An All-Star Game appearance, no matter where it is, is a special honor and acknowledgement. But for Byron Buxton, with the game being held in Atlanta, a little over three hours from his hometown of Baxley, Georgia, it’s even sweeter.

“To do it back home with this Twins uniform on, it’s a blessing,” Buxton said. “Everybody doesn’t get to play as many years as I do and to be able to do it with the Twins and know I’m going to do it with the Twins every year I make it, that’s something special to me and my family.”

Buxton was named to the American League All-Star team on Sunday as the Twins’ lone representative with other deserving candidates like starter Joe Ryan and closer Jhoan Duran on the outside looking in.

The center fielder’s inclusion on the roster comes as no surprise considering he’s been among the best players in the league this year. Buxton, who hit a home run in the Twins’ 7-5 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday, is hitting .270 with 20 home runs, 56 RBIs, an .878 OPS and 16 stolen bases on 16 attempts to go along with his usual Gold Glove-caliber defense. He’s been as healthy physically as he’s been in years, missing two weeks with a concussion after colliding with shortstop Carlos Correa in mid-May but otherwise playing nearly every day.

It will be the second All-Star Game appearance of his career. The first came in 2022, during which he hit a home run which served as the game-winning run in the American League’s 3-2 victory.

“The biggest thing for me is last time I went to the game, as far as my family, it was four of us,” Buxton said. “We then added a kid, so being able to make it back with my whole family this time is very special.”

That 2022 all-star season was cut short when he underwent season-ending knee surgery in September. A year later, he did not appear at all in center field, serving strictly as the Twins’ designated hitter. He ended up having a second surgery on his right knee that year, too.

Buxton landed on the injured list twice last year, once with knee inflammation and once with hip inflammation, during an otherwise strong season. This year, he’s been even healthier and even better.

“It’s a kind of resurgence because he was still playing well for us, he was doing a lot of things, he was productive but to be able to get prime Buxton basically every day, you’re getting it every day, that’s a whole different deal,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “I think in his mind, this was always coming and in my mind, it was always coming but when you actually see it and you actually get it and it’s in front of you every day, it’s a beautiful thing.”

While he is currently the team’s lone representative, it’s possible that the Twins get another all star or two in the coming days due to players dropping out of the game.

Ryan, who gave up two runs in six innings on Sunday, has a 2.76 earned-run average now and has been among the best starters in the American League, but every team needs a representative, which ate into some of the available roster spots.

“Joe’s, in my mind, clearly had another All-Star first half and he takes a ton of pride in what he does,” Baldelli said. “He’d totally love to be out there and pitching in an All-Star Game and just being acknowledged as one of the best pitchers in the game because he is.”

And so is Duran with his 1.56 ERA.

But whether or not one or two of his teammates wind up joining him, it’s clear that Buxton will savor the time spent back home in Georgia with his family representing the Twins.

“How many times is the All-Star Game played in your hometown and you’re having just a splendid season and you get a chance to go?” Baldelli asked. “That will never happen for most guys. … It’s an actual once in a lifetime situation.”

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LONDON (AP) — King Charles III led commemorations Monday on the 20th anniversary of the 2005 London transit bombings, the deadliest attack on the British capital since World War II.

Fifty-two people died and more than 700 were wounded when four British men inspired by al-Qaida blew themselves up on three subway trains and a bus during the morning rush hour on July 7, 2005. They were the first suicide bombings on European soil.

Two weeks later, four other bombers attempted a similar attack, but their devices failed to explode. No one was hurt.

The bombings remain seared into London’s collective memory, and the anniversary will be marked with a ceremony at the 7/7 memorial in Hyde Park and a service of commemoration at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

In a message, the king said his “heartfelt thoughts and special prayers remain with all those whose lives were forever changed on that terrible summer’s day.”

He said the country could take heart from the bravery of the emergency services and others who responded to the attack, and “the countless stories of extraordinary courage and compassion that emerged from the darkness of that day.”

Charles also hailed the “spirit of unity that has helped London, and our nation, to heal.”

“As we remember those we lost, let us, therefore, use this 20th anniversary to reaffirm our commitment to building a society where people of all faiths and backgrounds can live together with mutual respect and understanding, always standing firm against those who would seek to divide us,” he said.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said July 7, 2005 was one of Britain’s “darkest days.”

She said that 20 years on, “Islamist extremist terrorism remains the greatest threat” to national security “followed by extreme right-wing terrorism.”

“But we also face hybrid threats to our national security from hostile states, serious organized crime, cyber criminals, those threatening our border security and a troubling rise in violence-fixated individuals radicalized online,” she wrote in the Sunday Mirror newspaper, adding that the government would “relentlessly confront and counter threats to our national security.”

Danielle Deadwyler is one of the most captivating screen actors working today, bringing visceral, intense emotion to her performances in “Till” and “The Piano Lesson,” and elevating schlocky genre fare like “The Woman in the Yard” and “Carry-On.” But not even Deadwyler can save the dystopian action-horror film “40 Acres,” despite her Herculean efforts.

The feature directorial debut of music video director R.T. Thorne, “40 Acres” is a tale of apocalyptic struggle steeped in Canadian history. Deadwyler stars as tough-as-nails Hailey Freeman, a military vet and descendant of American runaway slaves who settled in Canada in the 19th century. After a “fungal pandemic” decimated the animal biosphere, resulting in civil war and famine, Hailey and her blended family have survived living in seclusion thanks to hard work and strict protocols. She and her partner Galen (Michael Greyeyes) live in relative peace with their four children, growing their own food and sniping any interlopers who show up on their property.

Hailey’s methods might keep her family safe, but they also put her at odds with her son Emanuel, or Manny (Kataem O’Connor) with whom she has a complex relationship. There is no destabilizing force like teenage rebellion, and Manny is bored, restless and interested in possibly meeting some girls (other than his sisters). When he balks at killing a young female intruder, we know that Manny might be a problem when it comes to his family’s security, which grows increasingly tenuous.

Every night, Hailey sits in her fortified basement bunker, checking in with neighbors via shortwave radio, and many have gone silent, with rumors of “flesh eaters” on the hunt. The ultimate crack in the wall that lets the evil into the Freeman farm is a predictable one, against which Manny has no resolve: a pretty girl (Milcania Diaz-Rojas) who turns up at their fence, asking for help.

Coming from music videos, Thorne knows how to maximize aesthetics on a budget, and “40 Acres” is heavily stylized, with a desaturated color palette during daylight and high-contrast lighting in night scenes. Drone shots capture the isolated, rural farm in context, and Manny’s moody roaming in the surrounding forest, listening to De La Soul cassette tapes on his Walkman. There are some beautiful shots, especially at night, but throughout, the color correction is pushed a bit to the extreme, perhaps overcompensating for what might have been budgetary restrictions.

The script, by Thorne, Glenn Taylor and Lora Campbell, is not particularly deep beyond it’s surface world-building. With a sustained slow-burn suspense, “40 Acres” never manages to break out of its tense dynamic, either. Tightly wound Deadwyler nearly vibrates off the screen as the high-strung and hyper-vigilant Hailey. She is riveting, but alone on an island in the film. O’Connor doesn’t have the chops to hold his own opposite her, and Greyeyes is relegated to a role that serves as a warm, often amusing presence, tonally at odds with Deadwyler’s full-bore performance.

It’s fascinating to see an actor of Deadwyler’s caliber playing in the action world, sinking her teeth into leading lady roles that allow her to display her grit and fighting skills. These characters have agency, and Deadwyler carries a kind of intelligence that makes it seem like Hailey is the only one making all the right decisions, even as everyone around her makes the wrong ones. If only the rest of “40 Acres” rose to her level, it could have been one of the most interesting genre films of the year. Alas, despite it’s intense violence, it ends up feeling more like a made-for-TV thriller of the week than anything else.

‘40 Acres’

2 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for strong bloody violent content and language)

Running time: 1:53

How to watch: In theaters July 2

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By ADRIAN SAINZ

It was about 1 a.m. on the Fourth of July when the facilities manager at a central Texas summer camp saw water from the Guadalupe River steadily rising amid a deluge of rain.

Aroldo Barrera notified his boss, who had been monitoring reports of the storms approaching Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Assembly, a recreation destination where an intercultural youth conference had been called off early just hours earlier.

Despite an absence of warning by local authorities, camp officials acted quickly on their own, relocating about 70 children and adults staying overnight in a building near the river. With the kids safe, camp leaders including President and CEO Tim Huchton were able to avoid the catastrophe that hit at least one other camp near Hunt, where the 500-acre Mo-Ranch is located.

“They helped them pack up,” Lisa Winters, communications director for Mo-Ranch, told The Associated Press on Sunday. “They got them up, they got them out, put them up on higher ground.”

Other places fared much worse.

Flash floods that roared through Texas Hill Country before dawn on Friday decimated the landscape near the river, leaving at least 79 dead and many others unaccounted for. As of Sunday, 10 girls from nearby Camp Mystic remained missing, officials said. Rescue and recovery teams combed the area for them and others still unaccounted for days after the flood.

The decision to leave added to the mounting accounts of how camps and residents in the area say they were left to make their own decisions in the absence of warnings or notifications from the county.

Local authorities have faced heavy scrutiny and at times have deflected questions about how much warning they had or were able to provide the public, saying the reviews will come later. For now, they say they’re focusing on rescues. Officials have said they did not expect such an intense downpour, the equivalent of months’ worth of rain for the area.

Mo-Ranch suffered no loss of life, said Winters, adding that the camp received no direct information from county officials about flooding that could — and did — take lives.

“We had no warning this was coming,” Winters said, adding that it would have been “devastating” had camp officials not been looking at weather reports and the rising river waters.

Mo-Ranch “saw it coming well in advance and they did something about it,” she said.

By about 7 a.m. Friday, camp staff began contacting children’s parents, telling them their kids were safe.

“They knew that those parents would wake up and just see all this media footage of kids lost, or the river,” Winters said. “They’re like, ‘tell your parents you’re OK’ … We made sure every single guest, every single kid, was accounted for.”

The camp, which sits on higher ground than some in the area, suffered some damage, but not as significant as others, Winters said.

“The buildings don’t matter,” she said. “I can’t imagine losing children, or people.”

She said a sturdy aluminum kayak was wrapped around a tree “like a pretzel.”

“That just shows you the sheer power of the water. I don’t know how any people could survive. We’re blessed,” she said.

The camp remained closed Sunday and Mo-Ranch was working on ways to help other camps affected by the flood.

“We’re in a difficult place because others are really suffering,” said Winters, who became emotional during an interview. “We’re a sisterhood of camps. We take care of each other.”