Spygate sequel

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — The New England Patriots acknowledged on Monday night that a video crew working for the team filmed the Cincinnati Bengals sideline during Sunday’s game, a violation of league rules that echoed the team’s 2007 Spygate scandal.

In a statement posted on Twitter and the team website, the Patriots said that a three-person crew for a web series titled “Do Your Job” “inappropriately filmed the field from the press box” as part of a feature on the scouting department. The filming took place “without specific knowledge of league rules,” the statement said.

The team also said that while it was granted credentials for the crew from the Browns, the home team, “our failure to inform the Bengals and the League was an unintended oversight.” When confronted, the team said the crew “immediately turned over all footage to the league and cooperated fully.”

“The sole purpose of the filming was to provide an illustration of an advance scout at work on the road. There was no intention of using the footage for any other purpose,” the statement said. “We accept full responsibility for the actions of our production crew at the Browns-Bengals game.”

The Patriots were fined $250,000 and docked a first-round draft pick in 2007 for violating NFL rules against using video to steal signals. Coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000.

 

THE SCANDAL,  dubbed Spygate, helped fuel a widespread distrust of the team that reverberated a decade later when the team was accused of illegally deflating the footballs used in the 2015 AFC championship game. Quarterback Tom Brady was suspended four games, and the team was fined $1 million and docked another first-round draft pick.

The latest allegations came to light when Bengals coach Zac Taylor, whose team plays New England on Sunday, confirmed that the league was investigating the crew’s activities. An NFL spokesman did not immediately respond to a request from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Asked about the reports during his radio show on Monday, Belichick told WEEI radio that the video crew was completely separate from the football staff.

“We have absolutely nothing to do with anything that they produce or direct or shoot,” said Belichick, who did appear on camera in an earlier episode of the series, on the equipment manager. “I have never seen any of their tapes or anything else. This is something that we 100 percent have zero involvement with.”

A look back in time

HUMBOLDT — Bill Mentzer began work as vice president at Humboldt National Bank on Dec. 1. Mentzer had worked 12 years at Allen County Bank & Trust and over four years at Piqua State Bank.

*****

HUMBOLDT — Angela Rourk is the new funeral director at Kunkel Funeral Chapel in Humboldt. A native Iolan, Rourk is a graduate of Kansas City Community College department of mortuary science. She has worked for six and a half years at Johnson Mortuary in Chanute.

*****

The Rev. and Mrs. Tom Nyquist were honored at a reception Sunday afternoon at the First Presbyterian Church. The occasion is Nyquist’s 30th anniversary as pastor of the church and also his retirement. The couple will move to Topeka the middle of December.

Brexit at crux of crucial UK election

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and opposition leaders were pushing for the finish line in Britain’s election campaign today, dashing through multiple constituencies to drum up support in the final 72 hours before polling day.

Johnson was touring Labour-held seats across England that his Conservatives have to win if they are to secure a majority in Thursday’s election. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was in southwest and central England, where his left-of-center party is trying to hang on to key constituencies.

Opinion polls give Johnson’s Conservatives a lead, but as many as one in five voters remain undecided. This election is especially unpredictable because the question of Brexit cuts across traditional party loyalties.

Underscoring the significance of those shifting allegiances, Johnson’s first stop was in the eastern port town of Grimsby targeting Labour voters who also backed leaving the European Union in the U.K.’s 2016 referendum.

Wearing a white jacket, hat and rubber boots, Johnson lugged a crate of fish across the floor of a fish market in the town that has been in Labour Party hands for 74 years — and said he was “taking nothing for granted” in the final days of campaigning.

The Conservatives had a minority government before the election, and Johnson pushed for the vote, which is taking place more than two years early, in hopes of winning a majority of the 650 House of Commons seats and breaking Britain’s political impasse over Brexit. He says that if the Conservatives win a majority, he will get Parliament to ratify his Brexit divorce deal and take the U.K. out of the EU by the current Jan. 31 deadline.

Labour is promising to renegotiate the divorce deal, then give voters the choice in a referendum of leaving the EU on those terms or remaining in the bloc.

Speaking in London, the party’s finance spokesman, John McDonnell, outlined what a Labour government would do in its first 100 days if elected — including making good on election pledges to nationalize public utilities and launch a “green industrial revolution” to tackle climate change — as well as hammering out a new Brexit deal to be put to a second referendum.

“Despite all his promises, it is clear to all now that far from getting Brexit done, under Johnson Brexit won’t be done for years or we risk a catastrophic no deal,” McDonnell said.

Chiefs chop Patriots

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — Patrick Mahomes got some help from the Chiefs defense to hold off the New England Patriots and wrap up the division title.

Kansas City clinched the AFC West when Bashaud Breeland knocked away Tom Brady’s fourth-down pass attempt to Julian Edelman in the end zone and the Chiefs beat New England 23-16 win on Sunday.

After building a 20-7 lead, the Chiefs survived a series of mistakes and questionable officiating to hold off a late rally by the defending Super Bowl champions.

Combined with Oakland’s loss to Tennessee, the Chiefs (9-4) clinched the AFC West. The loss ended the Patriots’ 21-game home win streak in the regular season and playoffs, which was tied for the longest in team history. It also was the third-longest string in NFL history.

Mahomes was 26 of 40 for 283 yards, a touchdown and interception, playing through a hand injury he suffered during Kansas City’s second offensive series. Tight end Travis Kelce added a 4-yard TD run.

Mahomes now is the third quarterback this season to earn his first win against the Patriots, joining Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson and Houston’s Deshaun Watson. All three were previously 0-2.

“You want to beat the best. You want to go out and play against the best and give your best effort, “Mahomes said. “It wasn’t pretty the whole time. It was just a tough, hard-fought win.

He said he got creative after his injury.

“I let the trainers look at it. They gave me to good to go,” Mahomes said. “I went out there, battled and figured out ways to throw the ball across the middle. Maybe not shoot those long shots I usually throw. But enough to get them back and still score touchdowns.”

New England (10-3) has lost two in a row.

Tom Brady was under pressure all game and finished 19 of 36 for 169 yards, a touchdown and interception. the 169 yards are his second-fewest passing yards this season. He spoke after the game with his right elbow heavily wrapped.

“They threw a lot of different defenses at us,” Brady said. “Some we handled well and some we didn’t.”

Trailing 23-16, New England got the ball back on its 32 with 5:04 to play. The Patriots immediately gained 35 yards on a pass from halfback James White to Jakobi Meyers to get into Kansas City territory. Officials appeared to miss a pass interference call on a deep pass to Phillip Dorsett and the Chiefs forced a fourth-and-6 at the 29.

But the 42-year-old Brady got free and scrambled 17 yards for a first down.

The Patriots couldn’t get into the end zone, however, losing the rematch of January’s AFC title game in Kansas City.

The Chiefs led 23-7 in the third quarter before they committed multiple miscues that helped the Patriots close the gap.

First, Patriots special teamer Nate Ebner blocked Dustin Colquitt’s punt, which rolled out of bounds at the Chiefs 19. It set up a 10-yard run by Brandon Bolden that made it 23-13, but James White was stopped short on his 2-point conversion run attempt.

The Chiefs gave the Patriots another opportunity late in the third quarter. Kelce caught a pass and was hit by Devin McCourty, forcing a fumble and recovery by Stephon Gilmore, who had a clear path the the end zone. The play was blown dead, though, with Kelce ruled down by contact.

It prompted an immediate challenge by Patriots coach Bill Belichick, which resulted in the call being overturned and the ball awarded to New England.

The Patriots quickly drove to the Kansas City 15 and Brady found N’Keal Harry with a short pass. Harry weaved through multiple defenders and appeared to stretch the ball over the pylon.

Yet he was ruled to have stepped out of bounds at the 3.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s — yeah. Doesn’t happen very often.,” Brady said of the ruling. “So, it happened. We still had a chance and wish we could have scored there at the end.”

Brady was sacked three plays later and the Patriots kicked a field goal to close within 23-16.

Referee Jerome Boger told a pool reporter after the game that the covering official on the Harry play was blocked out by defenders.

“The downfield official who was on the goal line and looking back toward the field of play had that he stepped out at the 3-yard line,” Boger said. “So, they got together and conferred on that. The final ruling was that he was out of bounds at the 3-yard line.”

The Chiefs were without two of their leading rushers, Damien Williams (rib injury) and Darrel Williams (placed on injured reserve Thursday with a hamstring injury). It left the rushing duties primarily in the hands of LeSean McCoy, with support from Darwin Thompson and Spencer Ware.

They didn’t get much traction in the run game other than from McCoy, who finished with 11 rushes for 39 yards. But after a slow start, Kansas City’s receivers were able to find space and passing lanes for Mahomes.

One notable example came early in the second quarter. Mecole Hardman got behind Patriots cornerback Jonathan Jones and Mahomes withstood pressure to deliver a deep pass off his back foot for a 48-yard touchdown to put the Chiefs in front 10-7.

Brady was intercepted by Breeland on the first play of the Patriots’ ensuing drive and Kansas City went right back to work.

Taking over on the New England 39, Mahomes found Kelce in the middle of the field for a 20-yard gain to get the Chiefs inside the 5. Two plays later Kelce took a direct snap and ran it in for a 4-yard TD.

 

INJURIES

Chiefs: LG Andrew Wiley left in the second quarter with a shoulder injury.

Patriots: Harry left in the fourth quarter with a hip injury.

 

TRICKERY

The Patriots received the game’s opening kickoff and needed just five plays to drive 83 yards and take 7-0 lead on a 37-yard flea-flicker from Brady to Edelman. The series was aided by a pair of third-down pass interference penalties called on Chiefs cornerbacks Charvarius Ward and Breeland.

 

BLOCKED

Ebner’s punt block in the third quarter was the Patriots fourth of 2019, setting a franchise record for a season. With one more they will tie the 1990 Chiefs for the most blocked punts in a season in NFL history

 

MISSING EQUIPMENT

The Kansas City Chiefs needed a police escort to get their equipment to Foxborough, Massachusetts, in time for kickoff.

Chiefs spokesman Ted Crews confirmed that some of the gear was sent to the wrong place and had to be rushed to the stadium. It arrived about two hours before kickoff. The Massachusetts State Police tweeted that they helped the equipment get to the stadium from Logan Airport.

 

UP NEXT

Chiefs: host Broncos next Sunday.

Patriots: visit Bengals next Sunday.

Hot shooting leads Shockers past Cowboys

STILLWATER, Okla. (AP) — After getting outrebounded by a 48-31 margin in a 75-63 loss to West Virginia on Nov. 27, Wichita State made that part of the game a point of emphasis and it paid off on Sunday.

Tyson Etienne scored 19 points and had four assists, and Wichita State won the rebounding battle 42-31, while defeating Oklahoma State 80-61.

Erik Stevenson had 13 points and six rebounds, while Jaime Echenique also scored 13 points in just 10 minutes of action, for Wichita State (8-1). Jamarius Burton contributed seven points, eight rebounds, 11 assists and three steals.

“I was just getting out there and my teammates were finding me,” said Etienne, a freshman who had his second-highest point total of the season. “I was just shooting the ball with confidence, not doing anything different, just playing my game.”

The Shockers shot 82.4% from the floor (14 of 17) over the first 12-plus minutes of the second half, extending a 38-31 halftime lead to 29 points, before putting in their reserves down the stretch. Over the course of the second half, Wichita State’s rebounding advantage was 21-13.

“Any time you can go on the road against a program like that, and get a win like that, it’s special,” said Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall. “Our team really performed well. We played a beautiful brand of basketball for the great majority of the game. Congratulations to my guys. We turned the tables on the glass from the West Virginia game, which was a big key for us.”

Lindy Waters scored 11 points to lead Oklahoma State (7-2), one game after he connected for a career-high 30 points in an 81-74 loss to Georgetown. Cam McGriff added 10 points and seven rebounds.

“Credit to Wichita State, they physically manhandled us in a lot of ways, particularly as it relates to rebounding the ball,” said Cowboys coach Mike Boynton. “We didn’t respond and therefore the result. Losses are never easy to take but certainly this one, just the way the game went, is more disappointing than anything.

“I think they pursued the basketball more aggressively than we did. They brought the fight to us, we didn’t necessarily fight back strongly enough. It’s a great lesson. A hard one but a good one.”

The Cowboys have now lost two in a row without starting point guard Isaac Likekele, who averages 13.7 points, 5.3 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 2.9 steals per game, but sat out again due to illness.

For Oklahoma State, which won the NIT Season Tip-off Championship with a dominant 78-37 triumph over Ole Miss on Nov. 29 in Brooklyn, it was a reminder that the young team that went 12-20 last season still has a long way to go.

“A week ago today, people felt like maybe we had arrived, and obviously, that’s not the case,” Boynton said. “We’ve got to get back to the drawing board. There’s a lot of room for growth for this team.”

 

BIG PICTURE

Wichita State: Picking up right where they left off in their dominating 95-69 victory over Central Arkansas on Thursday night, the Shockers started off strong. Wichita State surged to an early 17-6 lead. After connecting on 7 of 11 shots (63.6%) in those opening five-plus minutes, though, the Shockers shots just 6 of 23 (26.1%) the remainder of the half.

Oklahoma State: The Cowboys entered the day ranking eighth in the nation in 3-point defense (25.4%) and overall field-goal defense (35.8%), but Wichita State significantly exceeded both of those figures. Oklahoma State held the Shockers to 38.2% shooting (13 for 34) in the first half, including 6 for 17 from the arc (35.3%), but in the opening nine minutes of the second half, they allowed Wichita State to connect on 12 of 14 shots (85.7%), including 4-for-4 from 3-point range.

 

TURNING POINT

Coming out of halftime, the Shockers simply dominated the first 12:11 of the second half. In addition to their offensive success, they limited Oklahoma State to just 2-of-15 shooting, while outscoring the Cowboys 37-15 over that stretch. “Our guys knew that the game was basically anybody’s game,” Marshall said. “It was a seven-point game and one of two things was going to happen — they could bring it back and tie it or take the lead, or we’re going to push it over 10. I thought our guys really executed, 1-12. They did a very good job.”

 

UP NEXT

Wichita State: The Shockers take on Oklahoma at Intrust Bank Arena in downtown Wichita next Saturday.

Oklahoma State: The Cowboys are off for a week before traveling to Houston to face the 5-2 Cougars next Sunday.

Anti-doping agency imposes 4-year ban on Russia

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — Russia was slapped today with a four-year ban from international sports events, including next summer’s Tokyo Olympics, over a longstanding doping scandal, although its athletes will still be able to compete if they can show they are clean competitors.

The ruling by the World Anti-Doping Agency’s executive committee means that Russia’s flag, name and anthem will not appear at the Tokyo Games, and the country also could be stripped of hosting world championships in Olympic sports.

The sanctions are the harshest punishment yet for Russian state authorities who were accused of tampering with a Moscow laboratory database. Russia’s anti-doping agency can appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport within 21 days — an action it has signaled it would take.

Russian athletes will be allowed to compete in major events only if they are not implicated in positive doping tests or if their data was not manipulated, according to the WADA ruling.

For soccer’s 2022 World Cup, WADA said the Russian team will play under its name in the qualifying program in Europe. If it qualifies for Qatar, the name will have be changed to something neutral that likely would not include the word “Russia.”

Legal fallout from the WADA ruling seems sure to dominate preparations for the Tokyo Olympics, which open on July 24.

Evidence shows that Russian authorities tampered with a Moscow laboratory database to hide hundreds of potential doping cases and falsely shift the blame onto whistleblowers, WADA investigators and the International Olympic Committee said last month.

“Flagrant manipulation” of the Moscow lab data was “an insult to the sporting movement worldwide,” the IOC said last month.

WADA’s inability to fully expel Russia from the Tokyo Olympics and 2022 Beijing Winter Games frustrated the doping watchdog’s vice president.

“I’m not happy with the decision we made today. But this is as far as we could go,” said Linda Helleland, a Norwegian lawmaker who serves on WADA executive committee and has long pushed for a tougher line against Russia. “This is the biggest sports scandal the world has ever seen. I would expect now a full admission from the Russians and for them to apologize on all the pain all the athletes and sports fans have experienced.”

Handing over a clean database to WADA was a key requirement for Russia to help bring closure to a scandal that has tainted the Olympics over the last decade.

Although the IOC has called for the strongest possible sanctions, it wants those sanctions directed at Russian state authorities rather than athletes or Olympic officials.

That position was opposed by most of WADA’s athlete commission. It wanted the kind of blanket ban Russia avoided for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games after a state-run doping program was exposed by media and WADA investigations after Russia hosted the 2014 Olympics in Sochi.

“This entire fiasco created by Russia has cheated far too many athletes of their dreams and rightful careers, for far too long,” the WADA athlete panel said in a statement ahead of the meeting.

That must be filed by the Russian anti-doping agency, known as RUSADA. That body was declared non-compliant on Monday, 15 months after it was reinstated by WADA in defiance of athlete opposition.

The decision to appeal has been stripped from RUSADA chief executive Yuri Ganus, an independent figure criticizing Russian authorities’ conduct on the doping data issue. Authority was passed to the agency’s supervisory board after an intervention led by the Russian Olympic Committee.

The ROC on Saturday labeled the expected sanctions as “illogical and inappropriate.

Russia has stuck to its claim that deceptive edits in the data were in fact made by WADA’s star witness, Grigory Rodchenkov. The former Moscow lab director’s flight into the witness protection program in the United States was the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary.

Technical reasons were claimed — and debunked by WADA investigators — for why the data appeared to have been edited shortly before the delayed handover in January.

Ivy Leaguers get community service for disrupting game

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Students from Harvard and Yale universities, along with others who staged a climate change protest on the field during last month’s football game between the Ivy League schools, were sentenced Friday to perform community service.

Judge Philip Scarpellino of New Haven Superior Court in Connecticut ordered about 50 people arrested on disorderly conduct charges during the Nov. 23 game to perform five hours of community service and return to court Jan. 27.

If those conditions are met the charges will be dropped, the judge said.

Many participated in a climate change on the courthouse steps after their court appearances.

Students and alumni from both schools occupied the midfield of the Yale Bowl during halftime. Some held banners urging their colleges to act on climate change. Other signs referred to Puerto Rican debt relief and China’s treatment of Uighurs.

“The whole protest was based on the idea that we are in a climate crisis,” Caleb Schwartz, 22, of Tarrytown, New York, and a senior at Harvard, told the Hartford Courant outside court. “We chose the game to make a high-profile statement.”

“I am really scared about what climate change means for my future,” Nora Heaphy, a student with the Yale Endowment Justice Coalition, told the New Haven Register. “We have tried every other opportunity to make our voices heard, and we knew this was an incredible opportunity and a moment we needed to seize.”

Hugh Keefe, an attorney for the students, called them great kids.

“They are trying to help the world avoid a catastrophe,” he said. “They sense to some degree it’s too late, but they want to do something dramatic to save the planet.”

The Ivy League in a statement the day of the game called the protest “regrettable.”

Yale went on to beat Harvard 50-43 in the 136th meeting between the elite universities, clinching the Ivy League championship.

Flu season gets off to early start

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. winter flu season is off to its earliest start in more than 15 years.

An early barrage of illness in the South has begun to spread more broadly, and there’s a decent chance flu season could peak much earlier than normal, health officials say.

The last flu season to rev up this early was in 2003-2004 — a bad one. Some experts think the early start may mean a lot of suffering is in store, but others say it’s too early to tell.

“It really depends on what viruses are circulating. There’s not a predictable trend as far as if it’s early it’s going to be more severe, or later, less severe,” said Scott Epperson, who tracks flu-like illnesses for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There are different types of flu viruses, and the one causing illnesses in most parts of the country is a surprise. It’s a version that normally doesn’t abound until March or April.

That virus generally isn’t as dangerous to older people — good news, since most flu hospitalizations and deaths each winter occur in the elderly. However, such viruses can be hard on children and people younger than 50.

Louisiana was the first state to really get hit hard, with doctors there saying they began seeing large numbers of flu-like illnesses in October.

Children’s Hospital New Orleans has already seen more flu cases this fall than it saw all of last winter, said Dr. Toni Gross, the hospital’s chief of emergency medicine. Last month was the busiest ever at the hospital’s emergency department. Officials had to set up a triage system and add extra shifts, Gross said.

“It is definitely causing symptoms that will put you in bed for a week,” including fever, vomiting and diarrhea. But the hospital has not had any deaths and is not seeing many serious complications, she said.

Health officials tend to consider a flu season to be officially underway when — for at least three weeks in a row — a significant percentage of U.S. doctor’s office visits are due to flu-like illnesses. That’s now happened, CDC officials said this week.

The agency on Friday estimated that there have already been 1.7 million flu illnesses, 16,000 hospitalizations, and 900 flu-related deaths nationally.

The most intense patient traffic had been occurring in a six states stretching from Texas to Georgia. But in new numbers released Friday, CDC officials said the number of states with intense activity rose last week to 12. Flu is widespread in 16 states, though not necessarily at intense levels in each, the CDC said.

Last flu season started off as a mild one but turned out to be the longest in 10 years. It ended with around 49,000 flu-related deaths and 590,000 hospitalizations, according to preliminary estimates.

It was bad, but not as bad as the one before it, when flu caused an estimated 61,000 deaths and 810,000 hospitalizations. Those 2017-2018 estimates are new: The CDC last month revised them down from previous estimates as more data — including actual death certificates — came in.

In both of the previous two flu seasons, the flu vaccine performed poorly against the nasty predominant virus. It’s too early to say how well the vaccine is performing right now, Epperson said.

Epperson said there’s a chance the flu season will peak this month, which would be unusually early. Flu season usually doesn’t hit fever pitch until around February.

The early start suggests a lot Americans may be sick at the same time, said Dave Osthus, a statistician who does flu forecasting at Los Alamos National Laboratory. “This could be a precursor to something pretty bad. But we don’t know,” he said.

Gross is pessimistic. “I, personally, am preparing for the worst,” she said.