Tiger Woods says his return to the United States Ryder Cup team after a six-year gap is “beyond special”.

Woods, 42, has been named as one of three wildcard picks for the US team to face Europe later this month, alongside Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau.

The 14-time major champion is on the playing side for the first time since 2012, having recovered from back surgery and shown a return to form.

Mickelson, 48, plays in a record 12th event after making his debut in 1995.

US captain Jim Furyk will make his fourth and final wildcard pick for the tournament on Monday.

The biennial competition will take place at Le Golf National near Paris in France from 28-30 September.

Explaining why he had picked the trio, Furyk said: “We were looking for players that have a body of work, players that are in good form and we’re heading to Europe, playing on foreign soil, so wanted players that would handle that situation and thrive on it.”

On Woods, he added: “We’re all excited to see him healthy again and his game playing well. It’s a feather in our cap to have him in our side.”

“I haven’t been part of the team playing-wise for six years,” Woods said. “To have the honour to play again is beyond special.”

Five-time major winner Mickelson had jointly held the record for most appearances with England’s Nick Faldo, who played in 11 editions of the biennial event from 1977.

DeChambeau is in fine form, having won the previous two PGA Tour events and finishing ninth in the US Ryder Cup qualification standings, with the top eight being automatically selected, leaving Furyk to make four wildcard picks.

US Open and US PGA Championship champion Brooks Koepka, Masters winner Patrick Reed, world number one Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Bubba Watson, Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler and Webb Simpson had all qualified automatically.

Mickelson was 10th in the standings, with Woods 11th.

Woods had been down to be a non-playing vice-captain for the US team but Furyk said he would still be aiming to draw on his knowledge and experience while freeing him up to play.

He has confirmed he had added David Duval, Zach Johnson and Matt Kuchar to his backroom team as a result.

United States are the current holders, having won 17-11 in 2016 at Hazeltine, but have not triumphed on European soil since a 15-13 victory at The Belfry in 1993.

Open champion Francesco Molinari, Justin Rose, Tyrrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood, Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy, Alex Noren and Thorbjorn Olesen are in the Europe side with captain Thomas Bjorn set to announce his quartet of wildcard picks at 14:00 BST on Wednesday, 5 September.

Hundreds of fraternity houses across the US will no longer allow frat members to serve hard liquor, according to a self-governing policy announced Tuesday in the wake of growing outrage over alcohol-related hazing deaths.

The North-American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) policy effectively means that most of the nation’s fraternities cannot dole out strong booze unless it is served by a licensed third-party vendor.

“At their core, fraternities are about brotherhood, personal development and providing a community of support,” Judson Horras, CEO and president of the NIC, said in a statement. “Alcohol abuse and its serious consequences endanger this very purpose. This action shows fraternities’ clear commitment and leadership to further their focus on the safety of members.”

The NIC is an umbrella organization for fraternities. The group said the new policy was reached in a near-unanimous vote and must be adopted by more than 6,100 of its chapters by September 2019. Those chapters are located on 800 campuses throughout the country.

Chapters have autonomy to set their own policies and rules, but the NIC has oversight over some broader policies, such as how the fraternities must implement alcohol rules at parties.

Fraternities in several states have been under fire in the past year for horrific deaths related to heavy drinking during hazing rituals and frat-house parties in general. Among them was the February 2017 death at Penn State of 19-year-old sophomore engineering student Tim Piazza of Lebanon, New Jersey.

Piazza died of severe head and abdominal injuries after falling several times at the Beta Theta Pi house the night of a bid acceptance ceremony.

Security video recovered from the house showed the sophomore and other pledges being plied with alcohol, and authorities later estimated Piazza had consumed three to four times the state’s legal limit for alcohol.

Piazza’s parents, Jim and Evelyn Piazza, have been vocal proponents for stricter laws against hazing. Efforts to reach the Piazzas for comment Tuesday were not successful.

“Please help make hazing recognized for what it is – abuse, cruelty and torture,” Evelyn Piazza said in a recent prepared statement.

She said her son “was sentenced to death by those fraternity brothers who mistreated him and now I am sentenced to life without half of my heart, half of my life’s purpose,” she said. “A statement needs to be made. This kind of thing cannot continue.”

The first of more than 20 defendants charged in connection with Piazza’s death was sentenced to house arrest last month. Ryan Burke, 21, of Scranton, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to three months house arrest in Lackawanna County, 27 months of probation, 100 hours of community service and fined $1,000. 

In June, Burke pleaded guilty to hazing, four counts of unlawful acts relative to liquor, malt and brewed beverages and licenses, and one count of purchase, consumption, possession or transportation of liquor and malt or brewed beverages.

Burke was originally facing charges of involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangering another person.

The NIC said in a statement that its new alcohol policy will prohibit “the presence of alcohol products above 15% ABV in any chapter facility or at any chapter event, except when served by a licensed third-party vendor.” Most beer and wine is below 15% ABV.

More: Tim Piazza: Penn State fraternity member given house arrest, probation in hazing death

Related: Ohio State suspends Phi Kappa Psi fraternity for four years over hazing, reports say

 

 

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The hole that caused a leak at the International Space Station last week came not from a meteorite as initially thought, Russia’s space agency confirmed Monday, but from someone’s hand — possibly while in space.

The hole came from inside a Russian spacecraft docked to the station as the result of a “technological error,” Dmitry Rogozin of Russia’s Roscosmos told a state news agency.

“It was done by a human hand,” Rogozin said Monday, according to TASS. “There are traces of a drill sliding along the surface.”

Finding the culprit is a “matter of honor” for Energia, the Russian corporation that made the craft, Rogozin added, including whether the hole was made on purpose and “where it was done — either on Earth or in space.”

“We are considering all the theories,” the space official told TASS.

Among those theories: A homesick or “mentally unstable” member of the space station’s crew could have deliberately drilled the hole, as former Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev suggested to Russian news agency RIA Novosti. 

“All of us are living people,” Suraev, who served on the station, said. “Everyone can want to go home, but this way is completely unworthy.”

Another report from the same agency suggested a production error from an Earth-bound employee was to blame.

Whatever the cause, Russia’s space agency has formed a commission to find out more, according to The Verge, which said NASA declined to comment on the matter.

The small leak came to the attention of mission control crews last Wednesday that, seeing no imminent threat, let the station’s crew sleep until the following day. Astronauts later found the two-millimeter hole in one of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft docked at the station.

After initially taping over the hole, cosmonauts eventually plugged it using epoxy and gauze. Atmospheric pressure was later restored.

The hole occurred in an orbital module, which won’t return to Earth. The space station’s six-person crew includes members from Russia, Germany and the United States. 

Contributing: James Dean, Florida Today

More: ISS astronauts play the first tennis match in space

 

 

 

 

 

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Serena Williams passed her toughest test so far at the US Open to beat Karolina Pliskova and reach the semi-finals for a ninth consecutive time.

Williams, seeded 17th, won 6-4 6-3 against the Czech eighth seed.

The American, 36, is seeking her first Grand Slam trophy since giving birth to daughter Olympia last September.

If she wins it would be her 24th major title – equalling Australian Margaret Court’s all-time record – and her seventh at Flushing Meadows.

Latvia’s Anastasija Sevastova, who knocked out defending champion Sloane Stephens earlier on Tuesday, waits in the last four.

Crowd helps Serena turn match around

Williams is only playing in her eighth tournament since becoming a mum, but had only dropped one set – in her last-16 match against Latvia’s Kaia Kanepi – on her way to the last eight.

However, having lost to Angelique Kerber in the Wimbledon final, there were question marks how she would fare against another high-calibre player.

After a slow start against the big-serving former number one, Williams grew into the match as she responded to some vociferous backing from Arthur Ashe Stadium.

She won eight games in a row – four at the end of the first and four at the start of the second – to help her secure victory in one hour 26 minutes.

SAM HUNT, JON PARDI, LUKE BRYAN, CARLY PEARCE and DJ ROCK

Ethan Helms

The Editorial Board, USA TODAY
Published 7:35 p.m. ET Sept. 4, 2018 | Updated 7:44 p.m. ET Sept. 4, 2018

Focus on sports concussions can obscure the deaths that continue each year. Jordan McNair is not even the latest: Our view

You can add the name Jordan McNair to the list of college, high school and middle school players who might have needlessly died for the love of football.

A simple, well-known procedure — immersing McNair, 19, in a tub of ice water — when he collapsed at an off-season University of Maryland workout in May could well have saved his life. But it didn’t happen. This failure drew national attention to how unprepared many football programs are to keep their players safe.

The focus on concussions can obscure the deaths that continue to occur each year. Last year, 13 high school and college players died from incidents that include heat stroke, head injuries and sudden cardiac arrest.

Just two weeks ago in Crowley, Texas, Kyrell McBride-Johnson, 13, collapsed at a middle school practice and died that night. His mother told The Dallas Morning News that he was signaling for water before collapsing. An autopsy has not been completed, but the death of anyone so young raises troubling questions.

OPPOSING VIEW: We’re working to make football even safer

The simple truth is that player safety at too many schools and colleges comes in a poor second to winning. Even as the climate warms, colleges, high schools and middle schools are starting football season earlier than they used to.

Five decades ago, Notre Dame and Michigan opened their seasons on the third Saturday of September and Ohio State on the fourth Saturday. This year, spurred by longer seasons and lucrative TV schedules, all three teams played their first game Sept. 1, necessitating practices in midsummer heat. High schools and middle schools mimic the college schedules. (In 1968, the NFL season began on Sept. 14; this year, it kicks off this Thursday.)

Starting the season later could by itself reduce the number of heat stroke deaths. But even with the current schedule, schools know how to prevent potentially fatal incidents and to rescue students if they occur. In 2013, more than a dozen leading sports medicine groups and the National Federation of State High School Associations endorsed a list of best practices to prevent injuries and save lives.

Grading states against that list and other smart practices, the University of Connecticut’s Korey Stringer Institute found that 28 states have failed to put in place half the measures to keep students safe. Even the states that scored highest in the 2018 study — New Jersey and North Carolina — have less than 80% in place. California and Colorado, with the worst records, employ less than a third of them. 

That’s inexcusable. If states have the wherewithal to run high school football programs, they have the wherewithal to do more to ensure that students don’t die.

Many of the policies are based on common sense and carry minimal costs. Preventing heat stroke, for example, requires players in hot weather to acclimate: no more than one practice a day, and no practice lasting more than three hours. But the majority of states don’t require this, according to Douglas Casa, the Stringer Institute’s CEO. Nor do all states require cold-water immersion tubs be on hand; a tub costs about $150, can be purchased at a hardware store, and is known to save lives. Many don’t have an emergency plan posted on the field and known to all school staff.   

And just a handful require an athletic trainer on site for all “collision/contact” practices. Yes, this costs some money, but if a school can afford to maintain a football field and pay for coaches, insurance, uniforms and travel, the cost of a single staff member with medical training is not too much to ask. 

More than 110 years ago, after at least 18 college players died during a single season, President Theodore Roosevelt saved the game by pressing for commonsense safety measures.

Today, everyone knows what the solutions are. It’s long past time for state athletic officials and lawmakers to act.

If you can’t see this reader poll, please refresh your page.

 

 

 

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Natalie Allison and

Mariah Timms, Murfreesboro Daily News Journal
Published 7:00 a.m. CT Sept. 4, 2018

An inmate letter intercepted by officials in the Rutherford County jail appears to shed light on a possible motive in the fatal burning of a black man earlier this year: white supremacy.

Prosecutors say they’re now further investigating the case to determine if hate crime sentencing enhancement could be applied to the first-degree murder charge against John Daniel Carothers, 53.

Carothers, a white man, was charged in March with the killing of 40-year-old Robert Miller, a black victim authorities say Carothers set on fire at a Veterans’ Affairs assisted living home where the men lived.

“My Name is John D Carothers and I believe The Bible is about White People and for White People,” Carothers wrote in the letter addressed to the American Institute of Theology in Harrison, Arkansas. “I am in Rutherford County Jail for burning a black man I set him on fire with lighter fluid poured on his head.”

A Murfreesboro police detective testified at an Aug. 8 court hearing that jailers decided to intercept and read Carothers’ letter after Googling the organization to which the mail was addressed.

“They saw it was what they believed to be like a white supremacist type deal,” Det. Jacob Fountain told the court last month when describing jail staff’s research into the AIT.

They were right, according to hate and extremist experts.

The Anti-Defamation League describes AIT, which is affiliated with Kingdom Identity Ministries, as a small but longstanding group in the Christian Identity movement.

The movement espouses a racist and anti-Semitic religious doctrine that claims “white Europeans are the true Israelites, and non-whites are the ‘mud people,’” according to the ADL.

In Carothers’ letter to AIT, he asks that a “study Bible” from the group be sent to him.

‘We’ve not seen this style of crime,’ DA says

From the perspective of District Attorney Jennings Jones, the case that prosecutors and detectives are now analyzing as being racially motivated is not something he has dealt with frequently.

“We have our share of crime, but we really have not seen this style of crime driven by racial animus,” Jennings said. “This deviates from what we normally see in Rutherford County.”

Reports of hate crimes increased last year in Tennessee, according to a report released this spring by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

The number of criminal offenses motivated by a known bias increased 10.5 percent from 2016 to 2017. Anti-black or African American bias accounted for nearly 38 percent of known hate crimes in the state.

Earlier this summer, a man in Rutherford County was charged with aggravated assault with a hate crime enhancement after authorities said he severely beat a gay man and bragged about it.

Victim died days after being set on fire at Murfreesboro home

According to authorities, Carothers set Miller on fire March 17 at the assisted living home on Maple Street in Murfreesboro.

Some of the home’s residents helped Miller into a shower to extinguish the flames before moving him away from the bedroom where the fire stated and onto the back porch.

Lisa Hathaway, a cook at the home, testified in court that when she went to find him on the back porch, Miller, whose “skin was coming off of him,” told her that Carothers had set him on fire.

A murder charge was filed against Carothers upon Miller’s death March 27.

At the time, Carothers was also charged with eight counts of reckless endangerment and one count of aggravated arson. 

Carothers was previously convicted of second-degree murder in 1999 and later pleaded guilty to a lower charge in 2011 after being charged with second degree murder another time. Both cases occurred in McNairy County.

In a statement, Allison Padilla-Goodman, ADL southeast regional director, called on Jennings to bring hate crime sentencing enhancement against Carothers.

Padilla-Goodman also asked that the Tennessee General Assembly “enact a comprehensive hate crime law in the victim’s honor,” related to “crimes committed because of hate, bias or bigotry.”

In addition to hate crime sentencing enhancement, in Tennessee, certain hate crimes can be prosecuted as a felony under the Civil Rights Intimidation Act, a statute violation that can be difficult to prove.

Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com and on Twitter at @natalie_allison. Reach Mariah Timms at mtimms@dnj.com and on Twitter at @MariahTimms.

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Europe’s top club coaches have asked Uefa to review the use of the away-goals rule in continental competitions.

They also want the transfer window to end at the same time in all the continent’s major leagues.

“The coaches think that scoring goals away is not as difficult as it was in the past,” said Uefa deputy general secretary Giorgio Marchetti after the meeting in Switzerland.

“They think the rule should be reviewed and that’s what we will do.”

The annual gathering included Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho and Arsenal boss Unai Emery, plus Emery’s predecessor Arsene Wenger, along with Juventus’ Massimiliano Allegri, Real Madrid’s Julen Lopetegui, Carlo Ancelotti of Napoli and Paris St-Germain’s Thomas Tuchel.

The rule was first introduced in the former European Cup Winners’ Cup competition in 1965 as an alternative to tossing a coin or staging a replay on a neutral ground at a time when travelling abroad was far more challenging.

Marchetti said the coaches felt the rule was also counter-productive and that, as much as encouraging away teams to attack, it induced home teams to defend to avoid conceding a costly goal.

On the transfer window, he said the coaches wanted more countries to follow the example of England and Italy and close them before the start of the season.

In Spain, Germany and France, they continued until the end of August as before.

“The coaches are of an opinion that there should be a unified window and the window should close before the competition starts,” said Marchetti. “The idea would be to try and bring them into line.”