Whale dies 3 months after move from Canada to Connecticut

August 6, 2021

FILE - In this Friday, May 14, 2021 file photo, Mystic Aquarium trainers play with a Beluga whale in Mystic, Conn. One of five beluga whales acquired from an aquarium in Canada after a legal fight with animal rights activists has died at its new home in Connecticut. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File)

MYSTIC, Conn. (AP) — One of five beluga whales acquired from an aquarium in Canada after a legal fight with animal rights activists has died at its new home in Connecticut.

Officials at Mystic Aquarium, which specializes in beluga research, said in a Facebook post that the male whale had arrived in May with a preexisting medical condition. It died Friday, despite “round-the-clock medical treatment, testing, and 24-hour monitoring,” the aquarium said in a statement.

“While he had shown signs of improvement from a gastrointestinal condition, we are deeply saddened to share that he passed away (Friday) morning,” the aquarium said. “This is a devastating loss for our staff and for the community, especially the animal care team who works closely with the belugas.”

The whale arrived in May with four others from Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario, after a lengthy battle to obtain permits from both the United States and Canada.

Connecticut-based Friends of Animals and other activists had sought to block the transport in a lawsuit last fall against the U.S. Commerce secretary and National Marine Fisheries Service, which had approved the research permit.

The group claimed the U.S. permit violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the National Environmental Policy Act because government officials did not adequately address the potential harm to the belugas from being moved to Mystic.

A federal judge in March declined to issue an injunction.

The whales, which range in age from 7 to 12, were born in captivity and left an overcrowded habitat with about 50 other whales to be at the center of important research designed to benefit belugas in the wild, aquarium officials said.

Belugas finally arrive at Mystic Aquarium after legal battle

By JESSICA HILL and PAT EATON-ROBB

May 14, 2021

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A Beluga whale is transported at Mystic Aquarium after arriving from Canada, Friday, May 14, 2021 in Mystic, Conn. A total of five Beluga whales from Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada will be moved to the aquarium. The whales will be leaving an overcrowded habitat with about 50 other whales and will be at the center of important research designed to benefit Belugas in the wild. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

MYSTIC, Conn. (AP) — Three Beluga whales arrived Friday night at their new home in a Connecticut aquarium after a legal battle to import them and two others from Canada.

The whales were flown from Ontario to Connecticut on Friday, secured in special stretchers inside individual tanks and accompanied by a veterinarian and other marine-life experts.

Accompanied by a police escort, they arrived in Mystic on three tractor-trailers at about 7:40 p.m., where they were lifted on their stretchers by cranes into their new habitat. The transfer from truck to habitat took about a half hour to complete.

The remaining two Belugas are set to arrive at Mystic Aquarium early Saturday from Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

Government officials from Fisheries and Oceans Canada last month approved the export of the whales, seven months after U.S. officials approved the move.

Connecticut-based Friends of Animals and other activists sought to block the transport in a lawsuit last fall against the U.S. Commerce secretary and National Marine Fisheries Service, which had approved the research permit. A federal judge in March declined to issue an injunction.

The whales, which range in age from 7 to 12, were born in captivity and officials said they cannot safely be released into the ocean.

Mystic officials said the five whales left an overcrowded habitat with about 50 other Belugas in Canada to join three other Belugas at the center of important research designed to benefit the species in the wild.

The animals will be trained to voluntarily give blood, saliva, blowhole air and other samples in exchange for rewards.

“Having eight animals certainly helps when trying to draw conclusions with the research,” said Tracy Romano, Mystic’s vice president of research and chief scientist. “It’s priceless to be able to work with trained animals and be able to get biological samples on a regular basis and all of this will help us interpret what we’re seeing in the wild and help with the management and conservation of the species.”

POLLUTER PAYES

Colorado mine owner seeks US compensation over 2015 spill
August 6, 2021

FILE - In this Aug. 14, 2015, file photo, water flows through a series of sediment retention ponds built to reduce heavy metal and chemical contaminants from the Gold King Mine wastewater accident, in the spillway downstream from the mine, outside Silverton, Colo. The owner of an inactive southwestern Colorado mine that was the source of a disastrous 2015 spill that fouled rivers in three Western states has filed a lawsuit seeking nearly $3.8 million in compensation for the federal government's use of his land in its ongoing cleanup response. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)


DURANGO, Colo. (AP) — The owner of an inactive southwestern Colorado mine that was the source of a disastrous 2015 spill that fouled rivers in three Western states has sued the U.S. government, seeking nearly $3.8 million in compensation for using his land in its cleanup.

Todd Hennis claims the Environmental Protection Agency has occupied part of his property near the Gold King Mine but hasn’t compensated him for doing so since the August 2015 spill, The Durango Herald reported. He also contends that the EPA contaminated his land by causing the spill, which sent a bright-yellow plume of arsenic, lead and other heavy metals into rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.

In the lawsuit filed Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Hennis argued that the EPA’s actions have violated his Fifth Amendment rights to just compensation for public use of private property.

The EPA didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday.

An EPA-led contractor crew was doing excavation work at the entrance to the mine when it inadvertently breached a debris pile that was holding back wastewater inside the mine.

The spill released 3 million gallons (11 million liters) of wastewater that made its way into the Animas River and eventually down to the San Juan River. Water utilities were forced to shut down intake valves, and farmers stopped drawing from the rivers as the plume moved downstream.

After the spill, the EPA designated the Gold King Mine and 47 other mining sites in the area a Superfund cleanup district. The agency is still reviewing options for a broader cleanup.

The lawsuit says Hennis verbally authorized the government to use part of a 33-acre (13-hectare) piece of land as an emergency staging area right after the blowout. He thought it would be temporary and that he would be compensated, according to the lawsuit.

Hennis claims that months later and without his permission, the EPA built a $2.3 million water treatment facility on the property. The agency continues treating water and storing waste there, the lawsuit says.

He’s asking for at least $3 million in compensation for damage to and occupation of the property, which he says is worth at least $3 million according to a private appraisal this year. The lawsuit also seeks interest.

In January, New Mexico and the Navajo Nation announced settlements in litigation over the spill with companies that had operated mines near Gold King. Last year, the U.S. government settled a lawsuit brought by Utah for a fraction of what it was initially seeking in damages.

Gulf of Mexico’s ‘dead zone’ larger than average this year
By The Associated Press

This year’s Gulf of Mexico “dead zone” — an area where there’s too little oxygen to support marine life — is larger than average, according to researchers.

Scientists supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration determined that the area off Louisiana and Texas’ coasts covers about 6,334 square miles (16,405 square kilometers), the agency said in a news release Tuesday.

Over the past five years, the average size of the low-oxygen, or hypoxic, zone has been 5,380 square miles (13,934 square kilometers). That’s 2.8 times larger than the goal set by a federal task force to reduce the five-year average to 1,900 square miles (4,921 square kilometers) or smaller by 2035.

Because year-to-year measurements can vary widely — this year’s zone is about three times the size of 2020’s — NOAA says a multiyear average “captures the true dynamic nature of the zone.”

 

This summer’s measurement was larger than the average-sized area that the agency predicted in June based on Mississippi River nitrogen and phosphorous runoff data.

River discharge that drained into the Gulf of Mexico was above normal for the three weeks before the weeklong survey started on July 25. It was conducted by scientists from Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.

“The distribution of the low dissolved oxygen was unusual this summer,” Nancy Rabalais, the lead investigator, said. “The low oxygen conditions were very close to shore with many observations showing an almost complete lack of oxygen.”

Human activities in urban and agricultural areas throughout the Mississippi River watershed primarily cause the annual “dead zone.” Excess nutrients flow into the Gulf of Mexico and stimulate an overgrowth of algae, which die and decompose. The algae deplete oxygen as they sink to the bottom.

NOAA highlighted efforts to reduce fertilizer runoff and other pollution from contributing to the hypoxic area. Radhika Fox, the Environmental Protection Agency’s assistant administrator for water, said climate change also needs to be considered to make progress.

“This year, we have seen again and again the profound effect that climate change has on our communities — from historic drought in the west to flooding events,” Fox said. “Climate is directly linked to water, including the flow of nutrient pollution into the Gulf of Mexico.”

SCHADENFRUEDE

This year’s summer of climate extremes hits wealthier places

By SETH BORENSTEIN and FRANK JORDANS

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FILE - In this Thursday, July 15, 2021, 2021 file photo, a regional train in the flood waters at the local station in Kordel, Germany, after it was flooded by the high waters of the Kyll river. This summer a lot of the places hit by weather disasters are not used to getting extremes and many of them are wealthier, which is different from the normal climate change victims. That includes unprecedented deadly flooding in Germany and Belgium, 116-degree heat records in Portland, Oregon and similar blistering temperatures in Canada, along with wildfires. Now Southern Europe is seeing scorching temperatures and out-of-control blazes too. And the summer of extremes is only getting started. Peak Atlantic hurricane and wildfire seasons in the United States are knocking at the door. (Sebastian Schmitt/dpa via AP, File)

As the world staggers through another summer of extreme weather, experts are noticing something different: 2021′s onslaught is hitting harder and in places that have been spared global warming’s wrath in the past.

Wealthy countries such as the United States, Canada, Germany and Belgium are joining poorer and more vulnerable nations on a growing list of extreme weather events that scientists say have some connection to human-caused climate change.

“It is not only a poor country problem, it’s now very obviously a rich country problem,” said Debby Guha-Sapir, founder of the international disaster database at the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. “They (the rich) are getting whacked.”

Killer floods hit China, but hundreds of people also drowned in parts of Germany and Belgium not used to being inundated. Canada and the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. had what climate scientist Zeke Hausfather called “scary” heat that soared well past triple digits in Fahrenheit and into the high 40s in Celsius, shattering records and accompanied by unusual wildfires. Now southern Europe is seeing unprecedented heat and fire.

And peak Atlantic hurricane and U.S. wildfire seasons are only just starting.

When what would become Hurricane Elsa formed on July 1, it broke last year’s record for the earliest fifth named Atlantic storm. Colorado State University has already increased its forecast for the number of named Atlantic storms — and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Wednesday said it was expecting one or two named storms more than it predicted in May.

For fire season, the U.S. West is the driest it has been since 1580, based on soil moisture readings and tree ring records, setting the stage for worsening fires if something ignites them, said UCLA climate and fire scientist Park Williams.

What happens with U.S. hurricane and fire seasons drives the end-of-year statistics for total damage costs of weather disasters, said Ernst Rauch, chief climate and geo scientist for insurance giant Munich Re. But so far this year, he said, wealthier regions have seen the biggest economic losses.

But when poorer countries are hit, they are less prepared and their people can’t use air conditioning or leave so there’s more harm, said Hausfather, climate director of the Breakthrough Institute. While hundreds of people died in the Pacific Northwest heat wave, he said the number would have been much higher in poor areas.

Madagascar, an island nation off East Africa, is in the middle of back-to-back droughts that the United Nations warns are pushing 400,000 people toward starvation.

Though it is too early to say the summer of 2021 will again break records for climate disasters, “We’re certainly starting to see climate change push extreme events into new territories where they haven’t been seen before,” Hausfather said.

The number of weather, water and climate disasters so far this year is only slightly higher than the average of recent years, said disaster researcher Guha-Sapir. Her group’s database, which she said still is missing quite a few events, shows 208 such disasters worldwide through July — about 11% more than the last decade’s average, but a bit less than last year.

Last year, the record-shattering heat that came out of nowhere was in Siberia, where few people live, but this year it struck Portland, Oregon, and British Columbia, which gets more Western media attention, Hausfather said.

What’s happening is “partly an increase in the statistics of these extreme events, but also just that the steady drumbeat, the pile on year-on-year ... takes its cumulative toll on all of us who are reading these headlines,” said Georgia Tech climate scientist Kim Cobb.

“This pattern of recent Northern Hemisphere summers has been really quite stark,” said University of Exeter climate scientist Peter Stott.

While the overall temperature rise is “playing out exactly as we said 20 years ago, ... what we are seeing in terms of the heat waves and the floods is more extreme than we predicted back then,” Stott said.

Climate scientists say there is little doubt climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas is driving extreme events.

A new study using satellite images of global flooding since 2000, shows that flooding worldwide hits 10 times as many people as previously thought. Wednesday’s study in the journal Nature finds that from 2000 to 2018 between 255 and 290 million people were directly affected by floods — which lead author Beth Tellman of the University of Arizona says is based on 913 floods with thousands more not counted because of satellite image problems.

Previous estimates showed far fewer people hit by flooding because they were based on computer simulations, rather than observations. The new study finds that population within flooded areas grew 34% since 2000, nearly twice as fast as those outside flooded areas.

Tellman identified 25 nations that are “climate surprise” countries that will have to cope far more with the flooding problems than they do now. Those countries include the U.S, as well as Germany, Belgium and China, which were hit by flooding this summer.

Aside from dramatic floods and fires, heat waves are a major risk to prepare for in the future, Guha-Sapir said.

“It’s going to be a very big deal in the Western countries because the most susceptible to sudden peaks of heat are older people. And the demographic profile of the people in Europe is very old,” she said. “Heat waves are going to be a real issue in the next few years.”

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Borenstein reported from Kensington, Maryland, and Jordans reported from Berlin.

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears and Frank Jordans at @wirereporter.

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Read stories on climate issues by The Associated Press at https://apnews.com/hub/climate

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Welcome back to Canada, ugly Americans

OPINION
Debby Waldman

EDMONTON, Alberta — When I heard in late June that my fellow Americans were angry that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cautious pandemic strategy meant keeping the Canada-U.S. border closed for at least another month, I wondered if his real plan was to shutter it until the Republicans repudiated former President Donald Trump and stopped threatening democracy.

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I ran the theory past my neighbors in Edmonton, where I’ve lived for 29 years. They snickered knowingly. One, a political scientist, agreed I was on to something.

Encouraged, I texted the idea to a friend in Washington, D.C.

“That is ridiculous,” he shot back, pointing out that Americans and Canadians from Maine to Vancouver were equally outraged about the ongoing closure, which has separated people from their loved ones and is destroying local economies in both countries. “This is beyond politics,” he added.

Then he apologized for being grumpy and asked a question that has nagged at me ever since: “Do a lot of people in Edmonton really see America's messed-up politics as a reason to keep the border closed?"

I don’t know — and Trudeau made clear that it wasn’t a matter of democratic values when he announced the border was finally reopening to fully vaccinated Americans on Aug. 9. But America’s messed-up politics are definitely making me reassess my feelings about my erstwhile homeland, something I never imagined possible.

I’m a second-generation American, the grandchild of immigrants who fled Eastern Europe with more optimism than money. Growing up, I was proud to be from what I believed was the greatest country in the world. When I traveled abroad for the first time during college I discovered the Ugly American stereotype, but it didn’t bother me; I knew most of us weren’t like that.

I want to believe most of us still aren’t, but being confined to this side of the border, watching as Trump repeatedly lies that he won the election and millions of Americans believe him (including federal legislators who took an oath to uphold the Constitution) is testing my faith. I learned about the storming of the U.S. Capitol in January in a snarky text from a Canadian relative: “How is America today? Is this a banana republic in Central America?”

Watching what looks like the slow death of American democracy doesn’t exactly engender pride. Especially disconcerting is that I can’t tell if my feelings have shifted because my perspective has changed or the U.S. has. In the past, a trip over the border to visit family and friends would remind me that there’s more to the U.S. than bad news about bad politics.

But the pandemic has confined me to this side of the border, surrounded by people who, like me, are appalled at what’s happening down south. Watching the news in Edmonton in what is essentially a progressive echo chamber makes me grateful to be a Canadian citizen, something I would not have thought possible when I moved here in 1992.

Back then I was a reluctant immigrant — I used to joke that I was dragged here kicking and screaming by my husband, a Canadian who was offered a good job in his hometown. I had never wanted or intended to live anywhere except the U.S. But while I’m well aware of Canada’s shortcomings — among them its systemic mistreatment of First Nations peoples and, in my province of Alberta, a shockingly laissez-faire attitude about Covid-19 — the country grew on me for a number of reasons, including its open-minded population, sensible gun and banking regulations, taxpayer-funded health care, relatively affordable college tuition and an immigration policy that celebrates multiculturalism.

I also noticed something I’d totally missed while living in the U.S.: our troubled family dynamic. The U.S. is the bolder, brash, attention-grabbing sibling; Canada the quieter, gentler one. In 1969, then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (Justin’s father) defined the relationship this way in a speech to the press club in Washington: “Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”

During the Trump administration, the beast was neither friendly nor even-tempered. Trump imposed tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum imports, insulting Canada in the process by calling the move a matter of “national security.” He demonized NAFTA, the trade deal that sealed the U.S. and Canada’s economic interdependence. And in a textbook case of projection, he labeled the younger Trudeau as “dishonest,” “weak” and “two-faced.”

I know plenty of Americans are also frustrated about having to live every day with Trump’s legacy of divisiveness. That makes me feel lucky to have wound up on this side of the border and guilty for feeling that way, like I imagine Titanic survivors felt after watching the ship sink from the comfort of their lifeboats.

“It’s a complex country,” my D.C. friend told me by way of assuring me that things aren’t as bad as they look on the nightly news or what is filtered through my judgmental Canadian neighbors and relatives. But I’ll believe him when I see it. ​​While Canadian businesses eagerly welcome vaccinated American tourists (even the ugly ones), I’m eager to take a trip in the other direction.

I need to experience firsthand the complexity that my friend spoke of. Doing so, I hope, will confirm there is more to my homeland than the anger and polarization that are making a mockery of E Pluribus Unum and threatening everything that, once upon a time, made me believe it was great. Which is why, despite my glib assessment about Trudeau keeping the border closed, I'm more than ready for it to open.

PRIMAL FEAR UNDER PATRIARCHY
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was afraid she was going to be raped during the Capitol riot: 'I didn't think I was just going to be killed'

ssheth@businessinsider.com (Sonam Sheth,Eliza Relman) 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told CNN she was afraid she'd be raped during the Capitol siege.

"I didn't think that I was just going to be killed," she told CNN's Dana Bash.

The New York lawmaker previously compared people downplaying the riot to abusers of women.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York told CNN's Dana Bash that she was afraid she was going to be raped and killed on January 6, when a mob of pro-Trump insurrectionists laid siege to the US Capitol in a failed effort to overturn the 2020 US election results.

"One of the reasons why that impact was so double that day is because of the misogyny and the racism that is so deeply rooted and animated the attack on the Capitol," Ocasio-Cortez told Bash in an interview for CNN's new series "Being," which is set to air in full Monday at 9 p.m. ET.

"White supremacy and patriarchy are very linked in a lot of ways," the New York congresswoman continued. "There's a lot of sexualizing of that violence, and I didn't think that I was just going to be killed. I thought other things were going to happen to me as well."

Bash replied: "So it sounds like what you're telling me right now is that you didn't only think that you were going to die - you thought you were going to be raped."

"Yeah," Ocasio-Cortez said. "Yeah, I thought I was."

While recounting her experience of the Capitol riot, Ocasio-Cortez publicly revealed on Instagram Live in February that she'd previously been sexually assaulted, and she compared Republicans who downplayed the riot and urged the country to move on to abusers.

"They're trying to tell us to move on without any accountability, without any truth-telling, or without confronting the extreme damage, loss of life, trauma," Ocasio-Cortez said then. "The reason I say this, and the reason I'm getting emotional is because they told us to move on, that it's not a big deal, that we should forget what happened, or even telling us to apologize. These are the tactics of abusers."


The 31-year-old lawmaker, who's become a lightning rod for conservative criticism and a top target for death threats, said in the February Instagram Live that she thought her congressional office was being attacked on January 6. She and a staffer hid inside her office as someone who they thought was a rioter pounded on the door. The person turned out to be a Capitol Police officer, who Ocasio-Cortez said didn't identify himself.

Ocasio-Cortez recounted being terrified that she was going to be murdered as she hid in the bathroom in her office.

"I thought I was going to die," she said. "I have never been quieter in my entire life."

Against Our Will (susanbrownmiller.com)

Women send powerful message in Olympic track and field
By EDDIE PELLS

August 8, 2021

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The United States team of Allyson Felix, Athing Mu, Dalilah Muhammad and Sydney Mclaughlin, from left, celebrate winning the gold medal in the final of the women's 4 x 400-meter relay at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)


TOKYO (AP) — They set records everyone saw coming and others that surprised the experts.

They suffered, and battled, and spoke their truth in ways that hadn’t been heard before.

Over nine days at the near-empty Olympic Stadium, the women of track and field delivered a memorable show, both inside the lines and out.

These are some of the athletes who defined the meet in Tokyo: Allyson Felix, Sydney McLaughlin, Sifan Hassan, Raven Saunders, Elaine Thompson-Herah.

Theirs was a sport in need of a good boost, not only because of the year-long delay sparked by the virus, but because no matter when they returned, Usain Bolt would no longer draw eyes to the track simply by showing up.

The women delivered — not so much with the feel-good, dance-a-minute vibe that Bolt brought, but with a series of inspiring performances and messages that showed the heart of their sport was still beating strong.

Some highlights included:

Gold medalist Sifan Hassan, of Netherlands, kisses her medal during the medal ceremony for the women's 10,000-meters at the 2020 Olympics. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

— Hassan and her unrelenting journey toward three medals — two gold and one bronze

 — in three of the longest races held on the track.

She started with gold in the 5,000 meters, then came back with bronze in the 1,500. She closed the show Saturday with a gold-medal run in the 10,000 — one in which her vision was so clouded by exhaustion that she admitted she could not see the finish line.

“I’m so happy,” she said after the odyssey — six races over eight nights covering 65 laps and 24 kilometers — was finally complete “I’m relieved. I’m finished. I can sleep.”

Sydney McLaughlin, of the United States, wins the women's 400-meter hurdles final at the 2020 Summer Olympics. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

— McLaughlin, whose back-and-forth duals in the 400-meter hurdles with U.S. teammate Dalilah Muhammad reached a crescendo at the Olympics.

It was a race that had been much-anticipated and all but preordained to again reset the world record that one or the other had broken in three previous showdowns.

And they lived up to the hype. McLaughlin lowered her own mark to 51.46 seconds. Just as impressively, Muhammad’s silver-medal time of 51.58 would have been a world record, too.

“I think it’s two athletes wanting to be their best,” McLaughlin said, “and knowing there’s another great girl who’s going to help you get there.”

— The sprinters were fast through the leadup to the Olympics, so it wasn’t all that surprising to see that pace keep going in Tokyo.

Elaine Thompson-Herah, of Jamaica, wins the final of the women's 200-meters at the 2020 Summer Olympics. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

But while most of the pre-Games buzz went to Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (100) and American Gabby Thomas (200), each of whom briefly staked their claim as the second-fastest women in history at their respective distances, it was Thompson-Herah who wound up there in the end.

After a slow start to the season because of an Achilles injury, Thompson-Herah swept the 100 and 200 sprints for the second straight time. One more like that and she’ll match Bolt.

She ran the 200 in 21.53 and set the Olympic record in the 100: 10.61 seconds. Though that record might not be the most formidable of the marks Florence Griffith Joyner set a generation ago, in 1988, it had been around every bit as long.

Flo Jo’s world records of 10.49 and 21.34 still stand. But for how long?

“By the Olympic finish, I’ll probably see what I’ve done,” said Thompson-Herah, who at 29, assures us she is not done yet. “At this moment, I’m just a normal girl.”

Raven Saunders, of the United States, poses with her silver medal on women's shot put at the 2020 Summer Olympics. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

— The story of Raven Saunders was inspiration for anyone who has been overlooked or left behind. The Black, gay American shot putter started wearing “Incredible Hulk” masks to the field — a way of projecting her fierce competitive spirit, but also a lighter side underneath.

After she received her silver medal, Saunders crossed her arms and formed an “X” on the medals stand. “The intersection of where all people who are oppressed meet,” she explained.

It was the sort of message many believe should not only be tolerated, but embraced, when Olympic athletes get their all-too-short time in the spotlight. The IOC, which after much debate and discussion over the past two years still chose to ban such demonstrations, said it would look into it. Any probe was set aside when Saunders’ mother died unexpectedly only hours after she won the medal.

— And Felix closed the show.

For five Olympics spanning 16 — make that 17 — years, she was epitome of class and speed. At 35 years old, she called it a career, but not without doing what she does better than any runner alive: Winning medals.

Her bronze in the 400 and gold in the 4x400 relay gave her 11. She now has more than any track athlete in history, save a Finnish distance runner, Paavo Nurmi, who won 12 between 1920 and 1928.

Felix has more to do. Since having her baby, Cammy, in 2018 she has transformed herself into one of the most outspoken advocates for women in sports.

“I feel like it’s definitely been a journey for me to get to the point where I guess I had the courage to do so,” Felix said.

She earned the platform with two decades of racing in which she won some, and lost some, and kept on coming back for more.

Now, it’s time to see who takes her place.

Earlier in the meet, someone asked Muhammad, the hurdler, what she thought about all this women’s dominance at the track - of America’s seven gold medals in track and field, they won five.

“Women do it better,” she quipped.

After watching them conquer records, overcome obstacles and make their messages heard over nine days and nights at the Olympic track, it was hard to say she was wrong.

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More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2020-tokyo-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Russian rhythmic dynasty topples, Bulgaria gets the gold

By CLAIRE GALOFARO

August 8, 2021

Russian Olympic Committee's rhythmic gymnastics' team performs during the rhythmic gymnastics group all-around final at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Sunday, Aug. 8, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

TOKYO (AP) — The Russian rhythmic gymnastics juggernaut collapsed at the Tokyo Olympics, with dramatic back-to-back losses that sparked furious allegations of injustice in a sport famous for twinkling costumes, techno remixes and hoops looping through the air.

Russia had won every gold medal in rhythmic gymnastics since 2000. But it’s total defeat this year began Saturday, when Linoy Ashram of Israel won gold in the individual competition, edging out of a pair of Russian identical twins who were the favorites heading into Tokyo. Dina Averina placed second and her sister, Arina, fell to fourth.

In Sunday’s group competition, Russia tumbled again into second place, losing the gold to Bulgaria. Italy took the bronze medal.

“It’s so unreal, we cannot believe it. I don’t know what to say,” Bulgarian gymnast Stefani Kiryakova said. “This is the happiest moment ever.”

The rhythmic gymnastics group finals are a two-part competition for groups of five women. Part ballet, part gymnastics, part circus, the event begins with the teams dancing with balls, then moves on to a set of hoops and clubs.

Bulgaria pulled ahead after the first routine, performed to a lively Bulgarian folk song called “Water Cosmos Earth.” Their orange-red balls looked like fire as they soared through the air. The Russians performed to traditional opera in pink, blue and gold costumes that made them look like spinning toy dolls.

The group performances, each a spectacle of 2 1/2 minutes, are so packed with flying objects and women twisting and cartwheeling across each other it’s difficult for the untrained eye to comprehend its acrobatic intricacies. The gymnasts often move as perfect mirrors of each other, like synchronized swimmers without water.

Italy’s bronze medal-winning team is known as “the butterflies,” and gymnast Alessia Maurelli said they spend years learning to move as one.

“We are only one thing, only one person, only one butterfly,” she said.

In the second round of the group competition, the teams throw and catch three hoops and two pairs of clubs. Bulgaria performed in dazzling red corset-like costumes to the soundtrack from the ballet Spartacus. The gymnasts spun over each other with hoops around their ankles, windmilling them across the competition floor to be caught by teammates dozens of feet away.

The Russians hoped to pull ahead with a performance to another opera composition, spinning and throwing the hoops and clubs in perfect synchronization. At one point, three gymnasts bent at the waist, and their teammate rolled across their backs.

But as the scores appeared on the arena’s screen, the Russian gymnasts wept, one dropped her head into hands as the Bulgarians jumped in shocked triumph.

“We have very mixed emotions, of course there is joy but there is also sadness,” Russian gymnast Anastasiia Maksimova said after the competition, tears still in her eyes. “We competed at our maximum and we were fighting for our country, we were fighting for our individual gymnasts, we were fighting for our team, and we were fighting for our coaches. We did what we could.”

The reaction back home in Russia has been brutal. The country is barred from using its name, flag or anthem at the Olympics because of a doping scandal. Its athletes compete under the banner of ROC, short for Russian Olympic Committee.

Social media discussions have been full of allegations of a conspiracy to hurt Russia’s medal count and some lawmakers have weighed in with their own theories. Head coach Irina Viner-Usmanova told the RIA Novosti state news agency Sunday that “everyone understood perfectly well that this was meant to happen, that Russia’s hegemony had to be stopped.”

The very night an Israeli won the individual competition, ROC president Stanislav Pozdnyakov called on the International Gymnastics Federation to do an inquiry into the judging.

“Our staff and lawyers have already drawn up a request and sent it to the leadership of the International Gymnastics Federation,” Pozdnyakov wrote on Instagram Saturday.

Dina Averina, the 22-year-old gymnast who won the silver medal, also said shortly after the competition that she believed the judges had not been fair to her from the very start of the competition, when Ashram quickly took the lead. The post-Olympic photo she chose to post on her Instagram captures her in the moment she learned she’d lost, still in a bedazzled red leotard and a tight bun atop her head, standing with her arms crossed and her brow furrowed.

She later gave an emotional interview with sports broadcaster Match TV: “It hurts and it’s painful that there was unfair judging today,” she said, and noted that Ashram dropped her ribbon near the end of the competition, a major mistake in the sport. “I got through all of the disciplines more or less cleanly, properly, and came second. I’m hurt by the injustice, I support honest sport.”

Russian teammate Anastasia Bliznyuk, who performed as part of the five-woman group, also said after Sunday’s competition that they executed their difficult routine without any major mistakes, and usually when they do so, they win.

But not this time.

The winners who took home gold instead of the Russians said they felt like they were in a dream.

“It means everything,” Kiryakova said. “We put so much into these five years, so much work. We always believed we would be here, but it’s still so unreal.”

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AP Sports Writer James Ellingworth contributed to this report.

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Michigan  Court extends intimidation crime to Transgender's victims

DETROIT (AP) — A Michigan law that prohibits intimidation based on gender covers people who are transgender, the state Court of Appeals said Thursday.

The court ruled in the case of a transgender woman who was shot in the shoulder after being confronted by a man at a Detroit gas station.

The man “engaged in harassment and intimidation of the complainant based on her gender. He showed her a loaded gun and threatened to kill her, causing her to fear for her life,” judges Michael Gadola and James Redford said.

Michigan law makes it a crime to maliciously harass another person because of race, color, religion, gender or national origin. Physical contact is another factor to consider.

The alleged acts by Deonton Rogers were “gender-based within the ‘traditional’ understanding of that term, and harassing someone on the basis of their male gender — whether perceived or actual — falls within the prohibitions of the statute,” the court said.

Judge Deborah Servitto wrote a separate concurring opinion. The court reinstated an ethnic intimidation charge against Rogers.

“This is a huge win for the protection of the transgender community,” Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy said.

Defense attorney David Cripps said he was reviewing the decision and considering his next steps.

Rogers had won an earlier ruling from the appeals court. But the Michigan Supreme Court told the court to take another look at the case, after a 2020 opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court about employment protections for gay and transgender individuals.

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US Black Baptist group renews historic calls for civil rights
By PETER SMITH

August 6, 2021

The Progressive National Baptist Convention this week marked the 60th anniversary of its forging in the heat of the civil rights movement, citing its founders as inspiring new calls for racial justice, against voter suppression and in favor of critical race theory.

The historically Black denomination held a virtual annual convention with a series of worship services, panel discussions and votes on policy resolutions.

It denounced voting restrictions approved in multiple Republican-led statehouses, comparing these efforts in a resolution to past suppression of the Black vote.

“There is not a voter fraud problem in the United States,” the resolution said, rebutting the justification often used for restrictive voting laws. “There is a voter suppression problem in the United States.”

The denomination also voiced support for critical race theory, which has been a target of religious and political conservatives.

The resolution disputed claims that the theory is even being taught in elementary and secondary schools, saying it is primarily a graduate-level topic.

But the resolution said the theory is valuable for focusing on how “systemic, institutional racism has been at work in every aspect of American life since before the nation was even formed.”

Another resolution called for passage of a long-pending bill in Congress that would require studying the issue of reparations for African Americans due to the impact of slavery and discrimination.

And a resolution declared that gentrification — in which poorer residents often are priced out of their neighborhoods after wealthier people and businesses move in — to amount to a “state of emergency in Black America which requires a righteous action agenda,” including private and government funding to counteract its impacts.

The convention, with churches across the United States, the Caribbean and other lands, was founded in 1961 in a split from the larger National Baptist Convention USA.

Founders included the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his supporters, who wanted their denomination to put its full support behind the civil rights movement.

The Progressive National Baptist Convention “was born … as a freedom-fighting movement,” said the Rev. Frederick Haynes, co-chair of its social justice commission and senior pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas. “It was born seeking justice.”

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

ORBAN FINE WITH FOX & FRIENDS

Hungary adds new restrictions on sale of LGBT-themed books

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary’s government on Friday ordered booksellers to place children’s books that depict homosexuality in “closed packaging,” the latest move in an escalating campaign that rights groups have decried as an assault on the LGBT community.

The order also forbids the public display of products that depict or promote gender deviating from sex at birth, and bans the sale of all books or media content that depict homosexuality or gender change within 200 meters (650 feet) of a school or church.

The decree came after Hungary’s parliament passed a law in June forbidding the display of homosexual content to minors, a move that was seen by critics of the country’s government as an attempt to stigmatize lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Hungary’s right-wing populist prime minister, Viktor Orban, says the measures - which were attached to a law that allows tougher penalties for pedophilia - seek only to protect children.

But critics of the legislation compare it to Russia’s gay propaganda law of 2013, and say it conflates homosexuality with pedophilia as part of a campaign ploy to mobilize conservative voters ahead of elections next spring.

Many politicians in the European Union, of which Hungary is a member, have slammed the legislation. The executive Commission of the 27-nation bloc launched two separate legal proceedings against Hungary’s government in July over what it called infringements on LGBT rights.

The measures have some writers and booksellers in Hungary on edge, unsure if they would face prosecution if minors end up with books that contain plots, characters or information discussing sexual orientation or gender identity.

In July, authorities fined the distributor of a children’s book that features families headed by same-sex parents, arguing it contained “content which deviates from the norm.”