CLEVELAND – Jose Ramirez has a chance to post his second-ever 40/40/40 season, and his pursuit of that feat continues Saturday night against the Houston Astros.

Ramirez could become the seventh player with a 40/40 season if he can hit two more home runs in the Guardians’ final two games. If he also hits two doubles, he will join Alfonso Soriano (2006) as the only players with at least 40 home runs, 40 steals and 40 doubles in a single year.

In Friday night’s loss to the Astros, Ramirez hit two balls to the warning track, resulting in loud outs.

Check back here for live score updates, analysis and highlights from Saturday’s game.

Veteran nose tackle Michael Pierce, who practiced in full on Friday but was downgraded to doubtful yesterday with a shoulder injury, is inactive for the Ravens, leaving them with just four interior defenders available against the Buffalo Bills.

Nnamdi Madubuike, Travis Jones, Broderick Washington and Brent Urban are the team’s only active defensive linemen. The Ravens could move one of their outside linebackers inside if needed, but it’s still a situation to keep an eye on, especially considering Buffalo uses six offensive linebackers at times to support a solid running game.

Ravens left guard Andrew Vorhees is also inactive for the Ravens. An ankle injury made him questionable for the game, but he practiced on the field before the game in front of two members of the athletic training staff. With Vorhees sidelined, the Ravens could move right tackle Patrick Mekari to left guard and then use rookie second-round pick Roger Rosengarten at right tackle.

Also inactive for the Ravens: wide receiver Devontez Walker, center Nick Samac and safety Beau Brade.

The Ravens’ third-round rookie outside linebacker Adisa Isaac, fourth-round rookie cornerback TJ Tampa and second-year guard Malaesala Aumavae-Laulu are active for the first time this season. All three would be making their NFL debuts entering the game.

crime

Boston Police ask anyone with information to contact the BPD Homicide Unit at 617-343-4470.

A man was shot in Mattapan early Sunday morning, Boston police said in a statement.

Around 1:05 a.m. Sunday, police responded to 849 Cummins Highway and found a man with gunshot wounds, the statement said.

First responders pronounced the victim dead at the scene, BPD said. The department’s Homicide Unit is conducting an investigation into the incident. They are asking anyone with information to contact them at 617-343-4470 or anonymously text the word “TIP” to CRIME (27463).

Police also shared the number for the Boston Neighborhood Trauma Team, for those who need to speak to someone about “the distressing events in our community.” You can contact the trauma team 24 hours a day at 617-431-0125.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. –

The two astronauts, stuck on the International Space Station since June, welcomed their new journey home with the arrival of a SpaceX capsule on Sunday.

Related video above: Unmanned Boeing Starliner capsule undocks from the ISS

SpaceX launched the rescue mission on Saturday with a reduced crew of two astronauts and two empty spots reserved for Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who will return next year. The Dragon capsule docked in the dark as the two ships climbed 265 miles (426 kilometers) over Botswana.

NASA switched Wilmore and Williams to SpaceX after they had concerns about the safety of their Boeing Starliner capsule. It was the first crewed Starliner test flight, and NASA concluded that the engine failures and helium leaks that occurred after launch were too serious and poorly understood to jeopardize the test pilots’ return. So Starliner returned to Earth empty at the beginning of the month.

The Dragon, carrying Nick Hague of NASA and Alexander Gorbunov of the Russian Space Agency, will remain on the space station until February, turning what was supposed to be a week-long journey into a more than eight-month mission for Wilmore and Williams.

Two NASA astronauts were pulled from the mission to make room for Wilmore and Williams on the return flight.

NASA likes to rotate its station crews about every six months. SpaceX has provided the taxi service since the company’s first astronaut flight in 2020. NASA also hired Boeing for ferry flights after the space shuttles were retired, but faulty software and other Starliner problems led to years of delays and more than $1 billion in repairs.

Starliner inspections are underway at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, with post-flight records review beginning this week.

“We’re a long way from saying, ‘Hey, we’re writing Boeing off,'” Jim Free, NASA’s associate administrator, said at a pre-launch briefing.

The arrival of two new astronauts means the four who have been up there since March can now return to Earth in just over a week in their own SpaceX capsule. Her stay was extended by a month because of the Starliner unrest.

Although Saturday’s launch went well, SpaceX said the rocket’s spent upper stage landed outside its target impact zone in the Pacific due to a faulty engine ignition. The company has halted all Falcon launches until it figures out what went wrong.

Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar equally drawn to the words of William Blake and Hank Williams, an Army helicopter pilot, a Golden Gloves boxer, a ruggedly handsome movie star and a recording studio janitor turned master songwriter, died Saturday in his home in Maui. He was 88 years old, released more than 20 solo studio albums, and half a century ago, he helped usher in a new era of country songs and songwriters.

The back cover of Kristofferson’s 1971 LP “Me and Bobby McGee” (a reissued, renamed version of his eponymous debut record) features this stanza — penned by Johnny Cash — saluting his friend’s fierce independence and songwriting genius: “Kris, he took slices of life/ And salted it into rhyme/ He picked his own days and his ways/ He arranged his own meter and time.”

Cash was an admirer of Kristofferson’s work, and after Kristofferson landed a helicopter on the country star’s lawn, Cash recorded several of his songs, beginning with “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down.”

He wasn’t the only one. Countless artists, spanning decades and genres, have recorded Kristofferson’s material, including Janis Joplin, Roger Miller, Al Green, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Sammi Smith, Ray Price, Gladys Knight, Emmylou Harris and Ronnie Milsap.

Kris Kristofferson born into military family

Kristoffer Kristofferson was born June 22, 1936, in Brownsville, Texas, a town on the southern tip of the state near the Mexican border. As a boy, he listened to country star Hank Williams on the radio and began writing his own songs at 11 years old.

The last track on his 2009 album “Closer to the Bone” is the first song he ever wrote, recorded more than 60 years after its genesis. The titles of future Kristofferson ballads, like “Jesus Was a Capricorn” and “The Pilgrim, Ch. 33,” may have puzzled casual listeners, but with this first composition, young Kris was painfully blunt: It’s called “I Hate Your Ugly Face.”

He came from a military family, and it was expected that he’d become a career officer like his father. As with most military families, the Kristoffersons moved often, finally settling in California. In 1954, Kristofferson enrolled in Pomona College. There, he studied English, played football and participated in ROTC. He also honed his creative writing skills under professor Dr. Edward Weismiller, who, along with philosophy instructor Dr. Frederick Sontag, encouraged him to apply for a Rhodes scholarship.

Kristofferson was one of the applicants awarded the prestigious scholarship; after graduating from Pomona in 1958, he delayed his Army commitment in order to study British literature at Oxford University.

Upon returning to the U.S., Kristofferson married his girlfriend Frances Beer (with whom he’d have two children) and began serving as a second lieutenant in the Army. He graduated from Ranger School and became a helicopter pilot. One of his fellow service members had a cousin, Marijohn Wilkin, who worked as a songwriter (“Long Black Veil” and others) and publisher in Nashville; Kristofferson sent her some of his work.

In 1965 his unit was preparing to deploy to Vietnam, but Capt. Kristofferson received an appointment to teach literature at West Point. Instead, he resigned his commission to pursue songwriting in Nashville. After hearing the news, his family disowned him.

Kristofferson: ‘A frog who can communicate’

Kristofferson was part of a small group of literate young songwriters, among them Tom T. Hall and Mickey Newbury, who turned Nashville on its head in the 1960s and ’70s. But first he was a bartender, a janitor at Columbia Recording Studios (where he witnessed Bob Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde” sessions in early 1966) and a commercial helicopter pilot flying to and from oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

After Kristofferson moved to town, Wilkins became one of his mentors. Her publishing company, Buckhorn Music, published several of his early songs, including “For the Good Times.”

In his book “Outlaw: Waylon, Willie, Kris and the Renegades of Nashville,” Michael Streissguth wrote that, during the time Kristofferson was establishing himself in Nashville, “nursery-rhyme-simple verse still ruled the day in country music, but conspicuous exceptions marked by complexity of plot and imaginative characterization had already settled on the record charts (by 1969).”

Where most country songs of the time were no longer than three and a half minutes, some of Kristofferson’s passed the four-minute mark, an eternity in radio time. The character-rich songs dealt with adult issues, sin, sex, substances, death and despair. And the lyrics, like the opening stanza to “Casey’s Last Ride” — “Casey joins the hollow sound of silent people walking down/ The stairway to the subway in the shadows down below/ Following their footsteps through the neon-darkened corridors of silent desperation, never speaking to a soul.” — owed as much to Romantic Era poets Kristofferson studied in college as they did to his boyhood hero, Hank Williams.

After his tenure at Buckhorn, Kristofferson auditioned for Fred Foster, who ran record label Monument Records and publishing company Combine Music. Foster made Kristofferson play four songs during the audition, because, while lots of people could write one or two — maybe even three — decent songs, Foster said, “you cannot write four great songs unless you’re a writer.”

By the time Kristofferson finished his second song, “Duvalier’s Dream,” Foster knew he was face to face with an incredible talent: “I thought I was hallucinating,” he remembered in 2016. “I thought, ‘My God, there’s never been a writer of this caliber here that’s come to my office.’ “

Foster agreed to sign Kristofferson to a publishing deal under the condition that he also record an album. According to Foster, Kristofferson told him, “I can’t sing, man. I sound like a frog.”

Foster’s response: “Maybe, but you’re a frog who can communicate.”

Kristofferson had experienced initial success as a songwriter in the late ’60s (Dave Dudley recorded his song “Viet Nam Blues” in 1966 and Roy Drusky released “Jody and the Kid” in 1968), but in 1970, his career took off.

Ray Price’s rendition of “For the Good Times” went to No. 1 and was awarded Song of the Year honors by the Academy of Country Music. Cash took another Kristofferson composition, “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” to the top of the charts; it won the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year Award as well.

His debut album, “Kristofferson,” was released on Monument in 1970. It included the material that wowed Foster, and other songs that would become classics: “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” “For the Good Times,” “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” and “Me and Bobby McGee.”

In 1970 he opened several shows for Linda Ronstadt at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. His songs earned rave reviews from Robert Hilburn of The Los Angeles Times, and A-list audience members like Barbra Streisand and filmmaker Sam Peckinpah — both of whom would work with Kristofferson before the end of the decade — were captivated, too.

“I never had to work for a living after that,” Kristofferson said, smiling, in an extra scene from “Troubadours: Carole King/James Taylor and the Rise of the Singer-Songwriter.”

Roger Miller’s recording of “Me and Bobby McGee” was a Top 20 country hit in 1969, but Janis Joplin’s rendition of the song became the definitive one. The soulful rock singer recorded the song days before her death in October 1970; it was released posthumously and spent one week atop the charts. After the success of Joplin’s recording, Kristofferson’s debut LP was renamed “Me and Bobby McGee” and reissued in 1971.

His other Monument releases included “The Silver Tongued Devil and I,” “Border Lord” and “Jesus Was a Capricorn,” an LP that included Kristofferson’s sole chart-topping single, “Why Me,” a stirring spiritual song that’s become one of his most enduring compositions. In between his solo projects, he released a trio of LPs — beginning with the No. 1 record “Full Moon” — with Rita Coolidge, his wife from 1973 to 1980.

Kristofferson’s acting career began to take off in the 1970s as well, and he relocated from Tennessee to California. He appeared in Peckinpah’s “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,” “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia” and “Convoy,” and won a Golden Globe for his performance as Streisand’s leading man in the 1976 remake of “A Star is Born.”

Years later, he and fellow country outlaw Willie Nelson co-starred in the 1984 movie “Songwriter.” The film and its soundtrack were well received; the latter was nominated for an Academy Award but lost to Prince’s “Purple Rain.”

In 1985, Kristofferson and Nelson joined forces with two fellow outlaws — Cash and Waylon Jennings — to form The Highwaymen. Over the next decade, this supergroup released two hits (their chart-topping debut single, “Highwayman,” and the Guy Clark song “Desperados Waiting for a Train”) and three studio albums.

Aside from his work with The Highwaymen, Kristofferson’s solo musical career in the late 1980s stagnated; he released only two studio albums during the decade.

His support for the United Farm Workers, as well as his objections to U.S. policy in Central America, angered a portion of his fan base. His label at the time also wasn’t anxious to promote songs like “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down,” a scorching criticism of those who “hold the power and the money and the guns.”

“I’ve just got to wonder what my daddy would’ve done if he’d seen the way they turned his dream around,” Kristofferson sang in the song’s chorus. “I’ve got to go by what he told me: Try to tell the truth and stand your ground.”

In 2016 Kristofferson was honored for his activism with the Woody Guthrie Prize, an award that is presented to artists who exemplify the life and spirit of Guthrie by advocating for the less fortunate and serving as a positive force for social change.

Kris Kristofferson tribute album ‘The Pilgrim’

On an August morning in 2004, Kristofferson was surprised with the news that he would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. After the announcement was made, Kristofferson told The Tennessean, “I wanted country music to be as proud of me as I was of being in country music. Over the years, I guess it happened.”

By the time Kristofferson was officially inducted into the Hall, he was already a member of the Songwriters and the Nashville Songwriters halls of fame, and several of the countless singer-songwriters who cited him as an influence — among them John Prine, Rosanne Cash, Rodney Crowell and Guy Clark — had made their own significant impacts on country music. To mark Kristofferson’s 70th birthday in 2006, musicians ranging from Shawn Camp to Brian McKnight covered his songs on the tribute album “The Pilgrim.”

Also in 2006, Kristofferson reunited with producer Don Was and released “This Old Road,” his first solo album of new material in more than a decade. Kristofferson and Was made two more albums together: “Closer to the Bone” in 2009 and “Feeling Mortal” in 2013.

During these years, Kristofferson struggled with memory loss. Doctors attributed it to Alzheimer’s disease and the head injuries he suffered as a boxer and football player. However, in early 2016, he tested positive for Lyme disease, an ailment that can cause cognitive impairment. According to Kristofferson’s wife, Lisa, in a Rolling Stone article, her husband saw some improvement after undergoing treatment.

On March 16, 2016, a star-studded roster that included Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Jessi Colter, Rodney Crowell and Hank Williams Jr. paid tribute to Kristofferson’s music during a concert at Bridgestone Arena. Then-Mayor Megan Barry proclaimed it Kris Kristofferson Day in Nashville, and at the end of the night Kristofferson himself led the room in singing his sole chart-topping recording, “Why Me.”

Three months after that show, he released an album, “The Cedar Creek Sessions,” and celebrated his 80th birthday. Later that summer, he performed at the Newport Folk Festival, nearly half a century after his debut there.

“Listeners will respond (to Kristofferson’s music) as long as music is played,” Fred Foster told The Tennessean. “It’s just the sheer humanity, I guess. I think he could put himself in any situation and describe it. He shared that quality with Hank Williams. … They showed you their soul, both guys.”

Kristofferson is survived by his wife, Lisa, whom he married in 1983, and his children, Tracy, Kris, Casey, Jesse, Jody, Johnny, Kelly and Blake. Funeral arrangements are unknown at this time.

Awards and honors (a partial list)

1970: “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” named CMA Song of the Year

1977: won Golden Globe for Best Actor — Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (for “A Star is Born”), inducted into Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame

1985: inducted into Songwriters Hall of Fame

2004: inducted into Country Music Hall of Fame

2006: receives Johnny Mercer Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame

2014: received PEN New England’s Song Lyrics of Literary Excellence Award

2016: inducted into Austin City Limits Hall of Fame, received Woody Guthrie Prize

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Kris Kristofferson, legendary songwriting master, dies at 88

Donald Trump has identified what he sees as a one-size-fits-all solution to America’s problems: imposing huge new tariffs on foreign goods entering the United States.

The former president and current Republican candidate claims that tariffs – essentially import taxes – will create more factory jobs, reduce the federal deficit, lower food prices and allow the government to subsidize child care.

He even says that tariffs can promote world peace.

“Tariffs are the greatest thing ever invented,” Trump said in Flint, Michigan, this month.

As president, Trump quickly imposed tariffs on imported solar panels, steel, aluminum and just about everything from China.

“Tariff man,” he called himself.

MORE| Why Tuesday’s vice presidential debate may be more important than history suggests

This time he has gone much further: He has proposed a 60% tariff on goods from China — and a tariff of up to 20% on everything else the United States imports.

This week he upped the ante even further. To punish equipment manufacturer John Deere for its plans to move some of its production to Mexico, Trump promised to impose a 200% tax on anything Deere tried to export to the United States.

And he threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on goods made in Mexico, a move that risks blowing up a trade deal that Trump’s own administration negotiated with Canada and Mexico.

Mainstream economists are generally skeptical of tariffs, viewing them as a mostly inefficient way for governments to raise money and promote prosperity. They are particularly concerned about Trump’s latest proposed tariffs.

This week, a report from the Peterson Institute for International Economics concluded that Trump’s main tariff proposals — assuming target countries retaliate with their own tariffs — will weaken the U.S. economy by more than a percentage point and inflation by 2 percentage points by 2026 would increase next year than it otherwise would have been.

Vice President Kamala Harris has dismissed Trump’s tariff threats as frivolous. Her campaign cited a report that found Trump’s 20% universal tariff would cost a typical family nearly $4,000 a year.

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But the Biden-Harris administration itself has a penchant for tariffs. Trump’s taxes on $360 billion worth of Chinese goods were retained. And it imposed a 100 percent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles.

In fact, in recent years the United States has gradually retreated from its post-World War II role of promoting global free trade and lower tariffs. The shift was in response to U.S. manufacturing job losses, widely blamed on the unrestricted tree trade and an increasingly aggressive China.

Tariffs are a tax on imports

They are typically calculated as a percentage of the price a buyer pays to a foreign seller. In the United States, tariffs are collected by Customs and Border Protection officials at 328 ports of entry across the country.

Tariff rates range from cars (2.5%) to golf shoes (6%). Tariffs may be lower for countries with which the United States has trade agreements. For example, under Trump’s U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, most goods can travel duty-free between the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

There is a lot of misinformation about who actually pays tariffs

Trump insists the tariffs will be paid for by foreign countries. In fact, it is the importers – American companies – who pay the tariffs, and the money goes to the US Treasury. These companies, in turn, usually pass on their higher costs to their customers in the form of higher prices. For this reason, economists believe that the cost of tariffs will typically be borne by consumers.

Still, tariffs can hurt other countries by making their products more expensive and difficult to sell abroad. Yang Zhou, an economist at Fudan University in Shanghai, concluded in a study that Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods caused more than three times as much damage to the Chinese economy as to the U.S. economy

Tariffs primarily serve to protect domestic industries

By increasing import prices, tariffs can protect domestic manufacturers. They can also be used to punish foreign countries for unfair trade practices, such as subsidizing their exporters or selling products at unfairly low prices.

Before the federal income tax was implemented in 1913, tariffs were an important source of government revenue. From 1790 to 1860, tariffs accounted for 90% of federal revenue, according to Douglas Irwin, a Dartmouth College economist who has studied the history of trade policy.

As global trade grew after World War II, tariffs fell out of favor. The government needed much larger sources of revenue to finance its operations.

In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the government is expected to collect $81.4 billion in tariffs and fees. That’s a small thing next to the $2.5 trillion expected to come from the individual income tax and the $1.7 trillion from Social Security and Medicare taxes.

Nevertheless, Trump wants to introduce fiscal policies similar to those of the 19th century.

He has argued that tariffs on agricultural imports could lower food prices by helping American farmers. In fact, tariffs on imported foods would almost certainly drive up food prices by reducing choice for consumers and competition for American producers.

Tariffs can also be used to pressure other countries on issues that may or may not be related to trade. In 2019, for example, Trump used the threat of tariffs as leverage to persuade Mexico to crack down on waves of Central American migrants crossing Mexican territory on their way to the United States.

Trump even sees tariffs as a way to prevent wars.

“I can do it with one phone call,” he said at an August rally in North Carolina.

If another country tried to start a war, he said, he would issue a threat:

“We will charge you 100% rates. And suddenly the president, the prime minister, the dictator, or whoever the hell is running the country tells me, “Sir, we are not going to war.” “

Economists generally view tariffs as self-defeating

Tariffs increase costs for businesses and consumers who rely on imports. They are also likely to provoke retaliation.

The European Union, for example, fought back against Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum by taxing U.S. products, from bourbon to Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Likewise, China responded to Trump’s trade war by imposing tariffs on American goods, including soybeans and pork, in a calculated attempt to hurt its supporters in agricultural countries.

A study by economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Zurich, Harvard and the World Bank concluded that Trump’s tariffs have failed to restore jobs in the American heartland. The study found that the tariffs “neither increased nor decreased employment in the U.S.,” where they were supposed to protect jobs.

For example, despite Trump’s taxes on imported steel in 2018, the number of jobs in U.S. steel mills has barely changed: It has remained at about 140,000. For comparison: Walmart alone employs 1.6 million people in the United States.

Worse, retaliatory taxes imposed by China and other countries on U.S. goods have had a “negative impact on employment,” particularly for farmers, the study said. These retaliatory tariffs were only partially offset by billions of dollars in government aid that Trump gave to farmers. The Trump tariffs also hurt companies that rely on targeted imports.

However, if Trump’s trade war failed as a policy, it succeeded as a policy. The study found that support for Trump and Republican congressional candidates increased in the areas most exposed to import tariffs – the industrial Midwest and manufacturing-intensive Southern states such as North Carolina and Tennessee.