The organizers of Afton’s Fourth of July parade and celebration are gearing up for the big event.

The Afton Parade Committee announced on Wednesday that this year’s grand marshal will be Pioneer Press reporter Mary Divine.

The parade, which attracts thousands of spectators, starts at 1 p.m. July 4.

The Afton Schooner Band, one of the parade’s most popular entries, will begin rehearsals June 27.

Musicians of all ages and skill levels are invited to play with the volunteer band, but there’s a special call for drummers and people who play low-brass instruments such as trombones, tubas and euphoniums and baritones, said band organizer Lucy McAllister.

The band will play “John Philip Sousa-type marches” while riding on a decorated float on July 4, said McAllister, 86, who has played the flute in the band since she founded it in 1975.

Rehearsals will be from 7 to 8 p.m. June 17, July 1 and July 3 at the Afton Historical Museum. Participants should bring a music stand.

For more information or to get music to practice in advance, contact McAllister at lucymcallister5@gmail.com.

Afton Fourth of July parade

What: Parade with more than 125 units and Pioneer Press reporter Mary Divine as grand marshal.
When: 1 p.m. July 4. All roads to and from the Old Village will close at 12:45 p.m.
Where: South St. Croix Trail
How to get there: Free trolley rides from the Afton City Hall parking lot to the south end of the Old Village from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. (except during the parade). Free off-site parking and free round-trip shuttle rides from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. from Lakeland Plaza in Lakeland.
Also: Food, music, children’s activities and a beer tent in Town Square Park before and after the parade.
For more information: aftonparade.com

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In the empty locker next to Pablo López’s stall, a large wheel has now taken up residence. It’s covered underneath a sheet, brought out only after wins.

The pitcher of the game and the player of the game — chosen by the previous winners — then play rock-paper-scissors for their chance to spin for a prize. It’s a new idea that López introduced, designed to bring his teammates together.

Carlos Correa may have collected five hits, a new career high, in the Twins’ 17-9 win over the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday afternoon at Target Field, but the shortstop took home one loss after the game.

“I’m terrible,” he said of his rock-paper-scissors abilities. “I’m 0 for 2 against Pablo. … I’ve got to look at some YouTube videos, see how I can read him.”

López, the Twins’ pitcher of the game and winner of Wednesday’s prize, rebounded after giving up seven runs at Yankee Stadium his last start, giving up two runs in five innings pitched on Wednesday.

“It was am improvement, both results-wise and process-oriented-wise,” López said. “I wasn’t as sharp as I wanted to, but I feel like we still executed pitches when we needed to.”

And it helped that teammates put up five runs in the bottom of the fifth inning, the beginning of a prolific offensive day in which the Twins compiled numbers more likely to be seen at altitude in Denver than in Minneapolis.

Twins hitters erupted for a season-high 24 hits in the win, the most they’ve had in a single game since they collected 28 against the Seattle Mariners in 2017 and tied for the third most in franchise history.

Every hitter in the starting lineup collected at least one hit, led by Correa, who, during a 37-minute rain delay, told his teammates that he had never had five hits in a game and was clearly pumped up when he accomplished the feat. Royce Lewis, Kyle Farmer, Willi Castro and Carlos Santana each had three and another three players added two apiece. All nine starters plus Max Kepler, who entered late as a pinch hitter, drove in at least one run in the win.

The offensive outburst against Rockies (24-44) starter Austin Gomber began with leadoff hitter Manuel Margot laying down a bunt in the first.

“That was pretty cool. No one was expecting that,” Farmer said. “Guys just swinging at strikes in the zone and taking balls. It was a good spot.”

The Twins (36-32) tagged Gomber for eight runs, forcing him out of the game in the fourth, a frame in which Castro hit a solo home run and the Twins scored three runs.

They tacked on another two in the sixth with Royce Lewis sending his fifth home run out of the season out to the second deck in left field, bringing home Correa.

“When you’ve got Royce hitting behind you, you feel like one of the at-bats he’s going to hit a home run that day,” Correa said. “You’re just trying to get on base. One of those he did.”

The strong showing from the offense helped the Twins overcome a turbulent day from the bullpen.

Steven Okert gave up a pair of runs with two outs in the seventh before Caleb Thielbar — who entered with a five-run lead — was unable to record an out for the second straight day.

Thielbar issued a pair of walks and allowed a double before a rare Correa error brought home a two runs. That spelled the end of his day, as the Twins turned the game over to Jhoan Duran, who allowed one inherited runner to score but got out of the inning with a two-run lead.

But while the game was tight just briefly, the Twins’ offense was back at it again in the eighth, pouring on seven more runs to push the game out of reach.

“Today was a pretty special offensive day,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “This is the type of day that I think a lot of guys remember. You had a lot of guys have a lot of highlight swings, highlight collection of at-bats and on top of that, you get a really nice start from Pablo López as well, so a lot of very positive young men leaving the ballpark today.”

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By PETER SMITH (Associated Press)

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Southern Baptist delegates expressed alarm Wednesday over the way in vitro fertilization is routinely being practiced, approving a resolution lamenting that the creation of surplus frozen embryos often results in “destruction of embryonic human life.”

They urged members to carefully weigh the ethical implications of the technology while also expressing sympathy with couples “who experience the searing pain of infertility.”

The resolution — approved near the end of the Southern Baptist Convention’s two-day annual meeting — affirms that embryos are human beings from the moment of fertilization, whether in the womb or generated in the laboratory via IVF. That’s the same position held by the Alabama Supreme Court in ruling that frozen embryos have the full rights of people.

In the wake of that decision, Alabama passed a law shielding IVF providers from prosecution and lawsuits — reflecting that even in a state with strong anti-abortion sentiment, there is support for a technology used by many couples facing infertility.

The resolution also urged couples to adopt surplus frozen embryos that would otherwise be destroyed.

Did the resolution condemn IVF or call for its banning?

Not in a blanket way. What it did was denounce the routine practice of creating multiple embryos, frozen for potential use but often with surplus embryos destroyed. It also denounced the use of embryos for experiments, as well as “dehumanizing methods for determining suitability for life and genetic sorting, based on notions of genetic fitness and parental preferences.”

Kristen Ferguson, chair of the committee on resolutions, said after the vote that the resolution amounts to the SBC’s first foray into a new ethnical frontier but rooted in their longstanding belief in “the sanctity of the human embryo.”

IVF “is not respecting the sanctity of the human embryo … in the way it is routinely practiced,” she said. “Right now we’re trying to open the conversation, remind Southern Baptists of our long-held beliefs of the sanctity of human life and allow them to begin to think through the ethical implications.”

She anticipated there may be resolutions with “much stronger language” and more specific applications in the future, such as how these issues relate to the medical community, she said.

“But we are not speaking to that at this time, because Southern Baptists aren’t ready to speak to that yet,” she said. “They wanted to say an affirmation of the human embryo and that it has implications for IVF. ”

What is IVF?

In vitro fertilization offers a possible solution when a woman has trouble getting pregnant. The procedure involves retrieving her eggs and combining them in a lab dish with a man’s sperm to create a fertilized embryo, which is then transferred into the woman’s uterus in an attempt to create a pregnancy.

IVF is done in cycles and may take more than one to create a successful pregnancy, according to The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The procedure can use a couple’s eggs and sperm or those from a donor.

Why is this an important issue for Southern Baptists?

Ever since the nation’s largest Protestant body took a conservative turn in the 1980s, it has made opposing abortion a top priority. With the overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, new issues have reached the forefront, including IVF.

This resolution makes clear that Southern Baptists’ belief that life begins at conception extends to embryos generated via IVF.

Do Southern Baptists and other conservative evangelicals have consensus on IVF?

No. On the convention floor, some delegates gave impassioned testimony to how IVF enabled couples to have long-sought children. Others said that despite that laudable goal, the practice is ethically unacceptable.

Some believe it’s ethical to use IVF to create only the number of embryos intended for implantation.

Albert Mohler, a prominent SBC seminary president and conservative activist, made a hardline denunciation of IVF at a sideline event before the SBC meeting on Monday, calling IVF a “commodification of the embryo” that assaults human dignity. He also criticized it for enabling people to have children outside of heterosexual marriage.

Did the resolution call for a government ban on IVF?

No. It calls for government to “restrain actions inconsistent with the dignity of … frozen embryonic human beings.” But it doesn’t prescribe specific measures.

“I think especially after the Alabama Supreme Court decision, there’s been a rush at state level as well as federal level to protect IVF or to even expand IVF access, often with very little thought to some of the other realities at stake,” said Jason Thacker, a Southern Baptist ethicist who advised the resolutions committee.

“We’re not naive enough to say that we can just ban this technology, full stop,” he said. “While that would be the goal, because that’s consistent with dignity of the human embryo in many ways,” he said he recognized that there are others who believe there are ethical ways to apply IVF technology.

What’s essential, he said, is laws that respect embryos’ human dignity.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.