COLU @ CONCEPTS

NEW YORK (AP) — Madison Keys completed the clean sweep for American women, giving the host country all four U.S. Open semifinal spots for the first time in 36 years. The 15th-seeded Keys served impeccably, controlled groundstroke exchanges from the baseline and was never in trouble during  a 6-3, 6-3 victory  over 418th-ranked qualifier Kaia Kanepi of Estonia that lasted only 69 minutes Wednesday night. That came several hours after 20th-seeded CoCo Vandeweghe’s 7-6 (4), 6-3 elimination of 2016 runner-up and top-seeded Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic. Pliskova’s loss means she will be replaced at No. 1 in the rankings by Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza. On Thursday, Keys faces Vandeweghe — with the winner reaching her first Grand Slam final — and No. 9 seed Venus Williams meets 83rd-ranked Sloane Stephens. “Oh, my God, it feels so good. We have so many Americans to talk about in the last days of the U.S. Open,” Keys said. “I can’t tell you how many tim...

TOKYO (AP) — If the U.S. attacks North Korea, the world could see another nuclear war. Yet negotiations won’t work — leader Kim Jong Un won’t live up to his promises even if he were to make any. And China — if only it would help more! Those sentiments have produced a collective shrug from many as they watch the North make rapid strides toward developing nuclear missiles capable of striking anywhere in the United States. But Washington hasn’t tried everything yet. Below, three experts offer ideas on how the U.S. might get out of its policy box on North Korea. And none of them require firing a shot. ___ DETERRENCE: A FAMILIAR GAME FOR U.S. Deterrence is about making sure your opponent has no good military moves. Kim Jong Un has proven to be pretty good at it. Vipin Narang, a nuclear strategy and nonproliferation expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, believes U.S. policymakers need to let that sink in. “Saying that this nuclear program has not augment...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump briskly overruled congressional Republicans and his own treasury secretary Wednesday to cut a deal with Democrats to keep the government operating and raise America’s debt limit. The immediate goal was ensuring money for hurricane relief, but in the process the president brazenly rolled his own party’s leaders. In deal-making mode, Trump sided with the Democratic leaders — “Chuck and Nancy,” as he amiably referred later to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi — as they pushed for the three-month deal, brushing aside the urgings of GOP leaders and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for a much longer extension to the debt limit. Republicans want that longer allowance to avoid having to take another vote on the politically toxic issue before the 2018 congressional elections. The session painted a vivid portrait of discord at the highest ranks of the Republican Party. After an angry August that Trum...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The latest on Hurricane Irma (all times local): 11:40 p.m. Hurricane Irma is hitting Puerto Rico with heavy rain and powerful winds, and authorities say more than 900,000 people are without power. Puerto Rico’s emergency management agency says more than half the island was without power and nearly 50,000 without water in the U.S. territory. Authorities in the Caribbean are struggling to get aid to small islands already pounded by the historic storm earlier Wednesday. Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne said Wednesday nearly every building on Barbuda was damaged when Irma passed overhead and about 60 percent of the island’s roughly 1,400 people are homeless. He says a 2-year-old child was killed as a family tried to escape a damaged home during the storm. ___ 8:30 p.m. The tourist board for the Caribbean island of Anguilla says the major resorts on the island survived a hit from Hurricane Irma but many private homes have b...

BOSTON (AP) — Here’s a novel way to enjoy autumn in New England: While the trees are dropping their leaves, you can be shedding some pounds. Activate the “Health” app on your iPhone (it’s standard and has a simple red heart icon); don a light jacket; unleash your inner multitasker; and you’re good to go. Powered by the same GPS technology your phone’s map uses to give you directions, the app will tell you not only how many miles or kilometers you’ve covered but exactly how many steps you took. If you’re a fitness geek, Fitbit, Garmin and other trackers can give you more data than you can shake a poplar branch at, including how many calories you’ve burned. If you’re a beginner looking to start a fitness routine, no sweat. Autumn is the perfect season to get outdoors: crisp and cool, with none of the strength-sapping humidity that can discourage even well-trained athletes. Scenic trails abound across the region, and they offer some of the most drop-dead-gorgeous places to view...

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AP) — Aid agencies were struggling to cope with a nonstop flood of Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh, where some 146,000 have arrived hungry and terrified after fleeing renewed violence in Myanmar — a crisis the country’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, dismissed as a misinformation campaign. With the influx pushing existing Rohingya refugee camps to the brink, Bangladesh pledged to build at least one more. The International Organization for Migration has pleaded for $18 million in foreign aid to help feed and shelter tens of thousands now packed into makeshift settlements or stranded in a no-man’s land between the two countries’ borders. U.N. agencies said they were distributing food to new arrivals, about 80 percent of whom were women and children, joining about 100,000 who had already been sheltering in Bangladesh after fleeing earlier convulsions of violence in majority-Buddhist Myanmar. “We’ve not had something on this scale here in many years,” said ...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Dozens of people were injured in clashes between South Korean protesters and police Thursday as the U.S. military added more launchers to the high-tech missile-defense system it installed in a southern town to better cope with North Korean threats. Seoul has hardened its stance against Pyongyang after its torrent of weapons tests, the latest a detonation Sunday of what North Korea said was a thermonuclear weapon built for missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. The clashes came as South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe met in eastern Russia and repeated their calls for stronger punishment of North Korea over its nuclear ambitions, including denying the country oil supplies. The demand contradicted the stance of their host, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who in an earlier meeting with Moon dismissed sanctions as a solution. In the rural town of Seongju, thousands of police officers in riot gear swarmed s...

CHICAGO (AP) — Researchers are tackling fresh questions about a degenerative brain disease now that it has been detected in the brains of nearly 200 football players after death. The suspected cause is repeated head blows, an almost unavoidable part of contact sports. As a new NFL season gets underway, here’s a look at what’s known — and what still needs to be learned — about the condition: WHAT’S NEW? The largest  report  to date on chronic traumatic encephalopathy included 202 brains from football players at the youth, college and professional level, all donated post-mortem to a Boston brain bank. CTE was detected in all but one of the 111 NFL players studied, 90 percent of the college players and 20 percent of the high school players. It was absent in two younger players’ brains. A previous report had described the disease in an 18-year-old football player, but finding additional cases at the high school level raises new questions about the game’s safety fo...

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australians will be surveyed on their support for gay marriage from next week after the nation’s highest court on Thursday dismissed challenges to the government’s power to conduct the postal ballot without Senate permission. Gay marriage could be legal in Australia by December if most Australians who take part in the ballot support the reform. But the lawmakers who could finally change the law within three weeks of the survey results becoming known would not be bound to accept the people’s will. Gay rights advocates argued in an emergency hearing in the High Court that the government did not have the constitutional power to survey the public through a unique 122 million Australian dollar ($97 million) postal ballot. The seven judges dismissed both cases argued by separate groups of rights advocates. The government had already gone to the expense of starting to print the ballot papers, which are to be posted to more than 16 million voters nationw...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Dozens of people were injured in clashes between South Korean protesters and police Thursday as the U.S. military added more launchers to the high-tech missile-defense system it installed in a southern town to better cope with North Korean threats. Seoul has hardened its stance against Pyongyang after its torrent of weapons tests, the latest a detonation Sunday of what North Korea said was a thermonuclear weapon built for missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. The clashes came as South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe met in Russia’s Far East and repeated their calls for stronger punishment of North Korea over its nuclear ambitions, including denying the country oil supplies. The demand contradicted the stance of their host, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has dismissed sanctions as a solution. Putin says he believes President Donald Trump’s administration is willing to defuse tensions over North Kore...