MORE PUZZLES, MORE FUN FULL PAGE IN LIFE

USA TODAY
Jamie Foxx
proves
versatility
THE NATION'S NEWS | MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2023 | 1A in career

Inflation stays high Arizona stuns LA JOE MAHER/

It’s been a busy year for the
Oscar winner. We rank his
as prices rise 3.7% with homer power GETTY IMAGES
best 15 movies, from
“Strays” to “Ray.” In Life
Steady gains in rent and other In series sweep, Dodgers give up
services offset decline in used car four HRs in single inning, letting
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Hamas
feeds
terror
digitally
Graphic images, video
are part of campaign
Jessica Guynn and Will Carless
USA TODAY

The attacks came by land, sea, air –

and online.
Terror propaganda − videos and
graphic images of kidnappings and
murders of civilians and soldiers that
flooded social media from the deadly
cross-border incursion into Israel −
was a key element in Hamas’ military
campaign, said Graham Brookie, sen-
ior director of the Atlantic Council’s
Digital Forensic Research Lab.
Hamas streamed from the war zone
“in closer to real-time than in past
conflicts,” indicating that the online
strategy “was an essential part of the
overall planning for their attack on
Israel” to take advantage of how hyper-
connected Israel is with its widespread
use of smartphones and social media,
USA TODAY SPECIAL REPORT We can prevent Brookie said.
Veterans of conflict zones on Brook-
and control

DIABETES
ie’s team tracking Hamas’ digital foot-
Type 2 diabetes. print were struck by the ferocity and
volume of the footage, the likes of
Why don’t we? which he said it had never seen, he said.
The effects could become more

DILEMMA
Karen Weintraub and Adrianna Rodriguez USA TODAY
At usatoday.com
Changes take root
See PROPAGANDA, Page 2A

Diabetes runs deep in rural

For Robin Ray, newly married with young stepchildren, the turning
Mississippi. Residents have
point came when a stabbing chest pain sent her rushing to the emer-
taken to growing their own
gency room.
solutions.
For Brian Castrucci, the gravity hit when the ER doc who had treat-
ed him for a near-heart attack a few weeks earlier gave him a bear hug.
“I didn’t think you’d make it,” the doctor said. Disease disparity
The crisis unspooled more slowly for James Haynes but started in Why Colorado’s healthy
2019 when he stepped on a rusty nail and didn’t notice. lifestyle brand isn’t shared
The moments were turning points for all three to get serious about by all. Protesters at the Place de la
addressing their diabetes. République in Paris rally in support
Type 2 diabetes, in which the body can’t properly regulate blood Steep costs of Palestinians on Thursday as Israel
sugar, has become so common it’s almost considered inconsequential. stepped up its offensive in Gaza.
When diabetes dragged
More than 1 in 10 Americans have the disease (though many don’t DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
her down, this patient
know) and another nearly 4 in 10 are at risk. In total, half of all adults
chose to fight.
and a quarter of teenagers have diabetes or prediabetes.
Its financial costs are astronomical. The country spends more than
Hope in the battle
$300 billion a year to address diabetes, accounting for $1 out of every
$4 spent on health care. Solutions exist to end the Broad relief
And its personal tolls are even worse: heart attacks, amputations, diabetes dilemma, but too

See DIABETES, Page 3A

few people get the help
they need.
unlikely in
‘Plan B’ for
student debt
ILLUSTRATION BY TRACIE KEETON/USA TODAY AND GETTY IMAGES
Alia Wong and Zachary Schermele
USA TODAY

“We won’t get that totality, that

complete darkness. But in terms of
impressiveness it really is the next
best thing.”
Dave Clark
NationalEclipse.com on Saturday’s eclipse
INTERNATIONAL SPECIAL EDITION
This is a special edition of USA TODAY designed and
edited for readers around the world. Additonal
content and late-breaking news and sports scores
can always be found at usatoday.com.
¡¿H¢\ApB-740313¿+(O)c
Saturday’s eclipse is a preview
of showstopper coming in April
Trevor Hughes
USA TODAY
Millions of Americans could be able
to see a spectacular solar eclipse on Sat-
urday as the moon passes in front of the
sun, temporarily darkening the sky over
a swath of the country. But experts say
for those in its shadow.
“When it comes to the ‘wow’ factor,
if a total solar eclipse is a 10, an annular
solar eclipse is maybe a 2,” said Dave
Clark of NationalEclipse.com.
Here’s what to know about the two
upcoming eclipses:
President Joe Biden’s second at-
tempt at far-reaching student loan for-
giveness likely will reach fewer bor-
rowers than some might hope.
The Supreme Court in June over-
turned Biden’s original plan for mass
forgiveness, which would have re-
lieved up to $20,000 for tens of mil-
lions of Americans. Even before then
but especially ever since, the president
has focused on canceling the student
loan debt of specific populations cov-
ered by existing policy.

the real showstopper comes in April
when large portions of the country see
an even more impressive total eclipse.
The October eclipse is known as an
annular or “Ring of Fire” eclipse, where
the moon slides in front of the sun but
doesn’t totally obscure it, creating a halo
effect.
But during a total eclipse, like the one
in April, the moon’s apparent size from
©COPYRIGHT 2023 USA TODAY Earth will allow it to entirely cover the
a division of Gannett Co., Inc.
Sun’s face, briefly turning day into night
What is an annular eclipse?
Because of their relative positions,
the moon won’t completely block out
the sun during this eclipse and in-
stead, will leave a bright halo of light
exposed around its edges, hence the
“Ring of Fire” description. That means
you’ll need to wear eclipse safety
glasses the entire time to protect your
See ECLIPSE, Page 4A
At the same time, the federal Edu-
cation Department turned to a process
known as negotiated rulemaking, or
“neg reg,” to enable broader relief
through changes to federal higher
education law.
But that process, which leans on a
committee of stakeholders to deliber-
ate those rule changes, may not result
in the kind of sweeping student loan
See STUDENT DEBT, Page 2A
2A ❚ MONDAY OCTOBER 16, 2023 ❚ USA TODAY
Propaganda
Continued from Page 1A
grave if Hamas makes good on a threat
to broadcast executions of hostages,
Brookie said. Some Hamas officials have
since walked back the threat.
The Islamic State playbook
Spreading propaganda on social
media networks – especially those with
more lax moderation systems – is a low-
cost and highly effective tactic that is in-
creasingly being deployed by terrorist
groups, said Colin P. Clarke, director of
research at the Soufan Group, a global
intelligence and security consultancy.
The videos and images from the
deadly attacks posted by Hamas-affili-
ated accounts were shared by Hamas al-
lies and unwitting participants around
the globe, Clarke said.
The tactic is pulled from the play-
books of the Islamic State and al-Qaida,
which experts said pioneered the viral
form of psychological warfare by lives-
treaming beheadings and other graphic
footage.
“This is the nature of asymmetric
warfare – you’ve got to utilize tools that
are going to make you seem bigger and
more powerful than you are,” Clarke
said. “For Hamas, it costs them nothing
to videotape something and send it out
there, and now everyone thinks that
they’re creeping around every corner.”
Social media assaults
Hamas fired off posts from official ac-
counts on the encrypted messaging and
social media app Telegram that rico-
cheted to X, formerly Twitter, and be-
yond.
Telegram – which allows messaging
between users but also has a “Channel”
function that works similarly to X – has
a long history of being used by terror-
ists, among them the Islamic State, or
ISIS. The platform, often labeled by
extremism experts as “Terrorgram,” is
increasingly embraced by domestic
extremists in the U.S. in recent years
because of its almost nonexistent mod-
eration.
“As soon as something posts on Tele-
gram, we see this crossflow of content to
mainstream platforms, either inten-
tionally or just through the oxygen of
amplification,” Brookie said.
X, which gutted its trust and safety
teams under new owner Elon Musk, was
unprepared for the wave of terror propa-
ganda that then spread to other social
media platforms and messaging apps
like WhatsApp.
This week, X said it was removing
Student debt
Continued from Page 1
debt forgiveness Biden’s first plan
aimed for. The first neg reg meeting
wrapped up Wednesday, and through-
out it Education Department officials
stressed its limitations, redirecting the
conversation on specific borrowers.
Threats of litigation are also top of
mind.
Here are five takeaways from the
committee’s first two days of talks.
Sweeping loan forgiveness is
beyond scope of talks
h Don’t bet on a big forgiveness
plan. After the morning roll call, which
revealed at least four absent members
of a committee of fewer than 20 people,
Education Department officials said
they needed to clarify a few things be-
fore opening up the discussion. On
Tuesday, some negotiators had alluded
to their hopes for broad debt relief like
the kind Biden proposed before the plan
was struck down by the Supreme Court.
Some spoke of their frustrations with
programs such as Public Service Loan
Forgiveness, with interest rates that
make it difficult for borrowers to make a
dent in their balances, and with poor
marketing about relief options.
But Wednesday, Education Depart-
ment Deputy Secretary Ben Miller reit-
erated that those ideas are beyond the
scope of this series of neg reg meetings.
“Think of each question as a group of
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Palestinians make their way through the rubble in Rafah in the Gaza Strip as
Israeli fighter jets pounded the city Thursday. SAID KHATIB/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
warfare’ in this era,” he said.
“So, whatever the next conflict is, it
doesn’t really matter, you’re going to see
this on steroids.”
Money and propaganda
Once propaganda and disinforma-
tion reaches X, the platform is allowing
it to be shared and even monetized, a re-
port from the Tech Transparency Pro-
ject found.
The report, an advance copy of which
was provided exclusively to USA TO-
DAY, found several premium subscriber
Saturday’s brutal surprise attack on accounts – which pay a fee of $8 a
Israel by Hamas militants and Israel’s month to the platform – sharing Hamas
swift military response has claimed propaganda including violent and
more 2,500 lives on both sides. graphic images of the attacks on Israel.
MAHMUD HAMS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES According to the report, some video
content appears to violate X’s “violent
and hateful entities policy,” which pro-
newly created Hamas-affiliated ac- hibits promotion of terrorist organiza-
counts and coordinating with industry tions and their propaganda. It also ap-
peers “to try and prevent terrorist con- pears to violate an X policy stating that
tent from being distributed online.” It the platform will remove accounts shar-
also recommended that people adjust ing content produced by terrorists, the
their sensitive media settings if they report states.
don’t want to see disturbing content. Despite X’s announcement that it
The U.K. summoned social media was working to remove Hamas-affiliat-
executives Wednesday to demand ed accounts, TTP researchers “found no
platforms remove violent content of the evidence that X had restricted the ac-
Hamas attacks on Israel. counts sharing the Hamas attack
Telegram and X did not immediately videos,” the report says. It also notes
respond to requests for comment. that in some cases, X ran ads in the com-
If social media sites continue to ments under the video posts.
erode guardrails and safeguards, Clarke The TTP report found several in-
warned, what is happening today will stances of “verified” X users, some with
get worse. more than 500,000 followers, spreading
“This is just the facet of what’s called uncensored Hamas propaganda videos.
‘fourth generation warfare,’ or ‘modern One clip posted to X shows bodycam
borrowers, where we might discharge
some or all of their loan or loans,” Miller
The Biden administration recently
issued finalized rules known as gainful
said. “I also want to try and clarify a bit employment that increase accountabil-
on the lines between what are things we ity and transparency of programs with
are looking to do here in this rule and poor outcomes. The rules are designed
what we’re not looking to do here with to protect students moving forward.
this rule. But what about former students, bor-
“We got into a lot of details yesterday rowers who – in some cases decades
about things where the department into their loans – have yet to secure the
does not issue regulations.” careers or incomes they envisioned
And on Tuesday, Tamy Abernathy, a they’d get by enrolling in those pro-
policy coordinator with the department, grams?
stressed that the mission of this com- Negotiators largely centered on how
mittee isn’t to provide “broad-based to determine which programs are bad
debt cancellation, where we are going to apples. Some stressed the department
wipe off debt in its entirety.” should look at colleges’ completion
h Older Americans, Parent PLUS − rates or the percentage of students
“most vulnerable” borrowers in the unable to pay down their principal dur-
spotlight. The first question of the day ing a certain period of time.
focused on borrowers who took out h What defines a “hardship”? The
loans before certain benefits were cre- department reconsiders. Sherrie
ated. These borrowers tend to be older, Gammage, one of the negotiators repre-
often of retirement age, and have been senting student loan borrowers who
in repayment for decades. These are attended four-year college programs, is
among the nation’s most vulnerable in her 60s and still paying off loans.
borrowers, negotiators said, especially Stage 4 non-alcoholic liver disease and
given people who’ve been in repayment chronic pancreatitis upended her life,
the longest tend to be experiencing the she said Wednesday, and threw her into
most hardship. deferment, which is a type of postponed
Other groups that negotiators high- payment that, unlike forbearance,
lighted: borrowers of Parent PLUS or doesn’t accrue interest.
Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Her condition, a chronic illness, is
loans, which aren’t eligible for most one of many types of unforeseen chal-
income-driven repayment plans. lenges the department could consider in
h Debate over value of college – and new guidelines about loan discharge
how to measure that. The second ques- eligibility. Incarceration or a lack of a
tion on Wednesday’s agenda: How permanent address were among other
should the Education Department han- burdens negotiators brought up.
dle the debts of borrowers whose degree “It’s hard to hear what our borrowers
programs, it later turns out, do not lead are facing,” said Abernathy, the Educa-
to salaries that can pay off the loans? tion Department policy coordinator.
Postal information
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NEWS
footage of Hamas militants going room-
to-room in an Israeli military base firing
automatic weapons. Bloodied bodies lie
on the ground in the video, which has
been watched more than 60,000 times.
“It’s been nearly 10 years since the
Islamic State made heavy use of social
media to amplify its propaganda and
recruitment efforts. Although some
platforms have improved at reducing
the spread of Islamic State content,
today we see Hamas deploying very
similar tactics on X,” TTP director Katie
A Paul told USA TODAY. “The company
has monetized the spread of Hamas
propaganda despite its clear violations
of X policy. X needs to effectively en-
force the rules it has on the books as the
conflict continues.”
Online war on many fronts
Brookie says social media platforms
are being forced to grapple with a multi-
front crisis to shield users from terror
propaganda, misleading information,
hate speech and violent and graphic im-
ages and footage.
“The amount of content is going to be
more than any team, whether it’s at a
platform or a research team like mine, or
a journalism outlet or organization
could possibly sift through,” he said.
“That changes the frame from who’s
doing well to who’s doing the least bad
in a hard situation.”
The major platforms are working
with the Global Internet Forum to
Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) which was
founded by Facebook, Microsoft, X and
YouTube in 2017 to prevent terrorists
and violent extremists from exploiting
digital platforms.
“In this rapidly evolving situation, we
continue to work with our members to
identify and follow trends in content
and activity online related to terrorist
and violent extremist actors involved in
the offline violence,” GIFCT said in a
statement. “This includes the possi-
bility that a range of terrorist and vio-
lent extremist networks and groups
may seek to exploit the conflict for their
own purposes, as we have seen in past
events.”
Facebook, YouTube and TikTok say
they have poured resources into moder-
ating content from the Israel-Hamas
war. “After the terrorist attacks by
Hamas on Israel on Saturday, we quick-
ly established a special operations
center staffed with experts, including
fluent Hebrew and Arabic speakers, to
closely monitor and respond to this
rapidly evolving situation,” Meta said in
a statement.
The major platforms prohibit content
produced by terrorist organizations
including Hamas as well as footage
showing hostages.
The federal government has higher
standards for discharging student loans
through bankruptcy than it does for
other forms of debt. Scott Waterman, a
negotiator and bankruptcy trustee,
urged the department Wednesday to
consider lowering those standards.
h Questions linger about court
challenges. There’s one big catch to this
whole process, however: It hinges en-
tirely on whether new regulations are
fortified with the right legalese. Produc-
ing more regulations that don’t hold up
against court challenges – which are
likely – would further erode borrowers’
trust in the system, said Scott Buchan-
an, a negotiator representing services.
He said it would only heighten feel-
ings from borrowers that the system is
failing, especially on the heels of the
Supreme Court’s blow to broader loan
forgiveness.
“We can’t go down the path again
about making promises to borrowers
that can’t be kept,” Buchanan said.
What’s next in the student loan
neg reg process?
The pressure is on the Biden admini-
stration to finalize a rule if and before
Republicans win the White House in
next year’s election. A final rule must be
published by Nov. 1, 2024, for it to take
effect in July the following year.
The next meeting is scheduled for
Nov. 6-7, and the one after that for Dec.
11-12. Both of the sessions, like the one
that kicked off Tuesday, will be virtual
and include opportunities for the public
to comment.
NEWS
Diabetes
Continued from Page 1A
blindness, kidney disease, a doubled risk
of premature death. The emotional toll is
called “diabetes distress”: the emotional
toll of managing a chronic ailment that
can lead to low energy, foggy thinking,
depression and a sense of isolation.
The most frustrating aspect of Type 2
diabetes, experts say, is that the disease
has long been largely preventable and
controllable.
“The best diabetes care can make a
very big difference. You can’t say we
don’t know what to do,” said Dr. Donald
Berwick, a pediatrician and former ad-
ministrator of the Centers for Medicare &
Medicaid Services.
And yet, Type 2 diabetes diagnoses
have soared over the past 25 years, and
especially over the past dozen.
Roughly 40% of people who died early
in the coronavirus pandemic had Type 2
diabetes, a rate four times higher than
people without the disease. Even when
elevated blood sugar levels are below the
threshold for type 2 diabetes, the risk for
heart disease jumps 30% to 50% com-
pared with people with normal blood
sugar levels. (Type 1 diabetes, which ac-
counts for 5% to 10% of diabetes, is
caused by the immune system and is un-
related to diet or lifestyle.)
The USA TODAY Health team spoke
with scores of health care providers, re-
searchers, community leaders and pa-
tients to understand why Type 2 diabe-
tes continues to worsen in America de-
spite known solutions.
The answer isn’t simple. America’s
failure to address Type 2 diabetes high-
lights larger problems with our food and
medical systems, Berwick and other ex-
perts said: a food system designed to sell
products, where a double cheeseburger
and fries costs less than a carton of blue-
berries; a medical system in which cut-
ting off a leg is cheaper and more profit-
able than saving it; the high cost of
healthy living; and the fact that breaking
habits takes more than just willpower.
The system is fixable, said Dr. Dariush
Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and profes-
sor at Tufts University. But it will take
“sensible action” across many sectors to
change the incentives that drive so many
Americans toward sickness.
“If we do it all, we could fix a lot of this
in 10 years,” said Mozaffarian, who
serves on the President’s Council on
Sports, Fitness and Nutrition. “If we do it
incrementally or don’t do it at all, we’re
all going to be toast in 50 years.”
Personal and structural
There’s no question personal respon-
sibility plays a role in fighting diabetes.
Haynes, Ray and Castrucci radically
changed their lifestyles and sought help
after their come-to-Jesus experiences.
They’ve reduced their dependence on
daily medication and hope to have saved
themselves the horrors of more amputa-
tions, blindness and dialysis. They’ve
extended their lives and improved the
quality of that time.
But like many medical problems, the
challenges of diabetes go well beyond in-
dividual responsibility and blame.
“There are structural issues that we
have to start paying attention to and ad-
dressing,” said Dr. Shivani Agarwal, an
endocrinologist at Montefiore Medical
Center and Albert Einstein College of
Medicine in New York.
Agarwal recently led a series of stud-
ies in the journal The Lancet that looked
at diabetes rates around the world. Pov-
erty, the studies showed, was a major
driver of diabetes, along with racism and
unequal access to healthy food and high-
quality medical care.
Personal stories illustrate how these
structural issues play out in the lives of
so many Americans.
Ray, 45, director of culinary opera-
tions at HOSCO/North Sarah Food Hub
in St. Louis, got weight loss surgery and
then put her culinary expertise to use.
Castrucci, 49, who runs a public
health nonprofit outside Washington,
D.C., used his advantages provided by
his work, salary and insurance to “buy”
himself better health. “I’m healthy be-
cause of privilege – not diet, not exercise,
not determination,” he said.
Haynes, 58, a former truck driver and
maintenance technician in Gulfport,
Mississippi, has fewer material assets,
but his attitude and the advantages he
does have explain why he’s still around,
despite all he has been through.
“It’s going to be all right after a while,
as long as I keep this spirit,” he said.
Changing the recipe
Ray’s love for food began when she
was 8 years old, watching Julia Child on
TV. During family gatherings, she would
run around taking everyone’s dinner or-
der. Then she’d scurry back to the kitch-
en with a notepad full of scribbles.
“I had to restructure the food that I put in my mouth,” Robin Ray recalls about
the aftermath of a medical scare she experienced after years of neglecting her
diabetes. She had weight loss surgery and says she was able to become excited
about food again. SID HASTINGS/USA TODAY
James Haynes says his faith has
sustained him through his health
troubles. EDMUND D. FOUNTAIN/USA TODAY
Throughout her life, she made fried
chicken, pork chops, baked mac and
cheese, collard greens and a roasted
chicken filled with wild rice and two
sticks of butter – everything that made
her soul sing.
In her world, food was home. Food
was family. Food was love. But it ended
up being some pretty tough love.
In 2002, Ray was diagnosed with
Type 2 diabetes. Her father, grandmoth-
er, aunts and uncles all had diabetes. She
knew what it meant.
“For you to tell me I can’t have ice blue
raspberry Kool-Aid was like you shut
down my world,” Ray said. “I didn’t want
to accept it. So I ate, because you eat
through your emotions.”
She didn’t dwell on the diagnosis. Her
culinary career took her to Italy, where
she fell even more in love with food. She
returned to St. Louis, married and be-
came a mom to her husband’s two chil-
dren. Through the years, she continued
to express love through food.
Then in 2015, a stabbing chest pain
sent her to the emergency room. Doctors
said she hadn’t had a heart attack but
warned that her life was on the line. At
5-foot-2, she weighed 334 pounds and
had an A1C, a measure of average blood
sugar, of 11%, well above the 6.5% cutoff
to be considered diabetic. Her diabetes –
and her diet – was out of control.
“It was gut-wrenching and terrifying,”
she said. “I’m fighting against something
that’s fighting me back, and I did not
know how to win.”
She and her primary care doctor de-
cided she would pursue weight loss
surgery. But she also decided to use her
culinary prowess to transform her diet.
She reconfigured favorite foods, substi-
tuting healthier ingredients. Ray fos-
tered her feelings into new recipes and
brought them to North Sarah Food Hub.
“I had to restructure the food that I put
in my mouth. I had to think about what I
was eating and how I was eating and
how it was going to be good for my body,”
she said. “I became excited about food
again, and food became a joy.”
It isn’t always easy, of course. Ray ad-
mits to an occasional cookie craving. But
now she thinks about how her body
processes that cookie and whether it’s
worthwhile.
She hopes her cooking can help others
make the same transformation she did.
North Sarah partnered with a hospital to
make packaged, premade meals for St.
Louis residents with diabetes and limit-
ed access to fresh food. Ray wants to pro-
vide nourishment that allows people to
avoid illness and medicine.
“Nobody wants to take 55 pills, nobody
wants to feel like a patient, but how do you
fix that? It’s by our food,” she said. “That
should be what we’re teaching our com-
munity and our culture and our children.”
The price of health
Castrucci is a third-generation diabe-
tes patient. The lifetime risk of develop-
ing Type 2 diabetes if a parent has it is
USA TODAY ❚ MONDAY OCTOBER 16, 2023 ❚ 3A
Brian Castrucci says he’s privileged to
be able to take care of his health as he
does now. JOSH MORGAN/USA TODAY
40%. If both parents have it, the risk
jumps to 70%.
He knew he was at risk, but he pushed
his luck, he said, by eating poorly during
the pandemic and falling out of his exer-
cise routine. While working from home,
walking to the kitchen and bathroom
was often the extent of his daily activity.
On Valentine’s Day 2022, he went to
an urgent-care clinic with breathing
trouble, concerned about bronchitis. His
blood pressure measured 210 over 110.
Normal levels top out at 120 over 80. A
chest X-ray showed fluid filling his lungs,
leading to congestive heart failure.
The clinic sent him straight to a local
emergency room, where he was diag-
nosed with a clogged artery made worse
by diabetes. If Castrucci had waited any
longer, he would have had a massive
heart attack, his doctor later said.
After his release from the hospital, he
went to the drugstore to fill his new pre-
scriptions. The pharmacist told him she
couldn’t fill one because it would cost
$1,000. He’d have to wait until his insur-
ance approved. “Please fill it,” he said.
She stressed the cost. “Fill it,” he plead-
ed, putting the charge on his credit card.
Medication helped him lose 70
pounds in three months. When his local
drugstore ran out of the drug, he drove to
another pharmacy and then another to
find what he needed.
His 100 hours of high-quality cardiac
rehabilitation were fully covered by in-
surance.
“For my midlife crisis, I got healthy,”
Castrucci said.
He could devote all his energy to get-
ting well because he didn’t have to focus
on how to afford his care: “(I) never wor-
ried about it because I have really good
insurance.”
Even so, Castrucci pays out of pocket
for a cardiologist and an endocrinologist
because the best ones near him don’t ac-
cept insurance.
Every time he goes to Walgreens to re-
fill his medications, Castrucci said, he
sees someone turned away because they
can’t afford their prescriptions. When
they finally show up in the emergency
room – “because they will” – they will
cost the system far more, he said.
“Health outcomes are dictated by eco-
nomics. It’s a whole side of privilege that
we don’t always talk about,” he said.
Struggling to heal
On the day James Haynes stepped on
a rusty nail in 2019, he walked all day as
the nail pierced the sole of his sneaker
and then his foot. By the time he took off
his shoe that night, his foot was infected.
He landed in the hospital for two months
as doctors and nurses tried, mostly un-
successfully, to get the infection and
Haynes’ blood sugar under control.
By the time he was released, he knew
that his daily blood sugar levels – typi-
cally in the mid-400s – were four times
above what he had been told to shoot for.
That was just the beginning of
Haynes’ journey.
Nothing he did or ate seemed to make
a difference. He had long since traded
ribs for salads, beer for water. He started
wearing multiple pairs of socks, pouring
powder on his feet and buying bigger
shoes. His feet tingled a lot.
Haynes ended up in the emergency
room again, dehydrated and needing
antibiotics. The doctor amputated his
right baby toe, leaving a large open
wound.
“We’re going to leave this open be-
cause we’ll probably have to take more,”
his wife, Angela, remembered the doctor
saying. “I didn’t like that we’re not going
to try to save anything, we’re just going to
start cutting.”
Haynes was fading. He lost his Popeye
physique. Antibiotics left him looking
sickly, his voice so weak Angela could
barely hear him. “I felt like I was watch-
ing my husband slowly dying,” she said.
Finally, taking her doctor sister’s ad-
vice, Angela emailed Dr. Foluso Fako-
rede’s office. She thought it would take
months to get James in to see the heart
disease specialist, but the office asked if
they could come the next day.
The Hayneses went back to see Fako-
rede many times − sometimes twice in
one week, driving more than five hours
each way to Cleveland, Mississippi.
“We started looking forward to these
visits because there was always hope,”
Angela said, though she felt guilty they
were taking so much of the important
doctor’s time.
Fakorede is on a personal mission to
save people with diabetes from amputa-
tions. She noticed what other doctors
had missed: Haynes had blockages in
blood vessels on both legs.
Once Fakorede got the blood flowing
again, James’ flesh returned to its normal
color. The wound started healing at last.
Walking became easier.
Then disaster struck again. On July 2,
2022, Haynes caught COVID-19. “Every-
thing went downhill,” he said. The bacte-
ria in his foot raged out of control. He
ended up back in the hospital, unable to
withstand the drive to Fakorede’s office.
Every week, a surgeon would come to
the door of his hospital room and before
even stepping all the way in ask Haynes
whether he had decided to get his leg
amputated.
“This is my leg. I was born with this.
And you’re walking in like you’re cutting
a piece of cake,” Haynes said.
He was worried about how he’d get
around, how he’d be able to work to sup-
port his family with only one leg. No one
took the time to explain why they
thought the leg needed to come off or
how he’d cope, Haynes said.
In late November, he was finally sent
home in a wheelchair. Just three weeks
later, his right leg gave out and he fell to
the ground. Back at the hospital, Haynes
was told his foot was broken, essentially
beyond repair. He agreed to a below-the-
knee amputation.
Released right before Christmas, he
spent the next three weeks in bed. But
finally, it looked as if his luck might be
turning around.
With the leg gone, his diabetes im-
proved. His blood sugar dropped into the
120s or lower. His blurry vision cleared.
During his long hospital stay, he had
befriended nurses and learned about a
program for people who needed prosthe-
ses. The man who ran it called early in
2023 and said he had received a donated
leg. If it fit Haynes, he could have it while
waiting for insurance to pay for a person-
alized one. Miraculously, it did.
Haynes spent the next six months
teaching himself to walk again. The do-
nor leg was heavy and uncomfortable.
He wasn’t mobile enough to keep a job.
One spring night, picking up dinner at
a nearby restaurant, he headed to the
bathroom for a pit stop. A sink had been
leaking all day and Haynes slipped in the
puddle, falling backward.
He’s still recovering from the resulting
wrist surgery.
He and Angela are living – barely – off
her part-time salary as a secretary and
church organist.
Haynes has tried “at least three or four
times” to receive government assistance,
but they keep losing his paperwork or
not believing he’s disabled, though he
once checked himself out of the hospital
and arrived at an appointment in his
wheelchair to prove he didn’t have a leg.
Still, he clings to his faith and the pos-
itive attitude he has long used to cheer
up himself and others. These are his
weapons against diabetes and every-
thing else life throws his way.
“I try to put a smile on other people’s
faces,” he said. “It keeps my day going.”
Contributing: Nada Hassanein
This story is part of a reporting fellow-
ship sponsored by the Association of
Health Care Journalists and supported
by the Commonwealth Fund.
Health and patient safety coverage at
USA TODAY is made possible in part by a
grant from the Masimo Foundation for
Ethics, Innovation and Competition in
Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation
does not provide editorial input.
4A ❚ MONDAY OCTOBER 16, 2023 ❚ USA TODAY
POLITICS
Congress has made
history, for good and bad
Savannah Kuchar
USA TODAY
After just 10 months, the 118th Con-
gress has made history − for a variety of
reasons.
There were significant firsts, such as
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries
becoming the first Black lawmaker to
lead a party in Congress. And Demo-
cratic Rep. Jennifer McClellan also
broke barriers as the first Black woman
to represent Virginia in Congress.
The upper and lower chambers to-
gether have also sparked a host of more
offbeat headlines, however.
From the ongoing saga over electing
and removing the speaker of the House
to a senator allegedly stuffing money in
his monogrammed jackets, this Con-
gress has had no shortage of memorable
moments while not even halfway
through its term.
Here’s a look at some of the stand-
outs.
A star volleyball player? Santos
indicted on charges of fraud
Long Island’s Republican Rep.
George Santos made history in the 2022
midterms, winning the first congres-
sional race between two openly gay
candidates.
This accomplishment was quickly
overshadowed, though, by the barrage
of falsehoods and exag-
gerations that came to
light about his personal
and professional life.
The embattled con-
gressman’s unprecedent-
ed list of lies include
Santos falsely attributing his
mother’s death to the 9/11
attacks; misrepresenting himself as a
college volleyball star; and claiming he
lost four employees in the Pulse night-
club shooting.
Santos now faces a 23-count indict-
ment accusing him of stealing cam-
paign donor identities and using their
credit cards to pad his pockets in unau-
thorized charges.
Eclipse
Continued from Page 1A
eyes.
During the eclipse, the temperature
will drop and the Earth will darken for
those in the eclipse path. Experts say
you might experience animals, insects
and birds reacting as if it were twilight
or dawn.
“We won’t get that totality, that com-
plete darkness,” said Clark. “But in
terms of impressiveness, it really is the
next best thing.”
The October eclipse will be visible in
a diagonal swath of the country from
Oregon through Texas, weather provid-
ing.
How is a total solar eclipse, like
the one in April, different?
Because the moon’s orbit isn’t a per-
fect circle, its apparent size changes in
the sky. During a total eclipse, the moon
is big enough to entirely cover the Sun’s
face, briefly turning day into night on
the Earth below. Those who have seen
both kinds of eclipses generally consid-
er a total eclipse far superior to an annu-
lar one. The last total eclipse for the
United States was in 2017.
October annular solar eclipse map
For the United States, the annular
eclipse will become visible atop the ris-
ing sun on the Oregon coast on Saturday
morning, then pass over Eugene before
swinging across northern Nevada,
southern Utah, almost directly over the
Four Corners area of the Southwest, and
then over Albuquerque and central Tex-
as before sweeping across the Yucatan
peninsula and Belize. It will all be over in
a matter of minutes for stationary ob-
servers.
Specifically, NASA says the eclipse
will begin in Oregon around 9:13 a.m.
PDT and end in Texas around 12:03 p.m.
CDT. It will take a little more than an
hour for the moon to slide completely
over the sun, creating the halo effect,
and then another hour or so for it to slide
back off.
Other parts of the United States will
see a partial eclipse, where it looks like
the moon has taken a bite out of the sun,
but won’t cover it.
It took 15 rounds of votes to elect Rep.
Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as House
speaker and one lawmaker to request
his ouster, the first such move in
history. MEGAN SMITH/USA TODAY NETWORK
McCarthy takes 15 votes to be
elected speaker, is ousted in one
A holdout faction among House Re-
publicans stalled the vote for House
speaker for four days − and 15 rounds of
voting − in January.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., man-
aged to eventually accrue enough sup-
port to win the gavel. To placate some of
those hard-line lawmakers, including
several members of the House Freedom
Caucus, McCarthy made concessions,
including a House rule that would allow
any one member to call for vote to re-
move him as speaker.
His concession came back to bite 10
months later.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., brought a
motion against McCarthy days after the
speaker worked with Democrats to
dodge a looming government shutdown
hours before lawmakers' deadline.
Gaetz’s motion passed with the sup-
port of eight Republicans and 208 Dem-
ocrats. McCarthy is the first speaker in
U.S. history to be removed.
An annular eclipse is viewed from a
park in Yokohama, Japan, on May 21,
2012. On Saturday, an annular solar
eclipse will briefly dim the skies over
parts of the western U.S. and Central
and South America. SHUJI KAJIYAMA/AP
April 2024 total solar eclipse map
The upcoming April total solar
eclipse follows a different path than an
annular eclipse, beginning in Mexico
before sweeping across Texas, the
Midwest, upstate New York and north-
ern New England. For that eclipse, the
length of viewing will be best in Texas,
decreasing as it travels northeast.
How long will the annular
October eclipse last?
Depending on how close you are to
the centerline of the eclipse path, it
could be a little more than four min-
utes, and depending on where the
moon is in the sky, its shadow could be
traveling across the ground at more
than 3,000 mph, Clark said. If you’re
atop a mountain, it’s possible to see
the shadow sweep across the Earth be-
low.
How long will the April
total solar eclipse last?
Depending on where you are, the
totality will last more than four min-
utes, according to Clark and NASA.
With this eclipse, you can remove your
eclipse glasses once the moon has
fully blocked out the sun and darkness
has fallen. You’ll need to put them back
on again as the moon begins uncover-
ing the sun again.
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., wearing his customary casual clothing, walks to the
Old Senate Chambers. He was the focus of a debate over the Senate dress code.
JACK GRUBER/USA TODAY
Who wore it best? Senate spars
over official dress code
A quiet rule change last month gar-
nered a swift and loud backlash after
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schum-
er, D-N.Y., revamped Senate rules to al-
low for casual dress in the chamber.
Much of the ensuing criticism was di-
rected at Sen. John Fetterman, given the
Pennsylvania Democrat’s signature
wardrobe of hoodies and basketball
shorts.
A week later, the Senate unanimous-
ly passed a resolution to codify a formal
dress code for lawmakers, an effort led
by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Mitt
Romney, R-Utah.
“As senators, we should demonstrate
a high level of reverence for the institu-
tion in which we serve − and our attire is
one of the most basic expressions of
that respect,” Romney said at the time.
Fetterman’s statement in response: a
viral meme of actor Kevin James shrug-
ging his shoulders.
NASA says asteroid samples
likely contain 2 keys to life
Doyle Rice
USA TODAY
NASA had a big reveal party this
week.
The nation’s first asteroid samples,
which were delivered last month to a
desert in Utah, were shown off
Wednesday at NASA’s Johnson Space
Center in Houston.
The 4.5-billion-year-old samples of
black dust and rubble, which traveled
60 million miles from the asteroid Ben-
nu, showed evidence of water and high
carbon content, researchers said. That
could mean that “the building blocks
of life on Earth may be found in the
rock,” according to the University of
Arizona, which co-led the mission
with NASA.
“We are unlocking a time capsule
that offers us profound insights into
the origins of our solar system,” said
the mission’s lead scientist, Dante
Lauretta of the University of Arizona.
Scientists are still not sure how
much material was grabbed from the
asteroid. That’s because the main
sample chamber has yet to be opened,
officials said. The photos and videos
displayed at the event Wednesday
were of overflow samples.
The goal of the OSIRIS-REx sample
collection was 60 grams of asteroid
material. So far, the estimated material
returned is 250 grams, or about a cup-
Rocks from far away and long ago: Images of the sample material from the
asteroid Bennu were released by NASA on Wednesday in Houston, Texas.
NASA TV/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
NEWS
NJ senator charged in case
involving gold bars, alleged bribes
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., was in-
dicted last month for a second time after
he and his wife were accused of accept-
ing bribes in the form of cash, a car and
gold bars.
Along with three New Jersey busi-
nessmen, the senior sen-
ator and his wife, Nadine
Arslanian Menendez,
face charges including
conspiracy to commit
bribery and conspiracy to
commit honest services
Menendez fraud.
In the indictment
against Menendez are photographs of
jackets with his monogram, a U.S. Sen-
ate seal, along with pockets stuffed with
cash.
Despite more than half his Senate
Democratic colleagues calling for his re-
moval, Menendez has said he will not
resign from office.
ful. Scientists won’t have a good count
until the container is opened, within
two weeks or so.
“It’s been going slow and meticulous,
but the science is already starting,” Lau-
retta said.
Wednesday’s reveal was part of an
early assessment of NASA’s OSIRIS-
REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation,
Resource Identification and Security –
Regolith Explorer) mission.
The spacecraft OSIRIS-REx returned
to Earth in September after a yearslong
mission to the nearby asteroid. A cap-
sule containing samples from Bennu
separated from the OSIRIS-REx and en-
tered Earth’s atmosphere Sept. 23. The
capsule then parachuted into the Utah
Test and Training Range in Utah’s West
Desert.
“The OSIRIS-REx sample is the big-
gest carbon-rich asteroid sample ever
delivered to Earth and will help scien-
tists investigate the origins of life on our
own planet for generations to come,”
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said.
The samples are priceless, the pre-
served building blocks from the dawn of
the solar system, NASA said.
For the next two years, the mission’s
science team will study the samples
from Bennu. According to NASA, the
agency will preserve at least 70% of the
samples at the Johnson Space Center
for further research.
Contributing: The Associated Press
MONEY
USA TODAY | MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2023 | 5A

MONEYLINE
PROVIDED BY RAISING CANE’S RESTAURANTS, LLC
POST MALONE, COWBOYS
TEAM UP FOR CANE’S EATERY
Two iconic Texas brands have teamed
to open a new restaurant: rapper Post
Malone and the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys.
Malone and the Cowboys are joining
forces to open a Cowboys-themed
Raising Cane’s restaurant in Dallas that
features a 32-foot tall Cowboys star
that greets customers as they enter
the drive-thru lane. According to a
news release, the restaurant is the
first of its kind and “pays homage to
iconic moments across Post and Cow-
boys history through interior and ex-
terior art.” The restaurant has blue
lighting throughout the interior and
displays Cowboys memorabilia, a suit
of armor and a vending machine fea-
turing exclusive merchandise, among
other features.
As some inflation numbers
improve, other data worsens
Increase in rent offsets
drop in used car prices
Paul Davidson, Charisse Jones
and Medora Lee
USA TODAY
Inflation is headed in the right direc-
tion, but the road remains bumpy.
Consumer price increases stayed
high in September as steady gains in
rent and other services offset another
decline in used-car prices and a smaller
rise in gasoline and food costs.
Overall, consumer prices rose 3.7%
from a year earlier, according to the lat-
est Labor Department’s consumer price
index data, which was released Thurs-
day.
On a monthly basis, prices increased
0.4% following a 0.6% rise in August that
was fueled by a surge in pump prices.
Core prices remained high, rising
0.3% last month after 0.2% bumps over
the summer. This rate strips out volatile
food and energy items and is therefore a
more accurate reflection of longer-term
trends. The advance still lowered the an-
nual increase to 4.1% from 4.3% in Au-
gust, the smallest gain since September
2021.
Using the new data, the Social Securi-
ty Administration announced that bene-
ficiaries will see a 3.2% cost-of-living ad-
justment for 2024.
Annual inflation has slowed signifi-
cantly after hitting a 40-year high of 9.1%
in June 2022, including a sharp drop to
3% in the first half of 2023. But since
then, the cost of some goods and ser-
vices has accelerated or pulled back
more slowly, pushing up the yearly rise.
Prices for items such as used cars and
furniture have dropped as pandemic-re-
lated supply chain snarls have been re-
solved. But the costs of services such as
rent, car repairs and auto insurance have
continued to drift higher in part because
See INFLATION, Page 6A

PROVIDED BY BEN & JERRY’S

BEN & JERRY’S SWITCHES

NON-DAIRY TO OAT RECIPE

Ice cream makers Ben & Jerry’s an-

nounced Wednesday they are switch-
ing their non-dairy line of products to
an oat-based recipe. According to the
company, the existing non-dairy fla-
vors in pints and ice cream parlors will
change to the new recipe by next
spring. The first flavors scheduled to Lahaina residents and supporters hold signs and flags at the Hawaii state Capitol on Oct. 3 at a news conference asking
make the switch are chocolate chip Hawaii Gov. Josh Green to delay plans to reopen a part of West Maui to tourism. AUDREY MCAVOY/AP
cookie dough and chocolate fudge

Is it too soon to
brownie. The company also teased a
non-dairy version of a favorite being
added to the lineup next year. The
company had used either almond milk
or sunflower butter for their non-dairy
flavors. The new non-dairy pints will

visit West Maui?

begin shipping now and will be avail-
able in participating ice cream parlors
and grocery and convenience stores
nationwide. The pints will cost be-
tween $5.99 and $6.49.

WALMART WILL KEEP STORES

CLOSED ON THANKSGIVING
Walmart CEO John Furner announced
on Oct. 9 that the retail giant will re-
main closed on Thanksgiving Day for
the fourth consecutive year. Stores
across America will be closed for busi-
ness on one of the busiest shopping
days of the year, yet again. The mes-
sage was shared by the corporation on
X, formerly Twitter. This decision
aligns with the company’s commit-
ment to prioritize its employees’ and
customers’ well-being and safety
since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tourism reopens 2 months after fires
Kathleen Wong and Bailey Schulz
USA TODAY
Tourists were officially welcomed
back to West Maui on Sunday, exactly
two months after devastating wildfires
displaced thousands of residents,
killed 98 people and destroyed hun-
dreds of buildings.
Historic Lahaina Town – once the
capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom –
was, and is still, unrecognizable.
Cleanup of debris has barely begun.
Hawaii Gov. Josh Green announced
on Sept. 8 that the unaffected areas just
north from where the fire took place
would reopen to travelers so “people
from Hawaii and around the world can
resume travel to this special place and
help it begin to recover economically,”
he said in a news conference.
To kick off the reopening, five hotels
and eight timeshare condos in West
Maui started accepting guests and own-
ers, starting with 3 miles of the north-
western coast.
Tourists and residents alike have
been grappling with the island’s re-
opening plans, with some wondering if
it’s insensitive to bring back visitors
months after the deadliest wildfire in re-
cent U.S. history. Besides palpable grief,
residents fear the government will prio-
ritize visitor dollars over their urgent
needs, like education and housing, but
what hangs in the balance is the liveli-
hoods of many of them.
See WEST MAUI, Page 6A

GOOGLE WILL PROMPT

Social media helps Americans reach
PASSKEYS OVER PASSWORDS

Passwords may be a thing of the past

when it comes to your Google ac-
counts. The company said in a blog
post Tuesday they are looking to make
passwords obsolete by prompting
users to create passkeys, which allow
accounts and devices to be unlocked
with a fingerprint, face scan or PIN
number. Google says passkeys are a
“simpler and more secure way to sign
into your accounts online” and the
company is offering them as the de-
fault option across personal accounts.
Users still will be given the option to
use a password to sign in and may opt
out of passkeys.
loved ones amid Israel-Hamas war
Bailey Schulz
USA TODAY
Bar Pereg spent the early hours of
the morning Saturday glued to her
phone, tracking her sisters’ location as
they fled from the rockets raining
down on Israel.
The 37-year-old New Yorker initia-
lly thought little of the attack. With
seven decades of war and conflict be-
tween Palestinians and Israelis, rock-
ets aren’t uncommon in the region. But
Pereg soon learned from her sisters’
WhatsApp messages that this time,
things were different.
The two sisters decided to risk car
rides to a safer location, fearing the situ-
ation would take a turn for the worse in
their kibbutz near Gaza.
“I asked them to share their location
so I could track them, and I just sat there
and watched,” Pereg said, noting that
they took off around 4:30 a.m. EDT.
Once they reached a highway, Pereg al- Bar Pereg, center, and her sisters,
ternated 20-minute phone calls with Noy Pereg, right, and Romit Pereg at
a cafe in Amsterdam.
See SOCIAL MEDIA, Page 6A PROVIDED BY LINDA MILDWURF
6A ❚ MONDAY OCTOBER 16, 2023 ❚ USA TODAY
Inflation
Continued from Page 5A
of briskly rising employee wages.
As a result, driving down inflation to
the Fed’s annual 2% target is becoming a
tougher slog. Barclays expects inflation
broadly to dip to 3.3% in December and
2.6% at the end of 2024. Core price gains
are projected to drift down to 3.7% at the
end of the year and 2.8% at the close of
2024.
Bacon, gasoline prices rise
Generally, the pattern of rising service
costs fueled by healthy wage growth and
falling goods prices continued last
month.
Gasoline prices rose 2.1% in Septem-
ber after surging 10.6% the previous
month. They’re up 3% from a year earli-
er.
Still, prices at the pump are well be-
low their $5 peak from summer 2022
and are likely to move lower in the short
West Maui
Continued from Page 5A
How important is tourism to Maui?
“Maui on its own is clearly the biggest
tourism hub of the neighbors, even in
comparison to Honolulu,” said Peter Fu-
leky, professor of economics at the Uni-
versity of Hawaii at Manoa. While the
island only accounts for 12% of the
state’s jobs, it makes up one-third of the
visitor spending statewide, according to
a recent report by the Economic Re-
search Organization at the University of
Hawaii. In 2021 and 2022, Maui was the
most visited island over Oahu.
Visitor arrivals on Maui in August
dipped more than 60% compared to the
month prior, according to data from the
Hawaii Tourism Authority.
The reopening of West Maui – home
to over half of all the accommodations
on the island – has been controversial as
recovery from the fires has been slow
and emotional for residents. Some West
Maui residents accept respectful visi-
tors looking to support local businesses
and volunteer while others want to de-
lay the reopening for more time to heal.
Before the reopening, the state and
county released sensitivity messaging,
asking tourists to be respectful and not
take inappropriate photos.
“I know we are still grieving, and it
feels too soon, but the reality is there are
those in our community who are ready
to get back to work. Bills need to be paid,
keiki (children) have needs and our ku-
puna (elders) face continued medical
care,” Maui County Mayor Richard Bis-
sen said in a video statement.
What does the reopening
of West Maui mean?
The reopening of West Maui has been
billed as a “phased setting” by Bissen.
During the first phase, all travel restric-
tions to Kaanapali, Napili, Honokowai
and Kapalua have been lifted. Hotels
will open in groups.
“No one should be discouraged or re-
Social media
Continued from Page 5A
each sister to make sure they were safe
and didn’t fall asleep at the wheel.
“The fact that I could hear their
voices, see their location, it was the dif-
ference between a complete freakout or
crippling fear but with really clear hope,”
Pereg said. “It made all the difference.”
People across the United States have
turned to communication channels like
WhatsApp to get updates from friends
and family in Israel amid the war, which
has led to more than 1,000 dead in Israel,
upward of 680 dead in Gaza and at least
22 dead Americans. Dozens more Israe-
lis and an unknown number of Ameri-
cans have been taken hostage and are
being held in locations across Gaza.
While experts warn that social media
sites can be rife with disinformation,
they have also become a lifeline for
Americans concerned about loved ones
thousands of miles away.
‘The darkest, darkest
days of our lives’
Linda Mildwurf, 52 of Raleigh, North
Carolina, has been in constant commu-
nication with her 20-year-old daughter
through WhatsApp since the conflict be-
gan.
Mildwurf’s daughter is a “lone sol-
dier,” a designation in the Israel Defense
term after the busy summer driving sea-
son despite the Israel-Hamas war, which
has pushed up oil prices.
Grocery prices rose more modestly,
inching up 0.1% and lowering the yearly
increase to 2.4%.
The costs of commodities such as
wheat and corn generally have fallen as
major producers Ukraine and Russia
have found alternative shipping routes
that skirt their 18-month war. Last
month, the price of breakfast cereal fell
0.5%, while rice and fish both slid 1.3%.
But some proteins increased in price.
Bacon rose 4.8% after a 4% rise in Au-
gust, uncooked ground beef increased
0.6%, and eggs jumped 0.9% after a
string of declines.
Rent, which has been the biggest in-
flation driver, rose a sturdy 0.5% for the
second straight month, though that’s
down from a spate of stronger gains.
That nudged up the yearly rise to 7.4%.
Economists expect rent increases to pull
back, based on new leases, but that shift
has been slow to filter through to existing
leases.
Car repair costs rose 0.2%, auto in-
luctant to go and support the business-
es and workers that rely on tourism in
West Maui for their families’ livelihood,”
according to the Hawaii Tourism Au-
thority website.
Meanwhile, Lahaina remains closed
to the public “until further notice out of
respect to the town’s residents.” About
two weeks ago, the first group of Lahai-
na residents were allowed to visit their
properties and survey the damage in
protective gear due to highly toxic ash.
Even though state officials dated the
reopening on Sunday, tourism recovery
is expected to be “very slow,” according
to Carl Bonham, professor of economics
at the University of Hawaii at Manoa
and founding member of the Economic
Research Organization.
An 80% recovery of pre-fire visitor
levels isn’t expected in Maui until the
end of 2024, according to the Economic
Research Organization.
“Even if they didn’t do a phase re-
opening, there’s no reason to believe
there would suddenly be tens of thou-
sands of visitors rushing into West
Maui,” he said.
The date is to help travelers plan fu-
ture trips to the island. “It’s about learn-
ing some of the lessons from the pan-
demic where we didn’t make the an-
nouncement that we were reopening on
a date in the future until well behind the
point when we were ready, then it takes
time for people to plan,” Bonham said.
Merriman’s Kapalua, an oceanfront
restaurant in West Maui since 2009, is
one of those businesses ready to reopen
its doors. Since the fires, the restaurant
has been delivering hundreds of free
meals and operating as a place with free
Wi-Fi for West Maui residents. When in
operation, about 90% of the produce
used is sourced from local farmers.
“It’s absolutely not too soon (to re-
open West Maui),” the restaurant’s
owner, Peter Merriman, told USA TO-
DAY. He said many of his employees
want to go back to work. “If people feel
like it’s too soon, that’s fine, they don’t
have to go back to work.”
Merriman said that without the offi-
cial reopening, the restaurant would
have stayed closed for a little longer, but
Forces whose parents do not live in Isra-
el. Mildwurf asked that her daughter not
be named to avoid targeted attacks by
Hamas militants.
When she’s not checking on her
daughter and sending encouraging texts,
Mildwurf spends her time on WhatsApp
finding solace in a lone soldiers’ mothers
group, where members update each oth-
er on the status of their children.
“Our job is to protect them. They’re
our kids. And these are just kids, at the
end of the day,” Mildwurf said. “And
there’s nothing that we can do. Literally,
the only thing we have is to be able to talk
to them through WhatsApp.”
Itzik Elyahou, 37 of California, was at
a mindfulness retreat with limited inter-
net access over the weekend and didn’t
learn about the war until Sunday.
When he connected his phone to Wi-
Fi, he said he discovered approximately
70 WhatsApp messages from friends
and family in Israel. He raced back home
after learning about the war and sorted
through the news after a “really hard”
two-hour drive.
“I didn’t know who was dead or kid-
napped. That was super challenging,” he
said, adding that his immediate family
and close friends are safe. At the retreat,
“I was at this peak of the universe, feel-
ing everything is possible. We’re all one,
we’re all together. Then you go back to re-
ality.”
Boris Meyerovich, a 33-year-old Is-
raeli living in Austin, Texas, was in Israel
last week to visit friends and family. He
surance climbed 1.3% and hospital ser-
vices increased 1.5%. A key measure of
service costs, excluding housing, that
the Fed is following closely jumped
0.6%, said Nationwide economist Kathy
Bostjancic.
Meanwhile, used-car prices fell 2.5%,
clothing dropped 0.8% and furniture de-
clined 1.2% as supply chain troubles
eased further.
Impact on interest rates
The Federal Reserve watches inflation
closely when considering interest rates.
When it costs more to borrow, business-
es and consumers are less inclined to do
it, and that means an overheated econo-
my can cool and price increases may
slow. The Fed has raised its key interest
rate by 5.25 points in 16 months.
Barclays expects the Fed to raise its
key interest rate once more this year, by a
quarter-percentage point.
But other economists say tumbling
wholesale costs will prompt a faster pull-
back in inflation.
“Overall, there is nothing here that
he feels like it’s his “civic duty” for trav-
elers to West Maui to have somewhere
to go eat. “We’re probably going to lose
money for the first several months we’re
open, but it’s our responsibility,” he
said.
Even though his doors will be open,
Merriman’s “really worried” how many
patrons will even walk through his
doors. “I think it’s going to take close to a
year where people will feel comfortable
to go to West Maui,” Merriman said.
Jesse Imbach, a 46-year-old Maui
resident, lost his restaurants in Lahaina
to the fire and is looking for a new loca-
tion to relaunch the business. Imbach
said he’s OK with a phased reopening
but worries that it will take away re-
sources from locals or bring over “maca-
bre-type tourists” who are interested in
seeing the aftermath of the tragedy.
The day before the reopening, Bissen
shared in a statement how he wants
“visitors to understand that our island is
making its way through a devastating
tragedy.” Officials have launched several
online resources for visitors to find more
information about how to donate, vol-
unteer and plan their trips to Maui, such
as the Maui Strong website and the Ha-
waii Tourism Authority website. A list of
local businesses to support can be
found at Maui Nui First.
“We should be really thoughtful
about impacting the folks who are still
emotionally reeling from the loss of
their heritage and their livelihood, and
their history and their family home,” Im-
bach said. “The key thing is encouraging
tourists to behave well is really impor-
tant, because the community is defi-
nitely still hurting.”
How soon is too soon to reopen?
To access the parts of West Maui that
are reopening means people will have to
drive through burn zones, which have
mostly been covered by fencing. Many
residents aren’t ready to enter the trage-
dy-stricken area yet.
Earlier this month, people gathered
at the state Capitol in Honolulu to speak
out against the Oct. 8 reopening and
drop off a petition with 14,000 signa-
landed in Texas with his wife and son on
Oct. 6 and woke up jetlagged in the mid-
dle of the night to find notifications
flooding his phone from WhatsApp, In-
stagram and Telegram.
“Everywhere, it was chaos. People
were asking each other are you good?
Are you fine?” he said.
“Like 9/11 for the U.S., that’s how it
feels for me,” he added. “It’s horrible. It’s
the darkest, darkest days of our lives.”
He keeps in contact with his mother “a
few times a day” and gets updates from
his friends in WhatsApp groups. While
Meyerovich said his family has reported
rockets flying about their house, they re-
main safe.
Debbie Secan, a 53-year-old Raleigh,
North Carolina, resident who lived in Is-
rael while in her 20s, has been communi-
cating with friends through WhatsApp
and Facebook Messenger since the at-
tack started.
“I’m just grateful that I can send love,”
she said. “The one thing I’m getting is
that they’re all very scared and shocked.”
Disinformation spreading
on social media
While social media sites have been
able to help connect families amid the
crisis, they have also been flooded with
misinformation.
False stories have already spread on
sites like Facebook and X, formerly Twit-
ter, with users posting old videos or
video game clips and passing them off as
MONEY
will convince Fed officials to hike rates at
the next ... meeting, and we continue to
expect a more rapid decline in inflation
and weaker economic growth to result in
rates being cut much more aggressively
next year than markets are pricing in,”
said economist Andrew Hunter of Cap-
ital Economics.
The Fed plans to announce its next in-
terest rate decision Nov. 1.
People’s wallets feel the pain
Although price increases are moder-
ating, costs are still high and many
Americans say they aren’t feeling much
relief.
Stanley Novack, 78, of Valencia, Cali-
fornia, felt most frustrated by high gas
and grocery costs. “It’s out there, wher-
ever you go,” said Novack, a semi-retired
hotel and restaurant consultant. “We’re
not seeing it easing at all.”
He said he pays $6.50 a gallon for gas
in California and as much as $135 for
weekly groceries for him and his wife, up
from $100 before the pandemic.
“You just have to deal with it,” he said.
tures to the governor’s office.
One of those in support of the pet-
ition is Blake Ramelb, who was born and
raised in Lahaina but lives in Napili. He
told USA TODAY that the “timeline of
this just felt so rushed in so many ways,
two months is definitely not enough
time.”
“People didn’t get a chance to grieve,
not only because it’s just been two
months but they don’t know where
they’re going to live tomorrow,” he said.
He added that the quick reopening has
also taken a toll on the mental health of
many residents, who are already strug-
gling from the tragedy itself.
The Maui City Council voted unani-
mously for a resolution on Friday that
echoed pleas to delay the reopening,
saying the two-month anniversary was
not “trauma-informed.”
“It’s really hard to know what is the
right decision, honestly, because you’re
balancing between protecting your
community and people who are com-
pletely devastated, and economic, fi-
nancial implications of not opening,”
said Jan Jones, a lecturer and coordina-
tor for hospitality and tourism manage-
ment at the University of New Haven.
But some argue that small business-
es need tourists, especially after taking
a hit from the pandemic. One recent
study found the island lost more than
$13 million of visitor spending per day in
the weeks after the fire, according to the
Economic Research Organization.
“The small businesses can’t weather
another storm. They just can’t,” said Jer-
ry Agrusa, a hospitality and tourism
management professor at the Univer-
sity of Hawaii at Manoa’s Shidler Col-
lege of Business.
Agrusa said tourists can help the is-
land’s recovery by being mindful of
where they spend their money.
“Eat lunch in a family-owned restau-
rant. Look for the smallest person that
does tours. Look for the local guy who
gives surf lessons. Look for the ones
that are greatly affected, where they
don’t have these great companies be-
hind them,” he said. “That would be so
helpful right now.”
Contributing: The Associated Press
updates from the Israel-Hamas war.
“You have to be a bit more careful
when you consume content,” said Dina
Sadek, a Middle East research fellow at
the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic
Research Lab. “Right now, there’s wide-
spread misinformation and disinforma-
tion.”
The Israel-Hamas war isn’t the first
conflict where social media has been
used to spread propaganda, but some
experts say managing misinformation
online today is harder than ever before.
Developments in artificial intelligence
could influence propaganda if the Israel-
Hamas war drags on, according to Claire
Wardle, co-director of the Information
Futures Lab at Brown University, which
studies misinformation.
Wardle also noted that in just the past
few months, Elon Musk’s X has made it
harder to recognize verified journalists
and layoffs among tech companies like
Google parent company Alphabet and
Facebook parent company Meta have re-
portedly affected teams focused on in-
ternet trust and safety.
“It was always going to be a difficult
situation, and then you add on the
world’s most complex conflict, which is
Israel and Palestine and Gaza. And what
we’re seeing is what we would expect,
but it’s made so much worse on Twitter,
X, in particular, because of the complete
breakdown of the lack of verification
processes,” Wardle said.
“I don’t think the platforms are pre-
pared,” she added.
NEWS
OPINION
Biden stays on wrong path by building wall
Elvia Díaz
The Arizona Republic
USA TODAY NETWORK
In the end, President Joe Biden’s im-
migration strategy turned out to be noth-
ing more than just a grab bag out of for-
mer President Donald Trump’s “build the
border wall” stunts.
Nobody is buying Biden’s explanation
that he must build about 20 miles of bor-
der wall in Texas because money appro-
priated for that purpose must be spent
by year’s end.
There’s always a choice. The admini-
stration could have left the money un-
spent and risk lawsuits from immigra-
tion hard-liners.
Biden instead elected to placate
critics assailing him over asylum-seek-
ers who have flooded the U.S.-Mexico
border and the millions permitted onto
American soil since the beginning of his
presidency.
3.6 million migrants
in the past three years
Biden’s border wall won’t work to
keep migrants out or to placate critics.
“Walls don’t work. They are climbed
over, cut through, and even blown over
by the wind,” Arizona Democratic Rep.
Women can embrace their
own eras by watching
Taylor Swift’s new movie
Juliette Holder
Opinion contributor
This week, the movie version of Tay-
lor Swift’s record-obliterating Eras Tour
opens in theaters around the world. It
will be easier than ever to watch Taylor
Swift perform. Really, watching Taylor
Swift do anything seems to be our na-
tional pastime. When she was photo-
graphed eating a chicken strip with
ketchup and “seemingly ranch,” it made
so many headlines that Heinz and the
official Empire State Building entered
the conversation.
Swift has reached an unfathomable
level of fame. One reason we can’t stop
looking at her, perhaps, is that her ca-
reer has always been built around relat-
ability and identification. When we look
at her, we see ourselves.
The concept of Taylor Swift’s Eras
makes this even easier. As each of her
albums has become associated with a
distinct personality - a hairstyle, color
and vibe - people can look to Swift to
express who they are and who they are
not, as well as how those categories
shift over time.
The glass boxes
the Taylors are trapped in
Swift introduced us to the imagery of
her eras and the idea of using different
versions of herself to represent different
albums, moments and personalities
back in 2017, in the music video for the
“Reputation” track “Look What You
Made Me Do.”
In it, the different Taylors fight each
other, wrestle, cry and hurl insults,
seemingly at war with each other. It’s a
message about killing the old self and
reinventing your identity to survive.
The Eras Tour performance of “Look
What You Made Me Do” says something
new. Stomping around in a one-legged,
snake-bedazzled jumpsuit, Swift slings
lines like “The old Taylor can’t come to
the phone right now … ’cause she’s
dead.” Surrounding Swift on the mas-
sive stage, the show’s dancers stand
locked away in glass boxes, each
dressed like a different Taylor era.
Through visual performance cues,
Swift speaks to the experience of being
“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
“Walls don’t work. They are climbed
over, cut through, and even blown
over by the wind. They are a
cheaply-conceived – yet exorbitantly
expensive – political stunt that does
nothing to address a deeply complex
humanitarian issue.”
Rep. Raul Grijalva
D-Arizona
Raul Grijalva said in a statement. “They
are a cheaply-conceived – yet exorbi-
tantly expensive – political stunt that
does nothing to address a deeply com-
plex humanitarian issue.”
The president himself reiterated the
point yet went ahead with it.
Why?
Because he’s in the middle of a reelec-
tion campaign and immigration – and
his inability to handle it – are his biggest
liability.
At least 3.6 million migrants have
crossed the United States border under
temporary or conditional status in the
past three years, according to The Arizo-
na Republic.
The demand to help those migrants
and the countless others crossing illegal-
ly are overwhelming Democratic-strong
enclaves that initially had welcomed
them – such as New York, Chicago and
Massachusetts.
Democratic leaders from those states
misunderstood and misrepresented by
others and the disorienting experience
of letting yourself become defined by
those outside assertions. Even as we ac-
cept those identities in an attempt to
appease others, all too often we’re left
only with self-loathing. Ultimately, her
performance speaks to the things we do
to ourselves when we let our identities
become defined by the judgments of
people around us.
It is much easier said than done to re-
fute or even ignore the identities the
dominant culture expects us to perform.
To use the parlance of “Look What You
Made Me Do,” we are all made to play a
role, like it or not.
The glass boxes the Taylors are
trapped in call to mind glass ceilings yet
to be shattered. They also put us on dis-
play, easy to see, as tokens of freedom
and progress, while still being stuck.
Women today have more options about
who we can be and where we can go
than generations before us, yes. But we
are not yet fully free.
We are given options of predeter-
mined identities – ones that make sense
to patriarchy – and asked to choose.
Who do you want to be? Madonna or
whore? Career woman or wife and
mother? Pretty or smart? Sporty or flir-
ty? Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte or Mi-
randa?
In some ways, the zeitgeist has at-
tempted to turn Swift’s eras into anoth-
er one of these metrics. Are you the ro-
mantic “Fearless,” the upbeat “1989” or
melancholic “Evermore”? We accept
these categories, use them to sort our-
selves and let those categories set the
expectations of how we should behave.
In some ways, this itself is somewhat
liberating.
Swift gives me new ways of
presenting aspects of my identity
Taylor’s eras offer women other
markers of growth and identity beyond
getting married and/or having children.
As a single woman in her 30s with no
children, my life is sometimes seen by
others as stagnant or empty. It’s an un-
true assessment, but one that’s perva-
sive still.
Patriarchy looks first at how a wom-
an is related to others, typically men, to
determine who she is. I appreciate that
Taylor Swift’s eras offer new ways of
presenting aspects of my identity. Swift
Chief Content Officer: Editor in Chief,
Kristin Roberts
Terence Samuel
USA TODAY ❚ MONDAY OCTOBER 16, 2023 ❚ 7A
WANT TO COMMENT?
We’re on Facebook (USA TODAY Opinion) and Instagram and Twitter (@usatodayopinion). You can also
comment directly on columns.
and elsewhere are clamoring the presi-
dent for financial help to meet the de-
mand for services.
At the same time, congressional Re-
publicans stand ready to shut the federal
government down over border security
that includes resuming building the wall,
reports The Wall Street Journal.
Biden’s actions on immigration
have been one big mess
This is such a hot mess for Biden that
he dared to waive 26 federal laws, includ-
ing the Clean Air, the Safe Drinking Wa-
ter and the Endangered Species acts.
This angered environmentalists, who
surely won’t forget it when they go to the
ballot box next year.
What exactly is Biden’s immigration
strategy?
He went from “there will not be an-
other foot of wall constructed” to let’s
build it.
He went from promising to restore
America’s commitment to humane im-
migration policies to a series of confus-
ing directives, among them maintaining
some of Trump’s harsh restrictions such
as “Remain in Mexico,” making it harder
for asylum-seekers to qualify and swiftly
deporting them.
Nothing has worked. And millions of
migrants face legal limbo because immi-
gration courts are overwhelmed and
can’t adjudicate cases quickly.
Taylor Swift attends the premiere of her concert film, “Taylor Swift: The Eras
Tour,” on Wednesday in Los Angeles. MATT WINKELMEYER/GETTY IMAGES
also is an unmarried, childless woman
in her 30s, and her eras take seriously
life changes, interests, milestones and
identifications that are often dismissed
or overlooked. Who do you want to be?
Miss, Mrs. or Ms.?
As women learn to navigate gender
roles and try to remain intact while
navigating unfriendly systems, we are
not only expected to choose a box, to se-
lect a label, but also to eschew any other
version of ourselves that falls outside
that box. Working mothers still face the
“motherhood penalty” at the office. Full-
time working moms make 74 cents to
every working father’s dollar. Working
mothers of color make even less. At-
tempts to exist in two boxes at once –
even if both are “approved options” by
the dominant culture – are punished.
Taylor Swift hasn’t just rejected the
dominant culture’s mandate to choose
one identity, she isn’t just the sum of her
eras: She is herself - something we, as
Vice President/Group Editor,
USA TODAY Gannett Opinion
Michael McCarter
What can Biden do? Advice the
president would be wise to heed.
What can Biden do then?
Vanessa Cárdenas of America’s Voice,
which champions reforms to help immi-
grants gain legal status and citizenship,
has good ideas. First, she said in a state-
ment, Biden needs to level with the
American people over his options to deal
with complex immigration.
What else? Get immigrants to work to
fill worker shortage, provide safe and or-
derly legal pathways to take pressure off
the border, more public and private ini-
tiatives to get people signed up for work
permits and a fair adjudication of their
asylum claims.
Finally, greater coordination between
federal and local agencies to address
housing and shelter shortages.
At this point, though, it is anybody’s
guess what Biden will do next on border
security and the massive wave of people
seeking refuge in the United States.
What we know for sure is that Biden
broke his campaign promise of “there
will not be another foot of wall construct-
ed” and failing to set up a humane and
orderly immigration process.
Elvia Díaz is the editorial page editor
for The Arizona Republic and azcentral-
.com, where this column first published.
Reach her at elvia.diaz@arizonarepu-
blic.com or follow her on X (formerly
Twitter): @elviadiaz1
entities existing outside of her, can nev-
er fully know, much less dictate.
This sort of celebration of nuance –
an acceptance of and rejoicing in the
fullness of female identity – is healing.
As our lives become more and more re-
stricted, as the government rolls back
women’s rights and our ability to choose
what roles we will and will not play, the
Eras Tour rolls forward with a glimmer
of hope.
We can, at least, be nice to ourselves.
And we can only ever dismantle oppres-
sive ideologies if we cease trying to
make ourselves acceptable to those ide-
ologies. Together, but rooted in our own
self-actualized identities, we can stop
playing along with what patriarchy
makes women do.
Juliette Holder is a Ph.D. student
studying rhetoric at Texas Woman’s
University, where she also teaches writ-
ing. Her research focuses on feminist
rhetorics in popular culture.
Vice President/Executive Editor,
Sports
Roxanna Scott
8A ❚ MONDAY OCTOBER 16, 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 | MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2023 | SECTION B
10 years after the Dodgers celebrated a division title by jumping into the Diamondbacks pool, Arizona got sweet revenge Wednesday. MATT KARTOZIAN/USA TODAY SPORTS
Diamondbacks jump into NLCS
Arizona’s historic home run explosion stunningly ends Dodgers’ season
Bob Nightengale
USA TODAY
PHOENIX – The Los Angeles Dodgers
stood by and helplessly watched
Wednesday night, too numb to cry, too
stunned to scream, too despondent to
show the slightest of emotion.
One minute, they’re winning 100
games, running away with the National
League West and believing they’re in for
a long October run to the World Series.
The next, they are completely manhan-
dled by the Arizona Diamondbacks, giv-
ing up a historic four home runs in one
inning, losing 4-2 at Chase Field, and
being swept right out of the playoffs.
It’s the first time the Dodgers have
been swept in a postseason series since
2006, spanning 118 postseason games,
and the second consecutive year they
couldn’t get out of the first round.
A year ago, it was the San Diego Pa-
dres who finished 22 games behind the
Sanders’ watch flex: Americans still have
Cool, classless, genius? soft spot for Mary Lou
Brent Schrotenboer
USA TODAY
University of Colorado quarterback
Shedeur Sanders wears a $70,000
stainless steel wristwatch with more
than 30 carats of diamonds that were
drilled into it by a jeweler in Florida.
The Royal Oak watch itself normally
would cost about $30,000 from Swiss
manufacturer Audemars Piguet. But
this particular watch is different. Jack-
sonville jeweler Saki Mihalakos cus-
tomized it by adding the glittering jew-
els, dramatically boosting its sparkle
and value before he hand-delivered it to
Sanders last year.
“It’s fully iced-out with diamonds,”
Mihalakos told USA TODAY Sports on
Tuesday.
The point was to make it more attrac-
tive and turn heads long before it re-
cently became the main accessory in a
signature move that has triggered a
small cultural wave of sorts in American
sports, including imitators in the NBA
and NFL.
It’s called the watch flex. It’s become
far more conspicuous than the watch it-
self. After another brazen display of it
last week, it’s also creating controversy
about whether it’s cool, classless or just
another genius marketing move by
Sanders and his father, Deion, Colora-
do’s coach. Their next performance
Sage advice for LeBron from
Granny League’s oldest
Diamondbacks rookie outfielder Corbin Carroll
playing beyond his years in MLB playoffs, 3B
Dodgers in the regular season and won
the division series in four games. This
time, it was the D-backs, who finished
18 games behind and swept the Dodgers
right out of the building, overwhelming
them by a combined 19-6 score.
The D-backs advance to their first
National League championship series
since 2007 and will play the winner of
the Philadelphia Phillies-Atlanta series
beginning Monday night.
The Dodgers are going home, having
no idea what hit them.
The Dodgers starting rotation was
nothing short of atrocious. Their trio of
starters Clayton Kershaw, Bobby Miller
and Lance Lynn lasted a total of 4 2⁄3 in-
nings and surrendered a hideous ERA of
25.07, yielding a .571 batting average
and 1.808 OPS.
The Diamondbacks starting pitching
– Merrill Kelly, Zac Gallen and Brandon
Pfaadt – was fabulous, giving up two
runs in 11 2⁄3 innings, for an ERA of 1.13.
Colorado quarterback Shedeur
Sanders breaks out his “watch flex”
after defeating Arizona State last
week. MARK J. REBILAS/USA TODAY SPORTS
comes Friday night against Stanford
(1-5) on ESPN.
What is the issue with
Shedeur’s watch?
Shedeur Sanders, the nation’s lead-
er in total passing yards, has flashed
his watch several times this season
during emotionally charged moments,
raising his left arm to show it to people,
including last week when he flexed
it to the Arizona State student section
after his team beat the Sun Devils
27-24.
See SANDERS, Page 2B
Latest news, results, opinion
24/7 at sports.usatoday.com
See who won and who lost in NFL Week 6, plus
coverage from the MLB and WNBA playoffs
The Diamondbacks privately be-
lieved that when the Dodgers clobbered
them in August, outscoring them 23-5 in
a three-game sweep at Dodger Stadium,
the Dodgers were picking up their pitch-
es. This time the Diamondbacks
changed their routine.
“There’s definitely a way to pitch to
them,” Arizona manager Torey Lovullo
said. “You can’t duplicate pitches. You
got to change locations. You got to
change speeds. You got to start on the
chalk lines, you’re (working) your way
in, and just get a feeling for what they’re
doing per at-bat. And you just hope they
make a swing mistake or a bad decision
and get themselves out. It was a well-
executed plan, and maybe we just
caught them at the right time.”
The Dodgers never led a single inning
in the series, but nothing embodied
their futility more than the third inning
with the game scoreless.
It began with a 383-foot home run by
Christine Brennan
Columnist
USA TODAY
As the news that Mary Lou Retton is
“fighting for her life” swept across so-
cial media Tuesday, sending tens of
thousands to rally virtually to her side,
there was an undeniable and uplifting
sense that we had all been here before.
Of course we had. This is Mary Lou
Retton, and this is us, and there’s
something very reassuring in knowing
that this nation loves her just as much
today as it did nearly 40 years ago,
when an ever-smiling 16-year-old
tomboy, a tiny fullback in a gymnast’s
leotard, barreled toward the vault at
the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, flew
into the air and landed in every Amer-
ican living room.
Forty years of adoration is a lot of
years and a lot of love. I have been for-
tunate to witness it all as a journalist,
to interview and catch up with Mary
Lou on the phone, at social events, at
subsequent Olympics. But it all goes
back to those early days in 1984,
summed up so succinctly and pre-
sciently by a copy of Sports Illustrated
I pulled out of a cabinet Wednesday
morning, one of my many mementos
No. 9 hitter Geraldo Perdomo, followed
by a ground ball by Corbin Carroll to sec-
ond baseman Mookie Betts, and then it
was rinse, spit, rinse, spit, rinse, spit.
Ketel Marte hit a 428-foot homer, fol-
lowed by a ground ball to Betts by Tom-
my Pham. Christian Walker hit a 395-
foot homer, and one pitch after Gabriel
Moreno missed a home run by perhaps a
foot to right field he followed with a 420-
foot shot to center field and a bat flip
that nearly sailed out of the building.
Four home runs, traveling 1,626 feet,
from right field to left field to center
field.
It was the most home runs in a single
inning by any team in postseason histo-
ry, sending the sellout crowd of 48,175
into a frenzy.
In contrast, the Dodgers’ celebrated
duo of Betts and Freddie Freeman, who
each will finish in the top four of the NL
MVP voting, were 1-for-19 in the series
without a single RBI.
from the LA Olympics, which were my
first.
On the cover of the Aug. 13, 1984 issue
is a photo of a jubilant young athlete in
red, white and blue, fists clenched, arms
raised in triumph, with the headline:
“Only you, Mary Lou!”
She was lovable from the get-go. We
actually met before the LA Games. I
looked it up in my diary: it was June 3,
1984, the morning after she qualified for
the U.S. Olympic team at the gymnas-
tics trials in Jacksonville. I was with the
Miami Herald then, and photographer
Bill Frakes and I drove to the motel
where Mary Lou and her family were
staying. The press availability that we
were expecting ended up being a family
affair: just Bill, me and the Rettons, all
sitting on chaise lounges by the pool in
Florida, far from their Fairmont, West
Virginia, home.
Mary Lou told me she wished she was
taller. She was 4-9. “I wish I was 5 feet
tall,” she said. “That would be perfect.”
Her parents used to tell her they were
going to give her hormone shots to help
her grow but never did. So short jokes
became a big part of her young life. Her
favorite: “Stand up, Mary Lou,” when
she already was.
Her father, Ronnie, a veritable giant
at 5-7, was an athlete as well. He was the
See BRENNAN, Page 2B
2B ❚ MONDAY OCTOBER 16, 2023 ❚ USA TODAY
Abreu powers Astros to 7th straight ALCS
Dave Campbell
Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS – The Houston As-
tros gathered in the clubhouse with
their bottles and goggles to toast anoth-
er postseason victory, when manager
Dusty Baker called Justin Verlander for-
ward to lead the celebration.
“I’m doing the World Series!” Baker
said. “You do this one!”
Verlander, after a profanity-punctu-
ated speech that had teammates roaring
with laughter, started the cork-popping
countdown at seven – one for each con-
secutive American League champion-
ship series appearance.
José Abreu homered for the third
time in two games, a two-run rocket in
the fourth inning that launched the As-
tros to their seventh consecutive ALCS
with a 3-2 win that eliminated the Min-
nesota Twins in Game 4 of their division
series on Wednesday night.
“We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for
the bond that we have and the relation-
ships that we have in this locker room,
and we hold each other accountable in a
good way,” said Verlander, who returned
to the Astros in August via trade from
the New York Mets.
“Obviously, this team is built differ-
ent. These guys are built different.
Sanders
Continued from Page 1B
Is he just having fun and smartly
bringing attention to himself to boost
his own earning potential?
For example, his online store already
is sold out of some hooded black sweat-
shirts that depict the watch flex. They
cost $100.
Or is this gesture unsportsmanlike
and excessive, as many on social media
have said?
The opinions are polarized. In some
cases, race might play a role in how this
watch move has been perceived nega-
tively, experts told USA TODAY Sports.
Yet it’s not much different than what
white quarterback Johnny Manziel did
10 years ago when he flashed his “money
sign,” rubbing his fingers together in cel-
ebration as if he was sifting through
cash.
“I think part of it is he’s young and
he’s Black, and young Black quarter-
backs haven’t been able to act like that,
just because of the position and how
that position is policed,” said Louis
Moore, a history professor at Grand Val-
ley State in Michigan whose research
has examined race and sports.
Why does he flex his watch?
By flexing his watch, the 21-year-old
Shedeur Sanders is effectively showing
what time it is after feeling miffed or dis-
respected, as he did before his team beat
Colorado State in double overtime on
Sept. 16. That’s when Colorado State
head coach Jay Norvell criticized Deion
Sanders for wearing sunglasses and
hats too frequently for his taste.
After the game, Shedeur Sanders
even flashed his watch at Norvell. Then
he did it again the same night during an
Brennan
Continued from Page 1B
sixth man, a guard, on the West Virginia
men’s basketball team that was led by
Hall of Famer Jerry West.
Mary Lou was a natural athlete who
was unstoppable inside the house. Her
mother, Lois, said she finally put Mary
Lou into a gymnastics class when far too
many lamps were overturned.
“I was a tomboy,” Mary Lou told me. “I
looked like a little boy. I even ran around
topless.”
She said all this with a smile. Every-
thing about this teenager, unknown to
me until that week, screamed out fun,
joy, happiness. Bill had an idea for a
photo and asked if anyone had any bub-
ble gum. I actually did, so I handed it to
Mary Lou, who started chewing and
then blew a massive pink bubble that
covered her entire face. This made quite
a picture, with her grandmother stand-
ing beside her, looking on with a wry
smile, both of them in bathing suits.
That day by the pool, the Rettons had
no idea what was waiting for their
daughter, but whatever it was, there
was some trepidation about it.
“I worry about her,” Lois Retton said.
“I worry when she travels, about the se-
curity when she performs. She’s 16. She
should be going to proms and ball-
Astros second baseman Jose Altuve, center, celebrates defeating the Twins with
teammates Thursday in the ALDS. JESSE JOHNSON/USA TODAY SPORTS
When it’s time to step up, we play our
best baseball.”
José Urquidy gave the defending
World Series champion Astros another
solid postseason start, withstanding
home runs by Royce Lewis in the first
and Edouard Julien in the sixth before
interview on ESPN.
“We not going out like that, especial-
ly, you know, if somebody disrespect
Pops,” he said then. “I was just waiting
the whole time to put a watch on ’em.”
The week before that, Shedeur Sand-
ers also flexed his watch at the Nebraska
Cornhuskers, who had disrespectfully
walked on the Buffaloes logo in the mid-
dle of Folsom Field, according to him.
But it’s not a marketing move for the
watch manufacturer, at least not yet.
“We’ve just got to get him a lucrative
watch deal,” Deion Sanders said Tues-
day at his weekly news conference. “He
can’t keep doing it for free. …
“We gotta capitalize now. He is my
son. Gotta capitalize on the moment,
right?”
What is the reaction to it?
Certain celebrities have embraced it.
“That’s the new move,” rapper Rick
Ross said on social media last month as
he flashed his own watch to the camera.
“I call this the Shedeur,” famed DJ
and record producer DJ Khaled said as
he did the same.
NBA and NFL players have copied the
move, too, including New York Jets play-
ers Garrett Wilson and Breece Hall.
“I love to see it,” Deion Sanders said.
“It’s hilarious to me, because he and I
joke about it on a daily basis.”
But many have the opposite reaction.
After the Arizona State game, social
media users on X (formerly Twitter)
bashed the Buffaloes quarterback. They
might not have known that fans for Ari-
zona State (1-5) had chanted “overrated”
at his team before that.
“If there was a Heisman for beating
1-5 teams this guy would win it,” former
NFL and Florida State quarterback Dan-
ny Kanell wrote of Shedeur’s watch dis-
play.
“Blatant show of immaturity,” anoth-
games. I feel like I’ve lost her to the
world. Will she ever come back?”
She did, just much more famous. Ma-
ry Lou of course became the darling of
those Olympics, a household name, a
role model for several generations of
young female athletes – and someone I
would seek for perspective when writ-
ing about little girls in big-time sports.
She has one of my favorite quotes on
the subject:
“While other kids were reading about
the Great Wall, I was walking on it.”
Mary Lou was a revelation
at 1984 Games
It’s worth remembering exactly what
happened at those 1984 Olympics. With
a perfect 10 on the vault at UCLA’s Pau-
ley Pavilion, Retton became the first
American to win the women’s individ-
ual all-around gold medal, one of the
most coveted titles in all of sports. She
won five medals altogether in LA, in-
cluding silvers in the team competition
and on the vault, and bronze medals on
the uneven bars and floor exercise. Con-
sidering that no American woman had
ever won an individual Olympic gym-
nastics medal of any color, she was a
revelation.
She also knew luck was on her side.
The strong Soviet gymnasts, including
the reigning women’s individual all-
around world champion, were not in LA,
handing the ball to the bullpen.
Hector Neris and Bryan Abreu com-
bined for five strikeouts over 2 1⁄3 hitless
innings. Ryan Pressly, who pitched five-
plus years for the Twins before a trade to
Houston in 2018, struck out the side in
the ninth for the save. He froze Max
er commenter wrote.
“Corny,” said another.
“No class, like his dad.”
“Deion is so much more likeable than
Shedeur.”
“Bragging about money is trashy.”
“This is why everyone hates Colora-
do.”
Why the polarized reaction?
Brash, wealthy young athletes have
that effect, depending on fan loyalties
and standards of sportsmanship. Histo-
ry adds additional context when that
brash young athlete is Black.
For example, in the early 1900s, boxer
Jack Johnson “sported fashionable fur
coats, three-piece suits, and diamonds
as a means to counter prevailing images
of Black inferiority and savagery,” said
Theresa Runstedtler, associate profes-
sor in the history department at Amer-
ican University and author of a book on
Jack Johnson.
Johnson was part of a long line of
Black athletes who effectively thumbed
their noses at these racist notions by
showing off their affluence.
In this case, Shedeur Sanders “seems
to be speaking back to the haters (and
there has been a lot of racially tinged
hate on social media about his father
and the Colorado team) by flaunting
Black wealth and success in the face of
ASU fans,” Runstedtler said in an email.
Moore, the history professor, said he
doesn’t remember the “money sign”
from Manziel being as polarizing, even
though it’s similar. “People loved John-
ny Manziel and that money sign,” he
said.
He said Shedeur is taking after his fa-
ther, who appears on several national
commercials and has been in the public
eye for decades as a former two-sport
star in pro football and baseball. It
works for Shedeur now, too, because
Mary Lou Retton celebrates her gold
medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in
Los Angeles. USA TODAY SPORTS
having boycotted those Games. But the
highly regarded Romanians did com-
pete in LA, and, as Retton said, “It was a
big battle. I earned my medal.”
What happened next was a dream.
She was everywhere, from the front of
the Wheaties box to SI’s Sportswoman
of the Year. She appeared on gymnastics
tours, on TV shows and in the movies.
She has been a constant presence at the
Olympic Games and is one of the most
SPORTS
Kepler with a full-count fastball to end
it, leaving former Astros star Carlos Cor-
rea on deck.
“Oh yeah, we knew, and I was trying
not to have nightmares, because I re-
member when Carlos was with us he hit
that ball up in the right-center field
seats up there,” Baker said, referring to
Correa’s homer at Minnesota in a 2020
wild-card series. “But we never got to
Carlos, so that was a great, great vic-
tory.”
Correa hit .409 with three doubles
and four RBI in the series. “I wanted that
at-bat so bad. I know Pressly very well,
and it would’ve been a fun matchup,” he
said. “It didn’t get there, but it’s the way
it was supposed to be.”
Houston will host the in-state rival
Texas Rangers in Game 1 of the ALCS on
Sunday (8:15 p.m. EDT, Fox), when Ver-
lander is scheduled to make his 36th ca-
reer postseason start.
“They know us, and we know them,”
Baker said, “and it’s going to be a heck of
a series.”
The Astros, who are 56-34 in the
playoffs since 2017, hit 10 homers in the
series. Abreu had eight RBI.
“They never give up, and they under-
stand that this is the time where the
greats need to be good,” Abreu said
through an interpreter.
college athletes are allowed to cash in on
their fame by selling names, images and
likenesses (NIL).
“I think Deion and Shedeur are play-
ing to the camera very smartly,” he said.
“They also understand that even nega-
tive attention is positive when it comes
to their bank accounts. In that sense,
he’s very much like a young, brash (box-
er) Cassius Clay or Muhammed Ali. He
understands that the more people dis-
like me or the more people get upset, the
more attention I get – that’s a good thing
for him.”
What does Shedeur say
about the watch move?
Last week Shedeur Sanders said it
was something that originated sponta-
neously.
“It just happened,” he said at a news
conference in Boulder. “I didn’t know it
was really gonna blow up or anything
like that because it was just, you know,
it was just in the moment. Nothing was
like premeditated I would say to where I
know, ‘OK I’m gonna go do this.’ ”
He said he “took it and ran with it.”
His father said it goes back further
and remembers him wearing jewelry
and nice watches in high school. But he
conceded that “we’re on a bigger stage”
now, drawing more attention nationally.
The jeweler who customized the
watch for Shedeur has his own opinion
of the watch flex. He’s a former defen-
sive back and assistant coach at South
Florida.
“It’s about fun and looking good at
the same time,” Mihalakos said. He de-
clined to say what Shedeur paid for the
watch but said it’s worth about
$70,000.
For Shedeur, it also means something
else besides money, according to posts
on his Instagram account:
“Perfect timing.”
sought-after speakers and celebrities in
the U.S. Olympic movement.
She also has four daughters, all of
whom have been involved in gymnas-
tics. She got a kick out of relating how
she tried to remain anonymous when
taking one of her daughters to a gym-
nastics class. That didn’t last long.
“They knew it was me,” she said with
a hearty laugh.
In the same week that the sports
world continues to celebrate the great-
ness of Simone Biles, there’s now an
outpouring of concern over the woman
who started it all.
“As the first U.S. all-around Olympic
gymnastics champion, Mary Lou Retton
became a shining icon of American ex-
cellence,” veteran sports agent Sheryl
Shade texted Wednesday. “Her legacy is
important, as her performance and per-
sonality inspired millions of girls (and
parents) to swell the ranks of women’s
gymnastics in the USA. Many of my
gymnast clients had her poster in their
rooms and on their vision boards even
though she competed years before they
were born.”
Who are some of those clients? Lau-
rie Hernandez, Shawn Johnson, Shan-
non Miller, Amanda Borden, Jaycie
Phelps and Gabby Douglas, Olympic
stars all.
That Sports Illustrated cover had it
right all those years ago. Mary Lou, it
has always been only you.
SPORTS
D-backs rookie playing beyond his years
Bob Nightengale
USA TODAY
PHOENIX – No one has told him he’s
not supposed to be doing this.
It really shouldn’t be this easy.
Come on, he was still in high school
four years ago.
He had season-ending shoulder sur-
gery two years ago.
He didn’t make his major league de-
but until late August 2022.
Now, here is Corbin Carroll, all of 23
years old, emerging as the biggest star
of the National League postseason,
leading the Arizona Diamondbacks to a
place they haven’t been to since he was
in second grade.
Soon, he could be carrying an entire
franchise to the World Series.
The Diamondbacks will be playing in
the NL championship series beginning
Monday after sweeping the Los Angeles
Dodgers in their division series, which
followed their sweep of the Milwaukee
Brewers in a wild-card series.
Carroll, who should be the unani-
mous National League Rookie of the
Year winner this year, became the first
rookie in history to hit at least 25 hom-
ers and steal 50 bases in a single season,
batting .285 with 25 homers, 54 stolen
bases, scoring 116 runs with a .868 OPS.
Now, just when the Diamondbacks
thought they couldn’t be any more in
awe of his performance, he is hitting .412
with a .824 slugging percentage and
1.389 OPS in the postseason. He has had
23 plate appearances, has reached base
13 times and has led the team to a 5-0
record this October.
“It’s great for everyone now to see
what he’s doing on the national stage,”
38-year-old veteran third baseman
Evan Longoria gushes. “Pretty special
player.”
Just how stunning has Carroll’s per-
formance been in October?
“I know you guys want me to give you
this unbelievable answer,” Diamond-
backs manager Torey Lovullo said, “but
I probably could have answered it in
June because my jaw was on the ground
with what he was doing every single
day. The intensity and focus that he had,
the amount of home runs that he was
hitting, the bases he was stealing and
the plays he was making, I just would
shake my head in the dugout. I don’t
know how he’s doing it, but I’ve got a
front-row seat to it and I’m going to en-
joy this ride.
“Maybe he’s spoiled me to the level
where I come to expect it and it’s more
Granny League’s eldest tips advice to LeBron
Josh Peter
USA TODAY
LeBron James, in a video that went
viral last week, shrieked when asked for
his reaction to being the oldest player in
the NBA. Now James, the 38-year-old
Los Angeles Lakers star, is getting feed-
back from a player who can relate to his
situation.
Her name is Pat Conner, who at 91 is
the oldest active player in the Granny
Basketball League.
“Yeah, I’m a little bit older than Le-
Bron,” Conner told USA TODAY Sports,
and of being the oldest player in her
league, she said, “It’s a huge honor.”
What can an NBA superstar learn
from a 5-foot-2, white-haired woman
who played eight years for the Kansas
Tornadoes, now plays for the ICT Aero-
Belles in Wichita, Kansas, and shoots
free throws underhanded?
Well, James has talked about extend-
ing his career long enough to play with
his oldest son, 19-year-old Bronny. Con-
ner has shown how it can be done, play-
ing alongside her 64-year-old daughter,
Debbie, and occasionally with her 59-
year-old daughter, Becky. (She has four
more children, 14 grandchildren and two
great-grandchildren.)
“She has no fear,” Debbie said.
With amusement, Pat Conner added,
“A lot of people do not know how old I
am when I’m on the court and they play
me like I’m a 60-year-old, and I kind of
chuckle to myself because I think, ‘Oh,
they really think I’m a threat, and I’m 91
years old.’ ”
No dunking in Granny League
Conner texted video of herself mak-
ing a free throw Granny-style. Then she
texted video of herself making a hook
shot.
“I’d send you a dunk shot, but it’s not
allowed in the GBL,” she texted, fol-
lowed by a laughing emoji.
The Granny Basketball League was
founded in 2005, two years after James’
Diamondbacks outfielder Corbin Carroll is the front-runner for the National
League rookie of the year award. KIYOSHI MIO/USA TODAY SPORTS
natural. But now that he’s on a huge
stage, I think he goes back to all that
preparation. I think he’s so mentally
strong that he doesn’t allow himself to
get outside of what he wants to do.”
Hey, there was a reason Chicago
White Sox assistant general manager
Josh Barfield, the Diamondbacks for-
mer farm director, called him “The Ma-
chine.”
You will seldom see Carroll show
emotion.
You will never see him rattled.
You will never see him overly excited.
His heart rate is as consistent as a
metronome.
“If you really want to see my adrena-
line flowing, make me do a public
speech or something,” Carroll said,
laughing.
But don’t let the calmness fool you.
He’s deeply competitive.
Rookie teammate Jake McCarthy
rookie season with the NBA. The mini-
mum age is 50, and the league features
450 players and 42 teams in 10 states.
Unlike James, Conner was not a five-
star recruit coming out of high school.
“They wouldn’t let us play in high
school,” she said.
James graced the cover of Sports Il-
lustrated in high school. While he went
straight to the NBA, Conner took a dif-
ferent route.
She said she got her start playing
basketball in the intramural league at
Kansas University and once scored 38
points. Unlike her enthusiasm, her scor-
ing output has dropped in the Granny
League, which plays six-on-six,
The court is divided into three sec-
tions, with two forwards and two guards
on either end and two players in the cen-
ter area, and Conner has played every
position.
How did LeBron become
the oldest in NBA?
LeBron became the oldest player in
the NBA on July 28. That’s when Udonis
Haslem, 43, announced his retirement
after 20 seasons.
Of course, James, who will turn 39 in
December, isn’t just the league’s elder
statesman. He’s one of its best players,
coming off a season during which he
was ninth in scoring (28.9 points per
game), 19th in assists (6.8 assists per
game) and 34th in rebounding (8.3 re-
bounds per game). He also made his
19th consecutive All-Star Game and led
the Lakers to the Western Conference fi-
nals.
Asked about his longevity, James
said it stems in part from “understand-
ing if you want to be great at something,
you’ve got to put in the work.”
Texted Conner, “LeBron is the MAN!!
And I would like to see him shoot a
Granny Shot from the 3-point line.”
Like LeBron, Conner values hard
work.
“As a side note,” she texted, “I did
walk/run the 50 (meter) and 100 (meter)
USA TODAY ❚ MONDAY OCTOBER 16, 2023 ❚ 3B
once beat him in a foot race. Carroll
won’t talk about it.
Rookie Alek Thomas can beat him in
“Fortnite,” but Carroll makes sure
Thomas’ superiority is limited to video
games.
“He’s definitely way different than a
lot of guys I’ve been around for my
whole entire life,” Thomas says. “Yeah,
man, he’s definitely a unique person
and he goes about his business like a
different dude. I think he’s well beyond
his years.
“He’s different, for sure. It seems like
he’s been around for seven years. It’s
cool to see him go about his business
and doing what he’s doing on the field.”
“The sky’s the limit for him. He’s spe-
cial. I think he’s going to write his own
story.”
The Diamondbacks will tell you they
believed he could be this type of player
all along. It’s the reason they drafted
Pat Conner, 91, is the oldest player in the Granny Basketball League.
COURTESY OF PAT CONNER
events in September at Kansas Senior
Games.” She also said she started doing
CrossFit in August and punctuated the
revelation with a flexed bicep emoji.
How long will these two play?
After the Lakers got swept by the
Denver Nuggets in the the Western Con-
ference finals last season, James said he
would consider retirement. On his deci-
sion to return for a 21st season, James
him with the 16th pick in the 2019 ama-
teur draft.
And once they were around him, they
were so convinced he’d be a star that
they gave him an eight-year, $111 million
contract with a club option for a ninth
year this spring.
It may be the best $100 million they
ever spent, cringing to consider just
what he’d be earning if they went year to
year and was a free agent after the 2028
season.
“I look at him often and I cannot be-
lieve he’s 23 years old,” Lovullo said. “I
look at him and I’m thankful that he’s
going to be a Diamondback for the next
10 years.”
Well, at least nine years, but who’s
counting?
What makes Carroll’s rise so stun-
ning is that he spent precious little time
in the minor leagues.
He didn’t play in any games in 2020
because of the COVID-19 pandemic
shutting down the minor leagues.
Then his 2021 season lasted one
week before he had shoulder surgery.
He had only 539 at-bats in the minors
and played 142 games.
Still, Carroll walks in and absolutely
tears up the National League in his first
season, voted as a starting outfielder at
the All-Star Game in his hometown of
Seattle, likely will will finish in the top
six of the MVP voting, and now is treat-
ing the postseason as his personal
showcase.
There will be a time Carroll will step
back and reflect on just what he accom-
plished in his rookie season, but that
will have to wait. There’s no time to bask
in the accolades now. He’ll have a whole
winter to take time to grasp just what
happened this season.
“I think I’d need to sit down and think
about that one,” Carroll said. “Maybe
more like an offseason kind of a reflec-
tion on that piece of it. Just trying to
stay in the moment for now. …
“This is the most exciting, most im-
portant baseball of the year for us,” Car-
roll said. “I don’t want my mind to be
anywhere except for that.”
So, he’ll step into the batter’s box
Monday night against the Philadelphia
Phillies in Game 1 of the NLCS, ready to
take care of business.
“This is where I want to be,” Carroll
said. “This is what I’ve worked for. This
is what this team has worked for.
“And just trying to enjoy it for what it
is and take it a day at a time.
“Winning in the postseason, what’s
cooler than that?”
said, “I feel like I got a lot more in the
tank to give.”
Said Conner, “My goal is to play until
I’m 100 and still be on the court.”
By text message she added, “I say to
the youngins just keep your mind active,
stay on the court playing the game we all
love and give it all you’ve got!!”
Any advice for a youngin like LeBron
James?
“Keep playing as long as you can,” she
said.
4B ❚ MONDAY OCTOBER 16, 2023 ❚ USA TODAY
LIFELINE
VALERIE MACON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
MAKING WAVES
ACTORS STRIKE TALKS
Talks bitterly broke off between
Hollywood actors and studios late
Wednesday, killing any hopes that the
three-month strike by performers
would come to an end anytime soon.
The studios announced that they had
suspended contract negotiations,
saying the gap between the two sides
was too great to make continuing
worth it. The actors union decried
their opponents’ “bullying tactics”
and said they were wildly mischarac-
terizing their offers.
IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY
WHO’S CELEBRATING TODAY
Ashanti is 43. Sacha Baron Cohen is
52. Caleb McLaughlin is 22.
HOROSCOPE | SANCTUARY
More: www.sanctuaryworld.co
Aries (March 21-April 19). Laying the
foundations of a deal? Agreements
established have long-term potential.
Taurus (April 20-May 20). Deepening
relationships? Mutual respect, desire,
and admiration solidifies a love affair!
Gemini (May 21-June 21). Today’s
harmonious connection between Mars
and Saturn sees you hard at work and
making major progress!
Cancer (June 22-July 22). Determining
a direction? Passions are best chan-
neled into one project.
Leo (July 23-Aug. 22). Handling a
family matter? Mars’ harmonious con-
nection to sensible Saturn provides
you the stamina to manage this issue
responsibly.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Harnessing
your voice? Mars’ harmonious connec-
tion to no-nonsense Saturn improves
your powers of communication. Hon-
esty is the best policy.
Libra (Sept.23-Oct. 23). Making head-
way? Working in line with your ethics
helps you push through the tough
stuff.
Scorpio (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). Assertive
Mars’ harmonious connection to sen-
sible Saturn gives you the confidence
to power through challenges!
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). Working
behind the scenes? Keeping your pro-
ject quiet gives it staying power.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). Collab-
orative projects bearing fruit? Having
the right people on your team makes
all the difference!
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). Taking a
necessary leap? Long-term growth
depends on taking a few well-
thought-out risks.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20). Doing the
necessary legwork? Goal-oriented
Mars’ harmonious connection with
serious Saturn provides endurance to
pursue a long-term goal.
MOVIES
Taylor Swift arrives at the world premiere of her movie, “Taylor Swift: The
Eras Tour,” on Wednesday in Los Angeles. MATT WINKELMEYER/GETTY IMAGES
Swift’s ‘Eras’
film catches
her magic
Melissa Ruggieri USA TODAY
LOS ANGELES – Call it a Tay-quake. A seismic ground shift that
will overtake movie theaters on Thursday, but first trembled
Wednesday night, when Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” concert
film made its world premiere. h The movie, which the savvy Swift
innovated primarily as a way for fans who couldn’t experience her
colossal – and equally impressive – Eras Tour, received a debut
befitting the comely superstar, whose every footstep seems to re-
quire breathless attention.
At the AMC Grove 14 in LA, about
2,200 people – a mix of fans, celebri-
ties including Adam Sandler and
Maren Morris, and entertainment
industry insiders – filled every thea-
ter. The surrounding ritzy outdoor
shopping mall was closed for the
day to allow for the setup and to bet-
ter patrol ticketless Swifties yearn-
ing for a glimpse of their hero.
After popping in to visit invited
moviegoers in 13 of the theaters,
Swift arrived at the one offering Dol-
by sound with a casual, “Hi, guys.”
Swift stood at the front of the
theater for a few minutes to express
how much fun she’s had performing
during her Eras Tour and praised her
backup singers and dancers, several
Taylor Swift visited moviegoers at The Grove for the premiere of “Taylor
Swift: The Eras Tour.” VALERIE MACON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
of whom sat alongside her, pumping
fists and singing along.
“We pranced on that stage grin-
ning because of what met us on the
other side,” Swift said. “You are
main characters in this film. You
cared so much about these shows.”
Fans enthralled by the Eras con-
cert undoubtedly will thrill at the
chance to relive the magic and enjoy
“The Eras Tour” as a communal con-
cert experience.
How is the ‘Eras’ movie
different from Swift’s tour?
At just under three hours, the cel-
See SWIFT, Page 5B
LIFE
K1
K1
MOVIES
Foxx’s
essential
films show
art and joy
Brian Truitt
USA TODAY
Is there anything that Jamie Foxx can’t
do? Not really, which is why he can
play both a street-smart Boston
Terrier and soul man Ray Charles.
From his days as a stand-up comedian
and starting out on “In Living Color” in
the 1990s to snagging a Grammy
Award, Foxx’s career has been one of
joyful versatility – which we’ve been
reminded of in a year full of his movies
but also scary health issues. In Foxx’s
Oscar-winning filmography, he has
sung and danced, taken snaps as a
big-screen quarterback and inhabited
a number of real-life roles, including
his latest: Foxx, 55, stars as flashy
lawyer Willie Gary, who takes the case
of a Mississippi funeral home owner
(Tommy Lee Jones) in the dramedy
“The Burial” (streaming Friday on
Amazon Prime Video).
But how does it compare with his
outings as a comic-book supervillain
and an animated band director? Here
are Foxx’s 15 essential movies, ranked:
Bug (Jamie Foxx) trips out on some
mushrooms in the comedy “Strays.”
PROVIDED BY UNIVERSAL PICTURES
15. ‘Strays’ (2023)
A talking dog comedy just edges out
“Miami Vice” on this list, simply
because of the vocal energy Foxx
brings to the delightfully crass Bugs.
He’s an independent pooch who
humps inanimate objects and trips on
magic mushrooms, yet Foxx also adds
needed depth to scenes where the
canine comes clean about his
complicated past.
h Where to watch: Peacock
14. ‘White House Down’ (2013)
Who wouldn’t vote for Foxx for
president? But the actor’s POTUS role,
James Sawyer, also is an action hero in
Roland Emmerich’s political thriller.
When the White House is under siege
and taken over by Secret Service bad
guys and mercenaries, Sawyer teams
with a Capitol cop (Channing Tatum)
to save the day and look cool doing it.
h Where to watch: Netflix
13. ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’
(2021)
Foxx’s supervillain Electro was a
blue-skinned travesty we’d all like to
forget in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2.”
However, Foxx nailed a second chance
at the character in “No Way Home,”
giving the dude an electrifying
menace and making the most of a rare
quiet moment opposite his Spidey
(played by Andrew Garfield).
h Where to watch: Apple TV, Vudu,
Amazon
12. ‘Jarhead’ (2005)
Sam Mendes’ stirring look at life as a
Marine during the Gulf War starred
Jake Gyllenhaal as Swofford, a new
recruit following in his dad’s military
footsteps, and Foxx as Sykes, a staff
sergeant who sees his potential and
takes him to sniper school. Sykes also
really loves his job, revealed via a
scary good Foxx in the film’s best
scene.
h Where to watch: Prime Video
See FOXX, Page 5B
LIFE
MOVIES
Watching Taylor is as much fun as her film
Laura Trujillo
USA TODAY
LOS ANGELES – There are movie
premieres here where the red carpet is
the star event.
But this is Taylor’s version.
The world premiere of Taylor Swift’s
“Eras Tour” movie Wednesday night
was all about what was inside a very
common AMC movie theater in an out-
door mall that was closed for the day.
And Taylor Swift herself, sitting in thea-
ter No. 2, seat F8, at the center, next to
her tour backup singers and dancers,
and actress Julia Garner.
“Hi, so you’re stuck with me because
I’m going to, like, sit with you and watch
this thing,” Swift said, dressed in a
strapless light blue Oscar de la Renta
high-low gown before the movie began.
“But before we do that, I want to say
thank you for wanting to spend your
evening with me. ... I’ve always had fun
doing this. I can’t believe music is my
career; that’s crazy to me. I’ve always
loved it. I’ve never had a fraction of the
amount of fun I’ve had on the Eras tour
before, ever.”
The theater was filled with fans –
some of whom her team invited via di-
rect message on X, formerly Twitter –
and celebrity Swifties including Simu
Liu, Maren Morris and Adam Sandler
and his wife and two daughters, as well
as Swift’s own camera crew.
Swift visited each theater to thank
guests before coming to the spot where
she would watch her movie.
“I want to say, I have friends in this
room, I have my amazing backing vocal-
ists in this room. ... We pranced on that
stage grinning because of what met us
on the other side and that was you, how
much you cared about it. That was abso-
lutely everything,” she said. “So, I think
Foxx
Continued from Page 4B
11. ‘They Cloned Tyrone’ (2023)
Playing pimp Slick Charles, Foxx’s
groovy style fits well in the satirical
sci-fi pulp mystery. With his
associates, a drug dealer (John
Boyega) and a clever prostitute
(Teyonah Parris), his character dives
deep into a sinister underground
conspiracy in the Black community
that involves mind control and
doppelgangers.
h Where to watch: Netflix
10. ‘Baby Driver’ (2017)
With this revved-up, innovative crime
thriller, writer/director Edgar Wright
crafts exhilarating car chases and gun
fights fueled by catchy songs, and
Foxx’s bank-robbing Bats is a bonkers
delight that ties into the movie’s
subtext about the 1% and the
downtrodden doing bad things to get
what they think they deserve.
h Where to watch: Apple TV, Vudu,
Prime Video
9. ‘Soul’ (2020)
Foxx made a little history with this
existential animated comedy: He
voiced Pixar’s first Black lead
character, a middle school band
teacher named Joe who dreams of
being a jazz pianist before falling
down a manhole and right into the
afterlife. Foxx brings warmth, humor
and an occasional touch of
exasperation when Joe’s dealing with
22, an irascible little soul played by
Tina Fey.
h Where to watch: Disney+
8. ‘Ali’ (2001)
The boxing biopic is obviously a Will
Smith vehicle – he stars as the iconic
Muhammad Ali, after all. Yet Foxx was
brilliantly cast in the key role of Drew
“Bundini” (“rhymes with Houdini”)
Brown, the trainer who fought to be in
Ali’s corner, gave the champ some of
his best lines and was with Ali through
his most victorious times.
h Where to watch: Apple TV, Vudu,
Prime Video
7. ‘Just Mercy’ (2019)
In the true-life story, Foxx plays a
Black logger wrongfully convicted of
strangling and fatally shooting an
18-year-old white woman while
Michael B. Jordan is the lawyer out to
make sure he gets justice. Both turn in
powerful performances as men
Adam Sandler takes a photo of Taylor Swift and his daughters after the world
premiere of the “Eras Tour” movie. PROVIDED BY LAURA TRUJILLO
you will see that you absolutely are main
characters in this film because that’s
what made the tour magical, that’s what
made the tour different from anything
I’ve ever done in my life.”
She continued: “Your attention to de-
tail, your preparation, your passion,
your intensity, you cared so much about
these shows and that made all the dif-
ference for us. It made us want to add
even more shows. I just have never felt
this way about anything. I am so proud.”
Just before the movie started at 8:30
p.m., she said: “I think I will just watch it
with you now. So let’s have a blast, guys.
Thank you for coming.”
Guests ate popcorn out of commem-
orative Eras Tour tins and Reese’s
Pieces and Red Vines from a compli-
mentary elaborate candy bar decorated
with fresh flowers flown in that morning
for the display. An AMC employee
Jamie Foxx won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Ray Charles in “Ray.”
PROVIDED BY NICOLA GOODE/UNIVERSAL STUDIOS
moving from a place of distrust to
making an immeasurable mark on
each other.
h Where to watch: Apple TV, Vudu,
Prime Video
6. ‘Any Given Sunday’ (1999)
Foxx’s first dramatic role came in
Oliver Stone’s over-the-top football
drama. Before the acting and the
comedy, Foxx was a high school
quarterback in Texas and he lined up
under center again on the big
screen, as the insanely talented,
hard-partying third-string passer
who butts heads with teammates
(like LL Cool J’s star running back).
h Where to watch: Apple TV, Vudu,
Prime Video
5. ‘Django Unchained’ (2012)
In Quentin Tarantino’s brutal take on
the spaghetti Western, the title
character (Foxx), a former enslaved
man, and a dentist bounty hunter
(Christoph Waltz) take down
Southern sibling outlaws and then
head off to find Django’s wife in
Mississippi. Foxx’s watchably
righteous fury plays well off
Leonardo DiCaprio’s sinister
plantation-owning villain.
h Where to watch: Apple TV, Vudu
4. ‘Dreamgirls’ (2006)
Starring the likes of Beyoncé and
Jennifer Hudson, not to mention
Eddie Murphy, Bill Condon’s
Motown-influenced musical is rife
with A-listers. Foxx gets a lot to
chew on dramatically as Curtis Taylor
Jr., an ambitious Detroit car
salesman who becomes the
manipulative manager of a girl group
and gets too close to his singers.
h Where to watch: Apple TV, Vudu,
Prime Video
USA TODAY ❚ MONDAY OCTOBER 16, 2023 ❚ 5B
stopped by Swift’s seat and poured
glasses of white wine.
The movie replicated Swift’s sold-out
concerts, with an intimacy few felt in
the stadium tour. The movie was like a
close-up, clearer version of a stadium
Jumbotron, with details from Swift’s
ballerina flats to her multicolored fin-
gernails.
Moviegoers at the premiere captured
the concert feel with sequined jackets,
sparkly boots, pastel pouf dresses and
friendship bracelets.
Throughout the movie, Swift bopped
her head with the songs, pumped her
arms, mimicked her onscreen dance
moves and smiled almost nonstop.
Watching her was as fun as watching
the movie.
It also was a movie where participa-
tion felt almost mandatory.
“It’s so wild. Watching her is making
3. ‘The Burial’ (2023)
Foxx’s sheer and sizable charisma is
in full force for the real-life legal
dramedy as Florida attorney Willie
Gary, who helps the cash-strapped
owner (Tommy Lee Jones) of a
Mississippi funeral home business
take on a corporate “deathcare”
behemoth. Foxx dazzles as a
showboat with heart while holding
court in a movie that balances humor
with a deeper message.
h Where to watch: Prime Video
2. ‘Collateral’ (2004)
In Michael Mann’s noir action thriller,
Foxx is low-key fantastic – and
earned a supporting actor Oscar
nomination – as LA cab driver Max,
who picks up a fare wanting to go a
bunch of different places. Worse, the
guy (Tom Cruise) turns out to be an
assassin on a killing spree, and Foxx
is an ace at playing Max’s fear and
frustration through a harrowing
night.
h Where to watch: Netflix
1. ‘Ray’ (2004)
Foxx in fact scored two Academy
Award nominations in the same year
but while he didn’t win for
“Collateral,” no one was going to
beat him out for the best-actor prize.
Bringing all his skills to bear, Foxx’s
portrayal of Ray Charles – in a movie
chronicling his life, loves and songs –
is absolutely breathtaking, not just
playing the genius musician and
businessman but inhabiting the soul
of a soul legend.
h Where to watch: Apple TV, Vudu,
Prime Video
Contributing: Olivia Munson
this so much fun,” said Arianna Trini-
dad, a Swiftie from Phoenix who attend-
ed the world premiere of the concert
tour, and was at the theater for the
movie’s world premiere. “I can’t believe
I’m here, two rows behind her. I think
we’re both having the same amount of
fun.”
As “Look What You Made Me Do” ap-
peared onscreen, Sandler - sitting just
behind Swift – bounced in his chair and
clapped, one of Swift’s vocalists held
her hands up in the shape of a heart, and
Swift vibed to the beat.
Before the movie began, Swift took
photos with fans and made a video with
Beyoncé in an empty theater. She post-
ed on her Instagram: “She’s been a guid-
ing light throughout my career and the
fact that she showed up tonight was like
an actual fairytale.”
It was unclear if Beyoncé, who opens
her own movie “Renaissance: A Film by
Beyoncé” with AMC in December,
stayed to watch the movie. She was not
in the theater with Swift.
While Swift’s appearance at the
movie was expected, most people in
theater No. 2 hadn’t expected to watch
the movie with her. Their eyes went
from the screen to Swift, while they
joined her in singing everything from
“Cruel Summer” to “Midnight Rain.”
By the end of the two-hour, 48-min-
ute movie, the crowd was standing and
dancing to its final song, “Karma.” Swift
took selfies – with a flash – with her
dancers, singers and Garner.
Afterward, Swift took photos with
fans and posed while Sandler snapped a
photo of her with his daughters before
she slipped out the back of the theater.
The movie was first set to open on
Friday. But after selling more than $100
million in presale tickets, it was sched-
uled to open on Thursday.
Swift
Continued from Page 4B
luloid version of Swift’s live spectacle
is about 30 minutes shorter than her
in-person performances throughout
her six-month U.S. tour (her overseas
dates kick off in November).
Her live shows offered an incredibly
fulfilling set list of 45 songs and the
film, directed by Sam Wrench, shaves
off only a handful of tunes for a more
efficient run time.
The songs that didn’t make the cut:
“The Archer,” “No Body, No Crime,”
“Long Live,” “Illicit Affairs,” “Cardigan”
and “Wildest Dreams.”
Which ‘surprise’ songs are in
the ‘Eras’ movie?
The concert footage comes from
Swift’s final U.S. shows of 2023 at SoFi
Stadium in Inglewood, California – she
played an astounding six nights at the
70,000-capacity venue – and the film
pulls from her Aug. 4 and Aug. 5 dates
for her customary “surprise” songs.
Swift opted for “Our Song” to “thank
the people who liked me when I was a
little teenager writing songs for my
ninth-grade talent show,” she says.
After leading a crowd singalong,
Swift takes her place behind the piano
for “You’re On Your Own, Kid.”
What are some highlights?
The entire film offers a front-row
seat to the grandeur. The staging is so
massive that even the best seats could
provide only so much detail.
But on the big screen, the close-ups
are glorious, whether zooming in on
Swift’s makeup, the moss covering her
piano and the sweat sticking to her
bangs during “Champagne Problems.”
Among the performances, “Look
What You Made Me Do” sizzles. The
shots of the Swift incarnations in glass
cases spotlight the intricacy of the
number, while Swift is in her snarling,
sexy glory as the camera whirls.
Can you sing and dance during
Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras’ movie?
Theaters will set their own rules,
but the consensus is that fans are en-
couraged to have fun, just not at the
expense of fellow moviegoers.
At the premiere, it was hard to tell
the screams from the crowd on film
from cheers in the audience, and
throughout, fans stood to sing and
dance along. By the time “Karma”
closed the shnow, the atmosphere felt
like the encore at a concert, a joyful en-
counter full of love that indicated Swift
isn’t the only one having a blast.
6B ❚ MONDAY OCTOBER 16, 2023 ❚ USA TODAY
ALABAMA Prichard: Environmental
groups have asked the U.S. Environ-
mental Protection Agency to inter-
vene in a south Alabama water sys-
tem they said has been plagued by
leaks, contamination and financial
mismanagement, endangering resi-
dents in the low-income community.
ALASKA Anchorage: Pharmacies
across the state are still facing staff-
ing shortages, which was exacerbated
by the COVID-19 pandemic, Alaska
Public Media reported.
ARIZONA Kingman: It took more
than four decades but authorities said
that they have finally identified the
remains of a California man found in
a desert area of northwest Arizona in
1982. Mohave County Sheriff ’s offi-
cials said advanced DNA testing con-
cluded that the remains were those of
Virgil R. Renner, who left his home in
California in the early 1970s to search
for gold in Nevada.
ARKANSAS Little Rock: More than
427,000 Arkansas residents were
dropped from Medicaid in the past
six months, as the state became
among the first nationally to com-
plete a post-pandemic eligibility re-
view of the government-funded
health care program for lower-income
residents.
CALIFORNIA Los Angeles: Two giant
rocket motors required to display the
retired NASA space shuttle Endea-
vour as if it’s about to blast off arrived
at a Los Angeles museum, completing
their long journey from the Mojave
Desert. The 116-foot-long motors,
which look like giant white cylinders,
were trucked over two days from the
Mojave Air and Space Port to LA’s
Exposition Park, where the California
Science Center’s Samuel Oschin Air
and Space Center is being built to
display Endeavour.
COLORADO Fort Collins: Superinten-
dent Brian Kingsley and the Poudre
School District Board of Education,
facing a groundswell of opposition,
pushed the “pause” button on a con-
troversial school consolidation plan
that wasn’t made public until late last
week.
CONNECTICUT Windsor: A Connecti-
cut high school student died after
losing consciousness at football prac-
tice, school officials said.
DELAWARE Wilmington: Some of
this summer’s first available data
shows tourism remained high at the
Delaware beaches in 2023. Parking
meter revenue and hotel bookings
indicated a slight decrease from
2022, a record year in many cases,
but nearly all numbers were higher
than in 2019 and 2020.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Washing-
ton: Fifteen young women were hon-
ored at the White House for their
advocacy on a range of issues in their
communities across the United
States, from lobbying for tighter gun
laws and against book bans to en-
couraging civic engagement and en-
suring access to menstrual supplies.
The honorees range in age from 15 to
18 and represent 13 states.
FLORIDA Lakeland: A flock of swans
that grew from a gift nearly 70 years
ago from Queen Elizabeth II has been
rounded up in Florida to ensure they
are all healthy. On Tuesday, there
were 50 swans collected in Lakeland.
GEORGIA Atlanta: Georgia’s rising
public high school graduation rate hit
a record in 2023, with the state De-
partment of Education saying that
84.4% of seniors graduated on time
in the spring. That’s up slightly from
84.1% last year, and a record high
since Georgia began using calcula-
tions that require a student to gradu-
ate in four years with a regular high
school diploma.
HAWAII Honolulu: Officials said wa-
ter in more areas has been declared
safe for unrestricted use, HawaiiNew-
sNow reported.
IDAHO Middleton: Authorities briefly
ordered evacuations for most of the
town of Middleton after a gas line
exploded at nearby rural intersection
late Thursday morning.
ILLINOIS Chicago: A suburban Chi-
cago man is facing stalking and van-
dalism charges after being accused of
throwing rocks at the home of Gov.
J.B. Pritzker, breaking three windows,
Illinois State Police said.
INDIANA Indianapolis: A shooting
inside an Indianapolis hotel room left
a man dead and another man and
woman hospitalized in critical condi-
tion, police said.
HIGHLIGHT: NEW YORK
The Triangle Shirtwaist Memorial features the engraved names of 146 people
who were killed in a 1911 clothing factory fire. BEBETO MATTHEWS/AP
New York: If people really looked for history at the building where the Triangle
Shirtwaist factory once existed, they could find it. There are plaques pointing out
that it was the site of a horrific fire in 1911 that became a catalyst in the American
labor movement’s fight for workplace safety protections. But for some, a few
words on a wall aren’t nearly enough to honor the fire’s 146 victims. So after years
of effort, the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition dedicated a new memorial
that has no chance of being overlooked. A giant steel ribbon with the names of
those who died in the disaster has been installed running horizontally from one
corner of the building. Underneath it, a reflective panel shows the stenciled
names as well as quotes from people who were there, describing the mayhem.
IOWA Pella: Voters in a small Iowa
city will decide in November wheth-
er to give their city council more say
over what books the public library
can and can’t offer.
KANSAS Topeka: Kansas became
the 10th state in the nation Wednes-
day to require two-person railroad
crews despite objections from
freight railroads, but the industry
may challenge the rule in court as it
has in other states like Ohio.
KENTUCKY Richmond: After dec-
ades of living in the shadow of
chemical weapons, a Kentucky com-
munity on Wednesday celebrated
the final destruction of the arsenal –
culminating what Senate Repub-
lican leader Mitch McConnell called
a “once seemed unimaginable”
achievement marking a new era in
U.S. defense policy.
LOUISIANA Walker: A public school
principal has apologized and re-
quested leave for punishing a stu-
dent and questioning her religious
beliefs after he saw a video of her
dancing at an off-campus party.
MAINE Portland: A historic sailing
vessel on which a passenger was
fatally injured by a broken mast was
involved in three previous accidents
in 2022 and 2019 when the schooner
was under different ownership,
according to Coast Guard records.
MARYLAND Baltimore: Traffic re-
sumed at the Baltimore/Washington
International Thurgood Marshall
Airport after a closure Wednesday
afternoon while law enforcement
investigated a vehicle near the ter-
minal, officials said.
MASSACHUSETTS Fall River: A
70-year-old man who recently
reached a settlement with a Roman
Catholic diocese in Massachusetts
over sexual abuse he suffered at age
8 said he is speaking out because
“my voice was taken away from me
for all those years” and he wants to
help others like himself.
MICHIGAN Lansing: Michigan is
launching a $20 million nationwide
marketing initiative aimed at boost-
ing the state’s decadeslong sluggish
population growth by attracting and
retaining young talent. The cam-
paign will include television, radio
and online advertisements in 11
states. It will be the largest state-led
talent attraction effort in the U.S.,
according to the state’s economic
development board.
MINNESOTA Princeton: Five drug
task force officers were shot and
wounded while serving a search
warrant near Princeton, authorities
said. The suspect was arrested after
a standoff that lasted several hours.
MISSISSIPPI Jackson: The Demo-
cratic challenger in the Mississippi
governor’s race has raised more
campaign cash than the Republican
incumbent so far this year, but the
Republican has more money left to
spend in the final weeks of the race,
according to finance reports.
MISSOURI St. Clair: A Missouri high
school teacher who was suspended
after officials discovered that she
had performed on a subscription-
based website known for sexually
explicit content has resigned, a
school district official said.
MONTANA Great Falls: A U.S. Air
Force member at Malmstrom Air
Force Base in Great Falls admitted to
obtaining and selling images of child
sexual abuse material using social
media, according to a Montana U.S.
Attorney’s Office press release.
NEBRASKA Omaha: Nebraska’s top
election official confirmed that state
voters will decide next year whether
public money can go to private
school tuition. A petition effort to
get the question on the November
2024 ballot far exceeded the num-
ber of valid signatures needed to put
the controversial question before
voters, the Nebraska Secretary of
State’s office said in a statement.
NEVADA Las Vegas: An ex-convict
has been convicted of fatally shoot-
ing two Northern California women
near the Las Vegas Strip more than
seven years ago.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Hampton: Signs
around town are calling to “stop the
cell tower” as the town’s Zoning
Board prepares to decide on a pro-
posed wireless facility application.
Members of a group opposing the
cell tower proposed by Vertex Tow-
ers say they are 40 households
strong in calling for the board to
reject the project’s height and use
variances.
NEW JERSEY Woodbridge: Oppo-
nents of a natural gas-fired power
plant planned for an already pollut-
ed low-income area in New Jersey
celebrated Thursday after hearing
the company that proposed the
project no longer plans to build it,
citing low energy prices.
NEW MEXICO Santa Fe: A federal
judge cleared the way for enforce-
ment of a public health order that
suspends the right to carry guns at
public parks and playgrounds in
New Mexico’s largest metro area.
NORTH CAROLINA Raleigh: North
Carolina appears to have had a sig-
nificant decline in abortions per-
formed in the first month after new
restrictions approved by state legis-
lators took effect, according to esti-
mates released by a research group.
NORTH DAKOTA Bismarck: Rose-
marie Myrdal, the second woman to
serve as North Dakota’s lieutenant
governor, has died. She was 94.
Myrdal died Wednesday night due
to old age, said state Sen. Janne
Myrdal, her daughter-in-law.
OHIO Columbus: A schism between
Ohio’s House Republicans appears
to only be widening after a rival
GOP-contingent sued fellow conser-
vative House Speaker Jason Ste-
phens to seize control of over $1 mil-
lion in campaign funds.
OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City: A new
judge could lose her job for sending
more than 500 texts to her bailiff
during a murder trial, including
messages mocking the prosecutor,
praising the defense attorney and
calling a key witness a liar.
OREGON Salem: Oregon’s Audit
Division did not take the necessary
steps to mitigate potential threats to
the independence of the audit at the
center of the controversy surround-
ing former Secretary of State She-
mia Fagan, according to the Oregon
Department of Justice.
LIFE
News from across the USA
PENNSYLVANIA Philadelphia: The
discovery of thousands of illegally
dumped tires is threatening to further
delay the dredging of a Philadelphia-
area river used by rowing clubs as a
regatta race course, according to fed-
eral authorities. The U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers says that more than
3,000 tires have been hauled out of
the Schuylkill River during the second
phase of the project aimed at clearing
the river of muck for rowers, The
Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
RHODE ISLAND Newport: For the
past 10 years, the city’s main water
treatment plant has utilized some of
the most state-of-the-art technology
in the field to filter contaminants out
of the city’s tap water. However, re-
cent and expected regulations on per-
and polyfluoroalkyl substances might
make the city’s relatively new system
harder, and more costly, to maintain.
SOUTH CAROLINA Greenville: The
mother of a slain Hampton County
teen – whose death remains a high
profile, unsolved mystery – recently
announced the creation of a college
scholarship in her son’s memory.
SOUTH DAKOTA Sioux Falls: Augus-
tana University announced a new
$13.8 million scholarship last week
known as the Buntrock Scholars Pro-
gram for students who are members
of congregations of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America. This
new scholarship will go to at least 30
students next fall, and could go on to
benefit as many as 120 students by
fall 2028, according to a press release
from the university.
TENNESSEE Maryville: Gun manu-
facturer Smith & Wesson hosted a
grand opening of its new Tennessee
headquarters after moving from its
longtime home in Massachusetts to a
more gun-friendly state. The compa-
ny built a new 650,000-square feet
headquarters in Maryville as part of a
$125 million relocation plan an-
nounced in 2021.
TEXAS Dallas: A 13-year-old Texas
boy has been convicted on a murder
charge stemming from the fatal
shooting of a Sonic Drive-In employ-
ee who had a fight with the boy’s
uncle, authorities said.
UTAH St. George: Tim Ballard, the
founder of Operation Underground
Railroad and the subject of the movie
“Sound of Freedom,” has been sued
by five women who allege he coerced
them into unwanted sexual contact.
Ballard employed the so-called “cou-
ples ruse” and exploited the women’s
religious beliefs by telling them they
needed to act like his sexual partners
in order to stop the trafficking of chil-
dren, according to the lawsuit.
VERMONT Castleton: Vermont State
Police released a sketch of a person of
interest in the killing of a retired col-
lege dean who was shot dead last
week while walking on her favorite
trail near the Vermont State Univer-
sity campus.
VIRGINIA Arlington: An African
American combat medic who was
wounded while landing on Omaha
Beach during the D-Day invasion in
northern France but went on to tend
to dozens of troops was posthumous-
ly honored Wednesday in a ceremony
at Arlington National Cemetery.
WASHINGTON Tacoma: Eyewitness
testimony in the continuing trial of
three police officers, who are white
and Asian American, charged with
the 2020 death of Manuel Ellis, a
Black man, starkly contradicted the
picture the officers’ lawyers painted.
WEST VIRGINIA Charleston: The U.S.
road cycling national championships
will be moving from Tennessee to
West Virginia for the next five years
in part to help what should be a com-
petitive American team better mimic
the courses it will face at the Paris
Olympics.
WISCONSIN Madison: The University
of Wisconsin System plans to change
its name to The Universities of Wis-
consin by early next year, system
President Jay Rothman announced.
Rothman said the change is designed
to draw attention to the system’s 13
four-year universities as they struggle
with declining enrollment.
WYOMING Casper: The Casper-Na-
trona County International Airport is
applying for federal grant money to
replace its air traffic control tower,
which doesn’t meet Federal Aviation
Administration regulations, the Cas-
per Star-Tribune reported.
From USA TODAY Network and
wire reports
LIFE USA TODAY ❚ MONDAY OCTOBER 16, 2023 ❚ 7B

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 Neville Fogarty & Erik
Agard

MATHCORE SUDOKU
SUDOKU
ACROSS
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© USA TODAY and Rich Coulter Friday’s solution
number in the top-left corner.

Words BONUS CROSSWORD

FRIDAY’S SOLUTION
WORD
WORD ROUNDUP
ROUNDUP B B G B M A J O R G P L
By David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek 10/16 E L L V A B R Q R R G C
Find and Circle: N U O A B T R P R E A E
Five words starting and ending with B ☑☐☐☐☐ I B L B B L H I Z A M D
First three Greek letters ☐☐☐
© Andrews McMeel

Three five-letter words with J in the middle ☐☐☐ P A L P H A U T T T M A

Three evergreen trees ☐☐☐
England’s island: ____ ____ ☐☐ S P R U C E J R U A A R
Friday’s answer: ALPHA BRAVO CHARLIE DELTA ECHO / TERMITE V B E T A Q N H B B I W
CRICKET FLEA MOTH WASP / HYPHEN PERIOD COMMA COLON /
BETTY / MAINE E N J O Y M C A J U NN

QUICKCROSS
QUICKCROSS UP
UP &&DOWN
DOWN WORDS
WORDS
By John Wilmes 10/16 By David L. Hoyt and Russell L. Hoyt 10/16

Waves breaking on a 1. TALK

seashore
2.
Ron Howard character
3.

Blockhead 4.
5.
____-retentive
6.
© Andrews McMeel

(Baking [?) pop] 7. AGAIN

Clues: Friday’s Answer

Resting atop
1. Brag; boast CARRY ON
Friday’s Answer 2. NYC nickname ON CALL
Hostess/actress Kelly 3. McIntosh or Jonathan source CALL FOR
F I N D 4. Oak’s rough covering FOR KEEPS
Touch 5. Harass, like a dog KEEPS DOWN
I S E E 6. Immediately DOWN UNDER
L O S E QUICKCROSS
7. An additional time UNDER WRAPS

A N T S ON YOUR PHONE PLAY ONLINE

10/13 puzzles.usatoday.com PUZZLES.USATODAY.COM © Andrews McMeel

© WIGGLES 3D GAMES
DON’T QUOTE ME®
Talk show host Rearrange the words to complete the quote.
Oprah Winfrey HATE PEOPLE WITHOUT YOU YOURSELF
offers this insight.
________ CANNOT ________ OTHER ___________
___________ HATING ______________.
10/16

Friday’s Answer: “My husband said he needed more

space. So I locked him outside.” - Roseanne Barr

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.

TEFAR

CEYAD

DQIUIL

DNCDIA
Now arrange the circled letters
©2023 Tribune Content Agency, LLC to form the surprise answer, as
All Rights Reserved. suggested by the above cartoon.
Print your “ ”
answer here:
(Answers tomorrow)
Jumbles: WEIGH
SUSHI HOUSE GYRATE MIRROR
FRIDAY’S
Saturday’s Jumbles:
When
Answer: For
OPERA
heClancy,
asked, giving
HICCUP
“Whereupdo I turn insurance
LEVITY
left?”, sheto
Answer: Tom selling
said — RIGHT HERE
become an author was the — “WRITE” CHOICE
8B ❚ MONDAY OCTOBER 16, 2023 ❚ USA TODAY NEWS

WEATHER WEATHER ONLINE

USATODAY.COM

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

NORWAY SWEDEN KAZAKHSTAN Ulan Bator

Reykjavik St. Petersburg 47/24pc
47/40c Oslo 46/38sh Almaty MONGOLIA Vladivostok
ICELAND Bergen 47/36pc Helsinki 63/42s Urumqi 60/40s
48/46sh 46/34pc 55/37s
RUSSIA UZBEK. Beijing N. KOREA
ESTONIA KYRGYZ. 74/53pc
Aberdeen Stockholm Pyongyang
54/33pc Gothenburg 45/31s 69/42s
TURKMEN. TAJIK.
SCOTLAND 48/37s S. KOREA JAPAN
Riga LATVIA
Kabul ASIA Xian
CHINA 72/56pc Seoul
Edinburgh 63/45s 70/47s
53/35c 49/38sh Tokyo
NORTHERN AFGHANISTAN Osaka 76/59s
IRELAND Newcastle DENMARK Copenhagen LITHUANIA Islamabad Lhasa 75/52pc
Galway Belfast 52/34c IRAN 72/56r Changsha Shanghai
52/41s Minsk Kathmandu 64/37pc 79/57h
55/41pc 52/40pc 84/62h
IRELAND Manchester 48/30r PAKISTAN 76/57t
53/41c New Delhi
Shannon Dublin Hamburg NEPAL Dhaka Guangzhou Taipei
80/67pc
55/44pc 53/44c Birmingham 52/38c 92/77h 87/71pc 82/70pc
Amsterdam Warsaw BELARUS Karachi Hanoi
52/42c GERMANY Berlin 91/75sh Kolkata 90/75pc TAIWAN
55/42c 51/35pc BURMA
WALES ENGLAND 52/38pc 92/77h Hong Kong
NETH. POLAND LAOS 80/73w
London Brussels Bonn Mumbai Rangoon Da Nang Manila
54/41h 53/39pc 96/81s INDIA 90/76pc
56/46pc Krakow THAILAND 82/76r 90/78t
Prague Bangkok VIETNAM
BELGIUM 49/34pc
50/33pc UKRAINE 93/78t CAMBODIA GUAM
Hagatna
Le Havre LUX. CZECH REP. Phnom Penh Ho Chi Minh City 86/78sh
Frankfurt
55/44c 53/38pc Munich Bratislava SLOVAKIA 88/76r 87/77sh PHILIPPINES
Paris
56/35s
58/42c Zurich 51/30pc Vienna SRI LANKA
MALAYSIA
54/36h HUNGARY
EUROPE Salzburg 55/34s
MALDIVES
53/30pc AUSTRIA Budapest Singapore Balikpapan
SWITZERLAND 57/34s ROMANIA 89/79sh 89/75t
Bordeaux Venice SLOVENIA
72/59pc 64/47h
Lyon Milan CROATIA PAPUA NEW
SERBIA Jakarta INDONESIA
61/52c 63/48c GUINEA
FRANCE Florence Belgrade 98/78sh
Santiago de Compostela Marseille BOSNIA
70/53c 59/40pc Sofia Port Moresby
65/61c 72/64c
59/35pc 89/78t
ITALY MONT.
Ajaccio Dubrovnik KOSOVO BULGARIA
Rome Cairns
Madrid 72/57c 71/57h Skopje
PORTUGAL 75/61sh 88/67pc
71/60c 65/39h MAURITIUS Broome
Tirana MACEDONIA
SPAIN Barcelona 76/57pc 100/67s
Lisbon 69/63r Naples Alice Springs
ALBANIA
72/67sh 72/63c 86/47s
Cagliari Brisbane
Valencia GREECE AUSTRALIA
Palma 77/64c 81/59s
80/62pc
Seville 76/68sh Perth
Faro 80/68sh 80/55s
Sydney
76/70c Athens
Palermo 65/57sh
81/62s
79/70s
Algiers Tunis
84/62pc Melbourne Canberra
86/68s 64/44s 67/37s
Rabat
80/66h
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
A little Stray Clouding Clouding High Mostly Mostly Partly Cloudy,
MON Cloudy TUE TUE TUE MON MON MON MON MON Cloudy MON Cloudy MON TUE
rain t-storm up up clouds sunny sunny sunny windy
55/42 53/44 70/53
69/60 93/78 74/53 52/38 54/41 84/69 52/41 53/38 80/73
Partly A P.M. Partly Low High Mostly Mostly Mostly Mostly
TUE WED WED Rain WED TUE TUE TUE TUE TUE Cloudy TUE TUE WED Rain
sunny shower sunny clouds clouds sunny sunny cloudy cloudy
93/78 55/50 78/74
56/43 67/59 77/47 52/36 57/43 85/70 55/45 73/56 56/38
Mostly A little Partly Rather Showers Clouding A little
WED THU THU Rain THU WED WED WED Sunny WED WED Rain WED WED Rain THU Rain
cloudy rain sunny cloudy around up rain
93/79 84/69 56/53 52/46 80/76
54/50 70/58 71/43 55/43 59/55 55/45 71/61

JAKARTA JERUSALEM JOHANNESBURG LONDON LOS ANGELES MADRID MANILA MEXICO CITY MILAN MOSCOW MUNICH NEW YORK
Showers Stray Sunny, Stray An A.M. Cloudy, Partly
TUE MON Breezy MON MON Some sun MON MON Cloudy TUE MON MON MON Showers MON MON Shower
around t-shower warm t-storm shower cooler sunny
72/58 56/46 71/60 47/35 60/50
98/78 62/50 87/61 90/78 72/49 63/48 51/30
A P.M. Mostly Partly Mostly Brief Stray Partly Mostly
WED TUE TUE TUE Breezy TUE TUE WED TUE TUE TUE Breezy TUE Cloudy TUE Shower
shower sunny sunny sunny showers t-storm sunny cloudy
58/52 41/36 51/33 60/49
98/78 76/57 66/48 86/61 73/58 90/78 75/48 66/52
An A.M. Mostly Sunny, Showers Sunny, Showers Stray Rain, Brief A P.M. Partly
THU WED WED WED WED WED THU WED Some sun WED WED WED WED
shower sunny nice around warm around t-storm drizzle showers shower sunny
76/49
97/78 75/59 75/54 60/57 88/65 69/57 90/77 59/53 40/36 53/42 62/50

PARIS RIO DE JANEIRO ROME SEOUL SHANGHAI ST. PETERSBURG STOCKHOLM SYDNEY TAIPEI TOKYO VIENNA ZURICH
Mostly Plenty of Sunny, Showers Sunny, High
MON MON Humid MON Showers TUE TUE Hazy MON Showers MON TUE TUE Breezy TUE MON Sunny MON
cloudy sun chilly around nice clouds
83/74 75/61 79/57 46/38 82/70 55/34
58/42 70/47 45/31 65/58 76/59 54/36
Very Partly Clouding A little A little Partly Partly Mostly
TUE Cloudy TUE TUE WED WED Hazy TUE TUE WED WED Clearing WED TUE TUE Rain
humid sunny up rain rain sunny sunny cloudy
63/55 80/62 85/71 55/44
82/74 73/60 71/57 45/34 48/34 69/53 71/63 55/36
Showers A little Clouding Inc. A P.M. Very Partly Inc.
WED WED WED Cloudy THU Cloudy THU WED WED THU Windy THU THU WED Breezy WED
around rain up clouds shower warm sunny clouds
76/67 67/50 74/57 57/45
67/57 79/70 82/65 40/30 43/28 89/72 75/63 59/50

WORLD FORECAST USA FORECAST

EUROPE MON TUE MON TUE
MON TUE Strasbourg 59/37h 56/43c Buenos Aires, Argentina 75/54pc 68/52s Seattle
Aberdeen, Scotland 54/33pc 53/41s Tallin 47/40sh 48/39pc Calgary 63/48c 60/42r 63/50r
Athens 81/62s 74/64s Tirana 76/57pc 66/54c Cancun, Mexico 84/69c 83/70r
Barcelona 69/63r 76/67c Valencia/Aeropuerto 80/62pc 77/62c Caracas, Venezuela 92/75t 91/74t Portland
Belfast 52/40pc 55/50c Venice 64/47h 64/48pc Cozumel, Mexico 86/72sh 84/71pc 67/52r Boston
Belgrade 59/40pc 60/39h Vienna 55/34s 55/36c Fort-de-France 91/77r 90/77pc Minneapolis-St. Paul 59/50c
Bergen, Norway 48/46sh 51/39r Vilnius, Lithuania 48/33sh 49/40pc Halifax, Nova Scotia 54/45sh 53/45pc 57/41s
Bern 56/38c 58/45c Warsaw 51/35pc 51/36s Lima, Peru 71/62c 72/63s
Bilbao 79/69pc 85/74c Montreal 58/45c 59/43pc New York
Birmingham, England 52/42c 57/49h ASIA / OCEANIA Nassau, Bahamas 83/73pc 83/73s 60/50c
Bonn 53/39pc 57/40pc TUE WED Philipsburg, St. Maarten 90/81s 90/80c Chicago
San Francisco 57/44c
Bordeaux 72/59pc 77/63c Adelaide 71/45s 79/54pc Puerto Vallarta, Mexico 92/70pc 92/69sh 74/61c
Bratislava 56/35s 55/36c Alice Springs Airport 86/47s 90/50s Punta Arenas, Chile 51/44w 56/46w Washington
Denver 61/49pc
Bucharest 63/38pc 63/42h Bali 86/77pc 86/77pc Quebec 57/43c 56/39pc 73/50s
Cadiz, Spain 82/66pc 82/66r Broome Bilingurr 100/67s 102/69s Quito, Ecuador 65/47sh 68/47r St. Louis
Caen 57/40c 61/55r Cairns Airport 88/67pc 87/72pc San Jose, Costa Rica 78/67t 81/67r 64/44pc
Cagliari 77/64c 81/65pc Changde 84/60s 88/69s Santo Domingo 92/76sh 92/74s Los Angeles
Cardiff 54/47c 57/51w Changsha City 82/61pc 84/66c Sao Paulo 87/68pc 82/66t 87/61s
Dresden 51/33pc 53/30pc Christchurch 51/42r 62/46c Toronto 56/41sh 58/43pc
Dubrovnik 71/57h 68/56sh Colombo 86/75t 86/75sh Vancouver 60/50r 58/51c Phoenix Atlanta
Duesseldorf 54/40c 58/43pc Da Nang 82/76r 86/76r Winnipeg 58/40pc 62/45w 104/73s 58/47pc
Edinburgh 53/35c 52/43s Darwin 94/77pc 95/78pc Dallas-Fort Worth
Faro, Portugal 76/70c 75/66pc Dhaka 92/77h 92/76h AFRICA / MIDDLE EAST 67/47s
Figari 73/55c 76/60r Guangzhou 87/71pc 80/73r MON TUE
Geneva 58/43c 61/50r Hagatna, Guam 86/78sh 87/79r Abidjan, Ivory Coast 84/77t 85/76pc
New Orleans
Genoa 68/58c 69/59c Hanoi 90/75pc 87/76c Abu Dhabi 99/79s 99/78s Houston
70/53s Miami
Glasgow 52/36c 53/42pc Ho Chi Minh City 87/77sh 90/77t Accra, Ghana 85/75t 85/75c 72/47s
83/62pc
Gothenburg, Sweden 48/37s 53/37sh Hobart 70/40s 77/45s Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 77/52pc 77/52pc
Hamburg 52/38c 55/36s Karachi 91/75sh 95/74s Alexandria, Egypt 82/70sh 83/70s
Helsinki 46/34pc 46/30pc Kathmandu 76/57t 76/55t Algiers, Algeria 84/62pc 92/64pc
Innsbruck 55/35pc 58/40c Kolkata 92/77h 92/77h Amman, Jordan 73/58s 78/59s MON TUE MON TUE MON TUE
Krakow 49/34pc 51/31pc Kuala Lumpur 91/76sh 91/76t Ankara, Turkey 70/46pc 61/46c Albany, N.Y. 59/46pc 61/45c Fargo, N.D. 61/42pc 65/48pc Philadelphia 62/50c 62/48c
Kyiv 51/39pc 51/36s Kyoto 76/52pc 78/57s Baghdad 90/67s 89/65s Albuquerque 78/52s 80/52s Fort Myers, Fla. 78/59pc 77/60s Phoenix 104/73s 101/72s
Las Palmas 84/72c 85/71s Lhasa City 64/37pc 55/36pc Bahrain 99/83s 96/84s Allentown, Pa. 58/44pc 61/40c Grand Rapids, Mich. 58/38c 55/42s Pittsburgh 55/46sh 57/42c
Le Havre 55/44c 59/54c Macau 77/74sh 78/74r Beirut 80/70pc 81/69s Anchorage 46/35pc 45/34pc Greensboro, N.C. 59/42pc 62/43pc Portland, Maine 58/46c 56/42c
Lisbon 72/67sh 72/63sh Mumbai 96/81s 96/81pc Cape Town, S.A. 82/57s 80/58s Atlanta 58/47pc 65/47s Hartford, Conn. 62/45c 60/43c Portland, Ore. 67/52r 66/51pc
Lucerne, Switzerland 54/38c 56/46c Nanchang City 82/63pc 86/66pc Casablanca, Morocco 89/68h 89/65pc Atlantic City 61/49c 62/48pc Honolulu 87/74r 87/73sh Providence 61/46c 59/44c
Luxembourg 52/38h 54/42c New Delhi 80/67pc 86/66s Damascus, Syria 81/54s 81/54s Austin 75/40s 77/46s Houston 72/47s 76/54s Raleigh, N.C. 62/44pc 65/45s
Lyon 61/52c 69/58sh Noumea 77/68c 74/64sh Dar es Salaam, Tanz. 93/75pc 92/73pc Baltimore 60/49c 65/46pc Huntsville, Ala. 63/44pc 66/41s Rapid City, S.D. 69/44pc 75/44pc
Malaga 78/64h 79/64pc Osaka 75/52pc 76/56s Harare, Zimbabwe 79/63t 77/60t Baton Rouge 71/45s 75/49s Indianapolis 56/43c 60/42s Reno 79/45pc 79/46s
Manchester 53/41c 56/48c Pago Pago 87/78r 86/78pc Istanbul, Turkey 67/57w 67/57pc Billing, Mont. 75/54pc 67/45pc Jackson, Miss. 68/44s 73/44s Richmond 59/48pc 65/45pc
Marseille 72/64c 73/65r Perth 80/55s 75/57h Kabul 60/45t 63/45s Birmingham, Ala. 62/44pc 70/45s Jacksonville 67/46pc 70/47s Rochester, N.Y. 56/46sh 58/41c
Milan 63/48c 66/52c Phnom Penh 88/76r 88/77t Kinshasa, Congo 89/75c 90/74c Boise, Idaho 82/51pc 69/45pc Kansas City, Mo. 64/41s 70/50s Sacramento 80/56pc 87/52s
Minsk 48/30r 48/38s Pyongyang 69/42s 73/61sh Kuwait 103/76h 96/69h Boston 59/50c 57/47c Knoxville, Tenn. 51/43c 59/39c St. Louis 64/44pc 67/48s
Monte Carlo 69/57c 67/60c Rangoon 90/76pc 90/76sh Lagos, Nigeria 87/76t 87/74t Buffalo 56/46sh 58/45c Las Vegas 91/64s 92/64s Salt Lake City 78/51pc 74/48pc
Naples 72/63c 73/60sh Sapporo 57/50r 69/54pc Luanda, Angola 84/74pc 83/74c Cedar Rapids, Iowa 58/38s 64/44s Little Rock 69/46pc 71/46s San Antonio 76/50s 76/50s
Nice 70/59c 69/61c Singapore 89/79sh 86/78t Lusaka, Zambia 87/66c 77/64t Charleston, S.C. 65/46pc 68/45s Louisville 58/48c 62/45pc San Diego 78/60s 75/60s
Oslo 47/36pc 54/35pc Tianjin 77/61pc 75/56h Luxor, Egypt 91/66h 92/67h Charlotte 62/44pc 64/43s Memphis 66/47pc 69/50s San Francisco 74/61c 73/58pc
Palermo 79/70s 81/68c Vladivostok 60/40s 63/45c Mecca, Saudi Arabia 101/75s 101/75s Cheyenne, Wyo. 70/46s 77/41pc Miami 83/62pc 80/66s San Juan, P.R. 95/79pc 93/79pc
Palma 76/68sh 82/70pc Wellington 62/53sh 66/55pc Mombasa, Kenya 90/76s 90/77pc Chicago 57/44c 61/47s Milwaukee 57/42c 62/46s Sarasota, Fla. 74/58s 75/58s
Prague 50/33pc 50/31pc Wuhan City 83/61h 85/63h Nairobi, Kenya 81/60t 82/61t Cincinnati 55/45c 61/42pc Minneapolis 57/41s 62/50s Savannah, Ga. 64/47pc 66/46s
Reims 56/38h 61/48c Yokohama 75/59s 71/61pc Nicosia, Cyprus 83/61s 84/60s Cleveland 54/45sh 55/43pc Mobile, Ala. 67/46pc 71/48s Seattle 63/50r 61/52pc
Reykjavik 47/40c 51/48r Rabat, Morocco 80/66h 81/64pc Colorado Springs 69/42s 80/47s Myrtle Beach, S.C. 66/47pc 67/48s Shreveport, La. 71/45s 73/48s
Riga 49/38sh 50/44pc AMERICAS Tangier, Morocco 79/68h 82/69pc Columbia, S.C. 65/45pc 66/45s Nashville 57/46c 66/42pc Spokane, Wash. 66/45r 60/43pc
Salzburg 53/30pc 54/33c MON TUE Tbilisi, Georgia 70/56pc 65/48w Columbus, Ohio 54/46c 59/42pc New Orleans 70/53s 71/53s Syracuse, N.Y. 57/47c 60/44c
Santiago de Comp. 65/61c 66/59r Acapulco, Mexico 88/77t 87/76sh Tehran, Iran 75/59t 75/57s Concord, N.H. 60/46pc 57/40sh Norfolk, Va. 61/48c 63/50pc Tampa 73/57pc 74/57s
Sarajevo 57/36pc 59/39pc Belize 87/70t 86/71c Tel Aviv, Israel 80/68pc 82/69s Dallas-Ft. Worth 67/47s 77/56s Oklahoma City 63/42s 73/51s Topeka 67/36s 74/52s
Sevilla/San Pablo 80/68sh 79/65sh Bermuda 81/74s 82/72pc Tombouctou, Mail 105/75s 99/77pc Daytona Beach, Fla. 74/53pc 70/53s Omaha 62/38s 68/51s Tucson 100/69s 96/68pc
Skopje 65/39h 54/46r Bogota 68/48sh 67/48r Tripoli, Libya 88/64s 91/66s Denver 73/50s 82/44s Orlando 76/56s 76/57s Tulsa 65/42s 72/52s
Sofia Intl Airport 59/35pc 55/40r Brasilia, Brazil 90/67s 91/64s Tunis, Tunisia 86/68s 93/69c Detroit 54/42c 57/42s Palm Springs, Calif. 102/75s 101/76s Washington, D.C. 61/49pc 65/48sh
St. Petersburg 46/38sh 45/34r Bridgetown, Barbados 90/80t 89/79t Zanzibar 88/77sh 89/76t El Paso 84/58s 89/61pc Pensacola, Fla. 68/50pc 72/52s Wichita 66/38s 75/50s

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