DOUBLE THE PUZZLES, DOUBLE THE FUN IN LIFE

Good news for car buyers: Damon and Blunt dish on World Cup
Prices finally leveling off Nolan, Uggs, ‘Oppenheimer’ opens in
But experts don’t expect dealers to pass along Co-stars talk about their characters, time
Australia,
all the savings to consumers quite yet. In Money on set and messing with the director. In Life New Zealand

USA TODAY
This year’s event likely
to bring in $500 million,
FIFA says. In Sports

CAMERON SPENCER/ Missed the opener? Go to

THE NATION'S NEWS | WEEKEND | JULY 21-23, 2023 | 1A GETTY IMAGES sports.usatoday.com.

Cities US law enforcement ramps up anti-cartel operations

with names like Hydra, Blue Lotus and Pelican Bones
struggle
to beat
the heat
Americans head to pools,
cooling centers, shelters
Grace Hauck and Kayla Jimenez
USA TODAY

Taking shelter in cooling centers.

Flocking to community pools. Cooking
breakfast on the pavement. Chilling in
a walk-in refrigerator.
Americans across a broad part of
the country are coping with a lengthy
and dangerous heat wave this week as
cities shatter record-high temper-
atures − again and again.
More than 100 million people across
15 states were under heat alerts
Wednesday, and about 80 million −
nearly a quarter of the population −
were expected to see air temperatures
or the heat index above 105 degrees
through the weekend, according to the
National Weather Service.
“The longer the heat goes with rec-
ord temperatures, the harder it is for PROVIDED BY THE U.S. DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION
people, who are slowly demoralized
over time,” said Mark Hilbelink, exec-
utive director of the Sunrise Homeless
Navigation Center in Austin, Texas.

See COPING, Page 4A

Words also a weapon
Target letter
in the war on fentanyl
Josh Meyer Some of the more exotic and off-
gives clues to USA TODAY
“We are using all
beat names of major Department of
Homeland Security operations were
charges Trump When the federal government re-
cently announced it had stopped of our resources,
revealed last week in a high-profile
House of Representatives hearing on

might face 10,000 pounds of fentanyl from enter-

Bart Jansen, David Jackson
and Josh Meyer
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – The Justice De-
partment target letter sent to former
President Donald Trump listed catego-
ries of charges he could face, including
conspiracy to defraud the United
States, according to people familiar
with the letter.
Trump announced Tuesday that he
had been notified that he was a target
of special counsel Jack Smith’s inves-
tigation into alleged election fraud.
Experts said the conspiracy charge
could be an umbrella covering various
parts of Trump’s strategy to overturn
the 2020 election. ABC News reported
Report: Diagnostic errors deadly
See CHARGES, Page 3A
Trump’s Jan. 6 speech
could factor into charges
Here’s what role legal experts say
it might play in the case. 3A
INTERNATIONAL SPECIAL EDITION
This is a special edition of USA TODAY designed and
edited for readers around the world. Additional content
and late-breaking news and sports scores can always be
found at usatoday.com
¡¿H¢\ApB-740351¿+(c)o
ing Arizona and Southern California
from Mexico, the special name at-
tached to the counternarcotics initia-
tive was somewhat confusing: Opera-
tions Blue Lotus and Four Horsemen.
But this kind of cryptic labeling is
not uncommon in federal law en-
forcement, where agents like to show
they are serious about tackling drug
traffickers and other criminals by
giving their efforts an intriguing code
name. Preferably, the names sound
pretty cool, and they’re often a close-
ly held secret until the operation is
over and the suspects are in custody.
all of our capabilities,
and our tremendous
fighting the flow of fentanyl coming
through the southern border.
The hearing was particularly
timely, because the U.S. is facing in-
creativity to guarantee tensifying urgency to stop the wors-
traffickers will not ening fentanyl epidemic.
Drug deaths nationwide hit a rec-
get ahead of us.” ord 109,680 in 2022, according to
DHS chief Alejandro Mayorkas preliminary data released by the
Centers for Disease Control and Pre-
vention. Many of them were over-
dose victims who unwittingly took
black-market painkillers or recre-
ational drugs laced with the lethal
See FENTANYL, Page 4A
Medical misdiagnoses cause an estimated
795K deaths, permanent disabilities yearly
Claire Thornton
USA TODAY Nearly
Top medical researchers are sound-
ing the alarm that an estimated 795,000
40%
American patients continue to die or be- of all deaths and
come permanently disabled each year permanent disabilities
because they are being diagnosed with stemming from incorrect
the wrong conditions. diagnoses come from just
For years, the public hasn’t known five conditions, according

much about the full scope of medical to the report:

misdiagnoses that happen in the U.S., h Stroke.
according to a new report released by
the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute h Sepsis.
Center for Diagnostic Excellence. Until h Pneumonia.
now, estimates of annual incorrect diag-
noses have varied widely, the report h Blood clots.
says. h Lung cancer.
Now, researchers say an estimated
371,000 patients die and 424,000 are
©COPYRIGHT 2023 USA TODAY
a division of Gannett Co., Inc. Diagnostic errors cause thousands of deaths yearly,
a report shows. GETTY IMAGES See MISDIAGNOSES, Page 2A
2A ❚ FRIDAY JULY 21, 2023 ❚ USA TODAY
WAR IN UKRAINE NEWS BRIEFING
A plume of smoke rises over an ammunition depot in Kirovsky district in Crimea
on Wednesday. Russian officials said more than 2,200 people were evacuated
from four villages but did not reveal a cause of the fire. VIKTOR KOROTAYEV/AP
Prigozhin: Troops to
stay out of Ukraine,
away from ‘disgrace’
John Bacon and Miles J. Herszenhorn
USA TODAY
The Russian front line is a “disgrace”
and the Wagner mercenaries who once
fought there will remain in Belarus for
some time, Russian mercenary boss
Yevgeny Prigozhin said Wednesday.
Prigozhin’s mercenaries were credit-
ed with ranking among Russia’s best
fighters, but his frustrations with De-
fense Ministry leaders led to last
month’s quickly abandoned rebellion
and what appeared to be his banish-
ment to Belarus. Prigozhin, welcoming
his troops Wednesday in Belarus, said
that for now his group will concentrate
on training Belarusian troops.
“We fought with dignity. We did a lot
for Russia,” Prigozhin said to cheers.
“What is happening now on the front is
a disgrace.”
He pledged to improve the Belarusian
army and said his group would prepare
to continue working in Africa, where his
troops have been tapped by govern-
ments to combat rebel forces.
“Maybe we will return to (fight in
Ukraine), when we will be certain that
we won’t be made to disgrace our-
selves,” he said.
Also Wednesday:
h Russian attacks on port infrastruc-
ture in Chornomorsk, Odesa Oblast,
have destroyed 60,000 tons of grain,
Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola
Solskyi said. Russia ended a deal this
week that had allowed grain shipments.
h Croatia offered its rail network and
ports on the Adriatic Sea as an export
route for Ukrainian grain.
h The Russian Foreign Ministry de-
nied Western reports that Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov held back-
channel talks in April with U.S. officials
to lay the groundwork for when Ukraine
is ready to negotiate.
Misdiagnoses
Continued from Page 1A
permanently disabled each year be-
cause they are incorrectly diagnosed
across a range of medical care settings –
not just in the family doctor’s office.
The estimate “matches data pro-
duced from multiple prior studies that
focused on diagnostic errors in ambula-
tory clinics and emergency depart-
ments and during inpatient care,” the
report says.
The enormous numbers of misdiag-
noses are a public health emergency, the
report’s lead author said. “Diagnostic
errors are, by a wide margin, the most
under-resourced public health crisis we
face,” said Dr. David Newman-Toker, di-
rector of the Johns Hopkins diagnostic
excellence center.
Medical professionals almost always
misdiagnose diseases when a person’s
symptoms look like possible symptoms
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error, where you saw it, the date, page number, or the URL.
Illinois high court allows
reform to abolish cash bail
Patrick Keck and Thao Nguyen
USA TODAY NETWORK
The Illinois Supreme Court ruled
Tuesday that a major criminal justice
reform law is constitutional, allowing
the state to become the first in the na-
tion to end cash bail as a condition of
pretrial release − a provision that has
triggered debate on racial inequality
and crime.
The elimination of Illinois’ cash bail
system was part of a controversial
criminal justice overhaul adopted in
2021 known as the SAFE-T Act, a mea-
sure that had seeking to transform the
state’s criminal justice system after
the murder of George Floyd and other
police killings.
In a 5-2 decision, the state’s high
court overturned a lower court’s opi-
nion in December that a provision in
the act doing away with cash bail vio-
lated the state constitution’s require-
ment that “all persons shall be bailable
by sufficient sureties.”
“The Illinois Constitution of 1970
does not mandate that monetary bail
is the only means to ensure criminal
defendants appear for trials or the only
means to protect the public,” the ma-
jority stated in its opinion. “Our con-
Putin won’t travel to summit stitution creates a balance between
in South Africa next month the individual rights of defendants
and the individual rights of crime vic-
Russian President Vladimir Putin tims. The Act’s pretrial release provi-
will not attend next month’s BRICS sions set forth procedures commensu-
summit in Johannesburg in person, in- rate with that balance.”
stead relying on a video link, Kremlin The provision, which had been set
spokesman Secretary Dmitry Peskov to take effect Jan. 1, was postponed
said Wednesday. Peskov said Lavrov while the Supreme Court weighed an
would go to the summit, which brings appeal from Attorney General Kwame
together the leaders of Brazil, Russia, Raoul. It will take effect on Sept. 18.
India, China and South Africa. Although judges will no longer be
South Africa recognizes the juris- able to impose cash bail conditions,
diction of the International Criminal they can decide to detain defendants if
Court, which issued an arrest warrant they pose a risk of committing more
for Putin in March. He and Russian of- offenses or fleeing prosecution.
ficial Maria Lvova-Belova are accused Supporters of eliminating cash bail
of illegal deportation of children from say it creates disparities in treatment
Ukraine. The charges could have com- by the criminal justice system because
pelled South African officials to arrest the wealthy can pay their way out of
Putin had he entered the country. jail while they await trial but low-in-
“Russia has made clear that arrest- come defendants have to wait.
ing its incumbent would be a declara- Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the new sys-
tion of war,” South African President tem will “ensure pretrial detainment is
Cyril Ramaphosa said. “Taking risks determined by the danger an individ-
and going to war with Russia is against ual poses to the community instead of
our constitution.” by their ability to pay their way out of
He said Putin would stay home “by jail.”
mutual agreement.” The bail reform was also strongly
endorsed by the Illinois Supreme
Russia threatens ships in Ukraine Court Commission on Pretrial Prac-
humanitarian corridor tices in 2020, which noted that defen-
dants who can’t afford bail often face
The Russian Ministry of Defense other difficulties, including loss of a
said that because of the termination of job, loss of child custody or inability to
the grain agreement with Ukraine, the access immediate health care.
humanitarian corridor in the Black Sea In his appeal, Raoul had argued rul-
is being closed and all ships bound for ing against the law would have opened
Ukrainian ports will be considered po- the doors to overturning decades of
tential carriers of military cargo. criminal justice reform.
“Accordingly, the flag countries of “The SAFE-T Act was intended to
such vessels will be considered in- address pervasive inequalities in the
volved” in the war on the side of Uk- criminal justice system, in particular
raine, the ministry said. It added that it the fact that individuals who are
has declared some areas of the Black awaiting criminal trials – who have not
Sea’s international waters “temporari- been convicted of a crime and are pre-
ly dangerous for navigation.” sumed innocent – may spend extend-
for a different condition, Newman-Tok-
er told USA TODAY. The more subtle the
“Diagnostic errors are, by a wide
symptom appears, the more likely it is
the patient’s problem will be misdiag- margin, the most under-resourced
nosed, he said. public health crisis we face.”
“We don’t miss strokes when some- Dr. David Newman-Toker
body is paralyzed on one side and can’t Johns Hopkins diagnostic excellence center
talk,” he said. “We miss them when they
look like something else that’s benign.”
sustained investment over decades” on
How often do doctors better diagnostic resources and have
misdiagnose conditions? passed regulations saying they must be
put in place, Newman-Toker said.
Overall, medical providers misdiag- For spinal abscesses, their rarity con-
nose diseases about 11% of the time, the tributes to their high rate of misdiagno-
report says. ses, he said.
Some diseases are missed at low
rates, whereas others are missed more Strokes are top problem among
than half the time, researchers found. misdiagnosed conditions
On the lower end of the spectrum,
only 1.5% of heart attacks are misdiag- Researchers found strokes that are
nosed, researchers found. On the higher misdiagnosed are the most serious
end: 62% of spinal abscesses are incor- problem for patients and their families.
rectly diagnosed. Among all cases of stroke, the condi-
Heart attacks have such a low rate of tion was missed more than 17.5% of the
misdiagnosis “because we’re made a time, researchers said.
Postal information
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NEWS
Supporters of eliminating cash bail
say it creates disparities in treatment
by the criminal justice system.
THOMAS J. TURNEY/USA TODAY NETWORK
ed periods of time incarcerated because
they cannot afford to pay cash bail,” he
said in a statement. “The law ensures
that the decision about whether people
are detained pending trial is not based
on whether they can afford to pay for
their release.”
Opponents have said bail ensures de-
fendants released from jail show up for
court proceedings. They also warned
that criminals who are released while
awaiting trail will be able to commit oth-
er crimes.
“The court ignored the pleas of nearly
every prosecutor in the state of Illinois,
Democrat and Republican, that the
elimination of cash bail will put danger-
ous criminals back on the street,” the Il-
linois Fraternal Order of Police said in a
statement. “Today’s ruling is a slap in
the face to those who enforce our laws
and the people those laws are supposed
to protect.”
Raoul clarified the ruling did not ap-
ply to other parts of the SAFE-T Act,
which also modified police use of force
and required body-worn cameras.
The ruling applied only to the Pretrial
Fairness Act portion − the most debated
part of the measure, which raised ques-
tions about when and for which of-
fenses judges would be allowed to keep
defendants confined pending trial.
State lawmakers amended the law in
late 2022, giving judges wider authority
to detain offenders.
Despite the changes, county prose-
cutors and sheriffs filed suit alleging the
law was unconstitutional. A Kankakee
County judge ruled in their favor, saying
that because the state constitution
mentions “bail,” it would take a consti-
tutional amendment approved by vot-
ers to make such a change. But the state
Supreme Court overturned the ruling.
Though other states have enacted
cash bail changes, Illinois is the first
state to eliminate it.
In 2014, New Jersey replaced its cash
bail system with a risk assessment ap-
proach in which judges consider com-
munity safety and whether a defendant
poses a threat before deciding to detain
or release the defendant before trial. But
there are some exceptions where cash
bail is still allowed.
Other states have also implemented
similar changes, including New York
and Alaska.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Patrick Keck writes for the (Spring-
field, Illinois) State Journal-Register.
Thao Nguyen writes for USA TODAY.
One of the main reasons for this is
that some people only show dizziness
and vertigo as a symptom of stroke,
which can, unfortunately, get misdiag-
nosed as inner ear disease, Newman-
Toker said. Or, someone who had a
stroke could just have headaches.
Doctors are not being trained across
the board on how to differentiate dizzi-
ness caused by stroke and the same
symptom caused by inner ear disease,
he said.
Because a small number of diseases
make up a large share of the problem,
researchers say they are hopeful it will
be easy for medical care providers to fo-
cus their efforts in certain areas.
“It means we can make a lot of head-
way in a relatively shorter amount of
time, without having to boil the ocean,”
Newman-Toker said.
The report found reducing diagnostic
errors by 50% for stroke, sepsis, pneu-
monia, pulmonary embolism and lung
cancer could cut permanent disabilities
and deaths by 150,000 per year.
NEWS
Feds target
robocall and
telemarketing
schemes
5 companies hit with
bans, millions in fines
Terry Collins
USA TODAY
Federal authorities said they are
ramping up their war on phone scam-
mers with a new campaign intended to
make it harder for fraudsters to con-
tact everyday Americans.
Under the effort, known as Opera-
tion Stop Scam Calls, the Federal
Trade Commission says it has already
cracked down on five companies ac-
cused of scamming millions of Amer-
icans in robocall and telemarketing
schemes, resulting in millions in fines
and bans that forbid the companies
from making similar calls in the future.
“We are taking action against those
who trick people into phony consent to
receive these calls and those who
make it easy and cheap to place these
calls,” said Samuel Levine, the FTC’s
Bureau of Consumer Protection direc-
tor, at a news conference Tuesday in
Chicago. “The FTC and its law enforce-
ment partners will not rest in the fight
against illegal telemarketing.”
The five companies face proposed
penalties totaling nearly $18 million
and robocall bans, the FTC said. The
companies are accused of “distribut-
ing or assisting the distribution of ille-
gal telemarketing calls” to consumer
nationwide.
More than 33 million scam robo-
calls a day are made to Americans, ac-
cording to the National Consumer Law
Center and Electronic Privacy Infor-
mation Center. Scam calls typically
target the most vulnerable Americans
and include Social Security Admini-
stration fraud against seniors. Nearly
$30 billion was stolen from Americans
through scam calls in 2021, the organi-
zations said.
The FTC and authorities said they
hope to stop “lead-generation consent
farms” that often trick consumers by
offering free prizes, rewards or even
potential job leads if they provide their
personal information. That “consent,”
the FTC said, can then be sold to tele-
marketers and lead to receiving un-
wanted robocalls.
What companies are accused?
One New Jersey-based company,
Vision Solar is accused of using mul-
tiple company names to make unlaw-
ful telemarketing calls to Arizona resi-
dents.
“Vision Solar’s telemarketers at
times falsely claimed to be affiliated
with a utility company or government
agency and misrepresented the
amount of money that consumers
could expect to save on their energy
bills by buying and installing solar
panels on their homes,” according to
the FTC complaint.
Under a proposed court order, the
company cannot make those telemar-
keting claims and must pay a
$13.8 million penalty.
Another company, New York City-
based Fluent, tricked consumers into
possible employment opportunities
such as a UPS job interview or free
items including a $1,000 Walmart gift
card, the FTC said. Fluent sold more
than 620 million telemarketing leads
to other companies, violating several
federal laws. Fluent agreed to a
$2.5 million civil fine and a robocall
ban, authorities said.
Two other companies were ordered
to pay nearly $1.4 million in penalties,
but most will not likely be fully paid
because they can’t afford it, the FTC
said. No penalty amount has been pro-
posed yet for a fifth company.
Do Not Call Registry
More than 2 million consumer com-
plaints have been filed in the past eight
years with the Consumer Help Center
from the Federal Communications
Commission, which handles a wide
range of telecommunications service
and billing issues.
Unwanted calls are the single larg-
est source for those complaints. At
least 55% of all the reports filed to the
FCC are the result of unwanted calls,
including telemarketing and robocalls,
according to a USA TODAY analysis.
The FTC’s Do Not Call Registry al-
lows users to register their phone
numbers to stop sales calls from real
companies. More than 240 million ac-
tive numbers are on the registry.
President Donald Trump speaks at a rally Jan. 6, 2021, with the White House
in the background. Soon after he spoke, thousands of supporters marched
to the Capitol, some of whom stormed the building. JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP
Charges
Continued from Page 1A
that witness tampering was also men-
tioned as a potential statute that is be-
ing examined as part of the investiga-
tion. The House committee that inves-
tigated the Capitol attack on Jan. 6,
2021 in a December report listed wit-
ness tampering as a potential charge
in a referral it made to the DOJ.
A Justice Department spokesman
declined to comment on the letter.
Here is an explanation about what
the categories of charges might cover,
based on legal experts, witness testi-
mony and the House panel’s recom-
mendations:
What does conspiracy to defraud
the United States mean?
The House panel recommended
charges against Trump for allegedly
trying to defraud the United States
based on obstructing the congression-
al count of Electoral College votes,
pressuring then-Vice President Mike
Pence into rejecting electors for Presi-
dent Joe Biden and recruiting alter-
nate Republican electors.
Norm Eisen, a lawyer who served on
the House panel investigating Trump’s
first impeachment and who analyzed
the evidence in the latest investiga-
tion, called the evidence “powerful
and overwhelming.”
“Trump led an alleged conspiracy
from the Oval Office by working with
his campaign, Rudy Giuliani, John
Eastman, the RNC and many others to
procure fake electoral certificates
across the nation as well as to push
other schemes to overturn the elec-
tion,” Eisen said. “And those fake cer-
tificates and other schemes were seri-
ous alleged frauds because they at-
tempted to fraudulently perpetuate
Trump in power and prevent the right-
ful winner from taking office.”
The counting of electoral votes was
temporarily suspended while a mob of
Trump supporters ransacked the Capi-
tol. Trump had told supporters during
a rally earlier in the day near the White
House that “you’ll never take back our
country with weakness. You have to
show strength and you have to be
strong. We have come to demand that
Congress do the right thing and only
count the electors who have been law-
fully slated, lawfully slated.”
“We fight like hell,” Trump added.
“And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re
not going to have a country anymore.”
But Trump didn’t go to the Capitol
and he pointed out he also told the
crowd to behave peacefully.
Trump urged Pence, in his role as
Senate president, to recognize the al-
ternate electors in seven pivotal states
that President Joe Biden won. Trump’s
campaign recruited Republican elec-
tors to meet parallel to officially certi-
fied electors on Dec. 14, 2020, and to
sign documents claiming they were
duly elected.
In reviewing the strategy as part of
a civil lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Da-
vid Carter ruled the president and one
of his lawyers, John Eastman, “more
likely than not” acted unlawfully. Car-
ter called the strategy a “coup in search
of a legal theory.”
“The illegality of the plan was obvi-
ous,” Carter wrote.
Michigan Attorney General Dana
Nessel announced forgery and con-
spiracy charges Tuesday against 16 al-
ternate electors in that state. In Geor-
gia, Fulton County District Attorney
Fani Willis is investigating potential
election fraud.
Trump’s campaign lawyers said
they organized alternate electors in
case his legal challenges were success-
ful and courts overturned state results.
In another facet of the plan, Trump
USA TODAY ❚ FRIDAY JULY 21, 2023 ❚ 3A
also called Georgia Secretary of State
Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021,
and urged him to “find” 11,780 votes to
tip the results of the election from Bi-
den to him.
But Raffensperger told him officials
found no widespread election fraud.
Trump has denied wrongdoing and
described his call as “perfect.”
What could have sparked a
charge of witness tampering?
Members of the House investiga-
tive panel reported that Trump made
numerous efforts to contact witnesses
before hearings last year.
One member, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-
Wyo., said the panel took “any effort to
influence witness testimony very seri-
ously” and referred incidents to the
Justice Department.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former
White House aide to then-chief of staff
Mark Meadows, testified her initial
lawyer paid by Trump allies encour-
aged her not to reveal all that she knew
to the panel. She said she was encour-
aged to remain loyal to the former
president and his allies.
“They don’t know what you know,”
Hutchinson quoted her lawyer, Stefan
Passantino, telling her about commit-
tee lawmakers. “ ‘I don’t recall’ is an
entirely acceptable response to this.”
Hutchinson later provided bomb-
shell testimony about White House
meetings to overturn the election,
Trump’s preparations for Jan. 6 and
what happened that day.
In another case, the committee
quoted a witness saying an unnamed
caller said Trump was aware of a depo-
sition scheduled the next day. “He
knows you’re a team player, you’re loy-
al, and you’re going to do the right
thing when you go in for your deposi-
tion,” the witness told the committee.
Brandon Van Grack, a former senior
Justice Department lawyer, said
witness or informant tampering
is a potential wild card in the case.
Brandon Van Grack, a former senior
Justice Department lawyer and prose-
cutor, said witness or informant tam-
pering is more surprising and a poten-
tial wild card in the case. He said it’s a
reminder of how the public often has
no idea what kind of evidence, wit-
nesses and information are being de-
veloped during such top-secret and
highly sensitive Justice Department
investigations.
“I hadn’t seen speculation on that
one,” Van Grack said. “And it’s not a
surprise that it is a surprise because if
you’re talking about witness tamper-
ing, it’s possible that we may not know
about which witness was tampered
with.”
Trump allies find it ‘odd’
only he got a target letter
A spokesman for one of Trump’s
personal lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, said
he hadn’t received a target letter and
that speculation he had “flipped” to
testify against Trump is wrong.
“In order to ‘flip,’ on President
Trump – as so many in the anti-Trump
media are fantasizing over – Mayor
Giuliani would’ve had to commit per-
jury because all the information he has
regarding this case points to President
Trump’s innocence,” said Ted Good-
man, a political adviser to Giuliani.
Tim Parlatore, a former Trump law-
yer, told CNN that it was odd to send a
target letter only to Trump and not to
others allegedly involved in the con-
spiracy.
“It’s an odd use of target letters,”
Parlatore said. “So in some ways it
looks like a publicity stunt.”
Speech
may play
a role in
charges
Experts differ on whether
address crossed legal line
Sudiksha Kochi
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON − Last year, a bipar-
tisan House select committee that in-
vestigated the attack on the Capitol on
Jan. 6, 2021, recommended that the
Justice Department charge former
President Donald Trump with insur-
rection, obstruction and conspiracy,
among other potential charges.
The final report published by the
committee highlighted key moments
from a speech Trump gave to sup-
porters at a rally on the Ellipse, a park
near the White House, claiming that
the 2020 election was stolen and tell-
ing the crowd to head to the Capitol as
it was certifying the election results.
Now, with Trump revealing this
week that he was informed he is a tar-
get of a federal investigation into the
Capitol riot, the speech could play a
role in a possible indictment.
Here’s what you need to know
about Trump’s Jan. 6 speech and what
legal experts say its role could be in a
possible indictment.
What did Trump say Jan. 6?
The Jan. 6 committee wrote in its
report that Trump knew the crowd in
Washington was angry, that “elements
of the crowd were armed, and had
prohibited items, and that many thou-
sands would not pass through the
magnetometers for that reason.”
Lawmakers noted that Trump told
supporters: “You’ll never take back our
country with weakness. You have to
show strength and you have to be
strong. We have come to demand that
Congress do the right thing and only
count the electors who have been law-
fully slated, lawfully slated. ... And we
fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t
fight like hell, you’re not going to have a
country anymore.”
The report also said that Trump tar-
geted former Vice President Mike
Pence “leading the crowd to believe
falsely” that he could alter the election
outcome. Trump also urged his sup-
porters to walk to the Capitol, saying
“we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be
there with you.”
“We’re going to cheer on our brave
senators and congressmen and wom-
en, and we’re probably not going to be
cheering so much for some of them,”
Trump said.
When the Democratic-controlled
House impeached Trump in 2021 on
charges of inciting an insurrection, his
lawyer Bruce Castor told the Senate dur-
ing the former president’s impeachment
trial that Trump encouraged supporters
to “peacefully and patriotically” make
their voices heard during his speech.
Will the speech play a role?
Marc Scholl, who served as a crimi-
nal prosecutor in New York, told USA
TODAY it wasn’t the words Trump
used but the tone of his message that
mustered up the crowd. “He was
speaking to a large, excitable crowd,
and the entire speech was designed to
make that crowd angry. ... Once Trump
raised the temperature with trigger
words like ‘fight’ and ‘stolen,’ a phrase
here or there about being peaceful be-
comes irrelevant,” Scholl said.
He added that any indictment will
not be limited to the Jan. 6 speech but
that officials would focus on a range of
factors, including what led up to it;
claims of election theft; false, alterna-
tive electors; and more.
Other legal experts said the Jan. 6
speech might not be of much relevance
in a possible indictment.
“The speech was just a call to arms
at that point, but I do not anticipate it
crossed the line sufficiently to warrant
a charge of insurrection or seditious
conspiracy,” Bradley Moss, a national
security lawyer, told USA TODAY.
David Super, a constitutional law
expert at Georgetown University, said
he doubts Trump’s Jan. 6 speech will
play a central role in any indictment.
“If the prosecutors can prove that
he had a broad conspiracy to steal the
election, the particular turns of phrase
in his speech on Jan. 6 will not matter
nearly as much.”
4A ❚ FRIDAY JULY 21, 2023 ❚ USA TODAY
Fentanyl
Continued from Page 1A
synthetic opioid that are being mass-
produced by Mexican drug cartels.
By some estimates, there are scores,
or even hundreds, of these federal ef-
forts to counter the manufacturing,
smuggling and sale of fentanyl and
related problems, including human traf-
ficking, in which the cartels are also
engaging in at increased levels. The
Drug Enforcement Administration, for
instance, has similar operations of its
own, but it falls under the Justice De-
partment, which goes before a different
committee when it’s time for oversight.
The code names allow the U.S. gov-
ernment to focus various elements of an
investigation, or a broader interagency
process, toward one goal, officials say.
They’re instrumental in marshaling all
of the disparate threads of evidence and
intelligence together, often from various
filing and information-sharing systems.
And they can help unify often-feuding
agencies and dedicate their efforts to-
ward the greater goal of keeping Amer-
icans safe.
“Most of all, it’s a coordination mech-
anism to let the (agents in the) field
know that they’re all working on a
similar theme,” Jack Kelly, a former
DEA supervisory special agent, told
USA TODAY.
Kelly became known within federal
law enforcement for creating appropri-
ately named investigative initiatives
that caught the attention of the White
House, attorney general and top law-
makers. His Project Cassandra honored
the Trojan priestess fated to utter true
prophecies but never to be believed as
part of Kelly’s efforts to raise alarms
about the convergence of drug traffick-
ing and terrorism.
“You would hope it would also be a
motivating factor for them to take each
others’ cases into consideration instead
of just doing what’s best for their own
case,” Kelly said.
Coping
Continued from Page 1A
“We’ve just been trying to get water into
the hands of people who need it and
make sure people are safe.”
Many cities across the country have
opened cooling centers to provide shel-
ter for people who are particularly vul-
nerable to the extreme weather, includ-
ing seniors and people experiencing
homelessness.
At a cooling center in Austin, volun-
teers have been passing out bandanas
soaked in ice water. The center typically
sees 300 to 400 people a day and de-
ploys mobile teams that provide water,
hats and sunscreen, Hilbelink said.
“When there’s extreme weather
events, we do see a surge of people.”
Hundreds of records shattered
More record-breaking heat is expect-
ed in the Four Corners states, Texas to
the Lower Mississippi Valley and South
Florida, and overnight temperatures
aren’t expected to provide much relief,
the National Weather Service said.
Heat will reach levels that would
pose a health risk could be deadly to
anyone without cooling or hydration,
the weather service warned. There have
already been a number of heat-related
injuries in recent weeks.
Adding to the misery: Smoke from
Canadian wildfires triggered air quality
alerts from the Plains to the Midwest to
the East Coast this week.
‘It’s been a lifesaver’
At least 12 heat-associated deaths
were reported in Maricopa County, Ari-
zona, in the first week of July, according
to the county’s department of public
health. Most recently, a 73-year-old
man who went for a bike ride died from
what appeared to be heat-related
causes in a desert Sunday, according to
police in Buckeye, outside Phoenix.
“We are saddened by the loss of a
community member,” the Buckeye Po-
lice Department said in a statement.
“Please be safe in this extreme heat.”
On Wednesday, Phoenix smashed its
record for most consecutive days at 110
degrees or higher. The city also set its
all-time mark for hottest night on record
early Wednesday with an overnight low
of 97 degrees, the National Weather
Service in Phoenix reported.
The city can expect little relief: The
weather service warned that the “ex-
tremely dangerous and long-duration
heat wave” will continue over the South-
west well into next week.
“This record is forecast to be obliter-
ated,” AccuWeather’s Renee Duff said.
“You know, for the greater good.”
Some of the names of the major
fentanyl operations by the Department
of Homeland Security were revealed at
the House Border Security and En-
forcement Subcommittee hearing. Rep.
Lou Correa of California said he wanted
to bring them up to get a sense of how
DHS is attacking the crisis from various
directions.
“This is an excellent sign that we ac-
tually have people on the ground that
understand the facts and are engaged in
solving each and every aspect of the
challenge in front of us, which is wheth-
er it’s money laundering or it’s the
actual fentanyl trafficking,” Correa said
in an interview Friday. “Because the
challenge that we have is that this thing
is massive.”
Operations Blue Lotus and Four
Horsemen: These Customs and Border
Protection, or CBP, initiatives resulted in
the seizure of nearly 10,000 pounds of
fentanyl headed for U.S. communities
and led to 284 arrests. “I understand
that the department has used the in-
sights gained from these two operations
to launch the next phase of its campaign
to target and prevent fentanyl from en-
tering the United States,” Correa said.
Operation Artemis and Operation
Rolling Wave: These are two newer CBP
operations leveraging the intelligence
gained through Blue Lotus and Four
Horsemen. This next phase of the fenta-
nyl battle will consist of “jump teams”
deployed at strategic locations around
the U.S., with a focus on disrupting the
supply chain for the development and
movement of fentanyl − especially its
precursor chemicals used to manufac-
ture it. Secretary of Homeland Security
Alejandro Mayorkas announced the op-
eration in June.
HSI, the Homeland Security Depart-
ment’s main investigative agency, also
will continue monitoring U.S. ports of
entry, where 90% of fentanyl is traf-
ficked primarily in cars and trucks,
while also increasing its coordination of
operations to target the fentanyl supply
chain under Blue Lotus 2.0.
The Phoenix Zoo’s Ron Pohl cools off a Galapagos tortoise after more than two
weeks of temperatures of 110 degrees or above. ROB SCHUMACHER/USA TODAY NETWORK
AccuWeather has 110-plus-degree highs
forecast daily through at least the mid-
dle to late next week.
A network of cooling stations offered
cold water bottles and air-conditioned
spaces to help people avoid heat ex-
haustion and dehydration. People “can
come in, cool down, sleep and make
sure they stay hydrated,” said Rudy
Soliz, director of operations at Justa
Center in Phoenix. The center focuses
on seniors facing homelessness but is
open to everyone when temperatures
surpass 100 degrees.
Joyce Obiru, who has been homeless
since 2016, said she has been returning
to the center daily to avoid time out in
the heat. She suffered from heatstroke
last summer and spent a couple of
months in the hospital.
“It’s been a lifesaver,” Obiru said.
The dangerous heat also was taxing
hospitals. At Valleywise Health Medical
Center in some extreme cases, some pa-
tients were being cooled off in ice-
packed body bags, communications di-
rector Michael Murphy told CNN.
Electricity use spikes
As temperatures rise, electricity-use
records are soaring in the Phoenix metro
area. Utilities Salt River Project and Ari-
zona Public Service both reported rec-
ord power use, and use in the coming
days could eclipse the new high marks.
“Peak energy demands are highly
sensitive to weather. ... We can antici-
pate high peak records,” Justin Joiner,
vice president of resource management
at APS, said in a statement.
Amid concerns about workplace
safety during the high temperatures,
On Thursday, Mayorkas − visiting
DHS contraband interdiction opera-
tions at the International Mail Facility at
JFK International Airport in New York −
said that Operation Artemis has
stopped more than 5,000 pounds of
precursor chemicals used in the produc-
tion of fentanyl in just its first few
weeks. He said agents working on
Artemis have seized more than 60 pill
presses and pill molds, more than 300
pounds of methamphetamine and at
least 5,000 pounds of other drugs.
“Operation Artemis is surging our
personnel to interdict the flow of pre-
cursor chemicals, as well as the equip-
ment used to manufacture metham-
phetamine,” Mayorkas said. “We are
using all of our resources, all of our
capabilities, and our tremendous cre-
ativity to guarantee traffickers will not
get ahead of us.”
Operation Argus: This operation is a
new Customs and Border Protection
initiative to run a parallel intelligence
and analysis operation to Operations
Blue Lotus 2.0 and Artemis and provide
trade-focused analysis in support of
them.
Operation Pelican Bones: The ini-
tiative by DHS’s Homeland Security In-
vestigations division seeks to disrupt
the financial tools used by transnational
criminal organizations to launder mon-
ey. Lawmakers and law enforcement of-
ficials said that to take down the cartels
and transnational criminal organiza-
tions that enable them, authorities need
to go after their profits and supply
chains, not just the drugs themselves.
HSI falls under ICE, or U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement, within DHS.
Operation Hydra: Another HSI effort
that uses computer-based analytic
tools to go after cartels’ chemical sup-
plies, targets equipment needed to
manufacture pills, and goes after addi-
tional personnel deployed at express
consignment facilities.
Operation Chain Breaker: This is an
effort to target the equipment needed to
manufacture the black-market pills
flooding U.S. communities from coast to
Arizona officials over the weekend gave
regulators new powers to inspect work-
places in industries where employees
typically suffer heat-related illness.
With the new “emphasis program,” the
state can examine businesses for heat-
related work conditions, even without a
direct complaint.
“In the middle of a devastating heat
wave, Arizona’s workers need relief,”
Gov. Katie Hobbs said in a statement.
In Texas, prison advocates, minis-
ters, politicians and grieving parents
were lobbying the Texas governor,
lieutenant governor and Senate to put
air conditioning in prisons as triple-dig-
it temperatures transform them into a
“living hell.” More than two-thirds of
Texas’ 100 prisons do not have air condi-
tioning in their living quarters, advo-
cates say.
Last month, nine people died of heart
failure or unknown conditions, which
advocates blame on the excessive heat
in the prisons. Amanda Hernandez,
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
communications director, said prelimi-
nary findings show the deaths were “not
heat-related.”
But J. Carlee Purdum, a Texas A&M
University research assistant professor,
says the number reported is “wildly un-
derestimated.” Purdum said inmates
described prisons during the summer as
a “living hell.”
Coconut water to the rescue
On Tuesday Miami marked a record
38th consecutive day with a heat index
higher than 100 degrees, according to
meteorologist Brian McNoldy. Heat in-
dices were expected to approach up to
NEWS
coast after being produced in industri-
al-sized Mexican cartel “superlabs”
south of the border. It also will deploy
additional agents at express consign-
ment facilities.
“Initiatives like these are critical to
dismantle illicit networks and limit
TCOs’ financial access,” Correa said,
using an acronym to describe transna-
tional criminal organizations like the
Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation
drug cartels.
During the hearing, Correa and the
subcommittee chairman, Rep. Clay Hig-
gins, R-La., introduced the bipartisan
Cooperation on Combatting Human
Smuggling and Trafficking Act, which
would direct Homeland Security Inves-
tigations to expand its Transnational
Criminal Investigative Units.
“These vetted and trained units of
foreign law enforcement work with HSI
to investigate transnational criminal or-
ganizations, aiming to stop human
smuggling and the flow of dangerous
drugs before they reach our borders,”
Correa said.
Another operation not mentioned at
last Wednesday’s hearing reflects the
broader nature of some of the opera-
tions, including joint DHS-Justice De-
partment efforts:
Operation Sentinel: A major initia-
tive launched in 2021 by Mayorkas to
focus on the transnational criminal
organizations that smuggle migrants
into the U.S. as well as drugs.
Operation Sentinel is a collaborative
anti-smuggling initiative between three
DHS entities − HSI, CBP and U.S. Citi-
zenship and Immigration Services − and
the State Department; and the FBI and
DEA, which fall under the Justice De-
partment.
“Smuggling operations continue to
lie and exploit vulnerable populations to
promote their criminal enterprise – the
health and safety of migrants does not
influence their lucrative ambition,” top
CBP official Troy Miller said. The opera-
tion “is designed to disrupt every facet
of the logistical network of these crimi-
nal organizations.”
110 degrees in parts of South Florida
through this week.
Peg Malota, 60, a customer service
representative and cashier at a Publix in
Naples, said she has been cooling off in
the supermarket’s walk-in refrigerator
between trips to gather shopping carts
outside during her shift.
Surama Aguilar, 31, a landscaper at a
golf and country club in Naples, said she
plans to keeping working through the
oppressive heat.
“We have to earn money,” Aguilar
said. “All we can do is drink a lot of wa-
ter. Coconut water helps, too.”
California is not spared
California also is facing historically
high temperatures.
Firefighters from the Golden State on
Tuesday were battling wildfires in Riv-
erside County. Families in Fresno were
cooling off at swimming pools that are
usually closed this time of year. And
staff at Death Valley National Park were
warning visitors to take precautions.
Nichole Andler, the park’s chief of in-
terpretation and education, has been
teaching travelers how to stay safe in ex-
treme temperatures. Visitors continue
to hike despite scalding temperatures of
110 to more than 120 degrees.
“It is real and it is serious,” said An-
dler, who was using a shaded umbrella
Tuesday to keep the sun off of her face.
“So we advise visitors to stay close to
their car and don’t take backcountry
roads during hot summer months.”
In Fresno, the local school district
has unlocked the gates on several of the
swimming pools at its schools for
community members to cool off amid
the grueling heat. Temperatures were at
a high of 104 on Tuesday, and the city is
on excessive heat watch, according to
The Weather Channel.
District officials are being cautious
and ensuring their HVAC systems are
working and limiting outdoor activities
for kids at summer camps. The Educa-
tion Department two years ago declared
climate change a threat to schools.
Diana Diaz, a spokesperson for
Fresno Unified, said that between now
and next week when camps end, offi-
cials are monitoring temperatures “as
we know extreme heat can be detrimen-
tal to the health and well-being of our
students and staff.”
The sweltering temperatures in the
United States come as parts of Europe
and Asia also are seeing historic heat
waves.
Contributing: Russ Wiles, Ellie Wil-
lard and Aidan Wohl, Arizona Republic;
Anthony Plascencia, Ventura County
Star; Ryan Maxin, Austin American-
Statesman; Daniel Borunda, El Paso
Times; Emma Behrmann, Naples Daily
News and Fort Myers News-Pres.
MONEY
USA TODAY | FRIDAY, JULY 21, 2023 | 5A

MONEYLINE

AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT

ATTENDANTS MAY STRIKE
The union representing American
Airlines flight attendants will hold a
strike authorization vote, following
years without a raise and lengthy ne-
gotiations with the airline. Voting will
open on July 28 and close on Aug. 29,
with results announced the following
day. Flight attendants have not re-
ceived a raise since January 2019, the
Association of Professional Flight
Attendants’ said, and the union is
asking for significant pay hikes. The
union has proposed an immediate
35% increase in wages, followed by a
6% annual increase in subsequent
years. APFA is also calling for 82 guar-
anteed paid hours per month for re-
serve flight attendants – up from 75 –
a higher 401(k) contribution and
match and more. American did not
immediately respond to USA TODAY’s
request for comment.

Finally good news

for car buyers?
GETTY IMAGES

PROVIDED BY LITTLE CAESARS, PEPSICO

NEW PINEAPPLE PEPSI
PLAYS TO PIZZA DEBATE
Love pineapple on pizza? What about
in soda? On Monday, Pepsi began
selling its Pineapple flavored soda
exclusively at Little Caesars. The sale
is part of the pizza chain’s Pineapple
Pair-Up Combo, which includes a 16-
ounce Pepsi Pineapple soda and a
large, two-topping thin crust pizza.
The deal will only be available for a
limited time only, Pepsi said in a news
release. A Pepsi spokesperson said
the soda is available at all locations,
but the combo is only available at
participating restaurants. The soda
looks similar to Pepsi’s iconic blue can
with the addition of Fruit Ninja-style
pineapple slices and droplets of pine-
apple juice. The soda was “inspired by
fans’ love of the fruit and its delicious
flavor,” Pepsi said. Company exec-
utives played on the “Does pineapple
belong on pizza?” debate and said the
soda will allow customers to enjoy
pineapple whichever way they want.
Prices for new, used models
show signs of improvement
Jamie L. LaReau
Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY NETWORK
New car prices had the smallest year-over-
year increase in four years, according to just-
released June data.
Similarly, used car prices show signs of sta-
bilizing, even cooling slightly. In new data re-
leased this week, Cox Automotive said its
Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index showed
the prices car dealers paid for a used car in
June dropped dramatically from the year-ago
period. And, the index was down 4.3% in June
compared with May, which analysts say is one
of the largest drops in the index’s history.
But experts don’t expect dealers to pass
that same level of savings on to consumers
just yet. Still, used vehicles’ list prices are
down slightly, even as the average mileage on
used cars is now higher due to fewer late-
model used cars entering the market.
On the new car side, the average price
Americans paid for a new vehicle in June was
$48,808, up 1.6% from the year-ago period,
Kelley Blue Book, a Cox Automotive company,
said Tuesday. That is the smallest year-over-
year price gain since the start of the global
pandemic, Kelley Blue Book noted. And, com-
pared with the start of the year, transaction
prices are down 1.7%, or $865 from $49,388 in
January. It is the largest January to June tum-
ble in the past decade, according to Kelley
Blue Book.
“The fact that average transaction prices are
up a meager 1.6% year-over-year in June is no-
table,” said Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at
Cox Automotive. “A year ago, the industry was
looking at transaction prices that were consis-
tently up 10% to 12% year-over-year. With no
inventory in place, it was inflation gone wild.”
Now, as inventory consistently grows and
supply and demand are balancing out, the price
gains seem to be under control, she said, which
is “good news for shoppers,” Krebs said.
Price goes down, mileage goes up
“Even as
The Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index is a
dealers
measurement of wholesale used car prices cal-
are paying
culated by tracking those sold at Manheim’s
less, it
auctions across the nation. The index fell 4.2%
doesn’t
in June compared with May. That means as the
guarantee
supply of used cars has improved, dealers are
the money
paying less for them. The average wholesale
they save
price for a used car in June was $20,224, down
will be
10% compared with June 2022.
passed on
But that doesn’t mean dealers will pass
to the
those savings on to used car buyers.
consumer
“Rule of thumb with wholesales is that what
when it
happens there usually impacts retail about six
comes
to eight weeks later – but usually not to the ex-
time to
tent, so no 10% year-over-year decline expect-
retail
ed,” said Mark Schirmer, spokesman for Cox
those
Automotive. “But certainly price moderation.”
same
In fact, Charlie Chesbrough, a Cox Automo-
units.”
tive senior economist, said prices have been
Ivan Drury falling in used wholesale, but Cox Automotive
Director of
Insights at
is not seeing similar declines on the retail side.
Edmunds Cox Automotive data showed in June the
See CAR PRICES, Page 6A

MICHAEL DWYER/AP

ILL. INSTAGRAM USERS MAY

GET SETTLEMENT CHECK
Illinois residents who used Instagram
between August 2015 and August
2023 may be eligible for a cut of a
$68.5 million settlement the social
media company must pay after a court
decision. The settlement results from
a class-action lawsuit claiming that
Meta Platforms, Inc., which owns In-
stagram, violated Illinois’ Biometric
Information Privacy Act with the appli-
cation. The company denies the claims
but has agreed to the settlement. The
settlement is still awaiting approval by
the court, but people impacted can
begin submitting claims now. Anyone
who used Instagram while in Illinois
between Aug. 10, 2015, and Aug. 16,
2023 will be eligible to receive a por-
tion of the settlement. Instagram
users who are eligible for compensa-
tion can file their claims at Instagram-
BipaSettlement.com. People have
until Sept. 27 to submit a claim for
compensation and until Aug. 16 to
request to be excluded from the set-
tlement. The case’s final approval
hearing is on Oct. 11. It has not yet
been determined how much each
person will receive in the settlement.
Average credit care rate still soaring
That 0% APR offer may
zoom upward to 30%
Susan Tompor
Columnist
USA TODAY
Credit card rates continue to hit ex-
traordinary extremes – ranging from
0% for those consumers with excellent
credit all the way up to the 36% range
for those looking for second chances at
rebuilding their credit.
After 10 rapid-fire rate hikes by the
Federal Reserve in less than a year and
a half, the average rate on credit cards
has soared to 20.58%, up from 17.01% a
year ago.
That 36% rate? It’s part of a Premier
Bankcard that starts with an ultra-low
credit limit – $200 to $700 – and is be-
ing marketed to people who want to re-
build their credit scores back up from
the 500-plus level. Annual fee: $50 to
$125, based on creditworthiness. It has
a list of other steep fees too.
After 10 rate hikes by the Federal
Reserve in more than a year, the
average rate on credit cards has
soared to 20.55%, up from 17.01% a
year ago. The average rate was 16.28%
back in February 2022, before the first
Fed rate hike hit. ELISE AMENDOLA/AP
Annual interest rates or APRs on re-
tail cards ballooned to the low 30%
range too. The APR for Macy’s store ac-
counts was 31.74% in early July. The
Nordstrom card was 30.9%. Both rates
will rise if the prime rate goes up again,
which could happen as soon as July 26
should the Federal Reserve boost short-
term interest rates as some expect.
0% remains really tempting
Are 0% credit card offers a dream?
No, those promotional rates are still out
there, much like those 0% to 3% incen-
tives being offered by automakers to
move select cars and trucks during the
summer sales season.
“Zero percent offers are surprisingly
common these days, on balance trans-
fers as well as new purchases,” said Ted
Rossman, senior industry analyst for
CreditCards.com and Bankrate.com. “I
say surprisingly because of the rising
rate environment,” he said. “I know that
0% is an eye-popping marketing figure
– more than, say, a 3% or 5% balance
transfer or intro APR.”
Even so, Rossman still would have
expected at the very least that 0% offers
would only apply for a few short months
or that transfer fees would have gone
up.
“But neither has happened,” Ross-
man said.
He attributes the robust offerings for
0% promotional rates on credit cards to
the fact that consumer spending
See CREDIT CARDS, Page 6A
6A ❚ FRIDAY JULY 21, 2023 ❚ USA TODAY
Cruise cabins vary widely
based on price you pay
Nathan Diller
USA TODAY
During a recent cruise, my ship sailed
to Bermuda, it had a pool and water park
on board. But lounging on my stateroom
balcony was the part that felt most like a
vacation.
Sitting in the sun in my own space on
Carnival Cruise Line’s newest ship, Car-
nival Venezia, as the waves rolled by, I
was able to relax in a way I don’t usually
do at home.
For some travelers, a cruise state-
room is nothing more than a place to
rest between activities. But for others
like myself, it can make a trip. Many
ships have a range of categories to
choose from at varying price points,
which come with different advantages.
Here’s what the least and most ex-
pensive rooms on the Venezia are like.
What is the least expensive cabin
on a cruise ship?
Interior or inside staterooms are
typically the least expensive category
on a cruise. Those cabins are generally
the smallest on board and rarely accom-
modate more than three people, accord-
ing to Joy Hess, owner and lead travel
consultant at Outside the Lines Travel.
They also don’t have windows, some-
thing that travelers who get seasick and
could benefit from fresh air should keep
in mind. Some interior cabins have port-
holes with screens that simulate a view
– like Disney Cruise Line’s “magical
portholes” – “so people don’t feel quite
as landlocked, so to speak,” said Hess.
“It’s a box with no view,” she said of
the cabin category. “Interior staterooms
are great for people who plan to be out of
their room except to sleep.”
Venezia’s cheapest interior state-
rooms feature a queen-size bed or twin
and Pullman beds, and like every room,
a TV and dedicated stateroom atten-
dant. Prices vary by sailing dates and
length, but an interior room on a nine-
day cruise sailing round-trip from New
York to Miami and the Bahamas on Feb.
2, 2024, starts at $459 per guest based
on double occupancy.
The fare includes most food, and
drinks like iced tea and regular coffee
and more.
Along with their lower base fares, in-
terior rooms – like other standard cate-
gories – also come with cheaper gratu-
ities. Carnival recommends $16 gratu-
Car prices
Continued from Page 5A
average list price for a used vehicle was
$27,147 with an average mileage of 71,431
compared with June 2022 when the av-
erage list price was $27,998 with an av-
erage mileage of 69,842. So as used car
prices are coming down slightly, the
used vehicles available have higher
mileage.
No meaningful ‘used car summer
savings’ yet
At Edmunds.com, analysts agree
that car buyers likely won’t see used car
prices drop substantially any time soon.
“Even as dealers are paying less, it
doesn’t guarantee the money they save
will be passed on to the consumer when
it comes time to retail those same units,”
said Ivan Drury, director of Insights at
Edmunds.
Drury said that dealers are likely
hedging their bets against paying too
much for a used car if prices or supply
shift. That would indicate dealer pessi-
mism that the high used vehicle values
can be sustained in the second half of
the year.
“Which would indicate dealers are
assuming typical seasonality of pricing
will return, especially as we’re aware
that the latest Fed stalling on the rate
hikes is just a temporary thing and that
the next meetings will result in rate in-
creases,” Drury said.
He noted demand for new and used
cars remains strong and, “Dealers might
be forecasting lower (used car) values,
and even with a lag time between what
they buy versus when they sell, we’re
not going to see this turn into any mean-
ingful used car summer savings.”
New and used car inventory
improves, but still tight
The total supply of used cars nation-
The Ocean Suites give guests added space. PROVIDED BY CARNIVAL CRUISE LINE
ities per person, per day for standard
staterooms, according to its website. If
guests have not prepaid those tips be-
fore their sailing, the line will automat-
ically add the charges to passengers’ on-
board accounts, though the amounts
can be adjusted at their discretion be-
fore they disembark.
Some of Hess’ clients prefer interior
rooms for more than just the cost-sav-
ings. “Some people are afraid of water,
and they don’t want to know that they
are in the middle of the ocean,” she said.
Others enjoy the dark space for sleep-
ing, with no bright sun to wake them in
the morning.
What is the most expensive cabin
on a cruise ship?
On the opposite end of the price
spectrum, multiroom suites tend to be
the most expensive rooms on board,
Hess said. They can measure thousands
of square feet, often with spacious bal-
conies.
They also typically come with a range
of perks. In the case of Venezia’s Ocean
Suites – its most expensive room cate-
gory – that includes priority boarding,
debarkation, and main dining room
ally is 2.22 million units, 10% below
what it was last year at this time, said
Chris Frey, senior manager of economic
and industry insights for Cox Automo-
tive. In June, dealers had a 47-day sup-
ply of used vehicles compared with 52
days of supply a year earlier, Frey said.
“It’s worth noting that day supply is
fairly normal for this time of year, which
isn’t something we’ve seen in three
years,” Frey said. “Dealers are balancing
their inventory to the sales rate, keeping
days supply steady even as total supply
continues to improve in the used mar-
ket.”
But demand is keeping pace with
supply, which Krebs said will likely re-
main constrained.
“We don’t expect huge declines in
used vehicle sales – not back to 2019 –
because we estimate about 10% of buy-
ers who used to be able to buy a new car
can no longer afford new and have
turned to the used vehicle market,”
Krebs said in an email to the Free Press.
“By historic standards, there’s still fairly
low inventory of used vehicles, partic-
ularly newer ones because we did not
sell many new cars and we did very little
leasing, which typically provides a good
newish used car supply. And rental car
fleets were buying used vehicles when
new ones weren’t available, not selling
them as they usually do.”
New cars see more spiff spend
Frey said new vehicle inventory in
June was up by 74% compared with the
year-ago period to 1.95 million vehicles
across the industry. Last year at this
time, all automakers suffered a dearth of
inventory as a shortage of semiconduc-
tor chips used in various car parts, ham-
pered new car production.
Kelley Blue Book showed that auto-
makers’ incentive spending increased
for the ninth consecutive month in June
to the highest level since October 2021,
averaging $2,048, or 4.2%, of the aver-
age transaction price. One year ago, av-
erage incentive spending was 2.3% of
times; access to the ship’s Terrazza
Carnevale lounge area; special
brunches on select sea days; bath-
robes and more. Venezia’s suites are
smaller than some other suites at oth-
er ships, though, ranging from 327 to
356 square feet.
Fares for those staterooms also vary
by sailing date and length, but an
Ocean Suite on the same Feb. 2, 2024,
sailing starts at $2,029 per person
based on double occupancy. Passen-
gers in suites pay $18 per guest, per day
in gratuities.
Hess said suites can be good fits for
travelers with multigenerational fam-
ilies, those celebrating a special occa-
sion, or who just “want to experience a
cruise without being around a lot of
other people.”
And even if you can’t get the exact
room you want, there may be unex-
pected upsides. Hess once stayed in an
ocean-view room on a low deck, but
her disappointment at its location
turned to joy when she saw whales
swim by outside her window, which
she said she wouldn’t have seen if she
had been higher.
“You can make the most of it no
matter what,” she said.
the average transaction price.
Some more good news in June is
that the average price consumers paid
for a new vehicle fell to $345 below the
manufacturer’s suggested retail price.
A year ago, the average transaction
price was $698 over MSRP.
As a result of the improved pricing,
new car sales in June by volume were
the highest since May 2021, Kelley Blue
Book said. Sales into the fleet and in-
creasing incentives contributed to the
20.7% year-over-year volume gain.
The Tesla effect on EV and luxury
vehicle prices
Luxury market leader as well as be-
stselling electric vehicle maker, Tesla,
has slashed prices by more than 11% so
far this year, Kelley Blue Book said. It
estimates the average Tesla buyer
spent $55,106 for a new car, down from
more than $62,000 in January.
The drop in Tesla prices is bringing
the average transaction prices for EVs
and luxury cars down. In June, the av-
erage buyer of a luxury vehicle paid
$63,977, down 2% from the year-ago
period. The average buyer of an EV
paid $53,438, down
20% from $66,390 in
the year-ago period and
down from more than
$61,000 in January, Kel-
ley Blue Book said.
In terms of supply, as
Krebs measured by days’ sup-
ply, the EV category is
well above the overall industry. At the
end of June, the EV segment days’ sup-
ply was 103 days, while industry days’
supply stood at 53.
“The steep drop in average EV
prices this year, led by Tesla price cuts,
has been a key driver of overall, indus-
trywide price moderation,” added
Krebs. “A year ago, the average EV
price was above the average luxury ve-
hicle price. Today, as inventory and
availability build, EV prices are mov-
ing closer to the industry average.”
MONEY
Credit cards
Continued from Page 5A
continues to be strong and delinquen-
cies are still pretty low.
Going from 0% to nearly 30%
What’s important for consumers to
realize is that 0% can be a loss leader
for card issuers, who know that they’ll
make more money if you don’t pay off
that balance in full before the 0% ex-
pires and the higher rate kicks in.
Take a Discover card with a 0% intro
offer for 15 months for purchases and
balance transfers. The balance trans-
fer must post to your account by Oct. 10
to qualify. The online disclosure notes:
“After the intro APR expires, your APR
will be 16.99% to 27.99% based on your
creditworthiness. This APR will vary
with the market based on the prime
rate.”
If your credit card rate zooms from
0% to nearly 30% in a bit more than a
year, you’re facing a true financial
squeeze if you’re carrying a high bal-
ance on that card.
“If you pay late at all – even just a
day late, or a few hours even, you can
lose your 0% term,” Rossman said. It’s
essential to make at least the required
monthly minimum payment on time.
After the 0% term, for example,
Rossman noted that the Wells Fargo
Reflect charges a variable APR be-
tween 17.99% and 29.99%, depending
on creditworthiness. When the 0% of-
fer ends, the Citi Simplicity card’s rate
ranges from 18.99% to 29.74%, and the
Citi Diamond Preferred charges 17.99%
to 28.74%.
For card issuers, Rossman said, the
“real sweet spot is if people carry bal-
ances but avoid default, and an in-
creasing number of cardholders are
balance carriers that still pay on time.”
He noted that Citi mentioned dur-
ing an earnings call a few years ago
that about half of these balances on
0% cards are not paid in full by the
time the clock runs out.
Many cards with a 0% promotion,
Rossman said, charge above-average
annual percentage rates or APRs once
the intro period ends. Carefully read all
the terms and conditions.
Who qualifies for a 0%
promotion?
No surprise here: You need good-to-
excellent credit – say a credit score of
670 or better – to qualify for a 0% offer.
“Most people have that since the aver-
age FICO score is 716,” Rossman said.
Seeing a 0% offer pop up in your
mail is a good sign, too, but it’s not a
guarantee that you’d qualify to get that
card, either. The Bankrate.com site
lists offers but also a box to help you
predict your odds of getting approved.
It’s a free estimator that involves a soft
credit check. Not a guarantee.
What you don’t want to do is auto-
matically assume that you’d qualify
for 0% and then be able to transfer as
much money off another high-rate
card as you’d like. You might be ap-
proved for a 0% card but then only be
approved to transfer $2,000 instead of
$5,000. Much can depend on your
credit score, your income, how much
you owe, and the lender’s risk toler-
ance.
Pay off what you owe before zero
goes to double-digits
Fortunately, some 0% offers con-
tinue to run for nearly two years.
The longest 0% offers on the market
in July, Rossman said, are running for
21 months. These include ones offering
0% interest on balance transfers, such
as the Wells Fargo Reflect, BankAmer-
icard, Citi Simplicity and Citi Diamond
Preferred. The Wells Fargo Reflect and
the BankAmericard, Rossman said,
also offer 0% for 21 months on new
purchases. The Citi Simplicity and Citi
Diamond Preferred have 12-month 0%
periods on new purchases.
Consumers who transfer balances
need to understand that the card will
charge a fee that can range from 3% to
5% of the amount being transferred. If
you’re transferring a balance of $2,000
to that new card, you’d pay $100 in fees
if the rate is 5%.
If you pay off the debt during that
0% intro period, you will save money
in interest charges.
“My top tip is to divide what you
owe by the number of months in your
0% term,” Rossman said, “and try to
stick with that level payment plan. It’s
hard to hit a moving target, so I’d ad-
vise against adding new purchases.”
Simple math: If you owe $4,200 on
that balance transfer, you’d want to
pay $200 a month for the next 21
months to make sure the bill gets cov-
ered.
NEWS
OPINION
Conservatives, avoid bad look of cruel rant
Ingrid Jacques
USA TODAY
Traverse City is one of my favorite
places in Michigan, where I live. It’s a
small resort town in the northern part of
the state that’s close to pristine lakes,
sand dunes and wineries.
Yet its natural beauty wasn’t in the
news recently. Instead, a controversy
over a local salon owner’s comments on
social media gained national attention.
Christine Geiger, who owns Studio 8
Hair Lab, wrote the following (now de-
leted) on the salon’s Facebook page this
month: “If a human identifies as any-
thing other than a man/woman please
seek services at a local pet groomer. You
are not welcome at this salon. Period.
Should you request to have a particular
pronoun used please note we may sim-
ply refer to you as ‘hey you.’ ”
The post continued, “This is Ameri-
ca; free speech. This small business has
the right to refuse services.”
Don’t pick unnecessary fights
I am a staunch defender of our First
Amendment rights, and the right to free
speech protects comments we find de-
spicable – not just those we like. That’s
why it exists. But Geiger’s comments
were over-the-top, cruel and a bad busi-
ness decision.
And she didn’t post the statement on
DeSantis cares little about Florida’s insurance crisis
John A. Torres
Florida Today
USA TODAY Network
The first of July marked the day new
laws, passed by Florida’s legislature and
signed by the governor, took effect. The
majority of new legislation is a carry-
over from last year when Gov. Ron De-
Santis unofficially started his presiden-
tial campaign by waging war with
“woke” ideology.
It’s a campaign that might already be
one for the record books as it took less
than two months after his late-May offi-
cial start to his presidential race that the
governor announced firing roughly
10 campaign staffers.
And while DeSantis may blame oth-
ers for his plummeting poll numbers –
especially in Florida where he trails for-
mer President Donald Trump by a large
amount – maybe he should just take a
look at this year’s legislative session.
New laws in Florida make it tougher
to get an abortion, be a drag queen, hire
an undocumented immigrant or be a
high school member of the LGBTQ+
community. On the other hand, the laws
make it easier to carry a handgun in
public and a lot easier to execute some-
one. In other words, as the governor has
vowed, he is really taking it to the “woke
nation.”
What’s missing from
new Florida laws? Insurance
If you talk to any one of your neigh-
bors, though, the one thing missing
from all those unneeded new laws is the
word “insurance.” Maybe he should
have been taking it to the insurance in-
dustry, you know, the industry raising
Florida homeowner insurance premi-
ums sky high.
No, DeSantis and his super-majority
legislature haven’t ignored the insur-
ance issue. In December, our leaders
passed property insurance overhauls
that were beneficial to insurance com-
panies by cracking down on insurance
fraud, but offered no relief to Florida
homeowners.
Farmers and AAA insurance compa-
nies have either pulled out or are limit-
ing who they insure.
According to the latest figures, Flori-
da homeowners pay the highest amount
“USA TODAY hopes to serve as a forum for better understanding and unity to help make the USA truly one nation.” – Allen H. Neuharth, Founder, Sept. 15, 1982
Chairman and CEO Chief Financial Officer:
Gannett Co. Doug Horne
Michael Reed
After announcing that certain
members of the LGBTQ+ community
are unwelcome at her salon, a product
line that Christine Geiger regularly
used has distanced itself from her.
JOHN FLESHER/AP
her personal social media page. She un-
leashed her rant on the business’ Face-
book account.
Geiger has stood by what she wrote,
telling The Associated Press that she
just doesn’t “want the woke dollar,” and
that she’d rather not be as busy than
serve clients she fundamentally dis-
agrees with.
She might very well get her wish, giv-
en that already at least one supplier has
now refused to supply products to her
business.
Geiger also has attracted the atten-
tion of local and state Democratic poli-
ticians, who are eager to put Michigan’s
recently expanded LGBTQ+ civil rights
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, campaigning in the Republican presidential race in West Columbia, S.C., on Tuesday,
moves chairs out of his way after a news conference. SEAN RAYFORD/AP
for insurance in the country at $6,000
annually, several times the national av-
erage.
Since DeSantis won the governor’s
race in 2018, Florida insurance numbers
rates have gone up 206%. That’s not a
typo: 206%.
While Florida schools and libraries
fight hard to make sure that our children
don’t read classics like “The Kite Run-
ner” and “Slaughterhouse-Five,” that
pronoun use becomes a thing of the past
or that gay kids go back in the closet, our
homeowners are getting absolutely
steamrolled by insurance companies.
How Florida’s new laws
will affect you
What else has the governor worked
on while ignoring the insurance crisis?
Well, the government can now exe-
cute its citizens with jury votes recom-
mending death of 8-4 instead of being
unanimous.
Chief Content Officer: Editor in Chief,
Kristin Roberts USA TODAY
Terence Samuel
USA TODAY ❚ FRIDAY JULY 21, 2023 ❚ 7A
WANT TO COMMENT?
We’re on Facebook (USA TODAY Opinion) and Instagram and Twitter (@usatodayopinion). You can also
comment directly on columns.
protections to use. Discrimination
based on gender identity and sexual ori-
entation is now explicitly prohibited, in-
cluding at public accommodations.
The salon owner claims she has nev-
er denied service to anyone, regardless
of their status. So, at this point, the con-
troversy is about her comments only.
Different from 303 Creative case
One of the things that is damaging
about instances like this one is that it
blurs the line between what could be il-
legal discrimination - if Geiger actually
refuses to serve an LGBTQ+ customer –
and a business owner’s protected First
Amendment rights.
Much of the reporting on the Tra-
verse City salon post has linked what
the owner did with the U.S. Supreme
Court’s ruling that defended a Colorado
website designer’s right to refuse to de-
sign sites for same-sex weddings –
something that goes against her reli-
gious beliefs.
These are fundamentally different
cases, and business owners like Geiger,
who say they are conservative, do a
huge disservice to creative artists like
Lorie Smith, the owner of 303 Creative,
whose business was at the center of the
court’s recent ruling.
The political left already paints
Smith and other artists with religious
convictions as bigots and is eager to
lump all instances of discrimination to-
gether. Posts like Geiger’s give them am-
munition to do that.
The Supreme Court, however, made
This gives our state the distinction of
having the lowest death penalty thresh-
old in the United States.
DeSantis will also likely point out as a
victory his assault on 12 pesky words:
pronouns. Who would have guessed a
politician vying for the White House
would care so much about I, you, he,
she, it, we, they, me, him, her, us and
them?
The new law puts a policy in place in
every public school that prohibits as-
signing “to a person a pronoun that does
not correspond to such person’s sex.”
The man who would be king also
made it easier for the citizenry to “pack
heat,” as they used to say in ’70s crime
movies. While some in the legislature
were vying for open carry, the state’s
lawmakers settled on permitless carry.
What does this mean?
Well, it means you can now carry a
concealed gun in Florida without a per-
mit, training or background check.
There is still a background check and
Vice President/Group Editor,
Gannett Opinion
Michael McCarter
sure to distinguish between public ac-
commodation rights and the funda-
mental harm that could come from the
government trying to compel – or pre-
vent – speech, as was the case in 303
Creative.
The nation’s highest court found that
designing a website is actual speech.
But that’s certainly not the case with ev-
ery business service.
Can’t we all just get along?
There have been several instances in
the past year of conservatives being de-
nied service at restaurants or being
asked to leave, and I’ve called attention
to them because it’s a form of discrimi-
nation. Conservatives shouldn’t be
afraid to go out in public because of
what they believe.
Most civil rights ordinances don’t
protect political ideology, however.
Some do, like the city of Seattle, and
other communities should look into it.
As culture wars heat up around the
country, instances in which people are
denied public accommodation because
of their political and social opinions are
likely to become more prevalent.
Most businesses must adhere to civil
rights laws, and that’s a good thing.
If conservatives don’t like it when
they’re treated as if they’re second-
class citizens, then they should go out of
their way not to do the same to others.
Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA
TODAY. You can contact her at
ijacques@usatoday.com or on Twitter:
@Ingrid_Jacques
three-day waiting period if you buy your
gun from a licensed dealer. But you can
buy one from a neighbor or friend with-
out training or a background check.
There was also the crackdown on
teaching an Advanced Placement
course on African American studies.
(We wouldn’t want anyone to feel badly
about slavery, would we?)
And there is the new abortion bill
that would make it illegal to get an abor-
tion after six weeks of pregnancy. (This
one will have to make it through a few
legal challenges before becoming law.)
It was a very busy session and lots,
by the looks of it, got done. It’s too bad
none of it had to do with insurance con-
cerns. I guess the governor doesn’t have
to worry about his insurance bill like the
rest of us do.
John A. Torres is the opinions and en-
gagement editor at Florida Today,
where this column first published. Fol-
low him on Twitter @johnalbertorres or
at facebook.com/FTjohntorres
Vice President/Executive Editor,
Sports
Roxanna Scott
8A ❚ FRIDAY JULY 21, 2023 ❚ USA TODAY
TRAVEL
POCKET GUIDE
GERMANY
10Best Local Experts
take you to the best
spots around Berlin,
Frankfurt, Munich
Andrea Schulte-Peevers
in BERLIN
Robyn Polzin
in FRANKFURT
Mike Richardson
in MUNICH
GO SEE ...
BERLIN
1. Berlin Wall Memorial
The Berlin Wall may be gone,
but it will never be forgotten.
This outdoor museum, which in-
cludes the last remaining stretch
of the wall in its original location,
explains how the barrier divided
a city and its people for 28 years.
Bernauer Strasse 119
+49 30 467 986 666
2. Stasi Prison
Former inmates lead tours of
the prison where the East Ger-
man secret police held suspected
opponents of the regime — most
of them innocent of wrongdoing.
Genslerstrasse 66
+49 30 9860 8230
3. Panoramapunkt
For the best bird’s-eye view of
central Berlin, let Europe’s fastest
elevator whisk you 24 floors to
this lofty perch above Potsdamer
Platz in a mere 20 seconds.
Potsdamer Platz 1
+49 30 2593 7080
4. Schloss Charlottenburg
See how the Prussian kings
who ruled much of Germany un-
til 1918 lived at this mini-Ver-
sailles, framed by a lovely park
perfect for summer picnics.
Spandauer Damm 20-24
+49 30 320 911
5. Humboldt-Box
This multimedia exhibit ac-
companies the ongoing recon-
struction of the city’s Prussian
imperial palace, which was de-
molished by the communists in
1950. Humboldt-Box introduces
the future tenants and explains
how the huge building will fit
within the city’s historic center.
Schlossplatz 5
+49 180 503 0707
6. Pergamonmuseum
This crowd-pleaser wows with
monumental antiquities from
Greece, Rome and the Middle
East. Star exhibits include the ra-
diant blue Ishtar Gate and the in-
tricate facade of a caliph’s palace.
Bodestrasse 1-3
+49 30 266 424 242
Narrow slits
in barriers at
the Berlin
Wall Memori-
al provide
glimpses of
the “death
strip,” where
those fleeing
East Berlin
were often
gunned down.
GÜNTER STEFFEN,
VISITBERLIN
UNEXPECTED
GERMANY
BERLIN
1. Story of Berlin
This museum’s engaging multi-
media trip through the city’s his-
tory culminates with a tour of a
Cold War nuclear bomb shelter.
Kurfürstendamm 207-208
+49 30 8872 0100
2. Tempelhof Park
Tempelhof Airport, site of the
first Lufthansa flight and the Ber-
lin Airlift, closed in 2008. It’s now
open as a beloved city park.
Entrances on Columbiadamm,
Oderstrasse, Tempelhofer Damm
7. Neukölln neighborhood
Catapulted from gritty zone to
vibrant district, Neukölln is per-
fect for DIY exploration. Cafes
like Katie’s Blue Cat invite linger-
ing between stops at vintage bou-
tiques and hipster bars.
Katie’s Blue Cat
Friedelstrasse 31
+49 178 806 9701
8. Jüdische Mädchenschule
A former Jewish girls’ school in
a Bauhaus-era building has
evolved into a cultural hot spot,
featuring cutting-edge galleries, a
museum about the Kennedys and
even stellar restaurants.
Auguststrasse 11-13
+49 030 3300 6070
9. Museum in der
Kulturbrauerei
This exhibit in a former brew-
ery uses original documents, pho-
tographs and objects to peel back
the Iron Curtain on daily life in
communist East Germany.
Knaackstrasse 97
+49 030 4677 7790
PHILIP KOSCHEL, VISITBERLIN
Sunflowers, rather than jets,
aim skyward at Tempelhof.
3. Rembrandt Collection
The 16 Rembrandt works at
the Gemäldegalerie form one of
the world’s largest, most exquisite
collections by this Dutch master.
Matthäikirchplatz
+49 30 266 424 242
MARTINA BERG, GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO
10. Bikini Berlin
Browse fashion and design at
Germany’s first “concept mall,” in
a 1950s landmark building with
front-row views of the monkey
enclosure of the Berlin Zoo.
Budapester Strasse 38-50
GO SEE ...
FRANKFURT
1. Palmengarten
Established in 1868, this oasis
in the Westend is Germany’s larg-
est botanical garden. Displays in-
clude more than 13,000 tropical
and subtropical plant species.
Siesmayerstrasse 61
+49 69 2123 3939
2. Hauptbahnhof Station
The busiest train station in
Frankfurt consists of a massive
main vestibule and two adjoining
neoclassical halls made of steel
and glass. Inside are a series of
platforms, shops and food stands.
Am Hauptbahnhof
4. Ramones Museum
Avid Ramones fan Flo Hayler
shares his collection of memora-
bilia in this cool east Berlin
shrine to the punk-rock pioneers.
Krausnickstrasse 23
+49 30 7552 8890
FRANKFURT
5. Long Island Summer
Lounge
Relaxing by day and edgy at
night, this beach bar atop an ur-
ban parking garage is a refreshing
antidote for what ails you.
Park House Exchange, Deck 7
+49 151 6150 9889
6. Festhalle
What do Miley Cyrus, Peter
Gabriel and OneRepublic have in
SBORISOV, GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO
Marienplatz, above, has
been the main square of
Munich since 1158, al-
though New Town Hall
dates only to 1874. West
of Frankfurt lie the ruins
of Rheinfels Castle, left.
3. Museumsufer
A walk along the Main River’s
Museum Embankment is a must.
Twelve museums sit on a single
tree-lined street, the most nota-
ble being the Städel art gallery.
Städel, Schaumainkai 63
+49 69 605098 232
4. Rheinfels Castle
West of the city, this castle’s
ancient stone ramparts rise over
the Rhine at Sankt Goar. The ru-
ins recall the Middle Ages, while
the restaurant and its lovely ter-
race herald the modern day.
Schlossberg, Sankt Goar
+49 6741 7753
5. Goethehaus
Grand wood staircases take
visitors through the reconstruct-
ed timbered house where the
writer Johann Wolfgang von Goe-
the spent his childhood.
Grosser Hirschgraben 23
+49 69 138 800
6. Gerbermühle
After cycling along the Main
River, relax in the garden at this
16th-century flour mill renovated
as a hotel complex.
Gerbermühlestrasse 105
+49 69 689 7779 0
7. Hauptwache Station
This busy rapid-transit station
resembles an underground city
with its street performers, chalk
artists, international markets, dry
cleaners and even an entrance to
the Galeria department store.
An der Hauptwache 17
8. Kleinmarkthalle
This market hall hosts some 60
vendors selling fresh food, wine
and flowers every day except Sun-
day. Locals like a glass of wine in
the outdoor garten upstairs.
Hasengasse 5
+49 69 2123 3696
9. Römerberg
Heart of Frankfurt’s old town,
this charming central square is
common? All have played this im-
pressive neobaroque-style exhibi-
tion hall, which dates to 1909.
Ludwig-Erhard-Anlage 1
+49 69 1340 400
7. English Theatre
Delight in a memorable perfor-
mance at this gem of a venue in
the city center. Seating 300, it’s
the largest English-language
theater in continental Europe.
Gallusanlage 7
+49 69 2423 1620
MUNICH
8. Bavaria Filmstadt
The famous film studio where
The Neverending Story, the origi-
nal Willy Wonka and the Choco-
late Factory, Das Boot and many
NEWS
lined with reconstructed half-
timbered houses. Be sure to visit
the Zum Römer, where Holy Ro-
man emperors were coronated.
Römerberg, Altstadt
10. Alte Oper
The Italian Renaissance-style
Alte Oper is Frankfurt’s original
opera house. Can’t make a show?
Linger at an outdoor cafe on
Opernplatz, the Opera Square.
Opernplatz 1
+49 69 1340 0
GO SEE ...
MUNICH
1. St. Peter’s Church
Munich’s oldest church, “Alter
Peter” (Old Peter) is recognizable
by its 91-meter tower, offering
some of the best views of the city.
Rindermarkt 1
+49 89 2102 3776
2. Hirschgarten
This used to be part of the roy-
al hunting grounds. Today it’s the
site of a family-friendly beer gar-
den (Bavaria’s largest), serving
top-notch local food.
Hirschgarten 1
+49 89 1799 9119
3. Odeonsplatz
For photo opportunities, it’s
hard to beat this square in cen-
tral Munich. Odeonsplatz, named
for the Odeon concert hall, is bor-
dered by some of the city’s most
significant buildings.
Odeonsplatz 1
+49 89 222 324
4. Viktualienmarkt
From sausages and fish to ex-
otic fruit, Munich’s open-air food
market boasts the highest-quality
gourmet groceries in town. At its
center lies a beer garden with a
lively atmosphere.
Viktualienmarkt 3
+49 89 8906 8205
5. Alte Pinakothek
The former royal collection of
Old Masters paintings resides
here. Dürer, Rembrandt, Peter
Paul Rubens and El Greco are
among those represented.
Barer Strasse 27
+49 89 2380 5216
6. Marienplatz
Munich’s main square since
1158, Marienplatz is abuzz with
activity and a great place for pho-
tos, with the Gothic Revival-style
New Town Hall in the spotlight.
+49 089 2330 0115
7. Residenz
Take a tour of the former main
royal palace of Bavaria, with its
130 rooms and 10 courtyards.
Residenzstrasse 1
+49 089 290 671
8. BMW Museum
From the earliest BMW en-
gines to modern prototypes, the
permanent exhibit here appeals
to the car lover in all of us and
rolls out fun for all ages.
Am Olympiapark 2
+49 89 125 016 001
9. Nymphenburg Palace
This baroque beauty housed
Bavaria’s rulers beginning in
1675. Perhaps more spectacular
than the palace itself are the 490
acres of formal gardens.
Schloss Nymphenburg 1
+49 089 179 080
10. Asamkirche
A rococo gem, Asamkirche was
built as a private chapel for the
brothers who completed it in
1746. Now it’s open to the public.
Sendlinger Strasse 32
+49 089 2368 7989
Want even more great ideas?
Go to 10Best.com for handy
travel lists, cool pics and hot
tips by Local Experts in popular
destinations around the world.
other movies were made offers
tours and a 4-D theater.
Bavariafilmplatz 7
+49 089 6499 2000
9. Eisbach River Surfing
On the Eisbach’s canal next to
the Haus der Kunst, look for the
spot just off the road where peo-
ple surf year-round — in Munich.
Prinzregentenstrasse
+49 089 2339 6500
10. Kartoffelmuseum
The Potato Museum follows
the starchy vegetable and its vari-
ous uses throughout history, with
special emphasis on its ties to
Munich. The museum is free and
worthy of an hour of your time.
Grafingerstrasse 2
+49 089 404050
SPORTS
USA TODAY | FRIDAY, JULY 21, 2023 | SECTION B
Bigger
dreams ahead?
McIlroy returns to Royal Liverpool hoping to rekindle 2014 magic
Adam Schupak
Golfweek | USA TODAY Network
HOYLAKE, England – As Rory McIl-
roy arrived on the scene at the 151st Brit-
ish Open at Royal Liverpool Golf Club on
Monday, the memories of his victory
here in 2014 came flooding back.
“Maybe not as much as you would
think,” he said. “Over the past nine years
a lot has happened in my life and I’ve
played a lot of golf tournaments.
“But yeah, there’s a few things that
I remember, and it’s nice to get back on
to the golf course and sort of refamiliar-
FIFA says World Cup will pull in half-billion dollars
Nancy Armour
USA TODAY
AUCKLAND, New Zealand – The “no-
body cares about women’s sport” crowd
is going to hate this.
The 2023 World Cup will break even
despite a significant increase in prize
money, FIFA President Gianni Infantino
said Wednesday, generating roughly a
half-billion dollars.
It’s even more notable given this is
the first time the women’s tournament
is being treated as its own commercial
entity, rather than being thrown in as an
afterthought to deals for the men’s
World Cup.
“To be reaching the stage where we
can talk about having our (costs) being
covered, we definitely took the right ap-
proach,” said Fatma Samoura, FIFA’s
Jarrett Bell: NFL running
backs stiff-armed on pay, 3B
Mike Freeman: Charles Barkley shows (expletive)
guts in defending trans community, 3B
ize myself with it.”
Perhaps he remembered the goose
bumps he felt during Saturday’s third
round as he walked to the 18th green be-
fore rolling in a 10-foot eagle putt, his
second in three holes. Ninety minutes
earlier, McIlroy had been tied for the
lead before his hot streak broke the
championship wide open as he built a
commanding six-stroke 54-hole lead.
“It wasn’t quite the championship,
but it put one hand on the Claret Jug,”
McIlroy said. “I just needed to go out
Sunday and not do anything stupid.
That Saturday afternoon was huge.”
secretary general. “This is more sus-
tainable than to always expect one
game to be funding all our other compe-
titions.”
The World Cup begins Thursday,
with games in New Zealand and Aus-
tralia, and runs through Aug. 20. The
U.S. kicks off its run at 9 p.m. EDT Friday
against Vietnam.
FIFA has long been dismissive of the
women’s game, its mostly male mem-
bership unable to fathom it was sitting
on an untapped gold mine. But for all of
his flaws, and there are many, Infantino
has recognized that investing in the
women’s game is good business.
Sure enough, the women are already
proving him right. FIFA bumped up the
prize pool to $152 million, more than
three times what it was four years ago,
but is getting that money back in spon-
Latest news, results, opinion
24/7 at sports.usatoday.com
Check out highlights from the MLS All-Star Game
featuring the EPL’s Arsenal, plus MLB scores
Rory McIlroy, hitting
his fairway shot on
the 15th hole
Wednesday during a
practice round for
the British Open,
has won four Grand
Slam events.
KYLE TERADA/
USA TODAY SPORTS
He claimed his third major champi-
onship a day later and the third leg of
the career Grand Slam at age 25. He
would go on to win the WGC Bridge-
stone Invitational and PGA Champi-
onship in back-to-back weeks a month
later, yet, improbably, 33 major starts
since that PGA at Valhalla, he’s still
stuck at four Grand Slam titles. The
script seemed written for him to end
his major drought at last year’s British
Open at St Andrews but his putter
cooled off on Sunday and Cameron
See MCILROY, Page 2B
2023 World Cup 24/7
Check out results, news, highlights,
photos and more from Down Under
sorship and broadcast deals specific to
this World Cup, along with ticket sales
and merchandise.
That doesn’t mean the work is done.
Far from it.
The gap between prize money for the
men and women remains massive.
While FIFA announced it would pay
each player in the women’s tournament
at least $30,000, it is relying on individ-
ual national federations to ensure that
money actually reaches the players –
hardly a sure thing.
And some of the TV rights deals, par-
ticularly from European broadcasters,
‘Expose
extreme,
abusive
hazing’
Lawyer cites culture
at Northwestern
Paul Myerberg
USA TODAY
Speaking publicly for the first time
since allegations of hazing and mis-
conduct embroiled the university and
led to the dismissal of longtime coach
Pat Fitzgerald, four former Northwest-
ern football players detailed an envi-
ronment of ritualized abuse that has
left many still dealing with the trau-
matic fallout years after the end of
their playing careers.
“The university and football pro-
gram has let us down,” said quarter-
back and wide receiver Lloyd Yates,
who played at Northwestern from 2015
to 2017. “We were thrown into a culture
where physical, emotional and sexual
abuse was normalized.
“We were all victims, no matter
what our roles were at the time.”
Yates was joined at a press confer-
ence in Chicago by attorneys Ben
Crump and Steven Levin and three for-
mer teammates: Warren Miles-Long, a
former linebacker and running back
who played from 2013-18; Simba Short,
who played linebacker for two years
before medically retiring in 2016; and
former tight end Tom Carnifax, who
played from 2017-20.
“It is apparent to us that it is a toxic
culture that was rampant in the athlet-
ics department at Northwestern Uni-
versity,” said Crump. “What they
shared with us was clearly a pattern
and practice of a culture that was
predicated on physical intimidation,
harassment, discrimination, abuse
both mentally and sexually, and it was
normalized.”
The former players are part of a
planned lawsuit that includes at least
15 plaintiffs, the majority from the
football program but representing
multiple sports, including softball,
Crump said. Attorneys are in conver-
sation with at least 50 other potential
clients, and “legal action is expected to
expand beyond Northwestern’s foot-
ball program to expose extreme and
abusive hazing in other college athletic
programs as well,” according to a
statement released Wednesday after-
noon.
“This is not just relegated to the
football program at Northwestern Uni-
See NORTHWESTERN, Page 2B
“The university and football program
has let us down. We were thrown
into a culture where physical,
emotional and sexual abuse was
normalized. We were all victims, no
matter what our roles were at the
time.”
Lloyd Yates
Former Northwestern quarterback
and wide receiver
were well below what Infantino was
seeking.
But this is just the starting point, In-
fantino said.
“We made important steps. We’re on
a path,” he said. “One thing that
shouldn’t be underestimated in all of
this is, more generally, the investment
of the women’s game.”
Take those broadcast deals. They
might not have generated the money
FIFA wanted, but Infantino said soccer’s
global governing body got commit-
ments from those broadcasters to show
the women’s game on a regular basis.
Visibility, Infantino said, is its own
currency.
“It’s the most effective way to grow
women’s football all over the world,” he
said, “and that’s what we’ll focus on over
next couple of years.”
2B ❚ FRIDAY JULY 21, 2023 ❚ USA TODAY
Congress told SafeSport ‘failing’
Nancy Armour
USA TODAY
The U.S. Center for SafeSport is “fail-
ing” and additional legislation is needed
to ensure athletes are protected, more
than 100 athletes, including all 23 mem-
bers of the U.S. women’s World Cup
team and four members of last year’s
men’s team, said in a letter to Congress.
Specifically, the athletes told mem-
bers of the Senate and House of Repre-
sentatives that SafeSport’s use of ad-
ministrative closures and exclusive ju-
risdiction, as well as its appeals process,
is leaving athletes vulnerable to abuse
or causing them to be revictimized.
“As it stands, SafeSport is the only
formal mechanism to keep bad actors
out of our sport, and we are reliant on it
as we work towards reform,” the ath-
letes said in the letter, sent Wednesday.
“SafeSport was created with noble and
important intentions, but we believe
that as it stands today, SafeSport is fail-
ing in what it was meant to achieve.”
The letter was signed by 103 current
and former players from U.S. Soccer’s
senior men’s and women’s teams and
youth squads.
The letter echoes complaints U.S.
Soccer made to USA TODAY Sports ear-
lier this year, and continues the feder-
ation’s efforts to bolster safety following
revelations of widespread abuse at all
levels of the women’s game. U.S. Soccer
has overhauled its player safety pro-
gram to prioritize the vetting of coaches
rather than trying to weed them out af-
ter the fact, and it wants to be able to
keep those it considers bad actors out of
the sport.
But Congress gave SafeSport exclu-
sive jurisdiction to investigate sexual
abuse complaints in the Olympic move-
ment. That, along with the Center’s high
rate of administrative closures, is allow-
ing potential abusers to remain in the
sport, the athletes wrote.
McIlroy
Continued from Page 1B
Smith dashed past him to claim the
Claret Jug. After his media obligations
were over, McIlroy drove off in a golf cart
crying on his wife’s shoulders. Just last
month, at the U.S. Open, in what
seemed like a bad case of déjà vu, McIl-
roy played another solid round but was
unable to make a birdie after the open-
ing hole, losing by a stroke to Wyndham
Clark. More heartbreak for McIlroy, who
has six top-10 finishes in his last seven
major starts, including two seconds and
a third. Yet he’s proved time and again
that he’s willing to get off the proverbial
mat and come back swinging.
“I would go through 100 Sundays like
this to get my hands on another major
championship,” he said after the U.S.
Open disappointment.
When McIlroy etched his name on
the Claret Jug in 2014, he was at the
Northwestern
Continued from Page 1B
versity,” he said. “It’s not an individual
coach. It’s widespread. It falls on the
doorstep of Northwestern University as
an institution.”
Players “lived in fear,” Short said, be-
cause of an atmosphere that condoned
physical, emotional and mental abuse.
Multiple reports, including an explosive
story by the student newspaper The
Daily Northwestern, have detailed situ-
ations where players were forced to par-
ticipate in potentially degrading sexual
acts, and instances where Black players
were forced to cut off long hair to be
more in line with what Fitzgerald
termed the “Wildcat Way.”
“We had no reference point to know if
this was a college football thing or a
uniquely Northwestern thing,” said
Miles-Long. “That’s kind of what went
into normalizing things for us.”
As a result, “We were physically and
emotionally beaten down, and some
players have contemplated suicide as a
result,” Yates said.
“It’s not easy for any of us to come
forward. A lot of this stuff is embarrass-
ing, it’s painful. We know we’re making
ourselves targets for criticism. We do
not want any more college students or
athletes to endure what we had to en-
dure for so long and repress.”
Asked why they didn’t come forward
while part of the football program, the
former players spoke to a culture that
demonized dissent by threatening the
The U.S. women’s national soccer team members were among 100-plus athletes
who sent a letter to Congress about SafeSport. JOHN HEFTI/USA TODAY SPORTS
Administrative closures occur when
SafeSport decides there’s insufficient
evidence or the victim chooses not to
participate. Those are used “far too of-
ten,” the athletes said in their letter.
A representative for SafeSport did
not immediately respond to a request
for comment.
According to SafeSport’s 2022 annu-
al report, administrative closures have
been used in 4,500 of 12,751 cases since
the Center opened in March 2017. Vio-
lations, meanwhile, were found in just
1,720 cases.
More troubling, former U.S. Attorney
General Sally Yates’ report on abuse in
women’s soccer pointed out that from
June 1, 2020, through June 7, 2022,
SafeSport administratively closed all
but 25 of the 156 allegations of sexual
misconduct involving U.S. Soccer par-
ticipants that didn’t have a criminal dis-
position. That’s a whopping 84%.
“This is not a criminal court; Safe-
peak of his powers.
“When you know you’re in control of
your swing, it makes everything a little
bit easier,” he said back in 2014.
He’s been chasing that form ever
since, and just might be on the verge of a
similar run. McIlroy has finished in the
top 10 in each of his last six starts, his
longest such stretch since he had a
streak of seven straight before the 2019-
20 season was suspended due to
COVID-19. He made birdie on the final
two holes on Sunday to nip Robert Mac-
Intyre and win the Genesis Scottish
Open, his 24th PGA Tour title, and im-
proved to No. 2 in the world.
“I don’t feel like it really proves any-
thing,” McIlroy said on Sunday. “I don’t
feel like I need to prove anything in my
career, but it’s satisfying to know that
for me that I can still do it.”
NBC’s Brad Faxon, who doubles as
McIlroy’s putting coach, argued that
there can be no better preparation for
competing in a major than to duel in the
heat of battle for a title ahead of one of
Standing with other former Northwestern athletes, former football player Lloyd
Yates, right, speaks during a press conference addressing widespread hazing
accusations at Northwestern University. ERIN HOOLEY/AP
loss of playing time and the possibility
of further abuse. Athletes “feared repri-
sal and faced retaliation,” Crump said,
while “others suffered in silence be-
cause of duress.”
“They were confused, conflicted and
just frightened,” he said. “They were
frightened that if they said anything,
would that mean they wouldn’t get play-
ing time? They were frightened. Would
they lose their scholarship if they said
anything?”
There has been a “remarkable con-
sistency to what they are hearing” from
these former players, Levin said.
Sport’s standards require only a pre-
ponderance of evidence to ban or other-
wise restrict participation in sport,” the
athletes wrote. “SafeSport should be ex-
pected to properly investigate claims
and be held accountable for taking ac-
tion based on those investigations.”
Compounding the problem is that
when SafeSport uses administrative
closures, exclusive jurisdiction pre-
vents a governing body like U.S. Soccer
from making its own determination of
whether the person should be removed
from the sport.
In her recommendations, Yates said
U.S. Soccer “should not rely exclusively
on SafeSport to keep players safe” be-
cause of “how infrequently SafeSport
makes findings or takes action.”
“U.S. Soccer wants to do the right
thing and take proactive steps against
suspected abusers,” the athletes wrote.
“Our federation has tools and resources
to investigate reports of abuse, but
Rory McIlroy had a two-stroke victory
in the 2014 British Open at Hoylake.
ROSS KINNAIRD/R&A VIA GETTY IMAGES
the four weeks that matter most.
“I don’t buy that you can practice bet-
ter for a major by staying home. I think
this is the best thing he could have done.
Is it better to finish fourth place than
first? I don’t think so,” Faxon said.
But it is winning majors that McIlroy
knows will determine how he is remem-
“It didn’t happen one year, two years,
three years,” he said. “It involved scores
of athletes over a long period of time in a
very public forum.”
Any coach engaging in similar behav-
ior “better wake up,” Levin added.
This possible litigation is joined by
two separate lawsuits filed Tuesday and
Wednesday involving anonymous for-
mer Northwestern players, both alleging
the school concealed episodes of haz-
ing, racial discrimination and sexual
misconduct. Broadly focused on issues
within the athletic department, the law-
suits name Fitzgerald, athletic director
SPORTS
SafeSport is preventing them from par-
ticipating in any way.”
The athletes also had harsh words for
SafeSport’s appeals process, saying the
immediate use of merits arbitration
rather than a simple re-examination of
the case for errors is damaging to survi-
vors.
“The arbitration process can be dam-
aging and retraumatizing for victims of
abuse who have already participated in
the process and shared their stories in
full, only to have to do it all over again,”
the athletes wrote.
“If the victim decides not to go
through the whole process again on ap-
peal, the decision is automatically over-
turned, and the perpetrator is free to en-
ter back into the sport.
“The appeals process harms victims
in other ways, including by affording al-
leged perpetrators rights that victims do
not have,” the athletes added. “Victims
cannot appeal a decision that finds their
alleged abuser was not culpable. And
SafeSport does not turn over records to
the victim so that they can be sure that
justice was done.”
U.S. Soccer, other federations and
victim advocates have all said they’ve
offered to work with SafeSport to im-
prove the system, only to be rebuffed.
Athletes want a system that works, they
wrote, but it is clear that will require as-
sistance from Congress.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-
Conn., and Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan.,
who co-sponsored the Empowering
Olympic, Paralympic and Amateur Ath-
letes Act, which became law in 2020,
did not immediately respond to a re-
quest for comment.
“We are committed to working with
you and other stakeholders to make the
necessary changes to ensure that play-
ers are safe and protected from abuse,”
the athletes wrote. “Together, let us
work to create a safer future for all ath-
letes.”
bered in the game. Whenever someone
asks him to reflect on his career to date,
he always circles back to his 18-year-old
self at Carnoustie making his Open de-
but in 2007.
“If you were to tell him in 15-16 years’
time, this is where you would be in your
career, I would’ve thought, oh my good-
ness, I’ve hit the lottery and all my
dreams have come true,” McIlroy said in
an interview with The Open’s website.
“I’m really happy with what I’ve done,
I’m proud of my achievements. Are
there tournaments that I could have
won that have slipped through my fin-
gers? Yes. But I feel like I’ve won my fair
share and I’ve become a much more
consistent golfer and that will only give
me more opportunities to win big tour-
naments and big championships.”
“When I look at the big picture, I’m
really happy with my body of work,” he
added, but putting his name on the Clar-
et Jug in 2014 “feels a long time ago. …
Happy to have it on once but would love
to put it on again.”
Derrick Gragg, the school, the univer-
sity’s board of trustees and school
president Michael Schill as defendants.
The second lawsuit also includes for-
mer athletic director Jim Phillips, who
left Northwestern in 2021 to become the
commissioner of the ACC.
“We demand that the university, the
president, the trustees are transparent
with these survivors, these victims and
this community,” said attorney Parker
Stinar. “These survivors deserve that.”
As for Phillips, “His tenure over-
lapped with the allegations that have
been made,” said co-attorney Pat Salvi.
These former players said that
coaches were aware of hazing-related
activities within the program, Stinar
said.
Yates said Wednesday it is “hard to
believe” coaches were unaware.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Fitz-
gerald’s attorney, Dan Webb, said the
complaint “has no validity as to Coach
Fitzgerald and we will aggressively de-
fend against these allegations with facts
and evidence.”
In addition to hazing-related inci-
dents that date to the start of Fitzger-
ald’s tenure as head coach in 2006, Salvi
said he is aware of “troubling” allega-
tions involving Northwestern’s base-
ball, softball and volleyball teams. Last
week, the university fired baseball
coach Jim Foster amid allegations of a
toxic culture within the program.
“Coaches are following the culture
that is established by the athletics de-
partment, athletics director and univer-
sity,” Stinar said. “It’s not just one pro-
gram. It’s not just one coach.”
SPORTS
No easy fix as rushers stiff-armed on pay
Jarrett Bell
Columnist
USA TODAY
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up
to be running backs.
Instead, let ’em become quarter-
backs, defensive ends, linebackers, cor-
nerbacks – anything but a running back
– if value and appreciation is in the
equation.
That’s a reality-check takeaway from
the developments this week, when
franchise-tagged running backs Saqu-
on Barkley, Josh Jacobs and Tony Pol-
lard were unable to strike long-term
contracts before a Monday deadline, left
to roll the dice with their financial fu-
tures.
Sure, they can collect $10.091 million
this season by playing on the franchise
tag. But in the context of NFL “Money-
ball,” $10 million for an elite playmaker
is relative chump change.
Jacobs, 25, only led the NFL with
1,653 rushing yards (4.9 per carry) and
2,053 yards from scrimmage last season
while amassing a league-high 393
touches for the Las Vegas Raiders. Bark-
ley, 26, accounted for nearly 30% of the
New York Giants’ offense in 2022 with
his 1,650 yards from scrimmage. And
Pollard, 26, is an emerging star who
supplanted now out-of-work Ezekiel El-
liott as the top threat in the Dallas Cow-
boys backfield.
Never mind their production. Their
franchise tags, lowest for any position
besides kickers and punters, would
have them rank 201st in the NFL for av-
erage salaries, per Spotrac.com.
They apparently play the wrong posi-
tion for the best paydays, with the typi-
cally shortened career span of running
backs fueling the devaluation of the po-
sition – for years now, as the NFL
morphed into a passing circus – despite
the still-obvious need for teams to bank
on their production.
“The issue is not the value of the run-
ning back to the team on Sundays,”
agent Peter Schaffer told USA TODAY
Sports. “Every team understands the
football value.”
No, the issue is much deeper than
that, with running backs – even the best
of the best – disrespected by a business
model that suggests they are a dime a
dozen.
There is nothing new under the sun.
Some Hall of Famers – hello Emmitt
Smith, Eric Dickerson and Edgerrin
James – had some classic contract epi-
sodes on their way to Canton, Ohio.
“Everyone knows it’s tough to win
without a top running back and yet they
act like we are discardable widgets,” Los
Angeles Chargers running back Austin
Ekeler wrote Monday on Twitter. “I sup-
port any running back doing whatever it
takes to get his bag.”
The outrage expressed on social
media by several running backs was
pretty much unanimous in its sense of
victimization. Christian McCaffrey of
the San Francisco 49ers, whose average
salary of $16 million tops the running
Barkley shows guts in defending trans community
Mike Freeman
Columnist
USA TODAY
It’s easy to sometimes dismiss
Charles Barkley as just a joker. He is, af-
ter all, incredibly funny. Says goofy
stuff. Can even be crude. But the one
thing Barkley is above all else is real. The
realest of the real. That’s why some-
thing he did recently was so important
because you know it comes from his big,
goofy, real heart.
Barkley did something that shouldn’t
even be notable but in this world of
LGBTQ and anti-trans hate, with politi-
cians and even sports journalists at-
tacking the transgender community in
particular, what Barkley said recently
isn’t just notable, it’s refreshing and vi-
tal. Barkley’s words show him not just
as a commentator or funny guy, but as
someone who gets it, and is a clear ally
of the LGBTQ community.
Barkley was at a bar in Lake Tahoe
where he was playing in a celebrity golf
tournament when he bought a round of
drinks for the crowd. The video of what
Barkley does next has gone viral and
outraged the bigots. Barkley, in his
unique way, makes what is an unmis-
takable and powerful move of support.
“So I’m gonna buy some drinks for
Running back Saquon Barkley accounted for nearly 30% of the Giants’ offense in
2022 with his 1,650 yards from scrimmage. He would earn $10.091 million this
season by playing on the franchise tag. CHRISTOPHER HANEWINCKEL/USA TODAY SPORTS
back market, called it “criminal” that the
franchise-tagged ball carriers didn’t net
long-term contracts. Pittsburgh Steelers
running back Najee Harris maintained,
“This notion that we deserve less is a
joke.”
Derrick Henry, who is undeniably the
centerpiece of the Tennessee Titans of-
fense at $12.5 million per year (while
quarterback Ryan Tannehill averages
$29.5 million), was drastic with his frus-
tration.
“At this point, just take the running
back position out of the game then,”
Henry tweeted. “The ones that want to
be great & work as hard as they can to
give their all to an organization, (it) just
seems like it don’t even matter. I’m with
every RB that’s fighting to get what they
deserve.”
Remember when it was cool to be a
running back? That’s when the tykes
playing Pop Warner football were typi-
cally the best athletes on the field and
couldn’t tote the rock enough.
Now it’s just one diss after another,
with the players who arguably absorb
the worst physical toll of any position
respected so much more during the
playoff drives in January than they are
when contracts are negotiated from
March to September.
According to NFL Network’s Tom Pe-
lissero, Jacobs was sitting in a car at
Raiders headquarters with defensive
end Maxx Crosby, positioned to sign a
contract on Monday as the deadline ap-
proached. No deal.
Dalvin Cook, meanwhile, is still with-
out a team, released by the Minnesota
y’all and I’m gonna buy Bud Light,”
Barkley said.
The Bud Light remark was obviously
intentional. It’s a rebuke of how the
right wing has attempted to destroy the
brand after Bud Light used a trans influ-
encer, Dylan Mulvaney, for an Insta-
gram promotion. It triggered an anti-
trans backlash and boycott.
There was a mixture of cheers and
boos from the crowd but Barkley kept
going.
“Hey, lemme tell you something,” he
says in the video. “All you rednecks or
(expletive) who don’t want to drink Bud
Light, (expletive) y’all. Hey, y’all can’t
cancel me!”
Yes, this is pretty amazing.
Then came the best part.
“Hey, I ain’t worried about getting
canceled because lemme tell you some-
thing,” Barkley said, “if y’all fire me and
gimme all that money, I’m gonna be
playing golf every (expletive) day. So lis-
ten, as I said last night, if you’re gay, God
bless you. If you’re trans, God bless you.
And if you have a problem with them
(expletive) you.”
Tell ’em, Chuck. Tell ’em (expletive)
over and (expletive) over and (exple-
tive) over again.
This is one of Barkley’s finest mo-
ments.
What Barkley did was important be-
cause when a gigantic star of his caliber,
literally too big for the hatemongers to
USA TODAY ❚ FRIDAY JULY 21, 2023 ❚ 3B
Vikings in June despite rushing for
more than 1,100 yards in each of the past
four seasons. There’s a market for Cook,
but at what price? He had three years
left on his contract, averaging $12.6 mil-
lion, before he was released.
Cincinnati Bengals running back Joe
Mixon worked through a dilemma by re-
ducing his salary from $9.4 million to
less than $6 million, with incentives po-
tentially allowing him to collect $8 mil-
lion. Schaffer, who represents Mixon,
reiterated what he expressed in a state-
ment that emphasized the running
back’s desire to remain with a Super
Bowl contender. Yet it’s also true that
hitting a depressed running back mar-
ket was not an attractive alternative.
Ekeler can relate. Amid a stalemate in
negotiations with one year left on his
contract, the Chargers granted his re-
quest to seek a trade. Yet there were ap-
parently no takers, despite Ekeler, 27,
leading the NFL over the past two years
with 38 touchdowns. In lieu of a long-
term deal, the Chargers reworked his
contract by adding $2 million in incen-
tives for 2023. Yet Ekeler’s average of
$6.125 million per year ranks 323rd in
the league, per Spotrac.
And while Barkley is expected to be a
no-show when the Giants open training
camp next week, once-maligned quar-
terback Daniel Jones operates with a
fresh contract paying $40 million per
year.
Yes, the system is skewed – or
screwed, if you will, for running backs.
Just six running backs carry average
salaries above the franchise tag, while
Charles Barkley gave a boost recently
to the trans community and Bud Light.
KYLE TERADA/USA TODAY SPORTS
cancel, isn’t just an ally, but a public one,
an explicit one, an unabashed one, he
can almost serve as a sort of protective
umbrella.
Incredibly, according to the New York
Post, Barkley defended the LGBTQ com-
munity on two separate nights at the
same bar. His message on the other oc-
casion was just as supportive and ex-
plicit.
“I want y’all to drink this (expletive)
several wide receivers who might be
considered average have deals topping
$11 million per year.
Getting to the open market is hardly
the ticket. Miles Sanders received the
top free agency deal for a running back
this March, leaving the Philadelphia Ea-
gles for the Carolina Panthers. His four-
year, $25.4 million contract averages
$6.4 million, which would make him the
40th highest-paid receiver.
It was quite the harbinger for the de-
pressed market that has played out in
ensuing months.
“You want to franchise tag and create
a certain market for running backs just
because you have this way of thinking
that they only last three or four years,”
Sanders said in June, during an appear-
ance on “The Rich Eisen Show.” “I think
it’s B.S., honestly. Almost every running
back is underpaid right now. I don’t
know what it’s gonna take. That’s a top-
ic that needs to be brought up a little
more because it sucks to be a running
back right now.”
What’s the solution? Adjusting the
franchise tag, a key baseline for negotia-
tions, would be a starting point. Al-
though the tags are based on a formula
tied to the top five salaries over five
years, the NFL Players Association can
conceivably negotiate with the NFL for a
higher tag for running backs in estab-
lishing the cap for each season.
If not, then why not group the run-
ning backs into a category with receiv-
ers and tight ends? The tag for receivers
in 2023 is $19.743 million (third highest
behind quarterbacks and linebackers),
while the tight end figure is $11.345 mil-
lion.
“If they made that tag $16 million or
$17 million,” Schaffer pondered, “people
wouldn’t be tagging them and we’d find
out what the market is.”
Schaffer, though, floated his own
idea: allow running backs to enter the
NFL on three-year contracts, with the
chance to renegotiate after two years.
As it stands now, the rookie pool system
mandates four-year deals (with negoti-
ations opening after three years) for
players who aren’t first-round picks. As
Barkley can attest after being drafted
second overall in 2018, the first-round-
ers have it even worse because teams
can exercise fifth-year options.
“The solution,” Schaffer said, “is that
there has to be a recognition that when
you have restraints, it’s not a true cap-
italistic market.”
While Jacobs and Barkley aren’t ex-
pected to report for the opening of train-
ing camps – and perhaps won’t show
until the start of the regular season be-
cause they haven’t signed their fran-
chise tag tenders – Pollard is due in
Cowboys camp next week. Pollard
signed his tender in March while rehab-
bing from a broken leg. Yet there’s still
the uncertainty of not having a long-
term deal.
Pollard’s agent, Kennard McGuire,
told USA TODAY Sports, “We’re not go-
ing to compromise on what we think his
value is.”
When it comes to running backs,
though, that value is subject to much
debate.
beer,” Barkley said.
“I got three cases of Bud Light,” he
said. Then added: “If you’re gay, bless
you. If you’re trans, bless you.”
“If you have a problem with that (ex-
pletive) you!”
Other athletes have spoken on behalf
of the trans community. The WNBA has
been one of the big leaders in that space.
Former NBA star Dwyane Wade has
stated publicly that he left the state of
Florida for California, in part, fearing for
the safety of their trans daughter, Zaya.
“But the last couple of years, the
laws, the politics, you know, has really
become this big conversation, right? It’s
unsafe conversation, and it’s unsafe for
my daughter, it’s unsafe for the young
kids and the youth and adults, the elder
in the trans community,” Wade said.
“And so for us, as much as I love that
city, as much as I’m always going to be a
part of it, for the safety of my family,
that’s what it was. I couldn’t move
back.”
It’s true that Barkley is an extremely
powerful figure. It’s also accurate that
there’s still risk in him taking this stand,
this way. There’s a reason why so many
stars stay silent in the face of bigotry.
They’re scared of getting Bud Lit and
even the most powerful can be.
Barkley is showing he has guts doing
this. He’s not just the goofy guy who
talks basketball.
He’s something much better.
LIFE
USA TODAY | FRIDAY, JULY 21, 2023 | 4B

LIFELINE MOVIES

PASCAL LE SEGRETAIN/GETTY IMAGES

MAKING WAVES
GIGI HADID

Gigi Hadid and a friend pleaded guilty

to charges of importing marijuana
and utensils used for its consumption
in the Cayman Islands last week. The
28-year-old model and her friend
Leah McCarthy were fined $1,000
Cayman Islands dollars after appear-
ing in court July 12, and no conviction
was recorded, according to a state-
ment issued by the Cayman Islands’
Customs & Border Control to USA
TODAY Tuesday. A representative for
the Cayman Islands’ Judicial Admini-
stration confirmed to USA TODAY
that Hadid and McCarthy paid their
fines. Hadid and McCarthy were ar-
rested July 10 after they arrived on a
private airplane and underwent a
luggage search when “a small amount
of marijuana was recovered,” accord-
ing to Customs & Border Control. Brooklyn neighbors Emily Blunt and Matt Damon star in “Oppenheimer.” SCOTT GARFITT/INVISION/AP

Blunt, Damon essential

IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY
WHO’S CELEBRATING TODAY
Julianne Hough is 35. Gisele Bünd-
chen is 43. Sandra Oh is 52.
HOROSCOPE | SANCTUARY
More: www.sanctuaryworld.co
Aries (March 21-April 19). Your work
ethic may be tested today! Need to
surrender to the job? Mars opposing
Saturn can ask a lot.
Taurus (April 20-May 20). You can put
a great amount of effort into a passion
project while Mars confronts Saturn.
elements of what makes
‘Oppenheimer’ tick
Patrick Ryan USA TODAY
NEW YORK – Like most savvy actors, Matt Damon always picks up the
phone for Christopher Nolan. h The A-lister, who previously appeared
in Nolan’s 2014 film “Interstellar,” was planning to take a break from
acting when the Oscar-nominated director called about “Oppenhei-
mer” (in theaters Friday), his chilling new historical drama. h “I had told
my wife I was taking time off,” says Damon, speaking to USA TODAY in
a joint interview with co-star Emily Blunt before the Screen Actors
Guild strike. “This was something we literally negotiated, but the one
caveat was ‘if Chris Nolan calls.’ He was my get-back-to-work card, and Kitty (Blunt, right) confronts her
husband (Cillian Murphy).
then he actually called, which was a wonderful surprise.” MELINDA SUE GORDON/AP

Gemini (May 21-June 21). Mars oppos-

Damon brings levity to the
ing Saturn attempts to practically
‘wildly unpopular’ Leslie Groves
balance your private and public
worlds.
In the white-knuckle epic, Damon
Cancer (June 22-July 22). Your brain plays gruff U.S. Army officer Leslie
may be on overdrive. Motivated to Groves, who calls on physicist J. Rob-
learn? You’re putting in the hard work ert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) to
while Mars meets Saturn. oversee the creation of the atomic
bomb during World War II. Groves was
Leo (July 23-Aug. 22). It’s time to
“wildly unpopular” with the scientists,
mature around money and assets.
Damon says, and frequently butted
Mars staring down Saturn gets you
heads with Oppenheimer. But there
serious about stabilizing your re-
was still “mutual respect” between the
sources.
two men.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). What you “They’re complete polar opposites,”
desire may be hindered by partner- says Damon, sitting at a hotel in New
ships now. Prepare for a lesson in give York’s Tribeca neighborhood. “The mil-
and take. Damon’s portrayal of gruff U.S. Army officer Leslie Groves, left, is a “polar
See ‘OPPENHEIMER’, Page 5B opposite” of Murphy’s scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer. MELINDA SUE GORDON/AP
Libra (Sept.23-Oct. 23). Overcommit-
ted? Mars challenging Saturn can wear
down your energy. You may need a
break to regenerate your motivation.
MOVIES
Scorpio (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). To realize a
heart’s wish, endurance is required.
Mars opposing Saturn tests your abil-
ity to trust yourself and stay devoted.
Parents toying with idea should
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). Your
professional life may be taking an
emotional toll. Holding the weight of
know ‘Barbie’ may bore young kids
the world? Reassess what you carry.
Brian Truitt most famous doll of the past 60-plus
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). Your mind USA TODAY years, it’s the type of movie that’s going
may be dead set on a future goal. to appeal to children of various ages.
Firing up that bow? Commit to the Chances are, someone in your family But is it for your youngsters? Here’s
road ahead. is likely to have seen a peppy TV spot, what moms and dads need to know
one of the fun-filled trailers or even an about “Barbie” and if they can take the
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). A change
online “Barbenheimer” poster and been kids or need to find a baby-sitter for a
in focus may be necessary. Mars going
all, “Come on, ‘Barbie,’ let’s go party.” date night out:
head-to-head with Saturn can test
Directed by Greta Gerwig and star-
your ability to overcome a challenge.
ring Margot Robbie, “Barbie” (in thea- What is ‘Barbie’ about, anyway?
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20). A part- ters Friday) has been on the mind of Ken (Ryan Gosling) gets shut down by
nership can feel extra crunchy today. pop-culture fans for a while now as one Barbie Land is a pink-bedecked par- Barbie (Margot Robbie) when he
There’s no winner while Mars con- of the summer’s most anticipated films. wants to stay over at the dreamhouse.
fronts Saturn. And being a meta comedy about the See YOUNG VIEWERS, Page 5B PROVIDED BY WARNER BROS. PICTURES
LIFE
SCREEN ACTORS GUILD STRIKE
Working-class actors picket for higher pay, AI rules
Charles Trepany
USA TODAY
BURBANK, Calif. - Warner Bros. Stu-
dios was swarmed Friday by a sea of ac-
tors, armed with picket signs as they
marched up and down the sidewalks on
their SAG-AFTRA union’s first day of a
strike.
Michael James Lazar was one of
them.
Lazar, 37, a member of SAG-AFTRA
who pursued acting professionally in
2010 after performing in theater at col-
lege, has built a steady career over the
years, appearing in guest and co-star
roles on hit shows like “How to Get Away
with Murder,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “This Is
Us” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and
working with stars such as Viola Davis,
Ellen Pompeo and Seth MacFarlane. He
started the process of joining the union
more than a decade ago, first by doing
work as an extra, or background actor. A
small role in a 2016 episode of CBS’
“Criminal Minds” earned him a SAG
card.
Many actors would kill for that kind
of starry career, but even Lazar says he
still doesn’t make enough to support
himself solely by acting. In his best year,
Lazar estimates he made about $40,000
to $45,000 from acting, including royal-
ty checks from past roles. Many SAG-
AFTRA members do not even make
$26,470 a year, the minimum required
to meet the eligibility threshold for
health insurance through the union.
“We have a 1% too, and the 1% are the
Denzels, the Brad Pitts, the Johnny
Depps. They’re a rare breed,” Lazar says,
adding that middle-class working ac-
tors like him represent the majority of
the union’s 160,000 members.
“We work. We do guest-starring
roles, co-starring roles here and there,
but we still have to have a day job,” he
says.
For Lazar, the No. 1 issue at stake in
the strike is the amount of money actors
receive in those royalty payments,
known as residuals. These are the
checks actors get in the mail whenever a
show in which they have a role runs in
syndication or on another platform.
‘Oppenheimer’
Continued from Page 4B
itary is obsessed with secrecy, and the
scientists are trying to get to the root of
the problem, which they do by sharing.
Groves constantly felt like a kindergar-
ten teacher chasing these guys around.
So Chris found some comedy there,
which is good for a movie about some-
thing so serious.”
“Maybe that’s why he cast you,”
Blunt suggests. “Everyone loves you,
and you have a natural warmth. If you
cast someone unlikable playing some-
one unlikable, it would’ve been (alien-
ating).”
Blunt’s Kitty Oppenheimer is
‘volatile’ yet fiercely loyal
Blunt portrays Kitty, Oppenheimer’s
caustic, alcoholic wife. When Oppen-
heimer is probed by government offi-
cials about possible Communist ties,
she demands that he stop feeling sorry
for himself. She’s similarly unsympa-
thetic about the death of his former lov-
er.
“Kitty didn’t do small talk. She only
did big talk,” Blunt says. “There’s a lot
about her that wouldn’t necessarily be
‘likable,’ but I don’t think she cared. She
was such a force of personality.” To-
ward the end of the film, “she’s become
so volatile and unpredictable – the
drinking is out of control. But he says to
his defense (team), ‘Kitty and I have
walked through fire together, and I be-
lieve in her.’ She’ll fight for him when he
won’t fight for himself.”
Trinity test scene was ‘beautiful’
yet ‘nightmarish’ to behold
One of the movie’s most thrilling se-
quences is the Trinity test, when the
first nuclear weapon was detonated in
the New Mexico desert in 1945. The
bomb’s mushroom cloud and blinding
light were recreated using practical ef-
fects.
“Because the explosion is real, it’s as
beautiful as it is nightmarish,” Blunt
says. “Because you know it’s not (com-
puter-generated), you can’t dissociate
from it.”
“You can’t take your eyes off it, but
it’s the most terrible thing you’ve ever
seen,” Damon adds. Witnessing it on
the set, “it was a big boom. Everybody
had their earplugs in.”
Even actor Michael James Lazar, who has built a steady career for himself appearing in guest and co-star roles on hit
shows, says he still doesn’t make enough to support himself solely by acting. YANNICK PETERHANS/USA TODAY
Many actors rely on residuals to sup-
plement their income until their next
job arrives, but in the streaming era,
those payments have plummeted, SAG-
AFTRA says. The Alliance of Motion Pic-
ture and Television Producers (AMPTP),
which represents major studios,
claimed as the strike began that it of-
fered the union “historic pay and residu-
al increases” as well as a “groundbreak-
ing AI proposal that protects actors’
digital likenesses,” another contentious
issue. (The AMPTP said it also offered
deals regarding pension and health con-
tributions, auditions and series option
periods, which the union rejected.)
Lazar says he too is concerned about
artificial intelligence and its potential to
Emily Blunt, left, director Christopher
Nolan and Cillian Murphy are at work
on the set of “Oppenheimer.”
MELINDA SUE GORDON/AP
Blunt recalls ‘Devil Wears Prada’
moment with director Nolan
“Oppenheimer” is the second film
Blunt, 40, and Damon, 52, have made
together, including the 2011 sci-fi thrill-
er “The Adjustment Bureau.” Blunt says
they would “hang out constantly” while
shooting the latter, going on double
dates with her husband, John Krasin-
ski, and Damon’s wife, Luciana Barro-
so.
“Now we’re vacation buddies and
neighbors,” says Blunt, who lives in the
same Brooklyn apartment building as
Damon. “I know, it’s ridiculous. This is
strange not to see Matt in his sweats
and slippers.”
“The only time I wear shoes is when
we do interviews together,” Damon
quips. “I’ve got a great pair of house
slippers, and I’m going to put them
right on when I get home. I did acciden-
tally wear my Ugg slippers on a school
run once.”
“Do you know who hates Uggs more
than anyone?” Blunt asks. “Christopher
Nolan. I’ve never known anyone to de-
test a pair of Uggs more than Chris No-
lan. It’s a testament to how he wants
everything on set to look as it would (in
the period). If there’s a plastic bottle in
the shot, he’s like, ‘Ugh!’ He hates to
even look at it. I would sometimes put
on some Uggs and I’d just get this with-
ering look down to my feet – it was like
being in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ again.
Just the look down to the shoes. And I’d
go, ‘I know, I know. But I’m just sitting
on an apple box in the background to-
day!’ ”
As a joke, Blunt gave Nolan a pair of
Uggs at the end of the shoot. His wife,
Emma Thomas, “wrote to me and was
like, ‘Brilliant wrap gift. He’s wearing
them now,’ ” Blunt recalls with a laugh.
“I was so pleased!”
USA TODAY ❚ FRIDAY JULY 21, 2023 ❚ 5B
replace actors’ work, which is also a
thorny issue among Writers Guild of
America members, who’ve been on
strike since May 2.
“We’ve been out here supporting the
writers because that threatens their job,
but also AI and the influx in using com-
puter generated software could poten-
tially have that same effect on us in the
future,” Lazar says. “We’re out here
looking towards the future, and we’re
saying that this cannot happen, and we
won’t stand for it to happen.”
As the strike continues, he plans to
drive for the Lyft rideshare service and
work as a brand ambassador to supple-
ment his income. His wife works at a
corporate job, which will also help sup-
Young viewers
Continued from Page 4B
adise of plastic where all the Barbies
hang out and have fun while the Kens
are just sort of there as window dress-
ing. However, when Stereotypical Bar-
bie (Robbie) begins to recognize
strange occurrences – like thoughts of
death and signs of cellulite – she and
her quasi-boyfriend Ken (Ryan Gos-
ling) go on a trip to the Real World to set
things right. The situation leads to mis-
adventures for both dolls, a mom
(America Ferrera) and her daughter are
swept up in Barbie’s existential crisis,
and even Barbie Land itself is thrown
into disarray.
So, is ‘Barbie’ a kids’ movie?
No, it is not – unless your child is
REALLY into the study of gender norms
and/or knows what the term “Proust-
ian” means. (That might even disqual-
ify some adults, honestly.) “Barbie”
starts off enjoyably spirited but when
Robbie’s Barbie drops the line, “Do you
guys ever think about dying?” at a
Dreamhouse dance party, it kicks off a
bunch of heady themes that the movie
gamely dives into, like the meaning of
life and the role of the patriarchy.
Tweens and teens might appreciate
the social commentary (which Gerwig
has made straightforward and easily
digestible), and kids around 9 or 10 will
enjoy the goofball humor while the in-
tellectual discussion goes over their
heads. Those younger than that, how-
ever, most likely will find a lot of the
talking parts boring and could get antsy
waiting for Barbie to do something fun
again.
Does ‘Barbie’ have sexual themes
or inappropriate language?
It’s a PG-13 movie that plays it rela-
tively safe in that regard. Ken wants to
stay over at Barbie’s house one night,
and when she asks what they’d do, he
responds that he doesn’t know. (She re-
buffs him for a “girls’ night” sleepover
anyway.) The Kens threaten to “beach
each other off ” and Barbie actually
points out a double entendre when it
happens. Anything sexual is played off
as a joke, like when Weird Barbie (Kate
McKinnon) wonders about the “nude
blob” in Ken’s pants and Barbie pro-
claims to a construction worker that “I
port his household for the duration of
the strike.
Although he’s disappointed to go
without auditions and work for howev-
er long the strike lasts, Lazar says he’s
willing to make the sacrifice in order to
ensure higher pay and better job securi-
ty.
Besides, actors are already accus-
tomed to long periods without work.
“I’m not stressed,” he says. “We’re ac-
tors, so actors always have some kind of
hustle, some kind of side job. ... I don’t
think we’re worried about that so much
as we’re worried about getting back to
making a living wage doing what we
love to do. ... This is nothing for us. We
need this. This is pivotal for us.”
Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan
Gosling) mosey into the Real World in
“Barbie.” PROVIDED BY DALE ROBINETTE
do not have a vagina!”
As far as other potential concerns,
the Kens get really into drinking beer at
one point and there is one F-bomb that
a Barbie drops on a Ken, but it’s bleeped
and a Mattel logo appears over her
mouth when she says it. (There’s also
saucy language in Nicki Minaj and Ice
Spice’s “Barbie World,” which plays
over the credits.)
Does ‘Barbie’ have
excessive violence?
The physical altercations are all fair-
ly cartoonish. Barbie has her butt
smacked and ends up punching the
guy, which leads to her being arrested.
(Consent is important, kids!) And
there’s a civil war among the Kens that
breaks out, leading to an action scene
where they swing plastic tennis rackets
each other, shoot arrows with suction-
cup tips, and bump chests with a ma-
cho swagger.
Is ‘Barbie’ a positive
experience overall?
It is! In addition to being hilarious
and kind of a blast, “Barbie” is an en-
dearing and thought-provoking com-
edy with a bunch of good messaging as
it pertains to feminism, identity, toxic
masculinity, self-confidence and loving
yourself. Moms and daughters will find
things to bond over, as it juggles nostal-
gia and contemporary issues, dads and
sons can reflect on if they’re being a to-
tal Ken or not, and if your kids are ma-
ture enough, “Barbie” has plenty to
chew on in a candy-colored confection.
6B ❚ FRIDAY JULY 21, 2023 ❚ USA TODAY LIFE

USA TODAY
USA TODAY CROSSWORD
CROSSWORD
EDITED Amanda Rafkin
Numbers More puzzles: puzzles.usatoday.com
Want solutions? answers.usatoday.com
Feedback: feedback@usatoday.com
BY Wendy L. Brandes

GEEZ SUDOKU
SUDOKU
ACROSS
1 Scoundrel Complete the grid so that every row, column and 3x3 Complete the grid so that every row, column and 3x2
6 Powerful pickleball box contains the numbers 1 through 9 (no repeats). box contains the numbers 1 through 6 (no repeats).
shot
11 Meat in a croque
monsieur
2 4 1 6 4 5
14 Unaccompanied 5 9 5 2 6
15 Oohed and ___
16 Each poem in the
book “Black Roses” 8 3 2 1 5
17 Large, but sweet,
creature 1 5 7 6 1
19 “Mamma ___!”
20 Person calling a 1 3 2 5 8 6 4 1
customer service line
21 Like a towel after a 2 4 7 5 1
beach day
22 Ms. Marvel, DIFFICULTY RATING ✮✮✮✮✮
age-wise
8 1 3 Thursday’s Answers
23 ___ and downs 1 6 8 7 4 5 2 9 3 5 4 6 1 3 2
25 Cries “Uncle!” 5 6 5 9 7 8 2 3 6 4 1 2 3 1 5 4 6
27 Feature of a 4 2 3 9 6 1 5 8 7
May-December 3 2 5 1 8 1 4 3 5 7 9 6 2 1 2 4 3 6 5
romance 6 5 9 2 1 4 3 7 8 3 6 5 2 1 4
7/21 DIFFICULTY RATING ✮✮✮✮✮ 3 7 2 6 8 9 4 1 5
32 Actress Thurman SUDOKU FUSION 4 1 2 6 5 3
33 Looked at 2 8 1 5 9 6 7 3 4
ON YOUR PHONE 9 3 5 4 7 8 1 2 6 6 5 3 4 2 1
34 Colombian © Andrews McMeel 7/21
puzzles.usatoday.com © Andrews McMeel 7 4 6 1 3 2 8 5 9 7/20
cornmeal cake 67 “Easy on Me” singer 18 Some Helen Zia 50 “Old ___” (Disney
37 Early DVR option 68 Ski equipment works film)
39 Mast attachments 69 Family room 22 Former Russian 51 Spotted wildcat
42 What Frosty is 70 Dishonest-sounding rulers 52 Criminal deception
made of instruments 24 Opposite of “post” 53 Get the suds off of
KENKEN KUBOK 16
43 Light as a feather, 71 Doesn’t leave 26 Golf org. 57 Unbusy
___ as a board 27 Courage 58 Geese formations Kubok 16 By Davide Coppo
Difficulty:
HARD
45 Bright, like DOWN 28 Radiate 60 Soda flavor
high-visibility 1 Pasta sauce brand 29 What 65-Down is 61 Heed
apparel 2 Soccer game cheers used for 62 Loch ___ monster
47 U-turn from WSW 3 Away 30 Ingredient in a 64 Water qty.
48 Gun control 4 False London Fog 65 Google Maps tech
advocate 5 Slippery fish 31 Naming,
and former 6 Long, involved story informally Thursday’s Answer
congresswoman for about why you’re 35 Small body of
whom a naval ship late, say water
is named 7 Reason for using an 36 Floors
52 Easily broken ice pack 38 Old enough to
54 “Unpretty” group 8 “There was no vote, say
55 Guan Li or Ji Li, for choice” 40 Welcome gift in
example 9 Like Eliud Kipchoge, Oahu
56 Often-pitted fruit ethnically 41 Become less
59 Supply-and- 10 Summer time zone firm
demand class, for in CT 44 Org. in Beverly
short 11 Game during which Gage’s “G-Man”
63 Organic chef Phyo championship 46 Org. name in
64 Acting award that banners are often which “F” stands 1. Each row and YESTERDAY’S
may foreshadow raised for football 7/20 column must
SOLUTION Solution to Thursday’s puzzle
an Oscar win 12 “Farewell!” 49 ___ Mary CROSSWORDS contain the
numbers 1 Enter the missing
66 G.I. entertainers 13 Intended (brunch staple) ON YOUR PHONE through 4 numbers from
Answers: Call 1-900-988-8300, 99 cents a minute; or, with a credit card, 1-800-320-4280. get our crossword app (easy) or 1 1 to 16 without
though 6 repetitions so
(challenging)
without that the sum of
TXTPERT repeating. the four numbers
in each row and
2. The numbers column is the
1 2
TXTPERT Today’s theme within the
3 Transport
1
B A
2
T T
3
I N G heavily outlined same as the
Across Down
O A C boxes, called corresponding
4 5 1. 2953 1. 28862246 Use the cages, must
4
A N G L I N G
circled number.
3. 744 2. 37247837 phone
combine using
6 7 keypad to
4. 876452 5. 645 T N the given
decode the ©2023 Kubok. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency. 7/21/23
8 9 6. 427 7. 77333 5 6 7
operation (in All rights reserved.
clues. I G O L F
8. 2358 9. 8473 For example: 8 9 any order) to
10. 432773 2 could be A, N E T U O
10
produce the target numbers in the top-left
11. 763 B or C ... and
10
5678 could
G R O S T E R corners.
7/20

11 be LOST Y E
7/21

© USA TODAY and Rich Coulter Yesterday’s solution

3. Freebies: fill in single-box cages with the
number in the top-left corner.

Words BONUS CROSSWORD

WORD
WORD ROUNDUP
ROUNDUP B G O L D S T Z Z N Y L
By David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek 7/21 C E A M S Q I N E E V A
Find and Circle: A A T G J C O L N T H E
First six Greek letters ☑☐☐☐☐☐ N M L A E L O O V P A Z
Three Olympic medals ☐☐☐
© Andrews McMeel

Two six-letter land formations ☐☐ Y M E Z I O O T L E Q N

____ ____ in “Money Monster” ☐☐
Home to Halifax: ____ ____ ☐☐ O A D S Q L R A I K R O
Thursday’s answer: KAYAK KNOCK KIOSK KINK KICK / BARITONE N G P H C K R G Q A V R
SOPRANO TENOR / PALM CALM FILM / COLOMBIA BRAZIL CHILE /
HAIRY DAIRY N E N O V A L L E Y R B

QUICKCROSS
QUICKCROSS UP
UP &&DOWN
DOWN WORDS
WORDS
By John Wilmes 7/21 By David L. Hoyt and Russell L. Hoyt 7/21

Sail spar 1. MONDAY

2.
Red Muppet
3.

Foot digits 4.
5.
Views
6.
© Andrews McMeel

N.Y. baseball team 7. SAFE

Clues: Thursday’s Answer

____ vera
1. “____ ____ Football” UP FOR
Thursday’s Answer
2. Place to take evening FOR FREE
Hook’s assistant classes FREE RIDE
B A Y S 3. Students’ transportation RIDE ON
Throw 4. Transit waiting area
A L E E ON TOP
5. Quit using cigarettes
6. Clear evidence TOP DOG
C A P E QUICKCROSS 7. Firearm storage unit DOG SHOW

K I S S ON YOUR PHONE PLAY ONLINE

7/20 puzzles.usatoday.com PUZZLES.USATODAY.COM © Andrews McMeel

© WIGGLES 3D GAMES
DON’T QUOTE ME®
Political commentator Rearrange the words to complete the quote.
George F. Will talks GIVEN MAKE MORE SPIRITUAL TEST WE
about family.
________ ARE ___________ CHILDREN TO ________
US AND ________ US ________ ______________.
7/21

Thursday’s Answer: “The only way not to think about money

is to have a great deal of it.” - Edith Wharton

THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAME

By David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek
Unscramble these Jumbles,
Get the free JUST JUMBLE app • Follow us on Twitter @PlayJumble

one letter to each square,

to form four ordinary words.

SDMTI

NIWEH

NHPEHY

ROVAYS
Now arrange the circled letters
©2023 Tribune Content Agency, LLC to form the surprise answer, as
All Rights Reserved. suggested by the above cartoon.
Answer “ ”
here:
(Answers tomorrow)
Jumbles: ERUPT TRACT ABSORB EXEMPT
Yesterday’s
Answer: When she caught on to blackjack’s odds, she
became a — BETTER BETTOR
LIFE USA TODAY ❚ FRIDAY JULY 21, 2023 ❚ 7B

BECAUSE
UNLIKE
SOME PEOPLE,
CROSSWORDS
HAVE A CLUE
8B ❚ FRIDAY JULY 21, 2023 ❚ USA TODAY NEWS

WEATHER WEATHER ONLINE

USATODAY.COM

Below 10 10s 20s 30s 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s 100s 110+
FRIDAY’S FORECAST SATURDAY’S FORECAST
RUSSIA
FINLAND

NORWAY SWEDEN KAZAKHSTAN Ulan Bator

Reykjavik St. Petersburg 67/51t
58/52c Oslo 69/57c Almaty MONGOLIA Vladivostok
ICELAND Bergen 64/52t Helsinki 96/70s Urumqi 78/66c
61/50t 69/51sh 91/73c
RUSSIA UZBEK. Beijing N. KOREA
ESTONIA KYRGYZ. 87/73sh
Aberdeen Stockholm Pyongyang
61/46r Gothenburg 66/50sh 90/75r
TURKMEN. TAJIK.
SCOTLAND 61/49sh S. KOREA JAPAN
Riga LATVIA
Kabul ASIA Xian
CHINA 99/75h Seoul
Edinburgh 97/68s 91/76r
64/53r 69/50sh Tokyo
NORTHERN AFGHANISTAN Osaka 90/76pc
IRELAND Newcastle DENMARK Copenhagen LITHUANIA Islamabad Lhasa 95/77s
Galway Belfast 62/53sh IRAN 92/77t Changsha Shanghai
67/54sh Minsk Kathmandu 75/54pc 95/81t
60/58r 60/55r 94/81t
IRELAND Manchester 72/50pc PAKISTAN 86/70t
63/55c New Delhi
Shannon Dublin Hamburg NEPAL Dhaka Guangzhou Taipei
91/82t
62/58r 63/56r Birmingham 67/53sh 94/83t 95/80t 94/78pc
Amsterdam Warsaw BELARUS Karachi Hanoi
66/53c GERMANY Berlin 95/84pc Kolkata 93/80t TAIWAN
67/55pc 76/58pc BURMA
WALES ENGLAND 70/57sh 91/82t Hong Kong
NETH. POLAND LAOS 93/82t
London Brussels Bonn Mumbai Rangoon Da Nang Manila
70/52pc 72/50pc 84/81t INDIA 89/77t
70/54c Krakow THAILAND 91/76r 90/79t
Prague Bangkok VIETNAM
BELGIUM 76/58t
77/55t UKRAINE 91/78r CAMBODIA GUAM
Hagatna
Le Havre LUX. CZECH REP. Phnom Penh Ho Chi Minh City 88/78t
Frankfurt
66/57pc 75/55pc Munich Bratislava SLOVAKIA 90/78t 89/77t PHILIPPINES
Paris
78/63t
78/54pc Zurich 76/54t Vienna SRI LANKA
MALAYSIA
75/57t HUNGARY
EUROPE Salzburg 78/63t
MALDIVES
74/55t AUSTRIA Budapest Singapore Balikpapan
SWITZERLAND 81/63t ROMANIA 91/80t 87/76t
Bordeaux Venice SLOVENIA
78/58pc 81/67t
Lyon Milan CROATIA PAPUA NEW
SERBIA Jakarta INDONESIA
84/63pc 84/68t GUINEA
FRANCE Florence Belgrade 91/76c
Santiago de Compostela Marseille BOSNIA
93/71s 93/67s Sofia Port Moresby
72/57pc 94/73s
92/65s 86/74pc
ITALY MONT.
Ajaccio Dubrovnik KOSOVO BULGARIA
Rome Cairns
Madrid 91/69s 93/80s Skopje
PORTUGAL 92/77s 81/63s
91/64s 100/65s MAURITIUS Broome
Tirana MACEDONIA
SPAIN Barcelona 99/72s 87/63s
Lisbon 84/73s Naples Alice Springs
ALBANIA
79/62s 94/78s 63/37s
Cagliari Brisbane
Valencia GREECE AUSTRALIA
Palma 100/78s 70/44s
90/74s
Seville 92/74s Perth
Faro 95/68s 67/47pc
Sydney
81/64w Athens
Palermo 63/44s
98/78s
93/83s
Algiers Tunis
97/79s Melbourne Canberra
105/81h 60/46pc 53/26s
Rabat
79/64pc
ALGERIA TUNISIA
MOROCCO

c Cloudy f Fog i Ice r Rain sf Snow flurries sn Snow w Windy Note: The forecast highs are for the 24-hour period of that
dr Drizzle h Haze pc Partly cloudy s Sunny sh Showers t Thunderstorms day. Low-temperature forecasts are for the upcoming night. Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather Inc. ©2023

CLOSE-UP FORECAST
AMSTERDAM AUCKLAND BANGKOK BEIJING BERLIN BRUSSELS CAIRO COPENHAGEN DUBLIN FLORENCE FRANKFURT HONG KONG
Partly Turning Heavy Showers Clouds, Sunny, A few A little Mostly Partly Stray
FRI SAT SAT Rain SAT FRI FRI FRI FRI FRI FRI FRI SAT
sunny cloudy showers around sun hot showers rain sunny sunny t-storm
91/78
67/55 58/47 87/73 70/57 70/52 100/76 67/54 63/56 93/71 75/55 93/82
A P.M. Hazy, Partly Showers Mostly Partly An A.M.
SAT Windy SUN Breezy SUN SUN SAT SAT Breezy SAT Very hot SAT SAT T-storms SAT SAT SUN
t-storm humid sunny around sunny sunny shower
68/60 58/49 71/59 102/79 65/58
90/78 92/74 73/59 67/56 90/67 80/59 91/82
Partly A few Partly Partly An A.M.
SUN T-storms MON Breezy MON T-shower MON T-storm SUN SUN Breezy SUN Very hot SUN T-storms SUN SUN SUN MON
sunny showers sunny sunny shower
69/61 62/53 91/79 94/74 68/59 105/81 66/61
75/63 63/50 93/66 76/61 93/83

JAKARTA JERUSALEM JOHANNESBURG LONDON LOS ANGELES MADRID MANILA MEXICO CITY MILAN MOSCOW MUNICH NEW YORK
Sunny, Partly Mostly Mostly Stray
SAT Clearing FRI FRI FRI FRI FRI Sunny SAT FRI T-storms FRI T-storm FRI Some sun FRI T-storm FRI T-storms
hot sunny cloudy sunny t-storm
91/76 91/64 79/56 84/68 71/54 76/54 81/69
91/69 52/41 70/54 91/67 90/79
Partly Sunny, Sunny, Stray Partly Partly
SUN SAT SAT Clearing SAT T-storms SAT Hot SAT SUN Rain SAT T-storms SAT SAT Breezy SAT SAT
sunny hot hot t-storm sunny sunny
58/45 65/61 92/68 88/79 77/57 73/56
92/76 92/71 94/65 82/67 75/52 85/70
Sunny, Partly P.M. Showers Mostly
MON Showers SUN SUN Milder SUN T-storms SUN SUN Hot MON Rain SUN SUN Sunny SUN SUN Warmer SUN
hot sunny showers around sunny
92/77 67/50 72/56 98/67 85/78 85/69 82/56
96/73 90/69 76/59 68/53 86/71

PARIS RIO DE JANEIRO ROME SEOUL SHANGHAI ST. PETERSBURG STOCKHOLM SYDNEY TAIPEI TOKYO VIENNA ZURICH
Partly Mostly Hot, A few Plenty of A P.M. Partly
FRI FRI FRI SAT Rain SAT T-storms FRI Breezy FRI SAT SAT SAT FRI T-storms FRI T-storm
sunny sunny humid showers sun shower sunny
91/76 95/81 69/57 78/63 75/57
78/54 76/66 92/77 66/50 63/44 94/78 90/76
Partly Sunny, Showers An A.M. Stray Partly
SAT SAT SAT Humid SUN Rain SUN SAT SAT T-shower SUN Windy SUN SUN Humid SAT T-storms SAT
sunny nice around shower t-storm sunny
89/73 80/75 66/49 59/53 90/76 78/61
78/61 76/65 90/81 70/54 95/79 77/55
Partly Mostly Very Stray A little A little Very Very
SUN SUN SUN MON MON T-storms SUN SUN T-storms MON MON Hot MON Humid SUN SUN
sunny sunny warm t-storm rain rain warm warm
95/82 67/50 98/81 90/79
77/60 78/68 90/71 87/75 67/55 61/52 87/63 83/59

WORLD FORECAST USA FORECAST

EUROPE FRI SAT FRI SAT
FRI SAT Strasbourg 79/57pc 82/56pc Buenos Aires, Argentina 70/66c 76/50c Seattle
Aberdeen, Scotland 61/46r 62/53r Tallin 69/52sh 67/53sh Calgary 83/56s 86/58pc 81/59s
Athens 98/78s 98/77s Tirana 99/72s 101/72s Cancun, Mexico 91/78t 92/80t
Barcelona 84/73s 83/72s Valencia/Aeropuerto 90/74s 87/77s Caracas, Venezuela 91/76t 92/76h Portland
Belfast 60/55r 62/57t Venice 81/67t 79/65t Cozumel, Mexico 90/78t 92/80t 88/62s Boston
Belgrade 93/67s 86/65t Vienna 78/63t 78/61t Fort-de-France 90/76pc 89/77pc Minneapolis-St. Paul 76/67t
Bergen, Norway 61/50t 62/50t Vilnius, Lithuania 70/52pc 67/52sh Halifax, Nova Scotia 74/65c 76/65c 84/64s
Bern 75/55t 77/54pc Warsaw 76/58pc 75/54pc Lima, Peru 72/67pc 73/67pc
Bilbao 76/61t 79/60pc Montreal 73/64t 74/63r New York
Birmingham, England 66/53c 62/59t ASIA / OCEANIA Nassau, Bahamas 92/80pc 93/80s 81/69t
Bonn 72/50pc 75/60pc SAT SUN Philipsburg, St. Maarten 90/81s 91/81s Chicago
San Francisco 81/64pc
Bordeaux 78/58pc 78/58pc Adelaide 54/45sh 57/42pc Puerto Vallarta, Mexico 95/80t 94/80t 76/56pc
Bratislava 78/63t 80/61t Alice Springs Airport 63/37s 61/37s Punta Arenas, Chile 34/27pc 38/28s Washington
Denver 89/70pc
Bucharest 94/70s 98/70pc Bali 84/76r 84/76w Quebec 75/62t 73/62r 81/60t
Cadiz, Spain 89/62pc 93/65s Broome Bilingurr 87/63s 83/55w Quito, Ecuador 68/42c 69/43c St. Louis
Caen 70/52pc 69/60c Cairns Airport 81/63s 79/59pc San Jose, Costa Rica 85/69r 84/68r 82/66pc
Cagliari 100/78s 95/76pc Changde 95/80sh 96/80t Santo Domingo 93/75s 92/75s Los Angeles
Cardiff 65/57c 64/61t Changsha City 93/81r 93/82r Sao Paulo 72/56pc 76/57pc 91/67s
Dresden 71/52sh 76/56pc Christchurch 47/42w 52/46r Toronto 77/61t 80/58c
Dubrovnik 93/80s 92/77s Colombo 89/81sh 87/80t Vancouver 74/59s 75/58s Phoenix Atlanta
Duesseldorf 73/53pc 74/60pc Da Nang 91/76r 91/78t Winnipeg 82/58t 81/55s 118/93pc 92/73t
Edinburgh 64/53r 62/54r Darwin 90/71s 87/63w Dallas-Fort Worth
Faro, Portugal 81/64w 79/68s Dhaka 94/83t 93/82t AFRICA / MIDDLE EAST 102/77pc
Figari 96/75s 92/70s Guangzhou 95/80t 97/80t FRI SAT
Geneva 80/60t 82/60pc Hagatna, Guam 88/78t 88/79t Abidjan, Ivory Coast 85/76pc 82/76sh
New Orleans
Genoa 85/75t 83/73s Hanoi 93/80t 95/79t Abu Dhabi 111/92h 114/92h Houston
97/81t Miami
Glasgow 64/53r 62/56r Ho Chi Minh City 89/77t 88/77r Accra, Ghana 84/76w 82/75r 99/79s
93/79t
Gothenburg, Sweden 61/49sh 60/50sh Hobart 57/44c 54/39pc Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 69/57r 69/57sh
Hamburg 67/53sh 66/58pc Karachi 95/84pc 94/83c Alexandria, Egypt 92/76s 94/78s
Helsinki 69/51sh 70/51sh Kathmandu 86/70t 84/69t Algiers, Algeria 97/79s 94/76s
Innsbruck 74/57t 72/53t Kolkata 91/82t 92/81t Amman, Jordan 96/73s 97/74s FRI SAT FRI SAT FRI SAT
Krakow 76/58t 76/54pc Kuala Lumpur 91/76t 91/76t Ankara, Turkey 92/61s 93/62s Albany, N.Y. 76/63t 82/59pc Fargo, N.D. 83/60pc 86/61s Philadelphia 85/69t 86/70pc
Kyiv 77/60pc 71/60pc Kyoto 96/75pc 94/76sh Baghdad 115/86h 115/87h Albuquerque 96/67t 93/69c Fort Myers, Fla. 94/80t 94/79t Phoenix 118/93pc 113/92pc
Las Palmas 82/73w 82/73w Lhasa City 75/54pc 73/54sh Bahrain 105/92pc 106/94c Allentown, Pa. 80/62t 81/59pc Grand Rapids, Mich. 82/57t 79/58s Pittsburgh 78/58t 79/58pc
Le Havre 66/57pc 67/60w Macau 90/81t 90/81s Beirut 88/77s 88/78s Anchorage 68/56s 67/53s Greensboro, N.C. 89/69pc 83/66c Portland, Maine 74/64t 77/62c
Lisbon 79/62s 82/62s Mumbai 84/81t 86/80t Cape Town, S.A. 66/44pc 63/46c Atlanta 92/73t 85/70pc Hartford, Conn. 81/66t 84/64pc Portland, Ore. 88/62s 87/62s
Lucerne, Switzerland 75/57t 75/56pc Nanchang City 95/82t 93/81t Casablanca, Morocco 83/69pc 83/67pc Atlantic City 80/69t 83/69pc Honolulu 88/77sh 88/77sh Providence 81/67t 83/64pc
Luxembourg 72/52pc 73/58pc New Delhi 91/82t 92/81t Damascus, Syria 103/66s 103/69s Austin 103/75s 103/76pc Houston 99/79s 98/79pc Raleigh, N.C. 93/70pc 87/68pc
Lyon 84/63pc 85/62pc Noumea 72/63pc 73/59s Dar es Salaam, Tanz. 88/72pc 83/71sh Baltimore 90/69t 88/67pc Huntsville, Ala. 88/69t 86/65c Rapid City, S.D. 83/58t 91/61s
Malaga 96/76s 89/74s Osaka 95/77s 93/78sh Harare, Zimbabwe 71/46pc 73/46s Baton Rouge 99/80t 97/77pc Indianapolis 79/59pc 82/63pc Reno 104/70s 104/68s
Manchester 63/55c 63/59t Pago Pago 88/76pc 88/76pc Istanbul, Turkey 91/73s 93/76s Billing, Mont. 92/63h 99/65s Jackson, Miss. 98/76pc 90/70t Richmond 91/70pc 85/65pc
Marseille 94/73s 91/69s Perth 67/47pc 69/50s Kabul 96/67s 97/68s Birmingham, Ala. 94/71t 85/65t Jacksonville 100/75t 96/76t Rochester, N.Y. 76/61t 80/58pc
Milan 84/68t 82/67t Phnom Penh 90/78t 87/77sh Kinshasa, Congo 86/69s 84/69s Boise, Idaho 104/70s 105/68s Kansas City, Mo. 81/62pc 86/66s Sacramento 105/62s 102/62s
Minsk 72/50pc 68/53pc Pyongyang 90/75r 89/72t Kuwait 120/90h 120/87h Boston 76/67t 81/68pc Knoxville, Tenn. 85/70t 83/64pc St. Louis 82/66pc 87/69s
Monte Carlo 85/71t 89/72s Rangoon 89/77t 90/76r Lagos, Nigeria 86/76r 83/76r Buffalo 75/62t 77/62pc Las Vegas 113/89s 114/88pc Salt Lake City 100/75s 104/79s
Naples 94/78s 93/78s Sapporo 85/66pc 84/69h Luanda, Angola 77/67pc 77/67pc Cedar Rapids, Iowa 82/58s 84/59pc Little Rock 89/69c 88/68pc San Antonio 104/77s 105/80c
Nice 85/75t 89/74s Singapore 91/80t 88/79t Lusaka, Zambia 72/53w 73/50s Charleston, S.C. 99/77t 92/75pc Louisville 84/66pc 85/67pc San Diego 79/67pc 79/67pc
Oslo 64/52t 62/50t Tianjin 86/74t 90/77t Luxor, Egypt 111/80s 108/79s Charlotte 94/71pc 85/67pc Memphis 86/69t 88/67s San Francisco 76/56pc 75/57pc
Palermo 93/83s 94/83s Vladivostok 78/66c 73/66r Mecca, Saudi Arabia 115/88pc 111/86c Cheyenne, Wyo. 75/54t 86/59s Miami 93/79t 95/79pc San Juan, P.R. 93/79s 93/78s
Palma 92/74s 90/71pc Wellington 53/49w 57/53r Mombasa, Kenya 86/73pc 84/72c Chicago 81/64pc 81/66t Milwaukee 80/64pc 81/67t Sarasota, Fla. 94/82t 94/81t
Prague 77/55t 75/56pc Wuhan City 89/79t 96/82t Nairobi, Kenya 78/55pc 74/57pc Cincinnati 80/62c 81/63pc Minneapolis 84/64s 80/65t Savannah, Ga. 98/75t 89/75t
Reims 77/50pc 78/60pc Yokohama 88/75pc 87/76pc Nicosia, Cyprus 100/75s 104/80s Cleveland 76/61pc 79/63s Mobile, Ala. 96/78t 94/74t Seattle 81/59s 82/55s
Reykjavik 58/52c 60/52pc Rabat, Morocco 79/64pc 80/65s Colorado Springs 76/54t 84/60pc Myrtle Beach, S.C. 92/79t 89/76c Shreveport, La. 100/77pc 89/72t
Riga 69/50sh 66/51sh AMERICAS Tangier, Morocco 79/69pc 82/70s Columbia, S.C. 94/76t 90/72pc Nashville 87/67t 85/65pc Spokane, Wash. 96/64s 92/63s
Salzburg 74/55t 73/53t FRI SAT Tbilisi, Georgia 93/70pc 97/71pc Columbus, Ohio 79/62pc 80/62pc New Orleans 97/81t 96/79pc Syracuse, N.Y. 78/64t 77/60pc
Santiago de Comp. 72/57pc 74/52pc Acapulco, Mexico 91/76t 92/77t Tehran, Iran 101/85s 103/81s Concord, N.H. 76/64t 83/57t Norfolk, Va. 90/76pc 84/71pc Tampa 94/83t 94/82pc
Sarajevo 93/62s 92/63s Belize 87/78r 88/80r Tel Aviv, Israel 91/76s 91/78s Dallas-Ft. Worth 102/77pc 93/75pc Oklahoma City 84/66c 89/67s Topeka 86/65t 89/67pc
Sevilla/San Pablo 95/68s 98/68s Bermuda 86/78pc 85/79t Tombouctou, Mail 103/83w 99/81w Daytona Beach, Fla. 97/76t 94/78pc Omaha 84/64t 87/64s Tucson 111/87t 108/84pc
Skopje 100/62s 102/62s Bogota 67/50t 66/47t Tripoli, Libya 105/79h 108/80h Denver 81/60t 89/64s Orlando 94/77t 94/76pc Tulsa 80/64c 90/66s
Sofia Intl Airport 92/65s 96/64s Brasilia, Brazil 74/57pc 76/54pc Tunis, Tunisia 105/81h 103/81h Detroit 81/62pc 82/63s Palm Springs, Calif. 119/85s 118/87pc Washington, D.C. 89/70pc 89/68pc
St. Petersburg 69/57c 70/54c Bridgetown, Barbados 89/79pc 89/79pc Zanzibar 86/74pc 82/73r El Paso 105/80pc 101/79pc Pensacola, Fla. 95/82t 94/78t Wichita 82/64t 89/66s

The point is
hearing the nation on
your morning commute.*