Omar King USA TODAY Thursday 20240404

A massive earthquake struck Taiwan, causing death and injury, and leaving many people trapped in damaged buildings. Aftershocks and tsunami warnings followed. Taiwan sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where earthquakes are common. The United States offered assistance to Taiwan and Japan, who were also affected by the earthquake. In another news, a federal appeals court is considering the legality of a Texas law targeting migrants, which has mobilized immigrant communities and sparked debate on border security. The outcome could have political implications for the state. This program is intended for a print-impaired audience and is brought to you by the Georgia Radio Reading Service, GARS. Welcome to our reading of the USA Today. I'm Omar King for the Georgia Radio Reading Service. Today is Thursday, April 4, 2024. Our first article comes to us from the front page. The article is titled, Earthquake Aftershocks Rumble Through Taiwan, Shaking Could Continue For Days, Scores Missing or Trapped by John Bacon and Janine Santucci of the USA Today. The death toll rose to nine and scores of people were missing or trapped in rubble Wednesday after a massive earthquake struck Taiwan and authorities warned that dangerous aftershocks could rock the densely populated island nation for several more days. Taiwan's National Fire Agency said at least 963 people were injured when the earthquake measured a 7.2 magnitude by the Taiwan officials and 7.4 by the U.S. Geological Survey struck near the east coast city of Hualien at about 8 a.m. local time. Hualien is a popular tourist destination 100 miles south of Taipei, where buildings swayed and some damage was reported. Buildings tumbled or were left leaning precariously while scores of people were trapped inside the damaged structures. Social media videos showed rescuers using ladders to help trap people out of windows. Buildings could be seen collapsing onto streets, bridges swayed and items on shelves splattered onto the ground. Hundreds of thousands of residents lost power but mostly electricity had been restored, utility company Taipower said. It added that the island's two nuclear power stations were unaffected. Fire authorities said they had evacuated about 70 people trapped in tunnels near Hualien City, but they had lost contact with 50 workers aboard four minibuses heading to a hotel in National Park, Taroko Gorge. They said the rescuers were looking for them. Another 80 people were trapped in a mining area, though it was not immediately clear whether they were inside a mine, Reuters reported. The quake shook the capital Taipei, knocking out power in parts of the city. Damage was reported in the Taipei subway system, which is closed briefly before resuming partial service. The rail link to the area was expected to reopen Thursday. President-elect Lai Ching-tei, who is set to take office next month, told reporters Taiwan's high-speed rail operator said no damage or injuries were reported on his train, although services would be delayed for inspections. Aftershocks and Tsunami Warnings Aftershocks rolled across the country within five hours of the quake, reaching up to 6.5 magnitude. Wu Qing-fu, director of Taiwan's seismology center, said aftershocks reaching 7.0 could strike the nations of 23 million people for three or four more days. Aftershocks could be felt in Taipei. More than 50 were recorded in the hours after the quake, weather officials said. The quake was Taiwan's largest since the 1990 Gigi quake, which killed more than 2,400 people and injured 11,300 people. The temblor set off a tsunami warning for southern Japan and the Philippines. It was later lifted. In Japan, the weather agency put the quake's magnitude at 7.7 and said several small tsunami waves reached parts of the southern preference of Okinawa but downgraded its tsunami warning to an advisory. In the Philippines, seismology experts warned coastal residents in several provinces to move to higher ground. Chinese state media said the quake was felt on the southeastern province of Fujian. A witness told Reuters it was also felt in Shanghai. There was no tsunami threat to Hawaii, the U.S. Pacific Territory of Guam, or the west coast of North America, the U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center said. The White House said Wednesday that it was monitoring the aftermath of the earthquake in Taiwan and Japan. The United States stands ready to provide any necessary assistance. All those affected are in our prayers, National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement. The earthquake's epicenter was six miles northeast of Hoi Lan City, an area known as the Hawaii of Taiwan. Because of its warm tropical weather, lush greenery, and crystal clear ocean waters, it is also home to the Taroko Gorge, a stunning natural granite gorge with transparent turquoise and dark blue water that is a destination for hikers. Signs along the pathways and hiking trails in the gorge warn visitors of possible falling rocks. Five-star hotels in Hoi Lan and in the vicinity of Taroko National Park, where the gorge is located, cater to tourists from around the globe coming to see and hike the area. The Ring of Fire. Taiwan sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where 90% of the world's earthquakes hit. Emergency services are prepared for quick rescue and recovery. Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen said the military will help with the rescue and recovery. She pledged that the federal and local governments would work together. Taiwan's Air Force said six of its F-16 fighter jets had been slightly damaged at a major base in the city, from which jets are often scrambled after incursions by Chinese Air Force, but the aircraft were expected to return to service soon. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, a major supplier of chips to Apple and NVIDIA, said it had evacuated some fabrication plants and safety systems were operating normally. To ensure the safety of personnel, some fabs were evacuated according to the company procedure. The semiconductor giant said in a statement, adding later that the employees had begun to return to work. Wu said an investigation is underway to determine why not all Taiwanese received a national alert after the quake. At present, the most important thing, the top priority, is to rescue people, said Lai, speaking outside of a collapsed building in Hualien. This concludes the reading of our first article, Earthquake Aftershocks Rumble Through Taiwan, Shaking Could Continue For Days, Scores Missing Or Trapped, by John Bacon and Janine Santucci of the USA Today. The next article from the front page is titled, Texas Migrant Laws Goes To Court, Political Power Balance Could Hinge On Outcome, by Lauren Vilgram of the USA Today. The last two times Republicans pushed laws targeting undocumented immigrants in border states, the backlash flipped the states blue and purple. But in deep red Texas, as a federal appeals court weighs a legal challenge to a controversial Texas law targeting migrants, Marisa Limon-Garza sees a historical moment unfolding not unlike the resistance to the anti-immigration legislation in California in the 1990s or the protests over Arizona's Show-Me-Your-Papers law in the 2010s. I don't have rose-colored glasses, but I look to history, to California's Prop 187 and Arizona's SB 1070, and I see states that took short-term hits, said Limon-Garza. The group is one of several plaintiffs suing Texas over the law known as Senate Bill 4, but people changed those states. The Federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans heard oral arguments Wednesday in a Justice Department lawsuit alleging Texas SB 4 is unconstitutional. The lawsuit, which was combined with the legal challenge brought by El Paso County and Los Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, says immigration is the sole purview of the federal government. Texas contends that Biden administration has been derelict in border enforcement and that the state has a right to enforce its own border security. Though the measure hasn't taken effect because of a court-judged injunction, SB 4 is mobilizing Texas immigrant communities in unprecedented ways, said Fernando Garcia, Executive Director of the Border Network for Human Rights. The El Paso, Texas, nonprofit has joined an effort uniting 15 Texas organizations called the We Will Resist Campaign Coalition. Members protested outside the New Orleans courthouse Wednesday. This is an extreme version of what we saw in the past in Arizona, Garcia said. Under SB 4, the Texas Department of Public Safety will be axing the question of immigration and arresting people. This is sending shockwaves for fear through our community. Could hardline tactics shift the immigration debate? Texas Governor Greg Abbott has targeted illegal immigration with razor wire and a floating barrier in the Rio Grande, with National Guard troops at the border, with human trafficking allegations against migrant shelters, and now with a new law that makes it a state crime to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas and allows the state to order deportations. Whether the political winds in Texas could shift as a result, the way they did in California and Arizona, is up for debate. SB 4 may have galvanized activists like Nimon Garza, who say they want to protect immigrant families in Texas and prevent communities of color from being unfairly targeted. But the hardline border enforcement policies have also proved popular with many Texas voters, including, in majority, Hispanic border communities. Selene Rodriguez runs the conservative-leaning Texas Public Policy Foundation Secure and Sovereign Texas campaign that supported SB 4. She hails from a ranching community near Del Rio, Texas, at the U.S.-Mexico border. Like Nimon Garza, she traces her roots to Mexico, but she doesn't believe resistance to SB 4 will approach anything like what happened in California and Arizona. On the contrary, you are always going to have split opinions, Rodriguez said, but I am seeing a growing increase in people wanting stricter immigration laws, especially in Hispanic communities. My community is tired of the human smuggling attempts. Texas very much supports legal and safe immigration. What we don't want is millions of people putting themselves into the hands of mixing cartels coming here illegally. How California's Prop 187 shuffled the deck in 1994. In 1994, amid an economic downturn and anxiety around globalization, California Republicans, led by Governor Pete Wilson, pushed for Prop 187. Voters approved the law, which required police, health care workers, and teachers to verify and report immigration status of all people, including children, and report undocumented immigrants to federal authorities. The law ruined the GOP brand in the eyes of immigrants, their children, and whites, who were turned off by the nativist appeals, driving all of them into the arms of the Democrats, who were pro-immigration, said Alex Nalraste, Vice President for Economic and Social Policy Studies at the Libertarian Cato Institute, wrote in a 2016 analysis. But SB-4 differs from Prop 187 in important ways, he said. The Texas law specifically prohibits enforcement at locations including hospitals and churches and schools, and it's framed as targeting border security, not interior enforcement. The reach of SB-40, although large, is much less than Prop 187, Nalraste told USA Today. Even in border communities, there are concerns about border security. They may be worried about being misidentified, but they are also concerned about individuals coming over the border, which softens the opposition to SB-4. In the 1990s, a federal district judge determined Prop 187 violated the U.S. Constitution. A court-mediated settlement in 1999 ended myriad legal challenges to the law. Wilson lost his next election, and the Democrats gained a stronghold in California. In Arizona, a decade later, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio rose to national fame or notoriety for his aggressive enforcement of the state's Show Me Your Papers law. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down most of Arizona's SB-1070 in 2012, reasoning that the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution placed immigration under the exclusive purview of the federal government, a long-standing legal precedent that the courts have upheld so far. Arpaio was convicted of contempt of court for ignoring a judge's order that his agency stopped racially profiling Latinos, and he subsequently lost four elections and never returned to public office. He later received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump. Latino grassroots organizations that grew out of opposition to the law remained politically active. In the decade that followed SB-1070, Latinos increased their representation in the Arizona legislature, doubling their seats in the House. Lamone Garza says she and other immigrant advocacy organizations are connecting with the California activists who led the charge against Prop 187 and Arizona organizations that resisted SB-1070. They are building coalitions within Texas as well. That's how I sleep at night, she said. I think there is going to be collateral damage. There will be harm, but it goes back to strategy and being very intentional. If we are disciplined in our strategy, we could come back in 10 years stronger. Texas will hold the line in its border fight, Abbott declares. Already advocates have coalesced in a new statewide organization founded last year in response to Abbott's border initiatives. The Texas Immigration Laws Council stated, mission is to protect and promote the rights of immigrants and refugees of all nationalities in Texas. There is a lot of organizing happening along the border, from shelter organizations to legal services organizations and local and national organizations, said Denise Gilman, co-director of the Immigrant Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. I don't think we had seen that level of coordination in Texas in the past or at that level of common purpose. At the moment, Abbott enjoys broad support for his initiatives. A poll in February by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, Austin, revealed that more than half of the respondents said they strongly or somewhat supported a host of the governor's measures, including deploying state and military resources to the border, placing razor wire in the Rio Grande, and building or repairing border barriers. In a nod to SB4, 60% of respondents said they supported making it a state crime for an undocumented immigrant to be in Texas in most circumstances. The governor has continued investing political capital and taxpayer money in his border strategy. Last week, he met with the House Speaker Mike Johnson in Austin and urged him to pass border security legislation, although Johnson helped torpedo a border security bill earlier this year. Abbott touted the state's migrant busing program, which has shipped more than 108,000 migrants out of the state to Democrat-led sanctuary cities, including New York, Chicago, and Denver. He has broken ground on a Ford operating base for Texas National Guard under construction at the border, where he plans to house 2,300 soldiers. Texas will hold the line, Abbott said on X, after migrants rushed the border in El Paso and breached razor wire barriers to turn themselves into border agents. The SB4 law hasn't been allowed to take effect as legal challenges wind their way through court system and are likely headed for the Supreme Court. Any political consequences of SB40 may be felt only if the law takes effect. If it does clear the legal challenges, we'll have to see how it's implemented and where it's implemented, said Kristen Eder, director of policy and legal services at the Texas Immigration Law Council. The strength of the resistance of the law may not be felt until Texans realize what the impacts will be when immigrants start leaving the state or when they see their own family and friends pulled over. This concludes the reading of the second article from the front page, Texas Migrant Law Goes to Court, Political Powers Balance Could Hinge on Outcome, by Lauren Bilgren of the USA Today. Our next article comes to us from the US Today money section, Edmunds, EV sales growth to stay slow, rate of new vehicle share to increase to 8%, Medora Lee, USA Today. Are you there, electric vehicle makers? It's me, an EV shopper. Judging by the EVs on the market, EV makers aren't there listening to what consumers want, according to auto comparison company Edmunds. EV battery longevity, worries, range anxiety, and lack of charging infrastructure are all known concerns, but there's also a wide gap between what car shoppers want and what's for sale. Edmunds' 2024 EV Consumer Sentiment Survey shows these factors together can make the uphill climb to mass EV purchases even steeper. Edmunds predicts the rate of EV growth will continue slowing through 2024, increasing to just 8% of new vehicle market share from 6.9 last year and 5.2 in 2022. The electric vehicle market is growing, but consumers have enough reservations about the options and charging infrastructure challenges that limit more significant growth in the short term, Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds' head of insight. What do EV shoppers want? The top three things Edmunds says EV shoppers want include lower prices. Among those who attend to buy an EV, 47% want one for less than $40,000, and 22% are interested in EVs below $30,000. Reality, zero new EVs have an average manufacturer's suggested retail price, MSRP, below $30,000, and there are only four below $40,000. In 2023, the average transaction price for an electrical vehicle was $61,702, while all other vehicles stood at $47,450, Edmunds said. The second want cars and SUVs, not electrical pickups. Among existing vehicle owners, drivers of pickups are least compelled to try an EV, with 39% saying they wouldn't consider one. Among EV shoppers, 43% are interested in a car, 42% would consider an SUV crossover, and only 10% would consider a truck. Reality, car makers have a long lineup of trucks coming, including the Rivian R1T, Ford F-150 Lightning, GMC Hummer EV, and Tesla Cybertruck, with a Chevrolet Silverado EV, GMC Sierra EV, and Ram 1500 Rev, also potentially in the pipeline. It's not surprising that the Detroit automakers move swiftly to protect their top money-making products from the threat of EV startups, but at least for now, it appears this fear was unwarranted as EV pickup trucks are still largely niche products with a limited consumer base, Caldwell said. EVs from the most trusted brands, Toyota and Honda, rank third and fourth as the most trusted makers of consumer EVs, with Tesla and BMW making the top two spots, respectively. Reality, Toyota has just one EV on the market in the US, while Honda is just beginning to sell its first pure electric. What are EV shoppers buying then? The dearth of EVs for sale that EV shoppers want has pushed them to hybrids, Caldwell said. People may not think an EV is right for them until 2030 or 2035, but a hybrid will work for now if they want to go green, she said. Non-plug-in hybrids are less expensive than EVs and ease people's range and charger anxieties. Will EV sales pick up again? Yes, when auto companies make the right vehicle at the right price point and we have the right charging infrastructure in place, Caldwell said, but it's hard to orchestrate all that because there's not one entity that controls all of those things. EVs will be slow for a while, Cox Automotive said last month. Its EV sales outlook index dropped to 36 in the first three months of the year, the lowest level since it started tallying this in 2021. A year ago, when the index score was 53, a majority of auto dealers indicated that the EV market would be growing, not declining. That sentiment has changed, Cox said in its report. This concludes the reading of our first article from the money section, Edmunds EV Sales Growth to Stay Slow, Rate of New Vehicle Share to Increase to 8% by Medora Lee of the USA Today. The next article is titled Moneyline, UPS Postal Service Partner for Air Cargo. UPS is set to become the new primary air cargo provider for the United States Postal Service, the company has announced. The shipping company said in a new release, it has been awarded a significant air cargo contract by the USPS that is effective immediately, and greatly expands the existing relationship between the two organizations. According to the news release, UPS will become the primary air cargo provider and move the majority of the USPS air cargo in the US following a transition period. In an email statement to the USA Today, the USPS said the agreement with UPS will be for a minimum of five and a half years, and implementation of the new contract is to begin September 30th. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Next in the Moneyline, Krispy Kreme offers treat in honor of Eclipse. Krispy Kreme is celebrating the April 8th total solar eclipse with an all new total solar eclipse donut, available only for a limited time. The donut is an original glazed donut dipped in black chocolate icing, adorned with silver sprinkles, piped with a buttercream made with Oreo pieces, and features a whole Oreo cookie in the center, according to Krispy Kreme. The donut will be available Friday through Monday, April 8th in shop and for pickup or delivery via Krispy Kreme's app and website while supplies last, according to a news release. The donut will be available individually as a specialty dozen, featuring six total solar eclipse donuts and six original glazed donuts. Eclipses are rare and so is our out of this world total solar eclipse donut. Even if you can't be in the path of totality, you can get in the path of these treats, which will eat into totality, said Dave Skeena, Global Chief Brand Officer for Krispy Kreme. Next in the money line, Arby's is offering free sandwiches during April. Arby's is giving away one free sandwich per week for the month of April to Arby's rewards members in a promotion they are calling Free Sandwich Month. According to a news release, Arby's rewards members will receive a digital deal with a chance to redeem four free sandwiches with purchase online or through the Arby's app throughout the month of April. Every week, Arby's rewards members will have one free sandwich loaded into their account. To redeem the offer, deals must be placed on the Arby's app or online at www.arbys.com with any purchase. The offer is redeemable at a participating location nationwide and customers are encouraged to check availability at their local store before ordering. The company said customers can redeem the offer on any of Arby's sandwiches. Those who aren't already Arby's rewards members can sign up for the program at www.arbys.com backslash deals anytime in April and receive the Free Sandwich Month deal for the remaining weeks. This concludes the reading of the money line from the USA Today. Our next article comes to us from the sports section. Final four may change women's sports forever. Iowa's Clark leads search that could bring new life by Brent Schroetentober via the USA Today. This year's final four in women's college basketball might go down in history as the one that changed the sport forever. At least that's how some prominent observers see it. 45 years after they saw the men's game change forever at a different final four in 1979. Consider the similarities. Back then it was Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Their rising superstardom captivated the nation in an NCAA tournament breaking a record for television viewership and setting the stage for explosive growth in the men's game before moving on to save the NBA. This year it's Kaitlyn Clark of Iowa. She is also helping set viewership records in the women's game and could similarly bring new life to the WNBA this year after the weekend's women's final four in Cleveland. WNBA Commissioner Kathleen Iglebert has noticed similar potential. So does former CBS Sports President Neil Pilsen who attended that game. Larry Bird and Magic, can that be replicated? Pilsen said USA Today Sports. I'm not at all concerned that there won't be a positive continuation of this type of attention. All this feeds on itself. It grows. It doesn't just go away. Kaitlyn Clark and exposure. It's not a perfect comparison. Magic versus Bird exploded into a two-star rivalry that ended in the championship game. This year, Clark and Iowa beat defending champion LSU and rival star Angel Reese in the Elite Eight, drawing the biggest television audience in women's college basketball history, 12.3 million. Four days later, Clark plays in the final four Friday against Connecticut and Paige Borkriers, a guard her coach describes as the best player in America. But the high wattage appeal is similarly stirring to viewers, avatars, and even gamblers, helping the popularity feed off itself by raising the tide of exposure for all boats that benefit from it. In 1979, Magic versus Bird set a record with 35 million viewers. Now, evidence shows a similar sort of national awakening in women's basketball. Iglebert also cited the Magic Bird moment. This will certainly be a moment we'll look back and say it was a game changer for us, Iglebert told the Sports Business Journal. The data shows it. For example, two of the top four most watched women's college basketball games of all time featured Clark against Reese. Last year in the final game, nearly 10 million, and Monday in the Elite Eight, 12.3 million. Forty new advertisers are buying time in the women's final four this weekend with ABC or ESPN. The Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC and ESPN, confirmed to USA Today Sports that inventory for those games sold out earlier than ever before. Disney also confirmed that revenue from those sales more than doubled from last year and has more than tripled over the past three years. Group M, a prominent media investment group, announced last week a commitment to double investment in annual women's sports advertising opportunities. It plans to do it with clients such as Adidas, Ally, Coinbase, Discover, Google, Mars, Nationwide, Unilever, and the Universal Pictures. The company cited peaks in viewership and said it would collaborate with the media partners to help drive the discovery, promotion, and monetization of women's sports. Gambling, which helps drive sports viewership, is skyrocketing for women's basketball. The betting handled on women's college basketball is up 14 times more than last year as of March, according to DraftKings. The LSU-Iowa game Monday was the most bet on women's college basketball game in DraftKings sportsbook history and was on par with many NFL games from last season in terms of betting handle. 50 years in the making. In summary, exposure and investment are peaking for women's college basketball after decades of underinvestment, neglect, and occasional fits and starts. By comparison, the men's game has reaped the benefits of exposure and investment for decades longer, and it wasn't until 1973 that the Title IX banned sex discrimination in schools. The first NCAA tournament for men came in 1939, compared with 1982 for women who previously competed for championships in the now-defunct Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. By 1954, men got their first national championship game on national TV, compared with 1982 for women. Remember, we just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Title IX said former Georgia Tech coach Bernadette McGlade, now the commissioner of the Atlantic 10 Conference. This has been 50 years in the making. It hasn't been a flash in the pan just overnight. It still might seem like it sometimes. In 2019, the proportion of airtime devoted to women's sports on sports news shows and ESPN's SportsCenter was less than 6%, according to the study by University of Southern California and Purdue. In 2021, a report commissioned by the NCAA found that the governing bodies of college sports prioritized men's basketball, and it was significantly undervaluing women's basketball as an asset. The NCAA didn't even use the popular marketing term March Madness to promote the women's game until 2022. So what's changing? For starters, it helps to not keep underpromoting half of the potential marketplace by gender. Their superstars were not getting the kind of promotion they are getting today, Pilsen said, USA Today Sports. They and the industry have learned a lot from the NBA and NFL, which have been around longer. They've learned that the public responds to the athletes. They learned that the athletes are the shooting stars in their sport. The rise of social media and online streaming services also allowed women's basketball to reach more people as opposed to 30 years ago, when newspaper and TV companies essentially acted as gatekeepers of what sports got covered and what didn't. Sports editors and TV executives back then had limited space and time for coverage, forcing them to make choices. And they would try to justify the coverage disparity between men's and women's basketball by pointing to the attendance figures. For example, in 1994, Division I men's games drew on average about 5,500 compared to with about 1,100 for the women, according to NCAA records. But the reverse could be true. Attendance lagged because the game wasn't promoted like the men. Similarly, players on the great Tennessee and UConn teams of the 1990s and early 2000s might have gotten more national traction if TikTok, Instagram, and other social sites were around to connect them with more fans back then. Likewise, after endorsement deals were allowed in the NCAA for the first time in 2021, brands have helped brighten the spotlight for some star players. As Nike and State Farm have done with Clark. When you treat us like a sport, we will get a return on your investment, says South Carolina coach Don Staley, whose undefeated team faces North Carolina State in the other national semifinal Friday. Women's basketball is in high demand. People want to see it. People want to see it live. And people want to see it across the airways. But will it last? This is where the Magic Bird comparison faces its moment of truth. After Clark, will the women's college game sustain this level of interest? The men's game exploded with popularity after Magic and Bird in the 1980s, especially after CBS won the television rights to the men's tournament in 1982. Other stars and storylines came along to drive interest, pumping the men's postseason into the commercial behemoth it is now. With Clark on the way to the WNBA, Buckers and others are left to help carry it, including Southern California's Juju Watkins, a freshman who ranked second nationally in scoring this season, behind Clark with 27.1 per game. The NCAA has invested more, but still needs to do more, according to supporters of the women's game. In the last three seasons, the NCAA has increased the investment in just some of the major championship areas for women's basketball by more than $14 million annually, said Lynn Holzman, the NCAA's vice president of women's basketball. The Final Four starts Friday in primetime on ESPN, starting with South Carolina, 36-0, against North Carolina State, 31-6. Iowa, 33-4, versus UConn, 33-5, follows that. It is an event and a place that people want to be because of the historic performances that we are seeing by these individuals and these teams, Holzman said. So it's awesome. It's wonderful. This concludes the reading of the first article from the sports section. Final Four may change women's sports forever. Iowa's Clark leads search that could bring new life. Brent Schottenborough of the USA Today. The second article from the sports section is titled, Roy McIlroy Switches Up His Master's Preparation. Golfer Skips Par 3 Contest in the 16th Attempt to Win a Green Jacket at Augusta. McIlroy Shaking Up Master's Prep in Bid for Elusive Green Jacket Will Skip Par 3 Contest by Adam Schupach via the Golf Week and the US Today Network. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. For Roy McIlroy, he's about to embark on his 16th attempt to win a green jacket at the Masters in his 10th try to complete the career Grand Slam. But doing the same thing over and over is the definition of insanity, so McIlroy intends to shake things up again this year. Golf Week has learned McIlroy, who reportedly made a scouting trip Monday to play Augusta National, won't return to the course until late Tuesday of the tournament week and plans to skip the Par 3 contest on Wednesday. Last week McIlroy participated in a small gathering with members of the Apogee Club, a private club with courses being built in Hobay Sound, Florida, and played with his TGL team member Keegan Bradley. During the round, which was taped for possible inclusion in the Season 3 of Full Swing, the Netflix documentary, and by Golf Channel for a future show on high-tech indoor TGL debuting in 2025, Bradley asked McIlroy when he was going to get to Augusta National ahead of the Masters. McIlroy said not until late Tuesday and explained that Bradley, the lead-up to the start of the Masters, drags too long, so he intends to arrive later than he has ever before. It's not as if he doesn't know how the course plays at this point. In previous years, McIlroy has talked about killing time by doing puzzles at his rental house. He's also taught himself to juggle. He's still trying to put the pieces together for what constitutes a winning approach to the Masters and ending his major-less skid, which dates to 2014 PGA Championship. Padraig Harrington once noted with all of McIlroy's vast talent, all he really had to do was be patient. All McIlroy has to worry about is peaking the right weeks, and his game is plenty good enough, he said. Wouldn't you love to just be patient and wait for those weeks to turn up? Well, McIlroy has good reason to have become impatient. Those weeks of brilliance haven't been turning up of late. While McIlroy did successfully defend his title in the DP World Tours Dubai Desert Classic in January, he has been mired in an early-season swoon for him. McIlroy has failed to record a top-10 finish this season on the PGA Tour. If he fails to do so this week at San Antonio at the Valero Texas Open, it will mark the first time he's headed into the Masters without one since 2010. ESPN's Andy North walked with McIlroy the last three rounds at the Players Last Month and rated his iron play this season as below average. His iron play this season has not been near anywhere to his standard. He had a great day with his irons on Thursday that week, and he thought he'd gotten over the hump, North said. That's concerning to me, and I think that's one of the reasons he's playing this week. He wants to see if what he's been working on the past couple of weeks is what he wants to do. But to win at Augusta, you go back and you look at the winners. Everybody talks about putting and driving length and all that kind of stuff. Who hits the most greens has a great chance to win, he added, noting that Tiger Woods topped the field in greens in regulation in 2019, as did Scotty Schaefer in 2022. McIlroy has topped 10s in seven of the past 10 years at Augusta National. But despite a finishing a distant second in 2022, he really hasn't been in the trophy hunt since playing alongside eventual champion Patrick Reed in 2018. Last year, he said he felt as confident as ever and flamed out early on Friday with a miscut. Fellow ESPN commentator Curtis Strange said he had talked to McIlroy's mental coach, Bob Rotella, and the other reason McIlroy is playing the weeks before the Masters this year is simple, to keep his mind off next week. I like that he's playing this week, said Strange. Bob said the main thing for Rory next week is to stay calm and cool. He had this phrase, mind has to be stronger than the swing, and I think in Rory's case, that's exactly right because he does have some baggage coming into here because he knows he could have won here a couple of times, but he knows he has the game as well. Added ESPN's lead anchor Scott Van Pelt, It's a challenge to figure out how do you thread the needle, and maybe there's no recipe because it's hard to win this one. If he does, everyone's going to say, well of course, but if he doesn't, then you join the list of guys going how the hell did I not win that tournament? So he'll arrive later and take some more business-like approach with one goal in mind, to ensure the mind is stronger than the swing. This concludes the reading of our second article from the sports section. Rory McIlroy switches up his master's preparation. Golfer skips par 3 contest in his 16th attempt to win a green jacket at Augusta by Adam Schupach of Golf Week, US Today Network. Our first article from the life section comes also from the movie section. Patel takes a big swing at helm of monkey by Aaron Jensen of the USA Today. Monkey Man begins with the legend of Hunnaman, a devoted and courageous half-man, half-monkey Hindu god, and the origin story of the film star Dave Patel, also begins with a large length life hero. I snuck downstairs when I was a little kid, way past my bedtime, and I watched Bruce Lee on screen through the banister, Patel told a fervent audience gathered in Austin, Texas, for the film's world premiere by South by Southwest Festival in March. Laying his eyes on Lee and trailblazing Asian-American martial arts star who conquered Hollywood was the first time Patel saw an actor who even slightly resembled him from that day on. I fell in love with action movies, but the Oscar-nominated actor who directs and co-wrote the film didn't want to make Monkey Man in Theaters Friday just any punch-by-numbers feature. He longed for a project with soul and drama that also showcased his culture. What resulted is the story of a man, referred to as Kid, who plots to avenge his mother's death by wreaking havoc on the leaders who killed her. And while some have described it as Patel's version of John Wick, the action franchise led by Keanu Reeves, Monkey Man producers Jordan Peele said the film elevates the genre. What this movie does is take the quality of action of a film like John Wick and it goes harder, says Peele, seated beside Patel. The vibe in the story and the emotional connection the dev builds is awesome and it's a completely different thing. When you see the movie, you realize you're seeing a classic, and a movie that itself, Peele adds, so all respects to John Wick, but it's not that. Patel, 33, deems the experience the most difficult thing I've done in my life. He'd swing between tending to his directing duties, such as contemplating lightning, and then you go back into this place of real trauma and PTSD. Action stars have been severely overlooked, he says, commending them for their ability to put themselves out there. You're going to fail wildly and you're going to succeed and fly, but there's no in between. So I was like, okay, I'm just going to go for it. Absolutely go for it. As an actor, Patel says, you're nervous and you're waiting for your bits to come on and you hope you've nailed those lines, but you're a cog in a very complex mechanism. But as a director, there's nowhere to hide and you are falling on your sword, and it's a very exposing space to be. What's more, the Slumdog Millionaire star had to put up a fight himself as making the film was such a process. The pandemic nearly killed the project until Patel switched filming from India to a studio in Indonesia. His production designer quit and his gaffer, Lighty, died. Money also was an issue. Patel glued a stunt table back together himself because he could only budget for two. Early on, a stuntman stopped on Patel's foot and broke it. He also tore his shoulder and broke his hand in a fight scene with co-star Sikandar Kerr. The risk and effort appear to have paid off. Moviegoers rewarded Monkeyman with the festival's Headliner Audience Award. The film also earned Peele's with his first career standing ovation. Viewers saw that Peele saw when he came aboard with his Monkeypaw Productions to give the film a theatrical release. Netflix had purchased the film in 2021 for a reported $30 million. The thing that has been undeniable to me was that this film was clearly demanded to be seen in a theater, Peele said. It's just one of these movies that has that loud audience vibe. You don't want to be sitting at home and what your cat screams? No. Patel also succeeded in providing representation for a new generation, one that perhaps still sneaks movies after bedtime. There was this man that came up and he's like, I'm jealous of my 14-year-old son, Patel recalls. I'm like, that's a weird thing to say. He goes, because he's finally got someone he can look up to in a film like this, and I never had that, and I was deeply moved. This concludes our first article from the U.S. Today Live section. From the movie section, Patel takes a big swing at Helm of Monkey by Aaron Jensen of the USA Today. Our next article from the U.S. Today Live section comes to us from the streaming section. Ripley revels in a darker take on story by Patrick Ryan of the USA Today. From New York, in a new Netflix series, Ripley, Andrew Scott plays one of pop culture's most notorious scammers, but off-screen, the Irish actor is usually the one getting duped. A fallen victim to fraud so many times, Scott recalls with a sigh, seated on a couch in a tucked away office in Union Square. On one occasion, a woman got me on the street saying her son had been in an accident, and she couldn't get a train. I brought her to an ATM machine and gave her my phone number. What an idiot. He didn't realize he'd been swindled until later that night when she called me drunk and laughing at 2 a.m., asking for more money. She was really good at acting. Scott Ripley is more sinister than the Damon and Law movie. Ripley, streaming Thursday, is based on Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley, which was adapted into the Oscar-nominated 1999 film starring Matt Damon, Jew Law, and Gwyneth Paltrow. The story follows a man named Tom Ripley, Scott, who is hired by a shipping tycoon to travel to Italy and convince his son, Dickie Greenleaf, played by Johnny Flynn, to return to the U.S. Posing as an old college chum, Tom quickly ingratiates himself with Dickie's inner circle and laps up his luxurious lifestyle. But Dickie's girlfriend, Marge Sherwood, played by Dakota Fanning, has her suspicions about the new friend which grow after Dickie mysteriously disappears and Tom is questioned about foul play. The 8-part thriller is written and directed by Stephen Salilian of The Irishman. Unlike the sumptuous, sultry movie which was reworked for Gen Z in last year's Saltburn, Salilian says he wanted to create something less beautiful and more sinister. The slow-burning show is shot in black and white, and the characters are aged for their mid-20s to late-30s. Reading the book, I felt, what do you mean Dickie's got to come home? He's on his post-college break, Salilian says. It just didn't feel very believable to me, at least in how we think about 25-year-olds today. It's a little more desperate or pathetic watching these characters laze about when they're pushing 40, idly writing and painting, but spending most of their days just drinking or lounging at the beach. To play Tom, it's important to find an actor who could perform, often without any dialogue, and make us understand what he's feeling, Salilian says. Enter Scott, 47, who's best known for his magnetic turns in The Fleabag and All of Us Strangers. The Emmy nominee was surprised when he was considered for the role. I was like, what a part of my murderous nature are you picking up on, Scott jokes. He read all eight scripts during one transatlantic flight, and was just so gripped by it, having all this space with Tom, and that other characters, the big bloody events, become less significant. A lot of the other scenes are actually quite domestic, with darkly comic exchanges that showcase Highsmith's wit. Netflix shows leans into queerness of Ripley character. Ripley, at its heart, is a queer story. The show explores the jealousy and tension between Tom and Marge. You spend loads more time with those two characters than you do with Dickie and Tom, Scott says. They greet each other with tight smiles, and they dislike each other, what they see in themselves. Highsmith denied Tom was gay, saying in a 1988 interview that he merely appreciates good looks in other men, and was married to a woman in subsequent novels. The 90s movie embraced the story's homoeroticism, with Damon Tom at one point suggesting he join Dickie at the bathtub. The film leaned into Tom's gayness, and this show perhaps leans towards his queerness, in the sense that he's other, Scott says. I was very reluctant with so many different facets of Tom's personality to diagnose him with anything. His nationality, his age, his sexuality. The reason the character is so enduring is because we have so many questions. The show forgoes any intimacy. Instead, it finds thrills in the meticulous work that Tom puts into hiding bodies and covering his tracks, occasionally being tripped up in his own web of lies. He's not a natural born killer. Blood makes him feel a bit queasy, Scott says. I think Highsmith's great achievement is that she makes the audience feel what it's like to be him. You go, what would I do in this position? The weird great pleasure of it is you want him to get away with it. The rooting factor is part of what makes Ripley so unsettling. Promoting the show, Scott says he's often asked whether he's ever met anyone like Tom. I think the more interesting question is how Tom Ripley-ish are you? This concludes the reading of our second article from the live section of USA Today. From the streaming section, Ripley revels in a darker take on a story by Patrick Ryan of the USA Today. Our third article from the live section of the USA Today comes to us from the Horoscope Sanctuary section. Aries, March 21st through April 19th. Your attitude puts others at ease as the moon and sun harmonize. Friends are drawn to your orbit. Taurus, April 20th through May 20th. Balancing your spiritual life with your public life. It's not as difficult as you'd imagine, as the moon and sun harmonize. Gemini, May 21st through June 21st. As the moon and sun harmonize, you're keen to learn what makes others tick. Cancer, June 22nd through July 22nd. Feeling powerful? As the moon and sun harmonize, you know what you stand for and who to join forces with. Leo, July 23rd through August 22nd. Discovering your direction. As the moon and sun harmonize, you're looking for people to grow with. Virgo, August 23rd through September 22nd. As the moon and sun harmonize, define which routines or rituals are empowering you and which are draining you. Libra, September 23rd through October 23rd. Today's harmonious connection between the moon and sun is the perfect time to resolve a relationship dispute. Scorpio, October 24th through November 21st. As the moon and sun harmonize, take proactive steps to feel your best. Sagittarius, November 22nd through December 21st. Your popularity is at an all-time high. The moon's harmonious connection to the sun favors socializing and networking. Capricorn, December 22nd through January 19th. Feeling secure? Home is where the heart is. As the moon and sun harmonize, open your doors to your loved ones. Aquarius, January 20th through February 18th. Social butterfly, as the moon and sun harmonize, reach out to your community. This is an ideal time to make new friends. Pisces, February 19th through March 20th. You feel strong and self-sufficient as the moon and sun harmonize. Your generosity inspires those around you. This concludes our reading of the horoscope from the Life section of the USA Today. That concludes our reading of the USA Today. This has been Omar King for the Georgia Radio Reading Service. Thank you for listening to GARS.