Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 764
May 30, 2016
Nigeria: Security forces kill oil militants, separatists
WARRI, Nigeria (AP) — Nigerian security forces clashed with oil militants and Biafran secessionists in separate bloody confrontations Monday that killed at least 20 civilians and two police officers, officials and witnesses. The violence erupted in Nigeria’s restive south as the military mounted an offensive in the oil rich south-central Niger Delta and separatists protested in the southeast.
Over the weekend, soldiers fired on speedboats believed to be carrying Niger Delta militants preparing to strike oil installations and killed or wounded an unknown number, army spokesman Col. Sani Kukasheka Usman said.
The Ijaw Youth Council, a community group, accused soldiers of firing Saturday night on a speedboat trying to evacuate civilians wounded in a military siege of Oporoza, a town reachable only by water or air.
Community leaders say civilians have been wounded and beaten up by soldiers demanding that residents hand over members of the Niger Delta Avengers, a new group that has claimed attacks on strategic pipelines that have halved oil production in a country that used to be Africa’s biggest petroleum producer.
The offensive comes as the Avengers have mounted an increasingly fierce campaign targeting oil installations. In recent days, facilities belonging to the Dutch-British Shell company, Italy’s Agip, and the U.S. oil giant Chevron have been targeted.
The Avengers have given the oil companies a May 31 deadline to leave Nigeria’s southern, oil-producing Niger Delta.
“Watch out something big is about to happen and it will shock the whole world,” the Avengers warned Saturday, addressing international and indigenous oil companies and Nigeria’s military.
Army chief Maj. Gen. Tukur Buratai said the army will not tolerate the militants “killing our soldiers,” but did not provide any details about military casualties. Local residents have reported the deaths of at least 10 army and navy personnel and about 30 police officers in the Niger Delta this year.
Community chieftain Elekute Macaulay said reinforcements arrived early Monday at Oporoza to widen the military siege. He said half of the 40,000 inhabitants have fled to the bush and creeks, and others are afraid to leave their homes.
In separate developments, security forces battled secessionists rallying to commemorate heroes of the 1967-1970 civil war to create a separate state of Biafra in southeast Nigeria. About 1 million people died in that war.
On Monday, five civilians and two police officers were killed during protests by secessionists in the southeastern city of Asaba, according to police Superintendent Charles Muka.
The secessionists said another 15 civilians were killed further south in Onitsha, but police said nobody was killed because security forces never used live ammunition to disperse the crowd.
About 600 people have been arrested, the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra said. Police said the protests were illegal because organizers did not have permits.
The Niger Delta Avengers have said they may ally themselves with the Biafran secessionists and make similar demands for a breakaway state from Nigeria.
Soldiers in the Niger Delta are demanding that villagers turn over fighters of the Avengers, and its alleged leader Government “Tompolo” Ekpemupolo, Macaulay said. Tompolo has denied involvement with the Avengers but the attacks began shortly after an arrest warrant was issued for him that claimed the theft of money from government contracts to guard oil installations.
Oil militants are angry that the government is winding down a 2009 amnesty program that paid 30,000 militants to guard the installations they once attacked. They are demanding a bigger share of Nigeria’s oil wealth for residents of the Niger Delta, where oil pollution has destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of farmers and fishermen.
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Faul reported from Lagos, Nigeria.
May 29, 2016
Hillary Clinton’s big donor problem isn’t going away: Her history of taking Wall Street cash exemplifies all that’s wrong in U.S. politics
Hillary Clinton (Credit: AP/Andrew Harnik)
In a 2011 interview with the Indian newspaper The Siasat Daily, Indian-American businessman and longtime friend and financial supporter of the Clintons, Sant Chatwal, was unusually candid (for a big donor, at least) about his experiences in American politics as a wealthy donor:
“In politics nothing comes free. You have to write cheques in the American political system. I know the system. I had to work very hard. So I did as much as I could,” said Chatwal, who was co-chair for Hillary Clinton’s presidential exploratory committee in 2008. He continued: “I was interested in building a relationship between India and America… [So I] invested a lot of money in [Michael Dukakis]…But he lost the election because he failed in the debate. Then I thought, let me bet on [Bill] Clinton…I bet on [Clinton]. He became president. Already we were good friends like a family.”
Three years after this interview, Chatwal pleaded guilty to “skirting federal campaign contribution laws and witness tampering,” as reported by The New York Times. The businessman admitted that he had “funneled more than $180,000 in illegal contributions between 2007 and 2011 to three federal candidates,” one of them being Hillary Clinton. In a recorded conversation with a government informant, Chatwal was even more forthcoming about buying political influence: “Without [money] nobody will even talk to you. When they are in need of money, the money you give, then they are always for you. That’s the only way to buy them.”
None of what Chatwal said should be news to anyone with common sense; in American politics, politicians depend on financial contributions to fund their campaigns, and the more an individual (or organization) can contribute, the more influence and power they can obtain (at least that is the hope in writing big checks).
As Chatwal pointed out, influence doesn’t come free in American politics (although it is sometimes surprising how cheaply politicians can be bought). And if a politician chooses to forgo fundraising for big money contributions, the odds of getting elected or reelected are not in his or her favor: the better-funded candidates win the overwhelming majority of the time.
Money in politics has been an important and at times contentious topic during the 2016 presidential race, particularly on the Democratic side of things, where Bernie Sanders has campaigned almost entirely on small donations — breaking grassroots fundraising records previously held by Barack Obama — and railed against Clinton for her financial ties to Wall Street and other industries.
Clinton has responded to these criticisms by arguing that Sanders has no proof of quid pro quo, a similar line of reasoning that right-wing Supreme Court Justices use when throwing out campaign finance laws. At one debate, she insisted that Sanders was peddling an “artful smear” by questioning whether big money donations or high-paid speeches influenced her, which — not surprisingly — she has denied completely.
Of course, there is very good reason to believe that the billionaires and corporations that donate to Clinton or pay her generously for 30-minute speeches are expecting something in return (as with every other politician they donate to). Wall Street bankers don’t contribute to both Republicans and Democrats because they like Republicans and Democrats equally, but to hedge their bets (needless to say, some politicians are much more willing to bend than others).
This is all an indictment of the system, not any particular politician; but the fact that the Clintons have thrived for so long within this system and have become obscenely wealthy because of it should trouble any progressives who want to see meaningful reform. As former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich put it, Clinton is the “most qualified candidate for president of the political system we now have,” but “Sanders is the most qualified candidate to create the political system we should have.”
What has been especially disturbing about the 2016 Democratic primary debate over money in politics has been the extent to which partisan Democrats have been willing to use right-wing talking points to defend their preferred candidate, dismissing big money contributions as inconsequential without concrete evidence of quid pro quo.
Barney Frank, a prominent Clinton surrogate and board member of Wall Street bank Signature Bank, has gone so far to accuse Sanders of McCarthyism (which is funny, considering the Clinton camp began red-baiting Sanders and his supporters pretty early on) for implying that Clinton and other politicians are influenced by contributions.
In a 2012 interview with NPR, Frank had a slightly different tune: “People say, ‘Oh, it doesn’t have any effect on me.’ Well if that were the case, we’d be the only human beings in the history of the world who on a regular basis took significant amounts of money from perfect strangers and made sure that it had no effect on our behavior.”
Perhaps Hillary Clinton is that one human being in the history of the world?
At this point, Clinton is almost certain to be the Democratic nominee. But this doesn’t mean that the Sanders movement should quickly fall in line behind the former secretary of state — especially if she makes no real effort to appeal to Sanders supporters. The Bernie campaign has put a corrupt political system on trial, and this debate will go beyond 2016. And after she locks up the nomination, Clinton should expect even harsher criticisms from Donald Trump, whose financial independence has been one of his major assets throughout the race.
One thing should be clear: comprehensive reform will only come about when a popular movement demands it, and when people collectively combat the influence of the biggest donors.
Who is qualified to write about race?
(Credit: Dmitry Brizhatyuk via Shutterstock)
This week, a New York Times piece titled “Asian-American Actors are Fighting for Visibility. They Will Not Be Ignored” offered a snapshot into an ongoing conversation about Hollywood’s problematic portrayal (or lack thereof) of Asian characters. I was thrilled to see the high-profile presentation of a long-overdue conversation, and even more thrilled to see the piece was widely read and shared. Activists and personal idols like Aziz Ansari, George Takei, and Constance Wu were certainly deserving of the positive coverage, and having their voices amplified even more will likely benefit the cause. Still, I could not help but find the piece’s byline jarring.
When I spoke with Mary Suh, the editor who assigned the piece to Times Contributing Writer Amanda Hess, she rejected out of hand the suggestion that the NYT ought to have considered a writer of color instead, calling the question a “dangerous” one. Suh praised Hess as a “terrific” journalist who “had the required writing skills and sophistication and analytical skills to write a piece like that,” a characterization of Hess’s past work which I don’t dispute. “As an Asian-American myself I do not want to be limited or siloed,” she said.
Suh’s point is well-taken, and speaks to a broader problem in the industry, particularly with respect to opinion commentary or editorial coverage. Writers of color, especially women, are often confined to addressing social issues, and frequently pressured to do so from an explicitly personal angle, one that precludes their being labeled “serious.” While white men exist in a default state of authority, and are more likely to be judged on the substance of their arguments rather than their qualifications to make them, female writers of color must actively push up against the notion that their expertise is limited to specific facets of their experience, and are often pigeonholed as experts on race, gender, and nothing else.
But, of course, there is a non-trivial distinction between “Asian-Americans can only write about issues of direct pertinence to the Asian-American community” and “Asian-Americans are uniquely capable of writing about such issues, [and other ones, too.]” The distinction is one with strong parallels in Hess’s piece itself, which subtly praised the ingenuity of filling traditionally white roles with Asian actors, while frowning upon casting choices that whitewashed roles traditionally filled by actors of color. The question is ultimately one of representation, and the very real, tangible way in which a long history of systemic exclusion has limited opportunities for Asians in high-profile, public positions.
The Times’s perspective might be that white writers and writers of color are equally qualified and entitled to cover issues of race. But Suh acknowledged the importance of “diversity, not just by race, but by gender, by religion, everything” in the Times’ newsroom, and noted that it’s an issue of “ongoing concern,” while maintaining that this was a separate issue altogether from the question of which stories are assigned to whom. However, this emphasis is an acknowledgment that a breadth of lived experience is one of many factors involved in producing sensitive coverage on complex and nuanced issues.
Jenna Wortham, for example, has spoken publicly about how her deeply wonderful profile of Syd tha Kid for the New York Times Magazine was enriched by their shared race and sexuality. That the experience of reporting the piece was apparently made more meaningful for both journalist and subject is not, in and of itself, unimportant, but the larger benefit is that the rapport developed as a result produced a better product, and a more meaningful experience for reader as well. (Apart from the obvious, again not unimportant, inherent value of another byline.)
Suh’s somewhat contrary point that “reporters are reporters,” who “should be able to go out and write about any number of subjects with sophistication and sensitivity and verve,” is, to a certain extent, also well-taken, but might be better-taken if the Times as an organization were making a good faith attempt to diversify its explicitly editorial voices. Instead, it boasts a woefully homogenous slate of columnists, many of whose attempts to tackle race-related issues fall well short of Suh’s bar, often veering into unapologetically ignorant or hurtfully simplistic territory. When op-ed contributors of Asian descent do pop up on the NYT op-ed page, they are, to borrow Suh’s terminology, frequently siloed. They overwhelmingly address issues directly related to Asia, as a region, or the trials of life as an Asian living in Europe or America.
This is not to say that minorities are categorically better-versed in race-related issues than their white counterparts. And I certainly would not attribute my minor gripes with Hess’s piece — her positive characterization, for example, of Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson’s condescending attempt to brush aside critiques of his casting choices without acknowledging wrongdoing or resolving to do better — to her race.
The problem is not with a particular writer, editor, or article, but instead a need for broad, institutional reform. White allyship is important, to be sure, but allyship often amounts to stepping back to listen rather than stepping forward to speak up. Minorities need public forums to air their own grievances, rather than having them filtered through white eyes. There is an undeniable irony in the fact that the piece itself acknowledges the importance of minorities telling their own stories in television and film, while, by virtue of process, implicitly dismissing its importance in news media. The optics alone threaten to undermine the Times’ important and significant work of drawing attention to Hollywood’s diversity issues. It’s work that would be all the more powerful if accompanied by serious introspection, a genuine grappling with its own shortcomings in this regard. Asian-American actors, after all, aren’t the only ones fighting for visibility.
West Point on Memorial Day: Race, one graduation photo, and the meaning of America
Cadets are seated during a graduation and commissioning ceremony at the U.S. Military Academy on Saturday, May 21, 2016, in West Point, N.Y. (AP Photo/Mike Groll) (Credit: AP)
My freshman year in high school, one of my drawing teachers assigned us to design the preliminary sketch of a sculpture that would reflect what America means to us. We were to complete the sketch by partnering with another student, asking what they thought the final sculpture should look like and drawing their description.
My partner was a 15-year-old black male. He told me, “I would put a big, black hole in the ground, because I feel nothing for this country but darkness and emptiness.”
I had heard adults I was close to say something similar in their knowing eye rolls, their head shakes and crossed arms as they muttered, “White folks,” at blatant injustice or disrespect and their warnings that we always had to be twice as good as any white person to expect half as much. But I had never heard anyone my age articulate his feelings of abandonment so bluntly.
I don’t remember what I described in return. I had trouble with the assignment; I couldn’t think of anything unique. I had neither my partner’s apathy nor other classmates’ grandiose imaginations of monuments. I envisioned something abstract but patriotic, like Escher’s Relativity in red, white and blue.
Today, I would say my idea describes my relationship to this country accurately. The sculpture would have appeared simple and ordinary at first, but look at it long enough, and a viewer would have seen it was a complex and confusing mesh of rules and directions that could leave you dizzy. It’s also appropriate that I have no idea how such a sculpture would stand, because as a black woman in the U.S., sometimes I don’t know how I do.
I thought about the high school art assignment when I saw that a photo of black female cadets graduating from West Point Military Academy had sparked an official inquiry. As reported in the New York Times, the photo shows the women “on the steps of West Point’s oldest barracks … in traditional gray dress uniforms, complete with sabers,” and with their clenched fists raised. As the photo went viral, some viewers took offense. They “accused the women of allying themselves with the Black Lives Matter movement and sowing racial divisions,” according to the Times. West Point investigated whether the cadets violated Army regulations against engaging in political activities while in uniform.
Although the cadets will not be punished and in fact graduated on May 21, the inquiry continues to trouble me. The very action of an inquiry, prompted by assumptions that the women allied themselves with the Black Lives Matter movement, implied it’s impossible to be proud of or have loyalty to blackness and simultaneously have loyalty to or pride in the U.S. The photo, in contrast, implies it’s impossible for black women in this country to thrive without both.
Granted, black people’s relationship to this country is complicated, especially for those of us whose ancestors were enslaved. This year, for the first time ever, I shed a tear when I heard “My Old Kentucky Home” played on Derby Day. That’s justifiable behavior for a Louisville native living far from home on what’s considered a state holiday, but it’s irrational for a graduate student who just completed a literature course on remembering slavery. The latter knows lyricist Stephen Foster set the story of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, to a tune. The latter knows the slaves are singing, “weep no more, my lady,” as they pine for Kentucky’s gentler brand of slavery after being “sold down river” to harsher conditions in Louisiana. The latter knows Stowe’s novel was powerful but flawed anti-slavery propaganda that reified racist tropes like the pickaninny and demanded Christ-like perfection of blacks before they were worthy of freedom. The Kentucky girl and the student together miss home but feel a deep and profound sadness for the ancestors whose humanity was so belittled that a lyricist thought there was an optimal way for them to be slaves.
Nonetheless, this black woman still calls Kentucky and these United States, “home.” I still feel pride in them and love for them. Even though I’m taken for granted by one of their main political parties. Even though we are consistently and disproportionately victims of state-sponsored violence. Even though no amount of historical evidence of the impact of anti-black, post-slavery injustices (Jim Crow laws, segregation, being systematically disqualified for government benefits, including benefits black men in the military served their country for) seems to quiet cries that black people are whiney and tend to be worse off than other racial groups in economic and health outcomes because we are lazy.
“Louisville, Ky proud,” my Twitter handle beams. “Welcome home,” a customs agent says as I reenter the U.S. after travel abroad. I say, “Thank you,” with a smile I feel in my heart. My loyalty is as inexplicable as the uniforms sixteen black female West Point cadets wear in their photo. Why would they volunteer to serve a country that’s done so much to them? Why would they willingly enter a space that’s 80 percent male and 70 percent white?
Why wouldn’t they? They belong there. They’ve taken advantage of freedoms afforded to them by amendments to the Constitution, gained via centuries of freedom and civil rights movements and not found in countries they may have to fight against.
To me, the more important questions are, why is any assertion of black identity interpreted as anti-white, and why is whiteness interpreted as American while black is not? Whether or not the women’s fist-raised gesture signaled affiliation with Black Lives Matter (and the investigation found that it did not), the gesture did assert the cadets’ black female identity. It acknowledged that in an overwhelmingly white and male space, they came as themselves and survived, probably by leaning on each other. If that sews seeds of racial division, the academy may as well be 100 percent white and male.
Instead, consider that of the women pictured, those whose ancestors were enslaved enrolled in a military academy to stand up for the country their people’s unpaid labor built into greatness, a country that depends on their people for its culture. They stand in their uniform, in their womanhood and in their blackness.
Sixteen black women in full traditional uniform, with sabers, standing on the steps of West Point’s oldest barracks and with their fists raised isn’t an affront to whiteness or to America. Their gesture shows that “unity, solidarity and pride,” are the elements of thriving in a space that doesn’t quite accept you but that you love, built and are a part of. The women’s presence at West Point, though tiny in percentage (1.6), is a step toward making the academy 100 percent American.
Florida deputies fatally shoot robbery suspect
DELAND, Fla. (AP) — Three Florida sheriff’s deputies fatally shot an armed robbery suspect who they say refused to surrender and was holding a knife.
Volusia County sheriff’s spokesman Andrew Grant said a gunman Sunday had robbed victims of their wallets at an Orange City park and ride. They provided a description of the suspect and his vehicle.
Grant says deputies spotted the suspect and a woman driver in the car about 20 minutes later in DeLand, about 25 miles west of Daytona Beach. He says the woman got out of the car and surrendered, but the male suspect refused and wouldn’t show his hands. The deputies opened fire. The suspect died at the scene. His name has not been released.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement will investigate the shooting. The deputies have been placed on routine leave.
Woman fails to save friend in Australian crocodile attack
BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Police say a woman struggled in vain to drag her friend from a crocodile’s jaws during a late night swim off a northeast Australian beach.
Police Senior Constable Russell Parker said the pair were in waist-deep water at Thornton Beach in the World Heritage-listed Daintree National Park in Queensland state when the 46-year-old woman was taken by the crocodile at 10:30 p.m. local time on Sunday.
Parker told Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Monday: “Her 47-year-old friend tried to grab her and drag her to safety but she just wasn’t able to do that.”
He says a rescue helicopter fitted with thermal imaging equipment failed to find any trace of the missing woman Sunday night.
The search resumed on Monday with a helicopter, boat and land-based search teams.
Brazil’s Rousseff says impeachment aimed at corruption probe
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Suspended President Dilma Rousseff said in an interview published Sunday that leaked audio recordings of men backing her impeachment show the effort to oust her is meant to stop a wide-ranging corruption probe that has implicated numerous leading Brazilian politicians and businessmen.
Rousseff told the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo the revelation of the recordings gives her hope of returning to office. She was suspended early this month pending a Senate impeachment trial. Her now-estranged vice president, Michel Temer, is serving as interim leader.
Recordings of three politicians of Temer’s Brazilian Democratic Movement Party appear to link her ouster to attempts to limit the investigation. Those involved dispute that interpretation, and there is no evidence so far that they have stalled the probe.
“The dialogues show that the real cause for my impeachment was an attempt to obstruct the ‘Car Wash’ operation,” Rousseff said, referring to the name of the corruption investigation at state-run oil giant Petrobras. “It was all made by those who thought that, without changing the government, the bleeding (of politicians) would continue.”
She said another of the conversations noted that she had allowed the investigations to go forward. “These conversations prove what we have consistently said: We never interfered. And those that wanted my impeachment had that objective. It is not me saying, it is them.”
The recordings forced new Planning Minister Romero Juca to take a leave of absence.
Two other heavyweights in Temer’s party, Senate chief Renan Calheiros and former President Jose Sarney, were heard making damaging comments about the acting president, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s Supreme Court, lawmakers and businessmen.
Ariya Jutanugarn wins 3rd straight LPGA Tour title
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Ariya Jutanugarn became the first player to win three straight LPGA Tour events in three years, closing with a 5-under 67 for a five-stroke victory Sunday in the Volvik Championship.
The 20-year-old Jutanugarn is the first player since Inbee Park in 2013 to win three consecutive tournaments and the first ever to make their first three career victories consecutive.
Jutanugarn finished at 15-under 273 at Travis Pointe after starting the day with a one-shot edge thanks to a closing eagle in the third-round.
Jutanugarn became the first Thai winner in tour history three weeks ago in Alabama and followed that up last week with a victory in Virginia. Jutanugarn doesn’t plan to play the next event in New Jersey, where she would have had a shot to become the first since Lorena Ochoa in 2008 to win four tournaments in a row.
Christina Kim was second after a 71.
Long road to Cup Final ends for rebuilt Sharks and Penguins
PITTSBURGH (AP) — It wasn’t supposed to take the San Jose Sharks this long to reach their first Stanley Cup Final. It wasn’t supposed to take this long for Sidney Crosby to guide the Pittsburgh Penguins back to a destination many figured they’d become a fixture at after winning it all in 2009.
Not that either side is complaining.
Certainly not the Sharks, whose nearly quarter-century wait to play on the NHL’s biggest stage will finally end Monday night when the puck drops for Game 1. Certainly not Crosby, who raised the Cup after beating Detroit seven years ago but has spent a significant portion of the interim dealing with concussions that threatened to derail his career and fending off criticism as the thoughtful captain of a team whose explosiveness during the regular season too often failed to translate into regular mid-June parade through the heart of the city.
Maybe the Penguins should have returned to the Cup Final before now. The fact they didn’t makes the bumpy path the franchise and its superstar captain took to get here seem worth it.
“I think I appreciated it prior to going through some of those things,” Crosby said. “I think now having gone through those things I definitely appreciate it more. I think I realize how tough it is to get to this point.”
It’s a sentiment not lost on the Sharks, who became one of the NHL’s most consistent winners shortly after coming into the league in 1991. Yet spring after spring, optimism would morph into disappointment. The nadir came in 2014, when a 3-0 lead over Los Angeles in the first round somehow turned into a 4-3 loss. The collapse sent the Sharks into a spiral that took a full year to recover from, one that in some ways sowed the seeds for a breakthrough more than two decades in the making.
General manager Doug Wilson tweaked the roster around fixtures Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton, who remained hopeful San Jose’s window for success hadn’t shut completely even as the postseason meltdowns piled up.
“I always believed that next year was going to be the year, I really did,” Thornton said. “I always thought we were a couple pieces away. Even last year not making the playoffs, I honestly thought we were a couple pieces away, and here we are.”
The Penguins, like the Sharks, are a study in near instant alchemy. General manager Jim Rutherford rebuilt the team on the fly after taking over in June, 2014 and with the team sleepwalking last December, fired respected-but-hardly-charismatic Mike Johnston and replaced him with the decidedly harder-edged Mike Sullivan. The results were nearly instantaneous.
Freed to play to its strengths instead of guarding against its weaknesses, Pittsburgh rocketed through the second half of the season and showed the resilience it has sometimes lacked during Crosby’s tenure by rallying from a 3-2 deficit against Tampa Bay in the Eastern Conference finals, dominating Games 6 and 7 to finally earn a shot at bookending the Cup that was supposed to give birth to a dynasty but instead led to years of frustration.
True catharsis for one side is four wins away. Some things to look for over the next two weeks of what promises to be an entertaining final.
FRESH FACES: When the season began, Matt Murray was in the minor leagues. Now the 22-year-old who was supposed to be Pittsburgh’s goalie of the future is now very much the goalie of the present. Pressed into action when veteran Marc-Andre Fleury suffered a concussion on March 31, Murray held onto the job even after Fleury returned by playing with the steady hand of a guy in his 10th postseason, not his first. San Jose counterpart Martin Jones served as Jonathan Quick’s backup when the Kings won it all in 2014 and has thrived while playing behind a defense that sometimes doesn’t give him much to do. Jones has faced over 30 shots just four times during the playoffs.
“HBK” IS H-O-T: Pittsburgh’s best line during the playoffs isn’t the one centered by Crosby or Malkin but Nick Bonino, who has teamed with Phil Kessel and Carl Hagelin to produce 17 goals and 28 assists in 18 games. Put together when Malkin missed six weeks with an elbow injury, the trio has given the Penguins the balance they desperately needed after years of being too reliant on their stars for production.
POWERFUL SHARKS: San Jose’s brilliant run to the Finals has been spearheaded by a power play that is converting on 27 percent (17 of 63) of its chances during the playoffs. The Sharks are 9-2 when they score with the man advantage and just 3-4 when it does not.
OLD MEN AND THE C(UP): Both teams have relied heavily on players who began their NHL careers in another millennium. Pittsburgh center Matt Cullen, who turns 40 in November, has four goals during the playoffs. Thornton and Marleau, both 36, were taken with the top two picks in the 1997 draft that was held in Pittsburgh while 37-year-old Dainius Zubrus draws stares from younger teammates when he tells them he used to play against Hall of Famer (and current Penguins owner) Mario Lemieux.
“When I say ‘Twenty years ago I was playing against Lemieux, they say ‘I was 2-years-old,'” Zubrus said.
Police: Off-duty officer shoots armed suspected shoplifter
WASHINGTON (AP) — Police in Washington say an off-duty officer shot a man suspected of shoplifting after the man produced a gun and failed to comply with the officer’s orders.
Police said in a statement that the shooting happened Sunday near Union Station. Police say an off-duty officer saw a man carrying objects in his arms and backpack and the officer attempted to stop the individual for shoplifting. It was not immediately known what items the suspect had taken.
Police say the suspect produced a firearm and that the officer shot the man when he failed to obey orders. Police say the suspect’s weapon was recovered from the scene and that he was taken to a hospital in critical but stable condition.
Police did not release the man’s name, age or race and did not identify the officer.
