An impending free agent, Washington Nationals star Bryce Harper’s frustration seems to be boiling over during what has been a disappointing season for the talented team. That was taken to a whole new level after his Nationals lost on a walk-off single by Miami Marlins catcher J.T. Realmuto Saturday night. Stuck between irrelevance and contention in the National League Playoff race, it’s an open question whether Washington will buy or sell ahead of Tuesday’s non-waiver trade deadline. Well, Harper himself made sure to tell everyone how he feels about the situation. This comes with the Nationals and Marlins engaged in trade discussions surrounding Realmuto. Interesting timing, indeed. Saturday night’s loss dropped Washington to 52-52 on the season and six games behind the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League East. It’s also 4.5 games out of the final wildcard spot. Washington has a major decision to make moving forward. Does it decide to sell? If so, is Harper potentially on the chopping block? At least one rival NL team has inquired about his services. Either way, Harper’s frustration boiled over after the Nationals’ most-recent loss. Whether that plays into what the front office decides over the next few days remains to be seen. One thing is clear: Washington’s loss to the lowly Marlins will play a role in the team’s decision-making process.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Mary Schiavo read the headlines in horror 19 years ago when 13 people on board a duck boat in Arkansas drowned after it sank in Lake Hamilton. The former inspector general for the Department of Transportation thought then that Congress and the U.S. Coast Guard should act immediately. They needed to strengthen regulations regarding canopies on the vessels, enforce stringent life jacket requirements and either ban duck boats altogether or crack down on their industry. None of that happened. Then came the horrific headlines this month from another duck boat tragedy on Table Rock Lake near Branson. This time, 17 of the 31 on board were dead, five of them children. Not again, she thought. Today, Schiavo is part of a growing chorus of experts, lawmakers and safety advocates who insist change to these boats should happen soon. Not in a year or two when the federal investigation is finished. But now, when duck boats are still transporting tourists on lakes and waterways in several states across the country. "If people want laws, they need to push for them right now," said Schiavo, a transportation lawyer who was inspector general from 1990 to 1996. "What happens is you have this critical period of time after a tragedy in which you can get action. ... But as soon as Congress isn't under the microscope anymore, it becomes very difficult." The nation learned that lesson after the deadly duck boat disaster on Lake Hamilton near Hot Springs, Ark. A long list of recommendations, which the National Transportation Safety Board came out with three years after the tragedy, was virtually ignored. "If they had been (implemented), they would have saved this boat," Schiavo said. That inaction can't happen again, lawmakers and safety advocates agree. In the days since the Stretch Duck 07 sank in Table Rock Lake, one U.S. senator has begun working on legislation to implement the changes recommended 16 years ago and a Missouri lawmaker said the state needs to have a public hearing to identify what solutions are needed. And the congressman who represents Branson thinks duck boats should be temporarily banned while the investigation determines why the vessel sank. "These vehicles were not designed to haul people. They were World War II vehicles designed to go ship-to-shore and shore-to-ship hauling cargo," said U.S. Rep. Billy Long, a Republican from Springfield. "They've been adapted over the years, and there's been enough accidents. It's time to cease and desist with them unless they can be made safe." Missouri's two U.S. senators told their colleagues Tuesday that Congress must do something. Sen. Roy Blunt shared personal details of many of the victims and said the country can't ever go through a loss like that again. Sen. Claire McCaskill agreed. "I don't think it makes sense for us to wait another year to address some of these glaring issues in terms of passenger safety," she said on the Senate floor. "We've had 40 deaths associated with the duck boats since 1999, yet there has been little done to address the inherent dangers of these amphibious vehicles." In the absence of federal legislation on duck boats, some cities and states where fatal incidents have occurred have taken it upon themselves to regulate duck boat tours to the extent that they can. Will Branson and the state of Missouri follow suit? "We need to get right on it," said Rep. Bill Reiboldt, a Neosho Republican who is chair of the House transportation committee. "I think they can deal with it in next year's session and come out with something." ___ Some on the Ride the Ducks boat, an amphibious vehicle that goes from land to water, managed to swim to shore as the boat sank July 19. Others were trapped inside the duck boat as it sank in murky Table Rock Lake. None wore a life jacket. NTSB officials have said they want to know what information the duck boat company and captain had before someone made the decision to take the boat out despite the fact that the National Weather Service had issued a severe thunderstorm warning. Federal investigators also want to know why no one on the boat was wearing a life jacket. The NTSB has custody of the vessel. But it will likely be more than a year before the investigation is complete and full details are known about that night. Rep. Jeff Justus, a Branson Republican, said he doesn't think there's a clear picture yet of exactly what needs to be done. "We need to have more information before we start throwing laws around," Justus said. "I've seen the lawmaking process. Sometimes when we rush we don't get it anywhere close to right. ... If something needs to be done and improved, we need to do that. But I don't believe we are there yet." Long said Congress needs to wait for investigators to complete their job and find out exactly what went wrong and why. A preliminary report should be finished in a couple of weeks, he said. "And then see if these boats can be made safe," Long said. Others say it's already obvious there are some fixes - recommended 16 years ago - that must happen now. Among those: Installing backup buoyancy to keep a boat from sinking if it starts to take on water; eliminating canopies when the boat is in the water; and requiring life jackets, at least for the children. Robert Mongeluzzi, a Philadelphia attorney whose clients have sued duck boat operators, said it's past time for the government to act. "These are dangerous, they kill adults and children, and they should be banned," he said. "There should be an immediate nationwide moratorium on duck boats and the government should finally do what they're supposed to do and look at this, study this and ban it." Yet before legislation is crafted and enacted, companies that operate duck boats across the country must begin to police themselves, Reiboldt said. Top on that list is implementing limitations when it comes to storm warnings and wind. "I can't see any reason with that weather coming, knowing it was coming, and you could even see it, why they would continue," Reiboldt said. "That's just not common sense. ... Certainly before the season next year starts they should self-regulate themselves." "You learn from tragedies," Reiboldt said. "Seventeen people lost their life. Let's not put anybody else at risk." The duck boat industry's first modern catastrophe occurred in May 1999, when the Miss Majestic began taking on water on Lake Hamilton. According to the eight survivors, it sank within 15 seconds to one minute. The NTSB's investigative report, released in 2002, made recommendations on how to improve safety. The recommendations included removing overhead canopies that could trap passengers as the boat sank and implementing a reserve buoyancy mechanism to keep the boats from sinking at all. Several months after the Miss Majestic disaster, the NTSB held a safety forum with the Coast Guard and the duck boat industry. "One major outcome of the forum was the realization by participants that amphibious vehicles pose unique and unresolved safety risks to the public, but that the vehicles could be made safe by installing safety features that would prevent them from sinking when flooded," said a 2002 letter from the NTSB to U.S. Coast Guard Commandant James Loy. A naval architect company attended the forum and showed how duck boats could be retrofitted with foam and bulkheads that would keep the vessels afloat when flooded and fully loaded with passengers. Cost estimates at the time, though, indicated it would require about $2,000 per duck boat to install foam and bulkheads, plus another $10,000 for detailed engineering of the installations. The NTSB said that three amphibious passenger vehicle companies were trying to make those improvements, but that others complained about the difficulty of making the installations. The agency upbraided the industry's reluctance to adopt safety improvements and called on the Coast Guard to require the changes. "Because the industry has, by and large, refused to take voluntary action to address this risk, the Safety Board considers it imperative that a regulatory authority takes steps to ensure that all amphibious passenger vehicles will not sink in the event of an uncontrolled flooding event," the NTSB's letter to the Coast Guard admiral said. When the NTSB proposed its duck boat safety recommendations in 2002, Schiavo said, "almost every operator lobbied against the rules." Even though there had been 18 accidents involving amphibious passenger vehicles between 1991 and 1999, it wasn't until the Miss Majestic case that the Coast Guard started developing nationwide "guidance" to advise field inspectors in charge of duck boats, according to the NTSB. "The idea that the Coast Guard did not take action after the 1999 MISS MAJESTIC casualty is a mischaracterization of Coast Guard actions," Alana Miller, an agency spokeswoman, said in an email to The Kansas City Star. "The Coast Guard launched its highest level of investigation, a Commandant directed Marine Board of Investigation, which resulted in 17 recommendations. Those recommendations were accepted by the Coast Guard Commandant and action was taken." The primary action, Miller said, was the creation of a document that offered extensive guidance on stability, canopies and egress procedures. It also included guidance on other critical issues that were investigated during the Miss Majestic investigation. But when the Coast Guard issued that first-ever guidance, called the Navigation and Vessel Inspection Circular, the NTSB found that the document "does not adequately address important safety concerns." And the NTSB pointed out that "it is only an advisory document." In 2016, the NTSB again called on the Coast Guard to adopt new safety standards. That was in response to a 2015 Ride the Ducks incident in Seattle in which a duck boat was traveling on land when a mechanical failure caused it to cross over into oncoming traffic. The vehicle collided with a bus, killing five passengers and injuring 69 others. In addition to again making recommendations to the Coast Guard, the NTSB specifically addressed the Passenger Vessel Association, a national trade organization, urging it to pass along suggestions to its members. Among the recommendations: Encouraging members to learn lessons from the Seattle incident, in which the operator was accused of poorly maintaining the vessel; completing proper maintenance; and keeping up with service bulletin repairs. The NTSB also told the association to have passengers buckle their seat belts while the vessel was on land and unbuckle them upon entering the water. And the safety board advised the association to have a separate tour guide to make sure its drivers weren't distracted. It's not clear if the Passenger Vessel Association passed those recommendations along to its members. The association did not respond to multiple requests for comment. ___ Even if Congress doesn't require the duck boat industry to change, the Coast Guard could. It could implement a federal regulation on duck boat safety, said Schiavo, the former inspector general. "The Coast Guard could easily say no canopies on these boats when they enter the water, and everybody 13 and under has got to be in a vest," she said. "It's easier for Congress to do it, but the Coast Guard could do a rulemaking." When asked about that, the Coast Guard's Miller said the agency "does have federal regulations for recreational boating pertaining to life jackets." She said, however, those regulations don't cross into commercial vessels where there are "several built-in safety measures pertaining to egress, life jackets and stability to name a few." Miller didn't elaborate. The Coast Guard did implement a regulation in 2011, when it amended its rule on the maximum weight and number of riders that may be permitted on board a passenger vessel to better reflect the reality of the U.S. adult population. The regulation increased the assumed average weight per person from 160 to 185 pounds. But the Coast Guard received pushback from Ride the Ducks International, which at the time operated duck boats in several states. When the Coast Guard began studying the change in 2006 and put out a request for public comments, then-company president Chris Herschend responded in opposition. He wrote that while the company supported the goal of increasing passenger weight standards, it was concerned about the implication of "such a dramatic change on such short notice." "We routinely run at capacities higher than what the measures in the Notice would allow," he wrote, adding that its boats "carry a disproportionate number of children and students relative to the general population and aviation industry standards upon which the proposed weight standards are based." Complying with the proposed standards would be extremely costly for the company, Herschend said. "We estimate immediate compliance at an average passenger weight of 185 lbs could cost us as much as $4 million in lost sales, system wide, in 2006," he wrote. Over the next two years, Herschend said, the company estimated it would cost $10 million to get the company and its licensees in full compliance, "with no discernible improvement in safety over current levels." Calls and emails to representatives of the Herschend family were not returned. Some say a cozy relationship between the industry and its regulators is a big reason safety improvements haven't been made. Even in his opposition letter, Chris Herschend said his company considered its relationship with the Coast Guard "to be among our most valuable assets." "We are in contact with your organization on a near-daily basis," he said. "And I believe your team would affirm our team's commitment to excellence, safety, and concern for the public welfare (not just our own)." Duck boat operators are part of the Passenger Vessel Association, which touts its efforts to shape "positive outcomes" on regulatory issues. "Through an aggressive legislative and advocacy program, PVA effectively represents the interests of the passenger vessel industry in our Nation's Capital," the group says on its website. To do that, it says, "PVA maintains close contact with key legislators and committees on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures to ensure that industry positions are adequately addressed." It adds that "Congressional Fly-In Meetings provide members with an opportunity (to) meet in person with Members of Congress." "Every industry has a certain lobby," Schiavo said. "Congress resorts to inertia once the lobbyists kick in." ___ In the absence of federal legislation on duck boats, some cities and states that have had fatal incidents have taken it upon themselves to regulate tours to the extent that they can. After a 28-year-old woman was killed in Boston in 2016 when her motor scooter collided with a duck boat on a street, the Massachusetts legislature soon took action. It passed a law requiring boats to have blind spot cameras and proximity sensors and prohibited duck boat drivers from simultaneously being narrators and tour guides. In Philadelphia, the route the duck boats traveled on the Delaware River was constricted after a shipping barge collided with a Ride the Ducks boat in 2010, killing two tourists. And in Canada, federal authorities temporarily halted duck boat operations after one deadly incident 16 years ago. In that case, 10 people looking for a safe river tour boarded a boat that was little more than a floating pick-up truck. Before that Sunday was over - July 23, 2002 - four people would be dead from drowning and hypothermia, freezing in the cold waters of the Ottawa River. The craft was called the Lady Duck, an odd amphibious contraption that was cobbled together using the chassis of a Ford F-350 truck, sealed to be watertight, and extended to a length of 28 feet. The Lady Duck held 10 passengers in the extended bed of the vehicle and two crew in the cab. Sponsons made of rigid foam plastic, and affixed to port and starboard sides of the craft, kept it afloat. Similar to the Branson duck boats, it had an awning overhead to guard against the sun and inclement weather. Clear plastic windows rolled down. Unlike at Table Rock Lake, the Ottawa River was fully calm as the craft left Hull Marina before 4 p.m. and puttered upstream from the Alexandra bridge using its single prop, creating a tiny wake at under 5 miles per hour. All appeared to be fine until the Lady Duck started returning home. The front end of the craft seemed low. The driver asked several passengers to get to the back of the boat, to raise the front end. By 4:10 p.m., "the situation deteriorated rapidly." Floodwater poured into the front of the craft. The driver called on the passengers to abandon the sinking vehicle. The driver and seven passengers escaped out the back. Four people - a mother, her two daughters, ages 5 and 13, and a Catholic nun - did not. With life vests on, they became trapped under the Lady Duck's fabric awning and sank 25 feet to the bottom of the river. In response to the accident, Transport Canada, a federal agency, called for all amphibious vehicles to stop operation so they could be inspected. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada concluded that the company that put the Lady Duck on the water had done only the minimum in terms of safety. The board made multiple recommendations, including adopting a new safety plan, that the company - called Lady Dive - has fulfilled. The company also purchased new enclosed amphibious vehicles manufactured for the river tour. An owner of Lady Dive did not return calls to The Star, but spoke to local media in Canada following the deaths in Branson. "Safety and security on board are the same as all boats in Canada," said owner Dianne Beauchesne. "Everybody has a life jacket which is located under their seats and there are several emergency exits off of the vessel ... We take safety very seriously." It isn't known what will happen in Branson. Mayor Karen Best told The Star Thursday that new legislation is likely. "Will the ducks reopen?" Best asked. "I don't know." But she said she has talked with business and community leaders about the boats. "They shared that we have concerns moving forward about these amphibious vehicles being safe for our citizens and our visitors." ___

A powerful 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck the popular tourist island of Lombok in Indonesia on Sunday killing 14 people and sending villagers fleeing from their beds into open fields to avoid collapsing buildings. The quake, which rocked the island early in the morning when many people were still asleep, injured 162 people and damaged thousands of houses. Electricity was cut off in the worst-hit area, Sembalun, a sparsely populated area of rice paddies and the slopes of Mount Rinjani on the northern side of the island. A 30-year-old Malaysian woman visiting Mount Rinjani, a popular trekking destination, was among those killed, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the disaster mitigation agency spokesman. He said the area was temporarily closed to climbers because there were reports of landslides. Hundreds of climbers are being evacuated from the Rinjani national park and 115 have been safely escorted out, Nugroho said. "The most pressing needs now are medical personnel, stretchers, health equipment, kids wares and food," Nugroho said. An emergency tent was set up on a street in Sembalun to treat the injured because the local hospital was damaged, and those in a critical condition were taken to other hospitals. "It happened so suddenly at around 6 in the morning. Suddenly everything simply collapsed," said Siti Sumarni, a Sembalun resident. "My child was inside the house, thankfully he survived." Standing outside a green tent set up on a dusty field, she said nothing was left of her house. Video footage showed ambulances lining the streets of Lombok and many houses damaged with only parts of brick walls standing. "We jumped out of our beds to avoid anything falling on our heads," said Jean-Paul Volckaert who runs a hotel near Senggigi on the western side of Lombok. "I’ve been walking around but so far there is no damage. We were very surprised as the water in the pools was swaying like a wild sea. There were waves in the pools but only for 20 to 30 seconds," he told Reuters by telephone. A magnitude 6.4 earthquake is considered strong and is capable of causing severe damage. The Lombok quake struck at 6:47 a.m. (2247 GMT on Saturday) and was only 4.35 miles deep (7 km), a shallow depth that would have amplified its effect. It was centered 50 km (31 miles) northeast of the city of Mataram, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, but it was also felt strongly to the west on the neighboring island of Bali, Indonesia's top tourist destination. Over a hundred of subsequent tremors were recorded, with the largest aftershock recorded at 5.7 magnitude, Indonesia's Meteorological, Climatological and Geophysics Agency said. The earthquake was on land and did not trigger any waves or tsunami. Earthquakes are common in Indonesia, which is located on the seismically active "Ring of Fire" that surrounds the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer is threatening to take legal action against the Associated Press over a report from the wire service about an incident on his book tour. Spicer's attorney Michael J. Bowe said in a statement Saturday night that the AP "recklessly republished a categorically false accusation about Sean Spicer." "The claim is a lie. Absent an immediate retraction, Mr. Spicer will take legal action Monday," Bowe said. The AP report, published Saturday, documented an incident at Spicer's book signing in Middletown, R.I., on Friday during which a black man claiming to be a former classmate of Spicer's at Portsmouth Abbey School accused Spicer of using a racial slur. A publicist for Spicer told the AP that the former press secretary was "taken aback" by the "outrageous" claim. Regnery Publishing publicist Lauren McCue said Spicer "can't recall any incident" like the one Lombard described. Video of the encounter published by NewportRI.com shows the man, identified as Alex Lombard, approaching Spicer at event. "Sean, I was a day student at [Portsmouth] Abbey, too, with you," Lombard said. "Hey," Spicer replies. "Yes, how are you?" You don't remember that you tried to fight me?" Lombard said. "But you called me a [n-word] first." The video then shows security escorting Lombard out of the event. "I was 14 then. I was a scared kid then, Sean. I'm not scared to fight you now," Lombard can be heard yelling. Spicer is currently on tour promoting his new book, "The Briefing: Politics, The Press, and the President," about his time in the White House. The former aide left the White House last summer. This isn't the first incident Spicer has faced on his book tour: A man interrupted a Wednesday event in New York City, yelling that Spicer is a "real piece of garbage."

CHENNAI, India — After school, when the 11-year-old girl rode her bicycle around the well-to-do apartment complex where she lived with her family in Chennai in southeastern India, an elevator attendant would find her and lead her to a basement, a rooftop or a public bathroom. Once there, he would inject her with an orange liquid or feed her a cold drink likely laced with drugs to immobilize her, then tie a belt around her neck and rape her, she later told her older sister. He invited the complex’s security guards, plumbers and electricians to join. Sign Up For the Morning Briefing Newsletter Over the course of seven months, they, too, raped and molested her, possibly dozens of times, using makeup to cover any marks they left on her, her sister said. “She was blackmailed on the edge of a pocketknife,” the 11-year-old girl’s sister, a university student, said in an interview. She said the men had told her younger sister: “If you tell your mother, we will kill her.” A current of rage shot through Chennai last week after the police arrested 17 men, ages 23 to 66, for the assaults. Lawyers beat several of the men as they were curled up on the floor of a local courthouse. Frantic residents of the building where the girl lived organized round-the-clock shifts guarding the entrance. But a few days later, the police stopped answering calls from reporters. Around Chennai, people blamed the mother. They erroneously said the girl, who wears hearing aids and acted younger than her age, was “deaf and dumb.” They dismissed questions about women’s safety. The girl’s older sister, whose name cannot be revealed by Indian law, said she was furious at the turn of events. As with other violent assaults against women and girls that have shaken India this year, the victim was getting the blame, shifting the focus from the men’s behavior, she said. “If we shy away from conversations about sexual assault, the only thing we are conveying to young boys and girls is that the issue is not discussable,” the sister said. She referred angrily to a news report about a woman who said she was raped by 40 men over four days. “That’s how men grow up in the society. They are taught to dominate women.” Discussions about sexual assault are changing in parts of India, where harassment has long been dismissed indulgently as “eve teasing.” The transition accelerated in 2012, when a 23-year-old woman riding a private bus in Delhi was attacked by several young men, violated with an iron rod and left on the side of the road. Two weeks later, the woman, Jyoti Singh Pandey, died from her injuries and protesters flooded streets all over the country. The government created a fast-track court for rape cases and introduced capital punishment for especially brutal sexual crimes. But some of the country’s most vocal women’s rights advocates warned that passing tougher laws would not magically prevent crimes against India’s girls and women. A study released this year found that more than 99 percent of sexual assaults in India are never reported. And in those that are, police investigators intimidate women into changing their statements or use invasive “two-finger” tests to determine whether they had a prior sexual history. If the answer is yes, the conviction rate plummets. Even if a case makes it to court, women sometimes wait decades for justice. “The problem is not the law or the severity of the punishment,” said Shruti Kapoor, an Indian economist and women’s rights activist. “The problem is the broken judicial, political and administrative system. What use is a law if it’s not implemented properly, if the system is plagued with corruption and it takes years for victims to get justice?” Rajat Mitra, a psychologist with decades of experience interviewing convicted rapists and working with Indian officials, said that in parts of the country, it was still common for people to see rape “as less of a crime and more of a social deviation or aberration against the family honor.” Girls and women are often blamed, he said. Politics sometimes creeps in. This year, Hindu lawyers blocked police officers from charging a group of Hindu men accused of raping and killing an 8-year-old Muslim girl in northern India. They said the men had been set up and were innocent. In May, a teenage girl who was gang raped in eastern India was set on fire by one of her attackers after her parents reported the crime to a village council. It is hard to track the rise or fall of sex crimes anywhere in the world, partly because so many are not reported. But in India, Mr. Mitra, the psychologist, said that the prevalence of gang rapes has risen as fissures over issues like caste are pushed into public view and men migrate to cities from rural communities, where regressive attitudes toward women are common. “There are a greater number of groups of men roaming the Indian streets who carry an aura of anonymity and are not rooted in the city,” he said. After the initial news of the Chennai assault, Kavya Menon, the secretary of Aware India, a group that organizes local workshops about child sexual abuse, said her phone had been ringing constantly. Most callers were mothers worried about their daughters. Ms. Menon said she saw such responses after almost all of India’s widely reported rape cases. But then the initial outrage would subside, she said, and people would fall back into denial about the prevalence of sexual assault or rationalize the crime. “Shame is so strong,” she said. “And people really don’t understand that the shame has to be with the perpetrator.” Around Chennai, public conversations about the 11-year-old girl’s assault changed shortly after the men were arrested. A female police constable said that only one or two cases of sexual harassment were registered every year in the city, one of India’s largest and home to millions of people. A representative from Tulir, one of the few local organizations working to curb child sexual abuse, declined to speak about child sexual abuse or the case of the 11-year-old girl, saying the men had not been convicted. Asked about the prevalence of sexual crimes in Chennai, a senior police official, M. C. Sarangan, said he wouldn’t know. “Her parents did not care about her,” Sasikala, 30, a seamstress who goes by one name, said of the girl. The girl’s sister said it was hard to say whether any of the residents had seen anything suspicious. The men were familiar faces hired to guard and service the building of several hundred units. This month, the sister pulled the pieces together while visiting Chennai during a college break. As the sisters rode the elevator one day, the attendant touched the 11-year-old’s arm suggestively and she did not pull away. “I asked her, ‘Why didn’t you say anything to him?’” the sister recalled. “I kept asking her again and again, and then finally she opened up. My mother broke down. My dad did not eat anything for two days.” The family rushed to the police. Neighbors offered food and legal advice. The authorities found that many CCTV cameras were not working inside the complex, she said. At least three of the men confessed to raping the girl, the sister said the police told her. Hospital tests confirmed that she had been assaulted, a police officer said separately, and paraphernalia used to drug the girl was also recovered. But in the days after the men were arrested, the sister said attacks against her family became sharper and the focus on the men’s roles receded. “She was blackmailed by these men, saying that they will murder her mother,” the sister said. “The frightened daughter would not open up to her mother. Justice is a very significant part of the matter here and people want to hold the parents responsible.”

ULYSSES, Pa.— The traffic sign that greets visitors on the south side of Ulysses, a tiny town in rural far north-central Pennsylvania, is suitably quaint — a silhouette of a horse-drawn cart reminding drivers that the Amish use the roads, too. But on the north side of town, along the main thoroughfare, is a far different display: a home dedicated to Adolf Hitler, where star-spangled banners and Nazi flags flutter side by side and wooden swastikas stand on poles. White supremacy has had a continuous presence in Ulysses and surrounding Potter County since the Ku Klux Klan arrived a century ago, giving the town — with a population today of about 650 — improbable national significance. In the mid-2000s, it hosted the World Aryan Congress, a gathering of neo-Nazis, skinheads and Klan members. This year, after a sting operation, federal prosecutors charged six members of an Aryan Strike Force cell with weapons and drug offenses, contending that they had plotted a suicide attack at an anti-racism protest. A terminally ill member was willing to hide a bomb in his oxygen tank and blow himself up, prosecutors said. The group had met and conducted weapons training in Ulysses. Neo-Nazis and their opponents here say that white extremists have grown more confident — and confrontational — since the rise of Donald Trump. Two months before the 2016 presidential election, the KKK established a “24 hour Klan Line” and sent goody bags containing lollipops and fliers to hundreds of homes. “You can sleep tonight knowing the Klan is awake,” the message read. A regional newspaper ran Klan advertisements saying, “God bless the KKK.” Local police said the group had not openly recruited in years. Two weeks later, the area’s two neo-Nazi groups, the National Socialist Movement (NSM) and Aryan Strike Force, held a “white unity meeting” in Ulysses to discuss their response to Trump and plan joint action. One organizer would not say when the groups had last met, simply commenting: “It’s just a good time.” Potter County is staunchly Republican and has voted Democratic once since 1888; Trump received 80 percent of the vote, tying with Herbert Hoover for the highest percentage won. “I can tell you with certainty that since November 2016, activity has doubled, whether it’s feet on the street or money orders or people helping out,” said Daniel Burnside, 43, a woodcarver who owns the Nazi-themed home and directs the state chapter of the National Socialist Movement, a far-right group that was founded in Detroit in the mid-1970s. It has a presence in many states, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups, and the NSM was among the groups taking part in the violent August 2017 rally in defense of Confederate statues in Charlottesville. “We have meetings every 30 days,” he said. “ There’s more collaboration.” Burnside, who declined to say how many local residents were involved in his group, was born in Ulysses and raised there by a grandfather who he said was a Nazi sympathizer who fought in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II. Burnside said his beloved grandfather drank himself to death because of the war’s impact on him. The younger Burnside said he joined the NSM four years ago but has long harbored anti-Semitic views and is a practicing Odinist — the pagan religion Odinism is popular among some neo-Nazis. Burnside does not see Trump as a leader of the NSM cause but as a politician who amplified long-standing white-nationalist views at the right time. “Personally, I don’t know about Trump,” he said. “You won’t necessarily see MAGA hats at an NSM meeting. We’re anti-Semitic. Something’s off about Trump with the Jews. That said, we’re strategically aligned. When Trump says something that aligns with us — close the borders, build the wall, look after your own — that’s good: We’ve been saying this for 25 years, but he has made it mainstream.” “We’re still a white nation, and I respect that he supports that,” Burnside added. “He’s also highlighted social problems. The kids who go to bed hungry, people who can’t pay their bills, the damage being done to society.” Joe Leschner, 38, a white restaurant manager, fled the county this year because of what he said was abuse aimed at him and his wife, Sashena, who is black, after Trump’s election. After he discovered a KKK leaflet outside their home, Leschner organized an anti-racism gathering in Ulysses. “And these guys drove by us and gave the gun signal, like they’re going to shoot us,” he said. One of those who Leschner said made a pistol gesture had previously been jailed for 10 years for an aggravated assault on a black man. This year he was convicted of possession of firearms he was not legally allowed to own and intent to sell drugs. Photographs of the Leschners were circulated on VK, a Russian-run social media site, with users posting death threats, he said. “A guy came up to us in a restaurant and said, ‘You have got to be kidding me.’ I wanted to say something, but just couldn’t. This was where I grew up, at the restaurant where I got my first job. My wife was almost in tears,” he recalled. “We had to leave,” said Leschner, who now runs a restaurant in Frederick, Md. “Most people aren’t racist, but there are enough that are and enough who let it happen.” Kathleen Blee, a University of Pittsburgh sociology professor and expert on white extremism, said Ulysses came to be a nexus of such thinking as like-minded residents gravitated to one another. “Modern white extremism is different to the KKK in the 1920s or Nazi Germany in that it is exclusively produced through small networks. It is not a mass movement,” she said. “It’s just one person recruiting another. Somebody knowing somebody. . . . You get an extremist in an area, they attract other extremists.” Ulysses’s most famous resident may have been August Kreis III, 63, a neo-Nazi from New Jersey who moved to town in the 1990s and left about 10 years ago. Kreis made Ulysses the national headquarters of the Aryan Nations group and organized events such as the Aryan World Congress. In 2015, he was sentenced to 50 years in prison on a child-molestation conviction. Pennsylvania has 36 racial hate groups, more than Alabama, Arkansas or Kansas, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. “This area is well known for white supremacy. It’s got a rich history and the right conditions to thrive,” said Heidi Beirich of the SPLC. “It’s as significant as many areas in the South usually associated with white supremacy.” Rural Appalachia, which includes Ulysses’s Potter County, has a wary attitude to outside forces — especially the state — that is often cited as a reason that anti-government militia groups and white extremists have prospered here. “There is also an extreme mind-your-own business approach and a belief in individual rights,” Blee said. Months before the Leschners fled the area, another controversy erupted after a sheriff’s deputy from a neighboring county entered Burnside’s front yard and confiscated a Nazi flag. Burnside called his local police force, demanding that the deputy return the flag and record a video apology. When that did not happen, he went to state police and pursued a theft case. The 23-year-old deputy was forced to return the flag and pay damages. Local police confirmed that he was suspended and left his position shortly after the trial’s conclusion. Many locals suggested that they were more upset by the deputy’s actions than by the neo-Nazism. One man, an Army veteran who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of being branded a racist, said there was no comparison between World War II Nazis and Ulysses residents. “World War II was a totally different time period. It’s part of history,” he said. “He can do what he wants. . . . Everyone has their own thing.” One day recently, Burnside, accompanied by a reporter, drove around town dressed in a shirt featuring Hitler’s face as the main design. None of the locals he chatted with objected to his attire. City council president Roy Hunt insisted that this reflected the town’s generous spirit. “We’re a laid-back town, and we’re going to be nice to everybody,” Hunt said. “I’ve known Danny for 20 years. If you were in town and you walked around with him, you’re right, he’ll be welcome in every store. . . . If you’re nice, people will be nice to you 98 percent of the time.” “If he were to put something up that said kill all members of a race, in my opinion that would be crossing the line, but he doesn’t have that sign up,” Hunt said. He added that the town’s Nazi presence had been exaggerated by the news media and opposing groups. Burnside said he serves the community. “I do fundraisers for American Legion with my artwork. Boys and Girls Clubs, regardless of race or ethnicity, I do fundraisers. . . . The only way I can help white people is by helping everyone.” Other residents disagree about the impact of the white supremacists’ presence. As he shopped among Burnside’s carved wooden bears and eagle sculptures, some of them signed with a swastika, Tom Lee, a road construction manager, said that he supports the First Amendment and that the Nazi presence “ain’t nothing to do with me. It’s a free country.” “After a while, you’re not what you were anymore,” he added. “It is America out here, but not in the inner cities anymore.” William Fish, a 72-year-old carpenter, recalled as a child accompanying his mother as she delivered blankets and shoes to the shacks where black field workers lived. “We’re not a racist town, but there are people who will turn a blind eye when they see racism happening. That’s why we have this history,” he said. “I think it has got worse since Trump, I honestly do. I also think our young people do not today share the same rotten values as older people.” Belinda Empson, 59, said it pained her that veterans in the Memorial Day parade had to march past Nazi signs. “My grandson is 8 years old and he’s already asking about the Nazi flags,” said Empson, a retired waitress. “And I don’t want to explain to my grandson what it means, what they’re about. We should have settled this stuff years ago.” Empson said Ulysses had been divided since Trump’s victory: “I think Trump has opened the gate and said, ‘It’s okay.’ It was not a license, but a subtle, ‘It’s okay.’ I think we are seeing that now.” “It bothers me,” she added, “because we have good people in this town.” Wanda Shirk, 68, an English teacher who worked at a Potter County school for 28 years, joked that the town had become LGBT — “Liberty, Guns, Bible, Trump.” “I don’t think everyone here is racist, but I think a lot are racially insensitive,” she said, “and Trump has allowed that to grow.”

Two young children and their great-grandmother are the latest victims of a massive and fast-moving wildfire in Shasta County that officials acknowledged Saturday they were making little progress in controlling. Melody Bledsoe, 70, and her great-grandchildren, Emily Roberts, 5, and James Roberts, 4, died when their Redding home burned Thursday night, according to their family. The death toll from the blaze known as the Carr fire stands at five with more than a dozen other residents reported missing. With the unyielding 100-plus degree temperatures and bone-dry vegetation, authorities said there was no end in sight to the fire and expressed particular alarm about its rapid expansion. Between Friday night and Saturday morning, the fire doubled in size. Despite the efforts of 3,400 firefighters aided by bulldozers and helicopters throughout Saturday , the blaze continued spreading toward residential areas west and south of downtown Redding. As of Sunday morning, the blaze had burned 89,000 acres and was only 5% contained, authorities said.

Welcome to InviteHawk. Enjoy ur stay..

Welcome to InviteHawk. Enjoy ur stay..

Welcome to InviteHawk. Enjoy ur stay..

Welcome to InviteHawk. Enjoy ur stay..

Welcome to InviteHawk. Enjoy ur stay..

Welcome to InviteHawk! You'll love this place..

Welcome to InviteHawk! You'll love this place..

Welcome to InviteHawk.. Nice place to stay.

A. Tell us something about yourself? > A less talkative much working man B. How did you find InviteHawk? > Heard about this site from my brother C. What Torrent Sites are you looking for? (Mention none if just browsing) > I am looking for Mteam, HDchina, CHDbits etc. D. Do you use the same email on InviteHawk as well as on trackers? (If yes, change it from your profile or contact a staff member) > No, Email is different. E. Do you have any suggestions for InviteHawk? > This is a good place no suggestions that I can add.