Health News

SARATOGA, N.Y. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, whose loyalty to former president Donald Trump won her a leadership post in the House Republican caucus, announced on Twitter that she is expecting her first child.

The fourth-term Congress member from upstate New York tweeted Saturday, “We are absolutely overjoyed to announce that our small family of 2 will soon be 3! We’re excited to share that we are expecting a baby this fall & we cannot wait to meet our precious bundle of joy.”

The post on Twitter and Instagram included a photo of Stefanik and her husband, Matthew Manda, patting her baby bump.

Stefanik, 36, was first elected to Congress in 2014. She was elevated to the No. 3 position in the Republican caucus last month when party members ousted Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney from the position for pushing back against Trump’s false claims that voting fraud cost him the 2020 presidential election.

After initially distancing herself from Trump, Stefanik has become one of the former president’s fiercest defenders in the House.

Copyright © 2021 . All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

Prince Harry and Meghan may have stepped away from their royal duties — but family appeared to be top of mind in naming their second child, Lilibet “Lili” Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, who was born Friday in California.

The name pays tribute to both Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, whose family nickname is Lilibet, and his late mother, Princess Diana.

“Thank you for your continued kindness and support during this very special time for our family,” Harry and Meghan, also known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, wrote in a statement that accompanied the birth announcement Sunday.

The baby is “more than we could have ever imagined, and we remain grateful for the love and prayers we’ve felt from across the globe,” they continued.

The baby girl was born at 11:40 a.m. at the Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, California, and weighed in at 7 lbs, 11 oz, a spokesperson for the couple said. The child is eighth in line to the British throne.

A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said the queen; Harry’s father, Prince Charles; his brother, Prince William; and other members of the family had been informed and are “delighted with the news of the birth of a daughter for The Duke and Duchess of Sussex.”

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson also congratulated the couple in a tweet.

Harry and Meghan Markle — formerly an actor — married at Windsor Castle in May 2018 and welcomed their son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, a year later.

No photos of the newborn or the Sussexes accompanied the announcement. The couple has said that in lieu of gifts, they request those interested learn about or support nonprofit organizations working for women and girls, including Girls Inc., Harvest Home, CAMFED or Myna Mahila Foundation.

The birth of the healthy baby girl opens a happy chapter for the couple following a miscarriage in July 2020. Meghan gave a personal account of that traumatic experience in hope of helping others.

Months before the miscarriage, the couple announced they were quitting royal duties and moving to North America, citing what they said were the unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media. They live in Montecito, an upscale area near Santa Barbara, California.

In the wake of quitting royal duties, they gave an explosive TV interview to Oprah Winfrey in March, in which the couple described painful comments about how dark Archie’s skin might be before his birth and Meghan talked about the intense isolation she felt inside the royal family that led her to contemplate suicide.

Buckingham Palace said the allegations of racism made by the couple were “concerning” and would be addressed privately.

Winfrey and Harry recently collaborated on the Apple TV+ mental-health series “The Me You Can’t See.”

In the interview with Oprah, Meghan also talked about the fact that her son was not given the title of prince. Harry said the royal family cut him off financially after he announced plans to step back from his roles — and that he was able to afford security for his family because of the money his mother left behind.

Despite leaving royal duties, Harry’s place in the order of succession to the throne remains.

The first seven places remain unchanged: Prince Charles; Prince William; William’s children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis; Prince Harry, and his son, Archie.

Lilibet’s birth moves Prince Andrew, who was born second in line in 1960, down to ninth place.

___

Read all AP stories on Prince Harry and Meghan at https://apnews.com/PrinceHarry.

Copyright © 2021 . All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

LIMA, Peru (AP) — The daughter of an imprisoned former president and a rural teacher-turned-political novice vied for Peru’s presidency Sunday in a tight presidential runoff held as the coronavirus pandemic continues to batter the Andean country.

The polarizing populist candidates, leftist Pedro Castillo and conservative Keiko Fujimori, making her third run for the presidency, promised coronavirus vaccines for all and other strategies to alleviate the health emergency that has killed more than 180,000 people in Peru and pushed millions into poverty. The election follows a statistical revision from Peru’s government that more than doubled the death toll previously acknowledged by officials.

Voters across Peru, where voting is mandatory, headed to the polls throughout Sunday under a set schedule meant to minimize long lines. No disturbances were reported at voting sites, which even opened in San Miguel del Ene, a remote village in a cocaine-producing area where 16 people were massacred two weeks ago.

Election officials were expected to release initial results late Sunday. Pre-election polls indicated the candidates were virtually tied heading into the runoff. In the first round of voting, featuring 18 candidates, neither received more than 20% support and both were strongly opposed by sectors of Peruvian society.

“Well, the truth is that I believe that Peruvians are used to this type of decision — of being left with two options that leave much to be desired, but what do we do?” one voter, Paul Perez, said at a school in the capital of Lima where he was voting. “We are in a social, cultural situation that limits us to anticipating all of this.”

The pandemic not only has collapsed Peru’s medical and cemetery infrastructure, left millions unemployed and highlighted longstanding inequalities in the country, it has also deepened people’s mistrust of government as it mismanaged the COVID-19 response and a secret vaccination drive for the well-connected erupted into a national scandal.

Amid protests and corruption allegations, the South American country cycled through three presidents in November. Now, analysts warn this election could be another tipping point for people’s simmering frustrations and bring more political instability.

“I think in both situations the risk of social unrest is high. It’s a time bomb,” said Claudia Navas, an analyst with the global firm Control Risks. “I think if Castillo wins, people who support Fujimori or support the continuation to some extent of the economic model may protest.”

But Navas said “a more complex scenario will evolve if Fujimori wins because Castillo has been able to create a discourse that has played well in some rural communities with regards to the social divide and saying that political and economic elites have orchestrated things to remain in power and maintain the social inequalities.”

The fears of more political instability were evident Sunday. President Francisco Sagasti after voting said the candidates should respect the results and ask their followers to refrain from staging protests over the outcome.

For Lima resident Felipa Yanacris, Peru’s presidential politics “desperately” need a shake-up. “We want change, we have been waiting for 30 years of change,” Yanacris said.

Fujimori voted in the wealthy neighborhood of the capital of Lima where she lives, urging people to vote ‘’without fear,″ while Castillo appealed for calm while casting his ballot alongside his parents in the rural Anguia area.

Fujimori, a former congresswoman, has promised various bonuses to people, including a $2,500 one-time payment to each family with at least one COVID-19 victim. She has also proposed distributing 40% of a tax for the extraction of minerals, oil or gas among families who live near those areas.

Her supporters include the wealthy players of the national soccer team and Mario Vargas Llosa, Peru’s foremost author and the winner of a Nobel Prize in literature. Vargas, who lost a presidential election three decades ago to the candidate’s father, Alberto Fujimori, has moved from calling her the “daughter of the dictator” in 2016 to considering her to be the representative of “freedom and progress.”

Keiko Fujimori herself has been imprisoned as part of a graft investigation though she was later released. Her father governed between 1990 and 2000 and is serving a 25-year sentence for corruption and the killings of 25 people. She has promised to free him should she win.

Castillo until recently was a rural schoolteacher in the country’s third-poorest district, deep in the Andes. The son of illiterate peasants entered politics by leading a teachers’ strike. While his stance on nationalizing key sectors of the economy has softened, he remains committed to rewriting the constitution that was approved under the regime of Fujimori’s father.

Among Castillo’s supporters are former Bolivia President Evo Morales and former Uruguay President José Mujica, who in a conversation via Facebook told Castillo on Thursday to “not fall into authoritarianism.”

Peru is the second largest copper exporter in the world and mining accounts for almost 10% of its GDP and 60% of its exports, so Castillo’s initial proposal to nationalize the nation’s mining industry set off alarm bells among business leaders. But regardless of who gets picked to succeed Sagasti on July 28, investors will remain skittish.

“A victory for left-wing populist Pedro Castillo in Peru’s presidential election on Sunday would probably send local financial markets into a tailspin, but we doubt that investors would have much to cheer about even if his rival Keiko Fujimori wins,” Nikhil Sanghani, emerging markets economist with Capital Economics, wrote in an investors note Friday.

“Fujimori is a controversial figure who is under investigation for corruption charges. Given Peru’s recent history, it’s not hard to imagine that this could spark impeachment proceedings,” he said.

___

Associated Press writer Franklin Briceno reported this story in Lima and AP writer Regina Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City.

Copyright © 2021 . All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

DUBLIN, Ohio (AP) — The emotion and intensity felt the same to Patrick Cantlay, whether it was his clutch 25-foot birdie putt to tie for the lead or his 12-foot par putt in a playoff that made him a winner again Sunday in the Memorial.

The handshake with Jack Nicklaus? As special as it was two years ago.

That was as far as normalcy was allowed to go at a tournament that was as much about the guy who won as the guy who didn’t play.

Plenty of drama. A little rain. No sign of Jon Rahm.

Some 24 hours earlier, as Rahm pulled away with a 64 to build a six-shot lead, Cantlay already was trying to figure out how low he would need to score to have a chance. And then Rahm was told off the 18th green Saturday evening that his COVID-19 test came back positive, knocking him out of the tournament.

“I would much rather have faced him down today and shot an extremely low round and beat him that way,” Cantlay said after closing with a 1-under 71 and beating Collin Morikawa (71) with a par on the first playoff hole.

“But unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do,” he said. “I did everything I could with the cards I was dealt, and I really did a good job of focusing today on the task at hand and staying present. And that’s all you can do in this game.”

He did it one putt better than Morikawa, who missed a 6-foot par putt to extend the playoff.

The tour said Rahm had been in contact with a COVID-19 positive and was in its contact tracing program, subjected to tests every day since Monday. Every test was negative until Saturday, after his rain-delayed second round.

He was informed after tying the 54-hole record at 18-under 198. His six-shot lead tied the Memorial record set by Tiger Woods. And then he was out of the tournament.

“We’re all devastated,” Nicklaus said earlier Sunday. “I wish we could figure out how to give Jon three-fourths of the trophy.”

Nicklaus also figured it would add another element for Cantlay and Morikawa to confront, having gone from a six-shot deficit to a share of the lead.

They both handled it fine, and the lead was exchanged among Cantlay, Morikawa and Scottie Scheffler, who bogeyed the final hole for a 70 to finish two shots out of the playoff.

“All I had to do was focus on my game and go out and play golf. There’s nothing else I could really change,” Morikawa said. “I can’t dictate anyone else’s future or how they play or what’s going on. So waking up this morning I felt great. I was ready to go play golf and see if I could win the tournament.”

Morikawa surged ahead with an 8-foot birdie putt on the par-5 15th, while Cantlay missed birdie putts from 8 feet to tie him on the 15th, and then on the par-3 16th.

The round was halted for about five minutes because of a pop-up downpour while they were on the 17th green. When it resumed, Cantlay holed a 25-foot birdie putt to tie, and Morikawa stayed in the game with a 12-foot par.

Cantlay had a 25-foot birdie putt for the win on the 18th in regulation that grazed the right side of the cup, leaving them at 13-under 275.

Rahm reached 13 under on the 11th hole Saturday and kept going. How would he have fared Sunday is unknown. No one has ever lost a lead that large in the final round at Muirfield Village, though it has happened seven times on the PGA Tour, most recently by Dustin Johnson in Shanghai in 2017.

“It was such a weird situation, so unfortunate,” Cantlay said. “Everyone, me included, knows it would be totally different today if that hadn’t happened. But there’s nothing I could do about it. I tried as hard as I could to reset and refocus.”

It led to the fourth victory of his PGA Tour career, and second this season. Cantlay also won the ZoZo Championship in California last October, rallying from a three-shot deficit to beat Rahm and Justin Thomas.

He becomes the seventh player to win multiple times at the Memorial, a list that starts with Tiger Woods winning five times and Nicklaus, the tournament founder, winning twice.

Morikawa won at Muirfield Village last year, just not the Memorial. He won in a playoff against Thomas at the Workday Charity Open, a one-time even when the pandemic forced the John Deere Classic to be canceled.

In that tournament, Morikawa twice had to watch as Thomas had a putt on the 18th green to win, and he survived to win on the third extra hole.

This time, he escaped one birdie chance by Cantlay in regulation. On the 18th in the playoff, Morikawa had a sliver of mud on his ball and came up well short from the fairway into deep rough. He chipped out to 6 feet.

Cantlay was well right and hacked it out into a bunker, but his shot from the wet sand rolled out 12 feet. It was on the same line as his 25-foot birdie attempt in regulation, and this time he poured it in for par. Moments later, Morikawa missed his 6-footer and Cantlay let out a big exhale before going over to shake hands with Nicklaus.

“There’s a little something that I can’t quite put my finger on that make it’s feel a little different,” Cantlay said. “But I really hit a lot of clutch, solid shots today. And so I think I’ll remember that mostly.”

(This version corrects that six-shot leads have been lost seven times on the PGA Tour)

Copyright © 2021 . All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

SONOMA, Calif. (AP) — Kyle Larson first visited Sonoma Raceway as a young kid dressed head-to-toe in Jeff Gordon gear watching NASCAR practice from the hillside on a Saturday afternoon.

Now he’s a Cup winner at what is considered the Elk Grove racer’s home track, but his victory lane celebration Sunday was a disaster.

Larson tried to recreate a 2014 photo of himself spitting wine into the air following a lower level win, but it was far windier after this big leagues victory and when Larson splayed his mouthful from the oversized chalice, the red wine splashed all over the new track president.

“I blew it,” Larson said. “It was way windy and I feel super bad.”

It was the only thing Larson did wrong all day.

Larson beat teammate Chase Elliott in overtime to win his second consecutive race, third of the season, and help Hendrick Motorsports continue its month of dominance.

Hendrick drivers have won four straight races and Larson’s Coca-Cola 600 win a week ago at Charlotte Motor Speedway made Rick Hendrick the winningest owner in NASCAR history.

“Obviously, last weekend was huge for our company, the history and heritage of our company. We’re obviously very proud to do that for Mr. Hendrick in our backyard,” said Jeff Andrews, executive vice president and general manager at HMS. “Now we come out here to Sonoma and we get one for Kyle in his backyard.”

The Hendrick group is on such a roll that maybe only two-time defending winner Martin Truex Jr. was considered a real threat to stop the streak Sunday, when NASCAR returned to California for the first time since 2019 because of the pandemic.

But reigning Cup champion Elliott was the favorite. He is, after all, the current king of the road with six victories on road courses including a victory over Larson two weeks ago in the rain-shortened debut at Circuit of the Americas in Texas.

Instead the win went to Larson. And even though it was in overtime, it wasn’t close as Elliott remained winless at Sonoma in five starts.

“We were solid today, just not good enough at the right times,” Elliott said.

Larson, who had led just 11 laps in six previous combined races at Sonoma, won all three stages and led a race-high 58 of the 92 laps. The eighth caution sent the race to overtime for a two-race sprint shootout, but he easily cleared Elliott on the restart and pulled away to tie Truex with a Cup high three wins each this season.

Hendrick’s four drivers have combined for seven wins this season and Bowman at ninth Sunday gave them three in the top 10.

Elliott finished second as Hendrick tied Carl Kiekhaefer in 1956 with four consecutive 1-2 finishes.

WELCOME RACE FANS

Sonoma welcomed roughly 15,000 fans — the first time in 714 days spectators have been permitted at the raceway — for NASCAR’s first trip to California since the start of the pandemic. It was likely the last race with limited spectators as nearly all the upcoming venues on NASCAR’s calendars have announced plans to open all seats for sale moving forward.

With the re-opening came a return of dignitaries including Michael Jordan’s first appearance in the garage as co-owner of 23XI Racing. Although NASCAR has permitted the team owner to return to the infield since the start of the year, Jordan watched from a suite at the Daytona 500 and had not been seen at the track since.

San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan was the grand marshal and mingled with drivers before the race. Food Network star Guy Fieri drove the ceremonial pace car and 15-year-old U.S. Skateboarding champ Minna Stess from Petaluma performed a skating exhibition.

Shanahan was impressed with his first NASCAR race.

“I had no idea what goes into it,” he said. “I’ve seen ‘Talladega Nights’ and I thought that’s where it ended. I just thought you drive fast.”

UP NEXT

NASCAR runs its annual All-Star event Sunday night at Texas Motor Speedway for the first time in race history. Longtime track president Eddie Gossage will retire after the event.

___

More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Copyright © 2021 . All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.