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  • Jannik Sinner keeps evolving his game. Just like Federer, Nadal and Djokovic before him


    LONDON (AP) — A perfectly-placed topspin lob winner that sailed beyond reach of his 6-foot-6 (1.98-meter) opponent and landed on the outside of the baseline in the second game.

    A delicate drop shot which made Alexander Zverev change direction so suddenly that the German player over-extended his right knee at a crucial point of the third set.

    Sure, there were plenty of the usual whizzing, missile-like baseline winners from Jannik Sinner in his four-set victory over Zverev in the Wimbledon final. He also showed off the new variety of his game, though — which came in handy when Zverev unleashed more power than he had used before against the top-ranked player.

    The variety of shots were what Sinner’s two coaches, Darren Cahill and Simone Vagnozzi, appreciated most from their player in Sunday’s match.

    Just like the Big Three and Big Four before them — Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray — Sinner, Zverev and Carlos Alcaraz (who is out injured) are continually evolving their games, Cahill noted.

    “Alexander is now playing a different style of tennis against Jannik,” Cahill said. “We know Jannik is going to have to improve in certain areas to handle that type of game. Carlos is going to come back really strong, as well — as we all hope … You need to keep adding things to his game.

    “We saw a lot of the stuff he doesn’t normally like doing, even in the final today: sliced backhands, a couple lobs, couple drop shots. Really stepping up when he needed to in the big moments.”

    Deficit to Alcaraz in Slams count reduced

    Sinner’s second consecutive Wimbledon victory matched the two titles that Alcaraz won before him at the All England Club and raised his overall tally to five Grand Slams — narrowing the gap to Alcaraz’s seven.

    Alcaraz missed the French Open and Wimbledon this year due to a right wrist injury and it remains unclear if he’ll return in time for the year’s final Grand Slam at the U.S. Open.

    Zverev’s performance in London leapfrogged him ahead of Alcaraz into the No. 2 spot when the new rankings were released Monday.

    Zverev’s run on the grass followed his first major title at the French Open last month – after Sinner’s stunning second-round meltdown in Paris.

    “Big, big respect to Sascha, because he’s doing something amazing. His game is growing and growing,” Sinner said, using Zverev’s nickname. “You have always someone who is pushing you to the limit. We hope that Carlos is coming back, as well, because tennis needs him.

    “Having Novak still around, having all the young players coming, it’s really, really nice,” added Sinner, who beat the 39-year-old Djokovic in the semifinals. “At the same time, you always need to work hard.”

    Sinner’s mom couldn’t watch on Centre Court

    Sinner twice had to come back from a set down in a five-set marathon against Miomir Kecmanovic in the first round — when he also had to deal with blood seeping through his shoe due to a toenail issue.

    He didn’t lose another set until Zverev unleashed a barrage of serves at up to 139 mph (224 kph) and backed those up with huge forehands to the corners.

    Sinner knew he had a challenge to face when the first-set tiebreaker was decided by an inside-out forehand winner from Zverev.

    So did Sinner’s mom, Siglinde, who couldn’t bare to watch some of the more tense moments on Centre Court.

    “My mom, I see her, she left the stadium a couple of times,” Sinner said on court during his victory speech, glancing over after she had returned in time for the trophy ceremony. “It’s not easy.”

    Chasing the sun

    Amid stifling heat and humidity in Paris in late May, Sinner had his 30-match winning streak ended after coming within one game of a straight-set victory over Juan Manuel Cerundolo, who was ranked No. 56.

    Sinner went in for medical exams in Milan after the Paris defeat and acknowledged during Wimbledon that doctors discovered what was bothering him — without revealing the details.

    “His medical records are his medical records. We won’t speak about any of that,” Cahill said. “But it’s up to us to make some changes, to do some little things differently.”

    Sinner now leaves the court often between sets to refresh himself, change his shirt and get a moment of air-conditioning. During another heat wave the week before Wimbledon began, he used an ice vest to cool down.

    “Look, he’s a redhead that lives in the north of Italy, that grew up in the snow and the Alps. Hot weather is a little bit different for him than it is for most people,” Cahill said.

    “The more time he spends in the heat, the better he’s going to be at it,” Cahill added. “We might even make some changes to the preseason, chasing the sun a little bit more, getting him more acclimatized to playing in these types of conditions.”

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    AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis


  • Crash of a helicopter helping to fight a Colorado wildfire leaves the pilot dead


    GUNNISON, Colo. (AP) — A helicopter helping fight a Colorado wildfire has crashed into a reservoir, killing the pilot, authorities said.

    The aircraft was reported down Sunday in the Silver Jack Reservoir and the pilot’s body was recovered by divers. The Gunnison County Sheriff’s Office identified the pilot as 56-year-old Nicholas Dale of Sooke, British Columbia.

    A procession of law enforcement vehicles carried Dale’s body from Gunnison to Grand Junction on Monday. The convoy was greeted by residents who wanted to show their support for the pilot and the thousands of firefighters assigned to blazes burning across the West.

    Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said state flags will fly at half-staff when a memorial service is scheduled for Dale, a contract pilot who leaves behind a wife and two children.

    “We are committed to supporting our brave firefighters and their families, and the state stands ready to support any investigation into this tragic incident,” Polis said.

    The Federal Aviation Administration said the aircraft was a Kaman Aerospace K-1200 helicopter that “crashed under unknown circumstances, becoming inverted,” according to its preliminary report. Federal registration data shows the helicopter was owned by Georgia-based Helicopter Express, which has a fleet of nearly four dozen helicopters used for firefighting, heavy lifting and construction projects.

    The company in a statement issued Monday confirmed Dale’s death.

    “This is a heartbreaking loss for everyone at Helicopter Express and throughout the aerial firefighting community,” the statement reads. “Nick’s dedication, professionalism, and commitment to protecting others will never be forgotten.”

    The pilot, the only person on board, was assisting firefighters with the Gold Mountain Fire, which has grown to about 57 square miles (148 square kilometers) in southwestern Colorado. It was 11% contained as of Monday.

    The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation, the FAA said in a statement.

    Last week, wildland firefighters in Colorado gathered to pay tribute to three of their own who died after they were trapped by flames on the Colorado-Utah border.

    Many large fires are still going strong across the West. They are scattered around Colorado, Utah and New Mexico while there are wildfires in eight other states — from Alaska to Arizona.

    Prolonged hot and dry conditions this week will bring fire weather concerns, the National Weather Service said.


  • Darline Graham Nordone, sister of Lindsey Graham, chosen to fulfill remainder of his US Senate term


    COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, has been named as his temporary replacement in the U.S. Senate after his unexpected death over the weekend.

    South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster announced at a news conference at the Statehouse on Monday that Nordone would serve the remaining months on Graham’s current term, which expires in January. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said afterward that she will be sworn in Tuesday afternoon.

    Nordone will be the first woman to represent the state in the Senate.

    “It is such an honor,” she said, as dozens of Graham staffers and campaign advisers stood behind her, some with eyes glassy from welling tears. “Lindsey has always been there for me. And now, I will be there for him.”

    Graham died on Saturday at age 71. He never married or had a family of his own, but Nordone was often by his side for the political touch points of his career, speaking at events and appearing in some of his campaign ads.

    After their parents died at a young age, Graham was left to raise his sister, for whom he later became legal guardian. They were very close, and she was there as he filed reelection paperwork earlier this year, along with her children and grandchildren.

    “To Lindsey, I miss you more than I can even put into words,” Nordone said, emotion rising in her voice. “But I’m going to do this. I got it.”

    Introducing Nordone, McMaster said the two had spoken “in the wee hours of Sunday morning” after Graham’s death, and he asked her to serve.

    “I had wondered what you would say, and I was humbled by your quickness to see the duty that you had to serve,” McMaster said. He added that President Donald Trump “thought it was a great idea” when he later told him of his pick. Trump announced his support for Nardone to fill the seat earlier Monday.

    Nordone has worked as an optician and at various state agencies, including the South Carolina Commission for the Blind and the Department of Employment and Workforce. She lives in Lexington, is a graduate of the College of Charleston and has a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling.

    How will a special primary work?

    A special election will be held next month to pick a new Republican nominee in the general election for Graham’s seat. He had been seeking a fifth term this year.

    The rare open Senate seat has ignited a scramble among South Carolina’s most ambitious conservatives, who have been eager to climb the political ladder.

    Republicans just finished a sprawling and bruising contest to figure out their nominee for succeeding McMaster, who is wrapping up his second term. State Attorney General Alan Wilson won the nomination, overcoming a field that included Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, Rep. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman — all of whom are now eyeing Graham’s seat following his death over the weekend.

    According to South Carolina law, a one-week filing period for a special primary election begins on the second Tuesday after the candidate’s death, or July 21.

    The special primary election would be held on the second Tuesday after that filing period closes, or Aug. 11. Any necessary runoff would follow two weeks after that, or Aug. 25.

    From that point, the new nominee would have just over two months to campaign for the general election on Nov. 3.

    All of this is problematic according to federal law, which requires military and overseas ballots to go out 45 days before any federal election. For the special election primary, that would have been June 27. Federal Election Commission officials didn’t immediately return a message seeking clarity about the process.

    Who could replace Graham?

    Graham died on Saturday night, and a preliminary medical examiner report said he suffered a tear in his aorta, known as an aortic dissection.

    In the hours after Graham’s death was announced, South Carolina’s Republican circles were already swirling with rumors about possible replacements.

    Evette, who has served nearly eight years alongside McMaster and received his endorsement in the governor’s race, is one possibility. She lost the June 23 runoff to Wilson.

    Mace and Norman could run in the special primary as well. Neither of them are running for reelection to their House seats.

    But another Republican from the state, Rep. Russell Fry, could be a possibility. The two-term lawmaker represents the growing area around Myrtle Beach, and he’s been a top Trump ally.

    Businessman Mark Lynch, whom Graham defeated in the primary, may jump into the race. So could Mark Sanford, the state’s former governor who served two separate stints in the House.

    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who lived in South Carolina before joining the Trump administration, has fielded calls about potentially replacing Graham but doesn’t have interest in the role and enjoys working for the president, according to a person who insisted on anonymity to describe private conversations.

    How does Graham’s death affect the general election?

    No Democrat has won a Senate seat in South Carolina in decades, and Republicans in recent history typically take statewide seats by double digits. When Graham last ran in 2020, he defeated his Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison, by a 10 percentage point margin.

    So while history suggests that Graham was en route to a fifth term, Republicans are carefully surveying the landscape.

    Charleston pediatrician Annie Andrews won the Democratic nomination last month and has raised more than $8 million in the race, and she had just under $3 million cash on hand at the end of May, according to federal filings. Graham had taken in $6 million, with just over $4 million on hand.

    In a statement Sunday, Andrews called on South Carolinians to join her “in setting partisanship aside and offering gratitude” to Graham for his service.

    Harrison, noting that he and Graham “had our share of political disagreements,” wrote on social media that he “always appreciated that even in our fiercest political battles, we could still share a conversation, a laugh, and a mutual respect for South Carolina and the institutions we were both privileged to serve.”

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    Associated Press writer Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.

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    Kinnard reported from Charleston, South Carolina, and can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.


  • EU and Britain target Russian intelligence officers over a major cyberspying campaign


    BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union and Britain on Monday imposed sanctions on Russian military intelligence officers, hackers and private companies, denouncing what they described as a yearslong cyberespionage campaign to undermine governments in Europe.

    The EU decision affects nine people and four entities accused of links to an online spying network that the bloc said has targeted governments and carried out sabotage operations against critical infrastructure like heating and power plants since 2010. Britain slapped sanctions on 24 people and entities.

    EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said those hit by the sanctions “contribute to Russia’s efforts to destabilize the EU, its member states and international partners.”

    France, Germany, Poland, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Austria, Slovakia, Romania and Finland, “among others,” have fallen prey to the network, she said in a statement.

    Germany summoned Russia’s ambassador, and French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Paris intends to call in Russia’s envoy in the coming days. He told French BFM television that the aim of the cyberactivities is “either to capture information, or sabotage the operation, for example, of railway infrastructures, as it was the case in Poland.”

    The EU focused its sanctions, which are mostly asset freezes and travel bans, on the 16th Center of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB. Kallas said the FSB has been “controlling a variety of cyberthreat groups,” and said it “has conducted a wide range of malicious cyberactivities with growing severity.”

    Some countries have accused Russia of using cyberattacks and propaganda to interfere with elections.

    In April, Sweden said a pro-Russian group with links to Russia’s security and intelligence services was behind a cyberattack on a heating plant last year. The announcement followed warnings from officials in Poland, Norway, Denmark and Latvia that Russia is attacking critical infrastructure across Europe.

    With its sanctions, the EU notably targeted a member of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency, Yevgeny Bashev, and a company it says he runs, Impuls.

    “The company provides technical and material support to cyberattacks and attempted cyberattacks conducted by GRU Unit 29155,” the sanctions notification said. It said the actions of Impuls “constitute an external threat” to EU member countries and have had “a significant effect” on an unnamed country outside the bloc.

    Britain said Impuls recruited hackers and cyber specialists from Russian universities and academies. It slapped sanctions on Bashev as well as three other senior GRU officials “for their role in directing GRU cyber and hybrid threat operations.”

    Britain believes Russian intelligence agencies “have tasked cybercriminals to collect intelligence to support Russia’s military and foreign policy objectives, threatening security across Europe.”


  • Massive AI buildout poses latest inflation threat as consumers pay more for laptops and electricity


    WASHINGTON (AP) — American consumers — and the Federal Reserve — are being hit with another high-cost headache.

    The gusher of investment in data centers — likely topping $700 billion this year — to power artificial intelligence has made memory chips, computer processors and other equipment, as well as electricity, more expensive. Economists expect it will continue to push up inflation at least through the end of this year.

    While it won’t be as large a spike as occurred in 2021-2023, when inflation peaked at 9.1%, massive AI spending is likely to keep prices rising more quickly than the Federal Reserve would like. Such increases could lead the central bank to lift its key interest rate later this year to cool spending and bring down inflation. Higher rates from the Fed often boost borrowing costs for auto loans, mortgages, and business loans.

    Fed officials will closely watch June’s inflation report, to be released Tuesday, for further signs of AI’s impact on prices. Inflation last month likely cooled as gasoline prices have fallen after a ceasefire was reached between the U.S. and Iran, though whether that trend continues is now unclear as the U.S. and Iran have resumed fighting.

    AI spending is lifting prices for consumer electronics

    Just four large tech companies — Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft — are expected to invest $720 billion this year, mostly on data centers.

    Those data centers use a lot of semiconductors, and chip supplies have run low. As a result, economists at JPMorgan Chase estimate that the cost of some computer memory chips will have soared by as much as 400% between 2024 and the end of this year.

    Americans are already seeing higher prices for a range of consumer electronics, including laptops, smartphones, video game consoles, and computers. Electricity prices are also jumping as data centers absorb a growing share of new electrical capacity.

    In a high-profile announcement last month, Apple announced it was boosting prices for laptops and iPads by about 15% to 25%. A topline MacBook will now cost $1,999, up from $1,699.

    Many analysts expect price hikes will come for iPhones next.

    “The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage,” Apple said in a statement. “We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.”

    On the same day, Microsoft announced that the price of its Xbox video game console will increase $100 by Aug. 1, citing higher prices for memory chips. Sony is also charging more for the PlayStation, while Dell Computer and HP have raised prices for their laptops.

    A “wave of AI-related cost pressures spilling over into consumer prices is still in the early stages of building,” analysts at investment bank Evercore ISI recently wrote.

    It’s the latest in a series of waves that have boosted inflation

    The impact on broader measures of inflation may be relatively modest, with many economists forecasting that AI investment will boost core consumer prices, which exclude food and energy, by roughly a half-percentage point by the end of this year.

    Still, that could be enough to offset declining prices elsewhere, as the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs continues to fade and as rental costs cool. Core inflation, according to the Fed’s preferred measure, was 3.4% in May and some economists now expect it may decline only slightly by the end of the year, remaining well above the Fed’s 2% target.

    The boost from AI may prove temporary, but it follows previous waves of higher prices stemming from tariffs and the gas price spike resulting from the Iran war. The Fed typically “looks through,” or ignores, temporary price increases, rather than boosting rates to fight them, but an ongoing series of temporary price shocks could threaten to create more sustained inflation, which has already been above the Fed’s target for more than five years.

    “In isolation one or two such shocks is perhaps transitory, something they’re willing to live with,” said Abiel Reinhart, an economist at J.P. Morgan. “A sustained series of shocks, or a wider range of shocks, becomes more concerning to them.”

    Federal Reserve officials have increasingly focused on AI

    Fed policymakers are increasingly focused on AI’s inflationary impact. Kevin Warsh, who took over as chair May 22, has said he believes that over time AI will make the U.S. economy more efficient, which should reduce inflation even as growth accelerates.

    He acknowledged in remarks July 1, however, that AI investment is now boosting demand, but declined to speculate on how inflationary the impact would be.

    Yet many Fed officials worry that demand for AI-related gear will continue to outstrip available supply, a recipe for persistent price increases.

    “If this creates a sustained impulse to demand relative to supply in inflation, I do think that’s the kind of situation where you don’t look through this,” John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said Thursday. Williams is also vice chair of the Fed’s rate-setting committee. Williams has supported keeping rates unchanged, but his comment suggests that under some scenarios he could support a hike.

    According to the minutes of the Fed’s June 16-17 policy meeting, released Wednesday, many other officials share Williams’ concerns.

    Another channel through which AI could raise inflation is through its huge demand for electricity, which has caused many utilities to raise prices. Power companies throughout the U.S. are adding more capacity, an expensive step that can also boost electricity costs.

    According to the government’s consumer price index, electricity prices rose 5.9% in May compared with a year earlier, a bigger increase than overall inflation, which was 4.2%. After a pandemic spike, electricity price gains had dropped back to about 2% annually in early 2025.

    While prices for computer chips could peak this year and then decline, experts expect electricity demand from AI will push up utility costs into 2028 or even beyond. In February, economists at Goldman Sachs forecast that electricity prices will rise 6% this year and next, and an above-average 3% in 2028.

    “We do know what effect AI is having on inflation now, and it is inflationary, not deflationary,” Dario Perkins, an economist at TSLombard, wrote this week.


  • EU chief weighs age restrictions for children using social media


    BRUSSELS (AP) — A top European Union official on Monday called for limits to be placed on children using social media as a special EU panel looking into the challenge recommended forbidding access for those under 13 until tech companies can prove their platforms are safe.

    Growing awareness of the dangers social media poses for young, developing brains has shown up in a wave of new restrictions globally. Australia, the U.K., Turkey, Indonesia and others have passed bans on kids under 16 or 15 from using platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.

    Laying out a list of her concerns about the use of social media by kids, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — a doctor by training — said that children under 3 should have no exposure to screens at all.

    “I believe we need to consider phased and gradual access for different age ranges because childhood won’t wait and once it’s gone, we can never give it back,” von der Leyen told reporters.

    “Just as we don’t give our children keys to the car before they have their license, or we do not let them buy alcohol until they are legally allowed. We need to set the age at which they can, the children can, legally access social media,” she said.

    Von der Leyen noted infinite scrolling as one of the “addictive” traits that tech companies must address.

    The commission has also been targeting tech companies through other means, and last week used its sweeping Digital Safety Act to warn Meta that it needs to disable addictive design features such as infinite scrolling or risk a hefty fine.

    Von der Leyen said there should “phased and gradual access for different age ranges” to social media. Children under 13 should only have “time-limited” access under the supervision of parents, teachers or other caregivers, she told reporters.

    Teenagers should be given gradual access to platforms that can prove they are “age appropriate” and safe for them, she said.

    While she didn’t go into further detail, she and the European Commission — the EU’s powerful executive branch — are likely to come up with a proposal for the 27 member countries to weigh in the near future. Von der Leyen’s policy proposals carry great influence with EU member countries.

    A special panel set up to study child safety online delivered its report to the EU chief on Monday. The report said that when it comes to safety, “the burden of proof needs to be on providers, not regulators, parents and children.”

    “Until they demonstrate that their services are safe by design, social media and other digital services providers should have restricted access to children under the age of 13 in the EU,” said the report, which is likely to influence von der Leyen’s thinking.

    It recommended that “further precautionary age restrictions” should be considered by EU countries for children over 13.

    Many social media platforms including Instagram and TikTok already prohibit anyone under the age of 13 from signing up for an account. But those restrictions have been criticized for being too easy to get around and the EU’s digital regulators accused Instagram’s parent Meta Platforms earlier this year of failing to keep underage users of the site.

    The European Commission is working on its own age verification app that will let users prove their age while keeping their identity anonymous.

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    Chan reported from Toronto.


  • The heat is on: The average MLB fastball velocity is up for the 6th straight year to 94.7 mph


    NEW YORK (AP) — Chad Tracy notices how much baseball has changed in the 13 years since he took his last big league at-bat.

    “You watch a Triple-A game, most everybody that’s coming out of the bullpen left-handed or right-handed is throwing 95-plus,” the Boston Red Sox manager said. “Back in the day, it was you’d get a lead and you’d get to the lower part of a bullpen and you’d see some guys coming out throwing 88.”

    Heading into the All-Star break, velocity is on track to set a record for the sixth straight season.

    Four-seam fastballs averaged 94.7 mph through Saturday, up from 94.5 mph last year, 93.7 mph in 2021 and 91.9 mph when Major League Baseball first started tracking in 2008. The average was 94.4 mph for the first half of 2025, and this year’s final figure could increase by a tick.

    “Definitely expecting anybody you’ve never heard of to throw a 95-plus,” said the New York Mets’ Marcus Semien, a three-time All-Star who made his major league debut in 2013, when four-seamers averaged 92.7 mph. “Before you’d know who the guys were who were throwing 98. Now, you just expect that this new guy is probably throwing 98. So that shows how everybody’s trained.”

    Expectations have changed. In David Auburn’s “Proof,” which won the 2001 Pulitzer Price for Drama, a mathematical research work is described as “streamlined: no wasted moves, like a 95-mile-an-hour fastball. It’s just … elegant.”

    That figure no longer is notable.

    Right-handed pitchers are averaging 95.2 mph in 2026, up from 95.0 mph last year. Right-handed relievers are averaging 95.6 mph.

    The Triple-A average of 93.6 mph is up from 92.7 mph when tracking started at that level in 2022.

    “People are learning the biomechanics of the body a lot better and it’s easier to figure out why people are throwing hard,” said Athletics pitcher Hogan Harris, whose four-seam average has increased from 92.6 mph as a rookie in 2023 to 95.0 mph this year. “There’s so many young kids throwing hard now and then you see a lot younger people in the big leagues, so my thought is they see a guy that’s throwing 100 when he’s 22 and, boy, he’s not going to throw 100 when it’s 30, so let’s get in there now.”

    Six pitchers are at 100 mph in average four-seam velocity led by a pair of relievers, the Athletics’ Mason Miller (101.3 mph) and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Edgardo Henriquez (100.6 mph).

    Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski, a 24-year-old starter, is averaging 100.5 mph, up from 99.3 mph as a rookie last year. He has thrown a big-league high of 670 pitches at 100 mph or higher. The Brewers skipped his start Sunday because of arm fatigue.

    “I think it’s always been there,” Misiorowski said. “Jumping up that next tick was really cool, so I think I’m happy where I’m at and I think is free and easy.”

    As velocity increases, so does pitch mix among fastball types.

    Four-seamers are 30.4% of pitches this season, down from 31.8% last year and 35.8% in 2019.

    Sinkers increased from 15.5% last year to 16.6% and cutters from 7.5% to 7.8%. Offspeed pitches rose from 13.6% to 14.3%.

    “It is exponentially harder to hit and I hit .200 in my career, so that should show you how well I would do in the game today. The thing that I think gets me when I watch games is it’s not just one fastball anymore,” said New York Mets interim manager Andy Green, whose last big league season with extensive playing time was in 2006. “It’s easy for us that played a couple of decades ago to malign the offensive players for not hitting from a batting average perspective what used to be hit, but there’s so much to contend with, so much information, so much awareness of what hitter handles what fastball shape. The game’s gotten harder, there’s no doubt about it.”

    Big league batters are hitting .244, just below last year’s .245 and above the .243 in 2024.

    “At the end of the day, us as hitters have to find a good pitch to hit and put a good swing on it,” Chicago Cubs star Alex Bregman said.

    Hard-throwing has become part of youth player development, according to San Diego closer Mason Miller, who leads all pitchers with a 101.3 mph average for his four-seamer.

    “It’s kind of just been that trajectory,” he said. “But it’s hard to be successful for a long time and healthy for a long time doing it.”

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    AP Baseball Writers Jay Cohen and Janie McCauley contributed to this report.

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    AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb


  • The White Sox and Rays — 2 division leaders — also had the top 2 picks in baseball’s draft


    The Chicago White Sox took shortstop Roch Cholowsky with the first pick of the amateur draft this past weekend, and Tampa Bay selected shortstop Grady Emerson one spot later.

    Yes, both those teams are currently in first place.

    Pro drafts — even those with lotteries — generally start with some of the weakest teams from the previous season. But because baseball doesn’t conduct its draft until the middle of the ensuing season, sometimes the teams picking at the top have already made impressive strides. The White Sox lost 102 games last year and Tampa Bay dropped 85. Now they’re in contention — and adding possible help for the future via the draft.

    Here are a few teams that actually reached 90 wins the same year they had the top pick:

    2008 RAYS (97-65)

    This was Tampa Bay’s fourth No. 1 pick in a 10-year span, and the Rays haven’t had one since. Starting in that 2008 season, which ended with a World Series appearance, Tampa Bay became a lot more successful. The Rays didn’t take full advantage of that final No. 1 pick, selecting infielder Tim Beckham when Eric Hosmer and Buster Posey went later in the top five.

    2024 GUARDIANS (92-69)

    Cleveland won the draft lottery, then proceeded to win the AL Central. The Guardians drafted Travis Bazzana, who made his big league debut earlier this season.

    1984 METS (90-72)

    The Mets began their mid-1980s rise in ’84, finishing 6 1/2 games out of first place in the NL East with Dwight Gooden winning Rookie of the Year honors. New York would peak two years later with a World Series title, but this draft pick — outfielder Shawn Abner — never played for them.

    1977 WHITE SOX (90-72)

    Chicago’s rise in 1977 — from 64 wins to 90 — was short lived. But the White Sox drafted a keeper that year in Hall of Famer Harold Baines. He’d go on to play more than two decades in the major leagues and was part of division champions in Chicago in 1983 and toward the end of his career in 2000.

    Trivia time

    Cholowsky, of UCLA, became the school’s first No. 1 overall draft pick since Gerrit Cole in 2011. But there was another UCLA star, drafted in the first round, who has been worth even more wins above replacement than Cole. Who was it?

    Comeback of the week

    The Mets led 9-4 and, according to Baseball Savant, had a 94.2% win probability after Juan Soto’s three-run homer in the bottom of the fourth against Kansas City on Tuesday night. The lead didn’t even last until New York’s next at-bat.

    The Royals scored five runs in the fifth, then added seven more in the seventh on their way to a 16-12 victory.

    Then on Sunday, the Mets blew a two-run lead in the ninth and lost to Boston 3-2 in 10 innings. Meanwhile, the rival Yankees swept three straight in Washington, coming from behind in the eighth inning or later in each game.

    Performance of the week

    Toronto’s Dylan Cease had a no-hit bid broken up in the ninth inning of a 10-0 win over San Francisco on Wednesday. He finished with 11 strikeouts and one hit allowed in eight-plus innings.

    Honorable mention: Kansas City’s Tyler Tolbert went 5 for 6 with a homer in that big comeback victory over the Mets. He tied a major league record with hits in 12 straight plate appearances.

    Trivia answer

    Chase Utley, drafted with the 15th overall pick in 2000, was worth 64.6 WAR according to Baseball Reference.

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    AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb


  • Support for Israel isn’t a high priority for younger Jewish Americans, an AP-NORC poll finds


    Support for Israel is a key component of the religious identity of many Jewish adults ages 45 and older in the United States, but younger Jewish adults are more likely to prioritize other forms of connection, like celebrating Jewish holidays, according to a new AP-NORC poll.

    That suggests the generational divide on Israel’s actions since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war in Gaza extends beyond politics to religious identity.

    “I pray for people in the land of Israel. I don’t need to pray for the state,” said Cameron Bernstein, a 27-year-old medical student in New Orleans. She was raised with strong ties to Israel, where she celebrated her bat mitzvah, but said that now “it doesn’t play a role in my life, more than another country with people I love.”

    The survey of 1,022 Jewish adults from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that this split on support for Israel is particularly apparent among adults like her who identify as religiously Jewish. Jewish adults who are religiously unaffiliated but identify as Jewish in other ways tend to have less of an emotional connection to Israel in general.

    Among the religiously Jewish adults — who make up 68% of Jewish adults overall — about 6 in 10 say that being Jewish is “extremely” or “very” important in their life, regardless of their age.

    But about half of older religious Jewish adults say that supporting Israel is “extremely” or “very” important for their Jewish identity, similar to the percentage who say that about celebrating Jewish holidays. By contrast, only about 4 in 10 younger religious Jewish adults emphasize support for Israel, while about 7 in 10 say celebrating Jewish holidays is highly important.

    Susan Boyer, 72, from Southern California, equates supporting Israel with supporting the right of the Jewish people to have a homeland in the Middle East.

    Like many other Jewish Americans, the retiree believes Israel is an essential refuge against the possible repetition of large-scale massacres of Jewish people, like the Holocaust, especially as concern about antisemitism rises among Jewish adults.

    “I’ve been defending myself as a Jew since I was a child … getting mugged by girls in my classes for being a Jew,” Boyer said. “It’s invasive into your daily living that you have to constantly, constantly be defending yourself as a Jew, constantly making sure that nobody is redefining you or nobody is like insulting your land.”

    To Ari Pollack, a 30-year-old arts fundraiser in Wisconsin, Israel’s military operations — especially in the last few years — provide fodder for antisemitism and thus make everywhere less safe for Jews.

    “I’m personally pretty opposed to basically everything Israel’s doing these days,” said Pollack, who grew up attending religious school. “A source of a lot of frustration that I have for the Jewish establishment is that sort of dogmatic teaching of pro-Israel ideas that I’ve had to unlearn as an adult. And it’s part of what’s kept me away from, you know, attending regular synagogue services.”

    Like about 3 in 10 religious Jewish adults under 45, Pollack says that Israel has committed genocide during the war in Gaza, a charge that Israel has vehemently denied. That’s compared with about 2 in 10 Jewish adults ages 45 and older.

    The poll suggests that other elements of Judaism remain important to many younger Jewish adults. Americans under 45 who identify as religiously Jewish are more likely than older Jewish adults to say that marking or celebrating Shabbat or avoiding certain foods, like pork or shellfish, are highly important to their Jewish identity.

    Phoebe Wapnitsky, a 32-year-old in Connecticut, also strongly opposes Israel’s military actions, which she perceives as unaligned with Jewish values.

    “Standing against oppression, promoting social justice — those are the roles that Judaism plays in my life,” she said, adding that she felt disconnected from Israel even before the Oct. 7 attack.

    Brian Ebarb, a 47-year-old attorney in Louisiana, also says his Jewish identity was about “action and community” — but those include supporting Israel.

    “When the government makes mistakes, it should be criticized,” he said, but added that shouldn’t become an excuse for attacking an entire people. “The existence of the state of Israel is so precarious that we have to be careful and not allow criticism of Israel to become criticism of Jews worldwide.”

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    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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    The AP-NORC poll of 3,040 adults was conducted June 11-17 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The poll included interviews with 1,022 Jewish adults. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points and the margin of sampling error for Jewish adults is plus or minus 5 percentage points.


  • Oil prices jump following the latest fighting in the Middle East, while AI stocks sink


    NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices jumped Monday following a weekend of attacks in the Middle East, while more losses for computer chip companies and other winners of the artificial-intelligence boom dragged stock markets lower.

    The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, climbed 9.6% to $83.30 after the United States and Iran each said the Strait of Hormuz is under its control. Fighting in the region has kept oil tankers from using the strait to deliver crude to customers from the Persian Gulf, which drives up fuel prices worldwide.

    The gains for oil prices accelerated immediately after President Donald Trump said he’s reinstating a blockade to prevent tankers carrying Iranian oil from using the strait. He also called for 20% payments on all cargo shipped through it to reimburse the United States for providing protection in the area.

    Brent’s price, though, remains well below its wartime peak of nearly $120 per barrel for its most actively traded contract.

    On Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell 0.8%, coming off its fourth winning week in the last five. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 138 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 1.6%.

    Chip stocks like Micron Technology helped lead the way lower. Micron fell 4.4%, eating into what had been a stellar rise of 243.1% for the year so far.

    Real profits are behind the rise because the AI rush has created surging demand for computer memory and other computing building blocks. But worries are rising that stock prices have shot too high and that the demand may not be sustainable if AI doesn’t deliver as much profit and productivity as expected.

    Nvidia fell 3.5%. Because it’s the largest stock on Wall Street by value thanks to the euphoria around AI, it was the single heaviest weight on the S&P 500.

    The day’s losses began in Asia, where South Korea’s Kospi index dropped 8.9%. That included a 15.4% plunge for SK Hynix’s stock in Seoul, the worst since it began trading in 1997.

    The South Korean tech giant just launched shares of its stock trading in the United States on Friday, raising roughly $26.5 billion. Those shares jumped 13.1% in their first day of trading, but they fell 9.3% Monday.

    Other areas of the AI industry held up a bit better, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s shares in Taiwan rose 1%. The chipmaker said its revenue in June soared nearly 68% from a year earlier, bringing its total revenue growth for the first half of the year to 35.6% from a year earlier.

    But TSMC’s stock that trades in the United States fell 2.9% later in the day.

    All told, the S&P 500 fell 60.06 points to 7,515.34. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 138.37 to 52,498.64, and the Nasdaq composite sank 408.43 to 25,873.18.

    Much of Wall Street’s attention this week will be on profit reports from companies saying how much they earned during the spring. On Tuesday alone, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo are all releasing their latest quarterly results.

    Analysts are forecasting that companies in the S&P 500 index will deliver overall growth of 23.6% from a year earlier, according to FactSet. If they’re right, it would be the second straight quarter of growth better than 20%.

    Companies across industries will need to deliver strong growth to justify the big moves their stock prices have made. Indexes are near records despite their sharp recent swings due to worries around AI stocks.

    Companies usually turn in results that top analysts’ expectations, including in 37 of the past 40 quarters, according to FactSet. If they do so again by the usual margin, earnings growth for S&P 500 companies in the latest quarter could end up being the best since 2021.

    In the bond market, Treasury yields rose with the price of oil. The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed to 4.61% from 4.56% late Friday and from just 3.97% before the war with Iran began.

    Yields have risen worldwide on worries about expensive oil and high inflation, which could push the Federal Reserve and other central banks to raise interest rates. Higher rates can keep a lid on inflation, but they also slow the economy and hurt prices for all kinds of investments.

    In stock markets abroad, indexes moved modestly in Europe.

    In Asia, the swings were sharper, beyond South Korea’s plunge. Stocks fell 2.1% in Shanghai, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 1.9%

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    AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.