By JIMMY GOLEN, Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — Dozens of widows and other caregivers for former NFL players diagnosed with CTE say a published study is insulting and dismissive of their experience living with the degenerative brain disease that has been linked to concussions and other repeated head trauma common in contact sports like football.

An open letter signed by the players’ wives, siblings and children says the study published in the May 6 issue of Frontiers in Psychology suggests their struggles caring for loved ones was due to “media hype” about chronic traumatic encephalopathy, rather than the disease itself. The implication that “caregiver concerns are ‘inevitable’ due to ‘publicity’ is callous, patronizing, and offensive,” they said.

“The burden we experienced did not happen because we are women unable to differentiate between our lived experience and stories from TV or newspaper reports,” they wrote in the letter. “Our loved ones were giants in life, CTE robbed them of their futures, and robbed us of our futures with them. Please don’t also rob us of our dignity.”

The pushback was led by Dr. Eleanor Perfetto, herself a medical researcher and the widow of former Steelers and Chargers end Ralph Wenzel, who developed dementia and paranoia and lost his ability to speak, walk and eat. He was first diagnosed with cognitive impairment in 1999 — six years before Pittsburgh center Mike Webster’s CTE diagnosis brought the disease into the mainstream media.

“My own experience, it just gave a name to what I witnessed every day. It didn’t put it in my head,” Perfetto said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It gave it a name. It didn’t change the symptoms.”

The study published last month asked 172 caregivers for current and former professional football players “whether they believed their partner had ‘CTE.’” Noting that all of the respondents were women, Perfetto questioned why their experiences would be minimized.

“Women run into that every day,” she said. “I don’t think that’s the only factor. I think the motivation is to make it seem like this isn’t a real issue. It’s not a real disease. It’s something that people glommed on to because they heard about it in the media.”

Related Articles

Reds, rain sink Twins below .500

The Thunder know an NBA title is just 1 win away. They’re trying to keep their minds on the Pacers

Frederick: Kevin Durant trade makes sense for Timberwolves … if the price is right

Another quick major chance for top-ranked Nelly Korda when Women’s PGA tees off in Texas

Expect low scores at TPC River Highlands, but Scottie Scheffler says Travelers Championship isn’t ‘easy’

Hopes for study ‘quickly turned to disappointment’

The letter was posted online on Monday under the headline, “NFL Caregivers to Harvard Football Player Health Study: Stop Insulting Us!” It had more than 30 signatures, including family of Hall of Famers Nick Buoniconti and Louis Creekmur.

It praises the study for examining the fallout on loved ones who weathered the violent mood swings, dementia and depression that can come with the disease. The letter says the study gets it wrong by including what it considers unsupported speculation, such as: “Despite being an autopsy-based diagnosis, mainstream media presentations and high-profile cases related to those diagnosed postmortem with CTE may have raised concerns among living players about CTE.”

The letter said these are “insulting conclusions that were not backed by study evidence.”

“Rather than exploring the lived experiences of partners of former athletes, they instead implied the partners’ anxiety was caused by watching the news … as if the media is to blame for the severe brain atrophy caused by CTE in our loved ones,” they wrote.

Study authors Rachel Grashow and Alicia Whittington said in a statement provided to the AP that the goal of their research is “to support NFL families, especially those caring for affected players or grieving for lost loved ones.”

“We regret if any of our work suggested otherwise,” they said. “Our intent was not to minimize CTE — a disease that is far too real — but to point out that heightened attention to this condition can intensify existing concerns, and that symptoms attributed to CTE may, in some cases, stem from other treatable conditions that also deserve recognition and care.”

But Perfetto feared the study was part of a trend to downplay or even deny the risks of playing football. After years of denials, the NFL acknowledged in 2016 a link between football and CTE and eventually agreed to a settlement covering 20,000 retired players that provided up to $4 million for those who died with the disease. (Because it requires an examination of the brain tissue, CTE currently can only be diagnosed posthumously.)

“Why would a researcher jump to ‘the media’ when trying to draw conclusions out of their data, when they didn’t collect any information about the media,” Perfetto told the AP. “To me, as a researcher, you draw the implications from the results and you try to think of, practically, ‘Why you come to these conclusions? Why would you find these results?’ Well, how convenient is it to say that it was the media, and it takes the NFL off the hook?”

‘By players, for players’

The caregivers study is under the umbrella of the Football Players Health Study at Harvard University, a multifaceted effort “working on prevention, diagnostics, and treatment strategies for the most common and severe conditions affecting professional football players.” Although it is funded by the NFL Players Association, neither the union nor the league has any influence on the results or conclusions, the website says.

“The Football Players Health Study does not receive funding from the NFL and does not share any data with the NFL,” a spokesperson said.

Previous research — involving a total of more than 4,700 ex-players — is on topics ranging from sleep problems to arthritis. But much of it has focused on brain injuries and CTE, which has been linked to contact sports, military combat and other activities that can involve repetitive head trauma.

When he died with advanced CTE in 2012 at age 69, Wenzel could no longer recognize Perfetto and needed help with everyday tasks like getting dressed or getting out of bed — an added problem because he was a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier than she is. “When he died, his brain had atrophied to 910 grams, about the size of the brain of a 1-year-old child,” the letter said.

Former Auburn and San Diego Chargers running back Lionel “Little Train” James, who set the NFL record for all-purpose yards in 1985, was diagnosed with dementia at 55 and CTE after he died at 59.

“Treatable conditions were not the reason Lionel went from being a loving husband and father to someone so easily agitated that his wife and children had to regularly restrain him from becoming violent after dodging thrown objects,” the letter said. “They were not likely to be the driving force behind his treatment-resistant depression, which contributed to alcoholism, multiple stays in alcohol rehabilitation treatment centers, arrests, suicidal ideation, and ultimately, his commitment to a mental institution.”

Kesha James told the AP that she would disable the car to keep her husband from driving drunk. She said she had never spoken of her struggles but chose to tell her story now to remove the stigma associated with the players’ late-in-life behavior — and the real-life struggles of their caregivers.

“I have videos that people probably would not believe,” James said. “And I’ll be honest with you: It is nothing that I’m proud of. For the last three years I’ve been embarrassed. I’m just going public now because I do want to help bring awareness to this — without bringing any shame to me and my kids — but just raise the awareness so that no other family can experience what I did.”

By MARK SCOLFORO

GARDNERS, Pa. (AP) — Sam Cooper had just trekked 7 miles through a rain-sodden stretch of the Appalachian Trail when he sat down outside a little country store in Pennsylvania to take on its ice cream challenge.

Nearly 40 minutes and 2,500 calories later, the dairy farmer from Chapel Hill, Tennessee, was polishing off the final titanium sporkful of chocolate chip cookie dough on Tuesday and adding his name to the list of “thru-hikers” who have celebrated the trail’s halfway point by downing a half-gallon of ice cream.

By the end Cooper, 32, whose trail name is Pie Top, was calling the experience “pure misery.”

“I don’t think anybody should be doing this,” Cooper said cheerfully. “This is not healthy at all.”

The ice cream challenge is thought to have begun more than four decades ago at the Pine Grove Furnace General Store in Gardners, a few miles north of the current true halfway point on the 2,197-mile trail. Thru-hikers, as they’re known, are the fraction of the trail’s 3 million annual visitors who attempt to walk its entire length in a single, continuous trip.

As they slog their way north through Virginia and Maryland, the ice cream challenge is a regular topic of conversation among thru-hikers at shelters and campfires, said Stephan Berens, 49, a psychiatric nurse from Nuremberg, Germany.

Berens, whose trail name is Speedy, polished off his black cherry and vanilla in about 25 minutes after completing 17 miles on the trail that day — and with seven more to go that afternoon.

‘The most free I’ve ever felt’

Trail experts say hikers can need up to 6,000 calories a day, a practical challenge when food needs to be carried up and down rocky terrain. The slender Berens figures he’s lost about 20 pounds since starting April 8.

“I thought it would be worse, but it’s OK,” said Berens, smiling and patting his stomach after finishing the half-gallon. “Such a crazy idea.”

Zeke Meddock, trail name Petroglyph, didn’t bother timing himself but finished his choice of a quart and a half carton of chocolate chip cookie dough and a pint of strawberry. The diesel mechanic from North Amarillo, Texas, began his hike on March 27, two months after finishing a stint in the U.S. Army.

“You’re basically walking away from life,” said Meddock, 31. “It’s the most free I’ve ever felt.”

So far this year, about 50 thru-hikers have finished the challenge, earning the honor of having their photos posted on a store bulletin board. In a notebook to record their thoughts, Chicken Louise wrote on May 24: “Life choices?” The next day, Seagull weighed in with, “I feel bad,” and Hyena issued a cry for help: “It was very fun for the first 15 minutes. Now, I (and my family) want to die.”

The ice cream challenge record, less than 4 minutes, was set two years ago by a man with the trail name Squirt. Two decades ago, the mark to beat was about 9 minutes.

Thru-hikers who want to attempt the record may only allow the $12 worth of ice cream to start to melt in the sun for a few minutes. They must be timed by a store employee.

“It’s called the half-gallon challenge,” Cooper said. “Very appropriately named.”

Bragging rights and a spoon

Bruce Thomas, a 41-year-old disability support worker from Medicine Hat in Alberta, Canada, passed on the ice cream challenge, opting instead for a breakfast sandwich and another one for the road.

“It’s early morning and I’m pretty sure I cannot do it,” said Thomas, trail name Not Lazy.

Those who do finish in a single sitting are awarded a commemorative wooden spoon — and bragging rights for the rest of their hike. Some people get sick. Others wash down the ice cream with a hamburger.

Related Articles

Smaller amusement parks hope for a strong summer under the shadow of tariffs

Travelers prepare for globe-trotting challenges under Trump administration

Route 66: The Arizona Sidewinder, wild burros and a living statue

‘Stay-cations’ may hold more appeal for price-conscious consumers as airlines jockey for summer vacationers

You can visit any national park for free on June 19

The ice cream challenge is one of several quirky traditions and places along the trail. There’s a shelter in Virginia where hikers confess their sins in a logbook, a two-hole outhouse in Maine with a cribbage board between the seats and a free canoe ferry across the Kennebec River that’s considered an official part of the trail. And at Harriman State Park in Tuxedo, New York, hikers encounter the renowned “Lemon Squeezer,” a narrow rock formation.

About one in three people who launch a thru hike take the roughly 5 million steps required to go the distance. They most often walk from south to north, starting in Springer Mountain, Georgia, and wrapping up 13 states later at Maine’s Mount Katahdin.

The trek typically takes six months but the current speed record is about 40 days, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. Meddock said there’s talk that a man on the trail behind him may be on pace to break it.

There’s also been a lot of discussion among hikers about the extensive damage along the trail in southern states from September’s Hurricane Helene. But mostly they think and talk about walking.

“It’s always hard,” Thomas said. “It’s going to be hard. I never think about quitting. I only think about how I can do it.”

By ANN LEVIN

Talking Heads fans, rejoice! Hard on the heels of the re-release of “Stop Making Sense,” the 1984 Jonathan Demme film widely considered the best concert movie ever made, Jonathan Gould has published a comprehensive biography of the seminal band that injected an art school vibe into popular music and forever changed rock ‘n’ roll.

Related Articles

Summer books 2025: Get lost in spiritual or just plain weird books

Literary pick for week of June 15: Craig Thomson’s ‘Gingseng Roots’

Literary calendar for week of June 15

Readers and writers: Six picks for summer reading

Corinne Bailey Rae’s first children’s book, ‘Put Your Records On,’ draws upon her musical past

Gould, the author of well-received books on Otis Redding and the Beatles, chronicles in meticulous detail the rise and fall of the band that got its start in New York City’s underground punk scene and ended up touring the world with a repertoire shaped by blues, funk and jazz.

He begins “Burning Down the House: Talking Heads and the New York Scene That Transformed Rock” with a vivid description of the drizzly June night in 1975 when the original trio – singer/songwriter David Byrne, bassist Tina Weymouth and drummer Chris Frantz – made its debut at the seedy club CBGB in downtown Manhattan, opening for the Ramones before a handful of patrons. With their “unremarkable haircuts” and “nondescript casual clothes,” they offered a sharp contrast to the “baroque turn” that rock fashion had taken in the 1970s, Gould observes.

“The qualities that characterized this neophyte group in their first public performance centered on the awkward, disquieting intensity of their singer-guitarist, David Byrne, their sketchy, skeletal arrangements, and the quirky intelligence of their songs,” Gould writes. “Tall and thin, with a long neck and an anxious, wide-eyed stare, Byrne stood stiffly at the microphone, his upper body jerking and jiggling like a shadow puppet as he scratched out chords on his guitar.… Instead of doing his best to command the stage and the room, Byrne looked trapped by his surroundings, as if he were prepared, at any moment, to make a break for the door.”

Within a couple years of their zeitgeist-changing performances, they enlisted keyboardist/guitarist Jerry Harrison, adding a much-needed dose of professionalism to the band. Gould, a former professional musician, writes exceedingly well about music but suffers from a kind of completism, cramming in an almost mind-numbing level of detail including the name of the elementary school in Pittsburgh where a young Frantz first took up drums to every military posting of Weymouth’s naval aviator father.

Though much of the material is fascinating, including his observations about how Byrne’s then-undiagnosed Asperger’s syndrome may have influenced his music and relationships with the other band members, it is likely to be a bit too much for all but the most diehard fans.

AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews

By DEE-ANN DURBIN, Associated Press

Some segments of the U.S. restaurant industry don’t support President Donald Trump’s proposal to eliminate federal taxes on tips, saying it would help too few people and obscure bigger issues in the way tipped workers are paid.

The Independent Restaurant Coalition, which represents nearly 100,000 restaurant and bars, has appealed to Congress to reconsider the proposal, which is part of the president’s spending bill. Even some workers who rely on tips say they oppose making them tax-deductible.

“I think there’s a huge hole in this concept of ‘no tax on tips’ because a lot of restaurant workers aren’t receiving tips in the first place,” said Elyanna Calle, a bartender in Austin, Texas, and president of the Restaurant Workers United union. “It’s not helping most kitchen workers, and oftentimes those are the people who are being paid the least.”

Tips included in sprawling tax cuts package

For now, making tips tax-free appears to have broad support among lawmakers. Both Trump and his Democratic rival in last year’s U.S. presidential election, former Vice President Kamala Harris, campaigned on the concept.

The House included it in a tax cuts package approved last month. The bill would eliminate federal income taxes on tips for people working in jobs that have traditionally received them as long as they make less than $160,000 in 2025.

The Senate Finance Committee passed a modified version on Monday. Senators capped deductions at $25,000 and want to phase them out for individuals whose income exceeds $150,000. Eligibility would be based on earnings as of Dec. 31, 2024.

Both the House and Senate committee measures would apply through the 2028 tax year. The Finance Committee specified that “cash tips” qualify but said the term applied to tips paid in cash, charged to credit cards or received from other employees under a tip-sharing arrangement.

Main industry trade group supports tax-free tips

Wary of wading into politics, many restaurant chains contacted by The Associated Press about tax-free tips didn’t respond or referred questions to the National Restaurant Association, including Waffle House, The Cheesecake Factory, First Watch and the parent companies of Olive Garden, Applebee’s and Chili’s.

The National Restaurant Association, a trade organization that represents nearly 500,000 U.S. restaurants and bars, applauded the House’s passage of Trump’s spending bill and said it wants to see tax-free tips. The association estimates the measure would benefit more than 2 million servers and bartenders.

But the U.S. restaurant industry has more than 12 million workers, including dishwashers and chefs, according to government data. The Independent Restaurant Coalition says the “no tax on tips” proposal leaves out too many of those workers.

A push to eliminate taxes on service charges

The coalition wants Congress to eliminate taxes on service charges, which are being used to compensate employees at an increasing number of restaurants. Around 15% of U.S. restaurants add some form of service charge to customers’ bills, according to the National Restaurant Association.

George Skandalos, a pizza restaurant owner in Moscow, Idaho, was tired of seeing servers count out hundreds of dollars of tips at the end of the night while people in the kitchen scrubbed the floor on their hands and knees. So he started experimenting with different compensation models.

Skandalos tried pooling servers’ tips and distributing them but ran into rules preventing that. He tried raising his menu prices and explaining that a percentage of each order was going to employee compensation, but customers didn’t understand and kept tipping.

Skandalos now has a gratuity-free policy at his restaurant, Maialina. He charges a 20% service fee that is distributed to all employees and helps pay for benefits like paid vacation and parental leave. The vast majority of customers appreciate the effort, he said.

Skandalos said “no tax on tips” doesn’t acknowledge restaurants like his that are trying to distribute pay more equally. He would like to see service charges exempted from taxes.

“This bill is a very good start in terms of trying to leave more money in people’s pocketbooks, but now let’s finish what we started and make it a great thing for the restaurant industry overall,” he said.

Related Articles

Trump bans ‘negative’ signage at national parks, asks visitors to snitch on unpatriotic text

Trump extends TikTok ban deadline for a third time

In Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races, Democrats reprise a 2018 roadmap for opposing Trump 2.0

Trump’s latest judicial pick is someone Joe Biden almost nominated

ICE raids and their uncertainty scare off workers and baffle businesses

Tipped workers seek higher wages

But Ted Pappageorge, the secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 in Las Vegas, said restaurants should just pay their kitchen workers more to compensate for servers earning tips.

“’No tax on tips’ is an opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to deliver something to working class folks,” he said.

Pappageorge wants Congress to take up a separate bill introduced by Nevada Democrat Steven Horsford that would eliminate taxes on tips but also require restaurants to pay workers at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. In 43 states, restaurants are currently allowed to pay tipped workers as little as $2.13 per hour.

Yolanda Garcia, a barista at Resorts World in Las Vegas and a member of the Culinary Workers Union, also supports Horsford’s bill. Garcia said she makes $33,000 a year, including up to $600 per month in tips. Tips are never guaranteed, she said, but if they were tax-free, it would help make up for that uncertainty.

“It would help me get more groceries. Right now, the price of everything has gone up,” Garcia said.

Calle, the Austin bartender and union leader, said she also benefits from tips, but they’re inconsistent. She suspects tipping would decline if the tax-free provision passes, because customers will resent it.

For Calle, the underlying problem that must be solved is low base pay.

“I think that if we continue to make the shift into relying on tips for people, it gives incentives for companies to not raise wages,” she said.