Nation and World briefs for August 1

Joe Arpaio convicted after refusing to end immigrant patrols

PHOENIX (AP) — Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio was convicted of a criminal charge Monday for refusing to stop traffic patrols that targeted immigrants, marking a final rebuke for a politician who once drew strong popularity from such crackdowns but was ultimately booted from office as voters became frustrated over his headline-grabbing tactics and deepening legal troubles.

The federal judge’s verdict represents a victory for critics who voiced anger over Arpaio’s unusual efforts to get tough on crime, including jailing inmates in tents during triple-digit heat, forcing them to wear pink underwear and making hundreds of arrests in crackdowns that divided immigrant families. Arpaio is vowing to appeal.

Arpaio, who spent 24 years as the sheriff of metro Phoenix, skirted two earlier criminal investigations of his office. But he wasn’t able to avoid legal problems when he prolonged his signature immigration patrols for nearly a year and a half after a different judge ordered him to stop. That judge later ruled they racially profiled Latinos.

The lawman who made defiance a hallmark of his tenure was found guilty of misdemeanor contempt-of-court for ignoring the 2011 court order to stop the patrols. The 85-year-old faces up to six months in jail, though attorneys who have followed the case doubt someone his age would be incarcerated. He will be sentenced Oct. 5.

Critics hoped Arpaio’s eight-day trial in federal court in Phoenix would bring a long-awaited comeuppance for lawman who had managed to escape accountability through much of his six terms.

Los Angeles reaches deal with Olympic leaders for 2028 Games

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles reached an agreement Monday with international Olympic leaders that will open the way for the city to host the 2028 Summer Games, while ceding the 2024 Games to rival Paris, officials announced Monday.

The deal would make LA a three-time Olympic city, after hosting the 1932 and 1984 Games.

With the agreement, the city is taking “a major step toward bringing the Games back to our city for the first time in a generation,” Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement.

He called it a “historic day for Los Angeles, for the United States” and the Olympic movement.

The agreement follows a vote earlier this month by the International Olympic Committee to seek an unusual deal to award the 2024 and 2028 Games simultaneously. Paris is the only city left to host the 2024 Games.

Kenya election official tortured, killed days before vote

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — An official crucial to running Kenya’s presidential election next week has been found tortured and killed, the electoral commission chairman said Monday, as concerns grew that the East African nation’s vote again would face dangerous unrest.

Wafula Chebukati helped identify the body of Christopher Msando at the city morgue and said he had injuries to the neck and head. Mssando had been reported missing a few days ago.

“This is a brutal murder of our employee and we are demanding to know who killed him and why,” Chebukati said. “We are demanding government provide security to all IEBC (electoral commission) staff.”

A special team from the Directorate of Criminal investigations had been set up to investigate Msando’s murder, said police chief Joseph Boinnet.

“We view this incident as a crime of grave proportions,” said Boinnet.

Farmer suicides rise in India as climate warms, study shows

NEW DELHI (AP) — When Rani’s husband died by drinking pesticide, he left the family in debt. But even if they could pay off the loans, Rani said their farming days are over.

“There are no rains,” said the 44-year-old woman from drought-stricken Tamil Nadu, one of hundreds of farmers protesting in the capital for more government support. “Even for drinking, we get water only once in 10 days.”

A new study suggests that India will see more such tragedies as climate change brings hotter temperatures that damage crops and exacerbate drought. For every 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming above 20 degrees C (68 degrees F) during the growing season in India, there are 67 more suicides on average, according to the findings published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS.

The message “is that farming is an inherently risky occupation, with annual incomes often held hostage to the weather, and it’s getting riskier in the era of climate change,” said Vikram Patel, an Indian psychiatrist and mental health expert with Harvard Medical School in Boston who was not involved in the study.

Experts said the study’s findings should raise alarms, especially with India’s average temperatures expected to rise another 3 degrees C (5.4 degrees F) by 2050. That will bring more erratic weather events, more drought and stronger storms.

Transgender US soldier felt ‘fired’ by Trump’s tweet

BERATZHAUSEN, Germany (AP) — The subject line read: “Announcing a personal change.”

The U.S. Army soldier took a deep breath before hitting the button that sent the email to more than 200 fellow troops.

“All considered, I am, and have been, traversing what is essentially a personal matter, but is something I must address publicly,” the email stated. “I am transgender.”

The April 13 email officially ended the secret that burned inside Capt. Jennifer Sims, who was known as Jonathan Sims. But the feeling of relief swiftly turned to unease last week after President Donald Trump tweeted that transgender troops were no longer welcome.

“I read the tweet while I was at work and you know it was devastating because I still have work to do and here I am reading basically what sounds like the president of the United States — who is the commander in chief, he is the ultimate boss of the military — telling me and anybody else that is transgender that we are fired,” Sims said.

Sam Shepard, Pulitzer-winning playwright, dead at 73

NEW YORK (AP) — Sam Shepard, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Oscar-nominated actor and celebrated author whose plays chronicled the explosive fault lines of family and masculinity in the American West, has died. He was 73.

Family spokesman Chris Boneau said Monday that Shepard died Thursday at his home in Kentucky from complications related to Lou Gehrig’s disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

The taciturn Shepard, who grew up on a California ranch, was a man of few words who nevertheless produced 44 plays and numerous books, memoirs and short stories. He was one of the most influential playwrights of his generation: a plain-spoken poet of the modern frontier, both lyrical and rugged.

In his 1971 one-act “Cowboy Mouth, which he wrote with his then-girlfriend, musician and poet Patti Smith, one character says, “People want a street angel. They want a saint but with a cowboy mouth” — a role the tall and handsome Shepard fulfilled for many. But in soul-searching plays, his portrait of the West was a disillusioned one, peopled by broken characters whose realities fell far short of the American Dream.

“I was writing basically for actors,” Shepard told The Associated Press in a 2011 interview. “And actors immediately seemed to have a handle on it, on the rhythm of it, the sound of it, the characters. I started to understand there was this possibility of conversation between actors and that’s how it all started.”

Study says films exclude women, Hispanics

LOS ANGELES (AP) — In 2016 “Moonlight” won best picture and “Hidden Figures” was the 14th highest grossing film of the year, but popular Hollywood films remained as white and male-dominated as ever.

A new report from the Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, provided first to The Associated Press, finds that the representation of women, minorities, LGBT people, disabled characters in films remains largely unchanged from the previous year, despite the heightened and attention to diversity in Hollywood. At the bottom of the rung and most egregiously disproportionate to their U.S. demographics are women, Hispanics and disabled characters. Exclusion, the report says, is the norm in Hollywood, not the exception.

For nine years since 2007, USC has analyzed the demographic makeup of every speaking or named character from each year’s 100 highest-grossing films at the domestic box office (with the exception of 2011), as well as behind-the-camera employment for those films including directors, producers and composers.

“Every year we’re hopeful that we will actually see change,” Stacy L. Smith, a USC professor and the study’s lead author, told The Associated Press. “Unfortunately that hope has not quite been realized.”

Women remain vastly underrepresented when it comes to both speaking roles and lead or co-leading parts in films. Of the 4,583 speaking characters analyzed from the top 100 films of 2016, 31.4 percent were female, a number that is basically unchanged since 2007. Also, only 34 of the films depicted a female lead or co-lead — and only three of those were from underrepresented groups.