Minnesota United vs. Seattle Sounders

When: 5:55 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Allianz Field
Stream: Apple TV Season Pass
TV: KMSP Ch. 9
Radio: KSTP-AM 1500
Weather: 82 degrees, partly cloudy, 10 mph northwest wind
Betting line: MNUFC plus-155; draw-240; Seattle plus-155

Series history: The Loons are 1-12-2 all-time in MLS play against Seattle, with the lone win coming in July 2021 in St. Paul. MNUFC lost 2-0 at  Lumen Field in league play on June 15.

Form: MNUFC was knocked out of Leagues Cup group stage on July 30, while the Sounders were sent home in the quarterfinals Aug. 17. The Loons were sent home, in part, due to a 2-0 loss at Seattle on July 26.

Quote: Loons Chief Soccer Officer Khaled El-Ahmad was impressed with head coach Eric Ramsay’s ingenuity during the nine-match winless rut into mid-July.

“What stood out for me is the patience, the openness to try things and just do the best with what you have versus having this attitude of, this is bad, this is bad, this is bad,” El-Ahmad said. “Because when you lose and you lose and you lose, it’s very easy to just kind let that mentality bring you down. Misery loves company.”

Absences: Tani Oluwaseyi (hamstring) is out. He has been progressing in his rehab, but Ramsay said next week’s game at San Jose is a more likely return date for the Canadian striker. New Argentine midfielder Joaquín Pereyra (work visa) has not yet arrived in Minnesota.

Look-ahead: Besides Pereyra, four other newcomers might make their MNUFC debuts: striker Kelvin Yeboah, center back Jefferson Diaz, right back Matus Kmet and left back Anthony Markanich.

News: MNUFC2 midfielder Loic Mesanvi, 20, has signed a first-team contract with MNUFC through the 2025 season, with two club options for 2026-27. The Lakeville resident has been energetic in his four appearances with the first team this season. Now he will get a chance to show he belongs full-time.

Projected XI: In a 5-2-3 formation, LW Bongi Hlongwane, FW Tani Oluwaseyi, RW Robin Lod; CM Wil Trapp, CM Hassani Dotson; LWB Joseph Rosales, CB Micky Tapias, CB Michael Boxall, CB Jefferson Diaz, RWB Sang Bin Jeong; GK Dayne St. Clair.

Scouting report: Seattle dominated possession and scoring chances in their Leagues Cup match last month. That, of course, was aided by Dotson’s red card in the 65th minute. But for the Loons to capture all three points, they need to gain more control of the ball and not rely on the counter attack.

Prediction: Ramsay’s teams have been so hamstrung by absences in both matchups with the Sounders this season. Outside Oluwaseyi, he has a full roster and a handful of reinforcements from the transfer window. It still isn’t enough in a 1-1 draw.

By JEFFREY COLLINS

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina has set a Sept. 20 date to put inmate Freddie Eugene Owens to death in what would be the state’s first execution in more than 13 years.

South Carolina was once one of the busiest states for executions, but for years had had trouble obtaining lethal injection drugs due to pharmaceutical companies’ concerns that they would have to disclose that they had sold the drugs to officials.

The state Legislature has since passed a law allowing officials to keep lethal injection drug suppliers secret and, in July, the state Supreme Court cleared the way to restart executions.

Owens, who killed a store clerk in Greenville in 1997, will likely have the choice to die by lethal injection, electrocution or by the newly added option of a firing squad. A Utah inmate in 2010 was the last person to have been executed by a firing squad in the U.S., according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.

The prisons director has five days to confirm that all three execution methods will be available. He must also give Owens’ lawyers proof that the lethal injection drug is stable and correctly mixed, according to the high court’s 2023 interpretation of the state’s secrecy law on executions that helped reopen the door to South Carolina’s death chamber.

Owens, 46, will then have about a week to let the state know how he wishes to be killed. If he makes no choice, the state will send him to the electric chair by default.

A lawyer for Owens didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

The justices didn’t specify how much information has to be released but they have promised a swift ruling if an inmate challenged the details in the disclosure.

South Carolina used to use a mix of three drugs, but now will use one drug, the sedative pentobarbital, for lethal injections in a protocol similar to executions carried out by the federal government.

Owens can ask Republican Gov. Henry McMaster for mercy and to reduce his sentence to life without parole. No South Carolina governor has ever granted clemency in the modern era of the death penalty.

South Carolina’s last execution was in May 2011. The state didn’t set out to pause executions, but its supply of lethal injection drugs expired and companies refused to sell the state more if the transaction was made public.

It took a decade of wrangling in the Legislature — first adding the firing squad as a method and later passing a shield law — to get capital punishment restarted.

South Carolina has put 43 inmates to death since the death penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976. In the early 2000s, it was carrying out an average of three executions a year. Only nine states have put more inmates to death.

But since the unintentional execution pause, South Carolina’s death row population has dwindled. The state had 63 condemned inmates in early 2011. It currently has 32. About 20 inmates have been taken off death row and received different prison sentences after successful appeals. Others have died of natural causes.

Along with Owens, at least three other inmates have exhausted their regular appeals and a few more are close, meaning the death chamber could be busy to close out 2024.

The recent state Supreme Court ruling that reopened the door for executions found that the state shield law was legal and both the electric chair and firing squad were not cruel punishments.

The South Carolina General Assembly authorized the state to create a firing squad in 2021 to give inmates a choice between it and the same electric chair the state bought in 1912.

Supporters of the firing squad, including some Democrats reluctant about the death penalty, said it appears to be the quickest and most painless way to kill an inmate.

Owens killed store clerk Irene Graves during a string of robberies in 1997. He has been sentenced to death three separate times during his appeals.

After being convicted of murder his initial trial in 1999 but before a jury determined his sentence, Owens killed his cellmate at the Greenville County jail.

Owens gave investigators a detailed account of how he killed his cellmate, stabbing and burning his eyes, choking him and stomping him while another prisoner was in the cell and stayed quietly in his bunk, according to trial testimony.

Minnesota state agencies have confirmed that a sheen spotted on the Mississippi River in Coon Rapids on Tuesday was caused by a lubricant from the hydraulic system at the Coon Rapids Dam at Mississippi Gateway Regional Park. The lubricant is officially classified as “suitable for incidental food contact,” which means it can come into contact with food and not cause harm, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

Three Rivers Park District, which operates the dam, later reported to the Minnesota Duty Office that during the adjustment of a dam gate Tuesday morning, a valve malfunctioned and released the substance into the river. The park district estimated about 30 gallons of lubricant spilled.

The MPCA released a written statement on Friday indicating drinking water supplies remain safe, though St. Paul Regional Water Services closed an intake valve in Fridley this week as a precautionary measure, with the goal of keeping the substance from flowing into the chain of lakes that feed into an SPRWS treatment plant and ultimately the St. Paul-area water supply.

The sheen was initially reported at the Minnesota 610 bridge in Coon Rapids about 1 p.m. Tuesday and then traveled downstream. Local and state agencies responded and deployed booms to divert the sheen away from water intakes for the St. Paul and Minneapolis drinking water systems. They also gathered water samples from the river.

The Minnesota Department of Health compared a sample of the lubricant with water samples from the river to confirm the cause of the sheen. Additional drinking water samples have been taken and are being processed.

A smaller sheen was reported on the river in Coon Rapids on Wednesday, but no additional sheens have been seen since Wednesday.

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It might feel like the presidential election is still a long way off. It’s not.

There are just over 70 days until Election Day on Nov. 5, but major dates, events and political developments will make it fly by. Think about it this way: The stretch between now and then is about as long as summer break from school in most parts of the country.

In just two weeks, Sept. 6, the first mail ballots get sent to voters. The first presidential debate is set for Sept. 10. Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, is scheduled to be sentenced in his New York hush money case on Sept. 18. And early in-person voting will start as soon as Sept. 20 in some states.

Here’s a look at why the calendar will move quickly now that the Democratic and Republican conventions are wrapped.

Who’s ready to vote?

The first batch of ballots typically sent out are ones to military and overseas voters. Under federal law, that must happen at least 45 days before an election — which this year is Sept. 21.

Some states start earlier. North Carolina will begin sending mail ballots to all voters who request them, including military personnel and overseas voters, in just two weeks, Sept. 6.

Voter registration deadlines vary by state, with most falling between eight and 30 days before the election, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The deadline is Oct. 7 in Georgia, one of this year’s most prominent presidential battlegrounds.

Nearly all states offer some version of in-person voting, though the rules and dates vary considerably. In Pennsylvania, another of the major presidential battleground states, voters can visit their local election office to request, complete and return a mail ballot beginning Sept. 16. For those counting, that’s about three weeks from now.

The gloves come off

Whether and where the Democratic and Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees debate has been a point of contention for weeks. But for now, two match-ups are on the calendar.

Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris have accepted an invitation from ABC News to debate Sept. 10 in Philadelphia.

Harris’ pick for vice president, Tim Walz, and Trump’s, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, have agreed to an Oct. 1 debate hosted by CBS News in New York City.

Harris has forecast a possible second debate with Trump, but her proposal appeared to be contingent on the GOP nominee’s participation in the Sept. 10 debate. Trump has proposed three presidential debates with different television networks.

Vance has challenged Walz to a second vice presidential debate on Sept. 18, although it’s not been set.

A possible criminal sentence for Trump

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Trump is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 18 in his hush money criminal case, though his lawyers have asked the judge to delay the proceeding until after Election Day. A decision is expected in early September.

In a letter last week to Judge Juan M. Merchan, Trump’s lawyers suggested that holding the sentencing as scheduled, about seven weeks before Election Day, would amount to election interference. On Sept. 16, Merchan is expected to rule on Trump’s request to overturn the guilty verdict and dismiss the case because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s July presidential immunity ruling.

Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election. Falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years in prison. Other potential sentences include probation, a fine or a conditional discharge that would require Trump to stay out of trouble to avoid additional punishment.

Next steps in Trump’s other New York cases

On Sept. 6, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments in Trump’s appeal of a jury’s verdict last year ordering him to pay $5 million to writer E. Jean Carroll after it found him liable for sexually assaulting and defaming her. Trump also is appealing a verdict in a second trial in January in which a jury found him liable on additional defamation claims and ordered him to pay Carroll $83.3 million. Trump’s lawyers have until Sept. 13 to file a brief in that appeal.

On Sept. 26, a New York appeals court will hear oral arguments in Trump’s challenge of a nearly $500 million civil fraud judgment in state Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit against him. The court typically rules about a month after arguments, meaning a decision could come before the November election. Trump’s lawyers argue that a judge’s Feb. 16 finding that the former president lied for years about his wealth as he built his real estate empire was “erroneous” and “egregious.” State lawyers responded in court papers this week that there’s “overwhelming evidence” to support the verdict.

What about Trump’s election and document cases?

A state case in Georgia that charged Trump and 18 others in a wide-ranging scheme to overturn his 2020 loss in the state is stalled with no chance of going to trial before the election.

Federal prosecutors have brought two criminal cases against Trump, but one was dismissed by a judge last month and the other is likely to be reshaped by the recent U.S. Supreme Court opinion that conferred broad immunity on former presidents for official acts they take in office.

Special counsel Jack Smith has appealed the dismissal by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon of an indictment charging Trump with hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and obstructing the FBI’s efforts to get them back. But even if a federal appeals court reinstates the case and reverses the judge’s ruling that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional, there’s no chance of a trial taking place this year.

In light of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, a federal judge in Washington is now tasked with deciding which allegations in a separate case charging Trump with plotting to overturn the 2020 election can remain part of the prosecution and which ones must be discarded. Deciding which acts are official and which are not is likely to be an arduous process.

FILE – County employees open ballots in the mail ballot processing room at the Washoe County Registrar of Voters office in Reno, Nev., June 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Barron, File)

Fights over voting and the election

Before the first ballots are even cast, both camps are gearing up to fight over voting.

Battles over election rules have become a staple of American democracy, but they’re expected to reach new heights this year. Trump installed his own leadership team at the Republican National Committee, including a director of election integrity who helped him try to overturn Biden’s win in 2020. The RNC has filed a blizzard of lawsuits challenging voting rules and promises that more are on the way.

Democrats also are mobilizing and assembling a robust legal team. Among other things, they are objecting to GOP efforts to remove some inactive voters or noncitizens from voter rolls, arguing that legal voters will get swept up in the purges.

Republicans have particularly escalated their rhetoric over the specter of noncitizens voting, even though repeated investigations have shown it almost never happens. Some also are pushing to give local election boards the ability to refuse to certify election results.

All indications are these efforts are laying the groundwork for Trump to again claim the election was stolen from him if he loses and to try to overturn the will of the voters. But there’s no way to know if that will happen until the ballots are cast.

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Associated Press writers Kate Brumback and Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta, Meg Kinnard in Chicago, Nicholas Riccardi in Denver, Michael R. Sisak in New York and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report. AP election researcher Ryan Dubicki in New York also contributed.