighting work breaking up drug cartels, taking some 60 suspected criminals off the streets each day and protecting Americans from “a staggering array of threats.”

“That is the real FBI,” he said.

It’s the latest display of the new normal on Capitol Hill, where Republicans who have long billed themselves as the champions of police and “law and order” are deeply at odds

with federal law enforcement and the FBI, accusing the bureau of bias dating to investigations of Trump when he was president. This new dynamic has forced Democrats into a position of defending these law enforcement agencies they have long criticized.

The committee chairman, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, said he is trying to stop what Republicans call the “weaponization” of the federal justice system, which they say is tilted against conservatives, including Trump and his allies.

Jordan opened the hearing reciting a federal judge’s recent ruling against the government’s efforts to halt misinformation on social media.

But the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, said the hearing was “little more than performance art” by the Republicans who are undertaking what he called baseless investigations too far-fetched to be true.

During one tense exchange with Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Wray noted that in Florida, the number of FBI applicants is up by more than 100 percent.

“We’re deeply proud of them, and they deserve better than you,” Gaetz said

Wray became animated at one point by the suggestion from Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., that the FBI would have been involved in suppressing a theory that the coronavirus pandemic originated via a leak from a laboratory in China rather than a transfer from animals to humans.

“The idea that the FBI would somehow be involved in suppressing references to a lab leak theory is somewhat absurd when you consider the fact that the FBI was the only — the only — agency in the entire intelligence community to reach the assessment that it was more likely than not that was the explanation of the pandemic,” Wray said, pointing with his index finger for emphasis.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said she thought it was “actually sad that the majority is engaging conspiracy theories in an effort to discredit one of the premier law enforcement agencies in the United States.”

Another focus was the push to reauthorize a program under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, that grants agencies such as the FBI broad powers to surveil and examine communications of foreigners outside the United States.

A provision known as Section 702 is set to expire at year’s end unless Congress agrees to renew it. Members of both parties are frustrated with the program, citing allegations of federal officials abusing the system.

tical law that she signed in 2018.

“The Iowa Supreme Court questioned whether this legislature would pass the same law they did in 2018, and today they have a clear answer,” Reynolds said in a statement.

“The voices of Iowans and their democratically elected representatives cannot be ignored any longer, and justice for the unborn should not be delayed.”

Abortion is currently legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy. The legislation will take immediate effect with the governor’s signature on Friday. It will prohibit almost all abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, which is usually around six weeks of pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant.

Preparations were already underway to quickly file legal challenges in court and get the measure blocked, once Reynolds signs it

into law.

“The ACLU of Iowa, Planned Parenthood, and the Emma Goldman Clinic remain committed to protecting the reproductive rights of Iowans to control their bodies and their lives, their health, and their safety —including filing a lawsuit to block this reckless, cruel law,” ACLU of Iowa Executive Director Mark Stringer said in a statement.

In the meantime, Planned Parenthood North Central States has said they will refer patients out of state if they’re scheduled for abortions in the next few weeks. The organization, the largest abortion provider in the state, will continue to provide care to patients who present before cardiac activity is detected. For much of the day, chants from abortion advocates echoed through the rotunda and could be heard from rooms where state representatives and senators were meeting.

Cartel’s roadside bombs kill officers

MEXICO CITY (AP) —

A coordinated series of roadway bomb blasts in western Mexico that officials said were a trap organized by a drug cartel killed six police officers and prosecutors’ agents, the latest example of the increasingly open, military-style challenge posed by the country’s drug cartels.

The governor of Jalisco state said the blasts late Tuesday in Tlajomulco, a city near the state capital, Guadalajara, were set up by an anonymous caller who gave a volunteer search group a tip about a supposed clandestine burial site near the roadway. The bombs also wounded 12 people.

For years, police have been unable to locate the more than 110,000 missing people in Mexico, but they accompany volunteer search groups that look for such hid-

den graves. The volunteers, usually the mothers of missing people, often get anonymous tips about where their relatives may be buried.

Jalisco Gov. Enrique Alfaro said a total of eight “improvised explosive devices” were planted on the roadway, seven of which detonated simultaneously as a police convoy passed by.

“This is a brutal terror attack,” Alfaro said at a news conference Wednesday, blaming the deaths on an unnamed drug cartel. He said he was temporarily suspending police escorts for volunteer searches for the safety of the civilians.

Hector Flores, a leader of one of the search groups in Jalisco, said it did not appear that any search volunteers were in the blown up convoy.

Sports Daily B

Indians

By QUINN BURKITT The Iola Register

Thursday, July 13, 2023

rally too late in playoff loss to Garnett

OTTAWA — A furious comeback attempt from Iola’s A Indians wasn’t enough in a 6-5 loss against Garnett in the American Legion Zone A Tournament Tuesday.

The Indians were blanked at the plate up until the sixth inning when they scored three runs and two more runs in the seventh. Early defensive struggles, including four errors, couldn’t be overlooked in the loss.

“We took too long to get going,” Iola head coach Jason Bauer said. “We’ve just got to start piecing things together earlier. We come back all the time but tonight we just didn’t have enough to finish it off.”

Kyler Isbell looked solid starting on the mound but wasn’t helped by the

defense behind him who committed four errors. Isbell gave up six runs on 10

SportsCenter Top 10...

Iola’s recreational baseball teams in action. Clockwise, from top left, is Jyler Granere pitching, Brayson Cox playing the outfield, Arlo Franklin rounding third base and Ellis Ashmore swinging his bat. REGISTER/QUINN BURKITT

hits through 4.2 innings. Gavin Jones threw shutout ball through the final 2.1 frames while striking out four Muddogs. Garnett struck in the top of the first when Ayden Owen grounded a ball to shortstop that was muffed and allowed a Muddog to come home from third for the 1-0 lead.

The Muddogs added one more run in the third, a Michael Mains RBI single to third base for the 2-0 lead.

Two innings later, Jack Dykes singled to left field

to plate Mains for the 3-0 advantage. Aiden Steele came through one at bat later when he singled to center field to score Dykes for the 4-0 lead.

Zach Schaffer scored on a passed ball to make it 5-0 before Schaffer singled to shortstop to drive home Steele for the 6-0 lead.

The Indians bit into their deficit in the bottom of the sixth when Ryan Golden doubled to left field to score Blake Ellis to make it 6-1. Easton Weseloh then singled to center field to

bring home Kade Nilges and bring it within 6-2.

“He’s (Weseloh) down 0-2 and he’s not giving up, he’s still fouling off pitches and staying with that curveball,” Bauer said. “He’s throwing his hands at it and hitting it past the edge of the infield. That’s what you’ve got to do with two strikes, just battle.”

Two batters later, Jacob Harrington grounded out to third base to bring home Golden for the 6-3 score.

Weseloh got into another pitch in the seventh when he drilled a ground ball to second base that was misplayed at first base and allowed two runs by Drake Weir and Ellis to make it a 6-5 game.

That’s where the Indians’ rally came to a screeching halt and a 6-5 loss.

“We’ve just got to bounce back and be ready for Thursday,” said Bauer.

Garnett’s Owen earned the win on the mound, working 5.2 innings and allowing three runs on six hits while striking out five. Schaffer cleaned up in the final 1.1 innings and allowed two runs on one hit with two strikeouts.

THE INDIANS will face off against Ottawa in the zone tournament elimination game in Ottawa at 6 p.m. Thursday.

Sabalenka reaches finals of Wimbledon

WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — Aryna Sabalenka reached the semifinals at Wimbledon for the second straight time, with a one-year break in between because she was banned from the tournament in 2022.

Sabalenka, a Belarusian who is seeded second at the All England Club, had to sit out last year’s competition along with other players from her country and from Russia because of the war in Ukraine. She advanced Wednesday by beating Madison Keys 6-2, 6-4 on No. 1 Court.

“It really feels amazing to be back in the semifinals. I can’t wait to play in my second semifinal at Wimbledon,” said Sabalenka, who lost to runner-up Karolina Pliskova in 2021. “Hopefully I can do better than I did last time.”

The victory improved Sabalenka’s record to 17-1 at major tournaments this year. She won the Australian Open and reached the semifinals

See WIMBLEDON | Page B3

Iola’s Kyler Isbell tosses a pitch to home plate against Garnett. REGISTER/QUINN BURKITT

Iola’s Kade Nilges connects. REGISTER/QUINN BURKITT

Looking

G7 pledges security deals with Ukraine

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed fresh pledges of weapons and ammunition to fight Russia’s invasion and longer-term security commitments from the West on Wednesday even as he expressed disappointment over the lack of a clear path for his country to join NATO as the alliance wrapped up its annual summit.

“The Ukrainian delegation is bringing home a significant security victory for the Ukraine, for our country, for our people, for our children,” he said while flanked by U.S. President Joe Biden and other leaders from the Group of Seven most powerful democratic nations.

A joint declaration issued by the G7 lays the groundwork for each nation to negotiate agreements to help

Ukraine bolster its military over the long term. Zelenskyy described the initiative as a bridge toward eventual NATO membership and a deterrent against Russia.

“Our support will last long into the future,” Biden said. “We’re going to help Ukraine build a strong, capable defense.”

The Ukrainian and American presidents also met separately along with their advisers, and Biden pledged that “the United States is doing everything we can to get you what you need.” He acknowledged that Zelenskyy is sometimes “frustrated” by the pace of military assistance.

Zelenskyy thanked Biden, saying that “you spend this money for our lives,” and said shipments of controversial cluster munitions would help Ukraine’s fight against Russia.

It was a marked shift in tone from Zelenskyy’s complaints a day earlier that it was “unprecedented and absurd” to avoid setting a timeline for Ukraine to join NATO.

On the final day of NATO’s summit, the alliance launched a new forum for deepening ties with Ukraine, known as the NATO-Ukraine Council. It’s intended to serve as a permanent body where the alliance’s 31 members and Ukraine can hold consultations and call for meetings in emergency situations.

The setting is part of NATO’s effort to bring Ukraine as close as possible to the military alliance without actually joining it. On Tuesday, the leaders said in their communique summarizing the summit’s conclusions that Ukraine can join “when allies agree and condi-

tions are met.”

“Today we meet as equals,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday at a news conference with Zelenskyy. “I look forward to the day we meet as allies.”

The ambiguous plan for Ukraine’s future membership reflects the challenges of reaching consensus among the alliance’s current members while the war continues, and has frustrated Zelenskyy even as he expressed appreciation for military hardware being promised by Group of Seven industrial nations.

“The results of the summit are good, but if there were an invitation, that would be ideal,” Zelenskyy said, through a translator. He added that joining NATO would be “a serious motivating factor for Ukrainian society” at it resists Russia.

MLB players prioritize mental health

SAN FRANCISCO

(AP) — Shoes off and dropped near the visitor’s dugout in San Francisco, Christian Walker begins his barefoot stroll through the perfectly manicured grass and makes his way into right field, where he plops down for a much-needed dose of Vitamin D on a sunny, summer Bay Area day. It’s a welcome chance for a good stretch and fresh air following a cross-country flight from Washington.

It also provides a little bit of quiet time, all to himself, before the structured baseball activity of warmups and batting practice begins.

For nearly a decade, Walker has counted on this time before each game to connect his mind and body. And on this occasion, he even made a barehanded catch while sitting with his legs out, somehow corralling a two-hopper from Nick Ahmed during Diamondbacks early hitting — a first for Walker utilizing his Gold Glove defensive skills since beginning his routine of “earthing.”

Players who participate in barefoot walking say the benefits are wide-ranging: give the feet opportunity to move without the constraints of shoes to potentially decrease pain and inflammation, lower stress and help normalize the nervous system for improved sleep and day-to-day function among other potential benefits for the heart, cortisol levels and mental health.

No accepted scientific studies confirm grounding improves performance, but the players believe it.

“The science of grounding is harnessing the earth’s energy,” Walker explains. Some 10 minutes after Walker starts his session, barefooted pitcher Kyle Nelson passes with a quick hello while taking his own pregame walk to feel the grass between his toes. Ahmed does it, too, while Cubs outfielder Mike Tauchman removed his shoes for a walk at Oracle Park during Chicago’s June visit.

San Francisco lefthander Sean Manaea is another big fan and can often be seen skipping or shuffling barefoot from the Giants dugout, his long dark locks swaying in the breeze.

Walker is thrilled how the practice — also known as “grounding”

Wimbledon: To Finals

Continued from B1

at the French Open before her five wins so far on the grass at Wimbledon.

Sabalenka, the only former major champion remaining in the women’s tournament, also improved her record to 6-0 in Grand Slam quarterfinal matches, and she did so despite much of the cheering going toward Keys on Wednesday.

“Thank you so much for the atmosphere, even though you supported her more,” Sabalenka said on court.

“I still enjoyed playing in front of you guys.”

Sabalenka will next face Ons Jabeur, a sixth-seeded Tunisian who beat defending champion Elena Rybakina 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-1 on Centre Court in a rematch of last year’s final.

“I wish we can exchange this match from finals last year,” said Jabeur, who lost to Rybakina in three sets in 2022.

Jabeur won eight of the last nine games to reach the semifinals at a major tournament for the third time. She is 2-0 in the previous two, also reaching the final at last year’s U.S. Open.

“I’m going to keep the spirit on the court and hopefully the crowd will be with me,” Jabeur said of the match against Sabalenka.

Saudi investment in PGA will top $1 billion

WASHINGTON (AP)

— Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has agreed to invest more than $1 billion in a new commercial entity controlled by the PGA Tour, and Greg Norman will be ousted as the CEO of LIV Golf if the business deal between the Saudis and the tour is finalized, a tour executive told Congress on Tuesday.

— has caught on all over as players find it useful for their own reasons.

When he began doing it during his second season in the big leagues with Baltimore in 2015, Walker heard all the teasing, friendly jabs and scrutiny.

“Everybody’s got some funny joke about grounding or earthing or trying to make a joke about being a hippie, or whatever the funny narrative is,” he said. “It’s cool to see more people doing it.”

Now, at 32 and a nineyear veteran, Arizona’s slugging first baseman arrives early enough to get his work done 10-15 minutes before the home team begins its pregame routine of batting practice and groundballs. Sometimes it will be just walking a lap around the outfield, or lying in the grass and stretching out his limbs.

out to the hidden bullpen in center field for a breathing session led by Giants human performance specialist Harvey Martin.

Assistant pitching coach JP Martinez participates, too, and the three men find seats along the outfield wall where they will be safe if a batting-practice ball happens to fly over the fence.

For 15 minutes, they transform into another world. Inhale-exhale in a constant rhythm, then a lengthy breath hold of 90 seconds. Repeat. It’s focused meditation and breath work.

“The first thing I go to in the foundation is your breathing,” Martin said. “Breathing is kind of the language of the body, the connector of the mind and the body.”

The agreement between the Saudi Public Investment Fund, the primary funder of LIV Golf, and the PGA Tour shocked the golf world when it was announced last month and led to probes by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which summoned tour officials to the Capitol to testify under oath, and the Justice Department, which is looking into potential antitrust violations.

Among the subcommittee’s findings were that representatives of the tour and the Saudis discussed giving Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy their own LIV Golf teams, a proposal that apparently never reached either player. There was no indication during Tuesday’s hearing that Congress would block the tour from going into business with the Saudis.

on June 6 that they agreed to drop all lawsuits against each other and combine their commercial interests into a new for-profit company while maintaining the tour’s nonprofit status. Asked by Blumenthal how much money the Saudis have committed to the new venture, Ron Price, the PGA Tour’s chief operating officer, testified the amount was “north of $1 billion.”

Blumenthal repeatedly pressed Price and Jimmy Dunne, a PGA Tour board member and a key negotiator of the Saudi deal, on why the tour did not seek alternative sources of funding to compete with the PIF. Price and Dunne said going into business with outside investors would not prevent LIV Golf and the PIF from continuing to compete with the tour and use its vast resources to sign top players.

Jabeur will play Sabalenka in the second match on Centre Court on Thursday for a spot in Saturday’s final. Elina Svitolina will face Marketa Vondrousova in the early match.

Later Wednesday in the men’s quarterfinals, top-seeded Carlos Alcaraz defeated Holger Rune, 7-6, 6-4, 6-4 and America’s new star, Chris Eubanks, lost to Daniil Medvedev, 6-4, 1-6, 4-6, 7-6, 6-1.

Queen Camilla was in attendance on Day 10 of the tournament, about a week after Kate, the Princess of Wales, sat in the Royal Box.

“I love the sunlight on me, so I try to wear something sleeveless,” Walker said. “It doesn’t take much. Even if the other team is out here for batting practice, I can usually find a quiet corner somewhere and just kind of be in the moment.”

He started earthing under the guidance of then-Orioles strength coach Trevor Howell — “before there was much info on it.”

“It started as we were working on sprint form and working on ankle mobility and stuff like that,” Walker said, “and it’s kind of evolved into something else for me.”

Manaea almost dances as he moves barefooted through the left field grass and

Manaea, who pitched a no-hitter for Oakland five years ago and has handled a variety of roles in his first campaign with the Giants, suddenly found himself needing support last season in San Diego, when he struggled with self-doubt. Eventually, the pitcher asked for help and knew he had to make changes — hardly an easy task for someone who describes himself as a “solitary person.”

Manaea confided his struggles to his girlfriend, teammates, family and friends.

Now, he works regularly on breathing and even focuses his efforts on something simple like being a better friend.

San Francisco’s Joc Pederson also counts on constant support from Martin and is committed to breath work and

See BASEBALL | Page B4

The subcommittee chairman, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he was troubled by the geopolitical implications of Saudi investment in American sports and efforts by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi leader, to whitewash the kingdom’s human rights abuses. However, Republicans on the committee were more sympathetic to the PGA Tour and the existential threat it faced from the PIF, which controls $600 billion in assets — roughly 500 times what the tour is worth.

“We’re here because we’re concerned about what it means for an authoritarian government to use its wealth to capture an American institution,” Blumenthal said.

The PGA Tour and the Saudis announced

“My entire concern here is to put this divisive period behind us, and for the sake of players, fans, sponsors and charities, unite the game of golf again,” said Dunne, a New York investment banker who is well connected with the sport’s leaders. Critics of the Saudi investment in golf have pointed to the kingdom’s poor human rights record and the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which U.S. intelligence concluded was likely approved by the crown prince, an allegation he denies.

The PIF has bought its way into other sports including soccer — it owns Newcastle United of the English Premier League — and Formula One racing.

“There is something that stinks about this path that you’re on right now because it is a surrender, and it is all about the money, and that is the reason for the backlash that you’re seeing, Mr. Price,” Blumenthal said. “The equity ownership interest that the Saudis will have ... gives them financial dominance. They control the purse strings.”

See LIV | Page B6

Arizona Diamondbacks’ Christian Walker warms up barefoot on the field before a baseball game between the Diamondbacks and the San Francisco Giants in San Francisco, Friday, June 23. JANIE MCCAULEY/AP PHOTO

Northwestern fires coach Pat Fitzgerald after hazing allegations

EVANSTON, Ill. (AP)

— Northwestern fired coach Pat Fitzgerald on Monday amid a hazing scandal that called into question his leadership of the program and damaged the university’s reputation after it mishandled its response to the allegations.

NL stops streak, beats AL, 3-2

SEATTLE (AP) —

Shining brightly in the Emerald City, the National League snapped a losing streak that lasted more than a decade.

An unheralded catcher from Colorado delivered the big blow.

Elias Díaz hit a tworun homer off Félix Bautista in the eighth inning, and the NL snapped a nine-game losing streak in the All-Star Game with a 3-2 win over the American League on Tuesday night.

The NL won for the first time since an 8-0 victory in 2012 in Kansas City, and Díaz became the first Rockies player to win the AllStar MVP award.

“It feels incredible. When we all got here, we all talked about how we were going to bring home the win,” said Díaz, who was non-tendered by the Pirates at the end of 2019. “I just didn’t realize it was going to be me to bring home the win.”

Díaz drove a 2-2 pitch from Baltimore’s hard-throwing closer deep to left to put the NL in front. Díaz was the lone representative for Colorado in his first All-Star Game appearance.

“It does matter. We wanted to win, the American League we wanted to win,” Bautista said through an interpreter. “But overall I think that it’s an experience I’ll never forget and just wish that would have been a little bit different.”

Díaz has nine homers this season, but hadn’t hit a long ball since June 23 against the Los Angeles Angels.

“As soon as he walked in the clubhouse and I met him, he said, ‘I’ll do anything you want. If I play, I play. If I don’t, I don’t. I’m just so happy to be here,’” NL manager Rob Thomson said. “So for him to do that, it’s fantastic.”

For most of the night, the All-Star Game was a pitchers’ duel highlighted by a couple big hits and some excellent defense.

It got nervous for the NL with Philadelphia closer Craig Kimbrel on the mound in the ninth.

“I threw way more pitches than I wanted to on an off day,” Kimbrel joked.

Wander Franco led off with a fly ball to the warning track, and Kimbrel issued two-out walks to Kyle Tucker and Seattle

star Julio Rodríguez.

The 22-year-old Rodríguez was in position to close it out in front of his home crowd.

“I was definitely trying to win it. But it was a situation where I had to pass the baton,” he said.

Kimbrel recovered to strike out José Ramírez to end it. Kimbrel also pitched in the previous NL win, recording two outs in 2012.

“The ninth inning in the dugout was just a lot of fun to experience,” said San Diego’s Josh Hader, who pitched the eighth for the NL.

Yandy Díaz hit a solo homer in the second and Bo Bichette’s sacrifice fly in the sixth gave the AL a 2-1 lead.

J.D. Martinez doubled and scored on Luis Arraez’s single in the fourth against Seattle’s George Kirby, tying it at 1. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. appeared to tie the game again in the seventh when his shot down the left-field line was originally ruled a homer but was overturned as a foul ball on replay.

The All-Star Game returned to Seattle for the first time since 2001 when the Mariners were in the middle of their magical 116-win regular season, Cal Ripken Jr. said goodbye to the All-Star stage and Tommy Lasorda took a tumble.

Gerrit Cole became the first New York Yankees pitcher to start the All-Star Game since Roger Clemens in that 2001 game. He needed a pair of spectacular leaping catches from Adolis García and Randy Arozarena near the wall to escape the first inning unscathed.

Pitching was the sto-

ry of the night. Only nine balls were hit over 100 mph. There were 20 combined strikeouts, including Camilo Doval silencing the home crowd with a strikeout of Rodríguez in the seventh inning when four of the five pitches topped 100 mph.

“You can tell, our guys, we wanted to win. They wanted to win,” AL manager Dusty Baker said. “There was a lot of pride out there and a lot of competitiveness out there. You could tell by the energy on both sides and the energy in the ballpark.”

OHTANI CHANT

The All-Star Game was missing some big names with Mike Trout and Aaron Judge out with injuries, but it still had Shohei Ohtani.

The Angels star drew the biggest cheers outside of Seattle’s three representatives during introductions, and he was serenaded with chants of “Come to Seattle” when he was at the plate. The crowd apparently was well aware of his pending free agency this offseason.

INJURIES

Toronto reliever Jordan Romano left in the seventh after throwing the pitch that Gurriel hit foul and was originally ruled fair. He threw five pitches before leaving the game with tightness in his back.

Chicago White Sox slugger Luis Robert Jr. did not play after feeling tightness in his right calf during the Home Run Derby. The White Sox said Robert underwent an MRI in Seattle and is listed as day to day.

See ALL-STAR | Page B6

Fitzgerald’s dismissal completed a rapid fall from grace for the former All-American linebacker, the star of the 1995 Northwestern team that won the Big Ten and played in the Rose Bowl after years of losing. The 48-yearold Fitzgerald had been firmly entrenched at his alma mater, an annual fixture on any list of college coaches with the most job security.

“The head coach is ultimately responsible for the culture of his team,” Northwestern President Michael Schill wrote in an open letter to the university community. “The hazing we investigated was widespread and clearly not a secret within the program, providing Coach Fitzgerald with the opportunity to learn what was happening. Either way, the culture in Northwestern Football, while incredible in some ways, was broken in others.”

Fitzgerald went 110101 in 17 seasons as Northwestern’s head coach. He led the Wild-

cats to Big Ten West championships in 2018 and 2020, plus five bowl victories. But they went 4-20 over his last two seasons.

Fitzgerald said in a statement provided to ESPN that he had instructed his attorney to “take the necessary steps to protect my rights in accordance with the law.”

Schill wrote in his letter that athletic director Derrick Gragg will announce “the leadership for this upcoming football season” in the next couple days. The opener is Sept. 3 at Rutgers.

“I recognize that my decision will not be universally applauded, and there will be those in our community who may vehemently disagree with it,” Schill wrote. “Ultimately, I am charged with acting in the best interests of the entire University, and this decision is reflective of that. The damage done to our institution is significant, as is the harm to some of our students.”

Gragg was hired by Northwestern in June 2021. He got the job after Mike Polisky stepped down amid mounting criticism because he was named in a sexual harassment lawsuit against the Big Ten school by former Wildcats cheerleaders.

Fitzgerald had been serving a two-week

suspension after the school said Friday that an investigation led by attorney Maggie Hickey of law firm ArentFox Schiff did not find “sufficient” evidence that the coaching staff knew about ongoing hazing — though there were “significant opportunities” to find out about it.

Schill, who was the president of the University of Oregon before taking over Northwestern in September, said in his Monday letter that the investigative report will remain confidential. But he wrote that, during the investigation, 11 current or former players acknowledged the hazing within the program.

“The hazing included forced participation, nudity and sexualized acts of a degrading nature, in clear violation of Northwestern policies and values,” Schill wrote.

In his statement, Fitzgerald said Hickey’s investigation reaffirmed that he had no knowledge of any hazing within the program.

“Last Friday, Northwestern and I came to a mutual agreement regarding the appropriate resolution following the thorough investigation by Ms. Hickey,” he said. “This agreement stipulated a two-week suspension.

See HAZING | Page B6

Baseball: Stars stay mindful

Continued from B3

earthing. He and Manaea have pointed to the important skills they’ve gained from both Martin and Shana Alexander, the Giants’ director of mental health and wellness.

“Realizing that I’m not alone on this journey was very helpful,” Manaea said. “It’s not just me, there’s a team behind me. It took a lot for me to realize that. ... It took me a while to realize there are people in my corner.”

Manaea said he learned from a 2022 season in which he under-performed by his standards: 8-9 with a 4.96 ERA and his fewest innings at 158 pitching a full season since his rookie year of 2016 in Oakland.

“I don’t think I did a really good job at it,” he said, “but I did get through it.”

Arizona’s Ahmed reminds himself “to be grateful for the opportunity that I have to do what I love doing and to do what I’ve wanted to do since I was a little kid.”

For Walker, there’s a peace to keeping baseball in perspective by reminding himself each day to soak in the beauty around him, to notice the small details. Even in the unpredictable conditions of Colorado’s Coors Field, where you might

get snow in May. He looked around at San Francisco’s empty ballpark last month and appreciated all of the elements.

“For me it’s not about a nice day,” Walker said. “What I’m after is just being outside — the fresh air, feeling the grass on my feet, walking around and feeling my toes be able to spread out. It’s more of a decompression I feel like than anything. ...

“It’s just such a nice change of pace, especially at this baseball stadium. This is such a cool thing.”

National League catcher Elias Diaz of the Colorado Rockies celebrates his 2-run homer in the 8th inning that put the National League up 3-2 during the 2023 MLB All-Star Game KEVIN CLARK/THE SEATTLE TIMES/TNS

broke it off but doesn’t want ex to date

Adapted from an online discussion.

Hi, Carolyn: Two months ago, my girlfriend of 18 months and I mutually broke up. We were generally happy, but there had been some recent stress in the relationship, much of it related to her moving 100 miles away six months ago. She felt we had been trending more toward being best friends than romantic partners, and she wanted both of us to have a chance to date other people. She was my first serious girlfriend, and she said I need to date others before deciding whether she is the one for me. We left the door open to getting back together someday and stayed in touch by phone and text, saying “I love you,” etc. We said we’d tell each other about any romantic encounters, and she subsequently told me when she hooked up with someone. I was fine with it, because we broke up, after all. But I met someone

new. When I told my ex, she flipped out, accusing me of “replacing” her and saying she will hate me forever if I date this new woman. She now says that she wants to get back together and that I never should have agreed to the breakup.

This feels terribly unfair. I want to see where things go with the new woman, but I feel guilty that my ex is upset. We have been through a lot together, a lot of it related to helping her work through past trauma. I don’t want to cause her more pain.

So is there any way I can date the new woman without feeling guilty? Do I need to cut off contact for a while? Or should I not be dating anyone right now, even though we broke up specifically so I

could? — Feeling Guilty

Feeling Guilty: Just because your ex lost her mind, you don’t have to.

You took her at her word.

It is unfortunate that she didn’t mean it, but that’s also good information to have. If she thinks it’s okay to say X, benefit from X herself, then flip out when you do X and insist that you should have known she meant Y, then that was going to cause havoc eventually.

Of course you feel terrible, because you care about her. But it doesn’t mean you were wrong to do X.

It could, sadly, mean she has more work to do on trauma recovery — which still wouldn’t mean you were wrong. It just means, if true, that she has other things complicating how she perceives things, how she may unwittingly undermine herself with her choices and how intensely she reacts to difficult feelings. I hope for her sake

Are calcium supplements safe?

Dear Dr. Roach: Are calcium supplements safe to take? Can they increase the calcium buildup in your arteries? There seems to be mixed messages on this subject. — L.K.

Answer: There are mixed messages because there are mixed results from large studies on this question, with one analysis of many studies showing a small increase in risk of developing blockages in the heart arteries among people who take calcium supplements, while another large analysis showed no increase in risk.

Blockages in the heart are made up of cholesterol plaque and calcium (among other components). In theory, the high amount of calcium in the

blood after taking a calcium supplement could cause worse calcification of the arteries. (Calcium supplements do increase the risk of kidney stones, also presumably due to the transiently high calcium concentrations in the fluid filtered by the kidneys.) However, calcified plaque is probably less dangerous than noncalcified plaque, in terms of risk of a heart attack.

Still, because of the possibility of worsened heart disease risk, I typically recommend my patients get their calcium from their diet whenever

possible. Dairy (especially Swiss-type cheeses) are excellent sources of calcium, but small fish with bones (sardines, anchovies, herring) are also good sources. Other sources include legumes, leafy green vegetables, calcium-fortified soy and nut milks, and fruit juices. Food calcium reduces kidney stone risk, and calcium in food is not suspected to increase heart risk.

There are times when calcium supplementation is so important that I still recommend it, such as in a person with osteoporosis who takes medication. The increase in bone buildup requires calcium, and if a person can't get enough from their diet, then benefits of supplementation outweigh risks.

she is getting more official help with whatever it is. Let her know — without apologizing — that you are still open to healthy, free-standing friendship. Don’t engage in the hyperbole. After “I’ll hate you forever”-type outbursts, say: “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m going now.” Click. Calm, unyielding, guilt-free (and relieved).

Readers’ thoughts:

• Do not feel guilty. Feel grateful that you learned this person cannot be taken at her word and that you invested only 18 months in this relationship. Be kind, but don’t expect to remain friends.

• This sounds like a classic warning sign of potential future abuse by the ex-girlfriend (been there), as she’s already trying to control your new relationship and blaming you for the breakup. Don’t fall for it. If she can remain a friend, enjoy. But if she tries to control whom you see, what you do or what you feel, she’s definitely not the one for you, now or later.

Yesterday’s Cryptoquote: Our phones have created what I like to call SADD

ZITS by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman

BEETLE BAILEY by Mort Walker

HAGAR THE HORRIBLE by Chris Browne

BLONDIE by Young and Drake

MARVIN by Tom Armstrong HI AND LOIS by Chance Browne

MUTTS by Patrick McDonell

Dr. Keith Roach

Hazing: Allegations get rid of Northwestern FB coach

Continued from B4

“Therefore, I was surprised when I learned that the president of Northwestern unilaterally revoked our agreement without any prior notification and subsequently terminated my employment.”

After Northwestern announced its suspension for Fitzgerald, The Daily Northwestern published a story on Saturday detailing allegations from a former player who described specific instances of hazing and sexual abuse. The report also indicated that Fitzgerald “may have known that hazing took place.”

That led Schill to write a letter to the university community in which he acknowl-

edged focusing “too much on what the report concluded (Fitzgerald) didn’t know and not enough on what he should have known.” Schill went on to say that he planned to speak with university leadership, members of the board of trustees and leaders of the faculty senate to determine his next steps.

“Since Friday, I have kept going back to what we should reasonably expect from our head coaches, our faculty and our campus leaders,” Schill wrote in Monday’s letter. “And that is what led me to make this decision.”

Because the sixmonth investigation was confidential, Schill said in Monday’s letter

LIV: And PGA resolve

Continued from B3

But Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a harsh critic of the Saudi regime, said Congress should not interfere with a private enterprise doing business with the Saudis. He proposed instead that the U.S. reduce arms sales to Saudi Arabia. And the committee’s ranking member, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., suggested that Saudi involvement in sports ultimately could improve human rights in the kingdom.

“If the kingdom’s involvement in golf and other sports helps it to modernize or offer rights to women, wouldn’t that be a good thing?” Johnson said.

Blumenthal pressed Dunne and Price to pledge that PGA Tour players would be free to criticize the Saudi regime if the deal is completed. Both said they would not recommend that the tour’s policy board approve any deal that includes such restrictions on speech.

Before the hearing, the subcommittee released documents detailing the secretive and hasty negotiations that led to last month’s framework agreement. Dunne conceded that the tour botched the announcement of the deal, leading many to mistakenly conclude that the tour and LIV Golf had completed a merger.

“The rollout was very misleading and inaccurate, which is everyone’s fault. There is no merger,” Dunne said. “There is merely an agreement to try and get to an agreement instead of a lawsuit.”

The documents released by the subcommittee detail the roles of people on the Saudi side of the negotiations, notably Amanda Staveley, a British investment banker who helped broker the Newcastle deal and now sits on the team’s board,

that he learned many of the details recently. He spoke with the complainant on Sunday after talking to the student’s parents on Friday.

Fitzgerald, who was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2008, was

hired to coach his alma mater in 2006 after the sudden death of thencoach Randy Walker. Many current and former players rushed to Fitzgerald’s defense after the suspension was announced.

A letter circulated on social media, signed

by “The ENTIRE Northwestern Football Team” without identifying an author, said that “throughout his tenure, Coach Fitzgerald has consistently prioritized the well-being and development of his players, and we stand behind him in his un-

wavering commitment to our team.”

Before Fitzgerald’s dismissal was announced by the school, The Daily Northwestern published a report that had three former Northwestern players describing a “culture of enabling racism.”

All-Star: Game has NL come out on top

Continued from B4

SIX PACK

The Rangers made All-Star history when Nathan Eovaldi took the mound in the second. That marked the third time in an AllStar Game when there were six players from the same team on the field at the same time. It also occurred with the 1939 Yankees and 1951 Dodgers.

got half the team on the field is your team, especially under these circumstances,” catcher Jonah Heim said. “It’s really special and I was glad I got to share it with these guys today.”

SKIPPED OVER

and Roger Devlin, a British businessman. Devlin was the first to approach Dunne about the prospect of a deal between the tour and LIV, the documents show, although Dunne said Tuesday he never met Devlin in person and reached out to Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the PIF, on his own. Dunne initially contacted Al-Rumayyan via WhatsApp, the documents show.

“My attitude was all of the people other than the guy with the money, we shouldn’t talk to,” Dunne said.

A memo from Staveley’s firm titled “The Best of Both Worlds” includes the proposal that Woods and McIlroy take ownership of LIV teams and that each of them play in 10 LIV events per year. There is no indication in the documents that either Woods or McIlroy, both of whom remained loyal to the PGA Tour, were ever informed of the idea.

Among the other proposals included in the memo are a mixed-gender, LIVstyle team event with qualifying in Saudi Arabia and concluding in Dubai; awarding world ranking points to LIV events, including retroactively; and PIF sponsorship of two elevated PGA Tour events, including one in Saudi Arabia.

None of those proposals was included in the framework agreement signed by Al-Rumayyan and PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan. The PGA Tour sent a letter to players after Tuesday’s hearing saying the PIF made “a series of suggestions” that “were rejected immediately.”

The parties also negotiated but did not sign a side agreement that called for ousting Norman as LIV’s CEO.

Asked by Blumenthal

The Baseball Hall of Fame said a ball signed by all six players in the game would be headed to Cooperstown.

“That’s got to be one of the cooler moments in sports when you’ve

The Tampa Bay duo of Shane McClanahan and Wander Franco were inadvertently skipped over during pregame introductions. The pair jogged in on their own and left it to the Rays’ social media staff to give them a proper announcement.

MARINERS HONORED

Six of the eight members of Seattle’s All-Star contingent from the 2001 game were recognized pregame. John Olerud, Bret Boone, Freddy Garcia, Jeff Nelson, Kazuhiro Sasaki, Edgar Martinez and manager Lou Piniella were honored. Ichiro Suzuki and Mike Cameron were also on the All-Star team that season. Baseball Hall of Famers Martinez and Ken Griffey Jr. threw out the ceremonial first pitches to former teammates Dan

Wilson and Jay Buhner.

UP NEXT

The post-All-Star break portion of the schedule starts Friday with every team in the league scheduled to be in action. San Diego at Philadelphia is the first game scheduled for Friday. The second half begins with Atlanta having the best record in baseball at 60-29 and an 8½game lead in the NL East. Tampa Bay has the best record in the American League at 58-35, two games better than Baltimore.

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competitors shot 15-18 targets. It should have said the competitors were in the 15-18 age group. We apologize for the error.