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With kicker Harrison Mevis solidifying their special teams, the Rams on Friday waived Joshua Karty.

Karty, a 2024 sixth-round draft pick, had several kicks blocked early in the season, including one that led to a last-second touchdown by the Philadelphia Eagles. He made 10 of 15 field-goal attempts and 23 of 26 extra-point attempts.

“It was just exclusively a numbers thing,” coach Sean McVay said. “It’s just hard to keep two kickers.”

McVay said that if Karty clears waivers, the Rams would like to sign him to the practice squad.

The Rams have of late been shuffling their roster, putting tight end Tyler Higbee, offensive lineman Rob Havenstein and safety Quentin Lake on injured reserve, bringing receiver Tutu Atwell and cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon back from injured reserve, and signing players such as tight end Nick Vannett and cornerback Derion Kendrick.

Mevis has kicked the last three games. He made 40- and 52-yard field goals in last Sunday’s 34-7 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and has made all six extra-point attempts.

The Rams also appear to be benefiting from experienced snapper Jake McQuaide, who replaced Alex Ward.

“I’m a lot happier as head coach when we’re kicking extra points, and not field goals,” McVay said of the place-kicking operation that includes holder Ethan Evans, “but I’ve been pleased.”

Northern Ireland manager Tanya Oxtoby is in advanced talks to become head coach at WSL 2 side Newcastle United.

Oxtoby, 43, has been in charge of Northern Ireland since 2023.

She managed Bristol City from 2018 to 2021 before becoming assistant coach to Emma Hayes at Chelsea for two seasons.

Oxtoby has also had spells as Scotland, Birmingham City, Perth Glory and Australia Under-20s assistant.

She began her managerial career at Nottingham Forest in 2012.

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani announced Wednesday that the city’s current police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, has agreed to remain in the post, a major coup for the incoming mayor as he moves to assuage concerns over his past criticism of the police department.

For Mamdani, a democratic socialist who once called to defund the New York Police Department, the appointment seals one of the most consequential decisions of his nascent administration and provides further insight into the progressive’s looming stewardship of City Hall.

“I have admired her work cracking down on corruption in the upper echelons of the police department, driving down crime in New York City, and standing up for New Yorkers in the face of authoritarianism,” he said in a statement.

Tisch’s decision to remain commissioner could provide comfort to city business leaders and others who worried that Mamdani’s criticism of the department at the height of Black Lives Matter protests would translate into radical changes at the NYPD.

But the official announcement didn’t sit well with some progressives who helped elect the democratic socialist and wanted to see a bigger shake-up atop the nation’s largest police force.

Shared priorities, some disagreement

The appointment marked a budding political alliance between two leaders with starkly different backgrounds and some ideological differences.

Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist who once called for defunding the police, has vowed to remake the department as mayor by shifting some responsibilities from the police to new mental health care teams. Tisch is the heiress to a multibillion-dollar family fortune and is considered a steady, establishment moderate with nearly two decades in public service.

She has been a fierce critic of the state’s bail reform laws, which Mamdani supports, and has called on the city to hire more officers. Mamdani has walked back his previous comments about defunding the police, but said he will keep the department’s headcount even.

In an email to officers Wednesday, Tisch acknowledged the different views she has with Mamdani but said a series of conversations with him had made her “confident” that she can lead the department under his mayoralty.

“In speaking with him, it’s clear that we share broad and crucial priorities: the importance of public safety, the need to continue driving down crime, and the need to maintain stability and order across the department,” Tisch wrote in the email, which was shared with The Associated Press.

Hours after the announcement, Mamdani and Tisch appeared together at a Manhattan memorial for officers who died in the line of duty. Both declined to answer questions about their past differences, with Tisch saying she wanted to “leave politics out of it today.”

Tisch’s tenure

Tisch was appointed to lead the department last November as current Mayor Eric Adams and the city’s police force were reeling from overlapping scandals.

In September, federal authorities seized phones from Adams and several high-level appointees, including the police commissioner, Edward Caban, who soon resigned. Agents then searched the home of his interim replacement, Thomas Donlon, just a week after he took over.

During her first weeks as commissioner, Tisch reassigned several top officials, including some seen as allies to the mayor. The department’s top uniformed official, a longtime friend of Adams, resigned in December amid harassment allegations.

Her tenure has coincided with a drop in shootings and several categories of major crime, earning praise from the business community and some police reform groups.

A mixed reception

The announcement of Tisch’s appointment drew split reactions among Mamdani’s left-leaning supporters. The Justice Committee, a police reform group, called the move “a rebuff of his promises to New Yorkers and a disturbing endorsement of NYPD’s ongoing violence and corruption.”

The New York Civil Liberties Union, meanwhile, offered tepid praise for Tisch, while urging her to “join the Mayor-Elect in seeking to reduce the City’s misplaced demands on police to solve entrenched problems.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a moderate Democrat who endorsed Mamdani, called the appointment “a very good outcome” and said Tisch remaining in the job could help stave off a federal intervention in the city, as Republican President Trump has suggested could occur if Mamdani were elected.

“This is an important step to send a message to the Trump administration that, if you’re coming here on the pretext that we need the National Guard because crime is going up in the city, that is not the story being told here in New York. Not at all,” Hochul said at an unrelated news conference.

Since winning the election, Mamdani has moved to surround himself with a cast of seasoned officials as he prepares to enter City Hall while facing some concern that his limited public experience could create headaches once he assumes control of America’s biggest city.

He tapped a veteran budget official with deep experience in state and city government to be his first deputy mayor, and named a team that includes two former deputy mayors to help guide his transition into City Hall.

Tisch, a Harvard-educated scion of a wealthy New York family, previously led the city’s sanitation department, becoming TikTok famous for declaring “The rats don’t run the city, we do” in 2022.

Her first job in city government was in the NYPD’s counterterrorism bureau. She has helped shape post-9/11 security infrastructure in the city and, as deputy commissioner for information technology, spearheaded the use of body cameras and smartphones.

Izaguirre and Offenhartz write for the Associated Press.

A Virginia transportation security officer is accusing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security of sex discrimination over a policy that bars transgender officers from performing security screening pat-downs, according to a federal lawsuit.

The Transportation Security Administration, which operates under DHS, enacted the policy in February to comply with President Trump’s executive order declaring two unchangeable sexes: male and female.

According to internal documents explaining the policy change that the Associated Press obtained from four independent sources, including one current and two former TSA workers, “transgender officers will no longer engage in pat-down duties, which are conducted based on both the traveler’s and officer’s biological sex. In addition, transgender officers will no longer serve as a TSA-required witness when a traveler elects to have a pat-down conducted in a private screening area.”

Until February, TSA assigned work consistent with officers’ gender identity under a 2021 management directive. The agency told the AP it rescinded that directive to comply with Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order.

Although transgender officers “shall continue to be eligible to perform all other security screening functions consistent with their certifications,” and must attend all required training, they will not be allowed to demonstrate how to conduct pat-downs as part of their training or while training others, according to the internal documents.

A transgender officer at Dulles International Airport, Danielle Mittereder, alleges in her lawsuit filed Friday that the new policy — which also bars her from using TSA facility restrooms that align with her gender identity — violates civil rights law.

“Solely because she is transgender, TSA now prohibits Plaintiff from conducting core functions of her job, impedes her advancement to higher-level positions and specialized certifications, excludes her from TSA-controlled facilities, and subjects her identity to unwanted and undue scrutiny each workday,” the complaint says.

Mittereder declined to speak with the AP but her lawyer, Jonathan Puth, called TSA’s policy “terribly demeaning and 100% illegal.”

TSA spokesperson Russell Read declined to comment, citing pending litigation. But he said the new policy directs that “Male Transportation Security Officers will conduct pat-down procedures on male passengers and female Transportation Security Officers will conduct pat-down procedures on female passengers, based on operational needs.”

The legal battle comes amid mounting reports of workplace discrimination against transgender federal employees during Trump’s second administration. It is also happening at a time when TSA’s ranks are already stretched thin due to the ongoing government shutdown that has left thousands of agents working without pay.

Other transgender officers describe similar challenges to Mittereder.

Kai Regan worked for six years at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, but retired in July in large part because of the new policy. Regan, who is not involved in the Virginia case, transitioned from female to male in 2021 and said he had conducted pat-downs on men without issue until the policy change.

“It made me feel inadequate at my job, not because I can’t physically do it but because they put that on me,” said the 61-year-old, who worried that he would soon be fired for his gender identity, so he retired earlier than planned rather than “waiting for the bomb to drop.”

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward — a legal organization that has repeatedly challenged the second Trump administration in court — called TSA’s policy “arbitrary and discriminatory,” adding: “There’s no evidence or data we’re aware of to suggest that a person can’t perform their duties satisfactorily as a TSA agent based on their gender identity.”

DHS pushed back on assertions by some legal experts that its policy is discriminatory.

“Does the AP want female travelers to be subjected to pat-downs by male TSA officers?” Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin asked in a written response to questions by the AP. “What a useless and fundamentally dangerous idea, to prioritize mental delusion over the comfort and safety of American travelers.”

Airport security expert and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor Sheldon H. Jacobson, whose research contributed to the design of TSA PreCheck, said that the practice of matching the officer’s sex to the passenger’s is aimed at minimizing passenger discomfort during screening. Travelers can generally request another officer if they prefer, he added.

Deciding where transgender officers fit into this practice “creates a little bit of uncertainty,” Jacobson said. But because transgender officers likely make up a small percent of TSA’s workforce, he said the new policy is unlikely to cause major delays.

“It could be a bit of an inconvenience, but it would not inhibit the operation of the airport security checkpoint,” Jacobson said.

TSA’s policy for passengers is that they be screened based on physical appearance as judged by an officer, according to internal documents. If a passenger corrects an officer’s assumption, “the traveler should be patted down based on his/her declared sex.” For passengers who tell an officer “that they are neither a male nor female,” the policy says officers must advise “that pat-down screening must be conducted by an officer of the same sex,” and to contact a supervisor if concerns persist.

The documents also say that transgender officers “will not be adversely affected” in pay, promotions or awards, and that TSA “is committed to providing a work environment free from unlawful discrimination and retaliation.”

But the lawsuit argues otherwise, saying the policy impedes Mittereder’s career prospects because “all paths toward advancement require that she be able to perform pat-downs and train others to do so,” Puth said.

According to the lawsuit, Mittereder started in her role in June 2024 and never received complaints related to her job performance, including pat-down responsibilities. Supervisors awarded her the highest-available performance rating and “have praised her professionalism, skills, knowledge, and rapport with fellow officers and the public,” the lawsuit said.

“This is somebody who is really dedicated to her job and wants to make a career at TSA,” Puth said. “And while her gender identity was never an issue for her in the past, all of a sudden it’s something that has to be confronted every single day.”

Being unable to perform her full job duties has caused Mittereder to suffer fear, anxiety and depression, as well as embarrassment and humiliation by forcing her to disclose her gender identity to co-workers, the complaint says. It adds that the ban places additional burden on already-outnumbered female officers who have to pick up Mittereder’s pat-down duties.

American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley urged TSA leadership to reconsider the policy “for the good of its workforce and the flying public.”

“This policy does nothing to improve airport security,” Kelley said, “and in fact could lead to delays in the screening of airline passengers since it means there will be fewer officers available to perform pat-down searches.”

Savage writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Rio Yamat in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

Elizabeth Berkley has been on tour with “Showgirls” to commemorate its 30th anniversary — but 30 years ago there was nothing to celebrate.

As the former “Saved by the Bell” star told the Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Monday, the reception to the 1995 film was so brutal that she was unable to land any acting jobs in the aftermath.

“For a good two years, I wasn’t allowed to audition for things,” Berkley said. “The hardest part was being literally locked out of something I loved so much.”

This meant the actor had to fight her way back into Hollywood’s good graces — and she has. One of her most recent roles is a guest spot on the star-studded (but similarly panned) campy legal drama “All’s Fair.”

Directed by Paul Verhoeven from a script by his “Basic Instinct” collaborator Joe Eszterhas, “Showgirls” was Berkley’s first starring film role as well as her first big project after her time on the teen TV breakout “Saved by the Bell.” But the movie was mired in controversy, from its NC-17 rating to the hostile reviews and cratering at the box office.

“I took a beating, guys,” Berkley reportedly said during a fan Q&A before a recent screening. “It was not fun for a little while. I’m not going to lie. It was painful. I was isolated. I felt abandoned by the very people I collaborated with.”

The Times reported in 1995 that Berkley was “unfairly” taking most of the heat for how “Showgirls” was received, noting at the time that she had been dropped by her agent and had yet to line up her next job.

The latest Hollywood Reporter interview recounts how at the time Berkley was left to fend for herself on the film’s press tour and that preparation involved publicists showing her clips of reviews that insulted her looks and acting ability.

“A lot of things went on that wouldn’t be allowed now — someone could not be pummeled to that degree,” Berkley said to the outlet. “I couldn’t understand how people could be so cruel, but I’m tough. I had to separate out what they said from what I believed to be true.”

“Showgirls,” of course, has since been reevaluated and embraced by audiences and academics, elevating it beyond even its cult status. It’s a redemption arc that Berkley especially deserves to celebrate.

“I’ve had some obstacles,” she said, “but I’ve never given up.”

“Death By Lightning,” premiering Thursday on Netflix, introduces itself as “a story about two men the world forgot,” and while it is undoubtedly true that few in 2025 will recognize the name Charles Guiteau, many will know James A. Garfield, given that he was one of only four assassinated American presidents. There are less well remembered presidents, for sure — does the name John Tyler ring a bell? — and assassins better known than Guiteau, but if you’re going to make a docudrama, it does help to choose a story that might be more surprising to viewers and comes with a murder built in. It is also, I would guess intentionally, a tale made for our times, with its themes of civil rights, income inequality, cronyism and corruption.

Indeed, most everything about the Garfield story is dramatic — a tragedy, not merely for the family, but for the nation. For the sense one gets from “Death by Lightning” and from the historical record it fairly represents, is that Garfield, killed after only 200 days in office, might have made a very good chief executive. (The stated source for the series is Candice Millard’s 2011 book “Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President”; Millard is also a voice in the more briefly titled, illuminating “American Experience” documentary “Murder of a President.”)

That the longtime Ohio congressman did not seek but was drafted for the job — a compromise chosen, against his protests, on the 36th ballot at the 1880 Republican National Convention, where he’d given a stirring speech to nominate a fellow Ohioan, Treasury Secretary John Sherman — made him, one might say, especially qualified for the job; unlike some politicians one might name, he was self-effacing and humble and not out for personal gain. But he saw, finally, that he had a chance to “fix all the things that terrify me about this republic,” most especially the ongoing oppression of Black citizens, a major theme of his inauguration speech (with remarks transferred here to a campaign address delivered to a crowd of 50,000 from a balcony overlooking New York’s Madison Square Park). “I would rather be with you and defeated than against you and victorious,” he tells a group of Black veterans gathered on his front porch, from which he conducted his campaign. (Some 20,000 people were said to have visited there during its course.)

Political machinations and complications aside, the narrative, which stretches two years across four episodes, is really fairly simple, even schematic, cutting back and forth between Garfield (Michael Shannon, between tours covering early R.E.M. albums) and Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen), a drifter with delusions of grandeur, as they approach their historically sealed date with destiny. Garfield is goodness personified; we meet him on his farm, cooking breakfast for the family, planing wood to make a picnic table. (A table we will meet again.) Guiteau goes from one failed project to another, living it up on money stolen from his sister, running out on restaurant checks and rooming house bills, telling lies about himself he might well have thought were true, until he decides that politics is the place to make his mark. Under the impression that he was responsible for Garfield’s election, he believed the new president owed him a job — ambassador to France would be nice — and when none was coming, turned sour. A message from God, and the belief that he would save the republic, set him on a path to murder.

Matthew Macfadyen plays Garfield’s assassin, Charles Guiteau, in the miniseries.

(Larry Horricks / Netflix)

The series largely belongs to them — both actors are terrific, Shannon imbuing Garfield with a gravity leavened with kindness and humor, Macfadyen’s Guiteau, optimistically dedicated to his delusions yet always about to pop. But it’s a loaded cast. The ever-invaluable Betty Gilpin, in her fourth big series this year after “American Primeval,” “The Terminal List: Dark Wolf” and “Hal & Harper,” plays Garfield’s wife, Crete, fully up on the political scene and free with her opinions. Shea Whigham is New York senator and power broker Roscoe Conkling, Garfield’s moral opposite, and the series’ villain, if you excuse Guiteau as mentally ill. (The jury didn’t.). As wise Maine Sen. James Blaine, Bradley Whitford exudes a convincing, quiet authority, honed over those years working in the pretend White House on “The West Wing.” All the men have been whiskered to resemble their historical models.

Where most of them, even Guiteau, remain consistent from beginning to end, it’s Nick Offerman’s Chester A. Arthur who goes on a journey. Conkling’s right hand, in charge of the New York Customs House — which generated a third of the country’s revenues through import fees — he’s offered the position of vice president to appease Conkling, New York being key to winning the election. Arthur begins as a thuggish, cigar-smoking, sausage-eating, drunken clown, until he’s forced, by events, and the possibility of inheriting the presidency, to reckon with himself.

When First Lady Crete Garfield wonders whether there should be a little extra security (or, really, any security at all) around her husband, he responds, “Assassination can no more be guarded against than death by lightning — it’s best not to worry too much about either one,” giving the series its title and clearing up any confusion you may have had about its meaning. Indeed, Guiteau moves in and out of what today would be well guarded rooms with surprising ease, managing encounters (some certainly invented) with Crete, Blaine, a drunken Arthur and Garfield, whom he implores, “Tell me how I can be great, too.”

Created by Mike Makowsky, it isn’t free from theatrical effects, dramatic overreach or obvious statements, but as period pieces go, it’s unusually persuasive, in big and little ways. Only occasionally does one feel taken out of a 19th century reality into a 21st century television series. The effects budget has been spent where it matters, with some detailed evocations of late 19th century Chicago and Washington that don’t scream CGI. The first episode, which recreates the 1880 convention, held at the Interstate Exposition Building in Chicago, aligns perfectly with engravings of the scene and brings it to life, supporting the wheeling and dealing and speechifying in a way that one imagines is close to being there.

Because we know what’s coming, the series can be emotionally taxing, especially as a wounded Garfield lingers through much of the final episode, while being mistreated by his doctor, Willard Bliss (Zeljko Ivanek), who ignores the advice of the younger, better informed Dr. Charles Purvis (Shaun Parkes), the first Black physician to attend to a sitting president; many, including Millard, believe it was the doctor who killed him through a lack of sanitary precautions, and that Garfield might have recovered if he’d just been left alone, an idea the series supports.

But you can’t change history, as much as “Death By Lightning” makes you wish you could.

The Rams are no longer kicking the can down the road when it comes to their kicking problems.

On Wednesday, the Rams signed kicker Harrison Mevis to the practice squad to compete with second-year pro Joshua Karty. The move came a day after the team signed veteran long-snapper Jake McQuaide to compete with Alex Ward.

“It’s all geared toward trying to be able to just get some solutions and some kick consistency really with our field-goal operation,” coach Sean McVay said Wednesday. “I think it’s important to have good competition at some spots that we feel we can have improved play.”

The Rams are preparing for their game on Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.

The Rams are 6-2 — and their losses against the defending Super Bowl-champion Philadelphia Eagles and the 49ers both resulted from problems in the kicking game that resurfaced without dire consequences in last Sunday’s rout of the New Orleans Saints.

Against the Saints, Karty missed a 39-yard field goal attempt and an extra-point attempt. Karty has made 10 of 15 field-goal attempts and 23 of 26 extra-point attempts.

McVay said after the game that the Rams would evaluate “all parts of where we go with this operation.”

On Tuesday, they turned to McQuaide, 37, who played for the Rams from 2011-2020 and was part of a special teams unit that also included kicker Greg Zuerlein and punter/holder Johnny Hekker.

“If all things go well with Jake, we expect him to be our long-snapper,” McVay said.

On Wednesday, they brought in Mevis, who made 89 of 106 field-goal attempts at Missouri, including one from 61 yards. In the United Football League this past season, he made 20 of 21 field-goal attempts.

So Karty and Mevis will duel during expanded special teams drills this week.

“We’ll implement more than we normally would on a Wednesday and a Thursday and truly be able to kind of use it as a competition,” McVay said.

Nov. 1 (UPI) — Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan on Saturday was declared the winner of the presidential election amid unrest in the African nation over her candidacy and exclusion of her rivals.

Samia, 65, received 31.9 million votes, which was 97.66% of the total in Wednesday’s election among 17 parties, the electoral commission said.

Almost 87% of the country’s 37.6 million registered voters turned out, in sharp contrast with the 50% who voted in 2020.

Tanzania, which has a population of 71 million, is in eastern Africa and is bordered by the Indian Ocean on the east and south of the Equator.

“We thank the security forces for ensuring that the violence did not stop voting,” Samia, who came into office in 2021 as Tanzania’s first female president, said in a victory celebration in Dodoma. “These incidents were not patriotic at all.”

Although the politician from Zanzibar said the election was “free and democratic,” election observers and European Parliament members say the election was rife with irregularities, according to The New York Times.

Samia’s two main opposition contenders were barred from running.

Tundu Lissu, of the Party for Democracy and Progress, is being held on treason charges, which he denies, and Luhaga Mpina of the Alliance for Change and Transparency was excluded on legal technicalities.

During the unrest, Internet nationwide was been shut down and a curfew is in place.

On Friday, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for “a thorough and impartial investigation into all allegations of excessive use of force” and Tanzanian authorities to uphold accountability and transparency in the post-election unrest.

There were no protests on Saturday, one day after demonstrators in several cities took to the streets, tearing down Samia’s posters and attacked police and polling stations.

Foreign Minister Mahmoud Kombo Thabit said the violence was a “few isolated pockets of incidents here and there.”

And electoral commission chief Jacobs Mwambegele said the election was run smoothly.

“I would like to thank all election stakeholders, especially political parties, candidates for various positions, your friends and members for conducting civilized campaigns and maintaining peace and tranquility throughout the campaign,” he said.

Tanzania’s semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar elects its own government.

Hussein Mwinyi, who is the incumbent president, won with nearly 80% of the vote.

Sania was vice president and became president when John Magufuli died on March 17, 2021, of a heart condition at 61.

Her ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi, and its predecessor, Tanu, have dominated the country’s politics and have never lost an election since independence from Britain.

The mainland territory of Tanganyika gained independence in 1961 and the islands of Zanzibar became independent as a constitutional monarchy two years later.

In 1964, they merged to become the United Republic of Tanzania.