LUY-Development

Blog

  • Messi has his first World Cup hat trick as defending champion Argentina beats Algeria 3-0 in opener


    KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Lionel Messi registered his first World Cup hat trick while moving into a tie for first on the tournament’s career scoring list Tuesday night, sending defending champion Argentina to a dominant 3-0 victory over Algeria in its group-stage opener.

    Messi scored his first goal in the opening minutes on a nice feed from Inter Miami teammate Rodrigo De Paul, the second on a rebound early in the second half. Shortly after he got his third on a strike from the top of the penalty box, he subbed out to a standing ovation from a heavily pro-Argentina crowd.

    The trio of goals gave him 16 for his career, putting him in a tie with Germany’s Miroslav Klose for the career record. They also allowed him to join Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo as the only players to have scored in five World Cups.

    “The first matches at the World Cup are always tough,” Messi said after playing in the tournament for a record-setting sixth time, “and we’re seeing that nobody’s giving anything away.”

    Well, almost nothing. Algeria made some crucial mistakes on the first two of Messi’s goals, which came 20 years to the day that he made his World Cup debut for Argentina in a match against Serbia and Montenegro — he scored in that one, too.

    “We’re not talking about any old footballer,” Algeria coach Vladimir Petkovic said. “Unfortunately we also afford him the opportunity with the first and second goal, and we actually made it easier for him. But Messi, with his clear thinking in crucial stages of the game, is able to do things that much more easily.”

    Messi’s brilliant hat trick helped Argentina get off to a much better start than its last World Cup. Four years ago, La Albiceleste were beaten by Saudi Arabia in their opening match in Qatar, only to rally from there to win their third world title.

    “The first match is always tricky,” Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said. “We had stumbled in the last World Cup and we needed to have a good debut today.”

    Messi, who turns 39 next week, nearly had two other goals against Algeria, never once looking like the mild hamstring injury that worried fans in the run-up to the tournament was a problem. One found the back of the net but was called back because he was ever-so-slightly offside, and another strike in the second half just cleared the crossbar.

    He was a pest on defense, too, helping Argentina lock down the overmatched Les Fennecs.

    “Argentina have a special player who can change a game on his own,” Algeria star Riyad Mahrez said.

    Algeria’s best chance came in the opening minutes, when Fares Chaibi’s would-be goal was taken away by a VAR review that showed he was offside. Messi scored moments later, and the rest of the night belonged to him and Argentina.

    “I like playing soccer. It’s been my passion since I was little,” Messi said. “When I’m in good shape, I give it my all.”

    The game played at Arrowhead Stadium fulfilled the longtime dream of the late Lamar Hunt, who not only founded the NFL franchise that calls it home, but who was instrumental in the growth of soccer in the U.S. from the 1960s through the early 2000s.

    Hunt played a big role in the U.S. hosting the 1994 World Cup. His sons, Clark and Dan, are doing likewise with this edition.

    Among those in the crowd on a picture-perfect night in the Heartland were Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who traded in his usual red-and-yellow football uniform for a blue sweatsuit and white shirt, and his wife, Brittany.

    Argentina will continue its pursuit of back-to-back titles in Arlington, Texas, when it plays Austria on Monday and Jordan on June 27. Algeria plays Jordan on Monday in Santa Clara, California, before facing Austria in its Group J finale on June 27 in Kansas City.

    “The goal,” De Paul said, “is always to arrive on the first day and leave on the last.”

    ___

    AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/fifa-world-cup


  • Tunisia’s Hervé Renard embraces challenge against Japan in World Cup debut


    MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) — New Tunisia head coach Hervé Renard held his first practice with the squad on Tuesday, shortly after replacing Sabri Lamouchi, who was fired after the team’s 5-1 thumping to Sweden.

    The 57-year-old Frenchman had four days to get the team prepared for its second Group F game against Japan on Saturday.

    “At the moment we need to be focused on ourselves,” Renard told reporters at the team’s training ground just hours after flying into Monterrey. “We still have a few days to be ready.”

    Renard led Saudi Arabia at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where the Green Falcons earned a shocking 2-1 victory over favorite and eventual champion Argentina. In the 2018 tournament, his Moroccan side earned a draw against Spain but failed to reach the knockout stage.

    Renard said he was eager to experience the trill of the tournament again.

    “It’s a World Cup,” he said. “I know the passion around this event. That’s what motivated me to come and it’s a challenge which isn’t easy.”

    It’s not the first time Renard has replaced Lamouchi. The two-time Africa Cup of Nations winner succeeded his French counterpart in 2014 as head coach of Ivory Coast following its group stage exit at the World Cup.

    It would be a tough ask for Renard to guide Tunisia out of the group stage for the first time in seven World Cup appearances. After their loss to Sweden on Sunday, the Eagles of Carthage need results against Japan and group favorites Netherlands if they are to advance.

    “I’ve told them they have to keep their heads up, you’re here to represent your country,” Renard said.

    ___

    Maya Koluder-Ramirez and Ethan Wilcox are students in the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.


  • A look at presidential libraries as the Obama Presidential Center opens to the public this week


    NEW YORK (AP) — Whenever historian Geoffrey Ward visits the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum to do research, he finds himself caught up in the spirit of FDR himself, the sense of landed contentment and cheerful disarray that helped define his public image.

    “It feels like you’re stepping back into his world,” Ward said of the grounds in Hyde Park, New York, that once were home to the Roosevelt family. “The library and home collections reflect all his many interests — stamps, coins, birds he shot and had stuffed as a boy, model ships, children’s books, books about naval history, the pony-drawn sleigh he rode in as a child, and on and on.”

    Since FDR helped launch the modern system of presidential sites in the late 1930s, a network of museums and research facilities has grown nationwide, overseen in part by the National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA, but otherwise as varied as the men they honor. They are set everywhere from the scenic Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum in California’s Simi Valley to the small-town setting of the Herbert Hoover Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa, to the vast Barack Obama Presidential Center that opens to the public on Friday, Juneteenth, in Chicago.

    Historian Douglas Brinkley, who says he has visited all of the post-FDR libraries, calls them vital hubs for lectures, research, school tours and tourists.

    “Each of the libraries have their own aura,” Brinkley says. “Roosevelt came up with a perfect idea by gifting his home in Hyde Park to the people of America, instead of having his papers stored in a warehouse in Virginia or Maryland. He started a tradition of having them go where the president lived.”

    A little presidential spin

    Libraries carry with them a given president’s personality and legacy. Brinkley and others note that while the library archives are managed by NARA, the museum is funded by private donors who are likely to prefer a given president’s more favorable moments be emphasized or less favorable ones softened.

    On the Hoover website, a page dedicated to the Great Depression emphasizes that some of the policies enacted by Roosevelt, who easily defeated Hoover for reelection, were first proposed by Hoover. The Richard Nixon library in Yorba Linda, California, was for years at the heart of a battle between museum administrators and the former president and his supporters over everything from control of his archives to how much space should be dedicated to the Watergate scandal that helped lead to his resignation.

    Max Boot, author of a 2024 biography of Reagan, contrasted his access to the Reagan archives with the museum itself. The late president’s records were “administered by federal employees in an entirely professional and apolitical fashion. There is no attempt to hide anything,” he said. The museum “naturally focuses on Reagan’s achievements and shortchanges his failures.”

    “It’s designed to present a positive portrait. Thus, volumes critical of Reagan are not sold in the library bookstore,” Boot said.

    Historian Ted Widmer, a former speechwriter for Bill Clinton, said, “While it’s inevitable that the presidential libraries will present the highlights of a presidency, there has been some progress toward transparency in recent years.”

    He praised the Lyndon Johnson library, located in Austin, Texas, for its willingness to take on LBJ’s widely criticized handling of the Vietnam War. In 2023, the library helped revive interest in one of Johnson’s most notorious campaigns — the 1948 Senate campaign now widely believed to have been stolen — by posting recordings on its website of interviews by Associated Press reporter James W. Mangan with a former Texas election judge who acknowledged certifying false votes that helped LBJ win.

    “It is hard to know if future libraries will continue that trend, in an era in which history is increasingly politicized and polarized,” Widmer says. “But it’s healthy for our democracy to encourage the study of history as it really happened — not a sanitized version.”

    The Obama experience

    Obama officials have faced criticism for the center’s size and aesthetic — “The building has an ominous presence, its mostly windowless heft recalling a menacing sci-fi headquarters,” wrote The Guardian’s Oliver Wainwright — and for their decision not to have a NARA facility on site. A substantial amount of the former president’s records are digital, a trend Brinkley expects to continue with future libraries.

    As many as 1 million people are expected to visit the center’s 20-acre campus each year, with highlights including a public library branch, an NBA-grade basketball court, a fruit and vegetable garden and a playground. Obama tested out one of the high metal slides in May.

    “That was fantastic,” he said after zipping down, according to a video posted to the Obama Foundation’s social media. “I was a little tall for it.”

    Obama also decided many of the center’s details and features, from textured stone on the museum’s 225-foot tower to a pair of high-backed reading chairs inside the library. Among his favorite items, though, are charcoal grills that will be available for public use. He floated the idea to the public at a 2017 community meeting and was met with warm laughs from the hometown crowd.

    “We don’t have any folks who grill here?” Obama said at the time. “I thought this was the South Side of Chicago.”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed to this report.


  • Erling Haaland scores twice in World Cup debut as Norway tops Iraq 4-1


    FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — Norway will go as far in this World Cup as Erling Haaland takes it.

    In his tournament debut, he showed he’s more than up for that challenge.

    Haaland scored two goals, including one off a defensive blunder, on Tuesday to propel Norway to a 4-1 victory over Iraq in Group I.

    The Manchester City striker’s 56th and 57th international goals came in Norway’s first appearance in the tournament since reaching the knockout round at the 1998 World Cup in France — two years before Haaland was born.

    Haaland said he will do his best to meet the expectations he created with this performance.

    “Of course I will try,” Haaland said. “It’s about continuing and don’t think too much. It’s difficult at this stage. But I’ll focus on (the) next (game) and of course be happy. But also stay calm.”

    Norway coach Stale Solbakken said he had a feeling Haaland was ready after watching how loose he was in the team’s last training session before the match.

    “You could see that he lived up to the occasion,” Solbakken said. “The occasion wasn’t too big for him.”

    Leo Ostigard scored in the 76th minute off a corner kick from Martin Odegaard. An own-goal by Iraq forward Aymen Hussein just before the final whistle completed Norway’s scoring.

    Hussein also scored for his team, an equalizer just nine minutes after Haaland’s first strike.

    Haaland put the Norwegians in front for good just before halftime when he sneaked in front of a poor back pass to Iraq goalkeeper Jalal Hassan. Haaland beat Hassan to the ball, preempting his attempted clearance, and then used his shin to put the ball in the back of the net.

    “It’s one of those things. It happened,” Iraq coach Graham Arnold said. “It is what is and we have to learn from it.”

    Haaland’s first goal, which came in the 29th minute, followed a cross into the box from David Moller Wolfe. Haaland slid and used his right heel to finish it off. It ignited waves of cheers from the Norway supporters, who dominated the stands clad in red as they broke out in synchronized Viking row chants.

    Iraq, playing in the World Cup for just the second time after debuting in 1986, held its own with a sizable contingent of supporters that was mostly concentrated behind one of the goals.

    That energy helped Iraq briefly get back into the game.

    In the 38th minute, Amir Alammari corralled a ball on the baseline halfway between the left corner and the goal and fired a cross in front of the net. It eluded Norway’s defenders, allowing Hussein to punch a clean header that bounced under the hand of diving goalkeeper Orjan Nyland to even the score at 1-1.

    It was Hussein’s 34th international goal. That includes his winning goal against Bolivia in Iraq’s final World Cup qualifying match in April that gave the country the last spot in the 48-team tournament field.

    “It’s a proud moment to be back in the World Cup after 40 years. To lose 4-1, it hurts,” Iraq’s Hussein Ali said.

    ___

    AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup


  • Argentina is defending its World Cup title, and its fans are more obsessed than ever


    KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — As reigning champions Argentina returned to the World Cup stage Tuesday, there was no drive too long and no ticket too pricey for its most fervent fans.

    Three fans bicycled nearly 11,000 miles (17,700 kilometers) from South America to Kansas City, Missouri — without tickets in hand. One group drove 20 hours, living off sandwiches to save money. Daniel Otero, a 73-year-old attending his seventh tournament, is shelling out around $100,000 so he and his two sons can watch the team play over the coming weeks.

    “We are crazy for Argentina,” he said. “That’s why we spend so much money to see our country, our national team.”

    The obsession was rewarded in Kansas City as the team made opened its World Cup defense, defeating Algeria 3-0. Scoring all three of those goals was the legendary Lionel Messi who, turning 39 next week, could be playing in his last World Cup.

    “Argentina now is like the Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan,” said Juan Martin, 43, of Buenos Aires, Argentina, before the match. “In his prime, he had fans around the world. Argentina has fans around the world with Messi.”

    Martin plans to spend the next month following the team with his girlfriend, 31-year-old Agostina Gomez Uvia, a quest that he estimates will cost them $20,000 each. Similarly Otero is spending $40,000 on tickets alone.

    Otero and his son, Franco Otero, 27, marveled that U.S. families also were wearing Argentina jerseys, emblazoned with Messi’s name.

    “I can’t remember an Argentinian team without Messi,” Franco Otero said.

    “He changed the game,” agreed Manuel Valdes, a 29-year-old engineer from Corrientes, Argentina, who traveled to the match with his father and younger brother. “There’s a before and after in football.”

    In the parking lot outside the stadium, 11-year-old Andre Cornuz, of Miami, joined his father as he set up a flag atop a van before the game. In front, members of the band Los Sin Entradas (translation: Those Without Tickets) lined up drums. Passersby stopped to pose for photos in front of the display, which included a giant banner that read, “Lio Te Quiero” — “I love you, Lio” — and a photo of Messi.

    “I have been raised with Messi,” said Andre, whose father is from Argentina and who often travels back to visit his family. “I am very connected to the land.”

    The band’s next stop is Dallas, where Argentina is playing next, and then “wherever it takes us,” Andre said.

    Pam Kramer, the chief executive of the Kansas City organizing committee, has marveled over the past week at the lengths that Argentina fans have gone to support the three-time World Cup champions, including the trio that cycled their way to Kansas City in time for the opening match.

    “We had those three Argentine cyclists come here, and they came here without tickets. And the people in Johnson County (Kansas) were like, ‘You know what? We’re fans too. We’re going to make sure you get to a match,’” Kramer said, “and that’s genuine. Nobody is doing it for show. We want people to see what we see, that this place is pretty special.”

    Three hours before kickoff, fans already were lining up to get into the stadium. Jorgelina Skorput, 34, of New York City, waited with her friends as police officers on horseback patrolled the crowd. They drove two days to get here, munching on sandwiches and staying at an Airbnb an hour out of town because it was cheaper.

    All told, she figures the trip cost her $2,000, including the $800 game ticket.

    “I felt like this is the only time, the only opportunity I’m going to get to see the World Cup,” said Skorput, who was born in Rosario, Argentina, and moved to the U.S. when she was 9. “We’re the last champions.”

    ___

    AP Sports Writer David Skretta contributed to this report.

    ___

    AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup


  • Rapper Mystikal sentenced to 20 years in Louisiana rape case


    NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The rapper Mystikal, who received multiple Grammy nominations in the early 2000s, will serve 20 years in prison for raping a woman at his Louisiana home in 2022.

    Mystikal, whose given name is Michael Lawrence Tyler, pleaded guilty to third-degree rape in March with a sentencing cap of 20 years, five years less than the maximum punishment for the crime. His plea deal reduced the charge from first-degree rape, which carries an automatic life sentence.

    Days before his Tuesday sentencing hearing, he asked a judge to withdraw his guilty plea, saying he “did not have sufficient opportunity to fully consider the consequences,” according to ABC affiliate WBRZ.

    The victim spoke in court before sentencing and asked the judge to give Mystikal the maximum sentence, WBRZ reported. She reportedly said the rapper had punched her, choked her, pulled out her braids and forcibly raped her at his home in Prairieville, about 18 miles (29 kilometers) from Baton Rouge.

    “If I did that to you, I deserve the max sentence,” he said in response, according to the local TV station.

    A lawyer for the rapper did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Mystikal has been held without bond at the Ascension Parish Jail since his arrest in 2022.

    The Louisiana rapper rose to national recognition in the 1990s and is known for his 2000 hit “Shake Ya A(asterisk)(asterisk),” which was nominated for a Grammy in the best rap solo performance category.

    In 2003, he pleaded guilty to sexual battery and was sentenced to six years in prison. That same year he was a Grammy nominee in two categories: best rap album for “Tarantula” and best male rap solo performance for his single “Bouncin’ Back (Bumpin’ Me Against The Wall).”


  • Lionel Messi ties the World Cup goals record with an incredible hat trick as Argentina tops Algeria


    KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Lionel Messi used the front of his white-and-blue, sweat-soaked jersey to wipe the tears from his eyes, a flood of emotions cracking his usually calm, confident demeanor after he gave Argentina an early lead in its World Cup opener against Algeria.

    Then he scored again. And again.

    Suddenly, any questions about Messi’s hamstring injury, or whether he could help Argentina become the third team to win consecutive World Cups — even as his 39th birthday approaches next week — had been answered. With a brilliant hat trick in a 3-0 win over Les Fennecs, Messi moved into a tie with Germany’s Miroslav Klose for the tournament’s career scoring record.

    “My tears after the first goal? I’ve had some tough days. It wasn’t related to football. And those feelings were because of that,” Messi said afterward, without elaborating. “I thank my teammates, the coaching staff and the delegation for helping me.”

    Messi scored that emotional first goal in the opening minutes on a nifty feed from Inter Miami teammate Rodrigo De Paul, the second off an opportunistic rebound early in the second half, and the third on a crisp strike moments before subbing out to a standing ovation from a crowd of 69,045 tilted heavily toward the three-time World Cup champions.

    “At a loss for words about Leo. What can I say?” Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said. “He’s incredible.”

    Messi has starred in the World Cup for two decades

    His incredible trio of goals came 20 years to the day that Messi made his World Cup debut in a match against Serbia and Montenegro — he scored in that one, too — and made the pride of Rosario only the second player to score in five editions of the tournament.

    Messi has 16 goals in his record six World Cup appearances overall, and it seems inevitable that Klose’s record will fall in the coming weeks. The hat trick was the 61st of Messi’s career, his 11th while playing in his national team colors and his first in the World Cup.

    It also was the fifth straight World Cup game in which Messi has scored.

    “It makes me very happy to have lived through everything that came my way. What I’m living though now is the cherry on top,” Messi said. “I’m very happy an grateful for this wonderful group. I enjoy it so much.”

    Messi upstaged two of soccer’s other stars — Kylian Mbappé of France and Erling Haaland of Norway — who had big games of their own on Tuesday. Mbappé scored twice in France’s 3-1 win over Senegal to move into a tie for fourth on the World Cup goals list with 14, while Haaland scored twice for Norway in its 4-1 victory over Iraq.

    “Messi is a madman,” Haaland said in a post on Snapchat during Argentina’s game.

    Shaking off injury, Messi remains Argentina’s engine

    Messi had been dealing with a minor hamstring injury with Inter Miami that slowed him in the lead-up to the World Cup. But the eight-time winner of the Ballon d’Or, which honors global soccer’s best player, had no problems in a tuneup last week with Iceland, scoring on a penalty kick while playing 20 minutes in a sharp performance.

    “This is my sixth World Cup, and I still feel like I’m in good shape,” Messi said. “Fortunately, I’m doing well, and today we managed to win a tough match. It’s important to start the tournament with a victory in the first game, as that’s never easy in a World Cup.”

    Messi’s appearance against Algeria was the 200th of his international career, which began in 2005 at age of 18. The only players with more are Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, who will play his 229th on Wednesday, and Bader al-Mutawa, who played in 202 for Kuwait.

    Messi and Ronaldo are the only players to have scored in five World Cups.

    “Class is permanent,” Algeria coach Vladimir Petkovic said. “He’s fortunate to have the privilege that the entire Argentina team works for him, and supports him, and for a number of years now — decades — he’s done incredible things.”

    Fans flock to Kansas City for a glimpse of the GOAT

    Argentina is among four national teams making their base camps in the Kansas City metro. And much as it has the rest of the world, Messi-mania has swept through the area ever since La Albiceleste’s arrival in the Heartland about two weeks ago.

    On match day, thousands of fans wearing his No. 10 jersey trekked into the home of the NFL’s Chiefs on the outskirts of Kansas City, singing odes to their hero. Meanwhile, during a watch party at the downtown Power & Light District, a goat accompanied by former NFL quarterback-turned Fox broadcaster Jameis Winston came on stage wearing an Argentina jersey.

    The humorous moment seemed to have foreshadowed a big night for Messi when he scored an hour later, and the argument that he’s soccer’s GOAT — the greatest of all time — is becoming no argument at all with every match he plays.

    “It’s an advantage to have Leo because of how he handles the group and pushes it forward. Because of who he is,” De Paul said. “He doesn’t care about individual records. He prioritizes the group, and for us it’s incredible.”

    ___

    AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/fifa-world-cup


  • Federal government seeks to halt the first U.S. reparations program for Black people


    The federal government on Tuesday asked a judge to halt the United States’ first reparations program that offered Black people in a small Illinois city $25,000 for 20th century race-based housing discrimination, joining an existing lawsuit that called the program unconstitutional.

    The program, launched in Evanston, Illinois in 2021, is the first and only one of its kind in the U.S., allotting $20 million to Black residents — their direct descendants — who lived in the city between 1919 and 1969 and suffered housing discrimination because of city ordinances, policies or practices. Residents, regardless of race, who experienced discrimination due to the city’s policies or practices after 1969 also qualified.

    The city has already distributed over $7 million — using revenue from a local tax on legal marijuana sales — to hundreds of people in $25,000 increments to be used for home repairs, down payments on property, and interest or late penalties on property in the city.

    The U.S. Department of Justice called the program “racially discriminatory” in a court filing Tuesday, saying that it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution because it allotted different benefits on the basis of race.

    “There are sound ways for a city to remedy past discrimination or direct resources to its most vulnerable citizens and neighborhoods. Simply handing out money based on race, however, is not the answer,” Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.

    Approximately 14% of the city’s roughly 76,000 residents are Black, according to the U.S. Census, with 11% identifying as more than one race. A majority of the city’s Black residents live in the city’s Fifth and Second Wards, which are historically low-income areas, according to a 2024 study on the reparations program.

    Reparations have long been a hot topic

    Reparations has been a hot-button issue across the country since the abolition of slavery in 1865. But it has become especially polarizing in recent years after momentum grew for similar programs across the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death in police custody in 2020. At least five states, including California, New York and Maryland, and more than a dozen cities, including Boston, Detroit and Philadelphia, have created have created task forces or commissions to study slavery reparations. But none have gone as far as Evanston to actually distribute resources.

    Robin Rue Simmons, who pioneered the program in Evanston and now leads the committee that presides over the funds, said that the lawsuit and the federal government’s support is a “fear tactic” aimed at dissuading other governments from pursuing similar programs.

    Michael Bekesha, one of the attorneys who initially sued the City of Evanston on behalf of six plaintiffs in May 2024, said in an interview that applicants weren’t required to demonstrate that they were specifically harmed by the City of Evanston, leaving race as the only criteria. His clients would all be eligible for the program if they were Black, he said.

    Bekesha said Evanston’s program is different from those in the past, pointing to the program that compensated Japanese people after the U.S. government imprisoned over 100,000 people in internment camps during World War II, or the people in Chicago who were paid after being tortured by the city’s police department between the 1970s and the early 1990s.

    “Reparations programs aren’t new, but they’ve always been lawful, they’ve always been connected to specific harms, specific injuries suffered by specific individuals,” Bekesha said. “And here in Evanston, there is no connection between the individuals receiving the money and any action taken by the city of Evanston at any point.”

    Simmons vehemently disputed the idea that the program wasn’t tailored to specific historical policies. She said redlining policies across the city between 1919 and 1969 harmed Black communities for generations, mirroring a prevalent practice nationwide wherein banks and property owners wouldn’t sell or rent to Black families in areas with more wealth. Those policies, she said, often limited access to high-paying jobs, healthcare and education.

    “Evanston has set a new precedent. It has shown that racial reparations are possible,” Simmons said.

    Conservatives reject race-based reparations

    The Trump administration’s move to halt the program is in lockstep with a broader conservative rejection of race-based reparations, and it is a decisive shift from former President Joe Biden’s broad support of a congressional inquiry into ways to address the government’s long history of racial subjugation.

    It is also a departure from prevailing attitudes among international governing bodies like the United Nations, which recently adopted a resolution that urged countries to implement reparations for the trafficking of Africans into slavery around the world. The U.S. was one of three countries that rejected the measure, with the United Kingdom and all 27 European Union countries abstaining from the vote.


  • Trump administration uses hydrogen peroxide and tiny bubbles against algae in Reflecting Pool


    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s remodeled Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool with its “American flag blue” bottom has turned chartreuse from an algal bloom that park service workers struggled to address Tuesday just days after its more than $14 million renovation.

    The Washington Monument is once again visible in the refilled pool, but Trump’s vision of an azure expanse between the D.C. landmarks has been complicated by the harsh realities of chemistry and biology known to any backyard pool owner. The work has been confounded by the unique challenges posed by the scale of the structure, bigger than 10 Olympic-sized pools — which Trump has called a lake — and the source of its water: the often-fetid Tidal Basin.

    Algae has plagued the site since it opened more than 100 years ago, but Trump set his sights on addressing it as part of his aggressive push to beautify Washington as the country approaches its 250th anniversary. Contracts worth at least $14.8 million have been awarded for the project, announced in April by Trump, who said he was inspired by complaints from a friend visiting from Germany who called the pool dark and disgusting.

    Teams of National Park Service employees and contractors deployed chemicals and ozone nanobubbles Tuesday in a bid to keep the algae in check, not dissimilar from efforts to clean the pool before Trump’s renovation kicked off.

    “What do you expect?” asked Cochise Wanzer II, president of the Pool Service Company in Arlington, Virginia. “You’re basically taking natural, untreated river water, pumping it in and expecting it to do something different from what it would do out in the open.”

    And the new coat of paint on the bottom of the pool has added an additional twist to ensuring the cleanliness of one of Washington’s most memorable destinations: “Now that the bottom is nice and dark, it elevates the temperature and the algae grows better,” said Wanzer.

    The chemicals and ozone nanobubbles — a water purification treatment used to avoid some harsh chemicals — were one part of the effort underway to clean the Reflecting Pool. Workers used a swimming pool-type vacuum cleaner to suck up algae from the bottom, leaving behind clean patches of American Flag Blue paint adjacent to enormous swaths of green algae in a pattern familiar to anyone who has ever vacuumed a carpet before.

    The park service said in a statement it is also using hydrogen peroxide, a milder treatment than chlorine and one used in spas and natural swimming pools. “There are no harmful side effects to marine life or to the environment,” it said.

    As the mitigation work continued, a contractor took off his socks and shoes and rolled up his pants to his knees and proceeded to wade into the pool to place an ozone nanobubble tube as tourists and locals milled about on a sunny morning.

    Rick and Ariana Pettit, a couple from Las Vegas who are road tripping in their RV across the United States, posed for photos at the iconic site of protests and marches as cleaning continued. Dressed in American flag-themed leggings and a Make America Great Again leotard, Pettit remarked to her husband, attired in an “Veteran for Trump” American flag button-up: “Look, it’s already looking more blue.”

    Wanzer was blunt in his assessment of what it would take to maintain the pool as an algae-free space: “They may want to drain it, hose it all down, and start from the beginning with fresh water and treat it as the water comes in.”


  • In boost to Musk, Justice Department seeks to dismiss air pollution lawsuit against xAI data center


    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is helping one of Elon Musk’s companies fight a civil rights lawsuit that alleges it is illegally running dozens of natural gas turbines to power a $20 billion AI data center in Mississippi.

    The NAACP and other groups say Musk’s xAI subsidiary failed to get a permit for its power plant — which is located near homes, schools and churches — creating health risks for families in North Mississippi and nearby Memphis and violating the federal Clean Air Act.

    The Justice Department, in a motion late Monday, sought to intervene in the case and dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the plant is needed to power an artificial intelligence data center that is “critical to the economy” and the U.S. military.

    The state of Mississippi — not the federal government — is responsible for any permits for the power plant and “decided no permit was required,” the Justice Department said in a statement.

    “Ultimate responsibility for enforcing federal law belongs to the Executive Branch, not private interest groups,” said Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who is No. 3 at the Justice Department. The motion to intervene in the case is intended to protect national security and promote American energy and innovation, he added.

    Trump wants to assert American leadership in AI

    The Trump administration has made AI a top national and economic security priority. It has also upended policies meant to address climate change and has worked to undo environmental regulations on business.

    President Donald Trump also has had close ties to Musk, who led his federal government cost-saving initiative, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, early last year. Crowned the world’s first trillionaire Friday when SpaceX went public, Musk financed Trump’s presidential campaign more than any other donor and is pouring money into midterms.

    The Justice Department action comes just days after SpaceX, Musk’s rocket company and the parent of defendant xAI, pulled off the biggest initial offering of stock ever, partly due to the Trump administration’s help supplying it with billions of dollars in federal contracts. SpaceX has a total value of more than $2 trillion, making it bigger than Exxon Mobil, Bank of America and Coca-Cola combined.

    The NAACP lawsuit, filed in April, accuses xAI of running dozens of portable natural gas turbines without proper controls to limit emissions and without the permitting required by the Clean Air Act., which requires industrial polluters to obtain air permits before construction or operation.

    The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday referred questions on the case to the Justice Department, saying it is not a party in the dispute.

    The Justice Department action was not about national security, but instead was a “desperate attempt to protect wealthy tech companies from obeying the laws meant to protect people from pollution,” said Laura Thoms, director of enforcement for Earthjustice, an environmental law firm that represents the NAACP with co-counsel Southern Environmental Law Center.

    “Trump’s Justice Department wants to shield Elon Musk’s data center company, xAI, from being held accountable for its illegal pollution — and it’s attempting to grab power from impacted communities, the courts and Congress to do so,” Thoms said.

    AI data centers are turning communities into ‘sacrifice zones,’ critics say

    The data center and its pollution are “turning our communities into sacrifice zones,” Thoms added.

    Abre’ Conner, the NAACP’s director of environmental and climate justice, said the Clean Air Act was designed to hold polluters accountable for decisions that cause harm to communities. “This should not be up for debate, and the NAACP will continue to stand up for democracy and against federal bullying and authoritarianism,” Conner said.

    The NAACP brought the complaint under a provision of the Clean Air Act that allows groups or individuals to sue in “citizen suits” to compel enforcement of the law — a power that the Trump administration now is saying it can undo.

    “This is particularly audacious because it is supposedly grounded in constitutional powers,” said Ann Carlson, a professor at the UCLA School of Law. The Justice Department is saying it “can step in and dismiss a lawsuit on any ground and all grounds.”

    Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, said xAI is building a “self-generating power facility” to ensure area residents don’t face rate increases from surging demand, an action he said conforms to Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge. Tech giants including xAI, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, OpenAI and Amazon signed the pledge in March as a backlash grew against data centers over fears about rising electricity prices and concerns about pollution and water consumption.

    The NAACP lawsuit seeks to “materially slow or outright stop the largest private investment in Mississippi’s history,” Reeves said in a letter included in the Justice Department filing. The overall project has created thousands of construction jobs and will create hundreds of permanent jobs once it is completed, Reeves said.

    The Justice Department, in a statement Tuesday, said the Pentagon is one of many federal agencies that use AI.

    “Overly burdensome regulation, including private lawsuits that seek to implement their own environmental enforcement, can threaten technological growth, American energy independence and national security,” the statement said.

    SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment. It has previously said that it is in full compliance with the law and takes its environmental responsibilities seriously.

    ___

    Condon reported from New York.