COLU @ CONCEPTS

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poles are marking the 73rd anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, a doomed revolt against Nazi Germany during World War II that President Donald Trump paid homage to during his recent visit to Poland. Poland’s President Andrzej Duda laid a wreath in the Warsaw district of Wola, the site of one of the worst massacres of Polish civilians at German hands during the occupation, with more events to follow. The Warsaw Uprising broke out August 1, 1944, with Polish insurgents taking up arms against the powerful German forces. They held out for 63 days before the Germans crushed the revolt. Some 200,000 Poles were killed and the Germans destroyed most of Warsaw in retaliation. During a July 6 visit to Warsaw, Trump paid homage to the “desperate struggle to overthrow oppression.” Source: www.apnews.com 

ATLANTA (AP) — The Trump administration’s tough talk on crime and the treatment of suspects has left black police officers worried that efforts to repair the fraught relationship between police and minority communities could be derailed. A major black law enforcement group is set to hear Tuesday from Attorney General Jeff Sessions days after President Donald Trump said police shouldn’t be “nice” to suspects by shielding their heads as they are lowered, handcuffed, into police cars. The comment, now described by the White House as a joke, angered some cops who said it only served to dial back progress they’d made with the people they serve. Black police officers talk of straddling two worlds: the communities where they live, and the police departments where they work. They take seriously their oath to uphold the law and to go after criminals, but they also worry about their own friends, relatives and neighbors who fear the police. “We live in some of the same communities that ar...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Police are investigating a bizarre heist of a 1,700-pound barbecue pit from a popular Albuquerque restaurant. The Albuquerque Journal reports (https://goo.gl/5oXrHZ) police say the black and red 200-gallon smoker smoke was stolen early Sunday. Daniel Morgan, the owner of Pepper’s Ole Fashion BBQ, says the smoker was cooking up a batch of brisket when it was taken. Morgan says most of the meat the restaurant serves is prepared in an indoor barbecue pit and he uses the custom built apparatus for catering gigs. No arrests have been made. Morgan says he considered launching a crowdfunding page to help cover the $5,800 costs of a replacement. Source: www.apnews.com 

MIAMI (AP) — Tropical Depression Emily is moving out over the Atlantic early Tuesday, a day after slogging across the Florida peninsula, where it brought drenching rain and power outages. The U.S. National Hurricane Center says the depression’s maximum sustained winds are near 30 mph (48 kph). Forecasters say slight strengthening is possible during the day but the poorly-organized depression is expected to stop being a tropical system within a day or two. The depression is centered about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north-northeast of Vero Beach, Florida, and is moving east-northeast near 12 mph (19 kph). Source: www.apnews.com 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Raised voices could be heard through the thick door to the Oval Office as John Kelly — then secretary of Homeland Security — offered some tough talk to President Donald Trump. Kelly, a whip-cracking retired general who was sworn in as White House chief of staff on Monday, had demanded to speak to the president alone after Trump complained loudly that the U.S. was admitting travelers from countries such as Afghanistan, Iran and Haiti. Kelly first tried to explain to Trump that the admissions were standard — some people had legitimate reasons to visit the country — but the president insisted that it was making him look bad, according to an administration official familiar with the exchange about a month ago. Kelly then demanded that other advisers leave the room so he could speak to the president frankly. Trump refused at first, but agreed when Kelly insisted. It was an early indication that Kelly, a decorated retired Marine general who served three tours...

One of the beautiful things about the Olympics is that the runners-up get prizes, too. Which brings us to Los Angeles. The second choice in its own country to host the 2024 Summer Games took the second-place prize in the international race, too — essentially agreeing to cede 2024 to Paris and accept the consolation prize, which, in this case, is the Olympics four years after that. A city landing the Olympics used to spark parties in the street. On Monday, the news slowly leaked out of the International Olympic Committee headquarters and from city hall in LA, where it was met with about as much fanfare as a broken-down car being towed off the 405 at rush hour. This has been a joyless, process-defying, mistake-riddled exercise that will be formalized six weeks from now in Peru, with the winners and losers already long decided. Hard to really pick on LA, though. Thanking them would be more appropriate. After the humiliations of Chicago for 2016 and New York for 2012, th...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Old inns along the Revolutionary War trails boast of George Washington sleeping there. But coin experts say they have found the first silver piece minted by the United States — one likely held by the most en vogue of Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton. David McCarthy figured the silver coin had to be one-of-a-kind after spotting it in the auction catalog. Its front features the all-seeing eye of God, surrounded by rays of light. The rays shoot out toward 13 stars — one for each of the colonies that had rebelled against Great Britain. A similar coin bore two words in Latin above the starburst: “Nova Constellatio,” or “new constellation” to describe the infant United States. But this silver piece bore no inscription at all. It was the first clue that the coin was something singular, said McCarthy, a senior researcher for the coin and collectibles firm Kagin’s. He had a hunch it was the first coin ever minted by the U.S. government in 1783 — the prototype ...

PORT REPUBLIC, N.J. (AP) — They’re called “ghost forests” — dead trees along vast swaths of coastline invaded by rising seas, something scientists call one of the most visible markers of climate change. The process has occurred naturally for thousands of years, but it has accelerated in recent decades as polar ice melts and raises sea levels, scientists say, pushing salt water farther inland and killing trees in what used to be thriving freshwater plains. Efforts are underway worldwide to determine exactly how quickly the creation of ghost forests is increasing. But scientists agree the startling sight of dead trees in once-healthy areas is an easy-to-grasp example of the consequences of climate change. “I think ghost forests are the most obvious indicator of climate change anywhere on the Eastern coast of the U.S.,” said Matthew Kirwan, a professor at Virginia Institute of Marine Science who is studying  ghost forests in his state and Maryland. “It was dry, usable lan...

CAIRO (AP) — Reda el-Sebaay was taking the subway while on a short business trip to Cairo from a Nile Delta city when he stumbled upon clerics offering religious advice or fatwas — answers to any question a Muslim follower might have. The 45-year-old civil servant had been pre-occupied for weeks about how he and his sisters would settle their inheritance. He wanted it to be fair and act according to Muslim teachings but he didn’t want to have to call a religious hotline and wait endlessly for an answer. Now he lined up behind a handful of people standing in front of a booth set up at one of the main Cairo subway stations — and 10 minutes later he got his answer. Fatwas are religious edicts or pronouncements, often on major issues related to Islamic teachings. But they also provide guidance on matters of everyday life, including starting up a grocery store or any other private business, who to marry and whether it is permissible under Islam to accept banks’ interest rates. ...

PHOENIX (AP) — The political defiance that made Joe Arpaio popular and seemingly untouchable as metro Phoenix’s sheriff of 24 years ultimately led to his downfall as he was convicted of a crime for ignoring a U.S. court order to stop traffic patrols that targeted immigrants. The TV interviews and news releases that the media-savvy lawman used over the years to promote his immigration crackdowns came back to bite him. The judge who found him guilty of misdemeanor contempt of court cited comments Arpaio made about keeping up the patrols, even though he knew he was not allowed. “Not only did defendant abdicate responsibility, he announced to the world and to his subordinates that he was going to continue business as usual no matter who said otherwise,” U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton wrote. The verdict Monday marked a final rebuke for a politician who once drew strong support from such crackdowns but was booted from office last year as voters got frustrated with his deepenin...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea has been condemned and sanctioned for its nuclear ambitions, yet has still received food, fuel and other aid from its neighbors and adversaries for decades. How does the small, isolated country keep getting what it wants and needs? Some put its success down to the extraordinary nuclear blackmail skills of a country whose leaders could be buying food instead of bombs and missiles. Some see the willingness of outsiders to help people in desperate need, regardless of how odious the government that rules them is, and others credit the feeling in South Korea that aid could improve ties. North Korea has had gradual economic growth in recent years and doesn’t appeal for foreign humanitarian assistance as much as it did in the past. Despite multiple rounds of U.N. sanctions, its leader, Kim Jong Un, has defiantly pushed his scientists to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching the U.S. heartland. It test-launched two intercontinental...

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — It’s just a few blocks from the house Earl Rice Jr. left behind as a teenager to the places he remembers. But after more than four decades in prison, he has ground to cover. Skirting Franklin Street’s neatly trimmed lawns in long strides, and praising the glories of the afternoon heat, he reaches the park where he and his brothers used to go sledding. Across 18th, kids, laughing and shouting, bound down school steps. Rice slows, taking it all in. “For 43 years I’m behind a wall or some kind of a fence with guard towers ... and then you come out here,” he says. “I can imagine what Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong and them felt like going to the moon, because that’s what it seems like. I’m on a different planet!” Rice, jailed at 17 for a purse-snatching that took a woman’s life, is 61 now. He is one of dozens of inmates — sentenced to life in prison without parole for crimes committed as juveniles — who have been released since the U.S. Supreme Court ru...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Two of Venezuela’s leading opposition figures were taken from their homes in the middle of the night by state security agents on Tuesday, in President Nicolas Maduro’s first moves against his enemies since a widely denounced vote giving his government nearly unlimited powers. The wife of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez posted what appeared to be video of him being taken from their home after midnight. “They’ve just taken Leopoldo from the house,” Lilian Tintori wrote on Twitter. “We don’t know where he is or where they’re taking him.” Venezuelan police set fire to motorbikes belonging to the press, after police were targeted with an explosive device. The government promised citizens that the election for a constitutional assembly would go on as usual Sunday despite boycotts. (July 30) Allies of former Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma posted video online of a man who appeared to be the opposition leader being taken by state security as a woma...