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  • Sam Neill, New Zealand actor who starred in ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘The Piano,’ dies at 78


    WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Sam Neill, the smoothly elegant and versatile actor whose prolific career moved from art films to blockbusters as he dodged velociraptors in “Jurassic Park” and played Holly Hunter’s cruel husband in “The Piano,” has died. He was 78.

    In 2023, Neill disclosed he had been diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He died on Monday in Sydney, according to a statement posted to the actor’s social media page.

    His death was “sudden and unexpected,” the statement said, adding that he “remained cancer free” when he died. A cause of death wasn’t specified. “Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterized his whole life,” his family wrote.

    Tributes were paid by fellow actors and directors, including Steven Spielberg, who helmed the first “Jurassic Park” movie.

    “I adored making all the ‘Jurassic’ movies with him. Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world,” Spielberg said in a statement.

    Actor Sharon Lawrence wrote on Instagram: “Condolences and appreciation for the immense joy and mastery Sam Neill brought our industry.”

    Actor came to world’s notice with ‘Dead Calm’ and ‘My Brilliant Career’

    Neill was one of a host of actors and directors who achieved international fame after an explosion of Australian films that began in the late 1970s, along with Paul Hogan, Mel Gibson, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe, Jane Campion, Peter Weir and Gillian Armstrong. His range was remarkable, playing opposite Helena Bonham Carter in the Alan Ayckbourn comedy “Sweet Revenge” to chopping off Hunter’s finger in “The Piano” to poking his own eyes out in the sci-fi horror “Event Horizon.”

    He portrayed both saintly and sinner: In “Omen III: The Final Conflict,” he played Damien the Antichrist, and he also played Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in “The Tudors.”

    The actor first came to the attention of international audiences in Armstrong’s 1979 film “My Brilliant Career,” which also introduced Judy Davis. He later appeared in Phillip Noyce’s “Dead Calm,” a classy thriller set at sea and co-starring the then-relatively unknown Nicole Kidman.

    Neill twice co-starred with Meryl Streep, in Australian director Fred Schepisi’s “Plenty” and — again for Schepisi — in “A Cry in the Dark,” a film about the sensationalized aftermath of a dingo killing a baby in the Australian Outback.

    He earned an Emmy nomination for his performance in the title role of the 1998 miniseries “Merlin” and another as narrator of 2017’s “Wild New Zealand.” Neill also earned three Golden Globe nods — for “Merlin,” “One Against the Wind” and “Reilly: Ace of Spies.”

    Richard E. Grant, a longtime friend who co-starred with Neill in 2019’s “Palm Beach,” described him in a post on Instagram as “an officer and a gentleman in the truest sense.” Grant said Neill had “guided and helped me through a very difficult time in my life.”

    ‘Jurassic Park’ was his best-known film

    Perhaps Neill achieved his highest level of fame in “Jurassic Park,” playing paleontologist Alan Grant, who is summoned to an island off Costa Rica where a theme park has been built to house herds of cloned dinosaurs.

    His character was thoughtful and reasonable, a scientist who warned the mastermind of the theme park before the chaos: “Dinosaurs and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?”

    Grant survived the harrowing events when the creatures get loose, but didn’t return for “The Lost World: Jurassic Park II” in 1997. He came back for the third episode in 2001 and “Jurassic World: Dominion” in 2022.

    “It’s probably a little late to learn these things,” he told the New York Daily News in 2001, “but I finally feel I’ve worked out how to be an action hero. I’m happier with Grant this time. He’s gnarly and grizzled, but he looks like he knows what he’s doing.”

    Early life in Northern Ireland and New Zealand

    Born in 1947 in Northern Ireland, Neill emigrated to New Zealand at the age of 7. He was born Nigel Neill, but told interviewers he started to go by Sam because there were too many Nigels at his school.

    His family settled in Dunedin on the South Island and he was sent to boarding school in Christchurch. After college, he took the lead in “Sleeping Dogs” in 1977, the first feature made in New Zealand in more than a decade.

    Neill’s other film roles included playing a Soviet submarine officer who memorably dreams of a home in Montana in “The Hunt for Red October” and an investigator in director John Carpenter’s “In the Mouth of Madness.”

    On the small screen, Neill played the malign Chester Campbell in TV’s “Peaky Blinders” and Thomas Jefferson in the four-hour CBS miniseries, “Sally Hemings: an American Tragedy.” On Apple TV+, he was on “Invasion,” playing Oklahoma Sheriff John Bell Tyson, a man late in his career searching for his purpose. In 2024, he starred opposite Annette Bening in the Peacock series “Apples Never Fall.”

    Beloved in New Zealand as an unassuming celebrity

    The actor became known in New Zealand as a modest and unassuming person who didn’t embrace celebrity. On social media, he often posted images of his farm animals, many of them affectionately named after celebrities and friends, like Laura Dern the chicken, Kylie Minogue the duck and Helena Bonham Carter the cow.

    New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon mourned Neill as “one of the greats” in a statement posted to social media.

    “He started out when there was barely a film industry to speak of,” Luxon wrote. “For more than fifty years he took New Zealand stories to the world and his talents helped make our film industry into what it is today.”

    Neill was also a vintner and under his Two Paddocks brand, he produced pinot noir and riesling wines from his winery in the Central Otago region of New Zealand’s South Island.

    His memoir “Did I Ever Tell You This?” came out in March 2023 and he was awarded a knighthood in recognition of his “outstanding contribution to film,” a title approved by the late Queen Elizabeth II.

    “I can’t pretend that the last year hasn’t had its dark moments,” Neill told The Guardian in 2023, referring to his cancer diagnosis and treatment. “But those dark moments throw the light into sharp relief, you know, and have made me grateful for every day and immensely grateful for all my friends.”

    He is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.

    ___

    Kennedy reported from New York.


  • Ryan Blaney wins 3-wide battle on final lap of overtime in NASCAR Cup race in Atlanta


    HAMPTON, Ga. (AP) — A late brush with the wall wasn’t enough to send Ryan Blaney to pit row.

    The decision paid off with a dominant victory.

    Blaney emerged from a three-wide battle on the final lap of overtime in the weather-delayed NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta early Monday.

    Blaney won every stage of the race and led 171 laps after starting on the pole, but the Team Penske Ford driver had to fight off challenges from Bubba Wallace and Christopher Hill, who finished second, on the final lap. Carson Hocevar and Ty Gibbs rounded out the top four.

    Wallace was penalized for passing below the double yellow lines and finished 29th instead of second.

    There was a delay of 3 hours, 9 minutes because of rain and lightning. The raced ended at 1:45 a.m. at EchoPark Speedway.

    Blaney won the first two stages but brushed the wall with 29 laps remaining, causing possible damage on his right side, after he was cut off by Wallace. Blaney remained on the track despite telling his crew he felt a “terrible” vibration.

    “I tried to make a move and just got loose and hit the fence,” Blaney said. “You know I think it’s just concrete in the wheels and paint and stuff like that but luckily it still drove really decent. … It wasn’t too bad. Luckily it wasn’t enough damage we couldn’t keep running.”

    Blaney’s crew chief Jonathan Hassler said his team was able to view photos of the right side of the car and determine the best chance to win was to remain on the track.

    “There were 30 cars on the lead lap at that point and not a lot of laps left,’ Hassler said. ”Our best chance to win was to stay out there.”

    Multiple drivers, including Kyle Larson, Chase Briscoe and Riley Herbst, were involved in a wreck with five laps remaining to set up the overtime.

    There had been concern about approaching rain before lighting within eight miles of the 1.54-mile oval track near Atlanta led NASCAR officials to order cars off the track and advise fans to exit the grandstand. Rain began soon after the race was delayed. Following some caution laps and pit stops, the race went back to green at 12:02 a.m.

    Blaney said he “took a nap and ate a little food” during the delay. Larson said the resumption of the race a few minutes before midnight “is definitely past my bedtime.”

    Blaney won the pole and his Team Penske teammate Joey Logano joined him on the front row. A third Team Penske driver, Austin Cindric, moved up to third early in the race for an early strong showing for the Fords.

    Cup Series points leader Denny Hamlin, who qualified 28th, finished 12th. Tyler Reddick was eighth.

    Reddick, who won at EchoPark Speedway in February as part of his string of five wins in the season’s first nine races, qualified only 31st on Saturday. By the 35th lap he already had moved up to fourth, proving early that he again would be a factor in Atlanta.

    Clean start

    The weather delay was the first caution for cause in the race, a dramatic departure from the weekend’s first race.

    There were a track-record 13 cautions in Saturday night’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race won by Justin Allgaier. That total included four red flag incidents, creating an ominous preview for the Cup Series race.

    The first caution for an incident on the track in the Cup Series race came when AJ Allmendinger lost control of his Chevrolet with 67 laps remaining. Allmendinger blew a tire and hit the wall with 25 laps remaining to cause another caution.

    Design to drive

    This was Chase Elliott’s 10th year of his Design to Drive program with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. He gave credit to the baseball-themed design of his No. 9 Chevrolet to two patients, 8-year-old Maximus Peace and 9-year-old Noelle Springer.

    The program raised $545,500 for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta in its first nine years. Elliott finished 13th.

    Another strong start for Team Penske

    Blaney’s Stage 1 win gave Team Penske Fords yet another strong start in Atlanta. Team Penske drivers have won Stage 1 in six of the last eight races at the track.

    Blaney held off Reddick, who finished second in the first stage after qualifying 31st.

    Up next

    The Cup Series moves to North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, next weekend. Christopher Bell edged Joey Logano at North Wilkesboro Speedway in the NASCAR All-Star Race on May 18, 2025.

    ___

    AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing


  • Greece awaits Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ with anticipation despite casting controversy


    ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” opens Friday, to global anticipation and some controversy over his casting choices — but what do Greeks think?

    Conversation about adaptations often revolves around how closely they follow a source text. But in a country where Homer’s story is taught and retold at all schools, many point to how the epic has been kept alive for nearly 3,000 years: not despite reinvention, but because of it.

    “What we want children to understand is that every new creation is exactly that — a new creation,” Filippos Mantzaris, who teaches “The Odyssey” to seventh graders, told The Associated Press.

    The film, starring Matt Damon as King Odysseus and a number of Hollywood stars, follows Homer’s outline: the king’s 10-year journey home from war during which he battles gods and monsters to find a palace overrun by rivals.

    Students grow up interpreting Homer

    In seventh grade, “The Odyssey” is taught in all Greek classrooms.

    In Mantzaris’ class, students eagerly debate Odysseus’ encounters with monsters and other adventures. They are taught to compare the hero’s intelligence with his strength, ask whether revenge is moral, whether the battle-hardened king is truly a role model, and whether his killing of his wife’s suitors is justified. Role-playing exercises encourage children to imagine what they would do in Odysseus’ place.

    “It’s an amazing literary text, with which children can identify, perhaps see Odysseus in themselves, but also see their own homeland,” Mantzaris said.

    Kyriakos Agapiou, 12, said reading the poem in Mantzaris’ class taught him that “everything is possible and we should never give up.”

    Farm scientist Nikos Varelas attended a stage adaptation with his 4-year-old son, after the pair read youth versions of both “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” together.

    “It is our duty as parents, as Greeks,” Varelas said.

    Interpreting the story as theater, said actor Manos Pintzis, who portrayed Odysseus in the local production, helps children discover mythology in a way books alone cannot.

    “You don’t tell a child, ‘Just read the story because you have to,’ because the child will resist when something is forced on them,” Pintzis said. “When the child sees all of this unfolding before their eyes — that becomes a valuable step toward learning, to willingly learn what they’re expected to study.”

    Greeks are used to foreigners playing their heroes

    In conservative circles in the U.S., much of the attention has focused on Nolan’s casting choices rather than his adaptation of Homer’s story.

    Elon Musk claimed Nolan had desecrated “The Odyssey” after Black actor Lupita Nyong’o was picked as Helen of Troy — despite not having seen the movie. Conservative commentators including Matt Walsh argued the film prioritized identity politics, echoing past fan criticisms of sci-fi and fantasy reboots that cast Black and Latino actors as beloved characters of a different race or ethnicity.

    In an interview with The Telegraph, Nolan said backlash “comes with the territory,” adding “these conversations that happen before people see the film — they’re always irrelevant, because no one having them knows what the film actually is yet.”

    Nolan told the AP he wanted to make the film accessible and relatable, and “not look back to sort of past Hollywood versions of how to take on the ancient world.”

    “You want to question people’s assumptions about how things should be portrayed in movies and what those are based on,” he said of his overall approach to the film. “There’s a challenge to that and a risk to that. But my hope is that by creating a cohesive world, people understand the world as they watch the movie and they feel they understand it.”

    The controversy hasn’t found much purchase in Greece, where people are used to foreigners playing ancient Greeks.

    Scotsman Gerard Butler bellowed “This is Sparta!” as King Leonidas in “300.” Oklahoma-born Brad Pitt played Achilles in “Troy.” Ireland’s Colin Farrell starred as Alexander the Great alongside Angelina Jolie as his mother.

    Anthony Quinn’s performance in “Zorba the Greek” way back in 1964 remains one of Greece’s most beloved screen portrayals of a Greek character.

    Nolan’s version continues the tradition with a star-filled cast including Nyong’o, Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya and Charlize Theron, with narration from rapper Travis Scott.

    In Greece, the small nationalist party Niki objected to the casting and a Greek government decision to provide roughly 6 million euros ($6.9 million) in subsidies to support local production. The party said Greek taxpayers were funding an imposition of “woke-type ideology” on Greek history and cultural identity, citing Musk.

    Culture Minister Lina Mendoni offered a blunt rebuttal.

    “It is not the state’s role to dictate to a creator how they should artistically interpret a work or a myth,” she told the Greek popular culture magazine, Lifo. “Can we seriously be having a conversation about whether the state should censor Christopher Nolan?”

    History’s great stories survive through retelling

    Christos Tsagalis, professor of ancient Greek literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, said it’s ultimately up to moviegoers to judge whether the latest interpretation of “The Odyssey” works. What matters, he said, is whether it captures something fundamental about one of history’s great stories.

    Homer’s works — retold and reinterpreted across generations — have endured by becoming universal, he said.

    “I think it’s wonderful that something that is created at a specific point in time by a given people is shared by so many people across the globe. It’s shared culture,” Tsagalis said.

    “It’s a fascinating story,” he said. “It is like a movie.”


  • Man who killed Dartmouth professors at 17 to get a chance at parole in about 20 years, judge rules


    CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A Vermont man who was 17 when he and a friend killed a pair of married Dartmouth College professors 25 years ago will have a chance at parole in about 20 years, when he reaches the age of one of his victims, a judge ruled Monday.

    Lawyers for Robert Tulloch, now 43, and prosecutors reached an agreement, avoiding a three-day planned resentencing hearing. In court Monday, a shackled Tulloch held his head down and appeared to breathe heavily as the horrific details of the stabbings were recounted.

    Tulloch was automatically sentenced to life without parole after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in the 2001 stabbing deaths of Half and Susanne Zantop. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that mandatory sentences of life without parole are unconstitutional for juveniles, and later applied that decision retroactively.

    The rulings gave hundreds of juvenile lifers a shot at freedom, including five men serving life sentences in New Hampshire for murders they committed as teenagers. Tulloch’s resentencing hearing, the last of the five, would have begun Monday in Grafton County Superior Court in North Haverhill, New Hampshire.

    A daughter of the victims requests the longest possible sentence

    Tulloch apologized to one of the professors’ two daughters, Veronika Zantop, who joined the hearing remotely, and talked about how she and her family were affected by the death of her parents.

    A psychiatrist with two sons, one of them the same age Tulloch was when he committed his crimes, she said she can appreciate that brain functioning can change over time. But she does not believe it’s true for Tulloch, saying he meticulously planned the killings and followed through in a cold, predatory manner.

    “This wasn’t a crime of passion or retribution,” she said. “He wasn’t using substances, he wasn’t psychotic. There was just sheer depravity.” She urged that he stay in prison “for the longest possible sentence.”

    Tulloch abandoned his prepared statement.

    “After listening to that, I feel disgusted by even thinking I could say anything that would mean anything,” he said.

    Tulloch’s lawyers asked for a 30-to-40-year minimum sentence

    In a court filing last week, Tulloch’s lawyers argued that a minimum sentence in the range of 30 to 40 years is appropriate, based on a review of other murders committed by juveniles in New Hampshire and cases nationwide that were affected by the Supreme Court rulings.

    Judge Lawrence MacLeod resentenced Tulloch to a minimum of 45 years to life. He could be considered for parole in 2046 when he’s 62 years old, the same age Half Zantop was when he was killed.

    MacLeod said he reviewed the applicable law, the circumstances of Tulloch’s offenses, his conduct while in prison, the outcomes of the other New Hampshire cases and Veronika Zantop’s statement.

    “The agreed upon sentence provides certainty that Tulloch will remain incarcerated for a substantial period of time, allows Tulloch to pursue some measure of rehabilitation, and it secures important protections for the community,” New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella said in a statement.

    Attorneys Richard Guerriero and Oliver Bloom said Tulloch’s prison records show he has matured, and that after some initial misconduct early on, he’s had no major infractions since 2012 and no minor infractions since 2017.

    Quoting from Tulloch’s therapy records, they said he has expressed “significant remorse” for what he sees as a heinous and unforgivable crime, his “warped youthful thinking,” and his “good capacity for empathy.”

    The teens came up with a plan to kill, steal money and live overseas

    According to Tulloch’s friend, James Parker, the teens were bored with their lives in Chelsea, Vermont, when they concocted a plan to kill strangers, steal their money and move to Australia. For several months, they knocked on doors in New Hampshire and Vermont pretending to be conducting a survey on the environment before being let in by the Zantops. Susanne Zantop, 55, was head of Dartmouth’s German studies department and her husband, Half Zantop taught Earth sciences.

    Parker, who was 16 at the time, told prosecutors Tulloch stabbed Half Zantop and then directed Parker to attack Susanne Zantop. Tulloch also stabbed her. Fingerprints on a knife sheath and a bloody boot print linked the teens to the crime, but after being questioned by police, they fled Vermont and hitchhiked west. They were arrested at an Indiana truck stop weeks later.

    Parker, who cooperated with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to being an accomplice to second-degree murder, was released from prison on parole in 2024 at age 40, having served nearly the minimum term of his 25-years-to-life sentence.

    “I think it’s unimaginably horrible,” Parker said during his parole hearing when asked by a board member what he thought of what he did. “I know there’s not an amount of time or things that I can do to change it, or alleviate any pain that I’ve caused.”

    Many states have banned life sentences for juveniles

    The Supreme Court rulings addressed only mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles, leaving the U.S. the only country that allows discretionary life sentences for minors. Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia have banned the practice, while another five states allow it but have no one serving such a sentence, according to the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth.

    New Hampshire lawmakers have rejected attempts to end life sentences for juveniles, but Tulloch’s case could bolster future attempts. After Tulloch argued in 2018 that sentencing juveniles to life without parole violated the state constitution, the judge asked the state Supreme Court to weigh in, but it declined. Last July, MacLeod agreed with Tulloch, finding that the constitution categorically prohibits such sentences as “cruel or unusual” punishment.

    Among the juvenile lifers nationwide who have been resentenced after the U.S. Supreme Court rulings, more than 75% have received sentences of less than 40 years, according to a study published in 2024 in the Journal of Criminal Justice.

    In New Hampshire, one man was resentenced to life without parole after refusing to attend his hearing or authorize his attorneys to argue for a lesser sentence. Others received sentences of 25-, 40- and 45-years-to-life.


  • Is there such a thing as being too old to execute? Aging death row inmates are set to die in Florida


    MIAMI (AP) — The last prisoner strapped to a table in Florida’s death chamber was 74 years old — the oldest the state has executed in modern times. The next two set to die are older still.

    The series of executions, due to be carried out by the end of this month, highlights the nation’s aging death-row population. One of Florida’s prisoners scheduled to die in July, a man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 1986, is 80 years old and would be only the second known octogenarian to be executed in the U.S.

    For some, it renews questions about the humanity of administering capital punishment to inmates who might soon die from natural causes. For others, it illustrates how lengthy appeals designed to ensure constitutional protections and prevent innocent people from being executed can also delay justice.

    “Is this intentional, as though to say, we’re not going to let a natural death help you escape executions?” asked the Rev. Dustin Feddon, a Catholic priest who has been ministering to Florida death row inmates since 2013. Noting the church’s opposition to capital punishment, he added: “To execute those that are the most frail and elderly is even more cruel and unusual.”

    Marilyn Gifford, whose sister’s killer is set to die Tuesday, doesn’t see it that way.

    “I’m just happy it’s ever happening in our lifetime,” she said. “I wish my mother was alive to see it.”

    Death warrants follow decades on death row

    On June 25, Dusty Ray Spencer, who was convicted of fatally stabbing his wife in 1992, became the oldest person executed in Florida in modern history. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the 74-year-old’s appeal that his liver disease rendered him susceptible to excruciating pain from lethal injection.

    Dennis Sochor, convicted of killing 18-year-old Patricia Gifford just hours into 1982 after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party, would be just a week older if his execution is carried out on Tuesday. Marilyn Gifford said she and her family plan to be there.

    Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, has spent nearly four decades on death row after being sentenced in the murders of his ex-girlfriend’s parents. He is scheduled to die July 28 and would become the second oldest prisoner known to be put to death in the U.S., after 83-year-old Walter Moody Jr. Moody was executed in Alabama in 2018 for killing a federal judge and a Black civil rights attorney.

    There are three inmates older than Occhicone on Florida’s death row.

    The scheduling of executions is up to the governor

    It’s unclear why Florida set the executions for the three prisoners consecutively. Maria DeLiberato, legal director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, noted that in Florida, the governor has practically sole discretion when it comes to the scheduling of executions. In many other death penalty states, the scheduling is up to the courts.

    About half of Florida’s 242 death row inmates have exhausted their appeals and could see their death warrant issued at any time. The family of Michael Sheridan spent a year calling and writing to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, requesting he sign a death warrant, before Sheridan’s killer was executed earlier this year.

    DeSantis’ office did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment. He oversaw a record 19 executions in 2025, more in a single year than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The state has executed nine inmates so far this year.

    DeSantis said last year his goal is to bring justice to victims’ families who have waited for decades.

    “Some of these crimes were committed in the ’80s,” the governor said last year. “Justice delayed is justice denied.”

    Death row gets older

    The average age of inmates executed in the U.S. has crept up from the 30s to the 50s over the past half-century, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. While some inmates committed capital offenses later in life, lengthy appeals and mandatory reviews have resulted in many spending decades on death row, sometimes developing medical conditions that can complicate efforts to execute them.

    Occhicone has several age-related ailments, including kidney and prostate problems, according to his attorneys. He needs help getting in and out of the shower, they noted.

    Under Supreme Court precedent, those who were under 18 when they committed their crimes cannot be put to death. But advanced age alone doesn’t provide a legal case for avoiding execution, said Gerod Hooper, an attorney with Florida’s Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, a state agency that provides post-conviction legal representation.

    “You’d have to say it’s unconstitutional to execute this 80-year-old because he’s mentally deficient, he doesn’t have capacity to be executed,” Hooper said. “Or because of some underlying medical condition, the drug cocktail they inject would cause undue pain and suffering.”

    Death row inmates with dementia in Utah and Alabama have avoided execution and later died of apparent natural causes. An inmate in Idaho received at least one stay of execution because of cancer and other health problems, but state officials continue to push for his death.

    ‘He could live another 20 years’

    At the time of Gifford’s disappearance, Sochor was free on probation from a 1980 rape conviction.

    “I knew him as a child, and he was a bully,” said Frank Frandel, who grew up as a family friend in Portland, Michigan. “I could believe he could be violent like that.”

    Frandel offered no sympathy for Sochor’s advanced age, pointing out that Sochor’s father will turn 99 this year.

    “He could live another 20 years,” Frandel said. “So no, I don’t feel sorry for him being at that age.”


  • China’s ‘Green Great Wall’ tames desert growth, but scientists warn the fight is not over


    KUBUQI DESERT, China (AP) — For half a century, millions of workers have repeated a task across the deserts in northern China: inserting forearm-length sticks into shifting sand, first in a row, then in an intersecting line, gradually forming a grid. Then saplings are planted at the center of each small square.

    The technique, known as “straw checkerboards,” is a simple yet widely used method to stabilize sand dunes against the wind and help plants take root by using water supplied through an irrigation system.

    The widespread lattice it created across the sand has become the iconic image of China’s decades-long campaign against the spreading of desert conditions, known as the Three-North Protective Forest Program or the Green Great Wall.

    The generations of work have yielded measurable progress, but scientists caution that preserving the gains will require decades of continued effort.

    For a long time, drought, overgrazing and farming removed vegetation, harmed the soil and made areas vulnerable to wind and sandstorms. That kind of degradation of the land over time is known as desertification. The area of desertified land in northern China peaked in 2000, and it has been reduced by over 1,000 square kilometers (400 square miles) each year since then, according to data published by state media.

    The Chinese government said the initiative launched in 1978 has played a crucial role in transforming vast regions covering nearly half of China from “the desertification advancing and people retreating” to “greenery advancing and the desertification retreating.” Forests planted by the program now cover a cumulative 500,000 square kilometers (200,000 square miles) .

    “The broad significance of the Three-North Program is not only the scale of restoration, but the long-term political commitment behind it,” said Barron Joseph Orr, chief scientist for the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification. In a response to The Associated Press, he wrote that reversing desertification is possible when it becomes part of long-term development strategies.

    Elsewhere, efforts to combat desertification have included a project launched in Africa in 2007 to plant trees across a number of countries to hold back the Sahara Desert.

    Measuring the success of the Green Great Wall

    The progress is the result of the efforts of frontline sand-control workers, along with top-level planning and substantial state investment, said Zhu Jiaojun, a scientist at the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, who has long been dedicated to the construction and management of the program. He added that increased rainfall in recent years in some areas has made vegetation restoration easier.

    “The achievement of desertification combat is due to people’s hard work and a bit of luck with climate,” he said.

    According to long-term monitoring data by Zhu’s team, China’s desertified land has shrunk by around 10% overall since 2000, and areas of severely or extremely desertified land have decreased by more than 40%. Forest cover in the program area has risen from around 5% in 1978 to 14% in 2022.

    In a recent government-organized media tour to a corner of Kubuqi Desert, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) to the west of Beijing, 60-year-old Yin Yuzhen recounted her early days of being a sand-control worker as “very lonely.” Working alongside her husband near her hometown in the neighboring Mu Us desert, she said that it felt delightful to encounter any other creature.

    “Even the passing of a bird across the sky made me happy,” she said.

    Four decades ago, she recalled, the sand often blew so thick that it made it hard to see a short distance.

    “But now we can see the sun. We can see the green in the distance. We can see the road,” said Yin.

    She and her husband now work from dawn to noon every day, attending to trees and fixing or replacing checkerboards. They are joined by their children and sometimes local volunteers.

    Zhu, the scientist, estimated that over 300 million rural laborers have been involved in the program, mostly on a paid, part-time basis.

    Sustaining both land and livelihood

    Orr said restored ecosystems in drylands can become increasingly self-sustaining over time, but they still require careful management and long-term monitoring, with success depending on factors such as water availability and soil health.

    The environmental advocacy group Green Camel Bell in Gansu province works to explain desertification and its risks to farmers and herders, plant trees with them in dryland areas, and help restore and sustain vegetation.

    “Efforts to combat desertification and restore forests should be linked to local livelihoods, so communities do not see economic development and ecological protection as an either-or choice,” said its founder Zhao Zhong.

    Orr agreed that restoration efforts have a much greater chance of succeeding if they’re structured to help communities benefit economically.

    Zhu said that a key question for the project is how conservation can be sustained if the scale of human intervention and investment is reduced.

    “This is what we are very concerned with and this is also the biggest challenge,” he said.

    Yin hopes the younger generation will continue her work.

    “We need to teach young people to love this Earth. If we love it with all our hearts, nature will love us in return,” she said.

    ___

    Video producer Olivia Zhang contributed to this story.

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.


  • A tossed shoe leads to late ejection and derails Liberty rally in a 93-91 loss to Toronto


    MONTREAL (AP) — Betnijah Laney-Hamilton was tossed from the New York Liberty’s 93-91 loss to Toronto on Sunday after she threw a shoe that hit Tempo player Marina Mabrey in the back late in the fourth quarter.

    Laney-Hamilton was trying to get the sneaker back to teammate Jonquel Jones after it had fallen off. The errant toss ended up hitting Mabrey. After a review, the officials gave her a technical foul — her second of the game — for throwing a “projectile on the court.”

    The incident occurred with 1:48 left in the game and after Mabrey hit the free throw, Toronto had a 91-89 lead. The Liberty had rallied from 20 points down before falling short.

    “I’ve never seen anything like that. We had all the momentum in the world. A shoe hit somebody. Ejected, free throws. I’ve also never seen a ref make such an atrocious call when he’s on the other side of the floor,” Liberty coach Chris DeMarco said after the game.

    The pool report didn’t mention intent, just that the shoe hit Mabrey in the back and Laney-Hamilton was given the technical.

    DeMarco said that Laney-Hamilton wasn’t trying to hit Mabrey, who agreed that’s what happened.

    “I had to take a couple breaths,” Mabrey said of her reaction to the shoe hitting her. “But I think she was really just trying to get the shoe back to JJ. But I’ll take the free throw.”

    Mabrey and Laney-Hamilton had been jawing at each other the entire game and both were called for a technical foul in the third quarter.

    Toronto coach Sandy Brondello, who used to coach the Liberty, said she thought the shoe hitting Mabrey was unintentional.

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    AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball


  • Lindsey Graham’s journey from a pool hall to the heights of political power


    Lindsey Graham, the garrulous son of South Carolina pool hall owners, rose to become a fixture on the global stage and one of the most prominent advocates of American military might in the U.S. Senate.

    A former military lawyer who reached the rank of colonel in the Air Force, the wisecracking Graham was known for his Southern drawl, political flexibility and reliably hawkish stance on foreign policy. He ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 as a determined opponent of Donald Trump, then became one of the new president’s staunchest allies.

    In his typical high-energy manner, Graham had just returned to Washington from a trip to Ukraine, having announced a deal with the Trump administration for a new package of sanctions against Russia. He was due to appear on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday to discuss it. Trump appeared in the senator’s place.

    “I just can’t believe it,” Trump said. “He was like a member of the family.”

    Graham died Saturday night after what a preliminary report from the Washington, D.C., medical examiner’s office said was a tear in his aorta stemming from the hardening of his arteries. He was 71.

    His death brought encomiums from world leaders and, closer to home, Republicans and Democrats alike, a mark of his influence and his ability to befriend colleagues of different political persuasions. In an outpouring of tributes, lawmakers expressed their shock and remembered his good humor, kindness and zest for the political arena.

    “He is the quintessential boy makes good story,” said Bob McAlister, a communications consultant who long worked with Graham. “I don’t know of anybody who, or know very few people who, started out with less and gained as much from life as he did. I guess that may be my epitaph for him.”

    Graham transformed from Trump critic to ally

    Graham was part of the “Never Trump” movement during his 2016 run and feuded heatedly with his reality television star rival during the campaign. He was especially upset at Trump for “slandering” his close friend and political brother-in-arms, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. “You know, run for president, but don’t be the world’s biggest jackass,” Graham said.

    In response, Trump announced Graham’s cellphone number during a campaign rally, leading Graham to muse about whether he should get an Android or iPhone to replace it.

    By coming around to Trump, particularly in the years after McCain’s death in 2018, Graham amassed influence as an intermediary to the White House. Graham and Trump enjoyed a close relationship and became frequent golfing partners, though their relationship ruptured for a time after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

    Still, a year later, Graham was urging Republicans to rally behind Trump again rather than side with critics calling for his political exile.

    “Can I just say to my Republican colleagues — can we move forward without President Trump?” Graham said on Fox News in 2022. “The answer is no,” he said, adding “we can’t grow without him.”

    His journey from the pool hall to Congress

    Graham was born to Millie and Florence James Graham of Central, South Carolina on July 19, 1955. The couple owned a restaurant, bar and pool hall in the town. Graham, his parents and younger sister all lived in one room in the back of the building.

    “It was one room, where we all slept, we all ate, we watched TV, the sofa, everything was in one room,” his sister Darline recalled in 2015.

    As a child, Graham had free reign of the Sanitary Cafe, where he occasionally would sneak a swig of beer or a puff on a customer’s cigarette, he wrote in an autobiography. The patrons, who would take him hunting and fishing as if he were their own son, called him “Stinkball.”

    “It was a good life,” Graham recalled to The Post and Courier of Charleston, South Carolina. “I could go grab a Coke any time I wanted to. In my world, I was as rich as I could be.”

    Like many institutions at the time, the Sanitary Cafe was segregated, Graham wrote. Black patrons had to take their alcohol to drink outside the establishment until the 1970s. But Graham said his father, known to all as “Dude,” would not tolerate his white customers using slurs against Black people.

    Only a C student in high school, Graham still became the first member of his family to attend college at the University of South Carolina. While he was at college, his mother died of Hodgkin lymphoma. Months later, his father was diagnosed with prostate cancer and died of a heart attack as Graham started his first semester of law school.

    Graham, a lifelong bachelor who never had children, became the guardian for his younger sister after his parents’ death, and later in life often extolled the benefits of Social Security that helped keep them financially afloat.

    After earning his law degree, Graham served as a judge advocate general in the Air Force, starting as a defense attorney for accused troops and eventually rising to the Air Force’s chief prosecutor in Europe, based in Germany. He returned home in 1989 but remained a reserve or National Guard member for decades.

    Even in the Senate, Graham briefly switched back to active status to help advise the Air Force during the Iraq War and was awarded the Bronze Star medal for service in 2014 before formally retiring as a colonel in 2015.

    Graham had a lead role in Bill Clinton’s impeachment

    Upon returning to South Carolina, Graham soon dove into politics. He won a statehouse seat in 1992 and then a U.S. House seat in 1994. He became one of a group of young, combative Republican lawmakers who pushed to oust then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich for cutting too many deals with the Democratic president, Bill Clinton.

    Graham took on a prominent role in Clinton’s impeachment for an affair with a White House intern. “Is this Watergate or Peyton Place?” Graham asked at one House hearing. After the GOP-controlled House impeached Clinton, Graham became one of the managers of the case in the Senate, which voted to acquit the Democrat.

    In 2002, when Strom Thurmond, South Carolina’s senior senator, decided to retire at 99, Graham ran for his seat and won. He quickly took to the Senate and its emphasis on relationships, starting some mornings by eating alone in the stately Senate dining room, then throwing himself into the day’s bubbling political fights.

    Vice President JD Vance recalled experiencing Graham’s approach to politics up close when Vance was first elected to the Senate.

    “I remember getting into a shouting match with Lindsey about a Ukraine funding bill at lunch and then learning the very next day that he was pushing rail legislation I really cared about behind the scenes,” Vance said. “That was Lindsey Graham. He fought like hell for the things he believed in, and he was just as willing to go to bat for you when it counted.”

    Graham had a gang of ‘Three Amigos’ in the Senate

    Much of Graham’s career was defined in large measure by his close relationship with McCain and Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat who later became an independent. Calling themselves “The Three Amigos,” the senators traveled the world and pushed for U.S. intervention in several places, particularly the Middle East after the 9/11 attacks.

    When McCain died in 2018, Graham broke down in tears on the Senate floor as he memorialized his friend.

    “He failed a lot, but he never quit,” Graham said. “And the reason we’re talking about him today and the reason I’m crying is because he was successful in spite of his failures.”

    In the latter part his career Graham leaned on his legal background to take a key role in judicial appointments, especially to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2018, when Trump’s nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, faced accusations of sexual misconduct, Graham helped turn the tide with an impassioned defense of the federal judge.

    “Boy, y’all want power. Boy, I hope you never get it,” Graham said, accusing Democrats of setting up Kavanaugh and breaking trust in the nomination process. “I hope the American people can see through this sham.”

    Still, Graham’s partisan side was usually tamped down as he positioned himself as a dealmaker. Almost any bipartisan “gang” in the Senate always has had him as a member.

    “He was a fierce Republican partisan one day and a key bipartisan ally the next,” recalled Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who worked with him on immigration legislation.

    Kevin Bishop, who worked for Graham for 27 years and later ran for Congress himself, said the senator inspired fierce loyalty in his staff.

    “He was incredibly fun to be around,” Bishop said. People would walk into his office with “pitchforks” and Graham would turn them around, he said.

    “He was willing to accept a lot of criticism to move the ball forward,” Bishop said.

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    Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, and Lisa Mascaro, Seung Min Kim and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.


  • McGregor’s manager says fighter had no knee injury prior to short bout with Max Holloway


    LAS VEGAS (AP) — Conor McGregor’s manager said in a social media post Sunday that fighter did not have a previous knee injury prior to his shortened UFC 329 fight with Max Holloway.

    McGregor’s first fight in five years lasted just 1:09 due to a knee injury sustained while attempting an opening roundhouse kick.

    “That opening jump switch kick was drilled daily for months, multiple times in warmup. Never an issue,” John Kavanagh wrote on Facebook. “Knee went when he (threw) the very first kick. Doesn’t get any worse than this.”

    McGregor’s highly-anticipated return to the octagon ended in disappointment when he awkwardly landed on his right knee in the opening seconds of Saturday’s fight. McGregor tried to continue, but went to the mat twice more before the scheduled five-round match was halted by the referee.

    McGregor and UFC President Dana White both said after the fight there was no pre-existing injury to the knee.

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    AP MMA: https://apnews.com/hub/mixed-martial-arts


  • Prince William and wife Kate share a moment with Jannik Sinner after his Wimbledon victory


    LONDON (AP) — Prince William joined his wife Kate and two of their children for the men’s final at Wimbledon on Sunday in a star-studded Royal Box that also included actors Dustin Hoffman, Nicole Kidman and Ben Stiller.

    Kate is the patron of the All England Club and presented the trophy to winner Jannik Sinner after his match against Alexander Zverev. She also handed out the trophy to women’s winner Linda Noskova on Saturday, but was not joined by any family members.

    The couple’s two eldest children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, also attended Sunday’s match. All four were on hand to watch Sinner beat Carlos Alcaraz in last year’s final as well. After the win over Zverev, the royals had an extended chat with Sinner in a room inside the tournament’s main stadium as he clutched the golden trophy.

    “Fantastic achievement,” Kate told Sinner. “It’s really inspiring to the children to see tennis at that level.”

    Sinner then asked the young royals how often they play tennis themselves.

    “Not every day, but weekends,” George said.

    Sinner had a similar conversation with the four royals after last year’s final.

    “You can really see that they love the sport,” Sinner said Sunday. “This is exactly how we feel as players on court when we see them watching tennis. Staying there for four hours under the sun with the heat, it’s really nice. … Having the whole Royal Box there, as well, the whole people staying for a match like this for four-ish hours, it’s amazing. That’s also the reason why we love to play tennis.”

    Other dignitaries in the Royal Box included German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italy’s sports minister Andrea Abodi.

    Former Wimbledon champions Stefan Edberg, Lleyton Hewitt, Richard Krajicek, Jan Kodes and Stan Smith were also in attendance.

    Other Hollywood celebrities in the crowd for the match included Jennifer Lopez, Tom Hiddleston and Andrew Garfield.

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