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Volume: 120 No.200, October 19, 2023

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PM DAVIS ‘ASKED FTX CHIEF’ TO ADVISE SON Court claim of email request to Bankman-Fried

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Prime Minister allegedly asked Sam Bankman-Fried to provide advice to his son about a digital assets project the latter was working on just two months before FTX collapsed.

The disclosure came during the FTX founder’s ongoing New York trial

over the misappropriation of billions of dollars in client funds, when prosecutors asked an investigating FBI agent to clarify why Mr Bankman-Fried is facing wire fraud charges.

Danielle Kudla, from the US attorney’s office for southern New York, produced a September 2022 email purportedly sent by Philip Davis KC to the FTX

MURDER COUNT AT 80 AS MAN SHOT DEAD ON MALCOLM ROAD

Flowers for Wilchcombe in Parliament

THE country’s murder count, according to The Tribune’s records, rose to 80 after a man was fatally shot yesterday.

Around 2.28am on Wednesday, police were reportedly alerted by ShotSpotter technology of gunshots discharged on Malcolm Road west of Winder Terrace.

Upon arrival, police discovered a 34-year-old man suffering from gunshot injuries inside a red car.

Emergency medical personnel were called to the scene and pronounced the man dead.

SEE PAGE FOUR

BAHAMIAN-BORN - BUT AT RISK FOR DEPORTATION

By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS Tribune Staff Reporter lmunnings@tribunemedia.net ACTING Immigration Director William Pratt said the Department of Immigration’s policy is to deport children born in The Bahamas to Haiti with their parents if those guardians lack legal status to be in this country.

Human Rights Bahamas, a group that often advocates

for immigrants, countered that children born in The Bahamas should not be deported even if their parents lack legal status.

Mr Pratt’s comment came after the friend of a woman apprehended in Fox Hill last Thursday visited The Tribune yesterday to complain that no one could take care of her ten-yearold daughter, who was left SEE PAGE THREE

BAHAMIAN MAN HELD FOR CROSSING US BORDER

OBIE Wilchcombe’s seat in Parliament was adorned with his photograph and a wreath as parliamentarians shared memories of the recently deceased Member of Parliament yesterday. For story see PAGE SEVEN.

By EARYEL BOWLEG Photo: Moise Amisial Tribune Staff Reporter ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

‘ElEction must happEn by novEmbEr 25’

By LETRE SWEETING Tribune Staff Reporter lsweeting@tribunemedia.net THE West Grand Bahama and Bimini byelection must happen by November 25, according to acting Parliamentary Commissioner Arthur Taylor.

He said there are 5,682 people registered to vote in that constituency, which must replace Obie

ACTING Parliamentary Commissioner Arthur Taylor II. Photo: Dante Carrer Wilchcombe, who died last month.

“From the date of the death, it’s 60 days,” Mr Taylor said about the timeline for the election. “When the writ is read, we have anywhere between 21 to 30 days to have the election.”

Registered voters who moved to West Grand Bahama and Bimini and resided there for over three months are eligible to

Nassau & Bahama Islands’ Leading Newspaper

SEE PAGE TWO

A BAHAMIAN man who was reportedly arrested for not having a visa while trying to cross into the United States from Mexico is “safe and sound,” according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

A GoFundMe page was set up on October 5 to raise $15,000 to help Donovan Pinder return home to The Bahamas.

According to 10 News San Diago, the 30-year-old SEE PAGE THREE

PAGE 2, Thursday, October 19, 2023

THE TRIBUNE

‘Election must happen by November 25’ from page one transfer to vote there.

Mr Taylor said over the last several weeks, more than 150 people have registered, and there have been over 50 transfers into the area.

“We foresee when people announce the nominations, who they are proposing to put up for nomination and when the parties get on the ground and start campaigning, then we expect to see to everything pop up a bit,” he said.

Scrutineering, the legally required process by which workers visit constituents to verify information and clean up the voter register, is ongoing.

Mr Taylor said some 30-40 people will work the by-election, with each

polling station having at least five to seven people.

Currently, there are 14 polling stations, but Mr Taylor said this may expand for the convenience of people in Cat Cay and Ocean Cay. He declined to give details about an ongoing

ACTING Parliamentary Commissioner Arthur Taylor II during a press conference at the Parliamentary Registration Department yesterday.

Photo: Dante Carrer police investigation that resulted in two workers in his department being placed on administrative leave last Thursday.

“We’re comfortable that it’s going to resolve itself shortly,” he said.

“The integrity of the register is intact, and that’s what we’re aiming for, to make sure that we don’t have an issue. But that was

never a real thing. This is something that has been going on since July.”

“A question came up from Grand Bahama. We just needed to make sure it’s done properly, to have the police look into it and say if there is an issue here or if there is not one. I can’t go into details because they’re still investigating the matter.”

THE TRIBUNE

Thursday, October 19, 2023, PAGE 3

Bahamian-born - but at risk for deportation from page one behind because she was in school when her mother was taken.

The friend said her efforts to reunite the girl with her mother, including a visit to the Carmichael Road Detention Centre, failed.

The girl said she loved her mother and cried after learning immigration officers arrested her. The student said she didn’t want to go to Haiti because she had never been there and was born and raised in The Bahamas.

The Tribune worked with Mr Pratt to determine if the girl’s mother was in immigration custody. Officials eventually confirmed that she was in a safe house with her three-year-old child.

The Tribune has shared the names of those involved with Immigration but is not publishing the names to protect the child.

Mr Pratt said immigration officials would investigate a claim that the mother had a work permit application for which the only outstanding requirement is payment.

He said if the mother has no legal right to be in the

country and no relatives want to adopt the girl, the child would be deported to Haiti with her mother.

“We can’t leave the child here to become a ward of a state if the child’s parents are still alive,” he said. “We have an embassy in Port au Prince. When the child gets 18, the child puts in (her) application or the child could file for Belonger’s status, and the child could return to The Bahamas based on her birth.”

“Minors have to go with their parents. We can’t leave them here, and then anything go wrong we get blamed as a country, as a state. But as I said, if the father is here and he wish to get legal guardianship for the child, we would have Department of Social Services interview him and investigate his environment to see whether it is conducive. Once the social services give the okay, then we will be more than willing for the child to be released into the custody of the legal guardian.”

The Bahamas has resisted international calls to halt deportations to Haiti amid that country’s instability.

ACTING Immigration Director William Pratt said the Department of Immigration’s policy is to deport children born in The Bahamas to Haiti with their parents if those guardians lack legal status to be in this country.

BAHAMIAN MAN ARRESTED FOR CROSSING US-MEXICO BORDER

from page one initially travelled in September to California to visit his close friend, Yuri Bowe, who later organised his GoFundMe page.

“On September 26, my friend Donavan from The Bahamas came to visit California,” Mr Bowe wrote.

“We were excited for a memorable time together.

Little did we know that our adventure would take an unexpected turn.

“On September 29, we went to Tijuana across

the Mexican border in San Ysidro. We wanted to experience the vibrant culture. Little did we know this decision would lead to unfortunate events.”

“That night in Tijuana, we enjoyed the festivities and danced. Time flew as we immersed ourselves in the city’s energy. However, as the night ended and we prepared to return to the US, a shocking realisation hit us. Donavan was denied entry back and detained. We were shocked and confused,

unaware of the reason behind this treatment.”

Mr Bowe told a news station in San Diego that his friend’s documents were not accepted as valid for entry back into the United States.

“My heart just sank,” he said. “They put handcuffs on him and arrested him and said that he needs a visa for him to cross.”

Mr Pinder was allowed to make two brief calls two days later, according to Mr Bowe, who said: “He was just crying. He

doesn’t know what’s going to happen.”

The US Customs and Border Protection website notes that Bahamians seeking to enter the United States from a third country –– or who apply to enter the United States from anywhere other than pre-clearance facilities in Nassau or Freeport –– are required to have valid visas.

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said yesterday that Mr Pinder is no longer in US custody.

HUAWEI Technologies Company Ltd paid a courtesy call, facilitated by the Chinese Embassy, upon Minister of Energy and Transport Jobeth Coleby-Davis, October 10, 2023 at the Ministry’s offices.

Photo: Anthon Thompson

SCRIPTURE FACTS Every Monday and Thursday scriptures appears in The Tribune on page 9. Last week Monday October 16th, LAMENTATIONS 2 appeared, and its also in today’s paper. The client advised that the scriptures are chosen by opening the bible and what appears is what is given, sometimes it duplicates.

PAGE 4, Thursday, October 19, 2023

THE TRIBUNE

PM Davis ‘asked FTX chief’ Sam Bankman-Fried to advise son

SAM Bankman-Fried leading Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis on a tour of FTX facilities previously.

from page one founder as confirmation of the latter’s phone number. The message, sent from a gmail address and allegedly containing Mr Davis’ contact information, saw Mr Bankman-Fried send his own phone number in reply.

The Coindesk website, which is covering the latter’s trial, reported that Mr Davis in the e-mail asked Mr Bankman-Fried if his son could call the FTX chief to talk and seek advice about a non-fungible token (NFT) project he was working on. NFTs are a form of digital assets. Mr Bankman-Fried allegedly seemed agreeable, and said he would be available to the Prime Minister’s son via Zoom or phone.

No comment or response was received from the Prime Minister or his office despite Tribune inquiries yesterday. Latrae Rahming, his communications director, said Mr Davis was in Canada at a CARICOM summit with that country

but he was hoping to hear back from him. No reply was received before press time last night.

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by the Prime Minister in relation to the e-mail or contacting Mr Bankman-Fried, although Coindesk reported that it “underscores the cosy relationship” the FTX chief “enjoyed with officials in The Bahamas”.

The latest disclosure comes after the Prime Minister’s Office was earlier this month forced to state that Mr Davis never entertained proposals from Mr Bankman-Fried to pay off the country’s $11.6bn national debt.

Its statement came after The Times of London published an excerpt of author Michael Lewis’ biography of Mr Bankman-Fried.

The excerpt said: “Sam explained that he was trying to decide whether simply to pay off the $9bn Bahamas national debt himself, so the country could fix roads and build schools and so on.

“He’d recently met the

new prime minister to discuss this idea and some others. I learnt later from one of the Prime Minister’s aides that after the Bahamian general election in September 2021, Sam was the first person the Prime Minister had wanted to meet.”

Mr Rahming, in response, said: “We wish to clarify recent reports surrounding a meeting between Prime Minister Philip Davis and Mr Sam Bankman-Fried.

Discussions were strictly confined to FTX’s relocation and its operations in The Bahamas, specifically concerning the invitation extended to the Prime Minister for the inauguration of FTX’s new headquarters.

“Mr Bankman-Fried advised the Prime Minister that FTX had changed its position from a satellite office to opening a headquarters. Prime Minister Davis used the platform at the company’s opening to signal that The Bahamas is open for business in the digital currency space.”

REPORT SHOWS COST PER INMATE AT BDOCS IN 2021 IS OVER $17K ANNUALLY

COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTIONS DOAN CLEARE

By RASHAD ROLLE Tribune News Editor rrolle@tribunemedia.net THE annual cost per inmate at the Bahamas Department of Corrections in 2021 was $17,369.60, according to a 2021 report tabled in the House of Assembly yesterday.

The cost of food per inmate was $1,230.71.

Thirty-three inmates were serving life sentences, and there were 31 juveniles at the facility.

The number of admissions was 1912, 723 of whom were sentenced inmates, with the rest on remand.

The staff complement included 558 men and 183 women.

The report’s release comes as the institution chases accreditation from the American Correctional Association. Prison officials are awaiting Cabinet approval to expand the facility.

In June, acting Commissioner of Corrections Doan Cleare admitted the

prison failed an accreditation inspection earlier this year, saying officials knew it would “fail miserably”.

He said the prison’s most significant problem is the inadequate toilet system, noting that slopping, a defining characteristic of the institution in Bahamian culture, must be eradicated for the institution to be accredited.

He said it would cost about $1.8m to end slopping, a process that would require uprooting floors and cutting walls.

DISCIPLINARY CHARGES BROUGHT AGAINST 55 PRISON OFFICERS AND 1,036 INMATES IN 2021

By RASHAD ROLLE Tribune News Editor rrolle@tribunemedia.net DISCIPLINARY charges were brought against 55 prison officers in 2021, according to a 2021 Bahamas Department of Corrections report tabled in the House of Assembly yesterday.

“The Internal Affairs Unit conducts comprehensive investigations through information gathering and evidence collection to prosecute criminal activities within the facility relative to

the violation of the institution’s laws and policies,” the report said. “This department also has oversight of vetting staff and inmates for institutional purposes.”

Disciplinary charges were reportedly brought against 1,036 inmates.

The report does not specify what led to the charges or how people were disciplined.

It is also unclear how many disciplinary matters are advanced to the judicial system for prosecution.

Prison officials

confiscated various contraband, including 142 cell phones, one Wi-Fi box, 44 tobacco products, six cellular batteries, 73 headphones, 529 packages of suspected marijuana, 55 SIM cards, 38 make-shift weapons, one memory card, two moonshine, 67 cell phone chargers and 16 miscellaneous items.

Yesterday, police said officers seized a quantity of suspected marijuana from two women at the Department of Corrections and took them into custody.

THE TRIBUNE

Thursday, October 19, 2023, PAGE 5

Halkitis: State-owned-enterprises will eventually be added to government procurement system

By EARYEL BOWLEG Tribune Staff Reporter ebowleg@tribunemedia.net ECONOMIC Affairs Minister Michael Halkitis said state-owned enterprises (SOEs) will eventually be incorporated into the central government’s procurement system so that awarded contracts are disclosed to the public.

He said those bodies need to be included in the GoBonfire System.

On Sunday, The Ministry of Finance released a list of contracts awarded from September 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023. The release disclosed details about 843 contracts worth $140m.

The release was the closest the government has come to complying with the Public Procurement Act, which requires disclosing the name and address of winning bidders, the procuring entity, the procurement selection method and the award amount within 60 days of the contract award. SOEs must follow the same requirements.

Free National Movement leader Michael Pintard rejected the Ministry of

Finance’s release, calling it incomplete.

In response, Mr Halkitis noted yesterday that although the Minnis administration passed the original law, it came into force under the Davis administration.

“You had an administration who put in a piece of legislation that they did not have to comply with,” he said. “Intentionally, they did not have to comply with. They did not have to live with it.

“The leader of the opposition continues to talk about breaking the law and not complying with publication. That is one element of the procurement legislation.”

“A much more important element that we coming in 2021 had to do was engage a chief procurement officer, establish a procurement board, acquire technology, train individuals in every single government ministry and every single government agency in using the system, acquire the system.”

“The provision of the law that requires a publication, we’ve done that.

The publication and the update of the information

is a continuous process.

If you go today, you’ll see more information than was there yesterday. If you go tomorrow, you’ll see more information than what’s there today, so it’s a continual process. It also called for an annual report that will be done, and all the information will be made public.”

The Organisation for Responsible Governance (ORG) noted that the government’s list did not report the address of the businesses awarded contracts as the law requires.

Mr Halkitis blamed this on security concerns.

“Say John Brown gets a contract for $20,000 from the government,” he said.

“You gonna put that person personal address publicly in the public domain? It’s a security issue.”

“So we continue to refine the system. Unfortunately, what has happened is a lot of people have included their personal address. We don’t want that to publish because, obviously, it’s a security issue.”

“You put it out there that this person get this contract. All of a sudden, it’s a security issue, someone come and rob them.”

ECONOMIC AFFAIRS MINISTER MICHAEL HALKITIS

PARLIAMENTARY REGISTRAR LOOKING TO MODERNISE THE VOTERS CARD REGISTRATIONS SYSTEM

ACTING Parliamentary Registration Commissioner Arthur Taylor said work toward a digital, modern and more convenient process for voter registration is planned for the next two years.

Photo: Dante Carrer

By LETRE SWEETING Tribune Staff Reporter lsweeting@tribunemedia.net THE Parliamentary Registration Department plans to streamline the registration process to get a voter’s card - as well as modernising the card itself.

Acting Parliamentary Registration Commissioner Arthur Taylor said work toward a digital, modern and more convenient process for voter registration is planned for the next two years.

He said there’s no consideration being given to introducing electronic voting.

“We’ve not been asked to look at anything relating to voting electronically,” he said. “When you create a machine to vote, someone is in their basement creating a way to get into it.

“In terms of the process with the new card, you’ll go online to apply for your voter’s card through the portal rather than just walking in

here and saying you want to register. You’ll put your documents in online, and you’ll be given an appointment date to come in to do it. So, it’ll be as a flowing thing rather than the long lines you see.”

Mr Taylor said the goal is to have the voter’s card look similar to a licence in size and format.

“In February, they were well on the way to modernising it to a credit card size card,” he said. “I think that they’re rounding it off now.

And that should be able to be launched by the next local government elections.

We have put in our recommendation for it to be done, before the next two years.

“The only thing that will have to happen is people who are presently registered will have to come in just to get their pictures taken again. There will probably be some biometrics, we’re adding to it, facial recognition and fingerprints according to how they decide it.”

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PAGE 6, Thursday, October 19, 2023

THE TRIBUNE

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The children who are left behind EARLIER this month, The Tribune reported on how a 12-year-old boy was left with his two siblings to care for themselves after his mother was detained by immigration.

Today, The Tribune reports on the story of a ten-year-old girl who was in school when her mother was taken in a raid last Thursday.

The girl cried when she found out her mother had gone. She talked of how she didn’t want to go to Haiti, a place she has never been having been born and raised in The Bahamas.

The new – or old, as he is returning to his previous post – acting Immigration Director, William Pratt, says it is policy to deport children born in The Bahamas to Haiti with their parents if the parents lack legal status to be in the country.

The Tribune has been told that the mother has a work permit application which only requires a payment to complete – and Mr Pratt said that would be investigated.

However, he said that the child, who would have the right to apply for citizenship when she turns 18, could put in her application at the embassy in Port au Prince, after she is deported with her mother.

It raises questions of constitutional rights – Human Rights Bahamas has already argued that children born in The Bahamas should not be deported regardless of their parents’ legal status.

It reinforces the urgency of closing citizenship loopholes that leave women unable to pass on their citizenship status.

It highlights the need for quick processes in order to deal with citizenship applications.

And it all still leaves a ten-yearold Bahamian-born girl crying for her mother.

In our previous article following the posting of notices warning of shanty town demolition, we posed the question “what next?” and asked where the people in these properties would end up living with a property market already short of homes. It is not unlikely that

another shanty property would spring up somewhere else instead – and some without money might find themselves falling towards crime.

Asking the question “what next?” for Bahamian-born children who are deported is also valid – how will these children come to regard the nation of their birth if it kicks them out and will not let them back in until they turn 18?

We know that those who apply at 18 are often made to wait years for the resolution of their application, sometimes many years.

In the meantime, they must exist in a kind of limbo – rejected by the place they were born, forced to integrate into a place they have never known.

Some would counter that having a baby cannot be an option to secure the right to stay in the country. In the United States, it has become known by the phrase “anchor baby”, with the suggestion that parents become safeguarded from deportation by having a baby on US soil. It is also something of a myth, though often trotted out by those who would point at foreigners as the source of all a nation’s ills in order to earn political favour.

Politics, sadly, does rear its head in this conversation – with being tough on immigrants an easy way to win support, even if it is just words and no action.

We also hear people say often that The Bahamas is a Christian nation – pointing to the Preamble of the Constitution as evidence. Taking mothers away from children sits uncomfortably with such a claim.

We hope that the child in this case can be reunited with her mother. We hope if all that is required for her mother to stay is payment that an intervention of some kind can be arranged. Perhaps our churches can offer both mother and child some support both resolving this matter and going forward.

But beyond this particular case, a discussion on the broader situation would be merited. Being tossed out of the country you were born in seems like no solution at all.

PRIME Minister Justin Trudeau and Caribbean leaders gather for a family photo at the CanadaCARICOM summit in Ottawa, Canada, yesterday. Bottom row (left to right) Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis, Belize Prime Minister Johnny Briceno, Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, Trudeau, CARICOM Secretary General Carla Barnett, Jamaica Prime Minister Andrew Holness, Saint Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Terrance Drew and Suriname President Chan Santokhi. Top row (left to right) High Commissioner of Antigua and Barbuda Sir Ronald Sanders, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, Grenada Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Andall, Saint Vincent Prime Minister Mohamed Irfaan Ali, Haiti Prime Minister Ariel Henry, Saint Lucia Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves and Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Keith Rowley.

Photo: Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP

Unsung songs in The Bahamas EDITOR, The Tribune.

OUR African traditions are often celebrated for the oral aspects of passing information down from one generation to another.

Some might be inclined to generalise African people and African culture as a monolith, without very important distinctions.

Without getting into an exposition on the wide variety of African societies, I will simply draw attention to the documented vast and exceptional libraries of Timbuktu. Timbuktu is not some fabled place in folklore. Timbuktu is an actual place (in Mali) where relics of ancient manuscripts may still be found today. I say all that to say this: some parts of Africa had and have magnificent oral traditions (griots of West Africa, for example). Other parts of Africa (including Egypt and Ethiopia, for example) had and have a long history of written language and literacy.

Here, in The Bahamas, we may benefit from both our oral and written African traditions. Sadly, in my opinion, in today’s Bahamas we appear to be wanting in both aspects of such cultural traditions. When last have you seen or heard “ol’ stories” being shared, especially with younger generations? When you take an objective look at our high school “leavers”, do you see a mostly functionally literate cohort?

We may defensively point to any number of factors which may have brought us to this place where too many Bahamians are at today, but the bottom line to me is that we are steadily going from bad to worse. Expect no finger pointing from me, nor any participation in a blame game. Instead, my effort here is but to drop yet another very small pebble into that pool of Bahamian cultural disconnect, and see if any ripples go anywhere.

What follows is unabashedly subjective and personal. In a very recent conversation, I recounted how absolutely fantastic a few women in our neighbourhood, during my childhood days, still impress me with their phenomenal ingenuity, determination, industriousness and resilience. Their achievements, against all odds, remain unsung songs of heroism and inspiration. My dear mother was

LETTERS letters@tribunemedia.net certainly among these uncelebrated heroines who continue to amaze me, upon reflection, with their varied stellar accomplishments. And, while I would now like to sing their praise songs as loudly as I can, these little anecdotes here represent little more than a barely audible hum. Therefore, to all the eyes that see these few words, and all the ears that may hear about them, here’s my wish. I wish that you take some small time and break that Bahamian cycle of not sharing and continuing that African tradition of passing on the values and virtues of our ancestors; mothers, fathers and foreparents.

In very brief and capsulated form, I will point out that my mother gave birth to eight children, but the fact is that she had many more children. There was always room in her heart and home, or room was made... Also, in those days, such conveniences as washing machines were a mere fantasy. Washing clothes by hand, on a scrubboard, was the order of the day. One tub for washing, another for rinsing was convenient, but not always the case.

Hanging clothes on the lines naturally followed. In most instances, this routine would be a daily necessity. Clothes would be one thing, sheets, other bedding items and diapers would be another thing. With a house full of children (some bound to have “accidents” at night) just keeping up with the laundry would seem like a full-time job in itself.

Preparing breakfast, dinner and supper, along with sandwiches for “brown bag” lunch, would have been another task which now seem to defy modern economic theories in as much as stretching a meager weekly grocery budget.

Besides that, in our household, there would always be extra mouths to feed.

Fortunately, my mother was an excellent dressmaker/ seamstress, so in addition to making clothing for us, she earned a “little something” by making clothes for other people, from time to time.

Many times, she received partial payments, and sometimes she received no payments. No matter how I try nowadays to figure

out how she managed to successfully maintain our household, despite the struggles and difficulties, it still baffles and amazes me.

There is much omission of details in relating how my mother would so often make a way out of no way, but my effort here is to merely pass on some of the incredible efforts by this selfless and extremely altruistic woman.

She was one among the other women who impress me as having walked that walk at that time. For sure, a lot of walking was done at that time. Cars and jitneys were relatively few on the landscape, so context is very important in appreciating the ordeals which had to be overcome in those “good ol’ days”.

My mother rode a bicycle from Grants Town to San Souci - out east - as a matter of course, to do housework for a rather wealthy, white Bahamian family. That was, of course, in the days after all of her children were old enough to be left unattended for short periods of time. It was not an everyday job, and the hours may have allowed for us to be sent off to school, then sometimes get back home just before or after she returned from work. Whatever the exact particulars, I am absolutely confident that it took extraordinary powers to make all the pieces fit into a daily routine which is largely unspoken of and uncelebrated, even by some of those beneficiaries. Could it be that songs unsung are also unremembered?

African traditions, Bahamian traditions, family traditions or personal reflections, whichever ways we may be able to tell more of our stories (before they all just fade away), appear to be at a critical nexus. I believe that my generation owes it as a debt to past generations, as well as future generations, to pass the values of our histories on... in oral and written (even modern electronic) formats. Otherwise, so much will be continually lost to that dash between our birth dates and dates of death, when others review our obituaries or tombstones. How many glorious songs will be left unsung?

MB Nassau, October 17, 2023

Govt tables bill to enhance independence of judiciary THE TRIBUNE

BY LEANDRA ROLLE Tribune Staff Reporter lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Davis administration tabled legislation in the House of Assembly yesterday to enhance the independence of the judiciary.

A body independent of the executive will manage the judicial system if the bill is passed, allowing the judiciary to control its financial and administrative affairs.

The Court Services Bill 2023 would establish

Thursday, October 19, 2023, PAGE 7

a Court Service Council responsible for supporting judicial officers, appointing staff as needed and ensuring employee adherence to workplace policies.

The chief executive officer would be the council’s principal administrator and subject to the directions of the board of directors of the council.

The board’s members would include the chief justice, the Court of Appeal president, a Supreme Court justice, the chief magistrate and others.

MINNIS: WILCHCOMBE SHOULD HAVE HAD BIGGER MINISTRY

FORMER PRIME MINISTER HUBERT MINNIS

By LEANDRA ROLLE Tribune Staff Reporter lrolle@tribunemedia.net FORMER Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis believes Obie Wilchcombe, who died unexpectedly last month, should have been given a more “substantive post” in the Davis-led Cabinet before his death.

Dr Minnis paid tribute to the former social services minister in the House of Assembly yesterday.

Earlier, Education Minister Glenys HannaMartin moved a resolution in honour of the deceased parliamentarian, whose seat was draped in a black cloth and a wreath. A photo of Mr Wilchchome sat on the desk.

“Madam Speaker,” Dr Minnis said, “Obie was a man of talent and long experience in government.

He was seasoned, as so many have attested in the many tributes to him over the past several weeks. It was unfortunate, given his seniority and stature, that he was not given a more substantive post in the Davis administration.”

“The people of West End and Bimini have lost their representative in this House. His loss will be felt even more profoundly by

his family, who have lost a brother, an uncle, a cousin and many people have lost a friend, including many Grand Bahamians of various political and other affiliations.”

MPs recalled their memories of Mr Wilchcombe, describing him as a dedicated politician who loved his country.

“We honour his memory today and further resolve to cherish his memory and to preserve his legacy in a tangible way,” Mrs HannaMartin said.

Last month, Adrian Francis, a decades-long friend of Mr Wilchcombe, revealed during a Facebook Live that his friend was initially cold on the Ministry of Social Services post, but came to appreciate the portfolio.

He claimed when Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis recently gave him the option to be the minister of Grand Bahama, minister of immigration or remain in social services, the 64-year-old chose to stay in social services.

“This the same ministry he had a problem with in his emotions initially,” Mr Francis said. “But he told the prime minister when he got there, I’m prepared to serve you wherever you want me, sir.”

The board’s responsibilities would include “determining the administrative and financial policies and guidelines to be observed by the courts, giving general or specific direction with respect to the administrative and financial matters of the courts as the board deems necessary for carrying out the objectives of this Act”.

Under the bill, the council could enter into contracts and operate bank accounts.

It would also be required to prepare an annual report outlining its activities and financial affairs, which would be laid in Parliament.

The council’s funds would consist of filing fees, other court payments and “sums arising from grants,

covenants, donations and other receipts from persons including national and international bodies” for training, educational and development purposes.

The funds would be used to pay salaries, allowances, and pensions to Supreme Court and Court of Appeal justices and judicial officers.

They would cover operating and maintenance expenses,

including court security.

“The accounts of the council shall be audited and reported on annually by the auditor general, and for that purpose, the auditor general or any person authorised by him shall have access to all books, records, returns and other documents relating to the accounts of the council,” the bill says.

PAGE 8, Thursday, October 19, 2023

THE TRIBUNE

BTVI saw small rise in enrolment in Spring 2023 over the previous Fall registration

MINISTER of Education Gleny Hann Martin yesterday tabled an annual report on BTVI for 2022-2023 year in the House of Assembly.

Photo: Moise Amisial

BY LEANDRA ROLLE Tribune Staff Reporter lrolle@tribunemedia.net ABOUT 2,500 students enrolled at the Bahamas Technical and Vocational Training Institute (BTVI) during the Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 semesters.

A 2022-2023 annual

report, tabled in the House of Assembly yesterday, broke down the figures.

Last fall, 2,666 students were enrolled; 2,488 were registered for the Spring semester this year, and 1,251 were enrolled during the summer.

The report also breaks

down student enrolment for each trade programme.

For beauty trades, which include barbering, cosmetology, aesthetics,etc, 566 students were enrolled.

“In the beauty trades, students can complete a diploma in cosmetology and massage therapy and special interest certificates

in barbering, aesthetics, nail technology and natural hair styling and professional development courses,” the report noted.

For business trades, BTVI enrolled 1,088 students who, upon completion, can get an Associate of Applied

Science in Business Office Technology, Human Resources Management and Office Administration, receive certificates in entrepreneurship, human resources management and office assistant and professional development courses.

One thousand and nine

people were enrolled in BTVI’s construction and mechanical programme.

Two hundred and fiftyseven people were studying electronics and media technology.

Four hundred and fifty-seven persons were enrolled in the ICT programme.

Flamingo Air is back in the air after mid-flight mishap

By DENISE MAYCOCK Tribune Staff Reporter dmaycock@tribunemedia.net FLAMINGO Air has resumed services after being grounded earlier this month when the boarding ladder on an aircraft deployed mid-flight.

Operations started effective October 11, according to an official statement management released on Thursday.

The Civil Aviation Authority suspended operations and launched

investigations after a video of the aircraft’s opened door hovering over Bahamian waters went viral on social media.

An employee had failed to latch the aircraft’s door.

Following the incident, the airline described the incident as a “minor issue”.

“Flamingo Air takes full responsibility for the human error that resulted in the disruption of our services temporarily and apologises profusely for the incident that caused such concern among our valued

customers,” the company’s statement said.

“We are committed to ensuring your safety and will ensure that the strict checks and safety protocols that are part of operations are followed.”

The company said it has taken and will continue to take steps to prevent any future recurrence of such an incident.

“We take this opportunity to thank our valued customers for their ongoing demonstrated trust and confidence,” the company said.

THREE MEN ARRESTED IN GB IN CONNECTION WITH CACHE OF ILLEGAL WEAPONS AND DRUGS

By DENISE MAYCOCK Tribune Staff Reporter dmaycock@tribunemedia.net THREE men were arrested and a cache of illegal weapons and ammunition was recovered at a residence during a police raid in Grand Bahama, a senior police official reported on Monday.

Assistant Commissioner of Police BK Bonamy, Jr, reported that three new assault rifles and nine pistols, along with over 500 rounds of ammunition, were seized on Friday.

The weapons are believed to be part of an illegal gun trade, and were found wrapped with plastic saran in a cardboard box.

Police believe more people might be involved.

According to reports, shortly after 2pm on Friday a team of officers from the Criminal Investigation Department, Special Intelligence Branch, Drug

Enforcement Unit, and Anti-gang Unit executed a search warrant at a house.

In the living room, police found a cardboard box, containing nine unlicensed firearms and a total of 509 rounds of ammunition.

Three suspects were taken into custody.

ACP Bonamy said they are working closely with US law enforcement counterparts at the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearm (ATF) agency, and with the Anti-gang Unit in New Providence, to find out from where the weapons originated and who brought them in.

“We intend to do more raids,” he said. “Our intelligence is telling us there are a number of persons who might be involved and we will go after all of them,” said the police chief.

A total of 11 firearms have been taken off Grand Bahama streets in the past week.

Mr Bonamy stressed that firearms are dangerous as they can cause harm and even death.

Last Tuesday, a six-yearold child accidentally shot himself. The father was arrested and charged in court on Monday. And last Thursday, a firearm was recovered by officers from DEU. The police chief warned that they will continue to execute warrants on suspected residences in Grand Bahama.

Members of the public are urged to contact police if they know anyone who might be in possession of illegal firearms.

“We will continue to work with the public and ask for their assistance in getting illegal firearms off the streets,” he said.

Mr Bonamy said many of the murders being committed are from illegal firearms.

He commended the officers in this latest raid.

To advertise in The Tribune, contact 502-2394

PAGE 10, Thursday, October 19, 2023

THE TRIBUNE

Hard to be hopeful with state and future of the Middle East WE will be reading and watching for days and weeks to come about the awful human misery unfolding in Gaza, one of the most politically sensitive enclaves anywhere on earth. The Tribune featured an in-depth look at the history of the region earlier this week. Here’s another brief take on the current tragedy.

The collapse of empires often produces newly independent entities whose differences may have been papered over by a central organising authority.

We saw this with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia 30 years ago. The Balkan Wars of the 1990s and the current Russo-Ukraine War are among the many consequences of these fallen empires.

The horrific new conflict between Israel and Hamas can trace its modern roots to the fall of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire 100 years ago after World War I. In the early 16th century, the area now known as the Gaza Strip was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. During World War I, it fell to British forces and became part of the so-called British Mandate of Palestine. Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Egypt administered the newly formed Gaza Strip.

It was then captured by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967.

The Gaza Strip has since been part of what amounts to a Palestinian homeland, together with the West Bank of the Jordan River.

Israel, always resolute in its own defense, stands between these two Palestinian areas.

A seemingly unbridgeable difference of opinion has persisted over this arrangement between America, some Western allies and Israel on one side, and most of the rest of the world on the other.

This is despite incessant, sincere efforts by the US and other nations to find a compromise way forward that might be acceptable to everyone.

No practical solution is at hand, however, especially with determined extremists exerting significant influence in both the Gaza region and Israel. Further complicating matters is the fact that this unsettled

STATESIDE with Charlie Harper situation also serves the interests of several mischief-making actors within and outside the immediate area surrounding Israel.

This list includes Russia, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

How big is the Gaza Strip? For context, let’s compare it with Nassau/ New Providence, which is home to 300,000 inhabitants on 80 square miles of territory.

The Gaza Strip, by contrast, tries to support two million people on 140 square miles. That means that Nassau has 15 percent of Gaza’s population on 57 percent of its territory. We are densely populated on New Providence. But Gaza – that’s much more so.

Think about that the next time you get trapped in a traffic jam on West Bay Street, Eastern Road or any of the other major road bottlenecks we experience here. And consider what might happen if someone precipitated a crisis that panicked us in the way Gazans are now terrified.

This, then, is the setting for the current crisis.

There’s just too much humanity, history, religious profundity and current tension crammed into far too small a space.

Israel has declared a state of war. President Joe Biden has visited the region this week. He had already dispatched his secretary of state to the region to try to calm things down before Israel occupies what will remain after the bombing of Gaza City and the northern half of the Gaza Strip.

After meeting with other regional leaders, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken Tuesday returned to Israel for a second meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and, according to a press release, “underlined his firm support for Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas’ terrorism and

reaffirmed US determination to provide the Israeli government with what it needs to protect its citizens”.

Hamas, the de facto governing body of Gaza that is regarded by the West as a terrorist group dedicated to the eradication of the state of Israel, will likely regard its cunning surprise attack on southern Israel as a triumph, since it elicited a massive Israeli response that will elicit horror and resentment in much of the outside world.

Hamas, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Al-Qaeda, ISIS

and other Islamic extremist groups, is sustained by grievance and resentment at outside (Western) domination, as well as the hopelessness that accompanies social, economic and political despair.

It’s difficult to imagine a lasting solution to the overall crisis situation in and around Israel, since the underlying issues remain stubbornly resistant to solution.

Tragedy and grievous loss of life lie ahead for too many in this highly combustible region. It’s hard to be hopeful for the future.

PALESTINIANS look for survivors after an Israeli airstrike on Nusseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, yesterday.

Photo: Ali Mohmoud/AP

Who is Vice President Kamala Harris really?

OFTEN BRASH AND BOMBASTIC TRUMP IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE THIS latest Middle East conflict has elicited from Joe Biden an altogether predictable response. He is promising virtually unlimited support for Israel.

That’s what American presidents are expected to say. But GOP frontrunner Donald Trump added some remarks the other day that would result in widespread excoriation and probably dismissal from the Republican primary field for anyone else.

Trump criticised Israeli intelligence failures and some of Netanyahu’s earlier actions in an address to supporters in Florida.

He also garnered headlines with the offhand remark that Hezbollah is “very smart”. Sticking to his trusty bombastic style, the former president also noted that had he been in the White House, “no one would have launched any attacks against Israel”.

And while Biden is burdened with significant international issues to resolve and is dogged by sagging popularity and stubbornly high interest rates at home, Trump is relatively unfettered by any current job responsibilities and is therefore free to boast about things he never achieved as

president and that he likely could never accomplish if voters return him to the White House next year.

Trump is facing a grand total of 91 indictments this morning. The most significant of these charges concern his alleged incitement of the January 6, 2021, US capitol riot and other actions intended to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election. In that election, Biden’s victory by over seven million votes was duly certified in Washington.

This trial in Washington DC has a tentative start date of March 4, 2024.

That date falls right in the middle of a cluster of Republican state primary elections. Other Trump trials in New York, Florida and Georgia will likely follow.

And through it all, Trump will remain where he has been for nearly a decade. He will never be far away from the epicenter of the daily news cycle. He’ll be outrageous, brash, mendacious, controversial – and on your TV and in your newspaper. He will as always be impossible to ignore or overlook.

VICE President Kamala Harris speaks during a memorial service for US Senator Dianne Feinstein, October 5, 2023.

Photo: Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP WHILE Trump and Obama. He was also smart, Biden spar with each other attractive, bi-racial and as they prepare for what still ambitious. Obama had seems like a certain rematch been a community activist next year, a persistent sub- and state legislator; Harris plot is likely to be “who is was a prosecutor, both in Kamala Harris really?” and San Francisco and for the how do voters feel about the state of California. Obama possibility of her becoming is an inspiring orator. Harris president if Biden falters? focusses on what’s in front Republicans will try to of her. exploit this uncertainty.

Questions have been “My career, for the most raised about Harris’ vision part, has not been one of for her party and for the being focused on giving country. Her response is lovely speeches or trying to to circle back to the tasks pass a bill,” Harris recently at hand. Maybe she lacks told a New York Times what president George H interviewer. “And so that’s W Bush used to call “the how I approach public vision thing”. But it doesn’t policy. I’m probably ori- seem to concern her. ented to think about, ‘what “Sometimes” the interdoes this actually mean,’ as viewer wrote, “I can sense opposed to ‘how does this the frustrations of an just sound?’” elected official who clearly This somewhat uncon- is skeptical of the press — ventional perspective a career prosecutor who is reveals Harris as someone more comfortable asking “who is fundamentally pressing questions than uncomfortable with having giving straightforward to make an affirmative case answers.” for herself to the public — It seems the vice presiand feels she shouldn’t have dent can live with whatever to.” her political future brings.

But Harris has often She’s going to continue to been compared to Barack operate on her own terms.

Disconnected youth presents a critical test for our country THE TRIBUNE

THE American writer and philosopher William Durant (1885-1981), wrote extensively on history and civilisations, comparing different epochs and countries.

One of his famous quips was, “It may be true that you can’t fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.”

One wonders what he would think of America today, including Donald Trump and the inability of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives to do something as basic as electing a speaker.

His best known work, the 11-volume, The Story of Civilisation, comparing Eastern and Western civilisations, was composed in collaboration with his wife Ariel Durant. It was published between 1935 and 1975.

William Durant repeatedly insisted in various iterations: “Civilisation is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again.”

As noted by another author, Durant defined civilisation “as social order that promotes cultural creation, so you need order and personal freedom.” He appreciated that freedom required responsibility and necessitated direction and certain guardrails to avoid societies dissolving into chaos and anarchy.

Absent personal responsibility, adherence to social norms, and the observance and enforcement of various laws, children and adults lapse into antisocial and even feral behaviour, like publicly urinating wherever one pleases or cavalierly throwing trash onto roads.

Such behaviour is increasingly normal in The Bahamas, alongside mass corruption and illegality by the political and business classes, who gouge the public purse and consumers to enrich themselves at the expense of the country.

As noted in previous columns, decades ago, in the 1970s, the late Monsignor Preston Moss observed what he viewed as the lack of basic human development in a significant number of our people. It has worsened since then.

Monsignor Moss was concerned that many Bahamians of all ages, but especially a large number of young people, lacked fundamental values and habits required for human and moral development, including impulse-control, civility, basic manners, respect for authority and other mores necessary for individual and social development.

Near the end of his life, Sir Lynden Pindling lamented that we were raising a nation of brutes, especially many young men who acted in an uncivilized and brutish manner, often incapable of basic civilities and minimal standards

Thursday, October 19, 2023, PAGE 11

The chronic unemployment of nearly a quarter of young Bahamians is an economic and social emergency with farreaching ramifications.

of conduct, including the ability to treat women with respect.

Sir Lynden should have reflected more on the role his governments played in the decline of social values and the toleration of slackness, corruption and social decay, turbocharged by the drug era.

The attenuation of the role of the extended family in raising children and young people, the explosion in the number of young parents, the destruction of values of the drug era and an attendant lowering of expectations, all helped to make a significant number of us less civil, less humane and more prone to violence as a response to conflict.

Though there have been a significant number of single-parent families for many generations, there was often a stronger family network, as well as intermediate associations with greater influence on young people.

This included churches, neighbourhoods and a variety of civic groups.

Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson has written extensively on the sociology of violence in urban America. His analysis also has resonance for New Providence.

The majority of young people on New Providence and throughout the Bahamas, are law-abiding citizens. But there is a large cohort of what Patterson describes as “disconnected youth”.

Most of these youth do poorly in school or are chronically unemployed.

The staggeringly high rate of youth unemployment is having a toxic effect on our social landscape. Matters have worsened in the aftermath of the COVID19 pandemic, including a larger number of teens who missed several years of learning.

The chronic unemployment of nearly a quarter of young Bahamians is an economic and social emergency with far-reaching ramifications.

Thousands of young people wake up every morning with no work, no job prospects, with nothing to do. And they do so day after day and year after year. What is the impact of such an existence on individuals and on society?

Boredom breeds its own discontents and demons, a truism for us all. If we don’t have something to keep us busy, we will find something, or as is so often the case, something will find us. Recall the aphorism about idle hands, which might also be said of idle minds, idle talents, idle energies and idle youth.

There are many thousands of disaffected youth who have not been sufficiently reared with certain positive values and mores and who are in basic survival mode and feel cut off from society.

With current and future prospects seemingly bleak, is it any wonder that many disaffected youth live for the day and have little interest in delayed gratification or self-control.

University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Professor Leon Dash, a Pulitzer Prize winner, was once a leading reporter for the Washington Post. Dash wrote about his research among African American teens in a poor neighbourhood in Washington, DC. He was convinced that the high incidence of these young people having children had to do with insufficient knowledge of birth control. The teens quickly disabused him of his incorrect supposition.

The teenage girls told him that as they had few job or other life prospects, they decided that they would have children by a

man who might love them and who might support their children.

Humans typically delay certain life events, like marriage or having children, or delay gratification when future prospects are on the horizon.

But if prospects and life seem short, the experience or thrill of living now whether in a gang or in the drug business and culture, with the benefits of belonging, sexual enjoyment, alcohol and drugs, other forms of escapism, the power of the gun and violence and the supposed respect these bring, make more sense than the broader society may grasp or understand.

For many disconnected youth it’s not just about job and professional prospects.

It is also about the quality or lack thereof of family life.

Quite a number of disconnected youth are in difficult family situations and often feel that they do not have access to clubs, associations and activities through which they may find greater purpose, a sense of belonging, adult mentoring, opportunities for growth, the building of self-esteem and skills development, and wholesome friendships and love.

Patterson observes: “As one gang member told an interviewer working for the sociologist Deanna Wilkinson: ‘I grew up as looking for somebody to love me in

the streets. You know, my mother was always working, my father used to be doing his thing. So, I was by myself. I’m here looking for some love. I ain’t got nobody to give me love, so I went to the streets to find love.’ “ To be sure, a number of individuals who were afforded love and material well-being have often had difficult adulthoods. Still, a child or young person insufficiently loved, mentored or governed during their formative years tends to begin life with tremendous headwinds and without basic human resources.

What often seems irrational for the broader culture, may seem entirely rational for a subculture.

What Patterson says of parts of urban America can also be said of our social context: “With few skills and a contempt for low-wage jobs, they [disconnected youth] subsist through the underground economy of illicit trading and crime. Many belong to gangs.

“Their street or thug culture is real, with a configuration of norms, values and habits that are, disturbingly, rooted in a ghetto brand of core American mainstream values: hypermasculinity, the aggressive assertion and defense of respect, extreme individualism, materialism…”

While Bahamians tend not to exhibit the extreme

individualism of the US, our disaffected youth mirror various mainstream values embedded in our culture.

Hypermasculinity, misogyny and sexism are the order of the day in The Bahamas, which is one of the reasons it has been so difficult to pass a referendum on gender equality.

For so many Bahamian men, having a child in and of itself proves that they are a man.

“The aggressive assertion and defense of respect” has also become pervasive, resulting in retaliation killings, which are not unique to The Bahamas.

We have become increasingly more aggressive in responding to sleights, real or perceived, with verbal or physical violence. Even the slightest sense of being disrespected can elicit the angriest of responses.

Moreover, an orgy of materialism reflects a particular level of shallowness and crudeness in our society. Corruption in public life is endemic. So many of us will do whatever it takes to make money.

Our disconnected youth reflect the broader society. It is not us against them. Sociologically and ethically, how we respond to the most disconnected among us is a critical test of our decency and our ability to renew and sustain a humane and civilised Bahamas.

PAGE 12, Thursday, October 19, 2023

THE TRIBUNE

Ukraine claims major strike on Russian airfields and thanks US for providing long-range missiles

A Ukrainian soldier in his position in Avdiivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine, on August18, 2023.

Photo: Libkos/AP

KYIV Associated Press UKRAINE on Tuesday claimed to have carried out one of the most destructive attacks on Russian air assets since the beginning of the war, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying the assault used longer-range ballistic missiles donated by the United States.

Zelenskyy’s announcement came hours after a US official revealed that the longer-range ballistic missiles sought for months by Kyiv and promised by President Joe Biden had been delivered quietly and are in battlefield use.

Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces claimed it destroyed nine Russian helicopters at two airfields in Russia-occupied regions in a nighttime attack on targets in eastern and southern Ukraine.

It also hit military equipment, an air-defence system, ammunition warehouses and runways, a statement said.

Dozens of Russian military

personnel were injured in the attack codenamed Operation Dragonfly, it said.

Several US officials said that Washington provided Ukraine with a small number of the Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, making good on a promise made by Biden last month.

Zelenskyy offered “special thanks” to the United States for sending the ATACMS. “Our agreements with President Biden are being implemented,” Zelenskyy said in his usual evening address to the nation, saying the ATACMS “have proven themselves.”

The weapons development piles pressure on the Kremlin as both sides look for battlefield advantages ahead of winter and what is shaping up as a protracted war of attrition.

While some versions of the missiles can go as far as about 180 miles (about 300 kilometres), the ones sent to Ukraine have a shorter range and carry cluster munitions, which, when fired, open in the air, releasing hundreds of bomblets rather than a

single warhead. According to a US official, the ones delivered to Ukraine have a maximum range of a bit more than 100 miles (roughly 160 kilometres).

The Ukrainian statement didn’t say how the targets were hit. Russian authorities didn’t comment on the report. It wasn’t immediately possible to verify the two sides’ battlefield claims.

The airfields, in the Luhansk and Berdyansk regions, are located behind the front line. The Russian military apparently thought that they were at a safe distance from Ukrainian attacks.

Meanwhile, Russia is throwing more units into its effort to take a key eastern Ukraine city, Western analysts say, after apparent setbacks that have slowed its dayslong onslaught.

The attempt to storm Avdiivka, a heavily defended city that stands in the way of Moscow’s ambition of securing control of the entire Donetsk region, is Moscow’s most significant offensive operation in Ukraine since

the start of the year, the UK defence ministry said Tuesday.

The Kremlin’s push to claim Avdiivka comes after months of fending off Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which Kyiv launched some 16 months after Russia’s fullscale invasion.

The Russian forces deployed to Avdiivka are likely making slow progress

and sustaining high casualties in what is proving a costly effort, the UK defence ministry said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

The pace of Russia’s attack on the heavily fortified target has reportedly slowed in recent days since its launch last week, a Washingtonbased think tank said.

Russian officials made

no immediate comment on developments around Avdiivka.

Citing the Ukrainian General Staff, the Institute for the Study of War said Ukrainian forces pushed back 22 Russian attacks on Monday, down from 30 reported assaults the previous day.

Kyiv officials said Russia mounted up to 60 attacks per day last week.

ACTIVISTS TURN BACKS ON US OFFICIALS AS UN-BACKED HUMAN RIGHTS REVIEW OF US GENEVA Associated Press DOZENS of US activists who champion LGBTQ, indigenous and reproductive rights and who campaign against discrimination turned their backs Wednesday in a silent protest against what they called insufficient US government responses to their human rights concerns.

The protesters, who came from places as diverse as Guam, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and beyond, led the demonstration before the independent Human Rights Committee as US Ambassador Michele Taylor wrapped up a two-day hearing on the United States. It was part of a regular human rights review for all UN member countries by the committee.

Six other countries including Haiti, Iran and Venezuela also were undergoing public sessions this autumn in Geneva to see how well countries are adhering to their commitments under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights — one of only a handful of international human rights

treaties that the United States has ratified.

The protest came as Taylor said the US commitment to the treaty was “a moral imperative at the very heart of our democracy” and her country “leads by example through our transparency, our openness and our humble approach to our own human rights challenges.”

“You have heard over the past two days about many of the concrete ways we are meeting our obligations under the convention, and you have also heard our pledge to do more,” said Taylor, who is US ambassador to the Human Rights Council. “I recognize that the topics raised are often painful for all of us to discuss.”

Jamil Dakwar, director of the human rights program at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the US delegation “decided to stick to scripted, general, and often meaningless responses” to questions from the committee.

“At times it seemed that AI generated responses would have been more qualitative,” he said.

Andrea Guerrero,

executive director of community group Alliance San Diego, said the US responses were “deeply disappointing” and consisted of a simple reiteration, defence and justification of use-of-force standards by US police.

“For that reason, we walked out of the US consultations (with civil society) two days ago, and we protested today,” said Guerrero, whose group began a “Start With Dignity” campaign in southwestern states to decry law enforcement abuse, discrimination and impunity.

Some 140 activists from an array of groups travelled to Geneva for the first such review of US compliance to the covenant in nine years.

Ki’I Kaho’ohanohano, a traditional midwife from Hawaii, said she came to speak to the maternal health care crisis in Hawaii and beyond, and faulted US officials for having “deflected” the committee’s repeat questions.

“Stonewall -- as usual,” she said, “Again we don’t have any responses, and it’s very infuriating.”

Israel agrees to let Egypt deliver some aid to Gaza THE TRIBUNE

Thursday, October 19, 2023, PAGE 13

GAZA STRIP Associated Press

ISRAEL said Wednesday that it will allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. The first crack in a punishing 10-day siege on the territory came one day after a deadly blast at a Gaza City hospital killed hundreds and put immense strain on Gaza doctors treating the many wounded as medical supplies ran out.

The announcement to allow water, food and other supplies came as rage over Tuesday night’s blast at alAhli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and as US President Joe Biden visited Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region.

There were conflicting claims of who was responsible for the explosion. Hamas officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli airstrike, saying nearly 500 were killed.

Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.

The Associated Press has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence released by the parties.

Israel shut off all supplies to Gaza soon after Hamas militants rampaged across communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7. The al-Ahli carnage threw the siege’s impact into sharp relief.

Hundreds of wounded were rushed to another hospital, nearly out of supplies and fuel for its generators, and doctors performed surgery on the floors, often without anaesthesia.

Biden said Egypt’s president agreed to open the crossing and, to begin with, to let in 20 trucks with humanitarian aid. If Hamas confiscates aid, “it will end,” he said. White House officials said the aid would flow as early as Friday, once the roads are patched.

At Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only connection to Egypt, lines of trucks with aid have waited for days to enter. But the facility has only a limited capacity. Egypt must still repair the road across the border that was cratered by Israeli airstrikes.

Supplies will eventually go in under supervision of the UN, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV. He did not specify the number of trucks.

Asked if foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let through, he said: “As long as the crossing is operating normally and the (crossing) facility has been repaired.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the decision was approved after a request from Biden. It said Israel “will not thwart” deliveries of food, water or medicine from Egypt, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and don’t go to Hamas militants.

The statement made no mention of badly needed fuel.

Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel resumed Wednesday after a 12-hour lull, and Israeli strikes on Gaza continued, including on cities in the south that Israel had described as “safe zones” for civilians.

In his brief visit, Biden tried to strike a balance between showing US support for Israel, while containing growing alarm among Arab allies. Upon his arrival, Biden embraced Netanyahu — and expressed concern for the suffering of Gaza’s civilians.

Biden said the hospital blast appeared not to be Israel’s fault, and he cautioned Israelis not to allow outrage over the deadly Hamas attack to consume them.

Jordanian Foreign

FAMILIES and supporters of Israelis held captive in Gaza call for their release during a demonstration in Tel Aviv, Israel yesterday. The Israeli army says some 200 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza in Hamas’ cross-border attack on Israel on October 7.

Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/AP Minister Ayman Safadi warned that the war was “pushing the region to the brink.” After the hospital blast, Jordan cancelled a meeting between Biden, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and the Palestinian and Egyptian presidents.

The Israeli military held a briefing Wednesday morning laying out its case for why it was not responsible for the explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said it was not firing in the area when the blast occurred.

He said Israeli radar confirmed a rocket barrage was fired by the Palestinian militant Islamic Jihad from a nearby cemetery at the time of the blast, around 6:59 pm Independent video showed one rocket in the barrage falling out of the sky, he said.

The misfired rocket hit the parking lot outside the hospital, he said. Were it an airstrike, there would have been a large crater there; instead, the fiery blast came from the misfired rocket’s warhead and its unspent propellant, he said.

Hamas called Tuesday’s hospital blast “a horrific massacre,” saying it was caused by an Israeli strike. Islamic Jihad accused Israel of trying “to evade responsibility for the brutal massacre it committed.”

The group pointed to Israel’s order days before that al-Ahli be evacuated and a previous strike at the hospital as proof that the hospital was an Israeli target. It also said the scale of the explosion, the angle of the bomb’s fall and the extent of the destruction all pointed to Israel.

The Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Hosam Naoum, said the hospital, run by the Episcopal Church, received at least three Israeli military orders to evacuate in the days before the blast. Israeli shelling hit it Sunday, wounding four staffers, he said.

Israel ordered all 22 hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate last week.

Naoum declined to cast blame on either party for the blast. “We just want to let people see what is happening on the ground and hope that people will come to the conclusion that we’ve had enough of this war,” he said.

Hundreds of Palestinians had taken refuge in al-Ahli and other hospitals in Gaza City, hoping they would be spared bombardment after Israel ordered all residents of the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate to the south. Video

after the blast showed the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children.

On Wednesday morning, the blast scene was littered with charred cars and the ground was blackened. One man who had been sheltering there with his family, Mohammed al-Hayek, said he was sitting with other men in a hospital stairwell Tuesday night, wary of sitting in the yard.

He stepped away to get them coffee when the blast hit.

“When I returned, they were torn to pieces,” he said.

The death toll was in dispute. The Health Ministry initially said at least 500 had died, but revised that number to 471 on Wednesday. Al-Ahli officials said the toll was in the hundreds.

Abu Selmia said he thought

the toll was closer to 250.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,478 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, and more than 12,000 wounded, mostly women, children and the elderly.

Another 1,300 people across Gaza are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas’ deadly incursion, in which the fighters took some 200 hostages into Gaza. Militants in Gaza have launched rockets every day since toward cities across Israel.

More than 1 million Palestinians have fled their homes — roughly half of Gaza’s population.

Most have crowded into the territory’s southern half. Many families say they have cut down

to one meal a day and have been left to drink contaminated water amid worsening shortages.

“It’s not just that people are going hungry. People are at the risk of starvation,” Alia Zaki, a spokesperson for the World Food Program, said.

With troops massed along the border, Israel has been expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, though military officials say no decision has been made.

With Israeli airstrikes relentlessly pounding the Gaza Strip, displaced Palestinians increasingly feel that no place is safe. Palestinians in northern Gaza and Gaza City have taken refuge in the homes of their relatives further south following an Israeli military evacuation order.

The Musa family fled to

the typically sleepy central town of Deir al-Balah and sheltered in a cousin’s threestory home near the local hospital. But on Wednesday at 7:30pm, a series of explosions, believed to be airstrikes, rocked the building, turning the family home into a mountain of rubble that they said has buried some 20 women and children.

The dead body of Hiam Musa, the sister-in-law of Associated Press photojournalist Adel Hana, was recovered from under the building Wednesday evening, the family said. The family doesn’t know who else is under the rubble, alive or dead.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Hana said. “We went to Deir al-Balah because it’s quiet, we thought we would be safe.”

SPORTS PAGE 14

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2023

Aces become first repeat champions in 21 years Las Vegas beats Jonquel Jones and New York Liberty 70-69 in Game 4

By DOUG FEINBERG AP Basketball Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The Las Vegas Aces became the first team in 21 years to win back-to-back WNBA championships, getting 24 points and 16 rebounds from A’ja Wilson and a defensive stop in the closing seconds to beat the New York Liberty 70-69 in Game 4 of the Finals last night.

The Aces joined the Los Angeles Sparks (2001-02) and the Houston Comets (1997-2000) as the only teams in league history to win consecutive titles.

Las Vegas did it without starters Chelsea Gray and Kiah Stokes, who were both sidelined with foot injuries suffered in Game 3. Gray, the 2022 WNBA Finals MVP, was constantly in the ear of her teammates during timeouts and shouting encouragement from the sideline. Las Vegas was also still missing veteran Candace Parker, who had foot surgery in late July.

“We’ve been facing adversity all season, playing without different players. ... We have some professional fighters,” said Alysha Clark, who was pressed into the starting lineup yesterday. “To weather the storm of everything we went through, to show up every single day.

To be in this moment right now and do it together, it speaks volumes about us, our chemistry.”

Wilson won Finals MVP honours this year after finishing in third in the regular-season MVP balloting.

With the game tied at 64, Jackie Young scored four straight points to give the Aces a 68-64 advantage with 2:04 left.

New York’s Breanna Stewart got an open look at 3 but the shot rimmed out. Wilson then hit a

LAS Vegas Aces’ A’ja Wilson and Mark Davis celebrate with teammates next to the trophy after Game 4 of the WNBA Finals playoff series against the New York Liberty last night in New York. The Aces won 70-69.

(AP Photo/Frank Franklin II) tough turnaround shot New York one last chance. New York after the Liberty between these teams. The with 1:26 left to give the After a timeout with 8.8 scored 23 points in the first four regular-season matchAces a 70-64 advantage. seconds left, the Liberty quarter. Hammon started ups were all blowouts with Courtney Vandersloot got the ball to Stewart, who WNBA sixth woman of the closest contest being hit a 3-pointer on New was double-teamed. The the year Clark and Cayla a nine-point win by New York’s next possession, ball swung over to Vander- George in place of Gray York on August 28. then stole the ball from sloot in the corner, but her and Stokes. Clark did a The first three games of Kelsey Plum, which led to shot missed badly, setting stellar job on her former the WNBA Finals were Sabrina Ionescu’s foul-line off a wild celebration by Seattle Storm teammate also routs, with New York jumper to get the Liberty the Aces at midcourt.

Stewart, holding her to 10 winning Game 3 87-73 to within one with 41.7 secVandersloot finished points on 3-of-17 shooting. stave off elimination. onds left. with 19 points and Betnijah George had 11 points.

Game 4 was so tense that On the ensuing posses- Laney added 15 for New “Just knowing what she Ionescu was seen vomitsion, Las Vegas worked York. likes to do. And just lock- ing into a trash can during the shot clock down before Hammon said before the ing in and making sure that a timeout midway through coach Becky Hammon game she would be “throw- I don’t give that to her,” the fourth quarter, shortly called timeout with 3 sec- ing the kitchen sink at (the Clark said of guarding after she hit a 3-pointer onds left on the shot clock. Liberty), see what sticks, Stewart. “I’m so proud of to get the Liberty within The Aces got the ball to see what works.” this team.”

60-58.

Wilson on a lob, but StewThe Aces rotated This was the first Ionescu returned to the art blocked the shot, giving defences, which stymied close game of the season court after the timeout.

Billie Jean King wants better scheduling in tennis and to combine BJK Cup, Davis Cup

By HOWARD FENDRICH AP Tennis Writer BILLIE Jean King wants the groups with a say in the tennis schedule to avoid potential conflicts such as the close timing and far distance between the WTA Finals and Billie Kean King Cup Finals, which led Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula to choose to compete in the former and skip the latter.

On a conference call yesterday to promote the competition named in her honour — its finals will be November 7-12 in Seville, Spain — King said she isn’t sure how much discussion there’s been between the International Tennis Federation, which oversees the BJK Cup, and the WTA, whose championships are October 29 to November 5 in Cancun, Mexico.

“We all need to get together and figure out a better calendar for the

players and everybody knowing what’s going to happen, because you can’t start making these decisions, like on the (WTA) Finals, in October or ...

September,” King said.

“They have to know ahead of time. It’s only fair.”

Added Conchita Martinez, tournament director for the BJK Cup Finals and, like King, someone who has a player won the team competition that used to be known as the Fed Cup: “We need to work together for better solutions.”

The WTA announced in June when its season-ending tour event would be played, but it did not make the site known until September 7. The choice to hold the 2022 WTA Finals in Fort Worth, Texas, also was not announced until September of last year.

That prompted Swiatek to point out that the location and the timing — competition in Fort Worth ended

BILLIE JEAN KING (AP) a day before the start of the Billie Jean King Cup Finals in Glasgow, Scotland — were problematic.

“This situation is not safe for our health and could cause injury,” Swiatek said last year.

She opted to participate in the WTA Finals and not play for Poland at the BJK Cup Finals in 2022 — and made the same decisions this time.

Gauff, the 19-year-old American who won the U.S. Open last month for

her first Grand Slam title, and Pegula also will be in Mexico and not in Spain.

It means three of the top four women in the WTA rankings will miss the BJK Cup Finals: No. 2 Swiatek, No. 3 Gauff and No. 4 Pegula.

“We need to focus on the positive here,” Martinez said. “I mean, we might not have three names here.

But we have amazing players playing.”

Among the Grand Slam singles champions expected to participate in Seville are Marketa Vondrousova and Barbora Krejcikova for the Czech Republic, Sloane Stephens for the United States and Elena Rybakina for Kazakhstan.

King said she would like to see the BJK Cup and its equivalent for men, the Davis Cup, be combined.

“You know how I am about having the men and women work together,” she said.

MLB, page 17

PAN AM GAMES: BOC SAYS BOXER CARL HIELD ‘TOO OLD’ TO BE SELECTED

By TENAJH SWEETING Tribune Sports Reporter tsweeting@tribunemedia.net THE Bahamas Olympic Committee (BOC) has fielded participants in sailing, tennis, swimming, athletics, golf and wrestling but not boxing for the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile.

The Bahamas Boxing Federation (BBF) submitted two candidates to be considered for the multisports team, including veteran boxer Carl Hield and Rashield Williams.

However, only Williams was selected.

The Pan American Games was supposed to provide an opportunity for both boxers to try and qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games but they will now have to await another opportunity next year.

According to Vincent Strachan, BBF president, the BOC informed him that Hield was not selected due to his age and recent performances.

“They said that he was too old and that his recent performances were not up to par and they were not prepared to invest any more money in him,” Strachan said.

The president added that Hield was dedicated to representing The Bahamas at the amateur level which resulted in him delaying his professional debut.

Hield, who is preparing to make his professional debut in Cali, Colombia this weekend, recently competed at a Pan American Games qualifier where he won his first match but lost the second.

Williams, who was selected to the team, participated at the Central American and Caribbean Games where he won his opening match against Donnel Phillip, of Trinidad & Tobago, 4-1. However, he

SEE PAGE 17

NEW ZEALAND BEATS AFGHANISTAN BY 149 RUNS FOR 4TH STRAIGHT WIN AT CRICKET WORLD CUP CHENNAI, India (AP) — New Zealand collected its fourth straight win to open the Cricket World Cup by beating Afghanistan by 149 runs yesterday after important half-centuries by Glenn Phillips and Tom Latham.

Phillips was the top scorer with 71 off 80 balls and put on 144 runs for the fifth wicket with Latham (68) to rescue the Black Caps from a precarious 110-4 as they posted 288-6.

New Zealand curtailed Afghanistan, which was coming off a surprising 69-run win over England, to 139 all out in 34.4 overs and registered another big victory in the competition to boost its net run rate.

The Black Caps are in first place on a maximum eight points, with India — with three straight victories — the only other unbeaten team.

Put into bat by Afghanistan, New Zealand got off

to a sedate start on a tricky pitch but still got into a strong position at 109-1 before a mini-collapse.

In-form Devon Conway was out lbw to Mujeeb ur Rahman for 20 but fellow opener Will Young, who replaced the injured Kane Williamson, made a second straight half-century with 54 off 64 balls, hitting four fours and three sixes.

Young put on 79 runs off 83 balls with Rachin Ravindra (32) when the game changed.

Bowling allrounder Azmatullah Omarzai (2-56) struck a double blow in the space of five deliveries, bowling Ravindra — who went for a wild swing — before Young was caught behind by wicketkeeper Ikram Alikhil off a low onehanded catch diving to his left.

Rashid Khan entered into the attack and dismissed

SEE PAGE 17

THE TRIBUNE

Thursday, October 19, 2023, PAGE 15

Kids get an inspirational treat after 2nd Reloaded Baseball Invitational

IN FOR A TREAT: Following the second Reloaded Baseball Invitational, the programme decided to surprise the kids with an inspirational treat at the Andre Rodgers Baseball Stadium. Martin Burrows, of the National Sports Authority, welcomed them to tour the facility’s locker rooms and the actual baseball field. The kids had their names announced by team coach Mandell Curry and pictures displayed in an impromptu exercise which allowed them to run out on the field for a lineup. Lastly, they were given an inspirational speech by Burrows and were treated to ice cream. Reloaded Baseball thanks their sponsors Bahamas Waste, GSI Cargo Shippers, Rush Imports, NSA and Adonis A Productions.

Photos by Antonio Rahming

PAGE 16, Thursday, October 19, 2023

THE TRIBUNE

MIAMI HEAT Bucks look to set the pace THE TEAM CATCH IN again in NBA’s Central Division TOSOUTHEAST, THOUGH behind Giannis and Lillard THERE WILL BE

By STEVE MEGARGEE AP Sports Writer CENTRAL Division teams are seeking to make amends after creating some unwanted NBA playoff history last season.

Last season marked the first time that no Central Division team advanced at least as far as the conference semifinals since the league went to a 16-team playoff format in 1984. The Central Division’s combined 2-8 playoff record – excluding the play-in tournament – was its worst postseason mark ever.

The quick exits unfolded even though the Milwaukee Bucks owned the No. 1 overall playoff seed and the Cleveland Cavaliers had home-court advantage in the opening round.

“It stings watching other teams make it there, watching other teams hold the trophy, watching other teams’ parade, watching other teams with cigars in their mouths, watching other teams do all the type of crazy stuff that you really want to do,” Bucks forward Bobby Portis said.

“Yeah, that hurts. Especially when you’ve done it before.”

The Bucks won the title in 2021 but haven’t advanced beyond the second round since. After their stunning 4-1 loss to the Miami Heat in the first round of last season’s playoffs, the Bucks made some major changes.

They fired Mike Budenholzer, the coach of their 2021 championship team, and replaced him with former Toronto Raptors assistant Adrian Griffin.

They also acquired seventime all-NBA guard Damian Lillard to pair with two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo as part of a blockbuster multiteam trade that cost them two-time All-Star guard Jrue Holiday and Grayson Allen as well as plenty of draft capital.

The Cavaliers didn’t make such dramatic moves after losing 4-1 to the New York Knicks in their first playoff appearance since 2018, LeBron James’ last year in Cleveland. But the Cavaliers believe they got better from the humbling experience.

“We have a year under our belt,” said All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell, who averaged 28.3 points and dropped 71 on Chicago in January. “Ultimately, the amount of preparation we do in practice is great, but the only way you really learn is through experience. And it sucks to say, but the best way to learn is through heartbreak and through the trials and tribulations of this game.

“We had one last year, and it’s like how do we respond this year? I know we’ll respond the right way.”

The other three teams in the division are trying to bounce back from losing seasons.

The Chicago Bulls did advance to the play-in tournament before losing to Miami, though they finished 40-42 one year after going 46-36.

The Detroit Pistons made the most offseason headlines of the Central’s three non-playoff teams with the coaching hire of Monty Williams, who led the Phoenix Suns to the 2021 NBA Finals. Williams takes over a team that posted an NBA-worst 17-65 record last season.

The Indiana Pacers are hoping to take the next step in their rebuild after improving from 25-57 in 2021-22 to 35-47 last season.

UÊ Ê Ê >ÌÊ i>V Ê Ìi> Ê in the Central Division in predicted order of finish: MILWAUKEE BUCKS The addition of Lillard assures the winners of the last five Central Division titles will remain one of the NBA’s top title contenders, though their regular-season record could take a slight hit as the Bucks’ two superstars get accustomed to playing together.

Holiday’s exit also could make the Bucks slightly less dangerous on defence, though their offence should take a giant step forward with Lillard.

A big key will be the health of three-time AllStar Khris Middleton, who played just 33 regular-season games last year. The Bucks also need 35-yearold centre Brook Lopez to have a second straight healthy season after a back

CHALLENGERS

THREE-POINT SPECIALIST BUDDY HIELD AND PACERS HAVE A SOLID FOUNDATION

By TIM REYNOLDS AP Basketball Writer

PACERS guard Buddy Hield shoots against the Memphis Grizzlies in the first half of a preseason game on Sunday.

(AP Photo/Brandon Dill) issue limited him to 13 games in 2021-22.

CLEVELAND CAVALIERS A 51-win season and return to the playoffs last season was soured by the disappointing finish.

The Cavs wilted under the postseason’s bright lights while being bullied

by New York, raising questions about Cleveland’s toughness, depth and future.

The need for more outside shooting was addressed with the signings of free agents Max Strus and Georges Niang, both of whom bring some attitude and postseason experience. But the bigger issue for the Cavs is Mitchell’s commitment along with the continued growth of guard Darius Garland and forward Evan Mobley.

Mitchell chose not to sign a contract extension this off-season, knowing he will continue to be asked about his long-term plans.

He’s signed through next season, making it imperative for the Cavs to take another step this season to convince him to stick around.

INDIANA PACERS The Indiana Pacers have spent nearly 20 months

rebuilding around All-Star guard Tyrese Haliburton. Team officials are cautiously optimistic this will be the breakthrough season.

With two-time league blocks champion Myles Turner, 3-point specialist Buddy Hield, all-rookie selection Bennedict Mathurin all returning and versatile defender Bruce Brown now part of the mix, the Pacers certainly have a solid foundation. And with 10 players who were first-round draft picks, they have plenty of depth on the roster, too.

It could be enough to end the Bulls’ three-year playoff drought.

CHICAGO BULLS The Bulls opted for continuity coming off a disappointing season that ended with a loss to Miami in the play-in tournament and kept their core intact.

Besides sticking with stars Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan rather than trading them, they kept Nikola Vucevic off the free-agent market by agreeing to a three-year, $60 million extension.

They also retained guard Coby White and added backcourt depth by signing former Bucks guard Jevon

Carter. They’ll need more than promising flashes from Patrick Williams in his fourth season. A jump

by Dalen Terry — last year’s first-round pick — would help, too.

DETROIT PISTONS The Pistons and Williams are counting on Cade Cunningham bouncing back from a shin surgery and playing for the first time since early November of last season.

Detroit drafted the former Oklahoma State star No. 1 overall in 2021 and he was unanimously voted to the NBA AllRookie first team before having his second season stunted by injury.

The three-time NBA championship franchise desperately need Cunningham to stay on the floor to improve its slim chances of making the playoffs for the first time since 2019 and to perhaps end a league-record, 14-game postseason drought that dates to 2008.

Cunningham leads a young team with Jaden Ivey and Jalen Duren, the No. 5 and No. 13 picks overall in 2022, veteran scorer Bojan Bogdanovic and rookie wing Ausar Thompson.

Southwest Division champ Grizzlies start without Morant, Spurs’ Wembanyama set for NBA debut

By SCHUYLER DIXON AP Sports Writer THE Memphis Grizzlies won’t have suspended star Ja Morant for more than a quarter of the season in their pursuit of a third consecutive Southwest Division title.

Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving are running it back in Dallas, this time for a full six months in the regular season instead of two, and the New Orleans Pelicans are hoping oft-injured Zion Williamson’s fifth NBA season will be a sofar-elusive full one.

All of which could pale compared to the muchanticipated debut of No. 1 overall pick Victor Wembanyama in San Antonio.

“I already am,” said Hall of Fame coach Gregg Popovich when asked if he was annoyed by the constant queries over the young French star, laughing after his quick retort. “It’s OK. It’s OK. Part of the deal.”

Morant is serving a 25-game suspension to start the season over what NBA Commissioner Adam Silver called the guard’s “alarming” habit of flashing guns on social media.

The suspension came a month after a second video of Morant flashing a handgun was streamed online.

The Grizzlies worked with

the NBA to broker a deal where Morant could stay around the team during the ban as long as the two-time All-Star stays on track with his off-court behaviour.

“He’s been putting in great work, and I think taking a lot of steps in the right direction and a healthy, positive direction,” general manager Zach Kleiman said. “I would just kind of leave it at that. …

You know it when you see it. If he keeps taking steps in the right direction, we all kind of know what that means.”

The Mavs paired AllStar starters for the first time in franchise history with the February blockbuster trade that brought Irving from Brooklyn.

Injuries to both Irving and Doncic interrupted the process of them meshing, and a defensively challenged roster helped keep Dallas out of the playoffs a year after reaching the Western Conference finals.

“If you have the right pieces around them, they’re going to co-exist,” coach Jason Kidd said.

“When you talk about two of the best players in the world, they’re going to play at a high level and they’re going to put us in a position to win.”

The top pick in the 2019 draft, Williamson played

SAN Antonio Spurs centre Victor Wembanyama plays during the first half of a preseason game against the Miami Heat in San Antonio on Friday, October 13.

(AP Photo/Eric Gay) just 24 games as a rookie “You either take respon- the last time San Antonio because of a torn menis- sibility for your role in won the lottery, although cus in his right knee. He things or you don’t — and the hype of Duncan coming missed all of his third Zion is learning how to out of Wake Forest could season with a broken foot. do that,” Pelicans vice never match that of the Last season, a hamstring president of basketball 19-year-old who officially injury put him out for the operations David Griffin measured at 7 feet, 3 1/2 season after he’d played in said. inches when he reported to just 29 games.

“We’ve seen lot of evi- the Spurs.

New Orleans has made dence to support Zion “Of course, there is the playoffs just once since growing and maturing.” going to be a lot of attendrafting Williamson, and Wembanyama is the first tion,” Wembanyama said. it was the one season in No. 1 overall choice for the “At the end of the day, which he didn’t play at all.

Spurs since Tim Duncan when everything is done, Now, Williamson is in 1997, a move that was we are at practice I’m like, entering the first year of the catalyst for five cham- yeah, what do we do to get a five-year extension that pionships over the next 17 this team better? could pay him more than years.

“It’s really stuff we don’t $200 million if he finally There will be plenty of care about. It’s basketball fulfills expectations. comparisons since that was first.”

THERE wasn’t much in the way of collective success in the NBA’s Southeast Division last season.

The division had one team finish with a winning record, that being Miami.

It had one All-NBA player, that being Miami’s Jimmy Butler. It had one All-Star, that being Miami’s Bam Adebayo. And one team that won a playoff series, that being … yep, Miami, which went all the way to the NBA Finals as the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference.

So in the Southeast, there’s the Heat. And everybody else.

Yet Miami still feels like it is doubted after an offseason where it hoped to land Damian Lillard in a trade with Portland — only to see him sent to Milwaukee instead after the Trail Blazers simply didn’t engage much with the Heat in any talks.

“We have enough motivation,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We have enough, everything we need, to be one of those teams and that’s what excites all of us as competitors.”

The Southeast was the only division last season to have just one team finish over .500; Miami was 44-38. The combined winning percentage of the five Southeast teams — .441 — was second-worst in the NBA, slightly ahead of the Southwest Division’s .427 win rate. Atlantic teams combined to have a .595 winning percentage, Pacific teams were at .546, Northwest teams were at .500 and Central teams were at .490.

There were two Southeast teams in the playoffs a season ago; Atlanta beat Miami in the play-in tournament to grab the No. 7 seed, then fell to Boston in Round 1.

The Heat won a play-in elimination game over Chicago to get the No. 8 seed, then ousted Milwaukee, New York and the Celtics before falling to Denver in the NBA Finals.

“A lot of our improvement and development needs to come internally,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said. “That’s something that I think is important for us.”

The same can be said for Washington, Charlotte and Orlando as well.

The Wizards are in a reboot after trading away Bradley Beal, and the Hornets and Magic are both thinking it’s possible to reach — at minimum — the play-in tournament this season, which would be a step forward for both franchises.

The Magic are hoping that bringing back much of the same team for another season will help fast-track some growth.

“These guys know exactly what they’re going to hear from our coaches, the things that we’re teaching, how we’re expected to play, what we’re demanding,” Orlando coach Jamahl Mosley said.

“I think they understand that a lot more now and I think that’s a huge advantage for us.”

Since the NBA went to its current division setup 19 years ago, the Heat have had only three losing seasons – by far the fewest in the Southeast. Charlotte has had 15, Orlando has had 13, Washington has had 10 and Atlanta has had eight.

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Thursday, October 19, 2023, PAGE 17

Thomas Sears: Softball tournament was a success

SERENA HAS 2-BOOK DEAL, STARTING WITH ‘INTIMATE’ AND ‘OPENHEARTED’ MEMOIR

By HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer

LEADING THE PACK: The United States Virgin Islands came away as the winners of the One Caribbean Invitational Fast-Pitch Women Softball Tournament held earlier this month.

By TENAJH SWEETING Tribune Sports Reporter tsweeting@tribunemedia.net THE US Virgin Islands softball team took home bragging rights early in October when they won the inaugural One Caribbean Invitational Women’s Fast-Pitch tournament.

The four-day event was considered a success by event organisers and included a total of six teams - three local and three visiting clubs.

The remaining visiting competitors included two teams from Jamaica called Club Fusion and the Warrior Queens.

The home teams were the RAB Operators, who came in second, and the

PAN AM GAMES FROM PAGE 14

came up short in his second match against Cuba’s Erislandy Alvarez 5-0.

Despite being approved by the BOC, Williams opted to instead support fellow boxer Hield this weekend for his pro debut at the International Knockout Night against Colombian John Blanco.

With age playing a factor in the decision to not approve the 36-yearold for the team, Strachan

Sunshine Auto Wildcats who earned bronze in the competition.

Thomas Sears, event organiser, talked about the level of competition he saw on display from the women’s softball teams.

“It was good to see competition among our neighbours and friends in the region and it allowed the various countries to get an understanding of which level they are at or where efforts need to be placed to improve the level of play for countries that end up on the bottom end,” Sears said.

The US Virgin Islands emerged as victors after defeating the Operators 9-0 at the Baillou Hills Sporting Complex. The

visitors were the only team to remain undefeated in the competition and ended with a 5-0 win/loss record.

Dontaysha Godbourne earned the championship MVP honours with five innings pitched, eleven strikeouts and one hit.

Kenya Periera from the championship team was awarded the tournament’s best pitcher.

The Operators secured the silver medal for second place and came second in team standings with a 4-1 record.

Jeanette Hilton, of the Operators, notched the most runs batted-in (RBI) with 10 in the tourney.

The Wildcats collected the bronze from the UB Mingoes after dropping

the team 17-2. The third ranked 3-2 team saw Thela Stevens come away with the tournament MVP award. She had a batting average of .750, scored 9 runs, pitched 21 innings, and earned 7 RBIs. The Mingoes concluded the tournament with a 2-3 record. The team’s Syazfia Kelly had the most home runs with two.

Meanwhile, Club Fusion won one game and the Warrior Queens went winless in five games played.

Sears was impressed with the way the event went for its first time being hosted

by Softball 242.

“The event was successful and went smooth with no hiccups and the participation was good. The idea

was conceived to bring fast-pitch softball to the forefront in the Caribbean and allow countries to take advantage of it,” he said.

The event organisers of Softball 242 offered a special thanks to the Governor General of The Bahamas, Cynthia “Mother” Pratt, for her remarks and the throwing of the ceremonial pitch.

Additionally, gratitude was extended to players, the local organising comittee, technical advisors and the tournament’s sponsors.

The inaugural event was sponsored by Sun Oil Bahamas Limited, Bommer G Trucking and Heavy Equipment, United Sanitation Services and Gaye Knowles.

questions their decision as the 39-year-old Donald Thomas was selected for the high jump event.

“I don’t have a problem with any athlete no matter how old they are participating and representing The Bahamas.

“The lack of competition always affects a boxer and track and field athletes have more opportunities to go to different events and participate.

“In the case of boxers, funding is most important, without those regular competitions it puts you at a disadvantage,” the BBF president said.

Despite some tough bouts this year, at the Sugar Bert Boxing WBC Tournament in Kissimmee, Florida, Hield earned a gold and silver medal.

He remains dedicated to pressing forward although it was a devastating blow to the veteran boxer.

Hield is hopeful to have one last shot at achieving his childhood dream, making it to the Olympic Games.

To protect boxers, the International Boxing Association (IBA) does not allow competitors to compete after the age of 40. As previously mentioned, the

decorated amateur boxer is 36-years-old.

In his amateur tenure, Hield has earned gold medals at the Sugar Bert Boxing Tournament on multiple occasions and finished as a quarterfinalist at the CAC and Pan American qualifiers in 2018 and 2019.

“All is not lost but he wanted to go to the Olympics because that was his lifelong dream since he started boxing around 13/14.

“This will be his last chance to try and compete in the Olympics unlike the other athletes who can

compete as long as they are able to,” he said.

More opportunities to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games will continue next year.

But after not participating with the Pan American Games team for The Bahamas, Williams and Hield will have to fund their journeys to qualify out of their own pockets or seek sponsorship.

Romell Knowles, president of the BOC, opted not to comment on this matter when contacted.

The Panam Games begin on Friday and continue until November 5.

ALTUVE AND JAVIER LEAD ASTROS TO 8-5 WIN AT RANGERS AS HOUSTON CLOSES TO 2-1 IN ALCS

By STEPHEN HAWKINS AP Baseball Writer ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Jose Altuve homered, Cristian Javier worked into the sixth inning of another solid postseason start and the Houston Astros beat the Texas Rangers 8-5 last night, closing to 2-1 in the AL Championship Series.

Texas lost for the first time this postseason after a 7-0 start.

Three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer was gone after four innings in his first outing in more than a month after recovering from a strained shoulder muscle.

Javier set a franchise record for the defending champion Astros by extending his postseason scoreless streak to 20 1/3 innings.

That streak ended in the fifth when rookie Josh Jung hit the first of his pair of two-run homers.Javier improved to 4-0 in his four

career postseason starts, allowing just five hits.

“I always try to have the same mentality. These moments are extremely special for me,” he said through a translator.

“When it comes to the game, just try to stay focused, try and attack the strike zone.”

A 26-year-old Dominican right-hander known as “El Reptil,” Javier limited the Rangers to two runs and three hits over 5 2/3 innings in his second win in these playoffs.

He threw 51 of 85 pitches for strikes.

Ryan Pressly, the third reliever, worked the ninth for his third save of the playoffs, inducing Jung’s game-ending, double-play grounder.

Martín Maldonado, the catcher wearing reptileskin spikes in reference to his pitcher’s nickname, and Yordan Alvarez both had two-run singles for the Astros, who scored five runs with two outs.

ASTROS starting pitcher Cristian Javier walks toward the dugout after throwing against the Rangers during the first inning in Game 3 of the American League Championshiplast night .

(AP Photo/Julio Cortez) Jung hit his second tworun homer in the seventh for the wild-card Rangers, who played only their second home game this postseason. They swept Tampa Bay and Baltimore — the AL’s top two teams in the regular

season — to get to their first ALCS since 2011 and their first postseason series against their instate AL West rival.

Game 4 is tonight and Game 5 will be Friday afternoon.

The Astros are 40-45 at home this year, losing three of four in the playoffs. But they have won 17 of their last 20 road games, including both at Minnesota in the AL Division Series and three during a recordsetting sweep at Globe Life Field in early September, when they homered 16 times and outscored Texas 39-10.

“It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen because usually you want to be .500 on the road and way over .500 at home,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “I asked the team in spring training to be the best road team.

Maybe I should have asked them to be the best road and home team. They usually give me what I ask for.”

CRICKET

FROM PAGE 14 Daryl Mitchell for one, leaving New Zealand on 110-4 having lost three wickets for one run across nine deliveries.

The slump raised the prospect of another stunning upset by the daring Afghanistan team but Phillips and Latham came together to thwart those plans.

They started in a circumspect manner in an effort to rebuild the innings by adding 50 off 75 balls, then passed 100 off 134 deliveries.

Afghanistan’s fielding went to tatters at that point and any pressure was released. Latham was dropped twice — in total, Afghanistan had four mistakes in the field — to allow New Zealand to escape.

The partnership helped New Zealand across 250, an important milestone for a frail Afghanistan batting lineup to come.

Naveen ul Haq got the breakthrough and dismissed both set batters but Mark Chapman rose to the occasion, smacking 25 not

NEW YORK (AP) — Now that she’s stepped back from the sport she dominated like few others, Serena Williams is ready to reflect.

The tennis great has a two-book deal with the Random House Publishing Group, starting with an “intimate” memoir in which she will open up about everything from her childhood and early tennis training, dramatised in the 2021 film “King Richard,” to her extraordinary career and the obstacles and setbacks she endured along the way.

The book is not yet titled and does not have a release date.

“For so long, all I was focused on was winning, and I never sat down to look back and reflect on my life and career,” Williams, who in August gave birth to her second child, said in a statement yesterday. “Over the last year I’ve really enjoyed taking the time with my growing family to celebrate my accomplishments and explore my other passions. I couldn’t be at a more perfect place to be able to take-on such a personal intimate project, and there’s no one I would rather do it with than the team at Random House.”

The second book, also untitled, will be an “inspirational” work, according to Random House, which announced that “Williams will offer rules for living that draw on her experiences as a philanthropist and advocate, her career as an investment unicorn with Serena Ventures, and someone who has long sought to lift a diverse and emergent generation of young women whose aspirations are not confined to the court.”

Williams, 42, announced her retirement — famously eschewing that term and saying instead she was “evolving” away from professional tennis — shortly before the 2022 U.S. Open.

She has not played since that tournament, which included a second-round victory over No. 2-ranked Anett Kontaveit before a third-round loss to Ajla Tomljanovic.

Williams left the sport with 23 Grand Slam titles in singles, another 14 in doubles with her sister Venus, more than 300 weeks at No. 1 in the rankings and four Olympic gold medals.

She also has been widely cited for breaking down racial barriers in tennis and racial and gender barriers in sports and beyond.

out off 12 balls to help push the score further along.

In reply, Afghanistan’s batting never really took off as Trent Boult and his newball partner, Matt Henry, subdued the top order with their pace and movement, sharing three wickets.

Henry (1-16) bowled inform opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz for 11 while Boult (2-18) got Ibrahim Zadran (14) at the other end, leaving Afghanistan on 27-2.

Wickets then fell at regular intervals, with Afghanistan unable to string together any partnerships except for Rahmat Shah and Azmatullah Omarzai putting on 54 runs for the fourth wicket off 70 balls. Shah’s 36 off 62 balls was the highest individual score for Afghanistan.

Ravindra dismissed Shah with a simple return catch, with the umpire’s on-field not out decision overturned, and the procession continued. Azmatullah scored 27 and no other batter crossed 20.

Mitchell Santner had 3-39 in 7.4 overs, included his 100th ODI wicket, and also took a stunning one-handed catch to dismiss Afghanistan skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi.

PAGE 18, Thursday, October 19, 2023

THE TRIBUNE

ISLANDS OF BAHAMAS NAMED OFFICIAL DESTINATION SPONSOR OF UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI ATHLETICS THE Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, Investments & Aviation and University of Miami Athletics have announced a broad-based strategic multi-year partnership making The Islands of The Bahamas the official “Destination Partner” of Miami Athletics.

The partnership includes game presenting sponsorships, Bahamian-themed promotions and on-site activations, across UM’s football and basketball programmes.

And there will be opportunities for Miami Hurricanes fans to win special prizes and giveaways, including the chance to embark on the tropical adventure of a lifetime in The Islands of The Bahamas. Fans can also look

forward to special promotions for select sporting events, including the 2023 Baha Mar Hoops Bahamas Championship set for November 17-19.

“We are pleased to enter into this exciting multi-year partnership with University of Miami Athletics and, by extension, their students, faculty and alumni, many of whom have Bahamian roots,” said I Chester Cooper, deputy prime minister (DPM) and minister of tourism, investments and aviation.

He said apart from the close proximity of The Bahamas to South Florida, “We have a longstanding historical relationship with the state, and Miami in particular, where many Bahamians have resided

for decades, attended UM and made their new homes in places such as Coconut Grove.”

DPM Cooper noted that Bahamians were recently recognised for their contribution to the growth of the area that is now designated Little Bahamas of Coconut Grove.

He added: “I expect that this partnership will enable us to achieve synergies that will highlight all the offerings of The Islands of The Bahamas and expand new opportunities for partnership in training and education. We see this area of sports engagement as a critical part of our nation’s

tourism product moving forward.”

“We are proud to join efforts with the Ministry of Tourism, Investments & Aviation of The Islands of The Bahamas, the official “Destination Partner” of Miami Athletics, as they share our commitment to work with partners who will enhance the fan experience,” said Chris Maragno, senior vice president of Hurricanes Global Partnerships.

“As The Bahamas is only a 30-minute flight for a large portion of our fan base, we are looking forward to showcasing the uniqueness of The Islands of The Bahamas.”

The Bahamas has been the backdrop of many successful major international

Pro Picks: Despite a banged-up Trevor Lawrence, Jaguars should stay on winning track vs. Saints

DOLPHINS HAVE OFFENCE BUILT TO CARRY THEM THROUGH TOUGH STRETCH ON SCHEDULE

By ALANIS THAMES AP Sports Writer

By ROB MAADDI AP Pro Football Writer TREVOR Lawrence didn’t get much time to rest his banged-up knee.

The Jacksonville Jaguars (4-2) and their hobbled quarterback take a threegame winning streak to New Orleans (3-3) to face Derek Carr and the Saints tonight.

Lawrence, who is wearing a brace after spraining his knee late last week, aims to play. How effective he’ll be is the big question. If needed, the Jaguars will turn to veteran C.J. Beathard.

The Jaguars shouldn’t need too much offence thanks to an improved defence that leads the NFL in takeaways and has allowed 15.7 points per game the past three weeks.

Also, Carr hasn’t given the Saints a big boost on offence just yet. They’re 24th in scoring and 20th in total yards.

Lawrence’s iffy status makes the Saints 1 1/2point favourites, according to FanDuel Sportsbook.

In a week filled with road favourites — six total — Pro Picks likes a road underdog.

JAGUARS, 20-17 BUFFALO AT NEW ENLAND Line: Bills minus 8 1/2 The Patriots (1-5) are a disaster for the first time in Bill Belichick’s tenure.

The Bills (4-2) were lucky to escape with a win last week and that near-upset should’ve served as a wake-up call.

BEST BET: BILLS, 30-13 GREEN BAY AT DENVER Line: Packers minus 1 1/2 Sean Payton is off to his worst start as a head coach in his first season with the Broncos (1-5). Struggling Jordan Love and the Packers (2-3) provide an opportunity for Payton, Russell Wilson and the Broncos to get on the winning track.

UPSET SPECIAL: Broncos, 19-17 CLEVELAND AT INDIANAPOLIS Line: Browns minus 2 1/2 The Colts (3-3) need to rely on Jonathan Taylor now that Anthony Richardson is done for the season. If Deshaun Watson doesn’t return from a shoulder injury, the Browns (3-2) can count on a stingy defense that helped them upset the 49ers.

BROWNS, 20-12 WASHINGTON AT NEW YORK GIANTS Line: Commanders minus 2 The Giants (1-5) would’ve upset Buffalo on the road if two drives didn’t stall at the 1 to end both halves. They’ll likely start backup quarterback Tyrod

sporting events, training sessions and more throughout its history and continues to lead the travel market as a mecca for sporting events.

This multi-year partnership with UM will continue to strengthen the country’s national “Sports in Paradise” initiative by positioning The Bahamas as the ideal destination for sports related meetings/conferences, tournaments, events and more.

The partnership was facilitated by Legends, which has managed corporate sponsorships and multimedia rights for UM Athletics since April 2021.

For more information on The Islands of The Bahamas x UM Athletics partnership, visit: www. bahamas.com/TheU.

Taylor again this week in a winnable game against the Commanders (3-3).

Washington can’t afford a letdown as it aims for a second road win in two weeks.

GIANTS, 17-16 ATLANTA AT TAMPA BAY Line: Buccaneers minus 2 1/2 This NFC South matchup will help determine whether the Buccaneers (3-2) or Falcons (3-3) are real contenders in the division.

Tampa needs to improve its woeful rushing attack to help out Baker Mayfield.

That’ll be difficult against Atlanta’s defence, but Desmond Ridder faces a tough challenge against the Bucs defence.

BUCCANEERS, 23-17 LAS VEGAS AT CHICAGO Line: Raiders minus 3 A potential battle of backup quarterbacks with Justin Fields sidelined by a thumb injury for the Bears (1-5) and Jimmy Garoppolo dealing with a back injury for the Raiders (2-4). Las Vegas isn’t good enough to be a road favourite, even against lowly Chicago.

BEARS, 16-13 DETROIT AT BALTIMORE Line: Ravens minus 3 The Lions (5-1) are off to their best start since 2011 and looking to improve to 4-0 on the road. The Ravens (4-2) try to avoid a London hangover. They can’t settle for six field goals against Jared Goff and Detroit’s offence.

LIONS, 26-22

JACKSONVILLE Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence (16) scrambles on Sunday as Indianapolis Colts linebacker Shaquille Leonard (53) defends during the first half of an NFL football game in Jacksonville, Florida.

(AP Photo/John Raoux) PITTSBURGH AT Smith threw two picks. Tagovailoa is the marquee LOS ANGELES RAMS SEAHAWKS, 26-17 matchup NBC wanted for Line: Rams minus 3 LOS ANGELES “Sunday Night Football” Perhaps a bye helped the CHARGERS AT when the schedule came Steelers (3-2) figure out KANSAS CITY out. It should be a shootout how to score points. The Line: Chiefs minus 5 1/2 with home-field advantage Rams (3-3) have an opporThe Chiefs (5-1) are giving the Eagles an edge tunity to get over .500 in a winning despite a spotty over the Dolphins. season that began with low offence thanks to a sudEAGLES, 30-27 expectations. denly strong defence.

SAN FRANCISCO AT RAMS, 23-21 Patrick Mahomes, Travis MINNESOTA ARIZONA AT Kelce and Co. should get Line: 49ers minus 7 SEATTLE going against the Chargers Brock Purdy and the Line: Seahawks minus 7 (2-3).

49ers (5-1) need Christian Rookie coach Jonathan CHIEFS, 29-20 McCaffrey and Deebo Gannon has the Cardinals MIAMI AT Samuel back. Winning a (1-5) playing hard, but PHILADELPHIA second straight game withthey’re just too overLine: Eagles minus 2 out Justin Jefferson won’t matched. The Seahawks A pair of 5-1 teams with be easy for the Vikings (3-2) need to bounce back high-powered offences led (2-4) against San Francisafter a mistake-filled loss in by former Alabama team- co’s stout defence.

Cincinnati in which Geno mates Jalen Hurts and Tua 49ERS, 23-17

MIAMI GARDENS, Florida (AP) — The Miami Dolphins are showing few weaknesses on offense.

At 5-1, the Dolphins have bulldozed teams behind Tua Tagovailoa’s accuracy, wide receiver Tyreek Hill’s dynamics and a running game that has been just as productive as their passing attack.

Miami overcame a 14-point deficit to defeat the Panthers 42-21 Sunday in a game that showed coach Mike McDaniel the growth in his team from last season to now.

“It was a big day for our football team and I think the guys knew it,” McDaniel said. “They didn’t bat an eye. They didn’t go at each other. They didn’t question calls. They didn’t do all the things that when it’s the first time that you’ve put forth maximum effort and you have enough talent on your team, the first time that happens, it’s not that easy.”

Miami will next face the athletic dual-threat quarterback Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles (5-1), and Tagovailoa understands the magnitude of that matchup. It will provide the Dolphins with an opportunity to show they can beat tougher opponents.

The Eagles, a season removed from playing in the Super Bowl, have the best record of any team Miami has faced so far but are coming off a 20-14 loss to the New York Jets.

“I think this is a game that a lot of people are going to want to see, given the talent that’s on that side of the ball, the talent that’s on this side of the ball,” Tagovailoa said. “It’s one of those where, ‘OK, we’ve got a lot of good matchups across the board. How are these guys going to play us?

How are we going to come out against these guys?’

“So we’re really excited for this next opponent.”

Tagovailoa leads the league in passer rating (114.1), yards passing (1,876) and yards per attempt (9.7). He’s the only quarterback in the NFL this season to post a 90-plus passer rating in all six games after he completed 21 of 31 passes for 262 yards, three touchdowns and a 126.0 quarterback rating Sunday.

The Dolphins are also averaging nearly 500 yards per game, with 181.8 yards coming on the ground each week. After posting 162 yards rushing Sunday, Miami has rushed for at least 140 yards as a team in the last five games.

NEXT STEPS The Dolphins visit the Eagles on Sunday night and after hosting division-rival New England the following week, Miami will take on Kansas City in Germany.

THE TRIBUNE

Thursday, October 19, 2023, PAGE 19

WILLIAM ‘KNUCKLEHEAD’ JOHNSON CROSS COUNTRY INVITATIONAL SATURDAY

By TENAJH SWEETING Tribune Sports Reporter tsweeting@tribunemedia.net THE William “Knucklehead” Johnson Cross Country Invitational is scheduled to begin at 7:30am on Saturday.

The sixth edition of the long distance event will take place at the Baillou Hills Sporting Complex Golf Course, located across from Road Traffic.

The event is set to host more than 500 competitors from various clubs and schools from New Providence as well as from Andros and Abaco.

The event was named in honour of 1,500 metres national record holder, William Johnson.

The long distance athlete stopped the clock at 3:45.72 in Austin, Texas in 1983 and the feat has remained unchanged four decades later.

Rupert Gardiner, the event’s organiser and longtime friend of Johnson, said it was a privilege to have this event for a sixth year in his honour.

“It is a good event in its sixth year and it is good to honour somebody who did a lot for the country in the private and government systems and it is also particularly great because you have to give people their flowers while they are alive,” Gardiner said.

The meet will include a half mile, 1k, 2k, 3k and a mile run. The divisions will host athletes from under 7 to under 20.

Additionally, there will be an open category for men and women.

Gardiner, who also competed in long distance events, said the frequency

of cross country events is good as the athletics programmes try to identify more distance athletes.

“It is good for the long distance runners because the country is now building on long distance and it has been a while since we had a good set of long distance athletes. “This is a good time for coaches to see exactly where their distance programmes are at and where it is headed in the future,” he said.

The longstanding 1,500m national record of Johnson, has led to some questions about how to improve the amount of athletes running

in long distance events.

Gardiner gave some advice to coaches around The Bahamas.

“We have got to convince the kids that they are long distance runners because everybody wants to be sprinters, but everyone cannot be sprinters. Let the kids run cross country and you will be able to find good distance athletes,” he said.

Event organisers are encouraging the public to come out and support the athletes at the sixth William “Knucklehead” Johnson Cross Country Invitational this weekend.

PAGE 20, Thursday, October 19, 2023

THE TRIBUNE

Countdown to World Relays 2024 begins THE year is 2024 and the stage is set in the picturesque Bahamas for yet another exhilarating edition of the World Athletics Relays just 200 days away.

This event set to captivate the world as athletes from all corners of the globe will descend on the tiny capital of New Providence, united by their shared love for running and the insatiable thirst for victory.

With some 1,600 athletes and team officials arriving to compete during the first week of May 2024, this spectacle promises to be a defining moment in the history of Bahamian sports history.

As the competition unfolds, it is anticipated that spectators will be captivated by the sheer magnitude of talent on display as the World Athletics Relays

have always been an amalgamation of speed, agility, and skill - and next year will be no exception.

The World Athletics Relays in the Bahamas, beyond being an exhibition of athleticism, also highlights the significance of international camaraderie.

While athletes compete against each other, showcasing their talents, they also develop a bond with fellow competitors.

This relationship transcends borders and language barriers, uniting athletes in the shared pursuit of excellence.

Dr Daniel Johnson, chair of the Local Organising Committee, confirmed that the committee was already in high gear to ensure the success of this historical event and noted that: “This will be a oncein-a-lifetime opportunity

for the global sports community to convene in The Bahamas and experience world-class competition, as well as savour worldclass Bahamian cuisine and entertainment.”

He also extended an invitation to the global community to join us, welcome athletes, team officials and enthusiasts from all over the world to The Bahamas during the week of May 4-5, 2024.

Athletes participating in this memorable event will enjoy the unparalleled hospitality of the Breezes and Atlantis resorts, ensuring that their stay is as comfortable as it is unforgettable.

It is also important to note that these Relays will serve as the qualifying event for 14 of the 16 countries set to compete in the upcoming Olympic Games to be hosted in Paris.

ST MARY’S GAELS ARE FAVOURED TO WIN WHITE SANDS BAHAMAS NCAA GOLF INVITATIONAL ST Mary’s College men’s golf team will travel farther than any other in the 19-team field for this week’s White Sands Bahamas NCAA Invitational at the Ocean Club Golf Course on Paradise Island, Bahamas.

And among the things the California team will carry to the event is the label as the favourite in the field.

The 54-hole invitational is scheduled from Friday through Sunday (October 20-22).

The Gaels are the only team entered to be ranked in the top 100 by the latest Golfweek Sagarin Rankings, but they will likely get a stiff challenge from North Texas and Santa Clara, which is serving as the host school for the event.

Jacksonville State could also make a run for the title, behind senior Erik Jansson of Sweden, the top-ranked player in the field.

“Our players are looking forward to this week,” said St Mary’s head coach Scott Hardy, who is in his 24th season at the helm. “It will be a challenge to play in different conditions than we are used to. It’s really too early to judge how good teams are, but if we play well, we’ll be hard to beat.”

The Gaels are led by juniors Kristian Bressum of Denmark and Connor Reis

of Claremont, California.

“They both have turned the corner this year,” he said.

Santa Clara coach Andrew Larkin’s team is younger, but he thinks they are just as talented. His standouts are freshmen J.P. Odland of Tiburon, Calif., and Jeffrey Kwak of La Mirada, Calif.

“We are the host school, but it’s 75 percent coaching and 25 percent hosting,” said Larkin. “This is new for my team. Half of the team has never been out of the country. We even had three guys who needed to get passports for this trip.”

Other teams competing are Georgia State, North Alabama, Southern Illinois, Wichita State and Wofford.

This is the fourth year for the annual golf tournament, which was previously played at the Ocean Club Golf Course in 2019, 2021 and 2022. Houston, Mississippi and Duke are the past men’s winners over the 7,159-yard layout designed by past major champion Tom Weiskopf.

For more coverage of the 2023 White Sands Bahamas NCAA Invitational, follow @WhiteSandsBah on social media and use the following hashtags: #WhiteSandsBahamas and #WhiteSandsNCAA or visit WhiteSandsBahamas.com

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