AFP

Legendary Major League Baseball broadcaster Vin Scully, “voice” of the Los Angeles Dodgers for 67 years, died Tuesday at age 94, the club announced.

Scully, who retired in 2016, began as the Dodgers broadcaster in 1950 when the club was Brooklyn-based and followed them to Los Angeles when they moved to Southern California in 1958.

“We have lost an icon,” said Dodgers president Stan Kasten. “Vin Scully was one of the greatest voices in all of sports.

“He was a giant of a man, not only as a broadcaster but as a humanitarian. He loved people. He loved life. He loved baseball and the Dodgers. And he loved his family. His voice will always be heard and etched in all of our minds forever.

“Vin will be truly missed.”

His stay with the Dodgers was the longest by any US sports broadcaster with a single club. He covered 25 World Series and 12 no-hitters with a descriptive style and smooth vocal tone that became a trademark, delighting generations of listeners.

Scully also handled broadcast duties at NFL games and PGA Tour events in the 1970s and 1980s for CBS Sports telecasts.

The press box at Dodger Stadium has been named for Scully since 2001 and a street in the club’s Florida pre-season training complex is named Vin Scully Way.

Abortion rights advocates celebrated Tuesday as the Midwestern US state of Kansas voted to maintain the right to the procedure, the first major poll on the flashpoint issue since the Supreme Court overturned nationwide access in June.

Kansans rejected an amendment that would have scrapped language in the state constitution guaranteeing the right to the procedure and could have paved the way for stricter regulations or a ban.

The vote was widely seen as a test case for abortion rights nationwide, as Republican-dominated legislatures rush to impose strict bans on the procedure following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Pro-abortion rights campaigners and supporters celebrated the win for their side of the hotly contested US debate.

“I’m just beside myself,” campaign volunteer Anne Melia told AFP.

When polls closed at 7:00 pm (0000 GMT), Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab said turnout was as high as 50 percent on this referendum, local media reported, a number usually expected for a general election.

Poll worker Marsha Barrett said some 250 voters had come to a station in the Kansas City suburb of Olathe by noon — the same number it might see all day in a presidential election. 

“This election is crazy,” Barrett told AFP. “People are determined to vote.”

President Joe Biden also hailed the result. “Tonight, Kansans used their voices to protect women’s right to choose and access reproductive health care,” he said on Twitter.

“It’s an important victory for Kansas, but also for every American who believes that women should be able to make their own health decisions without government interference.”

In a separate statement, he urged Congress to “listen to the will of the American people” and pass a bill codifying the right to abortion.

Other states including California and Kentucky are set to vote on the hot-button issue in November, at the same time as Congressional midterm elections in which both Republicans and Democrats hope to use it to mobilize their supporters nationwide.

– ‘Remarkable’ result –

In Kansas, the ballot centered on a 2019 ruling by the state’s supreme court that guarantees access to abortion. 

In response, the Republican-dominated state legislature introduced an amendment known as “Value Them Both” that would have scrapped the constitutional right — with the stated aim of handing regulation of the procedure back to lawmakers.

In the opposing camp, activists said the campaign was a barely masked bid to clear the way for an outright ban — one state legislator had already introduced a bill that would ban abortion without exceptions for rape, incest or the mother’s life. 

For Ashley All, spokeswoman for pro-abortion rights campaign Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, the result of Tuesday’s referendum was “remarkable.”

“Kansans understood that this amendment would mandate government control over private medical decisions,” she said. 

But voter Sylvia Brantley, 60, told AFP earlier in the day she voted in favor of the change because she believes “babies matter, too.”

She said she wanted to see more regulations, in the hope that “Kansas will not be a marketplace for killing babies.”

Activists complained that the phrasing of the ballot question was counterintuitive and potentially confusing: voting “Yes” to the amendment meant abortion rights would be curbed, while people who wished to keep those rights intact had to vote “No.” 

– All eyes on Kansas –

While abortion rights advocates in Kansas could breathe a sigh of relief in their own state, they still are looking nervously to neighboring Oklahoma and Missouri, which are among at least eight states to have passed near-total bans — the latter making no exceptions for rape or incest — while Midwestern Indiana adopted its own rigid ban on Saturday.

Kansas Governor Laura Kelly tweeted her support for the amendment’s rejection. 

“Kansans stood up for fundamental rights today,” the Democrat said. 

“We rejected divisive legislation that jeopardized our economic future & put women’s health care access at risk.”

One voter in the town of Prairie Village, who declined to give her name, said she struggled to decide which way to vote. 

“I’ve gone back and forth the whole time,” she told AFP, saying she ultimately chose to vote “no.”

“I feel like women should have a choice, but I also don’t want full-term babies aborted,” she said. 

The outcome in Kansas means that abortion will remain permitted up to 22 weeks of pregnancy.

Kansas leans heavily toward the Republican Party, which favors stricter abortion regulations, but a 2021 survey from Fort Hays State University found that fewer than 20 percent of Kansas respondents agreed that abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape or incest.

Abortion rights advocates celebrated Tuesday as the Midwestern US state of Kansas voted to maintain the right to the procedure, the first major poll on the flashpoint issue since the Supreme Court overturned nationwide access in June.

Kansans rejected an amendment that would have scrapped language in the state constitution guaranteeing the right to the procedure and could have paved the way for stricter regulations or a ban.

The vote was widely seen as a test case for abortion rights nationwide, as Republican-dominated legislatures rush to impose strict bans on the procedure following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Results showed that votes in favor of keeping abortion in the state constitution far surpassed the votes against. This reflects that fact that a majority of Americans support abortion access, multiple studies have shown.

When polls closed at 7:00 pm (0000 GMT), Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab said turnout was as high as 50 percent on this referendum, local media reported, a number usually expected for a general election.

Poll worker Marsha Barrett said some 250 voters had come to a station in the Kansas City suburb of Olathe by noon — the same number it might see all day in a presidential election. 

“This election is crazy,” Barrett told AFP. “People are determined to vote.”

Other states including California and Kentucky are set to vote on the hot-button issue in November, at the same time as Congressional midterm elections in which both Republicans and Democrats hope to use it to mobilize their supporters nationwide.

In Kansas, the ballot centered on a 2019 ruling by the state’s supreme court that guarantees access to abortion. 

In response, the Republican-dominated state legislature introduced an amendment known as “Value Them Both” that would have scrapped the constitutional right — with the stated aim of handing regulation of the procedure back to lawmakers.

In the opposing camp, activists said the campaign was a barely masked bid to clear the way for an outright ban — one state legislator had already introduced a bill that would ban abortion without exceptions for rape, incest or the mother’s life. 

For Ashley All, spokeswoman for pro-abortion rights campaign Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, the amendment would have dealt a blow to “personal autonomy.”

But voter Sylvia Brantley, 60, said she voted in favor of the change because she believes “babies matter, too.”

She said she wants to see more regulations, in the hope that “Kansas will not be a marketplace for killing babies.”

Activists complained that the phrasing of the ballot question was counterintuitive and potentially confusing: voting “Yes” to the amendment meant abortion rights would be curbed, while people who wished to keep those rights intact must vote “No.” 

– All eyes on Kansas –

While abortion rights advocates in Kansas could breathe a sigh of relief in their own state, they still are looking nervously to neighboring Oklahoma and Missouri, which are among at least eight states to have passed near-total bans — the latter making no exceptions for rape or incest — while Midwestern Indiana adopted its own rigid ban on Saturday.

Voter Chris Ehly, in Prairie Village, said he voted “no” because his daughter and wife “are very adamant about the decision.”

“I want to respect them,” he said. 

Another Prairie Village voter, who declined to give her name, said she struggled to decide which way to vote. 

“I’ve gone back and forth the whole time,” she told AFP, saying she ultimately chose to vote “no.”

“I feel like women should have a choice, but I also don’t want full-term babies aborted,” she said. 

The outcome in Kansas means that abortion will remain permitted up to 22 weeks of pregnancy.

Kansas leans heavily toward the Republican Party, which favors stricter abortion regulations, but a 2021 survey from Fort Hays State University found that fewer than 20 percent of Kansas respondents agreed that abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape or incest.

Having battled mighty heroes across time and space, the invisible extraterrestrial hunters of the “Predator” films have a new — or rather, old — foe in an 18th-century female Comanche warrior.

Prequel film “Prey,” out Friday on Hulu in the United States, is perhaps the most unlikely direction yet for the “Predator” franchise, which first hit screens with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1987 action classic.

Since then, the bloodthirsty trophy-hunting creatures have slaughtered humans in Central American rainforests, Los Angeles and faraway planets, even battling the monsters of the “Alien” franchise in two crossover films.

The latest installment is set centuries earlier, landing its predator in 1719 North America, where it takes up the trail of Comanche hunters, French fur-trappers and buffalo.

Director Dan Trachtenberg told a packed preview screening at Comic-Con in San Diego last month he had been inspired to make the film because “Native American and Comanche specifically have often been relegated to playing the sidekick or the villain, and never the hero.”

During the 19th century, Comanches clashed with Europeans and other Native American peoples across the Southern Plains of the modern-day United States, earning a reputation for fearsome military prowess.

Hollywood has mostly portrayed them as brutal enemies, such as in John Ford’s classic Western “The Searchers.”

In the new film, Amber Midthunder plays the heroine Naru, a young woman who must battle sexism within her own tribe as well as the film’s villain.

Disney-owned 20th Century Studios’ decision “to get behind a movie like this that has not just a female action hero, but an Indigenous female action hero… that’s something that I don’t recall seeing, maybe possibly ever,” she said.

The film’s setting is “a real time in history for us, that is not that long ago, (when) I had ancestors walking around doing cool stuff, you know?”

While “Prey” was shot in English, French and Comanche, its Native American actors later re-recorded their lines so that the whole movie can be played in Comanche — a first for a major studio film, according to producer Jhane Myers, who is herself Comanche.

For Midthunder, “what I really honestly thought about every day I came to work, was not wanting to let down Comanche people first and foremost, but specifically Indigenous people.”

“And that if it did work, and we did pull it off, then how great that would be for us — to have something where we feel like we can look at a movie and feel represented and reflected in a way that you’re proud of,” she said.

“Because we don’t often get that.”

US senators on Tuesday approved benefits for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits, which President Joe Biden, who believes his son Beau died of such exposure, has called a “decisive and bipartisan win.”

Open trash fires have been commonly used by the US military in conflicts after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and are lit to get rid of everything from plastic bottles to human waste and old tires — all incinerated with jet fuel.

But the fumes from these holes in the ground are suspected of causing a range of illnesses among soldiers, from chronic respiratory ailments to a variety of cancers.

Biden believes the pits are at the root of the brain cancer that claimed the life of his son Beau, who served in Iraq in 2008.

By 86 votes to 11, the Senate passed the PACT Act, which expands the window of eligibility for free medical care and ensures that, for certain respiratory illnesses and cancers, veterans will get disability benefits without having to prove they were made sick by exposure to the pits. 

The passage came just days after Republican senators had rejected the bill, triggering withering condemnation from veterans groups and activists, including the outspoken comedian Jon Stewart, who had championed the cause.

Biden welcomed the approval of the act, saying, “While we can never fully repay the enormous debt we owe to those who have worn the uniform, today, the United States Congress took important action to meet this sacred obligation.”

He said the new law would be “the biggest expansion of benefits for service-connected health issues in 30 years and the largest single bill ever to comprehensively address exposure to burn pits.”

– ‘Proper care’ for exposure –

Vice President Kamala Harris said that “too many of our veterans and their families have long waited for this day. With today’s passage of the PACT Act, our veterans will finally see an expansion of their health benefits and proper care for burn pit exposure. They deserve it.”

The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that some 3.5 million US service members were exposed to toxic smoke in Afghanistan, Iraq or other conflict zones, and more than 200,000 veterans have registered on lists of people who came into contact with burn pits.

The Pentagon funded a $10 million study in 2018 that concluded there was “a potential cause and effect relationship between exposure to emissions from simulated burn pits and subsequent health outcomes.”

Until now, nearly 80 percent of veterans’ requests to have suspected burn pit ailments acknowledged by the government were rejected, according to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).

A poll by the organization found that 82 percent of those questioned said they were exposed to burn pits or other airborne toxic chemicals. 

Of these people, 90 percent said they are or may be suffering from symptoms linked to that exposure.

Like all good animated family movies, “Luck” has a thoroughly optimistic premise: that no matter how hopeless or dire your circumstances may seem, something good will eventually come of it.

Apple TV+ will be hoping the same is true for John Lasseter, the former Pixar guru who resigned under a cloud of #MeToo harassment claims, and later became head of the new Skydance Animation.

“Luck” is that studio’s first film, available to stream Friday, which follows 18-year-old girl Sam and a talking black cat called Bob on their adventures in the fantastical Land of Luck.

In this land of perfect fortune, all the world’s good and bad luck is produced by magical creatures including leprechauns, dragons, unicorns and goblins, who then funnel it down to Earth.

The movie features a voice cast of Simon Pegg, Whoopi Goldberg and Jane Fonda, along with Broadway star Eva Noblezada in the lead role of Sam, the world’s unluckiest girl.

The cast could have been even starrier, had Emma Thompson not very publicly withdrawn in 2019 over the hiring of Lasseter, publishing her resignation letter in the Los Angeles Times.

It was a decision that other cast members have mulled over, with Pegg telling AFP he “initially” had qualms before deciding to proceed.

“It’s a dangerous thing to just write people off immediately, I think, if there’s some accountability, if there’s some acknowledgement and acceptance,” he told AFP.

– ‘Complicated’ –

Lasseter, who transformed Pixar from a small Lucasfilm graphics department into the world’s most successful animation studio with hits including “Toy Story,” was accused of misconduct at the 2017 height of the #MeToo movement.

The powerful studio president apologized to “anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of an unwanted hug,” and for “falling short” in ensuring a culture of “trust and respect.” 

The following year, he resigned, acknowledging in an internal memo that he had made staff feel “disrespected or uncomfortable.”

Multiple sources alleged that Lasseter was a heavy drinker at company social events who would try to kiss women, place his hands on their thighs and hug them in meetings. 

In her letter, Thompson said the case of Lasseter was “complicated.”

Upon his hiring by Skydance, Thompson wrote that “any Skydance employees who don’t want to give him a second chance have to stay and be uncomfortable or lose their jobs.”

For Pegg, it was important that Lasseter had “admitted accountability for the things that had been aimed at him.”

“We’re all doomed if we are banished for stuff that we regret and apologize for, and mean that apology. That’s the most important thing.”

Goldberg had a more succinct take: “Everybody steps in it sometime,” she told AFP.

– ‘Real-world stakes’ –

In the film, Sam — an orphan who has reached adulthood without finding a permanent foster home — follows Bob the cat (Pegg) into the Land of Luck in order to find a lucky penny.

She hopes this magical coin can help her young friend Hazel find the “forever family” she never had.

Of course, getting her hands on it is anything but straightforward, taking Sam on a physical journey through the realm’s whirring Rube Goldberg machines and glittering waterfalls — and an emotional one.

“I really love that element. It’s a film which is the most outrageous environments and concepts but paired with genuine real-world stakes about friendship,” said Pegg.

“Sometimes what appears to be bad luck can end up being good luck. Not least for Sam, who apparently lives an entire life of bad luck, only to go on this adventure and find exactly what she’s looking for.”

For the filmmakers, the withdrawal of Thompson led to the hiring of Oscar-winner and social campaigner Jane Fonda, playing an elegant dragon who is the CEO of the luck-making operation. 

“When Jane joined the cast, I looked to her as being such a legendary activist and feminist,” said Pegg.

“I felt like she was a great person to take the lead from. And it was her involvement in the film that cemented my decision to do it.”