COLU @ CONCEPTS

BALTIMORE (AP) — Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh has a few words of advice for leaders in other cities who might want to get rid of Confederate monuments: “Do it quietly and quickly.” On Tuesday Pugh ordered four statues in Baltimore removed under the cover of night. In the morning, city residents awoke to empty marble plinths. Crews began removing the city’s Confederate monuments late Tuesday and finished at about 5:30 a.m. Wednesday. The city also removed a statue of Marylander Roger B. Taney, the U.S. Supreme Court justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision denying citizenship to African Americans. Pugh made the decision Tuesday morning to remove the monuments that night in order to avoid attention. “It was important that we move quickly and quietly,” Pugh said, “and that’s what we did.” Elliott Cummings, a member of the Maryland Sons of Confederate Veterans, denounced Pugh’s “barbarism and Taliban-esque actions” in tearing down the statues. “I’m angry and very sad at...

SEATTLE (AP) — The deadly white nationalist demonstration in Virginia has brought new attention to an anti-fascist movement whose black-clad, bandanna-wearing members have been a regular presence at protests around the country in the last year. Members of the “antifa” movement were among those protesting the Charlottesville rally last weekend. During a combative news conference Tuesday, President Donald Trump did not mention antifa by name but said there was blame “on both sides” for the violence. He said the counter-demonstrators charged at white nationalists with clubs and suggested they also had a hand in escalating the violence. “You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent, and nobody wants to say that, but I’ll say it right now,” Trump said. Here are some facts about the antifa movement and those who protested the rally: ___ WHAT IS ANTIFA? “Antifa” is short for anti-fascists and emulates historic an...

Bernard Lafayette fought to end segregation during the civil rights movement. But after watching events in Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend and hearing President Donald Trump blame both sides for the deadly violence, he realized that changing laws did not change enough hearts and minds. “It was below the surface,” said Lafayette, the 77-year-old chairman of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “It was always there. It never left. People are coming out again and expressing their racist feelings.” Minorities who came to the United States in search of a better life or who fought for equality were dispirited to see their fellow citizens fighting to preserve the legacy of the Confederacy and displaying Nazi symbols. And they said Trump’s response to the deadly violence only fanned racial flames. Trump’s initial statements on Saturday blamed violence on “many sides.” Two days later, he condemned white supremacists. On Tuesday, he lashed out at the counter-protest...

A widely spread photo that appears to show an anti-fascist activist beating a police officer is a doctored image. The image showing a man wielding a club and wearing an “antifa” jacket while standing over a downed officer was widely shared after the deadly violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The image has been circulating for several months among those opposed to the antifa movement, which is comprised of far-left-leaning militant groups that resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists. The image is actually a  Getty Images photo  taken during a 2009 protest of police in Athens, Greece. An antifa logo was apparently digitally added to the demonstrator’s jacket. Anti-fascists were among hundreds of demonstrators who descended on Charlottesville to oppose the rally. A demonstrator was killed when a driver intentionally drove into a crowd. Source: www.apnews.com  By The Associated Press

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal appeals court panel ruled Wednesday that Arkansas can block Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, two years after the state ended its contract with the group over videos secretly recorded by an anti-abortion group. In a 2-1 ruling, an 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel vacated preliminary injunctions a federal judge issued preventing the state from suspending any Medicaid payments for services rendered to patients from Planned Parenthood. Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson ended the state’s Medicaid contract with the organization in 2015. The court ruled the unnamed patients suing the state did not have the right to challenge the defunding decision. The panel did not directly address Arkansas’ reason for terminating the contract. The decision could potentially lead to a showdown before the U.S. Supreme Court over efforts by Arkansas and several other states to defund Planned Parenthood that have been blocked by other courts. In a dissenti...

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — David and Elizabeth Weinlick’s life together began like a reality TV show, blossomed into two decades out of a romance novel, and now seems destined to end in tragedy. David Weinlick and Elizabeth Runze were strangers when they said “I do” in front of thousands of shoppers and in the national spotlight at Minnesota’s Mall of America in June 1998. Now it seems the thing that will end what they call “our great love story” is cancer, after David was diagnosed with terminal and inoperable stage IV colon cancer. They were brought together not by love or mutual attraction but by friends and family, whom David tasked with finding him the right bride. Nineteen years and four children later, it’s obvious Elizabeth, or Bethy, was the right choice. The Weinlicks bristle at even the suggestion that their union wasn’t meant to last (“It was a spectacle wedding, but not a spectacle marriage,” David quips). “Basically, our fairy tale romance is being cut short by d...

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — Hawa Stevens spoke through tears of the 28 family members she lost after surging mudslides and floodwaters swept through Sierra Leone’s capital, killing hundreds and leaving hundreds more missing. “Mother, father, sisters, brothers, cousins all gone. My life has been shattered. ... Please help me God,” she sobbed as she waited in a long line in the pouring rain Wednesday outside Freetown’s overwhelmed mortuary to try to identify the corpses of her loved ones. She was surrounded by hundreds of others, some wearing face masks to try to ward off the smell of death and blue hospital booties over their shoes. Many clutched photos in the desperate hope that they would be among those fortunate enough to find their loved ones and give them a proper burial. For Stevens, the wait brought only disappointment. “I was only able to identify two of my entire family,” she said in anguish. More than 300 people were confirmed dead — a third of them children —...

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The nation’s largest pharmacy benefit manager will soon limit the number and strength of opioid drugs prescribed to first-time users as part of a wide-ranging effort to curb an epidemic affecting millions of Americans. But the new program from Express Scripts is drawing criticism from the American Medical Association, the largest association of physicians and medical students in the U.S., which believes treatment plans should be left to doctors and their patients. About 12.5 million Americans misused prescription opioids in 2015, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. More than 33,000 deaths that year were blamed on opioid overdoses. Express Scripts launched a yearlong pilot program in 2016 aimed at reducing patients’ dependency on opioids and the risk of addiction, said Snezana Mahon, the Missouri-based company’s vice president of clinical product development. Mahon said analysis of 106,000 patients in the pilot program showed a ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the era of nuclear nightmares — of the atomic arms race, of backyard bomb shelters, of schoolchildren diving under desks to practice their survival skills in the event of an attack — seemed to finally, thankfully, fade into history. Until now. For some baby boomers, North Korea’s nuclear advances and President Donald Trump’s bellicose response have prompted flashbacks to a time when they were young, and when they prayed each night that they might awaken the next morning. For their children, the North Korean crisis was a taste of what the Cold War was like. “I’m not concerned to where I can’t sleep at night. But it certainly raises alarms for Guam or even Hawaii, where it might be a real threat,” said 24-year-old banker Christian Zwicky of San Bernardino, California. People of his parents’ generation were taught to duck and cover when the bombs came. “Maybe those types of drills should come back,” Zwicky said....

WASHINGTON (AP) — Diagnosing if a tick bite caused Lyme or another disease can be difficult but scientists are developing a new way to do it early — using a “signature” of molecules in patients’ blood. It’s still highly experimental, but initial studies suggest the novel tool just might uncover early-stage Lyme disease more accurately than today’s standard test, researchers reported Wednesday. And it could tell the difference between two tick-borne diseases with nearly identical early symptoms. “Think about it as looking at a fingerprint,” said microbiology professor John Belisle of Colorado State University, who helped lead the research. Lyme disease is estimated to infect 300,000 people in the U.S. every year. Lyme-causing bacteria are spread by blacklegged ticks — also called deer ticks — primarily in the Northeast and Midwest, although their range is spreading. Lyme typically starts as a fever, fatigue and flu-like symptoms — often but not always with a hallmark bulls-...

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — It started with threats, taunting and racial slurs, and escalated to total pandemonium — hand-to-hand combat in the streets of Charlottesville. White nationalists and counter-demonstrators threw punches, screamed, set off smoke bombs. They hurled water bottles, balloons of paint, containers full of urine. They unleashed chemical sprays. Some waved Confederate flags. Others burned them. I watched, notebook in hand, as people gasped for breath and clutched at their swollen eyes, burning from pepper spray or mace. The throngs of Ku Klux Klan members, skinheads and various white nationalist factions came to town ostensibly to protest the taking down of a statue of Robert E. Lee in Emancipation Park, as President Donald Trump emphasized Tuesday. But the event was about much more than that, as exposed the night before when angry white men marched with torches across the University of Virginia chanting “Blood and Soil” and “Jews will not replace us.” ...

LONDON (AP) — British Parliament officials said Wednesday they will review plans to silence Big Ben during four years of repairs after senior politicians criticized the lengthy muting of the beloved bell. When the repairs were announced last year, officials said the massive bell in Parliament’s clock tower would be silenced for several months. But this week they said the ringing pause would last until 2021. Prime Minister Theresa May said “it can’t be right for Big Ben to be silent for four years.” The 13.5 British ton (15.1 U.S. ton, 13.7 metric ton) bell has sounded the time almost uninterrupted since 1859, but it’s due to fall silent on Monday so repairs can be carried out on the Victorian clock and the Elizabeth Tower. Officials say the silencing is needed to ensure the safety of workers. Adam Watrobski, principal architect at the Houses of Parliament, rejected claims that the great bell that survived German bombing raids was the victim of overcautious health and s...

flying, Marcus Martin shoved his fiancee out of the way of a car charging through a crowd of peaceful protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia. Marcus Martin was promptly hit and upended by the car as it plowed through the crowd. Flat on his back with a broken leg, he says he experienced several minutes of terror. “The only thing running through my mind was: please don’t let her be dead,” Martin, 26, told The Associated Press in an interview. “Please don’t let her be dead.” Marissa Blair was OK, and Martin’s body was captured in a photograph as he tumbled over the crashing car that fatally hit Heather Heyer, a friend who had been marching with Blair and Martin. Nineteen others were injured. Martin’s mother, Kimberly Martin, was terrified as she watched the scene replayed on television. “I’m thanking God, because after seeing that photo and then I’m seeing videos and I’m seeing my son behind this car and then when I see the car backing back up the street, it was nobody but Go...

SPRINGBORO, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio elementary school teacher faces charges she let her 15-year-old son sell LSD and allowed teenagers to use it in her home. Forty-year-old Amy Panzeca, of Springboro, pleaded not guilty Tuesday in Warren County to charges including permitting drug abuse and endangering children. She was freed on bond. Prosecutors say Panzeca’s son sold LSD to at least 20 high school students. He faces felony drug charges and is being held in a juvenile detention center. A drug task force found LSD and marijuana during a search of the family’s home in May. Panzeca teaches fifth grade. The Springboro school district has placed her on paid leave. Panzeca’s attorney couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Source: www.apnews.com 

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Republican Utah mayor celebrating a primary win will have to fend off competitors linking him to embattled President Donald Trump as he prepares for the general election to replace Jason Chaffetz in the U.S. House of Representatives. John Curtis, the popular mayor of the Mormon stronghold of Provo, won a GOP primary Tuesday in Utah after fending off two challengers in Utah’s 3rd Congressional District who were both backed by further-right conservatives. The challengers tried to undercut him for having once been a Democrat. The win gives him a heavy advantage in the November special election in the district, where Republicans outnumber Democrats 5-to-1. But Curtis’s opponents have already cast him as the candidate of Trump and his party. Jim Bennett, the first candidate of a new centrist United Utah Party, congratulated Curtis but said Wednesday that as a good man, Curtis should feel uncomfortable in the “Party of Trump.” “Mayor Curtis is going to ...