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Pickleball comes to Fenway Park as growing sport reaches the big leagues

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BOSTON (AP) — The pickleball craze is hitting the big leagues.

Courts for the tennis/badminton/ping pong hybrid were being laid out in Fenway Park on Tuesday in preparation for a weekend that will give fans of the sport a chance to watch the pros play or even give it a try themselves in the outfield of the Red Sox historic home.

“Not only is it pickleball, the fastest growing sport in the U.S., but also it’s pickleball inside of Fenway,” Pickle4 America President Ben Weinberger said in an interview while standing where the Red Sox right fielder would usually play. “We’ll be welcoming hundreds of amateur athletes in the next four days. To give them an opportunity to step on the field, as we are right now, is pretty special to us.”

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Brittney Griner didn’t know what to expect when the WNBA season began and how she would respond after the trauma she experienced of being incarcerated in Russia that also forced her off the court for many months.

The Pickle4 Ballpark Series running from Wednesday to Sunday will include an exhibition with top-ranked players from the Professional Pickleball Association Tour; tickets for spectators go for as little as $10. But amateurs of all levels can also reserve time on one of a dozen courts for $200 per person, which also gets them a racket.

Weinberger said pre-registration for the spots over what was originally four days filled up so quickly that they added a fifth; that sold out, too. When they’re done in Boston, they’ll do the same thing at the San Francisco Giants’ Oracle Park.

“We tried to make this so that everybody can come if they want to play,” Weinberger said, adding that there will be a free kids clinic with the pros. “We really want to give the pickleball ecosystem this incredible sort of iconic opportunity and all of the experiences that go along with it.”

The oldest ballpark in the major leagues, Fenway has hosted the Red Sox as its primary tenant since the week the Titanic sank in 1912. But it has long been borrowed by other sports, including the NFL and college football, boxing, soccer and hockey.

Since the team’s current owners took over in 2002, Fenway has expanded its portfolio to include ski jumping and ice skate racing, Top Golf and an obstacle course race, Irish hurling and Shakespeare in the Park, movies and more than 100 concerts in all.

More than 120,000 people passed through the park for offseason events this winter alone – even with the Red Sox missing the postseason – with thousands more taking the tours that make Fenway one of the top tourist attractions in New England.

“We’re always looking to stretch our creative minds and find new things we can do for Fenway,” said Mark Lev, the president of Fenway Sports Management. “Baseball is at the core of everything we do. But to the extent we can use it for other events, it’s a great thing.”

Pickleball is played in singles or doubles, on a court that looks like a shrunken tennis court. Play with the hard paddles and brightly colored, perforated plastic balls is fast but involves less running than tennis.

The sport was originally invented in 1965 by some Washington state vacationers, including a former U.S Congressman who — depending on which origin story you believe — either couldn’t find badminton shuttlecock or was just looking to keep their bored kids entertained. It took off during the pandemic, when it provided cooped-up quarantiners a chance to get outside with minimal equipment, with some big names playing in televised exhibitions to give the sport a spotlight.

Although the courts are often laid out over repurposed tennis courts, which can lead to conflict with tennis players or with neighbors bothered by the loud popping of the plastic ball, the Fenway courts will rest on plywood and a layer of plastic designed to protect the ballpark grass.

Lev said the organization’s priority remains the baseball team, which returns from the All-Star break and a six-game road trip on July 21.

“Our most valuable player is Dave Mellor, our groundskeeper,” Lev said. “We wouldn’t be doing this unless Dave felt confident that the ballpark could be restored to game-ready condition.”

___

AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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July 14, 2023
Manhattanhenge is a bust as clouds hide NYC sunset. Last chance this year is Thursday

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NEW YORK (AP) — There’s only one more chance this year to possibly take in Manhattanhenge, the biannual alignment of the setting sun with the city’s east-west streets that brings New Yorkers out of their apartments to watch it bathe the urban canyons in a rosy glow.

With gray, gloomy weather socking in the horizon at Wednesday’s sundown, fans of the spectacle will have to hope the clouds part Thursday.

“I tried but it’s not going to happen today,” said Kevin Andrade, a restaurant server who had the day off and waited in hopes of a fiery sky show on West 23rd Street. “I’m so sad about it.”

Vermonters are working to dry out homes and businesses damaged by this week’s historic flooding and keeping a wary eye on the horizon with another round of storms on the horizon.

Authorities in New York have arrested a man in connection with some of the killings on Long Island known as the Gilgo Beach murders.

Vermonters are working to dry out homes and businesses damaged by this week’s historic flooding and keeping a wary eye on the horizon, with another round of storms in the forecast this weekend.

Mozambique’s former finance minister has pleaded not guilty in U.S. federal court in connection with a $2 billion corruption and money laundering scandal.

It was Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the museum’s Hayden Planetarium, who coined the term Manhattanhenge to describe the phenomenon. He was inspired by Stonehenge, where tourists and modern-day Druids camp out on the summer solstice to watch the rising sun align with the prehistoric stones.

Manhattanhenge attracts its own Druids when it happens for two nights around Memorial Day and another two in mid-July. Devotees line thoroughfares like 42nd and 34th streets to watch the sun’s disc sink below the horizon, perfectly framed by the gleaming towers.

“We have had luck in the past when the weather clears,” said Jackie Faherty, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History whose sold-out lecture on Manhattanhenge on Thursday will be followed by a free public viewing party. “All we need is for it to be clear at sunset.”

There are are also sunrise Manhattanhenge days in December and January, but those have not drawn crowds for reasons including the hour and the chill, Faherty said.

Other cities where streets align with the sun on certain days include Boston and Toronto. The best-known urban “henge” other than New York’s is Chicagohenge, which happens during the spring and fall equinox.

Faherty said she prefers Manhattanhenge because New York has more iconic skyscrapers and the Hudson River to the west provides “a visual break in the landscape of buildings.”

Weather permitting, fans will flood the streets and point their phones and cameras at the fading light.

“In this era of social media, it’s a gorgeous picture,” Faherty said. “I often call it the Instagram holiday for New York City.”

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July 14, 2023
An extremely overdue book has been returned to a Massachusetts library 119 years later

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BOSTON (AP) — On Feb. 14, 1904, someone curious about the emerging possibilities of a key force of nature checked out James Clerk Maxwell’s “An Elementary Treatise on Electricity” from the New Bedford Free Public Library.

It would take 119 years and the sharp eyes of a librarian in West Virginia before the scientific text finally found its way back to the Massachusetts library.

The discovery occurred when Stewart Plein, the curator of rare books at West Virginia University Libraries, was sorting through a recent donation of books.

Plein found the treatise and noticed it had been part of the collection at the New Bedford library and, critically, had not been stamped “Withdrawn,” indicating that while extremely overdue, the book had not been discarded.

Plein contacted Jodi Goodman, the special collections librarian in New Bedford, to alert her to the find.

“This came back in extremely good condition,” New Bedford Public Library Director Olivia Melo said Friday. “Someone obviously kept this on a nice bookshelf because it was in such good shape and probably got passed down in the family.”

The treatise was first published in 1881, two years after Maxwell’s death in 1879, although the cranberry-colored copy now back at the New Bedford library is not considered a rare edition of the work, Melo said.

The library occasionally receives books as much as 10 or 15 years overdue, but nothing anywhere close to a century or more, she said.

The treatise was published at a time when the world was still growing to understand the possibilities of electricity. In 1880, Thomas Edison received a historic patent embodying the principles of his incandescent lamp.

When the book was last in New Bedford, the nation was preparing for its second modern World Series, incumbent Republican President Theodore Roosevelt was on track to win another term, Wilbur and Orville Wright had conducted their first airplane flight just a year before and New York City was celebrating its first subway line.

The discovery and return of the book is a testament to the durability of the printed word, especially in a time of computerization and instant access to unfathomable amounts of information, Melo said.

“The value of the printed book is it’s not digital, it’s not going to disappear. Just holding it, you get the sense of someone having this book 120 years ago and reading it, and here it is in my hands,” she said. “It is still going to be here a hundred years from now. The printed book is always going to be valuable.”

The New Bedford library has a 5-cent-per-day late fee. At that rate, someone returning a book overdue by 119 years would face a hefty fee of more than $2,100. The good news is the library’s late fee limit maxes out at $2.

Another lesson of the find, according to Melo? It’s never too late to return a library book.

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July 8, 2023
As whiskey and bourbon business booms, beloved distillers face pushback over taxes and emissions

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MULBERRY, Tenn. (AP) — For decades, the whiskey and bourbon makers of Tennessee and Kentucky have been beloved in their communities. The distilleries where the liquor is manufactured and barrelhouses where it is aged have complemented the rural character of their neighborhoods, while providing jobs and the pride of a successful homegrown industry.

Now, the growing popularity of the industry around the world is fueling conflicts at home.

In Kentucky, where 95% of the world’s bourbon is manufactured, counties are revolting after the legislature voted to phase out a barrel tax they have depended on to fund schools, roads and utilities. Local officials who donated land and spent millions on infrastructure to help bourbon makers now say those investments may never be recouped.

Hundreds have lined Sarajevo’s main street Sunday as a truck carrying 30 coffins passed on its way to Srebrenica, where newly identified victims of Europe’s only acknowledged genocide since World War II will be buried on the 28th anniversary of the crime.

The German government is considering whether it can make former Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer foot at least part of the quarter-billion euro compensation it has to pay a private company over a failed plan to introduce highway tolls.

Voters in Uzbekistan are casting their ballots on Sunday in a snap presidential election which is widely expected to extend the incumbent’s rule by seven more years.

Senior British politicians are calling on the BBC to rapidly investigate claims that a leading presenter paid a teenager for explicit photos.

Neighbors in both states have been fighting industry expansion, even suing distillers. Complaints include a destructive black “whiskey fungus,” the loss of prime farmland and liquor-themed tourist developments that are more Disneyland than distillery tour.

The love affair, it seems, is over.

“We’ve been their biggest advocates and they threw us under the bus,” said Jerry Summers, a former executive with Jim Beam and the judge-executive for Bullitt County, essentially the county mayor.

Bullitt County has long depended on an annual barrel tax on aging whiskey, which brought in $3.8 million in 2021, Summers said. The majority goes to schools but the money also is used for services that support the county’s Jim Beam and Four Roses plants, including a full-time fire department.

Many of the new barrelhouses are being built with industrial revenue bonds exempting them from property taxes for years or decades. The counties supported the property tax breaks because they expected to continue collecting the barrel tax. When the state legislature voted to phase it out earlier this year, after intense lobbying by the Kentucky Distillers’ Association, county officials felt betrayed.

“Our industry was always a handshake agreement,” Summers said. Now, those agreements are being broken.

Once the barrel tax sunsets in 2043, the distillers will pay no taxes at all to Bullitt on some warehouses. The county will still have to provide them with services, protect them and protect the surrounding community from them if anything goes wrong, Summers said.

“Where you have an alcohol-based plant that produces a hazardous material, you need emergency management, EMS, a sheriff’s department,” he said.

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, who signed the bill after passage by Kentucky’s Republican-controlled legislature, said several industry compromises were vital to his support, while the bill will encourage investment.

“I know it was tough. You had an industry that supports so many jobs and calls Kentucky home. At the same time, you’ve got communities that have helped build that industry. I know there are, right now, probably some difficult feelings,” Beshear said in a news conference.

Kentucky Distillers’ Association President Eric Gregory noted the compromise bill creates a new excise tax to help fund school districts. Another tax helps fire and emergency management services, though it does not apply in all counties.

“Even with this relief, distilling remains Kentucky’s highest taxed industry, paying $286 million in taxes each year,” Gregory said in an email.

While the tax changes take place, whiskey is booming.

As a former Beam executive, Summers remembers a time when whiskey was a cheap, “bottom shelf” drink. With small batch products, the liquor slowly became cool. American whiskey revenues since 2003 have nearly quadrupled, reaching $5.1 billion last year, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. During the same period, the super premium segment rose more than 20-fold to $1.3 billion.

Now many of the most recognized brands are part of international beverage conglomerates. Jim Beam is owned by Japan-based Beam Suntory. Britain’s Diageo owns Bulleit. Italy’s Campari Group owns Wild Turkey.

In lobbying for the end of the tax, the distillers’ group suggested the industry could leave Kentucky. Officials like Summers are calling that a bluff. He said Bullitt County does not want any new barrelhouses unless things change, and he is not alone.

Nelson County, home to Heaven Hill, Log Still and other Kentucky communities involved with the industry, recently approved a moratorium on new bourbon warehouse construction while the county updates zoning and permitting rules. Soon, any new projects will be required to seek citizen input and zoning board approval, Judge Executive Timothy Hutchins said.

“That got their attention, let’s put it that way,” Hutchins said. “Now, we’re trying to kiss and make up.”

The county gets about $8.6 million a year from the barrel tax, he said.

In Tennessee’s Lincoln County, Jack Daniel’s recently was slapped with a stop-work order after neighbors sued over a huge unpermitted expansion. Since 2018, the company has built six 86,000-square-foot (7,989-square-meter) warehouses holding 66,000 barrels each on a 120-acre (48-hectare) property, according to the lawsuit.

Jack Daniel’s has since retroactively received the proper approvals, but neighbors say their biggest complaint has not been addressed: A black fungus that feeds on the ethanol emitted as whiskey ages.

The “whiskey fungus” has been been a nuisance around liquor facilities for centuries, but the size and scope of the new barrelhouse complexes means much more ethanol is being released in a concentrated area. The fungus covers nearby homes and cars in a sooty black film, choking trees and shrubs.

When Pam Butler moved to Lincoln County 30 years ago, there were only two barrelhouses nearby, and she had “no issues.”

“I had a white car and it stayed white. I had a white horse trailer and it stayed white. Then about five years ago, everything started looking grungy,” Butler said.

Butler owns a small farm where she keeps horses adjacent to the Jack Daniel’s property. She said her pasture land is not thriving as it should, many of her trees are dying and she has developed asthma. She doesn’t know whether her illness is related to the fungus, but said she only started having symptoms in the past few years.

Butler and several other neighbors want Jack Daniel’s to capture its ethanol emissions instead of releasing them into the neighborhood. The company would not comment on the fungus but spokesman Svend Jansen provided a statement saying it “will continue to work hard to be a good partner to all members of our community.”

“We recognize that there have been, at times, a small number of people who do not appreciate or value the growth of Tennessee Whiskey production in the areas where we operate,” the statement said.

Back in Kentucky, famed author and agriculturalist Wendell Berry has another concern: local food security and the destruction of prime agricultural land.

“I’ve been working, going on 30 years, to develop a regional food economy for Louisville,” Berry said.

“Cities like Louisville and Nashville are surrounded by fertile land that is well watered,” but they are importing much of their food from California’s Central Valley, he said. “I’ve spent my life arguing that this land is going to be needed by people who want something to eat.”

Berry recently lost a fight with distiller Angel’s Envy in Louisville over the development of a 1,200-acre (485-hectare) property adjacent to the farm where he grew up. Henry County approved the company’s plans for a bourbon tourism complex there, complete with cabins, an amphitheater and a helipad.

Angel’s Envy declined to comment.

Fred Minnick, who has written books on bourbon and judges world whiskey competitions, said it is an interesting time for the industry because bourbon has never been this popular.

“Bourbon was the good guy. Bourbon was loved by the state,” he said of Kentucky. “It will be fascinating to see if bourbon remains a hero.”

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July 8, 2023
‘Liberty, equality, fraternity’ for all? New riots make France confront an old problem

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PARIS (AP) — “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”: The lofty ideals to which France has long aspired are embossed on coins and carved above school doors across the land. Yet they are the polar opposite of what some French people who are Black or brown saw in a shocking video of a police officer shooting and killing a 17-year-old delivery driver of north African descent during a traffic stop.

That kid, some said to themselves, could have been me — or my children, or my friends. Within hours, the first fires of anger and revenge were lighting up the night skies of Nanterre, the Paris suburb where the teenager, Nahel, was declared dead at 9:15 a.m. last Tuesday. His left arm and chest had been pierced from left to right by a single shot fired before the yellow Mercedes he was driving then slammed into barriers on Nelson Mandela Square.

From the town on the fringe of the French capital’s high-rise business district, with its disadvantaged housing projects, glaring wealth gaps, and melting-pot mix of races and cultural influences imported from France’s former colonies, the flames of fury quickly spread.

Maritime nations have been finalizing a plan Thursday to slash emissions from the shipping industry to net zero by close to 2050 but experts warn the deal falls well short of what’s needed to prevent climate catastrophe.

An ombudsman office in Haiti has denounced what it called the “unacceptable slowness” of the investigation into the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse nearly two years after he was killed.

Pope Francis will travel to the periphery of Roman Catholicism this summer becoming the first pontiff to visit Mongolia.

Scientists say global heat that inched into worrisome new territory this week is a clear example of how pollutants released by humans are warming their environment.

More than 200 cities and towns reported arson attacks on public buildings, vehicle fires, clashes with police, looting and other mayhem in six nights of unrest. The violence was nationwide — from blue-collar ports on France’s northern coast to southern towns overlooking the Pyrenees, from de-industrialized former mining basins to Nantes and La Rochelle on the western Atlantic coast, once hearts of the French slave trade.

After more than 3,400 arrests and signs that the violence is now abating, France is once again facing a reckoning — as it did after previous riots in mixed-race, disadvantaged neighborhoods in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.

And the uncomfortable central question remains the same: What is France doing wrong that prevents chunks of its population, particularly among non-whites, from being able to buy into its promise of equality and fraternity for all?

THE PROBLEMS ARE BOTH OLD AND NEW

Among the factors being blamed and hotly disputed are problems both old and new: racism in police ranks and French society more broadly, poverty made more desperate by rising costs related to the war in Ukraine, decades of urban neglect, breakdowns in marriages and parental authority, and the ripples of the COVID-19 pandemic. Young teenagers whose schooling was interrupted by virus curfews and teaching shutdowns were among those smashing, burning, stealing and fighting with police — and reveling in the mayhem on social media.

For Yazid Kherfi, who spends his time driving from one housing project to the next, speaking to young people about how to avoid the route that he took into crime and prison, the violence was a cry of distress from a generation he says feels unloved and left by the wayside.

The minivan Kherfi uses has a quote from Martin Luther King painted on the back: “We must learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools.” But on his rounds, Kherfi says he frequently hears young people complain that police single them out because of their color.

“The police aren’t well trained to work in difficult neighborhoods. Some police are racist. There are violent police. They exist. I’m not saying all the police but it’s still a certain number,” he says. “Blacks and Arabs are stopped far more frequently than whites.”

“We are a long way from liberty, equality, fraternity,” he adds. “The reality is that people find all these situations very, very hard. It’s been like this for more than 40 years. So of course, every time there are riots in France, it’s linked to a young person’s death related to a policing operation. And the police rarely blames itself.”

From French President Emmanuel Macron down, government officials were quick to condemn the actions of the officer now incarcerated on a preliminary charge of voluntary homicide. Macron called the shooting “inexplicable and inexcusable.” The officer’s lawyer says his client feared, when the vehicle they’d stopped started moving again, that he and his colleague would be dragged along with it and crushed.

HOW TO TACKLE RACISM WHEN IT CAN’T BE MEASURED?

Measuring the scale of racism and racial inequality in France is complicated by its official policy of color blindness, with strict limits on data that can be collected. For critics, that guiding philosophy has made the state oblivious to discrimination. France’s census has no questions about race or ethnicity.

Still, inequalities are too glaring to be ignored. The government’s statistics agency found in 2020 that death rates among immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa doubled in France and tripled in the Paris region at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — an acknowledgement of the virus’s punishing and disproportionate impact on Black immigrants and members of other systemically overlooked minority groups. Other research has also exposed racism in workplaces and hiring.

“For 40, 45 years there have been warning signs about discrimination,” says Abel Boyi, head of a group called “All Unique, All United” that aims to reconcile young people with France and its republican values.

Boyi, who is Black, decries the state’s colorblindness as “a French hypocrisy.” He says he regularly encounters young people of color and also white people from disadvantaged neighborhoods who apply for dozens of jobs but aren’t hired “because the family name sounds foreign, because the address isn’t a good one.”

“Unfortunately, when there’s an injustice, there’s always a radical fringe that tips into violence. We saw these young people, aged 12 to 19 … at 1, 2, 3 o’clock in the morning burning cars, stoning police officers, stoning buses. It’s terrible,” Boyi says. “The anger is righteous but the method is wrong.”

THE VISUALS ADDED FUEL TO THE FLAMES

The video of Nahel’s death also helps explains the rapid spread and sudden intensity of the violence. As was also the case with the footage of George Floyd’s killing in the United States, the images left some people wondering whether police abuses sometimes go unpunished because they aren’t captured on camera. Spray-painted graffiti in Nanterre read: “Without video, Nahel would be a statistic.”

Police officer Walid Hrar says, however, that the relationship between France’s forces of law and order and disadvantaged neighborhoods he works in isn’t as broken as the rioting made it seem.

He runs a volunteer group of officers, The Guardians of Fraternity, who meet with neighborhood kids to try to build understanding and help them see that behind their uniforms, they are people, too. “Sometimes, the talks are very hard, very stormy,” he acknowledges.

But Hrar, who is of Moroccan descent and Muslim, says the police force has “changed enormously” and become more diverse since he joined up.

That was in 2004. France was swept by rioting the following year. He has spent his career in Paris’ northern suburbs where that violence first erupted, when 15-year-old Bouna Traoré and 17-year-old Zyed Benna were electrocuted while hiding from police in a power substation in Clichy-sous-Bois.

One difference between then and now, Hrar says, is that the new generation of rioters seems to know no limits, trashing schools, town halls, police stations and other symbols of authority.

“With some, the breakdown is total, that is true,” Hrar says. “There is real groundwork that needs to be done.”

Another key difference: social networks. This generation weaned on TikTok and Snapchat not only celebrated mayhem in short videos but, the government says, sometimes organized on their networks, too. Memes and hashtags about looting quickly swamped references about justice for Nahel. Macron said some rioters seemed to be acting out “the video games that have intoxicated them.”

It all adds up to something toxic and dangerous, with deep cracks in the foundations of a country still unreconciled with its often violent colonial past and with engrained discrimination and inequalities that defy quick fixes.

“How do we bring together the multitude of histories into one common history that concerns us all, regardless of skin color and origin?” said Boyi. “That is France’s great challenge for the 21st century.”

—-

Paris chief correspondent John Leicester has reported from France for The Associated Press since 2002.

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July 4, 2023
The American flag wasn’t always revered as it is today. At the beginning, it was an afterthought

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — In the bedroom of the Betsy Ross House, a reconstruction of where the upholsterer worked on her most famous commission, a long flag with a circle of 13 stars hangs over a Chippendale side chair and extends across the floor. Over the weeks in 1776 needed to complete the project, Ross would have likely knelt on the flag, stood on it and treated it more like an everyday banner — not with the kind of reverence we’d expect today.

“She would not have worried about it touching the floor or violating any codes,” says Lisa Moulder, director of the Ross House. “The flag did not have any kind of special symbolism.”

Flags proliferate every July 4. But unlike the right to assemble or trial by jury, their role was not prescribed by the founders. They would have been rare during early Independence Day celebrations. Only in the mid-19th century does the U.S. flag become a permanent fixture at the White House, scholars believe; only in the mid-20th century was a federal code established for how it should be handled and displayed; only in the 1960s did Congress pass a law making it illegal to “knowingly” cast “contempt” on the flag.

The man accused in the fatal shooting spree in Philadelphia that left five people dead and four others wounded left a will at his house, and according to roommates had acted agitated and wore a tactical vest around his house in the days before the shooting, prosecutors said Wednesday.

A 40-year-old killed one man in a house before fatally shooting four others on the streets of a Philadelphia neighborhood, then surrendering along with a rifle, a pistol, extra magazines, a police scanner and a bulletproof vest, police said.

The “parental rights” group Moms for Liberty is looking to expand its efforts to elect school board candidates in 2024 and beyond, as well as get involved in other education races.

Through history, the Fourth of July has been a day for some presidents to declare their independence from the public.

The flag’s evolution into sacred national symbol, and the ongoing debates around it that inspire so much passion and anger, reflect the current events of a given moment and the country’s transformation from a loose confederation of states into a global superpower.

‘AN AFTERTHOUGHT’

“The flag was really an afterthought,” says Scot Guenter, author of “The American Flag, 1777-1924” and a professor emeritus of American Studies at San Jose State University. In the beginning, Guenter says, the Continental Congress was more concerned about developing a “Great Seal” because it was needed for papers it would issue.

Congress passed its first flag act on June 14, 1777: “Resolved, that the Flag of the thirteen United States shall be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation.” But the flag is otherwise peripheral to the country’s beginnings.

A spokesman for Independence Hall in Philadelphia says no records exist of a U.S. flag being present for the signing of the Constitution in 1787, or any indications that a national flag would have flown during the following decade at what is now called Congress Hall — a decade when Philadelphia was the country’s capital. Researchers at George Washington’s home have no evidence that the flag was displayed there in his lifetime. (Volunteers there now regularly raise and lower U.S. flags, which are sold at the gift shop as having “flown over Mount Vernon”).

According to the White House Historical Association, no precise date exists for when the flag first had a permanent home at the presidential residence. Researchers at the historical association say the best guess is June 29, 1861, early in the Civil War, when President Lincoln dedicated a flagpole on the South Grounds.

The Civil War, followed by the country’s centennial in 1876, helped mythologize the flag. Americans were in the mood for a good story, and William J. Canby, grandson of Betsy Ross, had one. In a speech given to the Pennsylvania Historical Society, Canby drew upon family memories in narrating the quiet, heroic tale of Betsy Ross, who had died little known beyond her immediate community.

“As an example of industry, energy and perseverance, and of humble reliance upon providence, though all the trials, which were not few, of her eventful life, the name of Elizabeth Claypoole (her married name at the time of her death) is worthy of being placed on record for the benefit of those who should be similarly circumstanced,” Canby stated.

LEGEND OUTWEIGHS FACT

The Ross House bills itself as “the birthplace of the American Flag,” but its origins are uncertain. We have no definitive account. Many credit Francis Hopkinson, a congressman from New Jersey, but others, including Ross, may have added details — and, unlike the Declaration of Independence, we have no original artifact. Whether Ross or another produced the first one, its ultimate destination is unknown.

“We think it would have ended up on a ship mast, to signify that it was an American ship,” Moulder says.

Ross’ place in history also remains in question, even among government institutions. An essay entitled “The Legend of Betsy Ross,” on the website for the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, says her tale is “shrouded in as much legend as fact,” with no substantial evidence of her involvement. Says the museum: “While it makes for a nice story, sadly, it is most likely false.”

Ross, who died in 1836, left behind no diary or contemporary accounts of her whereabouts, officials at the Ross House acknowledge. But she was very much a real person who produced various flags before and after the alleged time she was approached by a commission that included George Washington and asked to sew a flag to represent the new country. Officials at the Ross house have no direct proof of Washington contacting Ross in 1776, but they note that a ledger unearthed in 2015 revealed Washington had engaged in business two years earlier with Ross and her husband and fellow upholster, John Ross.

“We know that Washington wanted the Rosses to make bedrooms curtains for his home in Mount Vernon,” Moulder says. “And curtains are the kind of job that Betsy would have taken on.”

As the country grew more nationalized and nationalistic, Ross was added to the early pantheon and the flag’s presence expanded like so much territory across the continent — into state ceremonies and buildings, sporting events, schools and private homes.

THE FLAG TAKES CENTER STAGE

In the midst of fierce labor battles and rising fears of immigration, the minister Francis Bellamy composed the Pledge of Allegiance in 1892. It was tied to the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ landing but also, as historian Richard White has written, addressed “a time of intense social conflict in an increasingly diverse nation” and was intended ”as a hopeful affirmation of America’s future.”

Throughout the 20th century, regulations were proposed and enacted. The first national flag code was drafted in 1923 and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II, with recommendations on everything from how to salute the flag to how to carry it. In the mid-1950s, President Dwight Eisenhower endorsed legislation adding “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, a Cold War action with origins 20 years earlier.

“In the 1930s, you had conservatives arguing that the New Deal represented slavery and that the counterpoint was freedom under God,” says Kevin M. Kruse, a professor of history at Princeton University whose books include “One Nation Under God,” published in 2015. “So there was a corporate-fueled drive against the regulatory state and it takes on religious tones. In the 1950s, that gets appropriated by the anti-communists.”

Burning American flags dates back at least to the Civil War. But only in July 1968, in response to Vietnam War protesters, did Congress pass legislation making it illegal (the Supreme Court overturned the ban in 1989) and adding other restrictions against “publicly mutilating” the flag. Three months later, the radical activist Abbie Hoffman was arrested for wearing a Stars and Stripes shirt, charges later dropped on appeal.

“He showed up in the shirt for a meeting of the House Committee on Un-American Activities,” says Mark Kurlansky, author of “1968: The Year That Rocked the World,” a social history. “He just thought it would be funny.”

Last month, the Biden administration hosted a Pride Day gathering on the White House South Lawn and hung a Pride Progress flag between U.S. flags on the Truman balcony. Rep. Mike Collins, a Georgia Republican, denounced the prominence of an “alphabet cult battle flag.” Other Republicans alleged that Biden officials had broken federal regulations, which call for the American flag to be “at the center and at the highest point” when grouped with other flags. Defenders of Biden noted that a U.S. flag was flying above from atop the White House.

“The flag is so important because it helps define what we believe in. You have Democrats and Republicans trying to attach meaning to it,” Guenter says. “The flag can intersect with issues of gender and race and sexuality. There’s so much there to think about, and it reveals so much about who we are.”

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July 4, 2023
Drag queens are out, proud and loud in a string of coal towns, from a bingo hall to blue-collar bars

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SHAMOKIN, Pa. (AP) — Deep in Pennsylvania coal country, the Daniels drag family is up to some sort of exuberance almost every weekend.

They’re hosting sold-out bingo fundraisers at the Nescopeck Township Volunteer Fire Co.’s social hall, packed with people of all ages howling with laughter and singing along. Or they’re lighting up local blue-collar bars and restaurants with Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunches for bridal parties, members of the military, families and friends.

Or they’re reading in gardens to children dressed in their Sunday best — Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors” is a favorite book for performers and kids alike.

In a string of towns running along a coal seam, the sparkle of small-town drag queens and kings colors a way of life rooted in soot, family and a conservative understanding of the world.

Here two very old traditions mingle — and mostly happily, it seems, in contrast to the fierce political winds ripping at drag performances and the broader rights of LGBTQ+ people in red states from Utah and Texas to Tennessee and Florida.

One tradition is the view of family as mom, dad and kids, plain and simple.

The other, back to before Shakespearian times, is drag, a loud, proud and seismically flamboyant artistic expression of gender fluidity. Not plain, not simple, but also bedrock, rising above ground only in culturally adventurous cities.

Yet the Daniels drag family is firmly woven in the fabric of the larger community in this area, where voters went solidly for Donald Trump, a Republican, in the last election. Their trouble is more apt to come from politicians who are increasingly passing laws restricting what they can do.

Alexus Daniels, the matriarch, was the child of a coal miner and a textile worker who was “born with a female spirit.” She works at the local hospital as an MRI aide tech.

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Drag queen Alexus Daniels, wearing a Diana Ross T-shirt, removes makeup for the ride home after performing at “Spring Fever Drag Brunch,” Sunday, March 26, 2023, at the Kulpmont Winery in Kulpmont, Pa. Alexus removed makeup to pump gas without drawing unwelcome attention. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Alexus Daniels reads “My Little Golden Book About Dolly Parton” to children at “Drag Storytime!” in Mt. Carmel, Pa., in the garden at the Pink Moon Collective, Saturday, May 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Alexus Daniels reads “Coat of Many Colors” by Dolly Parton to children, their families, and friends at “Drag Storytime!” in Mt. Carmel, Pa., in the garden at the Pink Moon Collective, Saturday, May 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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The audience sings along and holds up cash tips for drag queen Alexus Daniels at “Spring Fever Drag Brunch,” Sunday, March 26, 2023, at the Kulpmont Winery in Kulpmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Alexus Daniels, dressed as Tina Turner, is reflected in a makeup mirror as she counts tips in the dressing area during the “Spring Fever Drag Brunch,” Sunday, March 26, 2023, at the Kulpmont Winery in Kulpmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Alexus Daniels, dressed as Dolly Parton, poses for selfie photos with audience members as she performs at “Spring Fever Drag Brunch,” Sunday, March 26, 2023, at the Kulpmont Winery in Kulpmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Alexus Daniels is reflected in a mirror applying makeup, or “painting” at home in Coal Township, Pa., Saturday, May 6, 2023. Alexus is preparing for her first “Drag Storytime!” in Mt. Carmel, Pa., at the Pink Moon Collective to read “My Little Golden Book About Dolly Parton” and “Coat of Many Colors” to children, family, and friends. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Jacob Kelley, who performs as drag queen Trixy Valentine, is an LGBTQ+ activist and educator with a master’s in human sexuality.

Harpy Daniels, Trixy’s twin, is a U.S. Navy sailor who’s had three deployments on the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan. Soon that seaman, Petty Officer 1st Class Joshua Kelley, who just reenlisted, moves from a base in Norfolk, Virginia, to one in Spain, with plans to pack a wig “and maybe one or two cute outfits but nothing over the top” for Harpy-style shore leave.

Apart from the twins, the drag performers in this circle are family by choice, not genes. Theirs is an oasis of belonging.

“I never had a person like me growing up,” Trixy said, “and now I get to be that for everyone else.

“There was a curse being a queer person in a rural town — the curse is that we’ll move … because there’s no one like us here, there’s no one that can understand us.

“And drag now can be a place or a thing to show people like you that you don’t have to go to the cities. It’s here in your backyard.”

The Associated Press followed the Daniels family for more than a year. Among them:

Drag queen Alexus Daniels lip-syncs to “Heart of Glass” by Blondie as she sits on the lap of a smiling and consenting audience member and others take photos during the “Daniels Family Values” drag show at the Heritage Restaurant in Shamokin, Pa., Saturday, April 16, 2022. Daniels, the drag family matriarch, was the child of a coal miner and textile worker who was “born with a female spirit.” She works at the local hospital as an MRI aide tech. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Alexus Daniels, drag queen

Daniels’ first memory is of her great-grandmother’s jewelry box. With Cyndi Lauper and the Pointer Sisters blasting, she would wrap herself in knitted blankets to lip-sync and dance for her family. “I had no idea that it was drag or gay,” she says. “I was just having a day!”

Alexus hit high school and upped her Halloween game. She soon entered her first drag performance in the small Pennsylvania coal town of Weishample.

“I still was not out at this point,” Alexus says. “I wasn’t even sure if I was gay. I knew I was attracted to boys and loved all things feminine! I kept this side of me to myself and my best friends growing up, who really didn’t see anything strange about it.”

Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, performs to “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by the Charlie Daniels Band during the “Spring Fever Drag Brunch,” Sunday, March 26, 2023, at the Kulpmont Winery in Kulpmont, Pa. Kelley is an LGBTQ+ activist and educator with a masters in human sexuality. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, drag queen

In their teens, Joshua was the first to turn to drag. Jacob started about six months later, in a white Marilyn Monroe dress at an amateur pageant in 2014.

Trixy’s drag style is eclectic, but whether silly or fierce, there’s glitter: “I just want to shine when the light hits me.”

“I came out as non-binary a few years ago because I started learning, like, what do I love so much about drag?” Kelley says. “It’s that femininity, that so-simple touch.”

“I’m not a man,” Kelley says. “I never will see myself as a man. And I don’t see myself as a woman, either. But I see myself as beyond that.”

In March, the Daniels drag family hosted bingo at the Nescopeck fire hall, packed with more than 300 people in a fund-raiser for a nearby theater.

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Drag queen Trixy Valentine’s eye makeup of fake lashes, rhinestones and glitter is reflected in a bathroom mirror at the Washington Marriott Georgetown, in Washington, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. Trixy, aka Jacob Kelley, and twin Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, are performing at the Rainbow Special Interest Group of NAFSA: Association of International Educators reception at Pitchers and a League of Her Own bar across town. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, in a red wig and finished makeup at the Washington Marriott Georgetown, in Washington, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. Trixy and twin Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, are performing at the Rainbow Special Interest Group of NAFSA: Association of International Educators reception at Pitchers and a League of Her Own bar across town. Kelley is an LGBTQ+ activist and educator with a masters in human sexuality. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, dresses in a side storage room during the sold-out “Drag Bingo” fundraiser at the Nescopeck Township Volunteer Fire Company Social Hall, in Nescopeck, Pa., Saturday, March 18, 2023, to raise money for a new roof for the Berwick Theater and Center for Community Arts, in Berwick, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, pauses before entering to perform her drag story mix at a “Drag Bingo” fundraiser at the Nescopeck Township Volunteer Fire Company Social Hall, in Nescopeck, Pa., Saturday, March 18, 2023, to raise money for a new roof for the Berwick Theater and Center for Community Arts, in Berwick, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, cries in the arms of DJ Corrine after performing their drag story mix at a “Drag Bingo” fundraiser at the Nescopeck Township Volunteer Fire Company Social Hall, in Nescopeck, Pa., Saturday, March 18, 2023. Trixy’s emotional performance received a standing ovation. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, brings wigs and a suitcase full of outfits to the car after performing at “Spring Fever Drag Brunch,” Sunday, March 26, 2023, at the Kulpmont Winery in Kulpmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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A small group of protesters could be watched on social media from the bingo hall, holding signs and praying the rosary across from the theater. Trixy addressed the bingo crowd.

“There’s hundreds of us in this room and only nine of them on that street,” Trixy said. “So all I have to say is I don’t care what you believe in. But do not force it down my throat and tell me I shouldn’t be here because you think I’m wrong.

“The Lord gave birth to me, too.”

Trixy was in a long blue wig and Morgan Wells catsuit with an overskirt, a raised fist in the colors of the Pride flag on the chest.

“Alright, let’s call some numbers!” Trixy said. “Let’s play some bingo!” The crowd cheered.

Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, U.S. Navy petty officer first class, drag queen

A waitress pauses with plates of food as drag queen Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, poses for a photograph taken by Ryan Geiger, right, before the “Daniels Family Values” drag show at the Heritage Restaurant in Shamokin, Pa., Saturday, April 16, 2022. A petty officer first class, Kelley was named a “digital ambassador” by the U.S. Navy to do outreach to the LGBTQ+ community. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Until 2011, the armed forces applied the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which accepted LGBTQ+ people only if they stayed mum about their sexual orientation.

But after Kelley enlisted in 2016, he encountered the opposite — call it “ask and tell.” A commander asked what pronoun they prefer. Joshua, relieved by the acceptance implied by the question, told him any pronoun will do.

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Drag queen Harpy Daniels, aka U.S. Navy Yeoman 1st Class Joshua Kelley, wraps their head and short Navy haircut in duct tape to use as an anchor for bobby pins to secure a wig to perform at the Rainbow Special Interest Group of NAFSA: Association of International Educators reception at Pitchers and a League of Her Own bar in Washington, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Harpy Daniel, aka Joshua Kelley, performs at the Rainbow Special Interest Group of NAFSA: Association of International Educators reception at Pitchers and a League of Her Own bar in Washington, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, mingles between songs at the Rainbow Special Interest Group of NAFSA: Association of International Educators reception at Pitchers and a League of Her Own bar in Washington, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, collects tips from a cheering audience during the “Daniels Family Values” drag show at the Heritage Restaurant in Shamokin, Pa., Saturday, April 16, 2022. Performances by the drag family are popular in bars, restaurants, bingo halls and garden parties in this slice of coal country even as politicians act to restrict them. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, performs during the “Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunch” at the Public House, Sunday, March 5, 2023, in Norfolk, Va. The drag brunch was hosted by Harpy Daniels and Javon Love. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, performs during the “Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunch” at the Public House, Sunday, March 5, 2023, in Norfolk, Va. The drag brunch was hosted by Harpy Daniels and Javon Love. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, applies hairspray before leaving the dressing area to perform at the Rainbow Special Interest Group of NAFSA: Association of International Educators reception at Pitchers and a League of Her Own bar in Washington, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Now, the sailor is a social media sensation who was named a “digital ambassador” by the Navy, doing outreach to the LGBTQ+ community and others who have been marginalized: “I’m very proud to wear this uniform.”

Cash tips are stuffed into the bustier of drag queen Kitty DeVil’s, aka Emily Poliniak, as she performs at “Spring Fever Drag Brunch,” Sunday, March 26, 2023, at the Kulpmont Winery in Kulpmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Kitty DeVil, aka Emily Poliniak, drag queen

Kitty, a trans woman, describes her drag style as “punk and a lot of storytelling.” Her inspiration: Adore Delano, a 2014 finalist on “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

“She was what I wanted to be — this badass punker chick looking gorgeous without sacrificing her style,” Kitty says.

Kitty says her performances are high-energy fun but also “a lighthouse.”

“Because even in our LGBTQ community, there are outcasts and people who don’t feel like they’re like anybody else,” Kitty says. “So I wanted to make a beacon for all those people who feel weird and feel different and can’t really find their place in society.”

Drag king Xander Valentine, aka Gwen Bobbie, performs during the “Daniels Family Values” drag show at the Heritage Restaurant in Shamokin, Pa., Saturday, April 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Xander Valentine, aka Gwen Bobbie, drag king

More than a decade after she was transfixed by seeing her first drag show, Xander was invited by Trixy to join the drag family.

Xander has an energetic, family-friendly side as well as a sexy, sultry side. Confusing people about gender is intentional, a barrier-breaker.

“I try to create a consistent theme of masculinity in my performances,” Xander says. “Although I paint my face, wear wigs and adorn myself with rhinestones, I usually perform to songs sung by men and tailor my costumes more toward suits and ties.

“My personal goal as a king is to have the audience question my off-stage gender identity.”

Why? It’s to convey the message, Xander says, that “it’s OK to not immediately know how a person identifies or who they are attracted to, and still be kind to them.

“It’s OK to accept someone as different, even if you don’t fully understand it.”

Woodward reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Lynn Berry contributed to this report from Washington.

Drag queen Tequila Daniels, aka Tony Nahodil, poses for a photograph before the “Daniels Family Values” drag show at the Heritage Restaurant in Shamokin, Pa., Saturday, April 16, 2022. Tequila talks about her drag daughters, “I was lucky to befriend and become the drag mother of the most talented and humble girls I know, Harpy Daniels and Trixy Valentine. It took me a while to find someone who showed they had the drive, the talent, and still able to be humble. My goal is for everyone in the Daniels family to never forget our roots.” (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Baby Angel, performs a “death drop” during the “Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunch” at the Public House, Sunday, March 5, 2023, in Norfolk, Va. The drag bunch was hosted by Harpy Daniels and Javon Love. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) –
Carolyn Kaster/AP

Baby Angel, performs a “death drop” during the “Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunch” at the Public House, Sunday, March 5, 2023, in Norfolk, Va. The drag bunch was hosted by Harpy Daniels and Javon Love. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) –
Carolyn Kaster/AP

Javon Love, right, performs with Baby Angel, doing the splits, during “Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunch” at the Public House, Sunday, March 5, 2023, in Norfolk, Va. The drag bunch was hosted by Harpy Daniels and Javon Love. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Sweet Pickles performs during the “Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunch” at the Public House, Sunday, March 5, 2023, in Norfolk, Va. The drag bunch was hosted by Harpy Daniels and Javon Love. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) –
Carolyn Kaster/AP

Carlos Ova-Dupree performs during the “Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunch” at the Public House, Sunday, March 5, 2023, in Norfolk, Va. The drag bunch was hosted by Harpy Daniels and Javon Love. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) –
Carolyn Kaster/AP

Ticket holders line up before the doors open for the sold-out “Drag Bingo” fundraiser at the Nescopeck Township Volunteer Fire Company Social Hall, in Nescopeck, Pa., Saturday, March 18, 2023, to raise money for a new roof for the Berwick Theater and Center for Community Arts, in Berwick, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

From left, Tequila Daniels, aka Tony Nahodil; Alexus Daniels; Kitty DeVil, aka Emily Poliniak, and Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, talk to the audience during “Spring Fever Drag Brunch,” Sunday, March 26, 2023, at the Kulpmont Winery in Kulpmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Ryan Geiger holds a rainbow “Love is Love” fan as drag queens Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, left, and twin Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, right, prepare to perform at Rainbow Special Interest Group of NAFSA: Association of International Educators reception at Pitchers and a League of Her Own bar in Washington, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Drag king Xander Valentine, aka Gwen Bobbie, performs “The Greatest Show” from the movie “The Greatest Showman” for the sold-out “Drag Bingo” fundraiser at the Nescopeck Township Volunteer Fire Company Social Hall, in Nescopeck, Pa., Saturday, March 18, 2023, to raise money for a new roof for the Berwick Theater and Center for Community Arts, in Berwick, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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July 4, 2023
As 1,500 Disneyland collectibles go up for auction, that Dumbo car — or trash bin — can be yours

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BURBANK, Calif. (AP) — Fans who agree Disneyland is indeed the happiest place on Earth will soon be able to take home more than a souvenir.

A passionate collector has brought Disney magic to a sprawling 30,000-square-foot (2,800-square-meter) building in Burbank, California, where fans can hear birds chirping in the Enchanted Tiki Room section or giggle at the animated ghosts from the Haunted Mansion ride as they preview more than 1,500 items up for auction later this month.

Joel Magee has been building his collection of more than 6,000 items — including costumes, rare posters, and life-size vehicles from rides like Dumbo and Peter Pan — for 30 years, and he’s finally ready to share some of it with the public.

Torrential rain has been pounding southwestern Japan, triggering floods and mudslides and leaving at least six people missing.

An Argentine archbishop chosen by Pope Francis to head the Vatican office that ensures doctrinal orthodoxy concedes he made mistakes in handling a 2019 case of a priest accused of sexual abuse of minors.

Allisen Corpuz picked the right time and the right place for her first big win. She won the first U.S.

The Washington Post is reporting former AT&T Chairman Randall Stephenson has resigned from the PGA Tour policy board.

“I’m one of those guys — go big or go home. And if you don’t have the biggest, then it ain’t the best,” Magee told The Associated Press in a recent interview, as fans milled about the exhibit. Magee’s is the largest individually owned Disneyland/Disney Park collection in the world.

“It’s really kind of exciting. This is the first time that all of my things have been in the same room at the same time,” he said.

Magee is known in the collectible industry as “the toy scout,” and has amassed a huge collection of toys and Disney items. He says he watched “The Wonderful World of Disney” on TV every week as a kid but had never been to the park and never thought about collecting until he was at a toy show where he met a man selling Disneyland artifacts and got hooked.

“At the time, I couldn’t afford too much. I bought a couple of pieces, but that’s where it all began,” Magee said. “In my travels as ‘the toy scout,’ I meet people all over the country and for the last 25 years, they’ve just been bringing me all their stuff and here it is today.”

The items for sale are as small as a trading card and as large as a 1917 Model T moving van from Disneyland’s original Main Street that Magee says Walt Disney created himself.

Mike Van Eaton is the co-owner of Van Eaton Galleries, which is running the auction. He says among the most sought-after items are those from the Haunted Mansion attraction, including original stretch paintings from the elevator in the iconic ride, and a “doom buggy” — the vehicle guests ride on.

“Joel also has one of the most amazing Disney attraction poster collections in the world. He has every attraction poster ever in the park. And those are also going to do very well,” Van Eaton said.

There are items for every price point, with some starting as low as $50 — but most go way up from there.

“Some of these items, such as the Dumbo ride vehicle, may go for $200,000 to $300,000. We have trash cans from the park that may go for $5,000 or $6,000, and posters that could reach $50,000 to $60,000,” Van Eaton said.

Magee says it’s hard to choose his favorites in such a large collection but he is partial to the static props he’s brought to life.

“The Tiki birds, oh my gosh, they were piles of junk when we got them! They were worn out, pieces were missing,” Magee said. “Some good friends of mine that do a lot of work … in that field brought them all back to life better than you could ever imagine. And … people look at that and you can just see the magic in their eyes when they see them.”

The exhibition is at the Burbank Town Center Mall and runs through July 16. The auction will be held July 17 through 19.

___

Lefferts reported from New York.

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July 4, 2023
7 injured in turbulence on Hawaiian Airlines flight to Australia

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HONOLULU (AP) — A Hawaiian Airlines flight from Honolulu to Sydney hit severe turbulence, injuring seven people on board.

The plane was carrying 163 passengers and 12 crew members on Thursday when it “encountered unexpected severe turbulence approximately five hours into the flight,” said a statement from the airline.

“The plane just dropped,” passenger Sultan Baskonyali told ABC News. “We weren’t prepared.”

Sun’s out, guns out? Not on Hawaii’s world-famous beaches. Beginning Saturday, a new law prohibits carrying a firearm on beaches, as well as banks and restaurants that serve alcohol.

HONOLULU (AP) — A man accused of firing into a large crowd at a Hawaii cockfight in a shooting that killed two people pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges Thursday.

Police in Hawaii have vowed to step up illegal gambling enforcement after one of the most serious shootings in state history called attention to the dangers that come with cockfighting.

A Hawaii surfer credits his faith in God for surviving an Easter shark attack. Mike Morita said Wednesday from a hospital bed that he’s at peace with losing his right foot to Sunday’s shark attack at his regular Honolulu surfing spot known as Kewalos on the south shore of the island of Oahu.

She described one man going upward, hitting his head on the ceiling and dropping back down.

Airport medics assessed and released three injured passengers when the flight landed in Sydney, the airline said. One passenger and three flight attendants were referred to hospitals for evaluation. The flights attendants have since been released, the airline said Monday, but added that it was waiting to hear from the passenger.

“I haven’t heard from the airline at all even though both my children who were on the flight sustained minor injuries,” another passenger, Tara Goodall, told The Associated Press Monday.

They were returning home to Sydney after visiting Hawaii — the first overseas trip for her two sons. It was difficult, she said in text messages, “seeing your kids being thrown around the plane cabin” and being unable to make them feel safe.

She said she wasn’t yet ready to discuss the turbulence in more detail because she was still upset and emotional about it.

“Our immediate priority is to continue to care for our passengers and crew affected by this turbulence event, and we thank Sydney airport first responders for their swift assistance,” the airline said.

Last year, severe turbulence injured 25 people on board a Hawaiian Airlines flight. Four passengers and two crew members were seriously hurt. The plane sustained minor damage.

The captain of the Dec. 18 flight from Phoenix to Honolulu told investigators that conditions were smooth with clear skies when a cloud shot up in front of the plane, and that there was no time to change course, according to a report by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Hawaiian Airlines Chief Operating Officer Jon Snook said at the time that such turbulence is unusual, noting that the airline had not experienced anything like it in recent history. The sign to fasten seatbelts was on at the time, though some of the people injured were not wearing them, he said.

It happened about 40 minutes before landing in Honolulu, according to the NTSB report.

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July 4, 2023
National Geographic will end newsstand sales of magazine next year, focus on subscriptions, digital

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NEW YORK (AP) — The familiar yellow-bordered cover of the monthly National Geographic will no longer be for sale on newsstands starting next year, part of cutbacks affecting the venerable magazine.

The company’s focus is turning to its digital product and it will offer special editions on newsstands, a spokesman said on Thursday. Subscribers will still get a printed copy each month.

Newsstand sales account for a small percentage of the magazine’s monthly circulation of just below 1.8 million copies, the magazine said.

Even a magazine that started publishing in 1888 isn’t immune to financial headwinds affecting the media. Known best for its colorful photography from around the world, the magazine was started more than a century ago by the National Geographic Society, which supports science and exploration.

Control of National Geographic has changed twice in the past decade, first in a sale to 20th Century Fox before being acquired by the Walt Disney Corp. in 2019. It has been hit by a series of layoffs.

Craig Welch posted on Twitter on Wednesday that his new issue of the magazine just arrived, featuring his 16th and last feature as a senior writer for the magazine.

“NatGeo is laying off all of its staff writers,” he wrote.

The magazine said while it’s accurate it no longer has anyone with the title of “writer” anymore, it has people who both write and edit. Instead, it will turn to non-staffers to author stories. The changes occurred as the result of a reorganization in April.

The company would not discuss how many people lost their jobs.

“National Geographic will continue to publish a monthly magazine that is dedicated to exceptional multi-platform storytelling with cultural impact,” spokesman Chris Albert said. “Staffing changes will not change our ability to do this work, but rather give us more flexibility to tell different stories and meet our audiences where they are across our many platforms.”

“Any insinuation that the recent changes will negatively impact the magazine, or the quality of our storytelling, is simply incorrect,” he said.

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July 4, 2023
Q&A: Violinist and singer Sudan Archives brings ‘fiddle soft punk’ to Glastonbury debut

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PILTON, England (AP) — Brittney Denise Parks, better known as Sudan Archives, is an avant-garde violinist and singer-songwriter who describes her style as “fiddle soft punk.”

Late last month, she made her debut at the Glastonbury Festival in the U.K. After a shaky start, the packed crowd danced around in the afternoon sun as she rapped and played the violin in a corset of red leather belts and buckles, cowboy boots, violin bow strapped to her back like Robin Hood.

“At first my mic wasn’t working, so the crowd was like, We can’t hear you. and I was like, Really? They’re like, No! So then once we figured that out, then it was amazing!” she told The Associated Press backstage.

Now based in Los Angeles, Sudan Archives taught herself the violin as a child in Ohio. She’s been making waves with her exploration of non-Western string traditions, unconventional pop and R&B melodies as well as rap inspired by her collaborator and boyfriend, Nocando.

Her second breakthrough album “Natural Brown Prom Queen,” recorded in the couple’s home studio during the pandemic, was released in 2022. The track “Home Maker” subsequently made Barack Obama’s favorite music of 2022 playlist.

The following interview has been condensed for brevity and clarity.

AP: What was your starting point with the violin?

Sudan Archives: I didn’t start classical, but I just was really into fiddle music. So I started just trying to learn fiddle music. And there was an after-school program called Fiddle Club, so we learned a lot of Irish music and stuff, but when I moved to a different school, there wasn’t an orchestra or any after-school program. So I just taught myself more in church how to play by ear.

And then since I didn’t really have any training, I didn’t really have the training and skills to pursue college and go to school like that. But I basically started to incorporate electronic music with the violin. And I remember when they first started making electric violins, I had bought my first electric violin and plugged in to guitar pedals. And I started making strange sounds and making music.

AP: The violin does have a particular image, was that something you were conscious of?

Sudan Archives: Yeah, I was. I think, all over, there’s a very Western view of the violin. But there’s so many other cultures that play violin. But for some reason, when you think of violin, you think of maybe classical orchestra. But I was just in Istanbul, and I just bought one of the first traditional violins from Turkey. And when I was in Ghana, I bought a Hausa violin. So basically I feel like my goal is to show the Black roots of the violin.

AP: What made you want to mix the violin with rap?

Sudan Archives: I think it works because it hasn’t been done a lot and I really want to be unique. So I started dating my boyfriend and he’s a really good rapper. So I feel like when you’re around rappers, something clicked and I was like, “Wait a minute, maybe I should play violin and rap too.”

AP: And what have people from the rap scene made of that and made of you?

Sudan Archives: I think they like it. I feel like I consider myself soft punk. Like it’s not punk. It’s not, like, crazy. I’m not going to smash my violin, but I might scream and rap. It’s like, a fiddle soft punk.

AP: You have dates in Japan and Australia coming up. Do you like the travel?

Sudan Archives: I kind of like it. I don’t know why because sometimes I get bored and I just feel when you travel a lot, you just never get bored.

AP: Especially if you get to spend time in a place?

Sudan Archives: Yeah. I make sure that I have off days in really cool places. So I had three days off in Istanbul and I really wanted to stay there because they have a lot of string instruments. So when I have an off day in Japan, I’m going to go get a string instrument there.

AP: How many violins have you bought altogether?

Sudan Archives: I probably have like six.

AP: And do you use them all when you perform?

Sudan Archives: I don’t have enough money to be like “I have a violin tech. They carry all my violins” and I can only bring one or maybe two if a friend is coming and then I make them take it on the plane.

AP: But one day, one day you’ll have the entourage.

Sudan Archives: One day, I’ll have five violins on stage with different effects.

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July 3, 2023
The wait for US passports is creating travel purgatory and snarling summer plans

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Seeking a valid U.S. passport for that 2023 trip? Buckle up, wishful traveler, for a very different journey before you step anywhere near an airport.

A much-feared backup of U.S passport applications has smashed into a wall of government bureaucracy as worldwide travel rebounds toward record pre-pandemic levels — with too few humans to handle the load. The result, say aspiring travelers in the U.S. and around the world, is a maddening pre-travel purgatory defined, at best, by costly uncertainty.

With family dreams and big money on the line, passport seekers describe a slow-motion agony of waiting, worrying, holding the line, refreshing the screen, complaining to Congress, paying extra fees and following incorrect directions. Some applicants are buying additional plane tickets to snag in-process passports where they sit — in other cities — in time to make the flights they booked in the first place.

So grim is the outlook that U.S. officials aren’t even denying the problem or predicting when it will ease. They’re blaming the epic wait times on lingering pandemic -related staffing shortages and a pause of online processing this year. That’s left the passport agency flooded with a record-busting 500,000 applications a week. The deluge is on-track to top last year’s 22 million passports issued, the State Department says.

Stories from applicants and interviews by The Associated Press depict a system of crisis management, in which the agencies are prioritizing urgent cases such as applicants traveling for reasons of “life or death” and those whose travel is only a few days off. For everyone else, the options are few and expensive.

So, 2023 traveler, if you still need a valid U.S. passport, prepare for an unplanned excursion into the nightmare zone.

‘PLENTY OF TIME’ TO ‘WE’LL STILL BE OK’ TO BIG PROBLEMS

It was early March when Dallas-area florist Ginger Collier applied for four passports ahead of a family vacation at the end of June. The clerk, she said, estimated wait times at eight to 11 weeks. They’d have their passports a month before they needed them. “Plenty of time,” Collier recalled thinking.

Then the State Department upped the wait time for a regular passport to as much as 13 weeks. “We’ll still be okay,” she thought.

At T-minus two weeks to travel, this was her assessment: “I can’t sleep.” This after months of calling, holding, pressing refresh on a website, trying her member of Congress — and stressing as the departure date loomed. Failure to obtain the family’s passports would mean losing $4,000, she said, as well as the chance to meet one of her sons in Italy after a study-abroad semester.

“My nerves are shot, because I may not be able to get to him,” she said. She calls the toll-free number every day, holds for as much as 90 minutes to be told — at best — that she might be able to get a required appointment at passport offices in other states.

“I can’t afford four more plane tickets anywhere in the United States to get a passport when I applied in plenty of time,” she said. “How about they just process my passports?”

THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT HAS A CULPRIT: COVID

By March, concerned travelers began asking for answers and then demanding help, including from their representatives in the House and Senate, who widely reported at hearings this year that they were receiving more complaints from constituents on passport delays than any other issue.

The U.S. secretary of state had an answer, of a sort.

“With COVID, the bottom basically dropped out of the system,” Antony Blinken told a House subcommittee March 23. When demand for travel all but disappeared during the pandemic, he said, the government let contractors go and reassigned staff that had been dedicated to handling passports.

Around the same time, the government also halted an online renewal system “to make sure that we can fine tune it and improve it,” Blinken said. He said the department is hiring agents as quickly as possible, opening more appointments and trying to address the crisis in other ways.

Passport applicants lit up social media groups, toll-free numbers and lawmakers’ phone lines with questions, appeals for advice and cries for help. Facebook and WhatsApp groups bristled with reports of bewilderment and fury. Reddit published eye-watering diaries, some more than 1,000 words long, of application dates, deposits submitted, contacts made, time on hold, money spent and appeals for advice.

It was 1952 when a law required, for the first time, passports for every U.S. traveler abroad, even in peacetime. Now, passports are processed at centers around the country and printed at secure facilities in Washington, D.C. and Mississippi, according to the Government Printing Office.

But the number of Americans holding valid U.S. passports has grown at roughly 10% faster than the population over the past three decades, according to Jay Zagorsky, an economist at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.

After passport delays derailed his own plans to travel to London earlier this year, Zagorsky found that the number of U.S. passports per American has soared from about three per 100 people in 1989 to nearly 46 per 100 people in 2022. Americans, it turns out, are on the move.

“As a society gets richer,” says Zagorsky, “the people in that society say, ‘I want to visit the rest of the world.’”

FOR AMERICANS AND OTHERS ABROAD, IT’S NO PICNIC EITHER

At U.S. consulates overseas, the quest for U.S. visas and passports isn’t much brighter.

On a day in June, people in New Delhi could expect to wait 451 days for a visa interview, according to the website. Those in Sao Paulo could plan on waiting more than 600 days. Aspiring travelers in Mexico City were waiting about 750 days; in Bogota, Colombia, it was 801 days.

In Israel, the need is especially acute. More than 200,000 people with citizenship in both countries live in Israel. It’s one appointment per person, even for newborns, who must have both parents involved in the process, before traveling to the United States.

Batsheva Gutterman started looking for three appointments immediately after she had a baby in December, with an eye toward attending a family celebration in July, in Raleigh, N.C.

Her quest for three passports stretched from January to June, days before travel. And it only resolved after Gutterman paid a small fee to join a WhatsApp group that alerted her to new appointments, which stay available for only a few seconds. She ultimately got three appointments on three consecutive days — bureaucracy embodied.

“We had to drive the entire family with three small children, an hour-and-a-half to Tel Aviv three days in a row, taking off work and school,” she said. “This makes me incredibly uneasy having a baby in Israel as an American citizen, knowing there is no way I can fly with that baby until we get lucky with an appointment.”

Recently, there appeared to be some progress. The wait for an appointment for a renewed U.S. passport stood at 360 days on June 8. On July 2, the wait was down to 90 days, according to the web site.

FRUSTRATING TALES EMERGE FROM THE TRENCHES

Back in the U.S., Marni Larsen of Holladay, Utah, stood in line in Los Angeles, California, on June 14, in hopes of snagging her son’s passport. That way, she hoped, the pair could meet the rest of their family, who had already left as scheduled for Europe, for a long-planned vacation.

She’d applied for her son’s passport two months earlier and spent weeks checking for updates online or through a frustrating call system. As the mid-June vacation loomed, Larsen reached out to Sen. Mitt Romney ’s office, where one of four people he says is assigned full-time to passport issues were able to track down the document in New Orleans.

It was supposed to be shipped to Los Angeles, where she got an appointment to retrieve it. That meant Larsen had to buy new tickets for herself and her son to Los Angeles and reroute their trip from there to Rome. All on a bet that her son’s passport was indeed shipped as promised.

“We are just waiting in this massive line of tons of people,” Larsen said. “It’s just been a nightmare.”

They succeeded. But not everyone has been so lucky.

Miranda Richter applied in person to renew passports for herself and her husband, as well as apply a new one on Feb. 9 for a trip with their neighbors to Croatia on June 6. She ended up canceling, losing more than $1,000.

Her timeline went like this: Passports for her husband and daughter arrived in 11 weeks, while Richter’s photo was rejected. On May 4, she sent in a new one via priority mail. Then she paid a rush fee of $79, which was never charged to her credit card. Between May 30 and June 2, four days before travel, Richter and her husband spent more than 12 hours on the national passport line while also calling their congressman, senators and third-party couriers.

Finally, she showed up in person at the federal building in downtown Houston, 30 minutes before the passport office opened. Richter said there were at least 100 people in line.

“The security guard asked when is my appointment, and I burst out in tears,” she recalls. She couldn’t get one. “It didn’t work.”

FINALLY: A HAPPY ENDING

“I just got my passports!” Ginger Collier texts.

She ended up showing up at the passport office in Dallas with her daughter-in-law at 6:30 a.m. and being sorted into groups and lined up against walls. Finally they were called to a window, where the agent was “super nice” and pulled all four of the family’s applications — paperwork that had been sitting in the office since March 17. More than seven hours later, the two left the office with directions to pick up their passports the next day.

They did — with four days to spare.

“What a ridiculous process,” Collier says. Nevertheless, the reunion with her son in Italy was sweet. She texted last week: “It was the best hug ever!”

___

Kellman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel, Santana reported from Washington, and Koenig reported from Dallas. Follow Kellman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/APLaurie Kellman, Santana at http://twitter.com/russkygal and Koenig at http://twitter.com/airlinewriter.

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July 3, 2023
This Ohio museum shows that TV is older than you might think

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The history of television began long before millions of people gathered in front of their black-and-white sets and fiddled with the antenna and horizontal hold to watch Lucy, Uncle Miltie and Howdy Doodie.

“Everybody thinks TV started in the ‘50s or the late ’40s. Almost nobody knows it existed before World War II and even goes back to the ‘20s,” said Steve McVoy, 80, the founder and president of the Early Television Museum in Hilliard, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus.

The museum holds a large collection of televisions from the 1920s and 1930s, and scores of the much-improved, post-World War II, black-and-white sets that changed the entertainment landscape. There are also several of the first-generation color sets developed in the early 1950s.

When Justina Machado returns home to her native Chicago, she barely recognizes it. Machado grew up in Chicago’s inner city, in the neighborhoods Lincoln Park, Humboldt Park and Logan Square — all of which she says have been gentrified.

This week’s new entertainment releases include Taylor Swift’s rerecording of her “Speak Now,” a documentary on Wham!

Fox News brought cake, balloons and fake mustaches to the set of “Fox & ”Friends” to pay tribute to Geraldo Rivera on Friday.

Oscar winner Alan Arkin has died at age 89. The popular character actor was nominated three times for Academy Awards and finally won in 2007 as the foul-mouthed grandfather in the surprise hit “Little Miss Sunshine.”

“The original idea for the museum was to deal with the earliest television technology,” McVoy said. “The sets got pretty boring after 1960, just these big things in plastic cabinets.”

The collection is one of the world’s largest, rivaled in North America only by the MZTV Museum of Toronto. About 180 television sets are on exhibit, arranged in chronological order, with another 50 in storage.

“So many of the sets were incredible to see in their original form,” said Doron Galili, a research fellow in media studies at Stockholm University and author of “Seeing by Electricity: The Emergence of Television, 1878 – 1939” (Duke University Press).

He visited in 2016, and said the museum gives visitors “a better sense not only of the technological aspects of television history but also of its place within popular culture, and modern design and material culture.”

THE BACKSTORY

McVoy’s personal history with television also goes back many years. When he was 10 and living in Gainesville, Florida, he was fascinated by his family’s first set. “I tinkered with it, much to my parent’s dismay,” he said.

He pulled a little red wagon around the neighborhood with a sign that advertised free television repairs.

“Nobody accepted my offer,” McVoy said, adding it was unlikely he could have repaired a set if anyone had asked.

A few years later, he began working in a television repair shop and learned those skills. He opened his own shop, Freedom TV, in the mid-1960s, repairing sets and installing antennas atop apartment buildings and motels. Soon after, he formed his first cable-television business, Micanopy Cable TV, followed by Coaxial Communications and Telecinema. McVoy sold his cable holdings in 1999 and, looking for something to do, decided to start collecting old television sets.

“I never collected anything before,” he said.

The first set he bought, on eBay, was an RCA TRK 12, which was introduced at the 1939 World’s Fair and retailed at $600, a princely sum at the time.

“I think I paid about a thousand bucks for it,” McVoy said, adding that it was in disrepair and missing several parts. “A complete one would have cost five or six thousand; the pre-war sets are very valuable.”

He refurbished the TRK 12, and began collecting more old sets and visiting other collectors who shared his growing passion.

“All their collections were in their basements and attics,” McVoy said. This, plus his wife’s annoyance at all the old sets cluttering up their living room, hatched the idea to start a museum.

The Early Television Museum opened in 2002 as a non-profit foundation. It’s housed in a large former warehouse. Each room features an audio guide, narrated by McVoy. Press another button on some of the sets and and a few old shows appear.

Until a few years ago, McVoy helped restore many of the museum’s televisions himself. “My eyesight and the stability of my hands makes it difficult now,” he said.

HOW TV BEGAN

The idea for transmitting pictures goes back to the 1880s. “The problem of television … has not yet been solved,” The New York Times reported on Nov. 24, 1907.

The first crude mechanical televisions were developed in the mid 1920s by John Logie Baird in England and Charles Jenkins in the United States, and relied on rotating discs to transmit pictures. According to the museum, by 1930, “television was being broadcast from over a dozen stations in the U.S., not only in the major cities such as New York and Boston, but also from Iowa and Kansas. Several manufacturers were selling sets and kits.”

The screens were small and the picture quality extremely poor, with lots of “fading and ghosting.” Programming was limited.

Television made what McVoy calls its “formal debut” on April 30, 1939, at that World’s Fair in New York. President Roosevelt’s speech to open the fair was broadcast live, as an NBC mobile unit sent signals to a transmitter atop the Empire State Building. From there, the signals “went out to visual receivers within a fifty-mile radius in the metropolitan area,” reported the New York Daily News.

RCA and General Electric introduced television models at the World’s Fair. A total of about 7,000 sets were made in the United States in 1939 and 1940, and only about 350 still exist, according to the museum.

World War II halted the production of TV sets in the United States. Engineers who learned about radar and aircraft communications then applied that knowledge to TV technology after the war, when a boom in sales and programming began.

There were about 200,000 sets in the U.S. in 1947, and 18 million by the end of 1953, according to McVoy’s research. Audiences loved “I Love Lucy” (which began airing in 1951) and “The Honeymooners” (began 1955).

The color revolution came in 1954. Sales were initially slow, due in part to cost. It wasn’t until the early 1970s that color sets outsold black-and-white ones.

“We have (an example of) virtually every set that is available,” McVoy said.

SEEKING PHILO FARNSWORTH

At the top of his wish list? A set made by electronic-television pioneer Philo Farnsworth in the late 1920s or early 1930s.

“Only three still survive as far as we know and they’re all already in other museums,” McVoy said. “If a fourth ever shows up, we’d go to our donors and would be able to get it.”

—-

For more AP Travel stories, go to https://apnews.com/lifestyle.

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July 3, 2023
Florida’s new DeSantis-backed laws address immigration, guns and more

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Employers who hire immigrants in the country illegally will face tough punishments and gun owners will have more freedoms when more than 200 new Florida laws take effect Saturday, many of which Gov. Ron DeSantis will highlight as he seeks the Republican presidential nomination.

DeSantis has taken a hard line on illegal immigration as he campaigns, saying he’ll finish the Mexican border wall his one-time supporter, Donald Trump, promised to build. He’s also carried out political gimmicks like flying immigrants from Texas to blue states, supposedly before they can get to Florida.

The new employer penalties are a chance for DeSantis to show he doesn’t just talk tough on illegal immigration, but he’s put in place what some critics say the harshest state law in the country. DeSantis has largely echoed the border policy of Trump, whose endorsement propelled DeSantis to the governor’s office in 2018. DeSantis is now the former president’s leading competitor for the White House.

Partying never gets old in the Florida Keys — especially for a milestone birthday like No. 200. The Florida Keys celebrated its bicentennial Monday along the Gulf of Mexico with a Key lime pie more than 13 feet (4 meters) in diameter — which organizers intend to certify as a world record.

New state laws are tackling some of the most divisive issues in the U.S., including abortion, gender and guns.

Attorneys say the acquittal of a Florida deputy for failing to act during a school shooting shows there are holes in the law.

The two leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination have courted conservative women at the Moms for Liberty conference in Philadelphia .

The new law expands worker verification requirements, among other provisions. The governor’s office blames the Biden administration for what it says is a crisis at the southern border.

“Any business that exploits this crisis by employing illegal aliens instead of Floridians will be held accountable,” said DeSantis spokesman Jeremy Redfern.

But in a state where the largest industries — tourism, agriculture and construction — rely heavily on immigrant labor, there are concerns that the economy could be disrupted when employers are already having a hard time filling open jobs. Florida’s unemployment rate is 2.6%.

Samuel Vilchez Santiago, the American Business Immigration Coalition’s Florida director, said there are 400,000 “undocumented immigrants” working in the state and far fewer applicants than jobs.

“We are in dire need of workers,” especially in construction, the service industry and agriculture, he said. “So there is a lot of fear from across the state … that this new law will actually be devastating.”

The law forces any company with 25 or more employees to use E-Verify to document new hires’ eligibility to work or face a loss of business license or fines of $1,000 per day per employee.

The law also forces hospitals that accept Medicaid to ask patients if they are citizens or legally in the United States and voids drivers licenses issued by other states to people in the country illegally.

Protesters have rallied around the state. Dozens of people on Friday waved signs and Mexican, Cuban and American flags in front of the historic Capitol. Rubith Sandoval, 15, helped organize the protest. Her family moved from Mexico and now owns a farm in Quincy.

“We work hard in the fields. We pick tomatoes, we pick strawberries, we pick watermelons, oranges, and who’s going to do that now?” Sandoval said. “My parents now have documents, but they still haven’t forgotten how it was not to have documents.”

Republicans have a supermajority in the House and Senate, and only one Republican opposed the legislation. Given DeSantis’ power and reputation for being vengeful, there has been little vocal opposition among GOP elected officials about the new immigration policy. But that doesn’t mean all Republicans are supporting it, either

Independently-elected Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, a Republican, said illegal immigration is a federal problem.

“Our state solutions are limited, not particularly effective, and have unintended consequences,” Simpson said in an email. “I think the Legislature’s work to tackle illegal immigration is necessary, whether or not it is effective is yet to be seen.”

DeSantis will also be able to tout expanded gun rights under a new law that allows anyone legally able to own a gun to carry it concealed in public without a permit. While concealed weapons permits will still be issued, those choosing to carry without one won’t be subject to a background check or training.

The law doesn’t ease background checks on gun sales that already require one. Another new law prohibits credit card companies from tracking gun and ammunition sales to prevent them potentially using the data to flag people who make large purchases.

Florida has also banned colleges from using state or federal funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs, a consistent DeSantis target, and schools will be prohibited from requiring teachers and students to use pronouns that match someone’s gender identity.

Beginning Saturday, Chinese nationals will be banned from purchasing property in large swaths of the state. A new law applies to properties within 10 miles (16 kilometers) of military installations and other “critical infrastructure” and also affects citizens of Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Russia, and North Korea. But Chinese citizens and those selling property to them face the harshest penalties.

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing in federal court to stop the law, but a judge won’t consider an injunction until nearly three weeks after it takes effect. The U.S. Department of Justice provided a brief to the court saying it believes the law is unconstitutional.

“DOJ has weighed in because Florida’s law is blatantly unconstitutional and violates the Fair Housing Act. Their brief underscores just how egregious” the law is, ACLU lawyer Ashley Gorski said in an emailed statement.

DeSantis defended the law using his campaign Twitter account, saying President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland are siding with the Chinese Communist Party.

“I side with the American people,” the tweet said. “As governor, I prohibited CCP-tied entities from buying land in Florida. As president, I’ll do the same.”

One new law Democrats and Republicans agreed unanimously on is a sales tax exemption on baby and toddler products, including diapers, strollers, cribs and clothing. The tax package also includes exemptions for dental hygiene products and gun safety devices, such as trigger locks.

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July 3, 2023
From human ashes to cellphones, what’s going on with concert fans lately?

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NEW YORK (AP) — From flinging bras to tossing flowers, concertgoers have long been a bit extra in showing adoration for their beloved artists — but a recent spate of artists being hit by weightier projectiles raises concerns about extreme fan culture and security.

Country singer Kelsea Ballerini was the latest artist to be struck by a flying object, Wednesday evening at a Boise concert. In the moment caught on video, Ballerini is playing her guitar onstage when a bracelet hits her face and she takes a step back.

Ballerini, clearly caught off guard, takes a moment before a brief intermission is called.

“Hi, i’m fine,” she later said on Instagram. “Someone threw a bracelet, it hit me in the eye and it more so just scared me than hurt me.”

Ashley Highfill, 30, was at the Idaho Botanical Garden show and said Ballerini seemed visibly upset. Highfill, who often attends concerts with her friends, said it’s become a normal occurrence to see fans throwing items onstage at concerts.

“Stuff like that can be very dangerous,” she said. “It’s disheartening to see even though there is no bad intention, people are not thinking of the consequences that these people are putting on a show.”

That same day, rapper Sexyy Red cut short her own show when fans refused to stop throwing water bottles at the stage.

Morgan Milardo, managing director of the Berklee Popular Music Institute in Boston, said some venues will have signs that say “no mosh pits” or “no crowd surfing” — but perhaps signs that explicitly say “no throwing items at the stage” now need to be added to protect artists.

“Everyone in attendance at a concert is responsible for keeping one another safe,” she said. “Concerts are supposed to offer a community where folks can come together to share in the magic of live music, not have to worry about a chicken nugget hitting them in the eyeball.”

Long gone are the days of in-person fan clubs, but social media users can join in with the Swifties or the Beyhive at any moment online or get daily updates from accounts run by or dedicated to celebrities. Social media has created a deeper sense of connection and emotional closeness for fans, said Laurel Williams, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Baylor College of Medicine.

That sense of closeness played out at a recent concert where one fan tossed their mother’s ashes onto the stage as Pink was performing.

“Is this your mom?” Pink asked the fan. “I don’t know how to feel about this.”

David Schmid, a pop culture expert at the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, said the idea of tossing items on stage historically goes back to the etymology of the word “fan.” Short for fanatic, it was a term originally associated with religious devotion. And many tend to see celebrities “as if they are gods or at least semi-divine beings,” he said.

“From that perspective you can read the stage as a kind of altar and the objects that are thrown onto the stage as devotional objects,” Schmid said.

The role of social media has also changed the nature of the items being thrown onstage. Rather than toss a note, some are hurling heavy cellphones onstage, hoping the performer will grab it and record a moment for them. In some cases, it ends up being a dangerous grab for attention.

A man was arrested after throwing a cellphone that struck pop star Bebe Rexha in the face on June 18. According to a court criminal complaint, the man later told a third party that he hit the artist because he thought “it would be funny.” After the New York concert, Rexha shared a photo of her black eye and bandaged face to Instagram, with a thumbs up.

“Im good,” she said in the post.

“Although the show ended in an unfortunate way it was still an amazing show in my hometown,” she wrote in a subsequent post.

While female artists have been the targets this month — including singer Ava Max, who was slapped at her Los Angeles show — even male performers like Harry Styles have faced projectiles heftier than underwear. At a November 2022 concert, Styles could be seen tossing his head back in pain after he was hit in the eye by a projectile.

Mid-concert provocations from fans aren’t necessarily new: Rock legend Ozzy Osbourne notoriously bit the head off a live bat after a fan tossed it to him onstage. Some punk fans might remember the days when concertgoers would spit at artists to show appreciation.

But with such behavior seemingly becoming more mainstream, venues, promoters and artists might look to reinforce security.

Paul Wertheimer, founder of Crowd Management Strategies/Crowdsafe, said artists often have security contracts with the promoter that lists out what kind of security the artist will pay for or wants at the show. Venues can also decide to limit what can be brought inside or sold at the event space.

“You need to have proper security to protect the artist,” Wertheimer said.

After the deadly 2021 Astroworld crowd surge, protocols around safety at concerts have been called into question. With recent advancements in surveillance technology, like facial recognition and crowd monitoring with artificial intelligence, fans may no longer be able to fade into the crowd after hurling a personal item at their adored artist — even if done in jest.

“The stage is an immensely powerful place on one level but it also a place where you are extremely vulnerable,” Schmid said.

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July 3, 2023
Florida police officers are accused of ‘jailing’ their young son over potty training accidents

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Florida police officers accused of twice putting their 3 1/2-year-old son in a jail cell to punish him for potty training accidents remain on the job while an investigation continues.

Nearly nine months later, the Daytona Beach Shores Police Department is not talking about it and most records related to the investigation have been sealed by a Volusia County judge.

“The city strives to always be open and transparent, however due to the court order that was issued to the city, we are unable to comment at this time. If anything should change, we would be happy to discuss,” the city’s public information officer, Tammy Marzik, wrote in an email to The AP.

Partying never gets old in the Florida Keys — especially for a milestone birthday like No. 200. The Florida Keys celebrated its bicentennial Monday along the Gulf of Mexico with a Key lime pie more than 13 feet (4 meters) in diameter — which organizers intend to certify as a world record.

New state laws are tackling some of the most divisive issues in the U.S., including abortion, gender and guns.

Attorneys say the acquittal of a Florida deputy for failing to act during a school shooting shows there are holes in the law.

Employers who hire immigrants in the country illegally will face tough punishments and gun owners will have more freedoms when more than 200 new Florida laws take effect Saturday.

The couple said they “jailed” their son twice — on Oct. 5 and 6, 2022. They were interviewed by a state child abuse investigator, who was escorted to their home by a Volusia County Sheriff’s deputy whose body camera recorded the conversation. The video was sent to the media this week by the sheriff’s office, which later asked to recall it, citing a court order restricting the release of information about the case.

The Associated Press is not identifying the child nor the parents — the mother is a detective and the father a lieutenant with the Daytona Beach Shores Police. Their attorney, Michael Lambert, did not respond to an email seeking comment.

During the hour-long video, the child’s mother said she didn’t believe they did anything wrong, adding that “it’s just people getting it twisted.” She also called the investigation “the definition of insanity.”

How the state learned about the boy’s treatment hasn’t been made public, but the father told the investigator “it’s just disgusting that somebody would drag our family through the mud like this.”

He explained that their day care center requires children to stop using diapers by age 3, but the boy was still having accidents, so while the school was being lenient, they were trying everything possible to get him potty trained.

“We’ve tried books, we’ve tried run around without pants, you name it we’ve tried it,” the father told the investigator.

So they confronted the boy, he said.

“I said you know what I do for a living,” the father explained. “I said I’m a cop. I take bad boys to the jail that don’t follow the law. So that’s what I did. I said you know you aren’t following the rules, let’s go to jail.”

The father said the cell “was nasty” so he checked it out for contraband before putting his son inside. He told investigators the boy was behind bars for about 13 minutes, and he “had eyes on him the entire time.”

“He was crying,” the father said. “I was getting the response I expected from him.”

The father said the boy’s mother had placed him in the cell the day before, for about three minutes.

The tactic worked: The child made good on his promise not to have any more accidents, the father told investigators.

What’s more, he said he did it before with his older son, about nine years ago, when that child admitted hitting a girl in preschool. He said he told his son that in his job, he puts people in jail when they hit others.

“I took him to the jail and he sat there. And I watched him … and he was crying and everything, and to this day, if you mention, like, that incident, he’s just like, ‘I would never do that again.’ It was effective,” the father said. “So that’s why I did it with this. He didn’t hit anybody, but I figured the same thing, discipline.”

Florida Department of Children and Families spokeswoman Tori Cuddy told The AP that the agency responds to all allegations of of abuse, neglect or abandonment, and that all information involving such cases is confidential.

It’s not clear what repercussions the couple faces, if any, but they’ve gone to court, suing the state attorney’s office in March and separately suing State Attorney R.J. Larizza in May. Those court records are marked confidential and have been sealed by a judge, the city clerk’s office said.

Lonnie Groot, a former city attorney for Daytona Beach Shores who now serves the community in more of a watchdog capacity, is looking for answers. Groot said he’s been been unsuccessful in his attempts to get additional records involving the investigation.

“The City is just patently trying to hide the matter and hopes now that it will go away and they can go back to their own ways,” Groot told The AP.

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July 3, 2023
Affirmative action for white people? Legacy college admissions come under renewed scrutiny

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The next big fight over college admissions already has taken hold, and it centers on a different kind of minority group that gets a boost: children of alumni.

In the wake of a Supreme Court decision that strikes down affirmative action in admissions, colleges are coming under renewed pressure to put an end to legacy preferences — the practice of favoring applicants with family ties to alumni. Long seen as a perk for the white and wealthy, opponents say it’s no longer defensible in a world with no counterbalance in affirmative action.

President Joe Biden suggested colleges should rethink the practice after the court’s ruling, saying legacy preferences “expand privilege instead of opportunity.” Several Democrats in Congress demanded an end to the policy in light of the court’s decision to remove race from the admissions process. So did Republicans including Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who is vying for the GOP presidential nomination.

“Let’s be clear: affirmative action still exists for white people. It’s called legacy admissions,” Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat, said on Twitter.

For critics of legacy admissions, the renewed debate over fairness in admissions has offered a chance to swing public sentiment behind their cause.

As colleges across the U.S. pledge their commitment to diversity following the court’s ruling, activists have a simple response: prove it. If schools want to enroll more Black, Hispanic and Indigenous students, activists say, removing legacy preferences would be an easy first step.

“Now more than ever, there’s no justification for allowing this process to continue,” said Viet Nguyen, a graduate of Brown and Harvard who leads Ed Mobilizer, a nonprofit that has fought legacy preferences since 2018. “No other country in the world does legacy preferences. Now is a chance to catch up with the rest of the world.”

Using the Supreme Court decision as a catalyst, Nguyen’s group is rallying the alumni of top colleges to press their alma maters to end the practice. The goal is to get graduates of the 30 schools to withhold donations until the policy ends. The schools include Harvard and the University of North Carolina, which were at the center of the court case, along with the rest of the Ivy League and the University of Southern California.

It builds on other efforts taking aim at the practice. Colorado banned it at public universities in 2021, and lawmakers in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York have introduced similar bills. In Congress, Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York and Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, both Democrats, are reviving legislation that would forbid it at all universities that accept federal money.

Legacy preferences have become an easy target in the wake of a Supreme Court decision that hinged on questions of merit in the college application process, said Julie Park, who studies college admissions and racial equity at the University of Maryland. Instead of getting in on their own merit, she said, legacy students are just “standing on their parents’ shoulders.”

“It’s just low-hanging fruit,” she said. “People want something to do, and there’s a strong rationale to get rid of it.”

Secretary Miguel Cardona urged colleges to “ask themselves the tough questions,” adding that legacy admissions and other types of special treatment “have long denied well-qualified students of all backgrounds a level playing field.”

“In the wake of this ruling, they could further tip the scales against students who already have the cards stacked against them,” Cardona said in a statement to The Associated Press.

In the hazy world of college admissions, it’s unclear exactly which schools provide a legacy boost and how much it helps. In California, where state law requires schools to disclose the practice, USC reported that 14% of last year’s admitted students had family ties to alumni or donors. Stanford reported a similar rate.

At Harvard, which released years of records as part of the lawsuit that ended up before the Supreme Court, legacy students were eight times more likely to be admitted, and nearly 70% were white, researchers found.

An Associated Press survey of the nation’s most selective colleges last year found that legacy students in the freshman class ranged from 4% to 23%. At four schools — Notre Dame, USC, Cornell and Dartmouth — legacy students outnumbered Black students.

Supporters of the policy say it builds an alumni community and encourages donations. A 2022 study of an undisclosed college in the Northeast found that legacy students were more likely to make donations, but at a cost to diversity — the vast majority were white.

Some prestigious colleges have abandoned the policy in recent years, including Amherst College and Johns Hopkins University. In the first year after dropping it, Amherst saw its share of legacy students in the freshman class fall by about half, while 19% of first-year students were the first in their families to attend college, the most in the school’s history.

Some colleges argue that, as their student bodies become more racially diverse, the benefits of legacy status will extend to more students of color. Opponents argue that white families still have an advantage, with generations of relatives who had access to any college.

Ivory Toldson went to college at Louisiana State University, but it wasn’t an option for his parents in the Jim Crow South.

“My parents couldn’t legally go to LSU. Discrimination is a lot more recent in our history than a lot of people seem to understand,” said Toldson, a Howard University professor and the director of education, innovation and research for the NAACP.

Toldson said there’s growing awareness of the irony that preferences for athletes and legacy students are still allowed, while race must be ignored.

In May, an AP-NORC poll found that few Americans think legacy admissions or donations should play much of a role in college admissions. Just 9% say it should be very important that a family member attended and 18% say it should be somewhat important. Likewise, only 10% say donations to the school should be very important and 17% say that should be somewhat important.

That same poll found that most Americans support affirmative action in higher education but think race should play a small role. Sixty-three percent said the Supreme Court should not block colleges from considering race in admissions, but 68% said it should not be a big factor.

Several colleges declined to say whether they will continue providing a boost for legacy students next year, including Cornell and the University of Notre Dame.

Meanwhile, Nguyen said he’s more optimistic than ever. In the past, colleges have been reluctant to be among the first to make the change, he said. Now he thinks that’s changing.

“In the next few months, I think the hesitancy will actually be who will be the last,” he said. “No university wants to be the last.”

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The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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July 3, 2023
What to know about Fourth of July holiday origins and traditions

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ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Fourth of July is Americana at its core: parades and cookouts and cold beer and, of course, fireworks.

Those pyrotechnics also make it an especially dangerous holiday, typically resulting in more than 10,000 trips to the emergency room. Yet fireworks remain at the center of Independence Day, a holiday 247 years in the making.

Here are five things to know about July Fourth, including the origin of the holiday and how fireworks became part of the tradition.

The American flag will be flown throughout the country on July 4, but it wasn’t always a revered and debated symbol.

A 40-year-old man with a rifle, a pistol, a bulletproof vest, extra magazines and a police scanner fatally shot four men on the streets of a Philadelphia neighborhood and chased and killed a fifth man inside a home, police say.

The “parental rights” group Moms for Liberty is looking to expand its efforts to elect school board candidates in 2024 and beyond, as well as get involved in other education races.

Through history, the Fourth of July has been a day for some presidents to declare their independence from the public.

WHAT’S THE ORIGIN OF INDEPENDENCE DAY?

The holiday celebrates the Second Continental Congress’ unanimous adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, a document announcing the colonies’ separation from Great Britain.

One year later, according to the Library of Congress, a spontaneous celebration in Philadelphia marked the anniversary of American independence.

But across the burgeoning nation, observations didn’t become commonplace until after the War of 1812. It quickly took off: The Library of Congress notes that major historic events in the 19th century, such as groundbreaking ceremonies for the Erie Canal and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, were scheduled to coincide with Fourth of July festivities.

HOW DID FIREWORKS BECAME A JULY FOURTH TRADITION?

The display of pyrotechnics has been a big part of Independence Day from the outset. Founding Father John Adams saw it coming.

Commemoration of America’s independence “ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more,” Adams wrote in a letter to his wife, Abigail, dated July 3, 1776.

Fireworks were around centuries before America became a nation. The American Pyrotechnics Association says many historians believe fireworks were first developed in the second century B.C. in ancient China by throwing bamboo stalks into fires, causing explosions as the hollow air pockets overheated.

By the 15th century, fireworks were widely used for religious festivals and public entertainment in Europe and early U.S. settlers carried on those traditions, the association said.

HAS A PRESIDENT EVER REFUSED TO CELEBRATE?

Presidents from George Washington to Joe Biden have celebrated the nation’s birth on the Fourth of July, with one exception: Adams.

His letter to his wife aside, Adams refused to celebrate the holiday on July 4 because he felt July 2 was the real Independence Day. Why? It was on July 2, 1776, that the Continental Congress voted in favor of the resolution for independence, though the Declaration of Independence wasn’t formally adopted until two days later.

Adams was so adamant that he turned down invitations to festivals and other events, even while serving as the nation’s second president. Ironically, Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, both died on the 50th anniversary of the document’s formal adoption, July 4, 1826.

HOW POPULAR ARE FIREWORKS?

Consumer sales of fireworks have grown rapidly over the past two decades.

Statistics from the American Pyrotechnics Association show that in 2000, American consumers spent $407 million on fireworks. By 2022, that figure rose to $2.3 billion. The biggest jump came during the COVID-19 pandemic, when public fireworks displays were shut down. Consumer sales jumped from $1 billion in 2019 to $1.9 billion in 2020.

“People went to the fireworks store beginning Memorial Day weekend and they just didn’t stop,” said Julie Heckman, executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Association. “They were firing off fireworks all of 2020. It shocked the industry, to be quite honest with you.”

Sales are expected to rise another $100 million this year, the association said. It helps that the Fourth of July is on a Tuesday, creating essentially a four-day weekend.

ARE FIREWORKS DANGEROUS?

Despite widespread education efforts, thousands of Americans are badly injured by fireworks each year, and this year is no exception.

Late Saturday night, firefighters and medics were called to Lexington Township, a suburb of Kansas City, Kansas, for reports of a shed on fire and arrived to find fireworks actively exploding from the burning shed and several people lying injured on the ground. Firefighters, medics and local police dragged the victims from the area to safety, and four people were taken to hospitals — two with serious injuries, Northwest Consolidated Fire District Chief Todd Maxton said in a statement.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reports that in 2022, 10,200 people were treated at emergency rooms and 11 deaths were blamed on fireworks. About three-quarters of injuries happened in the period around the Fourth of July.

About one-third of the injuries were to the head, face, ears or eyes. Finger, hand and leg injuries are common, too.

“I have seen people who have blown off fingers,” said Dr. Tiffany Osborn, an emergency room physician at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. “I’ve seen people who have lost eyes. I’ve seen people who have significant facial injuries.”

Children under 15 make up nearly one-third of those injured by fireworks. Sparklers often are blamed for burns to children under age 5. Osborn suggested giving small children glow sticks or colorful streamers instead.

For those planning to shoot off fireworks, Heckman urged finding a flat, hard, level surface away from structures and other things that could catch fire. The person responsible for the fireworks should avoid alcohol. Children should never ignite them.

Osborn encouraged having a bucket or hose nearby in case of fire or explosion. Shoot off one at a time and walk away quickly after igniting, she said, and never relight or handle a malfunctioned firework. When done, shovel up the remains and soak them before disposing.

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July 3, 2023
Workers strike at major Southern California hotels over pay and benefits

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Workers picketed major Southern California hotels Monday after walking off the job during the July Fourth long weekend to demand better pay and benefits.

The strike by bellhops, front desk agents, room attendants, cooks, servers and dishwashers began early Sunday in Los Angeles and Orange counties just as summer tourism ramps up. Employers accused the union of failing to negotiate.

Members of Unite Here Local 11 voted last month in favor of authorizing the walkout. In addition to higher wages, the union wants improved health care benefits, higher pension contributions and less strenuous workloads.

Thousands of hotel workers in Southern California walked off the job Sunday, demanding higher pay and better benefits in what the union is calling the largest strike in its history.

Six thousand workers at a key supplier to Boeing are ending a brief strike after ratifying a new contract with Spirit AeroSystems.

Hollywood actors may be days away from joining screenwriters in what would be the first two-union strike in the industry in more than six decades.

Frustrated by an “appalling counterproposal” earlier this week, the head of the union representing 340,000 UPS workers said a strike is imminent and gave the shipping giant a Friday deadline to improve its offer.

“We deserve to get better pay because we do work hard. We clean fourteen rooms a day. Sometimes we do a little more,” said Eleida Manzo, housekeeper at JW Marriott in downtown Los Angeles. The single mother of three said she makes $25 an hour.

Contracts expired at midnight Friday at more than 60 hotels, including properties owned by major chains such as Marriott and Hilton. The strike affects about half of the 32,000 hospitality workers the union represents across Southern California and Arizona.

Osiris Gaona, a phone operator at InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown, was joined on the picket line by her husband, 15-year-old son and 7-year-old granddaughter. They will march again Tuesday, the Fourth of July, she said.

“We are hoping to send a message to the owners of all the hotels,” Gaona said. “We are asking for a pay raise because it costs so much to live here in California, especially in LA.”

The walkout comes amid holiday celebrations and a major anime convention in Los Angeles. The union, on its website, urged guests to “not eat, sleep or meet” at the striking hotels, where temporary employees were hired to cover for the striking workers. But it wasn’t immediately clear whether the strike resulted in guests checking out early or lacking services.

It’s the latest action by a restive labor movement in California.

Hollywood writers have been on strike since early May. In March, the giant Los Angeles Unified School District was shut down for three days by bus drivers, custodians and other support staff. Los Angeles teachers supported that strike and then reached a deal on their own contract without walking out. Oakland teachers went on strike for more than a week, and slowdowns occurred at the big ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach before West Coast dockworkers reached a tentative settlement in June. Actors also may strike.

Brenden Gallagher is a striking writer who on Monday joined the hotel picket line.

“We’re all workers. Workers are in the same struggle. Very often it’s the same billionaires that have investment interests in hotels and in media. If you work for a boss, you are working class. You are a worker,” he said.

The soaring cost of living in greater Los Angeles is a significant problem for hotel workers, according to the union.

Last week, a deal was reached with its biggest employer, the Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in downtown Los Angeles, which has more than 600 union workers. Union officials described the tentative agreement, which provides higher pay and increased staffing levels, as a major win for workers.

Talks with other hotels — including the Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons Regent Beverly Wilshire and Anaheim Hilton, near Disneyland — were at a stalemate. A coalition of more than 40 hotels involved in talks accused union leaders of canceling a scheduled bargaining session and refusing to come to the table. The hotels have offered wage increases of $2.50 per hour in the first 12 months and $6.25 over four years, the group said.

“From the outset, the Union has shown no desire to engage in productive, good faith negotiations with this group,” the hotel coalition said in a statement Sunday. “The Union has not budged from its opening demand two months ago of up to a 40% wage increase and an over 28% increase in benefit costs.”

The work stoppage had been anticipated, and the properties are “fully prepared to continue to operate these hotels and to take care of our guests as long as this disruption lasts,” said Keith Grossman, a spokesperson for the coalition.

Another housekeeper at JW Marriott, Bellen Valle, said a $5-an-hour raise would give her a substantial boost, and finally allow her to take her daughter to Disneyland.

“That’s gonna help me a lot. A lot. I can see the difference in my check,” Valle said.

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Associated Press writers John Antczak and Christopher Weber contributed.

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July 3, 2023
After several turbulent days, flight disruptions ease despite worries about 5G signals

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Airline passengers who have endured tens of thousands of weather-related flight delays this week got a welcome respite from the headaches Saturday, despite concerns about possible disruptions caused by new wireless 5G systems rolling out near major airports.

The number of flight delays and cancellations declined from the spikes recorded earlier in the week, according to data compiled by tracking service FlightAware. As of 10 p.m. EST, there had been at least 850 flight cancellations and more than 28,000 delayed flights Saturday. During the June 28-30 period, an average of 1,751 flights were canceled and more then 32,600 flights delayed, according to the FlightAware data.

The cancellation rate worked out to about 1% in the U.S. as of Saturday afternoon, according to Flightradar24, another tracking service. Flightradar24 spokesperson Ian Petchenik described Saturday’s conditions as “smooth sailing” in an email to The Associated Press, while adding inclement weather could cause problems at East Coast airports later in the day.

President Joe Biden says his administration will write new rules to expand the rights of airline passengers.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration also advised travelers that bad weather conditions on the East Coast could affect flights later Saturday.

Heading into Saturday, one of the biggest concerns had been whether 5G signals would interfere with aircraft equipment, especially devices using radio waves to measure distance above the ground that are critical when planes land in low visibility.

Predictions that interference would cause massive flight groundings failed to come true last year, when telecom companies began rolling out the new service. They then agreed to limit the power of the signals around busy airports, giving airlines an extra year to upgrade their planes.

The leader of the nation’s largest pilots’ union said crews will be able to handle the impact of 5G, but he criticized the way the wireless licenses were granted, saying it had added unnecessary risk to aviation.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg recently told airlines that flights could be disrupted because a small portion of the nation’s fleet has not been upgraded to protect against radio interference.

But the worst fears about 5G hadn’t cropped up by mid-afternoon Saturday, prompting Transportation Department spokesperson Kerry Arndt to describe flight travel as being at “near-normal” levels. But Arrndt also stressed that the Federal Aviation Administration is “working very closely with airlines to monitor summer pop-up storms, wildfire smoke, and any 5G issues.”

Most of the major U.S. airlines had made the changes needed to adapt to 5G. American, Southwest, Alaska, Frontier and United say all of their planes have height-measuring devices, called radio altimeters, that are protected against 5G interference.

The big exception is Delta Air Lines. Delta says it has 190 planes, including most of its smaller ones, that still lack upgraded altimeters because its supplier has been unable to provide them fast enough.

The airline does not expect to cancel any flights because of the issue, Delta said Friday. The airline plans to route the 190 planes carefully to limit the risk of canceling flights or forcing planes to divert away from airports where visibility is low because of fog or low clouds. FlightAware listed nine Delta flight cancellations Saturday. None of them were tied to 5G issues, according to the airline.

The Delta planes that have not been retrofitted include several models of Airbus jets: all of its A220s, most of its A319s and A320s and some of its A321s. The airline’s Boeing jets have upgraded altimeters, as do all Delta Connection planes, which are operated by Endeavor Air, Republic Airways and SkyWest Airlines, according to the airline.

JetBlue did not respond to requests for comment but told The Wall Street Journal it expected to retrofit 17 smaller Airbus jets by October, with possible “limited impact” some days in Boston.

Wireless carriers including Verizon and AT&T use a part of the radio spectrum called C-Band, which is close to frequencies used by radio altimeters, for their new 5G service. The Federal Communications Commission granted them licenses for the C-Band spectrum and dismissed any risk of interference, saying there was ample buffer between C-Band and altimeter frequencies.

When the Federal Aviation Administration sided with airlines and objected, the wireless companies pushed back the rollout of their new service. In a compromise brokered by the Biden administration, the wireless carriers then agreed not to power up 5G signals near about 50 busy airports. That postponement ends Saturday.

AT&T declined to comment. Verizon did not immediately respond to a question about its plans.

Buttigieg reminded the head of trade group Airlines for America about the deadline in a letter last week, warning that only planes with retrofitted altimeters would be allowed to land under low-visibility conditions. He said more than 80% of the U.S. fleet had been retrofitted, but a significant number of planes, including many operated by foreign airlines, have not been upgraded.

“This means on bad-weather, low-visibility days in particular, there could be increased delays and cancellations,” Buttigieg wrote. He said airlines with planes awaiting retrofitting should adjust their schedules to avoid stranding passengers.

Airlines say the FAA was slow to approve standards for upgrading the radio altimeters and supply-chain problems have made it difficult for manufacturers to produce enough of the devices. Nicholas Calio, head of the Airlines for America, complained about a rush to modify planes “amid pressure from the telecommunications companies.”

Jason Ambrosi, a Delta pilot and president of the Air Line Pilots Association, accused the FCC of granting 5G licenses without consulting aviation interests, which he said “has left the safest aviation system in the world at increased risk.” But, he said, “Ultimately, we will be able to address the impacts of 5G.”

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Associated Press Business Writer Michael Liedtke contributed to this story from San Ramon, California.

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July 2, 2023