Britains vaccine advisory body has said that coronavirus vaccines for healthy children aged between 12 and 15 should not be recommended on health grounds alone. The body, however, advised the government to look at “wider issues” including the impact of the virus on schooling. A final decision is expected next week.
Another 37,578 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 6,941,611, according to official figures released Saturday.
The country also reported another 120 coronavirus-related deaths, taking the national death toll to 133,161. These figures only include the deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test.
The latest data came as Britain’s vaccine advisory body announced that coronavirus vaccines for healthy children aged between 12 and 15 should not be recommended.
The Joint Committee on Vaccine and Immunisation (JCVI) provided the assessment, saying the vaccine jabs should not be recommended to those in this age group on health grounds alone, but the body has advised the government to look at “wider issues” including the impact of the virus on schooling.
The decision on healthy children was based on concerns over an extremely rare side effect of the Pfizer vaccine which causes heart inflammation, according to the BBC.
A final decision, signed off by the chief medical officers of Britain’s all four nations, is expected next week, according to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).
“COVID-19 cases are likely to increase once schools reopen — in the absence of any COVID-19 restrictions, as children are still unvaccinated and schools are high density, high contact environments, with relatively poor ventilation and long contact duration episodes,” said Julian Tang, honorary associate professor at University of Leicester.
“Risks can be reduced by ideally, in principle, extending the COVID-19 vaccination program to younger children, improving school ventilation, masking the older children and teachers, reducing overall class sizes, staggering break periods, but this may have various practical complications that may be unacceptable to some parents and teachers,” said the clinical virologist.
More than 88 percent of people aged 16 and over in Britain have had their first vaccine dose and nearly 80 percent have received both, the latest figures showed.
Children play with water in a fountain near Tower of London in London, Britain, on Aug. 13, 2021.
Texas created a blueprint for abortion restrictions. Republican-controlled states may follow suit.
Republican officials in more than a half-dozen states across the country moved this week to replicate Texass restrictive abortion ban after the Supreme Court declined to step in and stop the law from taking effect.
GOP officials in at least seven states, including Arkansas, Florida, South Carolina and South Dakota, have suggested they may review or amend their states’ laws to mirror Texas’s legislation, which effectively bans abortions after six weeks. Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Ohio and more are expected to follow, after a year abortion activists have deemed “the worst legislative year ever for U.S. abortion rights.”
“It’s something we’re already working on,” Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson told local news station WFLA-TV when asked about copying the Texas law, which empowers private citizens to report and sue providers who offer the procedure after six weeks.
Announcing he planned to introduce a copycat bill, Arkansas state Sen. Jason Rapert, a Republican, the founder and president of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, shared a template of legislation lawmakers in other states could fill in the blanks on and reproduce.
In South Dakota, where just two facilities in the state provide abortions, Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, said Thursday she’s directing lawyers in her office to review Texas’s latest abortion law and the state’s current laws “to make sure we have the strongest pro life laws on the books.”
A quarter of states will likely introduce legislation that mirrors Texas’s ban, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports access to reproductive health. More abortion restrictions, an estimated 97, have been enacted in 2021 than any year since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the group, expects the number to break 100 in the days after the ban became law in Texas.
“This has been a seismic change,” Nash told The Washington Post. “Other states are clearly going to pay attention.”
Though most state legislatures are out on summer recesses, Nash said she expects to see Texas-style abortion bills filed before their next sessions begin. These bills will likely be high on the agenda next year, she said.
“In many places really the only thing left to do is ban abortion,” she said. “And they have momentum.”
The nation has reached a critical moment for abortion rights, with the Supreme Court preparing to hear a case in which Mississippi has asked it to overrule the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s right to an abortion. Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she would call for a vote on legislation to cement the right to abortion into federal law.
A majority of Americans favor reproductive rights; 63% of Americans agree with the ruling in Roe, a Quinnipiac University Poll in May found.
GOP state leaders, whose attempts to outlaw abortions have faced and sometimes failed to pass legal scrutiny, could find new success with a bill like Texas’s, which allows private citizens to bring suit against abortion providers or anyone who “aids or abets” the procedure.
“If the Texas legislation stands a greater chance of being upheld by the Supreme Court, certainly we would move to pass legislation that would mirror what Texas did,” said South Carolina state Sen. Larry Grooms, a Republican, whose abortion ban bill that was passed during the last session was affirmed unconstitutional in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.
Despite celebrations by antiabortion activists in Texas, some Republicans sounded a more cautious note. Senate Minority Leader McConnell, R-Ky., described the ruling as “a highly technical decision” and said “whether it leads to a broader ruling on Roe v. Wade is unclear at this point.”
Others sounded a more cautious note. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, told reporters Thursday he would “have to look more significantly” at the Texas approach but maintained he was “pro-life.”
“I welcome pro-life legislation,” he said. “What they did in Texas was interesting.”
Although Idaho’s legislation session never formally adjourned, state Senate President Pro Tempore Chuck Winder, a Republican, said he wouldn’t bring senators back to consider similar legislation as Texas’s ban.
“We already have a fetal heartbeat bill in Idaho,” he told the Associated Press, referring to proponents’ name for such a bill based on when an embryo’s cardiac activity can first be detected by an ultrasound. (Medical experts say that’s a misnomer, however, as an embryo does not have a developed heart at six weeks.)
Sen. Grooms of South Carolina brushed aside national polling data, saying it doesn’t reflect opinions in South Carolina, where he believes more people are coming around to antiabortion stances. He also said this is a morality issue, rather than a political one.
“For me, it’s not about winning at the polls,” he said. “It’s about protecting the sanctity of human life, and that includes unborn humans.”
Ohio Republican state Sen. Kristina Roegner, who introduced a bill in March that would make abortion procedures a felony, celebrated the Texas ban but stopped short of saying she would sponsor an identical bill.
“As an unwavering advocate for the sanctity of human life, I applaud Texas for standing up to protect unborn human babies,” she said in a statement. “As a mother of three daughters, I am pleased to have carried the heartbeat bill in Ohio, and will continue to fight for the right to life.”
Two antiabortion groups told The Post that while they applaud Texas’s creativity in formulating a law that successfully circumvented Roe, the Mississippi Supreme Court case is their priority.
“This was an act of desperation in Texas, to figure out some way around all the challenges that states constantly have enacting any kind of restriction, but really the job falls on the state to protect unborn people from being exterminated,” said Steve Antosh, general counsel for the National Pro-Life Alliance.
“There could be some judge that finds a way to stop it next week,” said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life. “But if this is saving babies right now, of course, we’re supporting it.”
Advocates on both sides predicted the fallout will ramp up activism and rulemaking on one of the most fraught issues in American politics. Antiabortion groups are expected to seize on Texas victory, moving forward with other restrictions.
“This [Texas ruling] gives us more motivation to push our state legislature to advance our key issues,” said Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life.
Lawmakers in Republican-controlled legislatures that have banned abortions early in pregnancies, such as South Carolina, Idaho and Oklahoma, could “piggyback” existing laws with Texas’s new enforcement mechanism that threatens to penalize providers, said University of Houston law professor Seth Chandler, pointing to Texas’s law triggering an abortion ban if Roe were overturned.
“I don’t see why the two couldn’t work in tandem, assuming of course that S.B. 8 is constitutional, which in my opinion, it is not,” he said, referring to the Texas bill by its number.
Chandler predicted that a provider challenging the ban could win on the grounds that the law is inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent that states cannot prohibit abortions prior to viability.
But because the bill made the public the enforcer instead of state, it would be harder to challenge. If the Texas law holds up in court, Chandler warned that the same strategy could be used by other states on a host of issues aside from abortion – such as guns and coronavirus restrictions.
“What’s good for the conservative goose is good for the liberal gander,” Chandler said.
Even as legislators and lobbyists ready themselves for a possible domino effect of similar bills, some reproductive rights advocates predicted a possible pushback against abortion bans in the wake of such a restrictive policy from Texas.
Since Vicki Ringer, public affairs director for Planned Parenthood Votes South Atlantic, warned of an attempt by South Carolina lawmakers to replicate the Texas ban in an op-ed in The State Thursday, she said her phone has “been ringing off the hook.” In South Carolina, where rates of maternal mortality are among the highest in the nation, particularly among Black women, such restrictions could be detrimental to women’s health, she said.
“People are terrified,” Ringer said in an interview.
The burden of any abortion restriction falls on people of color, low-income individuals and young people, advocates say.
As clinics close and appointments grow more scarce, people could have to travel hours, sometimes across state lines, to find care. The average cost of an abortion is $550, according to the Guttmacher Institute, and traveling for appointments adds additional cost and requires people to take time off work.
The threat to Roe could galvanize voters who believed the 1973 decision was settled law, said Kristin Ford, a spokeswoman for NARAL Pro-Choice America.
“Now that it is so clear that is not the case, that Roe is really hanging on by a very, very tenuous thread, the political calculation for voters changes,” she said. “Republicans are making a risky political calculation here because it is firing up our side. People are extremely concerned.”
Northeast officials vow to make changes after nearly 50 die in storm-related deaths in Idas wake
NEW YORK – State and local leaders in the Northeast on Friday vowed to strengthen infrastructure and improve emergency alerts after Idas aftermath caused scores of deaths and untold costs in destruction on its path north from Louisianas Gulf Coast.
At least 49 people were killed after torrential wind and rain pounded New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut, ripping through buildings, sparking massive flooding and leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power. Officials, some of who said they were caught off guard by the deluge, fear the death toll could rise as several people remain missing.
Leaders in New York and New Jersey told reporters their states needed to prepare for this type of storm to become normal as climate change scrambles weather patterns across the country.
“Things that we were told are once-in-a-century are now happening regularly,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, said at a Friday news conference. “But bluntly, they’re also getting worse. It is an entirely different reality.”
Despite grave warnings from the National Weather Service that New York could be inundated with heavy rains and flooding, de Blasio admitted Friday that city officials were caught flat-footed by the historic nature of the deluge. But he placed blame on a changing climate that has brought disasters with “a speed and ferocity we’ve never ever seen before.”
“We have to change our entire mind-set because we’re being dealt a very different hand of cards now,” he said. “And it’s not just us, we saw the destruction of Hurricane Ida in Louisiana. We’ve seen what’s happening in the Southwest with unprecedented drought. We see what’s happening with the wildfires in the West Coast. We all understand this is coming from a climate crisis.”
De Blasio, whose final term in office is set to expire at the end of the year, said that climate change was forcing the city to rethink everything. De Blasio pledged that the city would make quicker use of travel bans during heavy rains and work harder to evacuate people, not just in coastal areas of the city, but also from basement apartments.
“It’s not just saying to people you have to get out of your apartment, it’s going door-to-door with our first responders and other city agencies to get people out,” de Blasio said.
Most of the deaths in New York occurred exactly where officials had told residents to seek safety – their homes. Most of those who died were in basement apartments where floodwaters quickly trapped them inside. De Blasio said that the city would set up special cellphone alerts for neighborhoods with large numbers of basement apartments, most of which are technically illegal but collectively house tens of thousands of New Yorkers who can’t afford sky-high housing costs elsewhere in the city.
Shekar Krishnan, a civil rights and housing lawyer who is the Democratic nominee to represent the hard-hit Queens neighborhoods of Elmhurst and Jackson Heights on the city council next year, said this was an utterly foreseeable tragedy.
“We were the epicenter of the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s the communities like mine that have had the least amount of investments in our infrastructure that are the most devastated and harmed by these disasters,” Krishnan said. “We must start investing significantly in disaster preparedness, especially in immigrant communities like my own.”
Krishnan said among his priorities is the legalization of basement apartments, which would allow tenants to report unsafe living conditions to city officials without risk of eviction. He said that illegal basement apartments throughout Queens flooded nine years ago during Hurricane Sandy, and it was now time for city officials to take action.
“The reality is, because of how expensive housing is in the city and how rents are skyrocketing, many families have and will continue to live in basement apartments because that’s the most affordable housing they can find in the city right now,” he said.
Last year, de Blasio cut funding to a pilot program that sought to find ways to legalize basement apartments and regulate them. “If there ever was an urgent moment in the city to really legalize basement apartments in the city, this is it,” Krishnan said.
De Blasio said that the city would not be able to adjust to this new reality alone and would need help from the state and federal governments. Particularly, he said, lawmakers in Washington needed to invest in infrastructure spending. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the federal government spent $14.5 billion on a new levee protection system around New Orleans. In the aftermath of Hurricane Ida and other natural disasters this summer, vulnerable communities across the country will be looking to Washington for the same kind of investment.
On Friday, President Joe Biden approved emergency disaster declarations for New York and New Jersey, freeing federal resources to aid the storm response.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, tweeted that “record-breaking floods are the new normal” and said she had asked staff to draft an “after-action report” to examine the state’s preparation for the storm.
While officials across the four Northeastern states all sounded the alarms of what the storm signaled about a changing climate, the lessons derived from the storm varied.
In downtown Passaic, N.J., streets turned into rivers resulted in the first reported storm-related death. At least 60 people were evacuated from their flooding homes. Some 200 individuals were rescued by first responders. All are signs that “these storms are becoming not-so-rare storms,” Mayor Hector Lora said.
Lora said adapting to an era marked by exacerbated weather events requires strategic and pragmatic emergency plans.
“Mass evacuation is too broad of an approach,” he said. “Displacing a large number of families and inconveniencing individuals without having appropriate resources may end up creating more issues. If you’re putting all these people out of their homes, you better be prepared for where you’re going to place them.”
While the floodwaters in the city of more than 70,000 have receded, dozens have been unable to return to their homes – some may be “permanently displaced,” Lora said.
Displacement was not an issue unique to Passaic. Some 400 people sought refuge in Red Cross and community shelters across New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Since Ida made landfall in Louisiana on Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane, at least 60 storm-related fatalities have been reported across eight states. Roughly 10 tornadoes also touched down, including one that caused the Northeast’s first-ever “tornado emergency,” the most dire type of alert the National Weather Service can issue. Biden visited Louisiana on Friday to assess the extensive damage the hurricane wrought there.
In the Northeast, at least 13 people were killed in New York City, with another five dead elsewhere in New York. Five people in the Philadelphia area and one person in Connecticut were also confirmed dead.
Among New York’s fatalities was an 86-year-old woman in Elmhurst who was killed when floodwaters rushed into her basement apartment. According to records from the city department of buildings, there had been several complaints about an illegal basement dwelling in the building, but inspectors never gained access to the premises.
As New Jersey’s death toll rose to 25 overnight into Friday – all related to flooding – Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, said he expected that number to grow. Six people in the state remained missing, including an 18-year-old woman and a 20-year-old man who were voted Passaic’s city-sponsored prom queen and king.
“While the weather may be good and while the floodwaters may have receded, we’re still not out of the woods,” Murphy said Friday on NBC’s “Today” show.
Among those killed were a 69-year-old man whose car was swept away by the storm, a family of three and a neighbor at an apartment complex, and a veteran sergeant with the Connecticut State Police.
In Pennsylvania, Donald Bauer, 65, and his wife were returning to their home in Perkiomenville in heavy rain Wednesday when he drove into floodwaters in Bucks County. The flooding was deeper than he expected, and water poured into the vehicle, said his father, Victor Bauer. The floating SUV then crashed into a house and began to sink, said the couple’s son, Darby Bauer.
Donald pushed his wife out the car window but could not escape himself. First responders tried to pull the SUV from the raging waters but said the conditions were too dangerous. He was found dead Thursday inside the car.
The destruction in these four states came after Ida walloped the Gulf Coast, where Louisiana has grappled for 16 years with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. While Ida was downgraded from a Category 4 hurricane after landing Sunday near Port Fourchon, La., the storm proved even deadlier about 1,200 miles away in the Northeast.
Though the torrential weather has passed, its aftermath has proved to be just as harrowing for communities facing recovery.
In New York and New Jersey, the extent of the damage remains unknown. Answers will begin to emerge once officials wrap up the assessment that will enable federal aid to pour in, Jason Wind, FEMA’s acting Region 2 deputy, said in a news conference Friday.
Northeast of Philadelphia, in Bucks County, Pa., officials were so overwhelmed by the destruction that they asked municipalities to survey the damage to their own areas and report back to them.
“This damage was so widespread, our limited staff couldn’t get to all of it,” said James O’Malley, a spokesman for the county’s emergency services department.
Crews in Philadelphia tried to force water from Interstate 676, one of the city’s main arteries, back into the Schuylkill River. Others raced to reopen another nearby road before visitors arrive this weekend for the Made in America music festival, said Brad Rudolph, a spokesman for the regional office of the state Department of Transportation.
For those living near the river, its unprecedented swelling brought an overwhelming sense of loss. Throughout the day, crews piled damaged items from flooded buildings.
“It’s a disgrace. People lost a lot,” said Gerald Harris, who has run Harris Janitorial Services for 30 years. He watched as his workers filled one 40-yard dumpster with mattresses, cardboard boxes, trash bags, lawn chairs and other miscellaneous items.
On 25th Street, David King threw out sopping wet mats and swept brown muddy water out of his bike shop Thursday. He had opened the store six months before the coronavirus pandemic began, then temporarily closed. He reopened with the hope that he would not have to close again.
But the river had other plans.
“Oh, this is pretty devastating,” King said. “We opened, and things were starting to grow. We were building a customer base, and then we had to close down. And then when we reopened again, we were just in the process of building it back up.”
Down the street, Lisa Blackman used a little red cup to pour water out of her Toyota Prius. The hearing specialist checked on her car at 2:30 a.m. Thursday and saw no water. Six hours later, her street and her car had both flooded.
Mother Nature, Blackman said, is not happy.
“Somebody better believe in climate change very soon,” Blackman said as she and her son cleaned out three inches of water in her car using a towel decorated with fishes. “She is really upset with this world.”
Virginia Tech bottles up No. 10 North Carolina, pulls off 17-10 upset
BLACKSBURG, Va. – For the first time in two years, fans filled Lane Stadium to capacity Friday night. Elbow room was difficult to come by, particularly in the Virginia Tech student section, where the orange-clad masses jumped in unison to Metallicas iconic “Enter Sandman” as players rushed out of the tunnel.
It was the rollicking atmosphere that had been absent last season in this football-starved corner of southwest Virginia during the coronavirus pandemic. The Hokies’ faithful, more than 60,000 strong, were eager to reclaim it, arriving hours before kickoff to celebrate being together again for the season opener against 10th-ranked North Carolina.
On the field, the Hokies provided their famously energetic crowd plenty for which to cheer in a 17-10 victory behind a defensive uprising that included six sacks at the expense of North Carolina quarterback Sam Howell, who also threw a career-high three interceptions.
“Wow, what a crowd,” Hokies Coach Justin Fuente said. “I’ve never seen it like that. It was different. So much energy, so many festivities, so much loud music. It was awesome. Our fans were incredible. They played a huge role in the game in my opinion.”
The defense sealed the outcome when cornerback Chamarri Conner intercepted Howell, juggling the ball and getting his hand underneath it as he fell to the turf with 37 seconds to go. It was the first fourth-quarter interception of Howell’s UNC career.
No sack was more impactful than TyJuan Garbutt’s on third and four with the Tar Heels at the Virginia Tech 10 late in the fourth quarter. North Carolina was seeking to trim the deficit to seven but instead had to settle for Grayson Atkins’s 31-yard field goal with 5:53 to play to make it 17-10.
Players stormed the field at the final whistle, raising their arms and displaying their white helmets emblazoned with the “VT” logo, validating for at least a night Athletic Director Whit Babcock’s decision to bring back Fuente even after two losing seasons over the past three.
Fuente enters this pivotal season having given a ringing endorsement to starting quarterback Braxton Burmeister. The Oregon transfer validated Fuente’s confidence by amassing 211 total yards and two touchdowns, both of which came on first-half drives.
“I’m awfully proud of this football team,” Fuente said. “How they prepared all through fall camp for a game nobody thought we could win.”
Virginia Tech limited the Tar Heels to 2 for 10 on third down and possessed the ball for 10 more minutes, keeping one of the most potent offenses in the county last season on the sideline for extended stretches. North Carolina, which has back its entire starting offensive line, led the ACC in total offense (537.3) last year and was second in scoring offense (41.7).
Conner led the charge with eight tackles, and cornerback Jermaine Waller, a District native, had seven tackles and an interception. Garbutt added two sacks and five tackles for a defense that surrendered its fewest points since Nov. 16, 2019, in a 45-0 win against Georgia Tech.
Last season, the Hokies finished 12th out of 15 teams in the ACC in total defense (447.5 yards) and never allowed fewer than 14 points.
“It meant a lot,” Waller said of the defense’s performance. “We’ve been going through a lot of stuff since last year. Just all the work we put in, it just meant a lot. Everybody did their job. Everybody stuck together. It wasn’t easy. You’ve just got to be the tougher team.”
The Tar Heels drew within 14-7 late in the third quarter when Howell completed a 37-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Josh Downs on a tunnel screen. It marked the 69th career touchdown pass for the junior widely regarded as one of the top players at his position in the country.
But Virginia Tech answered with a career-long 48-yard field goal from John Parker Romo with 14:18 remaining, pushing the margin to 17-7.
Burmeister had summoned poise, accuracy and arm strength during the Hokies’ second touchdown drive, which ended with an 11-yard strike on third and goal to tight end James Mitchell in the back of the end zone. Mitchell adjusted his route when Burmeister encountered pressure and got behind cornerback Kyle McMichael.
Burmeister delivered the throw across his body while on the move to the right, fitting the ball into a tight window, to cap a 12-play, 80-yard possession with 3:07 left in the first half. The drive featured three third-down conversions, the first on an 18-yard pass from Burmeister to Raheem Blackshear on third and 13.
Later in the drive, on second and 14, Burmeister completed a pass to Tre Turner for 34 yards to the right sideline, deftly dropping the ball into the junior’s hands and millimeters beyond the outstretched arm of McMichael, who had tight coverage.
The Hokies opened the scoring with Burmeister’s 4-yard touchdown run on second and goal five minutes into the first quarter. Burmeister scampered untouched through the middle of the line of scrimmage for the sixth rushing touchdown of his career and third with Virginia Tech.
“I just think we need to go 1-0 each week, and I’m happy we got this win,” Burmeister said.
At the U.S. Open, teenage upstarts oust third seeds Stefanos Tsitsipas, Naomi Osaka in succession
NEW YORK – Serving to wrap up a straight-sets victory, defending U.S. Open champion Naomi Osaka lost her form, then her composure, and never got it back Friday night against 18-year-old Leylah Fernandez of Canada.
The result was a stunning upset on Arthur Ashe Stadium, where Osaka has claimed two of her four Grand Slam titles, with Fernandez ousting the tournament’s third seed, 5-7, 7-6 (7-2), 6-4. It was also the second upset authored by a teen on the main stadium court in the span of just a few hours, coming on the heels of Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz, 18, knocking off men’s No. 3 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in a five-set thriller.
“I just wanted to put on a show for everybody here,” Fernandez told the crowd during her post-match victory.
Osaka, 23, had collected her rackets and walked off court by that point, flashing a peace sign to the crowd.
The match – which was Osaka’s second Grand Slam contest since she withdrew from the French Open on May 31 for mental-health reasons – showed an uncharacteristic side of the soft-spoken champion, whose on-court comportment has been impeccable, regardless of the pressure.
After failing to serve out the match in the second set, Osaka piled one error atop another in the tiebreaker that followed. As her game unraveled, so did Osaka’s emotions.
In uncharacteristic fashion, she struck her racket frame on the court. After another error, she tossed her racket, then bashed it. The chair umpire chose not to issue a warning, which would have been expected under the rule book.
After Fernandez claimed the tiebreaker to force a third set, Osaka left the court for a permissible break. She returned a few minutes later with a towel over her head and shrouding most of her face. She apologized for her behavior to the chair umpire, according to ESPN’s Mary Joe Fernandez, who was courtside.
Although she played better in the third set, Osaka failed to slow Fernandez’s momentum or shake the teenager’s belief.
Fernandez’s heroics on Arthur Ashe Stadium followed those of another teen – Alcaraz, who topped third-seeded Tsitsipas in a five-set thriller in Friday’s afternoon session.
At 18, the 55th-ranked Alcaraz became the youngest man to beat a top-three player at the U.S. Open since ATP rankings were first kept in 1973.
And he fell flat on his back, overcome with awe and relief, when his final shot – a forehand blast to an open court – sealed the tiebreaker that clinched the 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (7-2), 0-6, 7-6 (7-5) victory.
“Without the crowd, I haven’t the possibility to win the match,” Alcaraz told the crowd, which fell deliriously in love with the young Spaniard over the course of a 4 hour, 7 minute physical contest. “Thank you to the crowd for pushing me up.”
Alcaraz claimed the biggest victory of his young career not by catching the 23-year-old Tsitsipas on an off day. He won the match on merits – with courage, dazzling backhand winners, devilish drop shots and grit.
If some tennis fans see in Alcaraz the next Rafael Nadal, it is understandable.
But the label of “the next Nadal” is not something that is embraced or endorsed by Alcaraz’s coach, former world No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero, who has said it is unnecessary baggage for the teen to shoulder.
Moreover, the right-handed Alcaraz plays his own brand of tennis – more attack-oriented than that of the left-handed Nadal, Spain’s most famous athlete and currently tied with Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic for a men’s record 20 Grand Slam titles.
Against the 6-foot-4 Tsitsipas, who boasts a variety of strokes and tactics, Alcaraz displayed even greater range and bolder tactics.
Alcaraz hugged the baseline during rallies, rather than lurked well behind it, to better dictate points. He blasted Tsitsipas’s second serves with fury. He deftly disguised his drops shots. And time and again, he painted lines with backhand winners and blitzed cross-court passing shots to make Tsitsipas, fit and quick, look a step slow.
Alcaraz wasn’t Tsitsipas’s only foe.
From the start, the bellicose crowd was against him. And his own father, Apostolos, who is also his coach, did Tsitsipas no favors, either, drawing a warning from the chair umpire for improper coaching (via apparent hand signals) during the third-set tiebreaker.
The defeat represented a dramatic reversal of fortune for Tsitsipas, often spotlighted as the face of the sport’s next generation.
But in recent months, Tsitsipas has drawn criticism from fellow players for taking extended breaks at critical junctures in his matches – leaving the court for overly long, yet permissible bathroom breaks. Three-time Grand Slam champion Andy Murray called it “rubbish” after Tsitsipas did exactly th
at during their first-round match on Monday.
On Wednesday, U.S. Open fans booed Tsitsipas when he took another long break during his second-round match against Adrian Mannarino. And they were in no mood for a reprise Friday – particular not against a teenager who was pouring his heart into every shot. So they booed when Tsitsipas called for the trainer early in the proceedings to evaluate his feet, then changed his socks and shoes.
Their animus gained steam as the match ground on. The crowed cheered Tsitsipas’s faults and miss-hits and cheered each ball Alcaraz struck.
The partisanship was laid bare after the fourth set, when Tsitsipas, his clothes drenched in sweat, headed off court for a bathroom break. He was booed mercilessly. But when Alcaraz decided to take a break, too, he was cheered as he followed Tsitsipas off court.
Asked afterward how he interpreted the boos, Tsitsipas said: “Look, I’m not pretending that everyone loves me . . . My intentions are not to be loved by everyone.”
Nationals growing pains endure in extra-innings defeat
WASHINGTON – There are unavoidable realities for these Washington Nationals, a team stripped down to two everyday major leaguers – Juan Soto and Josh Bell – surrounded by rookies, recent rookies and veterans hanging on.
One reality is that most late-game matchups will favor a contending club such as the New York Mets, who are visiting for five games at Nationals Park between Friday and Monday. Another is that growing pains will be far more frequent than wins, shown on the mound, at the plate, on defense and the base paths, night after night.
But for a moment Friday, in a nod to September games of the past, that was lost on those watching the Nationals erase a two-run deficit in the ninth inning. Then the feelings returned when, in the 10th, the Mets buried Washington with four runs and three hits off Austin Voth. The final was a 6-2 loss for the Nationals, delayed by a quick-passing spark. The Nationals couldn’t even score their automatic runner in the bottom half.
Before the ninth, and well before Voth struggled in extras, the Nationals (55-78) put the rough side of their rebuild on display. Dropping games is one thing, an expected side effect of trading eight veterans at the deadline. But repeated mental mistakes, while part of that process, too, are both grating for the fan base, coaching staff and front office and avoidable for inexperienced players. Their sixth straight defeat, half of them to the Mets, brought a few examples.
In the first inning, Lane Thomas, a 26-year-old center fielder, poked a leadoff single off Mets starter Rich Hill to stir the offense. A batter later, Alcides Escobar lifted a liner to the right-center gap and Thomas sprinted past second, thinking it would drop. When it didn’t, Thomas, a speedy runner, made it back to first without a throw. But he didn’t retouch second on his way back, leading to a double play. Thomas did later redeem himself with a highlight-reel sliding catch in the left-center gap.
In the top of the third, Pete Alonso skied a flyball to right field and Soto chased it. Soto, 22, dropped his head and dug through the grass, bearing toward a spot by the foul line. But his route was indirect and a triple fell just out of his reach, helping the Mets to their second run
In the bottom of the third, Luis García, 21, ripped a double to right to begin the inning. Nationals starter Sean Nolin attempted a sacrifice bunt and popped it right to a charging-in Hill. Then García leaked away from second, perhaps thinking steal, while Hill spun and picked him off, erasing a runner in scoring position.
Earlier Friday, the Nationals placed Kyle McGowin on the 10-day injured list with a sprained ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. The move made room for closer Kyle Finnegan to return from the paternity list. But the diagnosis is troubling for McGowin, who missed parts of July and August with elbow inflammation. Full and partial tears of the UCL often lead to Tommy John surgery. The Nationals have sent McGowin’s results to a specialist for a second opinion.
As the bullpen kept churning, Nolin threw 102 pitches in five innings, yielding two runs on five hits. Reliever Patrick Murphy worked two scoreless behind him, striking out five. Sam Clay and Ryne Harper kept it tight with a spotless eighth and ninth, respectively. And the offense, stunted by itself early on, did briefly click before the rest slipped away.
Soto crushed a 97-mph fastball, the first pitch of the ninth inning, to the first row inside the left field foul pole. Diaz recovered, if only for a moment, striking out Bell before walking Ryan Zimmerman on four pitches. Andrew Stevenson subbed in to run for Zimmerman. Adams followed with an RBI double, reaching for the fourth time, made possible by Brandon Nimmo diving in right-center instead of blocking the ball. Stevenson touched the plat after colliding with Chance Sisco, the Mets’ catcher, while the home crowd roared.
But the energy was fleeting. It was, coincidentally, the two-year anniversary of the Nationals staging a six-run, ninth-inning comeback to beat Diaz and the Mets. You may remember Kurt Suzuki crushing a three-run, walk-off homer and throwing his hands in the air. You may also remember the World Series title that followed about two months later. This time, though, the Nationals revived a lost game, making a few peeps of noise, before Voth was all too hittable.
Children play with water in a fountain near Tower of London in London, Britain, on Aug. 13, 2021.
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