But the 42-year-old American, who is in contention to be picked for September’s Ryder Cup, says his comeback has endeared him to a new set of fans.
“I think people are more appreciative,” said Woods.
“They’ve all gone through it – when you get to your forties you’re feeling it.
“They know I’m at the tail-end of my career. I don’t know how many years I’ve got left but I’m certain I’m not like I was when I was 22. At 42 it is a different ball game.”
Woods, who made his latest comeback at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas last November, made a remarkable return to form earlier this month at the US PGA Championships, carding a final-day 64 to finish second behind winner Brooks Koepka.
He will be back in action this week at the FedEx Cup play-offs in New Jersey and says fans can relate to his new vulnerabilities.
“I’ve struggled and I’ve had some back pain, I’ve been through four surgeries and I’m trying to work back and it’s been tough, and people understand that,” he said.
“This entire year has been so different. Go back to how everyone received me at Tampa [in the Valspar Championship in March] – that was very special.
“I hadn’t received ovations and warmth like that.”
The finances of an intensely private Aretha Franklin soon will become very public in Oakland County Probate Court because she apparently left no will or trust.
Her four sons filed a document Tuesday afternoon listing themselves as interested parties in her estate. Franklin’s niece Sabrina Owens asked the court to appoint her as personal representative of the estate. The case is assigned to Judge Jennifer Callaghan.
“I was after her for a number of years to do a trust,” said Los Angeles attorney Don Wilson, who represented Franklin in entertainment matters for the past 28 years. “It would have expedited things and kept them out of probate, and kept things private.”
As Franklin’s attorney in copyright matters, song publishing and record deals, Wilson said he would have been consulted about her holdings for any estate planning purposes.
Wilson said that at this point it’s impossible to place a dollar figure on the value of her song catalog. He did say that she maintained ownership of her original compositions, which include well-known hits such as “Think” and “Rock Steady.”
TMZ, citing court records, also reported Tuesday that Franklin died without a will. Under Michigan law, the assets of an unmarried person who dies without a will are divided equally among any children.
Franklin’s decision to not create a will before she died could prompt a court battle over her assets by creditors or extended family members seeking a portion of her estate. One case Wilson has been involved with is that of musician Ike Turner, whose estate is still being litigated 11 years after his death.
“I just hope (Franklin’s estate) doesn’t end up getting so hotly contested,” Wilson said. “Any time they don’t leave a trust or will, there always ends up being a fight.”
Wilson said many people, famous and not, fail to prepare a will.
“Nobody likes to give careful thought to their own demise,” he said.
Franklin died Thursday at home in Detroit. Her funeral is Aug. 31 at Greater Grace Temple, following public viewings at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History (Aug. 28-29) and New Bethel Baptist Church (Aug. 30).
CLOSE
At the Detroit Music Weekend, Aretha Franklin asked the audience to keep her in their prayers. It would be the last time she performed in Detroit. Detroit Free Press
Contact Detroit Free Press Music Writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.
Everyone who’s read Harry Potter will have fond memories of practicing their wand twirling action in front of the mirror, muttering “Expelliarmus” over and over again in the vague but undying hope that something will actually happen and that magic is indeed real.
Even though our Hogwarts letters may have never arrived, though, we’ll always have the memories. And the spells.
Harry Potter readers recently voted on their favourite spells as part of a world-wide survey by Bloomsbury Children’s Books — you can probably guess which Harry Potter spell got the top vote, but there are still a few surprises in here…
10. Riddikulus.
Transforms nasty Boggarts from something scary into something silly.
9. Obliviate.
The charm Gilderoy Lockhart uses to accidentally wipe his own memory, the big buffoon.
8. Sectumsempra.
A mouthful of a curse invented by troubled teen Severus Snape.
7. Avada Kedavra.
We all know what this one does. How did it manage to make the top 10 favourite list, though?
6. Alohomora.
That one Hermione keeps using to unlock doors when they go sneaking around in the first book.
5. Lumos.
The spell equivalent of that little torch app on your iPhone.
4. Expelliarmus.
Basically the only spell Harry ever uses when he’s in a duel.
3. Wingardium Leviosa.
Makes things levitate. Sounds fun.
2. Accio.
The perfect charm for lazy people who can’t be bothered to get up and fetch the TV remote.
1. Expecto Patronum.
The Harry Potter spell to end all Harry Potter spells.
Gets rid of pesky Dementors by summoning a badass Patronus to chase them away.
Serena Williams earned just $62,000 (£48,050) from prize money after giving birth to her daughter Olympia
Eight of the top 10 highest earning female athletes are tennis players, with 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams topping the Forbes list.
Williams earned just $62,000 (£48,050) from prize money during the past year – owing largely to her 14-month break to have a baby – but made $18m (£13.95m) through endorsements.
Badminton’s PV Sindhu and race car driver Danica Patrick are the only non-tennis players in the top 10.
In June, the Forbes rankings of the world’s top 100 highest earning athletes did not feature a woman after Williams dropped out of the chart.
US boxer Floyd Mayweather topped the list followed by football’s Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
The top 10 highest earning female athletes earned $105m (£81.4m) in total from June 2017 to June 2018.
That figure is down 4% from last year and 28% from five years ago.
Williams’ total earnings ensure she tops the list for the third successive year, making twice as much away from the tennis court as any other female athlete.
Caroline Wozniacki is second on the list having won her first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open earlier this year – a victory that secured her $3.1m (£2.4m) in prize money to push her total earnings to $13m (£10.1m).
Completing the top five are Sloane Stephens, Garbine Muguruza and Maria Sharapova.
Russian Sharapova was the top-earning female athlete for 11 consecutive years but has seen her earnings drop after her 15-month doping ban.
Indian Olympic and world silver medallist Sindhu and Patrick – the most successful female race car driver – are seventh and ninth on the list respectively.
Police say a man in the country illegally has been charged with murder in the death of Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts. (Aug. 21) AP
With two words, the lead investigator in the death of a 20-year-old Iowa college student may have ratcheted up the debate over illegal immigration going into the last three months of the 2018 mid-term elections.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Rick Rahn said the man accused of killing Mollie Tibbetts, who went missing in July while jogging in Brooklyn, Iowa, is an “illegal alien.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed that Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 24, is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico.
Rahn’s press conference was barely finished before proponents of stronger border security were flooding Twitter and conservative media outlets, using Rivera’s arrest as proof that the U.S. needs to strengthen immigration laws and punish so-called “sanctuary cities.”
“If found guilty, he will be reminder why sanctuary cities & open borders are as stupid as the politicians who promote them,” Tweeted former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.
“This goes on and on and on,” attorney David Wohl, a Trump campaign surrogate, said on FOX News.
During a rally in West Virginia, President Donald Trump told the crowd that an “incredible, beautiful young woman” was a victim of immigration laws that are “such a disgrace.”
“Should have never happened,” Trump said of Tibbetts’ death.
Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds slammed the country’s failed immigration system.
“As Iowans, we are heartbroken, and we are angry,” she said. “We are angry that a broken immigration system allowed a predator like this to live in our community, and we will do all we can (to) bring justice to Mollie’s killer.”
Immigration advocates also responded to the news, highlighting studies that show that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit violent crimes than native-born Americans, and that “sanctuary cities” have lower crime rates than other cities.
But conservatives dismissed the studies. Instead, many, like former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh, immediately drew a connection with the last high-profile murder allegedly committed by an undocumented immigrant.
“First, Kate Steinle. Now, Mollie Tibbetts. Unacceptable,” Walsh Tweeted.
Walsh was referring to the 2015 shooting death of the 32-year-old Steinle, whose case became a flash point throughout the 2016 campaign season. The man accused of killing her — Jose Inez Garcia Zarate — had previously been deported five times and charged with selling marijuana, but had been released by the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department because of its policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration agents.
Throughout the summer of 2016, President Donald Trump seized upon Steinle’s case to decry America’s loose borders and call for the completion of the border wall along the southwest border with Mexico. Republicans in the House of Representatives followed suit, passing a bill known as “Kate’s Law” to increase penalties and prison terms for repeat border-crossers.
Zarate was found not guilty of murder and manslaughter during his trial in November, where he said the shooting was accidental after he picked up a gun wrapped in a T-shirt under a seat on the San Francisco pier. But Trump called that verdict “disgraceful” and Steinle’s death has remained a focal point for anti-immigration groups.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that has advised the White House on policies to reduce legal and illegal immigration, said it’s too early to tell whether Tibbetts’ murder will become the political focal point in 2018 that Steinle’s case was in 2016.
“That’s entirely possible,” he said.
But Krikorian said more details need to emerge before that can happen.
Steinle’s case drew such widespread attention because it raised the issue of so-called “sanctuary cities,” local governments that do not fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities. San Francisco is deemed a sanctuary because it does not honor ICE “detainers” — requests to hold suspects for up to 48 hours for the sole purpose of giving ICE time to determine if that person committed any immigration violations. The department ignored such a request when it released Zarate.
Krikorian said the man charged in Tibbetts’ death would have to have a similar background to become a storyline that permeates throughout the 2018 election. But so far, it appears that may not be the case.
In its statement, ICE did not say whether Rivera had any previous contact with federal immigration authorities. It did not say whether he had previously been deported, or whether any judge had ordered him deported.
Krikorian acknowledged that ICE would have quickly publicized any such details if they existed. But absent any previous history with law enforcement, Krikorian said it would be difficult to use Tibbetts’ death as a political rallying cry leading up to November.
The difference, he said, is that the San Francisco case showcased a glaring flaw where local law enforcement are not assisting in federal immigration efforts.
“The real failure comes when the an illegal immigrant is actually in custody and not deported, or has been deported repeatedly but not jailed,” he said.
Barbara Rodriguez of the Des Moines Register contributed.
The lights, the likes of which locals had never seen before, were understood by scientists to be a new aurora. Or so they thought.
Turns out “Steve,” which stands for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, is no aurora. It’s an entirely new celestial phenomenon, with a different atmospheric process to an aurora.
The conclusion was made by researchers from the University of Calgary in Canada, who authored a study which was published in Geophysical Research Letters.
“So right now, we know very little about it,” Bea Gallardo-Lacourt, a space physicist and the study’s lead author, said in a statement online.
“And that’s the cool thing, because this has been known by photographers for decades. But for the scientists, it’s completely unknown.”
Researchers refer to “Steve” as a “skyglow,” to make it distinct from an aurora. Auroras are produced when charged particles from the sun collide with the magnetic fields in Earth’s ionised upper atmosphere (the ionosphere), generating a stunning light display.
A NOAA satellite, POES-17, didn’t detect any charged particles raining down to Earth’s upper atmosphere when “Steve” took place, likely suggesting the “skyglow” could be a result of something else completely.
The next step for researchers is to see if streams of fast ions and hot electrons in the ionosphere are responsible for “Steve,” or if the light is produced in higher atmosphere.
Johanna Konta is not seeded for the US Open this year, having been the seventh seed last year
British number one Johanna Konta has pulled out of her second-round tie at the Connecticut Open with a viral illness, tournament organisers say.
The 27-year-old was due to face Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro on Tuesday at New Haven in the final warm-up event before the US Open, which starts on 27 August.
She has also withdrawn from the doubles competition with American partner Nicole Melichar.
She is the only British woman with direct entry into the main draw of the US Open, but Naomi Broady is now two matches away after upsetting fellow Briton Katie Boulter 6-4 4-6 6-1 in the first round of qualifying on Tuesday.
Boulter, the British number two and seeded second in the qualifying tournament, fought back to level the match but Broady eased into a 4-0 lead in the deciding set before claiming victory in one hour 52 minutes.
Broady, 28, will play Spain’s Georgina Garcia Perez in the second round of qualifying.
British number eight Katy Dunne was beaten 6-2 6-1 by Turkey’s Ons Jabeur.
Heather Watson, Harriet Dart, Gabrielle Taylor and Katie Swan are the other British women involved in US Open qualifying this week.
Tuesday was a bad day in court for former associates of President Donald Trump, and it could foreshadow tough days ahead for the president. AP’s Washington Bureau Chief Julie Pace looks at what it all means for Trump’s White House. (Aug. 21) AP
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump made only the most passing mention of the political and legal troubles rapidly enveloping his presidency during a rally of West Virginia Tuesday night, saying there’s still no proof his campaign worked with Russian agents to win the 2016 presidential election.
“Fake news. How fake are they?” he said, pointing to news cameras at the back of the Charleston Convention Center. “Fake news and the Russian witch hunt. We’ve got a whole, big combination. Where is the collusion? You know, they’re still looking for collusion! Where is the collusion? Find some collusion. We want to find the collusion.”
Arriving in Charleston on Air Force One, Trump addressed reporters about Manafort – but walked away when the subject turned to Cohen.
Manafort, he said, was “a good man” who worked for previous Republican presidential candidates Ronald Reagan and Bob Dole.
“He was with a lot of different people over the years and I feel very sad about that. Doesn’t involve me but I still feel, you know, it’s a very sad thing that happened,” he said. “Had nothing to do with Russian collusion. We continue the witch hunt.”
Trump then met with supporters for a fundraiser and held a 75-minute campaign rally for Patrick Morrisey, the GOP Senate candidate challenging Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.
“We love clean, beautiful West Virginia coal. We love it. You know, that’s indestructible stuff,” he said, suggesting that coal was more durable than wind, solar or even petroleum.
The West Virginia capital is the latest destination in what the White House said would be a blitz of political appearances in key states in advance of November’s congressional election.
Earlier this summer, the Santa Clara County Fire Department sent a team to fight the largest wildfire in the history of California.
The problem? During the fire, Verizon throttled the department’s “unlimited” data once it reached its limit.
As part of its emergency services, the department “relies upon Internet-based systems to provide crucial and time sensitive public safety services,” Fire Chief Anthony Bowden wrote in an addendum added this week to a lawsuit fighting to overturn the FCC’s net neutrality repeal.
“The Internet has become an essential tool in providing fire and emergency response, particularly for events like large fires which require the rapid deployment and organization of thousands of personnel and hundreds of fuel engines, aircraft, and bulldozers,” Bowden continued in his declaration, as Ars Technica first reported.
Bowden detailed how his department’s data service from Verizon Wireless was limited, or throttled, and how his team was “forced” to use other fire agencies’ ISPs and personal devices to effectively communicate and coordinate firefighting plans. Eventually Verizon stopped throttling the department’s data after they paid for a more expensive plan.
On Tuesday afternoon a Verizon spokesperson told Mashable in an email that the “situation has nothing to do with net neutrality.” Instead the throttling and extra cost for the Santa Clara Fire Department was “a mistake in how we communicated with our customer about the terms of its plan.”
For the firefighters, this was a dangerous mistake.
“This throttling has had a significant impact on our ability to provide emergency services,” Bowden wrote. “Verizon imposed these limitations despite being informed that throttling was actively impeding County Fire’s ability to provide crisis-response and essential emergency services.”
“This was a customer support mistake”
Verizon on Tuesday said the fire department’s plan shouldn’t have mattered. “Regardless of the plan emergency responders choose, we have a practice to remove data speed restrictions when contacted in emergency situations,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.
“In this situation, we should have lifted the speed restriction when our customer reached out to us. This was a customer support mistake. We are reviewing the situation and will fix any issues going forward.”
Just a “customer support mistake,” everyone. We’re California’s firefighters feel very reassured.
England v India: Jos Buttler scores a maiden century but home side still face heavy loss
We wanted England to show some fight in their bid to save the third Test against India and we got it in the shape of Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes.
Ironically, it came from the two most aggressive batsmen in the team, as Buttler registered his maiden Test century and Stokes inched to his slowest half-century.
England will lose this match on Wednesday – India only need one wicket to drag the series back to 2-1 – but a positive from this fourth day is the way Buttler and Stokes showed the rest of the team how to play.
Remember, England lost all 10 wickets in the session between lunch and tea on Sunday to be bowled out for 161, the latest in a catalogue of collapses that have blighted their Test cricket in recent years.
We’ve said it over and over again – you have to be able to adapt the way you play to the circumstances of the game if you want to be successful in Test cricket.
That is exactly what Buttler and Stokes did. They deserve great credit for it.
We knew that Stokes was capable of playing such an innings. His first Test hundred against an Australia side including the rampaging Mitchell Johnson was a back-to-the-wall fight on an unpredictable pitch in Perth.
Buttler was the big question. Could the white-ball specialist, the man who hits the ball miles, tailor the way he plays to the longest form of the game?
That Buttler was even recalled to the Test side was a brave decision by Ed Smith, made for his first match as national selector.
The Lancashire man has totally repaid the punt that Smith and the rest of the England management took on him, not only with the recall but also by handing him the vice-captaincy.
His two half-centuries in the series against Pakistan and now his first Test ton are a big pat on the back for Buttler and those who believed in him.
He is a massively talented cricketer and there is no reason why a player with his ability shouldn’t succeed in red-ball cricket, even if the majority of his time in the past few years has been spent playing limited-overs matches.
Buttler & Stokes show the way – England’s longest innings in this series*
Runs
Balls
Strike-rate (runs per 100 balls faced)
* In terms of balls faced (Source: Cricinfo)
Ben Stokes, Trent Bridge
62
187
33.15
Chris Woakes, Lord’s
137
177
77.40
Jos Buttler, Trent Bridge
106
176
60.22
Joe Root, Edgbaston
80
156
51.28
Jonny Bairstow, Lord’s
93
144
64.58
On Tuesday, with England 62-4 and in danger of falling in a heap for the second time in the match, Buttler knuckled down and played the perfect Test innings.
Yes, we know that he is the sort of player who instinctively will play shots – he still hit 21 fours in his 176-ball stay – but there was not a hint of white-ball slogging in there. There were beautiful cricket strokes played by an immaculate timer of the ball.
It was a controlled, sensible innings that could be a real springboard for Buttler. What makes it all the more exciting from an England point of view is that we know he also has the destructive hitting up his sleeve.
In the circumstances, we could not have asked for much more from Buttler or Stokes, especially when you consider the questions over the latter’s frame of mind for this match after he was acquitted of affray.
For all of the good they did, though, there remains that sense of infuriation that it came too late for England to get anything out of the Test.
If players like Buttler and Stokes can do what they did on Tuesday, why can’t those regular collapses be prevented?
We keep saying the same things about England’s batting fragility, that collectively they must recognise the need for a solid defensive game and not simply say that aggression is “the way I play”.
Now, when we see Buttler and Stokes playing these ideal innings, you want them to keep doing it and drag a few more along with them.
More than anything, it debunks the idea that England’s players only know one way to play. They can find that adaptability we’ve been crying out for.
They might call it old-fashioned, but even attacking batsmanship is built on a solid defensive technique.
Will the others follow the example set by Buttler and Stokes?
We will have to wait for the fourth Test to find out.
Jonathan Agnew was speaking to BBC Sport’s Stephan Shemilt
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