HAYS
– The Hays High volleyball went 1-1 at their own triangular Tuesday at the Hays
High gym. The Indians lost to Manhattan in three then beat Junction City in two.

Manhattan
def. Hays High 26-28, 17-25, 21-25
Hays def. Junction City 25-18, 25-20

Hays PostHAYS
– The Hays High volleyball went 1-1 at their own triangular Tuesday at the Hays
High gym. The Indians lost to Manhattan in three then beat Junction City in two.Manhattan
def. Hays High 26-28, 17-25, 21-25
Hays def. Junction City 25-18, 25-20HHS
is now 13-6 on the season.

🏐 HHS 1-1 at own triangular

LYONS
- TMP-Marian’s Zecharia Dickman finished in ninth place to lead the TMP-Marian
boys cross country team at the Lyons Invitational Tuesday. The junior finished
with a time of 18:48.2 in the 5k race. Sophomore Mattias Marintezer placed 11th
(18:56.3) and senior Caleb Marintzer 15th (19:20.5)

Haven’s
Isaiah Doherty was the boys champ with a time of 17:22.5.

Haven
won the team title while the Monarchs placed fourth.

Claire
Schippers finished ninth to lead the TMP-Marian girls. The junior finished the
5k race with a time of 24:16.8. Senior Gracyn Schippers finished 13th (24:37.6)
and Grace Schmeidler 14th ()24:38.7).

Molly
Ehrlich of Ellsworth was the girls’ individual champ (20:37.4). The Bearcats
won the girls’ team title.

Hays PostLYONS
- TMP-Marian’s Zecharia Dickman finished in ninth place to lead the TMP-Marian
boys cross country team at the Lyons Invitational Tuesday. The junior finished
with a time of 18:48.2 in the 5k race. Sophomore Mattias Marintezer placed 11th
(18:56.3) and senior Caleb Marintzer 15th (19:20.5)Haven’s
Isaiah Doherty was the boys champ with a time of 17:22.5.Haven
won the team title while the Monarchs placed fourth.Claire
Schippers finished ninth to lead the TMP-Marian girls. The junior finished the
5k race with a time of 24:16.8. Senior Gracyn Schippers finished 13th (24:37.6)
and Grace Schmeidler 14th ()24:38.7).Molly
Ehrlich of Ellsworth was the girls’ individual champ (20:37.4). The Bearcats
won the girls’ team title.

🏃‍♂️ Monarchs cross country runs at Lyons

BALTIMORE (AP) — Bobby Witt Jr. made the most of his much-anticipated playoff debut, driving in the only run Tuesday to back Cole Ragans' six sharp innings and help the Kansas City Royals return from a nine-year postseason absence with a 1-0 victory over the Baltimore Orioles in Game 1 of their AL Wild Card Series.

Witt, the 24-year-old shortstop who led the majors with 211 hits and a .332 batting average this season, singled to left field off a 95 mph, first-pitch cutter from 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes with two outs in the sixth. Maikel Garcia came around to score after drawing a walk, stealing second — Burnes allowed runners to swipe a major league-high 41 bases this season — and moving to third on a groundout.

Just after Witt delivered, Kansas City Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/PatrickMahomes/status/1841227979432870173">posted on social media</a>: “Let’s go!! Keep it going!!! @Royals”

They couldn't keep adding to their lead, but that didn't matter, thanks to Ragans, who was every bit as good, if not better, than Burnes before leaving after 80 pitches because of cramping in his left calf, plus a bullpen that was KC's weakness during the regular season but was more than fine Tuesday.

Sam Long, Kris Bubic and Lucas Erceg, who earned the save, shut down the Orioles the rest of the way.

The Royals lost 106 games last season but a 30-win improvement has them back in October for the first time since winning the 2015 World Series.

Now they can end this best-of-three series and advance to an AL Division Series against the New York Yankees by winning Game 2 in Baltimore on Wednesday, when KC will send All-Star Seth Lugo to the mound. Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said he wouldn’t announce his starter until after Tuesday’s game, although it was expected to be Zach Elfin.

Baltimore has lost its last nine postseason games, a skid that dates to 2014.

Ragans, a lefty All-Star picked up in a trade with the Texas Rangers last season, was terrific, mixing a 98 mph fastball with a variety of off-speed offerings while allowing just four hits and striking out eight.

Burnes looked every bit the ace Baltimore hoped it was getting when it acquired him from the Milwaukee Brewers in February. The AL's All-Star starter this season exited to a standing ovation from the orange-clad fans at Camden Yards after giving up a leadoff single in the ninth. He allowed one run, five hits and that one key walk.

The right-hander became the first starter to throw a pitch in the ninth inning of a postseason game since Washington ace Stephen Strasburg in Game 6 of the 2019 World Series against Houston.

But Baltimore's sluggers — the team's 232 homers trailed only the Yankees in 2024 — could not come through in the clutch.

The Orioles got a runner to third in the third, but Jordan Westburg flied out to the warning track in left. The hosts then put men at the corners with one out in the fifth, but Ragans struck out James McCann and 2023 AL Rookie of the Year Gunnar Henderson to end that threat.

And in the eighth, with a pair on and two out, Erceg replaced Bubic and got Anthony Santander to ground into a fielder's choice.

Royals: 1B&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/royals-kansas-city-injuries-3d58f8b6810ed0d06ffd2cce41107a70">Vinnie Pasquantino</a>&nbsp;came off the injured list for this series after being out since Aug. 29 with a broken right thumb, and he was in his usual No. 3 spot in the starting lineup as the DH. He wouldn't be able to play the field for another two to three weeks — if KC remains in the postseason. Pasquantino went 0 for 3 on Tuesday.

Lugo (16-9, 3.00 ERA) will be making the first postseason start of his career. "Something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time," he said.

Eflin went 10-9 with a 3.59 ERA combined for Tampa Bay and Baltimore in 2024.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/10/1727822807888.jpeg" alt="Photo courtesy Kansas City Royals" />
 <figcaption>Photo courtesy Kansas City Royals</figcaption>
 </figure>BALTIMORE (AP) — Bobby Witt Jr. made the most of his much-anticipated playoff debut, driving in the only run Tuesday to back Cole Ragans' six sharp innings and help the Kansas City Royals return from a nine-year postseason absence with a 1-0 victory over the Baltimore Orioles in Game 1 of their AL Wild Card Series.Witt, the 24-year-old shortstop who led the majors with 211 hits and a .332 batting average this season, singled to left field off a 95 mph, first-pitch cutter from 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes with two outs in the sixth. Maikel Garcia came around to score after drawing a walk, stealing second — Burnes allowed runners to swipe a major league-high 41 bases this season — and moving to third on a groundout.Just after Witt delivered, Kansas City Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/PatrickMahomes/status/1841227979432870173">posted on social media</a>: “Let’s go!! Keep it going!!! @Royals”They couldn't keep adding to their lead, but that didn't matter, thanks to Ragans, who was every bit as good, if not better, than Burnes before leaving after 80 pitches because of cramping in his left calf, plus a bullpen that was KC's weakness during the regular season but was more than fine Tuesday.Sam Long, Kris Bubic and Lucas Erceg, who earned the save, shut down the Orioles the rest of the way.The Royals lost 106 games last season but a 30-win improvement has them back in October for the first time since winning the 2015 World Series.Now they can end this best-of-three series and advance to an AL Division Series against the New York Yankees by winning Game 2 in Baltimore on Wednesday, when KC will send All-Star Seth Lugo to the mound. Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said he wouldn’t announce his starter until after Tuesday’s game, although it was expected to be Zach Elfin.Baltimore has lost its last nine postseason games, a skid that dates to 2014.Ragans, a lefty All-Star picked up in a trade with the Texas Rangers last season, was terrific, mixing a 98 mph fastball with a variety of off-speed offerings while allowing just four hits and striking out eight.Burnes looked every bit the ace Baltimore hoped it was getting when it acquired him from the Milwaukee Brewers in February. The AL's All-Star starter this season exited to a standing ovation from the orange-clad fans at Camden Yards after giving up a leadoff single in the ninth. He allowed one run, five hits and that one key walk.The right-hander became the first starter to throw a pitch in the ninth inning of a postseason game since Washington ace Stephen Strasburg in Game 6 of the 2019 World Series against Houston.But Baltimore's sluggers — the team's 232 homers trailed only the Yankees in 2024 — could not come through in the clutch.The Orioles got a runner to third in the third, but Jordan Westburg flied out to the warning track in left. The hosts then put men at the corners with one out in the fifth, but Ragans struck out James McCann and 2023 AL Rookie of the Year Gunnar Henderson to end that threat.And in the eighth, with a pair on and two out, Erceg replaced Bubic and got Anthony Santander to ground into a fielder's choice.<h2>Trainer's Room</h2>Royals: 1B&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/royals-kansas-city-injuries-3d58f8b6810ed0d06ffd2cce41107a70">Vinnie Pasquantino</a>&nbsp;came off the injured list for this series after being out since Aug. 29 with a broken right thumb, and he was in his usual No. 3 spot in the starting lineup as the DH. He wouldn't be able to play the field for another two to three weeks — if KC remains in the postseason. Pasquantino went 0 for 3 on Tuesday.<h2>Up Next</h2>Lugo (16-9, 3.00 ERA) will be making the first postseason start of his career. "Something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time," he said.Eflin went 10-9 with a 3.59 ERA combined for Tampa Bay and Baltimore in 2024.

⚾ Witt Jr. and Ragans lead the Royals over the Orioles to open AL Wild Card Series

Fort Hays State Tiger football coach Chris Brown, defensive end Myles Menges and wide receiver Jabari Lewis spoke to the media Tuesday before the Tigers host Central Missouri on Saturday.

Hays PostFort Hays State Tiger football coach Chris Brown, defensive end Myles Menges and wide receiver Jabari Lewis spoke to the media Tuesday before the Tigers host Central Missouri on Saturday.<div><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wxkScXX-EjY?si=a6PLBAnk7pqyP09S" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TPf81WLMQgA?si=EpWtQAPomHQ_65xM" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4tCNaxopBo4?si=WiL-JX76-i1PyLY1" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

🏈📹 FHSU weekly press conference 

JERUSALEM (AP) — Iran launched at least 180 missiles into Israel on Tuesday, the latest in a series of escalating attacks in a yearslong conflict between Israel and Iran and its Arab allies that threatens to push the Middle East closer toward a regionwide war.

The orange glow of missiles streaked across Israel's night sky as air raid sirens sounded and millions of residents scrambled into bomb shelters. Israel vowed retaliation for Iran’s missile barrage, which it said had caused only a few injuries.

Before Iran's attack, Israel had landed a series of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-israel-hezbollah-airstrikes-suburb-617575d9c5d7c711bc02e7b81d2ba4ad">devastating blows</a>&nbsp;in recent weeks against the leadership of Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. It then ratcheted up the pressure on the militant group — which has been firing rockets into Israel since&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war">the war in Gaza</a>&nbsp;began — by launching what it said is a limited ground incursion in southern Lebanon.

Israel has said it will continue to strike Hezbollah until it is safe for citizens displaced from homes near the Lebanon border to return. Hezbollah has vowed to keep firing rockets into Israel until there is a cease-fire in Gaza with Hamas, which is also supported by Iran.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the country’s air defenses intercepted many of the incoming missiles, though some landed in central and southern Israel.

“This strike will have consequences,” he said. He said the attack had caused only “very few” injuries, but did not elaborate.

Israel and Iran have fought a shadow war for years, but rarely have they come into direct conflict.

Israel considers Iran to be its greatest foe -- citing Iran’s repeated calls for Israel’s destruction, its support for Arab militant groups and its nuclear program. Iran denies Israeli accusations that it is developing a nuclear weapon.

Moments before Iran launched its missiles, a shooting attack in Tel Aviv left six people dead, police said, adding that the two suspects who had opened fire on a boulevard in the Jaffa neighborhood had also been killed.

In the U.S., White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called Iran’s missile attack a “significant escalation,” although he said it was ultimately “defeated and ineffective,” in part because of assistance from the U.S. military in shooting down some of the inbound missiles.

Iran launched another direct attack on Israel in April, but&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-ballistic-missiles-israel-retaliation-gaza-war-edccddf7a871b78cd5528e265e1e7317">few of its projectiles reached their targets</a>. Many were shot down by a U.S.-led coalition, while others apparently failed at launch or crashed in flight.

Iran said it fired the missiles into Israel as retaliation for attacks that killed leaders of Hezbollah, Hamas and the Iranian military. It referenced Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Revolutionary Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, both killed in an Israeli airstrike last week in Beirut. It also mentioned Ismail Haniyeh, a top leader in Hamas who was assassinated in Tehran in a suspected Israeli attack in July.

Earlier on Tuesday, Israel said it had begun limited ground operations against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire pounded southern Lebanese villages, and Hezbollah responded with a barrage of rockets into Israel. There was no immediate word on casualties.

While Hezbollah denied Israeli troops had entered Lebanon, the Israeli army announced it had also carried out dozens of ground raids into southern Lebanon going back nearly a year.

If true, it would be another humiliating blow for Hezbollah, the most powerful armed group in the Middle East. Hezbollah has been reeling from weeks of targeted strikes that killed&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/obituary-nasrallah-lebanon-israel-2da3789a02fd4e2e88511a7f59174d19">Nasrallah</a>&nbsp;and several of his top commanders.

On Tuesday morning, Israel warned people in southern Lebanon to evacuate to the north of the Awali River, some 60 kilometers (36 miles) from the border and much farther than the Litani River, which marks the northern edge of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/unsc-resolution-1701-lebanon-israel-hezbollah-addf018ee9da719329e1726f7156d456">a U.N.-declared zone</a>&nbsp;intended to serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah after their 2006 war.

The border region has largely emptied out over the past year as the two sides have traded fire. But the scope of the evacuation warning raised questions as to how deep Israel plans to send its forces into Lebanon.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Iran said it fired dozens of missiles into Israel on Tuesday, a sharp escalation of the monthslong conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed militias Hezbollah and Hamas. There were no immediate reports of casualties as Israel ordered residents to head to bomb shelters and as air raid sirens sounded across the country.

A series of window-shaking explosions were heard in Tel Aviv and near Jerusalem, though it was not immediately clear whether the sounds were from missiles landing or being intercepted by Israeli defenses, or both.

Israel and the United States have warned there would be severe consequences in the event of an attack on Israel from Iran, which backs the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris monitored the attack on Israel from the White House Situation Room.

Israeli army spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the country's air defense system was fully operational, detecting and intercepting threats. “However, the defense is not hermetic,” he said.

Orders to shelter in place were sent to Israelis’ mobile phones and announced on national television.

Iran took responsibility for launching dozens of ballistic missiles at Israel. The claim was made in a statement read aloud on state television.

In its statement, Iran referenced Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Revolutionary Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, both killed in an Israeli airstrike last week in Beirut. It also mentioned Ismail Haniyeh, a top leader in Hamas who was assassinated in Tehran in a suspected Israeli attack in July. It warned this attack represented only a “first wave,” without elaborating.

The air raid alerts in Israel came a day after Israel said it had begun limited ground operations against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire pounded southern Lebanese villages where people were ordered to evacuate, and Hezbollah militants responded by firing a barrage of rockets into Israel. There was no immediate word on casualties as fighting intensified and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-lebanon-hezbollah-gaza-ceasefire-talks-challenges-71b59e0db03f0014ce06d4aa21bc2907">concerns of a wider regional war</a>&nbsp;grew.

A senior White House official warned of “severe consequences” should Iran launch a ballistic missile against Israel. U.S. ships and aircraft are positioned in the region to assist Israel in the event of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-israel-mideast-tensions-hezbollah-lebanon-analysis-5020aeed3c88790d5483fdf40c9ba392">an attack from Iran</a>. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

Hagari also warned of consequences if Iran fired missiles into Israel.

He urged the public to stay close to sheltered areas. “The Iranian strike could be widespread,” he said.

Iranian officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Iran launched an unprecedented direct attack on Israel in April, but&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-ballistic-missiles-israel-retaliation-gaza-war-edccddf7a871b78cd5528e265e1e7317">few of its projectiles reached their targets</a>. Many were shot down by a U.S.-led coalition, while others apparently failed at launch or crashed in flight.

While Hezbollah denied Israeli troops had entered Lebanon, the Israeli army announced it had also carried out dozens of ground raids into southern Lebanon going back nearly a year. Israel released video footage purporting to show its soldiers operating in homes and tunnels where Hezbollah kept weapons.

If true, it would be another humiliating blow for Iran-backed Hezbollah, the most powerful armed group in the Middle East. Hezbollah has been reeling from weeks of targeted strikes that killed its leader,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/obituary-nasrallah-lebanon-israel-2da3789a02fd4e2e88511a7f59174d19">Hassan Nasrallah,</a>&nbsp;and several of his top commanders.

On Tuesday morning, Israel warned people to evacuate to the north of the Awali River, some 60 kilometers (36 miles) from the border and much farther than the Litani River, which marks the northern edge of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/unsc-resolution-1701-lebanon-israel-hezbollah-addf018ee9da719329e1726f7156d456">a U.N.-declared zone</a>&nbsp;intended to serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah after their 2006 war.

An Israeli airstrike hit a residential building near Beirut Tuesday, causing damage but with no immediate reports of casualties. The strike appeared to hit an apartment about 100 meters from the Iranian Embassy.

Anticipating more rocket attacks from Hezbollah, the Israeli army announced new restrictions on public gatherings and closed beaches in northern and central Israel. The military also said it was calling up thousands more reserve soldiers to serve on the northern border.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel warned Lebanese people to evacuate border communities Tuesday to avoid harm from limited ground operations it said were launched against Hezbollah, and said it would retaliate if Hezbollah ally Iran launched a missile attack on Israel that a senior U.S. official said could come “imminently.”

Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire pounded southern Lebanese villages where people were ordered to evacuate, and Hezbollah militants responded by firing a barrage of rockets into Israel. There was no immediate word on casualties as fighting intensified and concerns of a wider regional war grew.

A U.S. official warned of “severe consequences” should Iran launch a ballistic missile against Israel. U.S. ships and aircraft are positioned in the region to assist Israel in the event of an attack from Iran, which a second official said could happen tonight. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari also warned of consequences if Iran fired missiles into Israel. Iran’s state media has not suggested an attack is imminent, and Iranian officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

White House officials did not immediately offer any evidence backing the intelligence finding.

An Israeli airstrike hit a residential building near Beirut Wednesday, causing damage and blowing out windows in the area. The strike appeared to hit an apartment about 100 meters from the Iranian Embassy. There was no immediate word on casualties.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Iran is preparing to “imminently” launch a ballistic missile attack on Israel, according to a senior U.S. administration official, who warned Tuesday of “severe consequences” should it take place.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence, said the U.S. is actively supporting Israeli defensive preparations. This comes after the Israeli military on Tuesday warned people to evacuate nearly two dozen Lebanese border communities hours after announcing what it said were limited ground operations against Hezbollah.

White House officials did not immediately offer any evidence backing its intelligence finding. The official added that the administration was confident in the determination.

Iran’s state media has not suggested any attack is imminent. Iranian officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Iran already launched an unprecedented direct attack on Israel in April, but few of the Iranian projectiles reached their targets. Many were shot down by a U.S.-led coalition, while others apparently failed at launch or crashed while in flight. Even those that reached Israel appeared to miss their marks, experts and an AP analysis in September showed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a Tuesday statement that Israel is facing “large challenges” as it fights an Iranian axis. In the videotaped statement, he urges the public to listen to public safety guidelines from the army’s Home Front Command. He made no direct mention of a missile threat.

Hezbollah denied Israeli troops had entered Lebanon, but hours later the Israeli army announced it had also carried out dozens of ground raids into southern Lebanon going back nearly a year. Israel released video footage purporting to show its soldiers operating in homes and tunnels where Hezbollah kept weapons.

U.S. ships and aircraft are already positioned in the region to assist Israel in the event of an attack from Iran. There are three U.S. Navy destroyers in the Mediterranean Sea, an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Oman and fighter jets arrayed throughout the region. All have the abilities to shoot down incoming missiles.

Israel advised people to evacuate to the north of the Awali River, some 60 kilometers (36 miles) from the border and much farther than the Litani River, which marks the northern edge of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/unsc-resolution-1701-lebanon-israel-hezbollah-addf018ee9da719329e1726f7156d456">a U.N.-declared zone</a>&nbsp;that was intended to serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah after their 2006 war.

“You must immediately head north of the Awali River to save yourselves, and leave your houses immediately,” said the statement posted by the Israeli military on the platform X. The warning applied to communities south of the Litani.

The border region has largely emptied out over the past year as the two sides have traded fire. But the scope of the evacuation warning raised questions as to how deep Israel plans to send its forces into Lebanon as it presses ahead with a rapidly escalating campaign against Hezbollah.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Iran launched at least 180 missiles into Israel on Tuesday, the latest in a series of escalating attacks in a yearslong conflict between Israel and Iran and its Arab allies that threatens to push the Middle East closer toward a regionwide war.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">.<a href="https://twitter.com/PentagonPresSec?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PentagonPresSec</a>: The U.S. military coordinated closely with Israeli Defense Forces to help defend Israel. U.S. Navy destroyers deployed to the Middle East region supported the defense of Israel by firing approximately a dozen interceptors against the incoming Iranian missiles. <a href="https://t.co/hbE36qVR1H">pic.twitter.com/hbE36qVR1H</a>&mdash; CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1841202874954440848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 1, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>The orange glow of missiles streaked across Israel's night sky as air raid sirens sounded and millions of residents scrambled into bomb shelters. Israel vowed retaliation for Iran’s missile barrage, which it said had caused only a few injuries.Before Iran's attack, Israel had landed a series of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-israel-hezbollah-airstrikes-suburb-617575d9c5d7c711bc02e7b81d2ba4ad">devastating blows</a>&nbsp;in recent weeks against the leadership of Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. It then ratcheted up the pressure on the militant group — which has been firing rockets into Israel since&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war">the war in Gaza</a>&nbsp;began — by launching what it said is a limited ground incursion in southern Lebanon.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">White House National Security Adviser <a href="https://twitter.com/JakeSullivan46?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JakeSullivan46</a>: &quot;Today Iran launched nearly 200 ballistic missiles towards targets in Israel...at this time we do not know of any deaths in Israel...We do not know of any damage to aircraft or strategic military assets in Israel.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/tGhw87QvNp">pic.twitter.com/tGhw87QvNp</a>&mdash; CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1841191582583619877?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 1, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Israel has said it will continue to strike Hezbollah until it is safe for citizens displaced from homes near the Lebanon border to return. Hezbollah has vowed to keep firing rockets into Israel until there is a cease-fire in Gaza with Hamas, which is also supported by Iran.Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the country’s air defenses intercepted many of the incoming missiles, though some landed in central and southern Israel.“This strike will have consequences,” he said. He said the attack had caused only “very few” injuries, but did not elaborate.Israel and Iran have fought a shadow war for years, but rarely have they come into direct conflict.Israel considers Iran to be its greatest foe -- citing Iran’s repeated calls for Israel’s destruction, its support for Arab militant groups and its nuclear program. Iran denies Israeli accusations that it is developing a nuclear weapon.Moments before Iran launched its missiles, a shooting attack in Tel Aviv left six people dead, police said, adding that the two suspects who had opened fire on a boulevard in the Jaffa neighborhood had also been killed.In the U.S., White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called Iran’s missile attack a “significant escalation,” although he said it was ultimately “defeated and ineffective,” in part because of assistance from the U.S. military in shooting down some of the inbound missiles.Iran launched another direct attack on Israel in April, but&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-ballistic-missiles-israel-retaliation-gaza-war-edccddf7a871b78cd5528e265e1e7317">few of its projectiles reached their targets</a>. Many were shot down by a U.S.-led coalition, while others apparently failed at launch or crashed in flight.Iran said it fired the missiles into Israel as retaliation for attacks that killed leaders of Hezbollah, Hamas and the Iranian military. It referenced Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Revolutionary Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, both killed in an Israeli airstrike last week in Beirut. It also mentioned Ismail Haniyeh, a top leader in Hamas who was assassinated in Tehran in a suspected Israeli attack in July.Earlier on Tuesday, Israel said it had begun limited ground operations against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire pounded southern Lebanese villages, and Hezbollah responded with a barrage of rockets into Israel. There was no immediate word on casualties.While Hezbollah denied Israeli troops had entered Lebanon, the Israeli army announced it had also carried out dozens of ground raids into southern Lebanon going back nearly a year.If true, it would be another humiliating blow for Hezbollah, the most powerful armed group in the Middle East. Hezbollah has been reeling from weeks of targeted strikes that killed&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/obituary-nasrallah-lebanon-israel-2da3789a02fd4e2e88511a7f59174d19">Nasrallah</a>&nbsp;and several of his top commanders.On Tuesday morning, Israel warned people in southern Lebanon to evacuate to the north of the Awali River, some 60 kilometers (36 miles) from the border and much farther than the Litani River, which marks the northern edge of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/unsc-resolution-1701-lebanon-israel-hezbollah-addf018ee9da719329e1726f7156d456">a U.N.-declared zone</a>&nbsp;intended to serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah after their 2006 war.The border region has largely emptied out over the past year as the two sides have traded fire. But the scope of the evacuation warning raised questions as to how deep Israel plans to send its forces into Lebanon.-------------JERUSALEM (AP) — Iran said it fired dozens of missiles into Israel on Tuesday, a sharp escalation of the monthslong conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed militias Hezbollah and Hamas. There were no immediate reports of casualties as Israel ordered residents to head to bomb shelters and as air raid sirens sounded across the country.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">RAW FOOTAGE: Watch as Iranian missiles rain over the Old City in Jerusalem, a holy site for Muslims, Christians and Jews. This is the target of the Iranian regime: everyone. <a href="https://t.co/rIqUZWN3zy">pic.twitter.com/rIqUZWN3zy</a>&mdash; Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) <a href="https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1841167289984397726?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 1, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>A series of window-shaking explosions were heard in Tel Aviv and near Jerusalem, though it was not immediately clear whether the sounds were from missiles landing or being intercepted by Israeli defenses, or both.Israel and the United States have warned there would be severe consequences in the event of an attack on Israel from Iran, which backs the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris monitored the attack on Israel from the White House Situation Room.Israeli army spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the country's air defense system was fully operational, detecting and intercepting threats. “However, the defense is not hermetic,” he said.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Approx. 10 million civilians are the targets of Iranian projectiles. <a href="https://t.co/680uDJm3CJ">pic.twitter.com/680uDJm3CJ</a>&mdash; Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) <a href="https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1841159354914898024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 1, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Orders to shelter in place were sent to Israelis’ mobile phones and announced on national television.Iran took responsibility for launching dozens of ballistic missiles at Israel. The claim was made in a statement read aloud on state television.In its statement, Iran referenced Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Revolutionary Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, both killed in an Israeli airstrike last week in Beirut. It also mentioned Ismail Haniyeh, a top leader in Hamas who was assassinated in Tehran in a suspected Israeli attack in July. It warned this attack represented only a “first wave,” without elaborating.The air raid alerts in Israel came a day after Israel said it had begun limited ground operations against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire pounded southern Lebanese villages where people were ordered to evacuate, and Hezbollah militants responded by firing a barrage of rockets into Israel. There was no immediate word on casualties as fighting intensified and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-lebanon-hezbollah-gaza-ceasefire-talks-challenges-71b59e0db03f0014ce06d4aa21bc2907">concerns of a wider regional war</a>&nbsp;grew.A senior White House official warned of “severe consequences” should Iran launch a ballistic missile against Israel. U.S. ships and aircraft are positioned in the region to assist Israel in the event of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-israel-mideast-tensions-hezbollah-lebanon-analysis-5020aeed3c88790d5483fdf40c9ba392">an attack from Iran</a>. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.Hagari also warned of consequences if Iran fired missiles into Israel.He urged the public to stay close to sheltered areas. “The Iranian strike could be widespread,” he said.Iranian officials could not be immediately reached for comment.Iran launched an unprecedented direct attack on Israel in April, but&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-ballistic-missiles-israel-retaliation-gaza-war-edccddf7a871b78cd5528e265e1e7317">few of its projectiles reached their targets</a>. Many were shot down by a U.S.-led coalition, while others apparently failed at launch or crashed in flight.While Hezbollah denied Israeli troops had entered Lebanon, the Israeli army announced it had also carried out dozens of ground raids into southern Lebanon going back nearly a year. Israel released video footage purporting to show its soldiers operating in homes and tunnels where Hezbollah kept weapons.If true, it would be another humiliating blow for Iran-backed Hezbollah, the most powerful armed group in the Middle East. Hezbollah has been reeling from weeks of targeted strikes that killed its leader,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/obituary-nasrallah-lebanon-israel-2da3789a02fd4e2e88511a7f59174d19">Hassan Nasrallah,</a>&nbsp;and several of his top commanders.On Tuesday morning, Israel warned people to evacuate to the north of the Awali River, some 60 kilometers (36 miles) from the border and much farther than the Litani River, which marks the northern edge of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/unsc-resolution-1701-lebanon-israel-hezbollah-addf018ee9da719329e1726f7156d456">a U.N.-declared zone</a>&nbsp;intended to serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah after their 2006 war.The border region has largely emptied out over the past year as the two sides have traded fire. But the scope of the evacuation warning raised questions as to how deep Israel plans to send its forces into Lebanon.An Israeli airstrike hit a residential building near Beirut Tuesday, causing damage but with no immediate reports of casualties. The strike appeared to hit an apartment about 100 meters from the Iranian Embassy.Anticipating more rocket attacks from Hezbollah, the Israeli army announced new restrictions on public gatherings and closed beaches in northern and central Israel. The military also said it was calling up thousands more reserve soldiers to serve on the northern border.--------------JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel warned Lebanese people to evacuate border communities Tuesday to avoid harm from limited ground operations it said were launched against Hezbollah, and said it would retaliate if Hezbollah ally Iran launched a missile attack on Israel that a senior U.S. official said could come “imminently.”Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire pounded southern Lebanese villages where people were ordered to evacuate, and Hezbollah militants responded by firing a barrage of rockets into Israel. There was no immediate word on casualties as fighting intensified and concerns of a wider regional war grew.A U.S. official warned of “severe consequences” should Iran launch a ballistic missile against Israel. U.S. ships and aircraft are positioned in the region to assist Israel in the event of an attack from Iran, which a second official said could happen tonight. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari also warned of consequences if Iran fired missiles into Israel. Iran’s state media has not suggested an attack is imminent, and Iranian officials could not be immediately reached for comment.White House officials did not immediately offer any evidence backing the intelligence finding.Iran launched an unprecedented direct attack on Israel in April, but&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-ballistic-missiles-israel-retaliation-gaza-war-edccddf7a871b78cd5528e265e1e7317">few of its projectiles reached their targets</a>. Many were shot down by a U.S.-led coalition, while others apparently failed at launch or crashed in flight.While Hezbollah denied Israeli troops had entered Lebanon, the Israeli army announced it had also carried out dozens of ground raids into southern Lebanon going back nearly a year. Israel released video footage purporting to show its soldiers operating in homes and tunnels where Hezbollah kept weapons.If true, it would be another humiliating blow for Iran-backed Hezbollah, the most powerful armed group in the Middle East. Hezbollah has been reeling from weeks of targeted strikes that killed its leader,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/obituary-nasrallah-lebanon-israel-2da3789a02fd4e2e88511a7f59174d19">Hassan Nasrallah,</a>&nbsp;and several of his top commanders.On Tuesday morning, Israel warned people to evacuate to the north of the Awali River, some 60 kilometers (36 miles) from the border and much farther than the Litani River, which marks the northern edge of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/unsc-resolution-1701-lebanon-israel-hezbollah-addf018ee9da719329e1726f7156d456">a U.N.-declared zone</a>&nbsp;intended to serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah after their 2006 war.The border region has largely emptied out over the past year as the two sides have traded fire. But the scope of the evacuation warning raised questions as to how deep Israel plans to send its forces into Lebanon.An Israeli airstrike hit a residential building near Beirut Wednesday, causing damage and blowing out windows in the area. The strike appeared to hit an apartment about 100 meters from the Iranian Embassy. There was no immediate word on casualties.Anticipating more rocket attacks from Hezbollah, the Israeli army announced new restrictions on public gatherings and closed beaches in northern and central Israel. The military also said it was calling up thousands more reserve soldiers to serve on the northern border.----------------JERUSALEM (AP) — Iran is preparing to “imminently” launch a ballistic missile attack on Israel, according to a senior U.S. administration official, who warned Tuesday of “severe consequences” should it take place.The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence, said the U.S. is actively supporting Israeli defensive preparations. This comes after the Israeli military on Tuesday warned people to evacuate nearly two dozen Lebanese border communities hours after announcing what it said were limited ground operations against Hezbollah.White House officials did not immediately offer any evidence backing its intelligence finding. The official added that the administration was confident in the determination.Iran’s state media has not suggested any attack is imminent. Iranian officials could not be immediately reached for comment.Iran already launched an unprecedented direct attack on Israel in April, but few of the Iranian projectiles reached their targets. Many were shot down by a U.S.-led coalition, while others apparently failed at launch or crashed while in flight. Even those that reached Israel appeared to miss their marks, experts and an AP analysis in September showed.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a Tuesday statement that Israel is facing “large challenges” as it fights an Iranian axis. In the videotaped statement, he urges the public to listen to public safety guidelines from the army’s Home Front Command. He made no direct mention of a missile threat.Hezbollah denied Israeli troops had entered Lebanon, but hours later the Israeli army announced it had also carried out dozens of ground raids into southern Lebanon going back nearly a year. Israel released video footage purporting to show its soldiers operating in homes and tunnels where Hezbollah kept weapons.If true, it would be another humiliating blow for Iran-backed Hezbollah, the most powerful armed group in the Middle East. Hezbollah has been reeling from weeks of targeted strikes that killed its leader,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/obituary-nasrallah-lebanon-israel-2da3789a02fd4e2e88511a7f59174d19">Hassan Nasrallah,</a>&nbsp;and several of his top commanders.U.S. ships and aircraft are already positioned in the region to assist Israel in the event of an attack from Iran. There are three U.S. Navy destroyers in the Mediterranean Sea, an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Oman and fighter jets arrayed throughout the region. All have the abilities to shoot down incoming missiles.Israel advised people to evacuate to the north of the Awali River, some 60 kilometers (36 miles) from the border and much farther than the Litani River, which marks the northern edge of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/unsc-resolution-1701-lebanon-israel-hezbollah-addf018ee9da719329e1726f7156d456">a U.N.-declared zone</a>&nbsp;that was intended to serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah after their 2006 war.“You must immediately head north of the Awali River to save yourselves, and leave your houses immediately,” said the statement posted by the Israeli military on the platform X. The warning applied to communities south of the Litani.The border region has largely emptied out over the past year as the two sides have traded fire. But the scope of the evacuation warning raised questions as to how deep Israel plans to send its forces into Lebanon as it presses ahead with a rapidly escalating campaign against Hezbollah.

🎥U.S. forces defend Israel as Iran launches major missile attack

By NATE KING Salina Post

An alleged threat involving Salina South High School was investigated by the Salina Police Department (SPD) after a social media post surfaced on Monday evening.

According to Salina Police Captain James Feldman, police were contacted around 6 p.m. on Monday by an adult woman who reported a threat about a potential school shooting had been made. The information came to light after a 17-year-old male, who is known to the adult woman, posted on Snapchat that he overheard a 15-year-old male Salina South student threatening to "shoot up" the school.

"The 17-year-old says, while he was driving out of the school parking lot, he had his windows down when he heard someone say, 'I don't like this place. I'm going to shoot it up,'" Feldman said. "He then said he was pretty sure it was this 15-year-old kid."

Although not entirely certain, the 17-year-old&nbsp; claimed to have recognized the voice as belonging to the 15-year-old.

The 17-year-old then posted a picture of the younger student on Snapchat, alleging that the 15-year-old was going to attack the school the following day. The photo shared on social media showed the 15-year-old holding a BB-gun.&nbsp;

Following the report, police located and spoke with the 15-year-old and his parents. According to Captain Feldman, the younger student denied making any threats and said that the picture used in the Snapchat post was from four years ago.&nbsp;

The 15-year-old insisted that he had no intention of harming anyone, and police found no evidence to suggest he had access to firearms.

Given the nature of the allegation, Salina Police officers were stationed at Salina South High School on Tuesday morning as a precautionary measure.

"We wanted to ensure the safety of everyone at the school," Feldman said. "We can't say whether or not a threat was actually made, but we treated it seriously, as we do with any situation like this."

At this time, no charges have been filed. SPD has not been able to definitively confirm whether a credible threat was made.

"It's a challenging situation," Feldman explained. "We don't have enough evidence to pursue charges, but we also can't dismiss the concern. Our priority is always the safety of the students and staff."

Salina South High School administration was informed of the situation around 7:30 p.m. on Monday.

By NATE KING Salina PostAn alleged threat involving Salina South High School was investigated by the Salina Police Department (SPD) after a social media post surfaced on Monday evening.According to Salina Police Captain James Feldman, police were contacted around 6 p.m. on Monday by an adult woman who reported a threat about a potential school shooting had been made. The information came to light after a 17-year-old male, who is known to the adult woman, posted on Snapchat that he overheard a 15-year-old male Salina South student threatening to "shoot up" the school."The 17-year-old says, while he was driving out of the school parking lot, he had his windows down when he heard someone say, 'I don't like this place. I'm going to shoot it up,'" Feldman said. "He then said he was pretty sure it was this 15-year-old kid."Although not entirely certain, the 17-year-old&nbsp; claimed to have recognized the voice as belonging to the 15-year-old.The 17-year-old then posted a picture of the younger student on Snapchat, alleging that the 15-year-old was going to attack the school the following day. The photo shared on social media showed the 15-year-old holding a BB-gun.&nbsp;Following the report, police located and spoke with the 15-year-old and his parents. According to Captain Feldman, the younger student denied making any threats and said that the picture used in the Snapchat post was from four years ago.&nbsp;The 15-year-old insisted that he had no intention of harming anyone, and police found no evidence to suggest he had access to firearms.Given the nature of the allegation, Salina Police officers were stationed at Salina South High School on Tuesday morning as a precautionary measure."We wanted to ensure the safety of everyone at the school," Feldman said. "We can't say whether or not a threat was actually made, but we treated it seriously, as we do with any situation like this."At this time, no charges have been filed. SPD has not been able to definitively confirm whether a credible threat was made."It's a challenging situation," Feldman explained. "We don't have enough evidence to pursue charges, but we also can't dismiss the concern. Our priority is always the safety of the students and staff."Salina South High School administration was informed of the situation around 7:30 p.m. on Monday.

Police: Kan. boy accused of social media threat of school violence

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Mail delivery has been suspended in a neighborhood in Kansas after two men assaulted a postal carrier who used pepper spray to stop large dogs from chasing him.

Residents of the 41 affected addresses in Wichita now have to pick up their mail at the nearest post office, said Paul Shade, a spokesperson and inspector for the U.S. Postal Service.

Police responded Sept. 21 to a battery call and found that the carrier had facial injuries, police spokesperson Juan Rebolledo said.

The worker was chased by two dogs while delivering mail. After using pepper spray, he rushed back to his vehicle but then was followed for blocks by two men who assaulted him, Shade said.

“Thankfully, our carrier is going to be OK,” Shade said.

Police are looking for the men, and no arrests have been made. The mail stoppage will be in place until the situation is resolved, Shade said.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/8/1596998822010.png" alt="File Google image&nbsp;" />
 <figcaption>File Google image&nbsp;</figcaption>
 </figure>WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Mail delivery has been suspended in a neighborhood in Kansas after two men assaulted a postal carrier who used pepper spray to stop large dogs from chasing him.Residents of the 41 affected addresses in Wichita now have to pick up their mail at the nearest post office, said Paul Shade, a spokesperson and inspector for the U.S. Postal Service.Police responded Sept. 21 to a battery call and found that the carrier had facial injuries, police spokesperson Juan Rebolledo said.The worker was chased by two dogs while delivering mail. After using pepper spray, he rushed back to his vehicle but then was followed for blocks by two men who assaulted him, Shade said.“Thankfully, our carrier is going to be OK,” Shade said.Police are looking for the men, and no arrests have been made. The mail stoppage will be in place until the situation is resolved, Shade said.

Mail delivery suspended in Kan. neighborhood after attack on postal carrier

HOISINGTON – The TMP-Marian Monarchs girls golf team brought
home a pair of top-10 finishes at the Hoisington golf tournament Monday at Lake Barton
Golf Club in Great Bend.

TMP’s Jenna Brull tied for the best score of the day with a
44 and finished second after a tiebreaker.

Larned’s Erin Tims took home the individual title.

TMP’s Brynn Schoepf finished five shots behind her teammate
with a 49.

Emma Wasinger was 15th with a 56 and Ava
Schumacher finished in a tie for 16th with a 59.

Pratt won the team title with a 194. Larned was second (196)
and TMP third (208).

Hays PostHOISINGTON – The TMP-Marian Monarchs girls golf team brought
home a pair of top-10 finishes at the Hoisington golf tournament Monday at Lake Barton
Golf Club in Great Bend.TMP’s Jenna Brull tied for the best score of the day with a
44 and finished second after a tiebreaker.Larned’s Erin Tims took home the individual title.TMP’s Brynn Schoepf finished five shots behind her teammate
with a 49.Emma Wasinger was 15th with a 56 and Ava
Schumacher finished in a tie for 16th with a 59.Pratt won the team title with a 194. Larned was second (196)
and TMP third (208).

⛳TMP’s Brull finished 2nd at Hoisington

By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT Hays Post

As the Ellis County Commission began work on the 2025 budget, their goal was to see a reduction in the overall general mill levy.

With the
approval of a $34.6 million budget, they were able to accomplish that goal.

The commission held a pair of public hearings on Sept. 10. After two community members provided public comment, the
commission voted to approve the 2025 budget and to exceed the revenue-neutral
rate. 

The 2025 general fund budget is $34.668 million, with a mill levy of 35.985, a decrease of 0.639 mills.

Ellis County Administrator Darin Myers said the final assessed
valuation for the county will not be available until November, but as of July 1,
the estimated assessed valuation was $536,775,865.

The 2023 final assessed valuation was $512,475,588 as of Nov. 1, 2023.

Commissioner Nathan Leiker praised the work everyone did to&nbsp;get
the budget completed with a reduction in the mill levy.

“We do a lot of things as a commission to try and limit the
amount of impact that we have on the tax dollars that we charge our community,”
Leiker said. 

Leiker said while he understands the thought process of not
exceeding the revenue-neutral rate, the county also has to keep up with
ongoing needs.

"I don't want to sit up here and, a year from now, have
another bridge failure that could have been on a plan that we could have
delayed or a pothole that causes an accident that we didn't fix because we
offset some of the costs for one for a year or two for a road project," Leiker said.


Commission Michael Berges echoed Leiker’s statement and
celebrated work done by the county staff to trim the proposed budget. 

"We're proposing to exceed revenue neutral at this time. We're going to exceed last year's budget by about $500,000 to $600,000 in that range,"
Berges said. "Each department is almost fully even as far as their services."

He said the departments attribute the budget increases almost exclusively to employee wages and benefits.

Last year, the county implemented a wage and benefit study, which Berges said was the most significant factor in the budget increases.

“You want the best employees that you can get, and part of
that is making sure you pay for them and get benefits that attract quality
employees,” Berges said.

Ellis County also took over operations of the 911 dispatch
center and its entire staff.

Berges was also critical of the revenue-neutral rate, saying
he does not believe it is the “saving grace that we are often led to believe
by the state legislature.”

He said he has property in another county where the property
valuation dropped, but taxes on the property still increased to reach revenue neutral.

"To get the full amount of tax in their budget off of my
property in that county, they have to raise my taxes because the valuation
dropped, and that's where I don't think this revenue neutral is a saving grace
that we often get told (it) is," Berges said. 

"I'm telling you right now if your property valuations are
going up, your taxes are going up, that's one thing to get upset about. But if
your property valuations are going down and your property taxes go up because
they're still revenue neutral, that's another kick in the pants," Berges
said. 

Leiker added the county’s smart budgeting has allowed it to pay for projects, like the new public works facility north of Hays. 

"It's a very big project, but it's been paid for and paid in cash. We're not borrowing that money, so we're trying to think
ahead to impact today," Leiker said. 

Leiker also invited the public to get involved in the
budgeting process earlier, starting when they assemble the budget.

“Next year, we will put it out, I believe, in the February- March time frame, a schedule for when our budget process starts,” Leiker said. “Please come
to those hearings and those meetings. Please present ideas. 

"If you see places
to save that we don't see up here, do not be afraid to contact us outside the meeting. We have our cards, and our numbers are listed on the website."

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/5/1684183971486.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT Hays PostAs the Ellis County Commission began work on the 2025 budget, their goal was to see a reduction in the overall general mill levy.With the
approval of a $34.6 million budget, they were able to accomplish that goal.The commission held a pair of public hearings on Sept. 10. After two community members provided public comment, the
commission voted to approve the 2025 budget and to exceed the revenue-neutral
rate. The 2025 general fund budget is $34.668 million, with a mill levy of 35.985, a decrease of 0.639 mills.Ellis County Administrator Darin Myers said the final assessed
valuation for the county will not be available until November, but as of July 1,
the estimated assessed valuation was $536,775,865.The 2023 final assessed valuation was $512,475,588 as of Nov. 1, 2023.Commissioner Nathan Leiker praised the work everyone did to&nbsp;get
the budget completed with a reduction in the mill levy.“We do a lot of things as a commission to try and limit the
amount of impact that we have on the tax dollars that we charge our community,”
Leiker said. Leiker said while he understands the thought process of not
exceeding the revenue-neutral rate, the county also has to keep up with
ongoing needs."I don't want to sit up here and, a year from now, have
another bridge failure that could have been on a plan that we could have
delayed or a pothole that causes an accident that we didn't fix because we
offset some of the costs for one for a year or two for a road project," Leiker said.
Commission Michael Berges echoed Leiker’s statement and
celebrated work done by the county staff to trim the proposed budget. "We're proposing to exceed revenue neutral at this time. We're going to exceed last year's budget by about $500,000 to $600,000 in that range,"
Berges said. "Each department is almost fully even as far as their services."He said the departments attribute the budget increases almost exclusively to employee wages and benefits.Last year, the county implemented a wage and benefit study, which Berges said was the most significant factor in the budget increases.“You want the best employees that you can get, and part of
that is making sure you pay for them and get benefits that attract quality
employees,” Berges said.Ellis County also took over operations of the 911 dispatch
center and its entire staff.Berges was also critical of the revenue-neutral rate, saying
he does not believe it is the “saving grace that we are often led to believe
by the state legislature.”He said he has property in another county where the property
valuation dropped, but taxes on the property still increased to reach revenue neutral."To get the full amount of tax in their budget off of my
property in that county, they have to raise my taxes because the valuation
dropped, and that's where I don't think this revenue neutral is a saving grace
that we often get told (it) is," Berges said. "I'm telling you right now if your property valuations are
going up, your taxes are going up, that's one thing to get upset about. But if
your property valuations are going down and your property taxes go up because
they're still revenue neutral, that's another kick in the pants," Berges
said. Leiker added the county’s smart budgeting has allowed it to pay for projects, like the new public works facility north of Hays. "It's a very big project, but it's been paid for and paid in cash. We're not borrowing that money, so we're trying to think
ahead to impact today," Leiker said. Leiker also invited the public to get involved in the
budgeting process earlier, starting when they assemble the budget.“Next year, we will put it out, I believe, in the February- March time frame, a schedule for when our budget process starts,” Leiker said. “Please come
to those hearings and those meetings. Please present ideas. "If you see places
to save that we don't see up here, do not be afraid to contact us outside the meeting. We have our cards, and our numbers are listed on the website."

Ellis County Commission approves 2025 budget with reduction in mill levy

HAYS -&nbsp;
















Hays High boys soccer lost 1-0 to Wichita Trinity Academy at Hays High School Monday.


It's the Indians second straight loss which has them at 4-5 on the season. 

The Indians resume WAC play Thursday in Liberal.





Hays PostHAYS -&nbsp;
















Hays High boys soccer lost 1-0 to Wichita Trinity Academy at Hays High School Monday.
It's the Indians second straight loss which has them at 4-5 on the season. The Indians resume WAC play Thursday in Liberal.

⚽ HHS boys come up short against Trinity Academy

NEW YORK (AP) — Pete Rose, baseball’s career hits leader and fallen idol who undermined his historic achievements and Hall of Fame dreams by gambling on the game he loved and once embodied, has died. He was 83.

Stephanie Wheatley, a spokesperson for Clark County in Nevada, confirmed on behalf of the medical examiner that Rose died Monday. Wheatley said his cause and manner of death had not yet been determined.

For fans who came of age in the 1960s and ‘70s, no player was more exciting than the Cincinnati Reds’ No. 14, “Charlie Hustle,” the brash superstar with the shaggy hair, puggish nose and muscular forearms. At the dawn of artificial surfaces, divisional play and free agency, Rose was old school, a conscious, dirt-stained throwback to baseball’s early days. Millions could never forget him crouched and scowling at the plate, running full speed to first even after drawing a walk, or sprinting for the next base and diving headfirst into the bag.

A 17-time All-Star, the switch-hitting Rose played on three World Series winners. He was the National League MVP in 1973 and World Series MVP two years later. He holds the major league record for games played (3,562) and plate appearances (15,890) and the NL record for the longest hitting streak (44). He was the leadoff man for one of baseball’s most formidable lineups with the Reds’ championship teams of 1975 and 1976, with teammates that included Hall of Famers Johnny Bench, Tony Perez and Joe Morgan.

But no milestone approached his 4,256 hits, breaking his hero Ty Cobb’s 4,191 and signifying his excellence no matter the notoriety which followed. It was a total so extraordinary that you could average 200 hits for 20 years and still come up short. Rose’s secret was consistency, and longevity. Over 24 seasons, all but six played entirely with the Reds, Rose had 200 hits or more 10 times, and more than 180 four other times. He batted .303 overall, even while switching from second base to outfield to third to first, and he led the league in hits seven times.

“Every summer, three things are going to happen,” Rose liked to say, “the grass is going to get green, the weather is going to get hot, and Pete Rose is going to get 200 hits and bat .300.”

Rose was Rookie of the Year in 1963, but he started off 0 for 12 with three walks and a hit by pitch before getting his first major league hit, an eighth-inning triple off Pittsburgh’s Bob Friend. It came in Cincinnati on April 13, 1963, the day before Rose’s 22nd birthday. He reached 1,000 in 1968, 2,000 just five years later and 3,000 just five years after that.

He moved into second place, ahead of Hank Aaron, with hit No. 3,772, in 1982. No. 4,000 was off the Phillies’ Jerry Koosman in 1984, exactly 21 years to the day after his first hit. He caught up with Cobb on Sept. 8, 1985, and surpassed him three days later, in Cincinnati, with Rose’s mother and teenage son, Pete Jr., among those in attendance.

Rose was 44 and the team’s player-manager. Batting left-handed against the San Diego Padres’ Eric Show in the first inning, he smacked a 2-1 slider into left field, a clean single. The crowd of 47,000-plus stood and yelled. The game was halted to celebrate. Rose was given the ball and the first base bag, then wept openly on the shoulder of first base coach and former teammate, Tommy Helms. He told Pete Jr., who would later play briefly for the Reds: "I love you, and I hope you pass me." He thought of his late father, a star athlete himself who had pushed him to play sports since childhood. And he thought of Cobb, the dead-ball era slasher whom Rose so emulated that he named another son Tyler.

Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, watching from New York, declared that Rose had “reserved a prominent spot in Cooperstown.” After the game, a 2-0 win for the Reds in which Rose scored both runs, he received a phone call from President Ronald Reagan.

“Your reputation and legacy are secure," Reagan told him. “It will be a long time before anyone is standing in the spot where you're standing now."

On March 20, 1989, Ueberroth (who would soon be succeeded by A. Bartlett Giamatti) announced that his office was conducting a "full inquiry into serious allegations" about Rose. Reports emerged that he had been relying on a network of bookies and friends and others in the gambling world to place bets on baseball games, including some with the Reds. Rose denied any wrongdoing, but the investigation found that the “accumulated testimony of witnesses, together with the documentary evidence and telephone records reveal extensive betting activity by Pete Rose in connection with professional baseball and, in particular, Cincinnati Reds games, during the 1985, 1986, and 1987 baseball seasons.”

Betting on baseball had been a primal sin since 1920, when several members of the Chicago White Sox were expelled for throwing the 1919 World Series — to the Cincinnati Reds. Baseball’s Rule 21, posted in every professional clubhouse, proclaims that “Any player, umpire or club or league official or employee who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform shall be declared permanently ineligible.''

In the decades following the 1919 Series, Dodgers manager Leo Durocher and Detroit Tigers pitcher Denny McLain were among those suspended for gambling, and Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle were reprimanded for associating with casinos, even though both had retired years earlier. As far back as the 1970s, Bench and others had worried about Rose. By all accounts, he never bet against his own team, but even betting on the Reds left himself open to blackmail and raised questions about whether a given managerial decision was based on his own financial interest.

In August 1989, at a New York press conference, Giamatti spoke some of the saddest words in baseball history: “One of the game's greatest players has engaged in a variety of acts which have stained the game, and he must now live with the consequences of those acts.” Giamatti announced that Rose had agreed to a lifetime ban from baseball, a decision that in 1991 the Hall of Fame would rule left him ineligible for induction. Rose attempted to downplay the news, insisting that he had never bet on baseball and that he would eventually be reinstated.

Within weeks of his announcement, Giamatti was dead from a heart attack. But the ban remained in place and Rose never made it to the Hall in his lifetime, although he did receive 41 votes in 1992 (when 323 votes were needed), around the time the Hall formally ruled that those banned from the game could never be elected. His status was long debated. Rose’s supporters including Donald Trump, who in 2015, the year before he was elected president, tweeted: “Can’t believe Major League Baseball just rejected @PeteRose_14 for the Hall of Fame. He’s paid the price. So ridiculous — let him in!”

Meanwhile, his story changed. In a November 1989 memoir, written with “The Boys of Summer” author Roger Kahn, Rose again claimed innocence, only to reverse himself in 2004. He desperately wanted to come back, and effectively destroyed his chances. He would continue to spend time at casinos, insisting he was there for promotion, not gambling. He believed he had “messed up” and that his father would have been ashamed, but he still bet on baseball, albeit legally.

“I don’t think betting is morally wrong. I don’t even think betting on baseball is morally wrong,” he wrote in “Play Hungry,” a memoir released in 2019. “There are legal ways, and there are illegal ways, and betting on baseball the way I did was against the rules of baseball.”

His disgrace was all the harder because no one seemed to live for baseball more than Rose did. He remembered details of games from long ago and could quote the most obscure statistics about players from other teams. He was as relentless in spring training as he was in the postseason, when he brawled with the New York Mets’ Buddy Harrelson during the 1973 NL playoffs.

His compulsion was most memorably defined in an otherwise meaningless contest — the 1970 All-Star Game, in Cincinnati.

In the bottom of the 12th inning, the score tied at 4, he singled with two outs and advanced to second on a single by Billy Grabarkewitz. When Jim Hickman followed with a single, Rose raced past third and crashed at home into the Cleveland Indians’ Ray Fosse, scoring the winning run and fracturing Fosse’s shoulder. It was a collision often replayed, and an injury from which the catcher would say years later still pained him.

“Would I do the same thing again today in the same situation? Damn right I would,” Rose wrote in his 2019 memoir. “But would I rather it had all gone down without Ray having suffered an injury that would dog his career? You bet.”

Rose didn’t drink or smoke but indulged himself in other ways. He cared openly about money, vowing to become the first singles hitter to make $100,000 a year and leaving the Reds for the Phillies after declaring free agency at the end of the 1978 season (Rose returned in 1984). He was a longtime womanizer whose two marriages ended in divorce and who acknowledged fathering a child out of wedlock. In 1990, he pleaded guilty to two charges of filing false income tax returns and served five months in prison, the prosecutor calling his sentencing ″a sad day for those young Americans to whom Pete Rose was an idol.″

In the beginning, it was all about the game. He was a Cincinnati native from a working-class neighborhood whose father, Harry Francis Rose, like the father of Mickey Mantle, taught his son to be a switch hitter. Rose mastered his skills with a broom handle and a rubber ball, thrown to him by his younger brother, Dave.

"I'd let him get as close as he wanted,'' Pete Rose told The Cincinnati Enquirer in 2015. "The closer he got, the harder it was to hit. Hour after hour, he'd try to strike me out. I wore that wall out.''

The Roses attended numerous games at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field, where the elder Rose noticed that St. Louis outfielder Enos Slaughter would always run full speed, whether at bat or in the field, and tell his son to do the same.

Pete Rose graduated from high school in June 1960. He flew to Rochester, New York, two days later, and then rode a bus some 45 miles to Geneva, home of the Reds’ level D minor league team. By 1962, he had been promoted to level A, in Macon, Georgia. He batted .330 and vowed to displace Reds second baseman Don Blasingame in 1963, telling a reporter “I’m going to be on his heels.”

Blasingame was with the Washington Senators by midseason and Rose was a phenomenon: “Charlie Hustle,” Yankees pitcher Whitey Ford reportedly called him, mockingly, after watching him hurry to first upon drawing a walk in spring training. Rose hit .273 as a rookie and, starting in 1965, batted .300 or higher 14 out of 15 seasons. He was so dependable that in 1968, the “Year of the Pitcher,” he led the league with a .335 average, one of three batting titles.

“You could see he was going to be something, even in the minor leagues,” Dave Bristol, who managed him in the minors and for the Reds, told the Los Angeles Times in 1985. “You knew he was going to set records at something, if not Cobb’s. All that determination. He didn’t hit a ball, he attacked it. He was like a guy breaking up a dogfight. He loved to hit and hit and hit. You go to his hotel room at night, and he’s hitting the bed post.”

After the 1969 season, when the Reds finished third, Bristol was fired and replaced by a minor league manager, 36-year-old Sparky Anderson. The age of “The Big Red Machine” had arrived. Anderson was known as “Captain Hook” for his willingness to replace pitchers, but he flattered and pampered his hitters, naming Rose team captain and letting Rose practice separately with Morgan, Bench and Perez. Between 1970 and 1976, the Reds won five division titles, four pennants and two World Series.

As much as any player, Rose made the machine run, and not just on offense. With the Reds struggling at the start of the 1975 season, he agreed to move from left field to third base and make room for power hitter George Foster. The Reds were soon unstoppable, finishing 108-54 and sweeping Pittsburgh in the playoffs. In the World Series, one of baseball’s most dramatic, they outlasted the Boston Red Sox in seven games and won their first championship since 1940. Rose batted .370 and enjoyed himself so completely that during Game 6, won by Boston on Carlton Fisk’s 11th-inning homer, he turned to the Red Sox catcher during a previous inning and marveled at what a great game they were in.

The Reds faded after the 1976 season and their World Series sweep against the Yankees, but Rose’s hits continued. In 1978, he batted safely in 44 straight games, placing him second behind Joe DiMaggio’s 56. After leaving for the Phillies in 1979, he surpassed Stan Musial as the National League’s career hit leader and helped lead Philadelphia to its first World Series title in 1980. At age 39, he batted a solid .282 and scored 95 runs, and, always hustling, made one of the World Series’ most memorable defensive plays.

In the decisive Game 6 against Kansas City, the Royals trailed 4-1 going into the ninth inning, but loaded the bases with one out against reliever Tug McGraw. Kansas City’s Frank White then lofted a foul pop fly to the first base side of home plate. Catcher Bob Boone raced under it, only to have the ball pop out of his glove. Rose, sprinting in from first, snatched the ball for the out. McGraw struck out Willie Wilson to end the game.

Rose played in one more World Series, in 1983, when he batted .313 even as the Phillies fell to the Baltimore Orioles in five games. He signed with the Montreal Expos in 1984, but rejoined the Reds in August as player-manager, replacing the fired Vern Rapp after the Reds acquired him in exchange for a minor leaguer. “There’s no question I’ll make some mistakes,” he told reporters.

Rose had planned to limit himself to pinch-hitting with the Reds, but the trade revived him and he hit .365 over the rest of the season after batting just .259 for Montreal. He retired as a player after the 1986 season and his last game as a manager came two days before his banishment, Aug. 21, 1989, a 6-5 victory over the Chicago Cubs. His career managerial record was 412-373.

In his post-baseball life, he did make it to a few honorary associations. The Reds voted him into the team’s Hall of Fame in 2016, the year before a bronze sculpture of Rose’s iconic slide was unveiled outside of Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park.

Rose the man was never inducted into Cooperstown, but his career was well represented. Items at the Baseball Hall include his helmet from his MVP 1973 season, the bat he used in 1978 when his hitting streak reached 44 and the cleats he wore, in 1985, on the day he became the game’s hits king.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/9/1727739928209.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>NEW YORK (AP) — Pete Rose, baseball’s career hits leader and fallen idol who undermined his historic achievements and Hall of Fame dreams by gambling on the game he loved and once embodied, has died. He was 83.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">The Reds are heartbroken to learn of the passing of baseball legend Pete Rose. <a href="https://t.co/zOlU9NreWR">pic.twitter.com/zOlU9NreWR</a>&mdash; Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) <a href="https://twitter.com/Reds/status/1840901336931385371?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 30, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Stephanie Wheatley, a spokesperson for Clark County in Nevada, confirmed on behalf of the medical examiner that Rose died Monday. Wheatley said his cause and manner of death had not yet been determined.For fans who came of age in the 1960s and ‘70s, no player was more exciting than the Cincinnati Reds’ No. 14, “Charlie Hustle,” the brash superstar with the shaggy hair, puggish nose and muscular forearms. At the dawn of artificial surfaces, divisional play and free agency, Rose was old school, a conscious, dirt-stained throwback to baseball’s early days. Millions could never forget him crouched and scowling at the plate, running full speed to first even after drawing a walk, or sprinting for the next base and diving headfirst into the bag.A 17-time All-Star, the switch-hitting Rose played on three World Series winners. He was the National League MVP in 1973 and World Series MVP two years later. He holds the major league record for games played (3,562) and plate appearances (15,890) and the NL record for the longest hitting streak (44). He was the leadoff man for one of baseball’s most formidable lineups with the Reds’ championship teams of 1975 and 1976, with teammates that included Hall of Famers Johnny Bench, Tony Perez and Joe Morgan.But no milestone approached his 4,256 hits, breaking his hero Ty Cobb’s 4,191 and signifying his excellence no matter the notoriety which followed. It was a total so extraordinary that you could average 200 hits for 20 years and still come up short. Rose’s secret was consistency, and longevity. Over 24 seasons, all but six played entirely with the Reds, Rose had 200 hits or more 10 times, and more than 180 four other times. He batted .303 overall, even while switching from second base to outfield to third to first, and he led the league in hits seven times.“Every summer, three things are going to happen,” Rose liked to say, “the grass is going to get green, the weather is going to get hot, and Pete Rose is going to get 200 hits and bat .300.”Rose was Rookie of the Year in 1963, but he started off 0 for 12 with three walks and a hit by pitch before getting his first major league hit, an eighth-inning triple off Pittsburgh’s Bob Friend. It came in Cincinnati on April 13, 1963, the day before Rose’s 22nd birthday. He reached 1,000 in 1968, 2,000 just five years later and 3,000 just five years after that.He moved into second place, ahead of Hank Aaron, with hit No. 3,772, in 1982. No. 4,000 was off the Phillies’ Jerry Koosman in 1984, exactly 21 years to the day after his first hit. He caught up with Cobb on Sept. 8, 1985, and surpassed him three days later, in Cincinnati, with Rose’s mother and teenage son, Pete Jr., among those in attendance.Rose was 44 and the team’s player-manager. Batting left-handed against the San Diego Padres’ Eric Show in the first inning, he smacked a 2-1 slider into left field, a clean single. The crowd of 47,000-plus stood and yelled. The game was halted to celebrate. Rose was given the ball and the first base bag, then wept openly on the shoulder of first base coach and former teammate, Tommy Helms. He told Pete Jr., who would later play briefly for the Reds: "I love you, and I hope you pass me." He thought of his late father, a star athlete himself who had pushed him to play sports since childhood. And he thought of Cobb, the dead-ball era slasher whom Rose so emulated that he named another son Tyler.Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, watching from New York, declared that Rose had “reserved a prominent spot in Cooperstown.” After the game, a 2-0 win for the Reds in which Rose scored both runs, he received a phone call from President Ronald Reagan.“Your reputation and legacy are secure," Reagan told him. “It will be a long time before anyone is standing in the spot where you're standing now."Four years later, he was gone.On March 20, 1989, Ueberroth (who would soon be succeeded by A. Bartlett Giamatti) announced that his office was conducting a "full inquiry into serious allegations" about Rose. Reports emerged that he had been relying on a network of bookies and friends and others in the gambling world to place bets on baseball games, including some with the Reds. Rose denied any wrongdoing, but the investigation found that the “accumulated testimony of witnesses, together with the documentary evidence and telephone records reveal extensive betting activity by Pete Rose in connection with professional baseball and, in particular, Cincinnati Reds games, during the 1985, 1986, and 1987 baseball seasons.”Betting on baseball had been a primal sin since 1920, when several members of the Chicago White Sox were expelled for throwing the 1919 World Series — to the Cincinnati Reds. Baseball’s Rule 21, posted in every professional clubhouse, proclaims that “Any player, umpire or club or league official or employee who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform shall be declared permanently ineligible.''In the decades following the 1919 Series, Dodgers manager Leo Durocher and Detroit Tigers pitcher Denny McLain were among those suspended for gambling, and Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle were reprimanded for associating with casinos, even though both had retired years earlier. As far back as the 1970s, Bench and others had worried about Rose. By all accounts, he never bet against his own team, but even betting on the Reds left himself open to blackmail and raised questions about whether a given managerial decision was based on his own financial interest.In August 1989, at a New York press conference, Giamatti spoke some of the saddest words in baseball history: “One of the game's greatest players has engaged in a variety of acts which have stained the game, and he must now live with the consequences of those acts.” Giamatti announced that Rose had agreed to a lifetime ban from baseball, a decision that in 1991 the Hall of Fame would rule left him ineligible for induction. Rose attempted to downplay the news, insisting that he had never bet on baseball and that he would eventually be reinstated.Within weeks of his announcement, Giamatti was dead from a heart attack. But the ban remained in place and Rose never made it to the Hall in his lifetime, although he did receive 41 votes in 1992 (when 323 votes were needed), around the time the Hall formally ruled that those banned from the game could never be elected. His status was long debated. Rose’s supporters including Donald Trump, who in 2015, the year before he was elected president, tweeted: “Can’t believe Major League Baseball just rejected @PeteRose_14 for the Hall of Fame. He’s paid the price. So ridiculous — let him in!”Meanwhile, his story changed. In a November 1989 memoir, written with “The Boys of Summer” author Roger Kahn, Rose again claimed innocence, only to reverse himself in 2004. He desperately wanted to come back, and effectively destroyed his chances. He would continue to spend time at casinos, insisting he was there for promotion, not gambling. He believed he had “messed up” and that his father would have been ashamed, but he still bet on baseball, albeit legally.“I don’t think betting is morally wrong. I don’t even think betting on baseball is morally wrong,” he wrote in “Play Hungry,” a memoir released in 2019. “There are legal ways, and there are illegal ways, and betting on baseball the way I did was against the rules of baseball.”His disgrace was all the harder because no one seemed to live for baseball more than Rose did. He remembered details of games from long ago and could quote the most obscure statistics about players from other teams. He was as relentless in spring training as he was in the postseason, when he brawled with the New York Mets’ Buddy Harrelson during the 1973 NL playoffs.His compulsion was most memorably defined in an otherwise meaningless contest — the 1970 All-Star Game, in Cincinnati.In the bottom of the 12th inning, the score tied at 4, he singled with two outs and advanced to second on a single by Billy Grabarkewitz. When Jim Hickman followed with a single, Rose raced past third and crashed at home into the Cleveland Indians’ Ray Fosse, scoring the winning run and fracturing Fosse’s shoulder. It was a collision often replayed, and an injury from which the catcher would say years later still pained him.“Would I do the same thing again today in the same situation? Damn right I would,” Rose wrote in his 2019 memoir. “But would I rather it had all gone down without Ray having suffered an injury that would dog his career? You bet.”Rose didn’t drink or smoke but indulged himself in other ways. He cared openly about money, vowing to become the first singles hitter to make $100,000 a year and leaving the Reds for the Phillies after declaring free agency at the end of the 1978 season (Rose returned in 1984). He was a longtime womanizer whose two marriages ended in divorce and who acknowledged fathering a child out of wedlock. In 1990, he pleaded guilty to two charges of filing false income tax returns and served five months in prison, the prosecutor calling his sentencing ″a sad day for those young Americans to whom Pete Rose was an idol.″In the beginning, it was all about the game. He was a Cincinnati native from a working-class neighborhood whose father, Harry Francis Rose, like the father of Mickey Mantle, taught his son to be a switch hitter. Rose mastered his skills with a broom handle and a rubber ball, thrown to him by his younger brother, Dave."I'd let him get as close as he wanted,'' Pete Rose told The Cincinnati Enquirer in 2015. "The closer he got, the harder it was to hit. Hour after hour, he'd try to strike me out. I wore that wall out.''The Roses attended numerous games at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field, where the elder Rose noticed that St. Louis outfielder Enos Slaughter would always run full speed, whether at bat or in the field, and tell his son to do the same.Pete Rose graduated from high school in June 1960. He flew to Rochester, New York, two days later, and then rode a bus some 45 miles to Geneva, home of the Reds’ level D minor league team. By 1962, he had been promoted to level A, in Macon, Georgia. He batted .330 and vowed to displace Reds second baseman Don Blasingame in 1963, telling a reporter “I’m going to be on his heels.”Blasingame was with the Washington Senators by midseason and Rose was a phenomenon: “Charlie Hustle,” Yankees pitcher Whitey Ford reportedly called him, mockingly, after watching him hurry to first upon drawing a walk in spring training. Rose hit .273 as a rookie and, starting in 1965, batted .300 or higher 14 out of 15 seasons. He was so dependable that in 1968, the “Year of the Pitcher,” he led the league with a .335 average, one of three batting titles.“You could see he was going to be something, even in the minor leagues,” Dave Bristol, who managed him in the minors and for the Reds, told the Los Angeles Times in 1985. “You knew he was going to set records at something, if not Cobb’s. All that determination. He didn’t hit a ball, he attacked it. He was like a guy breaking up a dogfight. He loved to hit and hit and hit. You go to his hotel room at night, and he’s hitting the bed post.”After the 1969 season, when the Reds finished third, Bristol was fired and replaced by a minor league manager, 36-year-old Sparky Anderson. The age of “The Big Red Machine” had arrived. Anderson was known as “Captain Hook” for his willingness to replace pitchers, but he flattered and pampered his hitters, naming Rose team captain and letting Rose practice separately with Morgan, Bench and Perez. Between 1970 and 1976, the Reds won five division titles, four pennants and two World Series.As much as any player, Rose made the machine run, and not just on offense. With the Reds struggling at the start of the 1975 season, he agreed to move from left field to third base and make room for power hitter George Foster. The Reds were soon unstoppable, finishing 108-54 and sweeping Pittsburgh in the playoffs. In the World Series, one of baseball’s most dramatic, they outlasted the Boston Red Sox in seven games and won their first championship since 1940. Rose batted .370 and enjoyed himself so completely that during Game 6, won by Boston on Carlton Fisk’s 11th-inning homer, he turned to the Red Sox catcher during a previous inning and marveled at what a great game they were in.The Reds faded after the 1976 season and their World Series sweep against the Yankees, but Rose’s hits continued. In 1978, he batted safely in 44 straight games, placing him second behind Joe DiMaggio’s 56. After leaving for the Phillies in 1979, he surpassed Stan Musial as the National League’s career hit leader and helped lead Philadelphia to its first World Series title in 1980. At age 39, he batted a solid .282 and scored 95 runs, and, always hustling, made one of the World Series’ most memorable defensive plays.In the decisive Game 6 against Kansas City, the Royals trailed 4-1 going into the ninth inning, but loaded the bases with one out against reliever Tug McGraw. Kansas City’s Frank White then lofted a foul pop fly to the first base side of home plate. Catcher Bob Boone raced under it, only to have the ball pop out of his glove. Rose, sprinting in from first, snatched the ball for the out. McGraw struck out Willie Wilson to end the game.Rose played in one more World Series, in 1983, when he batted .313 even as the Phillies fell to the Baltimore Orioles in five games. He signed with the Montreal Expos in 1984, but rejoined the Reds in August as player-manager, replacing the fired Vern Rapp after the Reds acquired him in exchange for a minor leaguer. “There’s no question I’ll make some mistakes,” he told reporters.Rose had planned to limit himself to pinch-hitting with the Reds, but the trade revived him and he hit .365 over the rest of the season after batting just .259 for Montreal. He retired as a player after the 1986 season and his last game as a manager came two days before his banishment, Aug. 21, 1989, a 6-5 victory over the Chicago Cubs. His career managerial record was 412-373.In his post-baseball life, he did make it to a few honorary associations. The Reds voted him into the team’s Hall of Fame in 2016, the year before a bronze sculpture of Rose’s iconic slide was unveiled outside of Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park.Rose the man was never inducted into Cooperstown, but his career was well represented. Items at the Baseball Hall include his helmet from his MVP 1973 season, the bat he used in 1978 when his hitting streak reached 44 and the cleats he wore, in 1985, on the day he became the game’s hits king.

Pete Rose, MLB’s controversial all-time hits leader, dead at 83

NEW YORK (AP) — Some Verizon customers across the U.S. were hit by a service outage Monday.

The issue appeared to knock out cellphone service for tens of thousands of Verizon users. Data from outage tracker DownDetector shows that reports topped 100,000 shortly after 11 a.m. ET — and while that number dropped significantly, nearly 48,000 were still facing issues closer to 4 p.m. ET.

Frustrated users online shared that they didn’t have service in many parts of the country — including the Southeastern U.S., where residents are still reeling from the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-asheville-f02869c7d01e68f2d7f0553abb82252f">aftermath of Hurricane Helene</a>. But the outage wasn’t isolated to one region. DownDetector’s map also showed many reports coming from the West Coast, Midwest and Northeast.

In an update posted on social media platform X, New York-based Verizon&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/VerizonNews/status/1840780785084985777" target="_blank">wrote</a>&nbsp;that it was “aware of an issue impacting service for some customers.” The company added that it had engineers looking into the problem and was “working quickly to identify and solve the issue.”

The Federal Communications Commission also&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/FCC/status/1840820311161520581" target="_blank">acknowledged</a>&nbsp;the outage later in the day, but didn’t provide further details beyond saying it was looking to determine the cause.

Some Verizon iPhone customers saw SOS messages displayed in the status bar on their cellphones. The message indicates that the device is having trouble connecting to their cellular provider’s network, but it can make emergency calls through other carrier networks.

During cell&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/att-outage-cell-service-phone-1cd6f595356b385cc9a4495d1f06b983">service outages like this</a>, one alternative is connecting to nearby Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi calling is also a built-in feature on most Android devices and iPhones and can be turned on under the phone’s settings.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/9/1727730650405.png" alt="Google image" />
 <figcaption>Google image</figcaption>
 </figure>NEW YORK (AP) — Some Verizon customers across the U.S. were hit by a service outage Monday.The issue appeared to knock out cellphone service for tens of thousands of Verizon users. Data from outage tracker DownDetector shows that reports topped 100,000 shortly after 11 a.m. ET — and while that number dropped significantly, nearly 48,000 were still facing issues closer to 4 p.m. ET.Frustrated users online shared that they didn’t have service in many parts of the country — including the Southeastern U.S., where residents are still reeling from the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-asheville-f02869c7d01e68f2d7f0553abb82252f">aftermath of Hurricane Helene</a>. But the outage wasn’t isolated to one region. DownDetector’s map also showed many reports coming from the West Coast, Midwest and Northeast.In an update posted on social media platform X, New York-based Verizon&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/VerizonNews/status/1840780785084985777" target="_blank">wrote</a>&nbsp;that it was “aware of an issue impacting service for some customers.” The company added that it had engineers looking into the problem and was “working quickly to identify and solve the issue.”The Federal Communications Commission also&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/FCC/status/1840820311161520581" target="_blank">acknowledged</a>&nbsp;the outage later in the day, but didn’t provide further details beyond saying it was looking to determine the cause.Some Verizon iPhone customers saw SOS messages displayed in the status bar on their cellphones. The message indicates that the device is having trouble connecting to their cellular provider’s network, but it can make emergency calls through other carrier networks.During cell&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/att-outage-cell-service-phone-1cd6f595356b385cc9a4495d1f06b983">service outages like this</a>, one alternative is connecting to nearby Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi calling is also a built-in feature on most Android devices and iPhones and can be turned on under the phone’s settings.