Editors, USA TODAY
Published 3:34 a.m. ET Aug. 28, 2018
Final 3 states hold primaries as midterm election approaches
Voters will go to the polls in Arizona, Florida and Oklahoma Tuesday to choose the final match-ups in several competitive races that could help determine control of the U.S. House and Senate in the general midterm election in November. The blockbuster race to watch: Arizona’s Republican Senate race. As Arizonans grapple with the death of their beloved senator, John McCain, voters will decide if one of his chief critics will be their nominee to replace retiring Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake. Kelli Ward, one of three Republicans competing, suggested on Facebook that the announcement that McCain had stopped seeking medical treatment for his brain cancer was designed to hurt her campaign. After intense criticism for the post, she then compared “political correctness” to cancer.
Here’s what you need to know about Arizona’s Senate candidates: Kyrsten Sinema, Deedra Abboud, Joe Arpaio, Martha McSally and Kelli Ward. Carly Henry, The Republic | azcentral.com
Entertainment complex to reopen 2 days after tragic shooting
The entertainment complex in Jacksonville, Florida, that was sight of a tragic shooting rampage that left two people dead – and the gunman – and wounded 11 others Sunday plans to reopen for business Tuesday. The violence broke out during a Madden NFL 19 video game tournament that was held in a gaming bar that shared space with the Chicago Pizza and Sports Grille in the Jacksonville Landing complex along the St. Johns River in Jacksonville. It was not clear when Chicago Pizza or the gaming room would open. Authorities continue to investigate the motive behind the killings by the shooter who also killed himself.
Summer hangs on as heat wave bakes central, eastern U.S.
Though September is only a few days away, intense summertime heat and humidity will bake portions of the central and eastern U.S. Tuesday and for the next few days. As of late Monday, some 70 million Americans lived where a heat advisory or warning had been issued. High temperature records could be broken in the Northeast and thanks to stifling humidity, the heat index will approach or exceed 100 degrees in many locations, according to the National Weather Service. Extreme heat and humidity can be dangerous so take precautions and stay safe.
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Large swaths of the country are gearing up for — or already weathering — a major heat wave this week Time
Controversy still surrounds Emmett Till’s death on anniversary of his murder
Decades after his Aug. 28, 1955 death in Money, Miss., the FBI is reexamining the brutal murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago accused of insulting a white woman. Till was with his cousins when he walked into Bryant’s Grocery to buy bubble gum. Though Carolyn Bryant (now Donham), who was working at the store, testified that Till aggressively grabbed her, his cousin said Till only whistled at her as they left. Bryant’s husband, Roy, and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, abducted Till four days later and were tried and acquitted in his murder. A 1954 Look magazine article, widely regarded as a confession by Milam and Roy Bryant, has been disputed by historians for leaving out critical details that conceal others involved. A 2017 book claimed Donham confessed that her story was false but her family has since claimed she never gave a confession.
Far-right activists have clashed with anti-facists in the eastern German town of Chemnitz following the murder of a German national of Cuban origin over the weekend.
A man, identified as Daniel H by local media, was stabbed during an argument on Saturday. Two men, of Syrian and Iraqi origin, have been arrested by the police.
On Sunday, around 800 far-right activists rallied on the streets to protest the stabbing. But those who knew Daniel have accused the far-right of exploiting his death for their own benefit.
“I think it’s horrible what’s happening here in Chemnitz, and I hope that they know who they’re doing this march for,” Daniel’s friend, Nancy Larssen, told Deutsche Welle (DW).
Assimilation Nation | People and Power
“I think it’s sad that in the media they’re just saying that a German has died, and that’s why all the neo-Nazis and hooligans are out, but the media should describe who died, and what skin colour he had, because I don’t think they’d be doing all this if they knew.”
State and local officials appealed for calm as thousands of people took to the streets in Monday’s protests that turned violent after injuries caused by fireworks thrown from both sides.
Local media reported Neo-Nazis performing the Nazi salute, and local TV showed footage of skinheads chasing a man.
“The scenes of people going after those who look like foreigners scare us. We want to show that Chemnitz has another side that is cosmopolitan and opposes xenophobia,” Tim Detzner, head of the radical left party in Chemnitz, said at the anti-fascist rally.
Demonstrators waving German and Bavarian flags were also present nearby, some breaking through police barriers aimed at keeping the two sides apart.
Spokesperson for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s said Germany would not tolerate “vigilante justice”.
“We don’t tolerate such unlawful assemblies and the hounding of people who look different or have different origins, and attempts to spread hatred on the streets,” Steffen Seibert said at a regular news briefing.
The far-right has surged across Europe during the continent’s migrant crisis and increasing political rhetoric against Islam.
Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is now the main opposition party, and Merkel faces opposition within her governing coalition for her immigration policies.
More than a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East have sought refuge in Germany since 2015.
Who was Emmett Till?
Born in Chicago, he was the only son of Mamie Till, a Mississippi native whose family moved to Chicago as part of the Great Migration. At age 6, he developed polio, which left him with a stutter. Despite the setback, he remained outgoing. He liked to play baseball, ride bicycles and fish with his cousins and friends. He loved having fun so much that he would pay people to tell him jokes. In August 1955, he traveled to Mississippi for a vacation with his cousin, Wheeler Parker. The boys stayed at the home of Parker’s grandfather, Moses Wright, in Money.
Was this his first trip to Mississippi? No, his mother said this was his fourth trip.
What did he do in Mississippi?
He picked cotton with his cousins during the day and on Aug. 27, 1955, the Saturday night of their visit, the cousins went to the bigger town of Greenwood, 10 miles away. “It was like the Fourth of July,” recalled Parker.
What happened at Bryant’s Grocery & Meat Market? Emmett Till and his cousins visited the store on the evening of Aug. 24, 1955. Exactly what happened inside the store remains a matter of debate. Till’s cousins say he did nothing more than whistle at Carolyn Bryant. She initially told defense lawyers that Till grabbed her hand, asked her for a date, said goodbye and whistled at her. But when she appeared in court weeks later, she testified that Till had grabbed her with both hands on her waist and told her that he had had sex with white women, uttering an obscenity.
What happened next? In the early hours of Aug. 28, four days after the incident at the store, Carolyn Bryant’s husband, Roy, and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, showed up with guns at the home of Moses Wright. They took Till away and along with other men brutally beat Till before shooting him to death.Till’s body was dumped into the Tallahatchie River and found on Aug. 31, 1955.
Where was Till beaten? In a barn on a plantation southwest of Drew in the Mississippi Delta. Milam reportedly beat Till with his .45 automatic pistol. Others reportedly joined in.
Where was Till killed? Milam told Look magazine writer William Bradford Huie that he shot Till to death near Glendora, but Milam and Roy Bryant both later admitted they had killed Till in the same barn where he was beaten.
Was anyone else involved? Sharecropper Willie Reed reported seeing four white men in the front of a white-topped green Chevy pickup with Till in the back. Milam’s brother, Leslie, is regarded as a main suspect. He ran the plantation where the killing took place. The FBI also identified Elmer Kimbell and Melvin Campbell in its investigation.
Who fired the fatal bullet? Huie put the blame on Milam. Donham told the FBI that she had been told her brother-in-law, Melvin Campbell, fired the fatal bullet.
Were any black field hands involved? Reed reported seeing three black field hands in the back of the pickup, guarding Till. Names that have emerged afterward included Levi “Too Tight” Collins, Oso Johnson and Henry Lee Loggins. When questioned, Collins and Loggins denied involvement. Johnson’s son told the FBI that his father had said he was with Milam and Bryant that night. Another name that arose was Willie Hubbard. Some reports suggested the field hands cleaned blood from the barn, spread cottonseed to conceal the crime and later cleaned blood from the truck. Most experts agree that the field hands did not participate voluntarily.
Were the field hands really jailed to keep them from testifying? That is what one defense lawyer told Florida State University graduate student Stephen Whitaker — that Collins and Loggins were hidden in jail during the trial so they couldn’t be located as witnesses.
How do we know that the body found in the Tallahatchie River was Till’s? His mother positively identified her son’s body. In 2005, DNA tests confirmed the body found was indeed Till’s.
What inspired Emmett Till’s mother to have his casket open at his funeral? She may have gotten the idea from the widow of George Lee, an African-American minister who was shot dead in Belzoni after he kept helping register black voters in the Mississippi Delta. More than 1,000 people attended his funeral, where Lee’s widow, Rosebud, opened the casket so that people could see that her husband had been shot in the face with shotgun pellets (which the sheriff claimed were fillings from his teeth). Photos of Till’s open casket ran in the Chicago Defender.
Was Till castrated? No. A 2005 exhumation and autopsy confirmed he wasn’t castrated.
Did Tallahatchie County Sheriff Clarence Strider really testify for the defense? Yes, he did. After initially identifying the body as Till’s, he took the witness stand weeks later, telling the jury that the body he found in the Tallahatchie River had been in the water for 10 to 15 days and that he couldn’t tell if the body was black or white.
What happened to Milam and Bryant after the trial? At first, the killers profited from their crime. They sold their story to reporter William Bradford Huie for $3,150. But after the story appeared, the two men suffered from the publicity. Milam was forced to move to Texas because he couldn’t get loans. In 1965, he and his wife, Juanita, moved to Greenville, Miss., where he worked as a heavy equipment operator. Bryant gave up his store and became a welder, eventually becoming blind. In 1979, his wife, Carolyn, divorced him, in part, because of his abuse. After returning to the Mississippi Delta to run a store, he wound up in prison, not for murder, but for food stamp fraud. In the end, both Milam and Bryant died of cancer.
What happened to the others reportedly involved? Leslie Milam, who managed the plantation where Till was beaten and killed, lost his job after the 1955 trial. According to the FBI, he confessed on his deathbed that he had been involved in Till’s murder. Later in 1955, Kimbell, who was reportedly with the killers that night, shot to death a black man, Clinton Melton, in Glendora after Melton supposedly put in too much gas in his car. An all-white jury acquitted him. Carolyn Bryant Donham told the FBI that Kimbell walked in with J.W. Milam and Bryant when they arrived with Till. Melvin Campbell’s widow told the FBI that her husband had admitted his involvement in the crime.
What happened to Emmett Till’s mother? She continued to speak out about her son’s case, wanting to make sure his death was remembered and never repeated. Although she never had any more children, she remained dedicated to education and other issues involving children. She taught in Chicago schools and formed the Emmett Till Players to teach children to memorize and recite the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. Two years after the trial, she married Gene Mobley, her staunchest supporter. To keep her son’s legacy alive, she co-wrote a play with David Barr, The State of Mississippi vs Emmett Till, and co-authored her memoir with Christopher Benson, Death of Innocence: The Hate Crime That Changed America. Two weeks before the national premiere of the documentary, The Murder of Emmett Till, which would help bring her son’s case back to the fore, she died of heart failure at the age of 81.
Sources: “Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement” by Devery Anderson; “Death of Innocence: The Hate Crime That Changed America” by Mamie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson; FBI report on Emmett Till investigation
Dumped Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said he will quit parliament this week in another headache for Australia’s rattled government which will temporarily lose its one-seat majority.
He told supporters on Monday he will resign from Parliament on Friday, a week after he was forced from office by legislators in his conservative Liberal Party because he had lost their support.
“As you know, my prime ministership has come to an end. The circumstances have appalled most Australians but again, I won’t labour the point,” he told the Monday meeting, Fairfax reported.
“I have a strong view which I’ve made very clear publicly so it comes as no surprise, that former prime ministers are best out of parliament not in it, and I think recent events best underline the value of that observation.
“And so, accordingly, on Friday, I will resign from the House of Representatives.”
His resignation could set the stage for an October 6 by-election.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison could also call general elections, although he has said he plans to hold polls close to when an election is due in May.
Turnbull became the fourth prime minister to be dumped by his or her own party since 2010 in response to poor opinion polling.
Opinion polling by respected Newspoll published on Monday found that government popular support has crashed to its lowest level in a decade due to the infighting.
The poll found that only 33 percent of respondents intended to vote for the government, a tie with a poll in 2008 when the Liberal Party was in opposition a year after being voted out of power.
The poll was based on a survey of 1,783 voters nationwide from Friday when the leadership changed until Sunday.
Turnbull’s seat in the wealthy Sydney enclave of Wentworth is traditionally a Liberal safe haven, although a backlash against the government’s political infighting could make this less certain.
Scott Morrison in as new prime minister of Australia
Brandi Davison-Edralin, wife of Cloyd Edralin, speaks out about how his detainment affected her and their four children. Steph Solis, @stephmsolis
Three or four times a week, Brandi Edralin steps into her 2002 Volvo and drives 25 miles from her home in Highland Parkto the federal immigration detention center inElizabeth.
She gets in line and waits, sometimes up to an hour and a half,to enter a visitors’ room where she’ll meet her husband, Cloyd Edralin, for an hour before he is sent back to his cell.
They talk about their children and their softball games, and about things that need to be donearound the house now that Cloyd, 47,isn’t around to do the handiwork. And inevitably, Cloyd — a green card holder whose detention was triggered by an 11-year-old conviction for possessing a pistol that fires plastic pellets — frets about his legal battle to avoid deportation to the Philippines.
“When they hear about immigrants in detention, the assumption is they’re illegal,” said Brandi Edralin, 45, a U.S. citizen. “It’s not a black-and-white situation. The general public’s ignorance is so frustrating to me.”
The Edralins’ new ritual is a byproduct of federal immigration policy under the Trump administration, which has targeted not only undocumented immigrants but also green card holders and other legal immigrants for deportation, often on the basis of decades-old convictions. Now the administration is considering a policy that would broaden the pool of legal residents at risk of deportation by punishing those who have used food stamps, Medicaid, transit subsidies and other forms of “public welfare” to which they are entitled.
The U.S. government issues more thana million new green cards every year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. By some estimates, there are nearly 20 million green card holders in the country, though it is not clear how many of those live in New Jersey. Of the nearly 1.2 million green cards issued in 2016, the most recent year for which data are available, just over 56,000 were issued to New Jersey residents, DHS says.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman said the agency does not track how many green card holders are deported, but several stories have surfaced in mediareports of green card holders and undocumented immigrants with long-resolved, often low-level convictions — or no convictions at all — being detained by immigration agents.
“This is shockingly weird for the government to be playing the morality police on things that happened a long time ago,” said the Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale of the Reformed Church of Highland Park, which has provided sanctuary to undocumented immigrants targeted by ICE. “It’s clearly not because of the concern for the safety of the public. They’re concerned with racially and ethnically cleansing this country.”
Cloyd Edralinentered the United States on a green card in 1988 and was able to renew it repeatedly, even after his 2007 arrest on drug and firearm possession charges in January 2007. He was convicted of unlawful possession of an airsoft pistol, which fires plastic pellets, and was sentenced to probation, according to New Jersey criminal court records.
Brandi Edralin said her husband completed his sentence and also paid several fines.
Neither had given the incident much thoughtuntil he was arrested on June 4 as he was leaving home to go to his new job as a machinist, joining a growing list of legal residents who are being detained by immigration authorities over old criminal convictions.
In late 2016, Isidro Quintana, a Mexican green card holder from Aurora, Colorado, was flagged by immigration authorities while he was traveling because of a 1996 marijuana-related conviction, according to Denverite, a news website.He was detained by ICE after President Donald Trump took office in 2017.
Quintana had other charges, including a 1996 domestic violence conviction. An immigration judge granted him a reprieve from deportation in May 2017.
A receptionist for Quintana’s attorney, Weldon Caldbeck, confirmed he worked on the case but said he wasn’t available for comment.
In January, a 43-year-oldPolish doctor and green card holder, who came to the United States with his family when he was 5,was arrested in Michigan after dropping off his daughter at school. The doctor, Lukasz Niec,had two misdemeanor convictions from 1992, though the arrest was triggered by a child abuse investigation against him.
A federal judge dismissed those allegations in April.
In June, a Mexican green card holder who lives in Los Angeles, Jose Luis Garcia, was detained and placed in deportation proceedings over a 2001 domestic-violence-related misdemeanor. Three weeks after his arrest, Garcia’s deportation case was closed, and he was released.
Carl Shusterman, an immigration attorney based in Los Angeles, said these cases and others suggest that Trump is as interested in restricting legal immigration as he is in addressingthe estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.
“The thing he [Trump] is really devoting his attention to is cutting legal immigration,” he said. “You could probably ask any attorney in the country and they will tell you the same story.”
‘A chance before the judge’
Edralin had several people submit affidavits vouching for him in his deportation case, including Kaper-Dale of the Reformed Church of Highland Park, a county law enforcement official, and some of Edralin’s relatives.
Family members say the judge did not read the packet because she didn’t have time. Instead, she denied Edralin’s request to be released on bond because his 11-year-old conviction made him a threat to the public.
“We were stunned that she just said, ‘No, no bond; he’s a danger to society,’ 11 years after the crime and not looking at anything current,” Brandi Edralinsaid.
Edralin’s case signals a shift in immigration enforcement under Trump, whose predecessors exercised more restraint by prioritizing for deportation undocumented immigrants who had been convicted of serious crimes or were deemed to pose a national security threat. Butpenalties for green card holders with criminal records didn’t start with Trump. They date as far backas the late 1980s.
Shusterman, who worked for the federal government in the late 1970s and 1980s, said immigration agencies started examining green card holders’ records more closely after a 1988 law introduced the idea of “aggravated felonies.”
At first, they included serious crimes such as murder, drug trafficking and the illegal trafficking of firearms and destructive devices.
Immigration laws passed in 1990 and 1996, however, expanded thedefinition to include crimes that immigration attorneys sayare neither “aggravated” nor “felonies.”
Immigration officials “are saying if you committed an aggravated felony sometime that you can never show good moral character for immigration benefits for the rest of your life,” Shusterman said.
“Things have gotten so much tougher,” he added.
It’s unclear whether Edralin’s conviction would be considered an “aggravated felony” or a less severe category known as a “crime or moral turpitude,” but it wasn’t until he was arrestedthat he realized he was a target for deportation.
Joanne Gottesman, a professor at Rutgers Law School, said the laws on the booksaren’t any different from under previous administrations, but the enforcement strategy isnew.
“I think that the difference with prior administrations is there was a use of discretion in certain circumstances that isn’t being applied today,” said Gottesman, who runs the Immigrant Justice Clinicat Rutgers.
Someone who is facing deportation over an old conviction, even for an aggravated felony,“doesn’t get a chance to go before the judge and say: Let me tell you the ways that I have been rehabilitated, the deep ties I’ve had in the United States,” Gottesmansaid. “What the statute does is prevent the judge from hearing anything the person has to say.”
Edralin’s arrestadded a layer of complication for his family’s finances. Brandi Edralin, who works full time, said she has covered most of her husband’slegal costs, but those fees and the daily household expenses have drained their savings.
“The big thing about him being there — I’ve come to terms with that. We’ll deal with it,” she said. “But then the lawn mower broke. He would normally be the one to fix that. … It’s the things you don’t think about that you deal with from day to day.”
Chariza Edralin, Cloyd Edralin’s younger sister,started a crowdfunding campaign to help cover the family’s legal fees and daily household expenses. The family is also hosting a fundraiser on at 6 p.m. Tuesdayat the Parlor Gallery in Asbury Park.
“The family support keeps me going, the community and friends,” Chariza Edralin said. “We are very, very fortunate to have really close-knit friends and family who are very supportive.”
In the meantime, family members and friends continue to visit Edralin nearly every day at the Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility.
Edralin tells his wife and his sister about life in the detention center. He gets cold, so he used money that Brandi deposited in his account to buy a sweatshirt and an extra shirt from the commissary to keep warm.
Some of the inmates he meets don’t have anyone to visit them, send them money or represent them in immigration court. At his request, Brandi said, she put money in a few of the other inmates’ commissary accounts.
Chariza Edralin, who visits her brotherat least once a week, has heard the stories about the other inmates. She says she makes an effort to be upbeat, though atsome point they reflect on the birthdays, anniversaries and other milestones he’s missing.
“I’m trying to be positive and optimistic about this whole thing,” she said, “but just considering the fact that in America, this country is basically all about immigrants, and how we’re treating a certain type of immigrants and a collection of immigrants right now, it’s embarrassing.”
Pakistan’s senate unanimously passed a resolution condemning an anti-Islam cartoon contest planned by a far-right Dutch politician – one of the first actions taken by the assembly since last month’s general election.
Senators in the upper house of parliament formally protested on Monday the announcement by Dutch opposition MP Geert Wilders to hold a Prophet Muhammad caricature competition in the Netherlands later this year.
In his first address to the senate in the capital, Islamabad, newly elected Prime Minister Imran Khan vowed to take the issue to the United Nations General Assembly in September, calling it a “collective failure of the Muslim world”.
“Very few in the West understand the pain caused to Muslims by such blasphemous activities,” said Khan.
“Our government will raise the matter in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and get the countries there to come up with a collective policy that could then be brought up at international forums,” he added. “This should have been done a long time ago.”
Wilders, widely known for his fierce criticism of Islam and Muslims, announced in June his plans to organise a competition of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in November. The Dutch government has distanced itself from the event.
Wilders, who leads the second-biggest party in the Dutch parliament, claims to have received more than 200 entries so far. Last date for entry is August 31.
Winners of the competition will be announced at his Freedom Party offices in The Hague, local media reported, with a $10,000 cash award going to the first-place entry.
Physical depictions of God or the Prophet Muhammad are forbidden in Islam.
“I understand the Western mindset as I have spent a lot of time there,” said Khan, a cricket star turned politician. “They do not understand the love Muslims feel for the Prophet.”
Pakistan summoned the Dutch ambassador earlier this month to lodge a protest against the blasphemous competition, expressing its “deep concern at this deliberate and malicious attempt to defame Islam”, the foreign office said in a statement.
Pakistan’s blasphemy laws prescribe a mandatory death penalty for anyone found guilty of insulting Prophet Muhammad, and life imprisonment for those found to defile the Quran.
Recent years have seen increasing violence associated with the laws, with at least 74 people killed in attacks motivated by blasphemy accusations since 1990, according to an Al Jazeera tally.
Sandra Harwitt, Special to USA TODAY Sports
Published 11:27 p.m. ET Aug. 27, 2018 | Updated 12:30 a.m. ET Aug. 28, 2018
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World class chefs serve up high quality food at the US Open. USA TODAY
NEW YORK — Each Grand Slam comes with its own pluses and minuses, and the US Open is no exception to that reality.
One of the hardest aspects of this tournament is that the venue is in the borough of Queens and the hotel accommodations are in Manhattan. Traffic or no traffic, getting to where the matches are played is not a quick trip around the corner.
In contrast, at the three other Grand Slams — the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon — players tend to stay in either nearby hotels or short-term apartment rentals closer to the courts.
“Today was a weird day for me,” Serena Williams said on the court Monday night after winning her first-round match 6-4, 6-0 against Magda Linette of Poland. “I left my hotel and didn’t get to say goodbye to (daughter) Olympia, but I get to go back now and see her.”
She continued the thought later in the media conference, saying, “It’s different because it’s a much further ride away obviously. I have to take an extra two hours in transit that I’m not going to see her.”
A six-time U.S. Open champion, the 36-year-old Williams is without a doubt in the market to win a seventh trophy here this year. At the moment, Williams is tied with Chris Evert for the most US Open crowns won in the Open era.
More important, however, if Williams can lay claim to the US Open title she would tie Margaret Court’s record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles. Unlike Court, all of Williams’ major trophies have been won in the more high-stakes environment of professional tennis.
The win against Linette improves Williams’ record to 18-0 in US Open first-round matches. Earlier Monday, older sister, Venus, 38, enhanced her US Open first-round record to 20-0 with a three-set win against Svetlana Kuznetsova.
Serena started the match a bit tentatively, but it didn’t take her long to find her groove. She never faced a break point on her own serve and took advantage of four of six break points Linette offered.
“I thought it was a good match,” Williams said. “It was a great first-round match. Magda, she’s such a fighter. She’s a very hard worker. I’ve seen her at Patrick’s (Mouratoglou’s) academy a few times, so I kind of knew what to expect tonight. It was a little bit of a relief to know what to expect.
“I think overall I had a little shaky start, but I got into it,” she added.
All the talk around these parts is that the Williams sisters are now just one match away from facing each other in the third round. But before that can happen both need to win their second-round encounters.
If you don’t dare to try and chase your dreams, you’ll rob yourself the joy of doing it. Don’t just dream it. #JustDoItpic.twitter.com/tjpZzVdP8I
Serena will play Carina Witthoeft of Germany in the second-round. Witthoeft defeated American Caroline Dolehide 6-3, 7-6 (6) to earn her place in the next round. Venus is set to play Camila Giorgi of Italy, who posted a 6-4, 6-1 win over American wildcard recipient Whitney Osuigwe.
Serena’s reaction to another all-sister outing was simple: “Just got to play, hopefully get there.”
Venus was a bit more verbose in addressing the possible third-round encounter, saying, “Yeah, that’s the draw. I mean, I’ve had an interesting draw. Obviously, the next match, my opponent is not going to roll over, as well as today. That’s really my focus. Hopefully we’ll both be there.”
If that Williams sisters match does become an actuality it will be Friday.
Sen. John McCain’s love for Arizona sports is well-documented.
At McCain’s memorial, some of his favorite players will return the favor.
Cardinals star Larry Fitzgerald will speak during the ceremony, and Coyotes legend Shane Doan and Diamondbacks legend Luis Gonzalez will serve as pallbearers.
All three have been vocal about their friendships with the late Arizona senator.
Fitzgerald’s tribute will precede a tribute by former Vice President Joe Biden. The Cardinals play the Denver Broncos later that night at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale.
“His generosity,” Fitzgerald said as Patrick Peterson intercepted a pass behind him and returned it for a touchdown. “Just his beliefs and ideals, things he stood for. I’m at a loss for words for what he’s done for this great state of Arizona, and our nation and internationally. Just his heart, his compassion, his sacrifices as a POW and just the legion of people he’s helped along the way. He’ll be remembered forever.”
Gonzalez and Doan each released statements after McCain’s death.
Gonzalez: “Senator McCain was not only a great man and patriot, but a great D-backs fan and I am proud to consider him a dear friend. We always knew we could count on him to root us on – from the ballpark, from his home and from all the way across the country. On behalf of my entire family, our thoughts and prayers are with Cindy and his family and we are very grateful for all that he did on behalf of his country.”
Doan: “Senator McCain was a shining example of what a modern leader should be. He represented Arizona and the United States with class and dignity, and the courage and incredible strength that he demonstrated, in every test a man could face, impacted everyone who simply heard his story. His love for life was contagious and his passion for his family, state, country and Arizona sports teams left you optimistic and energized. I am so honored to have been able to call Senator McCain my friend, and am grateful to his family for allowing my family to be a part of their lives. Our hearts go out to Cindy and all the family during this difficult time.”
U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke supporters all have the same Whataburger order: a triple-meat. It’s a jab at a statement from Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign. Madlin Mekelburg, USA Today Network Austin Bureau
Republican incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz is in a statistical dead heat with Rep. Beto O’Rourke in Texas, according to an Emerson College e-poll published Wednesday.
The e-poll, which was conducted from Aug. 22-25 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percent, found Cruz with 38 percent of the vote, O’Rourke with 37 percent and 21 percent of respondents undecided.
According to the poll, the biggest challenge for Cruz in his path to a second term in the U.S. Senate is among independent voters. Cruz had a 57 percent unfavorable and only 25 percent favorable rating within that group, the poll found.
O’Rourke was the clear choice of younger Texans, with those surveyed between the ages of 18 and 34 favoring the Democratic challenger by nearly 20 percentage points (45 to 28 percent). Cruz, on the other hand, leads among voters ages 55 to 74 by 14 points, 45 to 37 percent.
Cruz’s lead among those over 75-years-old is even greater, at 39 to 17 percent.
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