MADRID (AP) — Robert Lewandowski scored two more goals to extend his league-leading tally to 12 and Barcelona routed Sevilla 5-1 to open a three-point gap on Real Madrid ahead of next weekend's "clasico."
Pedri and Pablo Torre also scored Sunday for the Catalan club, which restored its lead of La Liga a day after second-place Madrid won 2-1 at Celta Vigo.
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Barcelona's Raphinha kicks the ball during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Sevilla at the Olimpic Lluis Companys stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Pedri celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Sevilla at the Olimpic Lluis Companys stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Pedri, center, celebrates with teammates after scoring his side's second goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Sevilla at the Olimpic Lluis Companys stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Pedri, center, celebrates with teammates after scoring his side's second goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Sevilla at the Olimpic Lluis Companys stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski celebrates with teammates after scoring the opening goal from the penalty spot during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Sevilla at the Olimpic Lluis Companys stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski, left, celebrates with teammates after scoring the opening goal from the penalty spot during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Sevilla at the Olimpic Lluis Companys stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski, left, celebrates with teammates after scoring the opening goal from the penalty spot during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Sevilla at the Olimpic Lluis Companys stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski celebrates after scoring the opening goal from the penalty spot during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Sevilla at the Olimpic Lluis Companys stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona midfielder Gavi came off the bench to replace Pedri in the 83rd minute, making his return to action nearly a year after a serious knee injury.
“I had been dreaming about this moment for several months,” Gavi said. “It's tough to watch from the outside. I have to enjoy every moment. I feel very lucky to be here today.”
Barcelona will play Madrid on Saturday at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium. Both teams have Champions League matches midweek — Madrid hosts Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday and Barcelona hosts Bayern Munich on Wednesday.
“This was an important win considering the matches that we have ahead,” Pedri said. “We had to leave with a good feeling and the three points.”
Lewandowski scored twice in the first half against the visitors, first by converting a 24th-minute penalty kick and then by finding the net from close range in the 39th.
The Poland striker was coming off a hat trick at Alaves in the previous league round, and had scored twice in the team's win over Young Boys in the Champions League. He has 14 goals in 11 matches in all competitions this season.
Lewandowski, who received a standing ovation when he was substituted in the 65th, nearly got his hat track against Sevilla in a one-on-one situation in the first half.
Pedri scored with a curling shot from outside the area in the 28th and Torre added to the lead from inside the area in the 82nd and with a free kick in the 88th. Raphinha had a 49th-minute goal disallowed for offside.
Barcelona has outscored its league opponents 33-10 this season.
Sevilla, which had no attempts on target in the first half, scored its lone goal in the 87th with 19-year-old substitute Stanis Idumbo.
Barcelona also saw Lamine Yamal return from a muscle strain that saw him leave Spain's squad during the international break.
Barcelona defender Eric García hurt a muscle in the team's warmup and did not play.
Fewer fans than normal watched Atletico Madrid beat Leganes 3-1 in a match played in a partially closed stadium because of recent fan trouble.
Alexander Sorloth scored twice and Antoine Griezmann once after the visitors took the lead in the first half at the Metropolitano stadium, which had an empty fan section behind one of the goals as punishment after Atletico fans threw objects on the field during a city derby against Real Madrid last month.
The section is where the club's more radical supporters usually gather.
Atletico had been originally ordered to close the section for three matches but appealed the decision and the punishment was reduced to a single match. The derby was interrupted for more than 15 minutes after fans threw the objects near Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois in a game that ended 1-1.
Sunday's victory, which ended Atletico's three match winless streak in all competitions, moved Diego Simeone's team to third place in the league. It trails Barcelona by seven points.
Atletico midfielder Pablo Barrios and defender Clément Lenglet both got injured.
Griezmann was sent off late in the game after he slid into an opponent, but the red card was changed to a yellow after video review.
Villarreal is in fourth place after conceding an 87th-minute equalizer in a 1-1 draw against Getafe. Santiago Comesaña had put the hosts ahead in the 44th.
Mallorca defeated visiting Rayo Vallecano 1-0 with a goal by Vedat Muriqi in the 75th. It was the fourth win in five matches for Mallorca, which moved to sixth place in the standings. Rayo stayed ninth.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Barcelona's Raphinha kicks the ball during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Sevilla at the Olimpic Lluis Companys stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Pedri celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Sevilla at the Olimpic Lluis Companys stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Pedri, center, celebrates with teammates after scoring his side's second goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Sevilla at the Olimpic Lluis Companys stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Pedri, center, celebrates with teammates after scoring his side's second goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Sevilla at the Olimpic Lluis Companys stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski celebrates with teammates after scoring the opening goal from the penalty spot during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Sevilla at the Olimpic Lluis Companys stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski, left, celebrates with teammates after scoring the opening goal from the penalty spot during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Sevilla at the Olimpic Lluis Companys stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski, left, celebrates with teammates after scoring the opening goal from the penalty spot during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Sevilla at the Olimpic Lluis Companys stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski celebrates after scoring the opening goal from the penalty spot during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Sevilla at the Olimpic Lluis Companys stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
FEASTERVILLE-TREVOSE, Pa. (AP) — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump manned the fry station at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania on Sunday before staging an impromptu news conference, answering questions through the drive-thru window.
As reporters and aides watched, an employee showed Trump how to dunk baskets of fries in oil, salt the fries and put them into boxes using a scoop. Trump, a well-known fan of fast food and a notorious germophobe, expressed amazement that he didn't have to touch the fries with his hands.
“It requires great expertise, actually, to do it right and to do it fast,” Trump said with a grin, putting away his suit jacket and wearing an apron over his shirt and tie.
The visit came as he's tried to counter Democratic nominee Kamala Harris' accounts on the campaign of working at the fast-food chain while in college, an experience that Trump has claimed — without offering evidence — never happened.
A large crowd lined the street outside the restaurant in Feasterville-Trevose, which is part of Bucks County, a key swing voter area north of Philadelphia. Later Sunday, Trump was attending an evening town hall in Lancaster before catching the Pittsburgh Steelers home game against the New York Jets.
After serving bags of takeout to people in the drive-thru lane, Trump leaned out of the window, still wearing the apron, to take questions from the media staged outside. The former president, who has constantly promoted falsehoods about his 2020 election loss, said he would respect the results of next month's vote “if it's a fair election.”
He joked about getting one reporter ice cream and when another asked what message he had for Harris on her 60th birthday on Sunday, Trump said, “I would say, ‘Happy Birthday, Kamala,’” adding, “I think I’ll get her some flowers.”
Trump did not directly answer a question of whether he might support increased minimum wages after seeing McDonald’s employees in action but said, “These people work hard. They’re great.”
He added that “I just saw something … a process that’s beautiful.”
When aides finally urged him to wrap things up so he could hit the road to his next event, Trump offered, “Wasn’t that a strange place to do a news conference?”
Trump has fixated in recent weeks on the summer job Harris said she held in college, working the cash register and making fries at McDonald’s while in college. Trump says the vice president has “lied about working” there, but not offered evidence for claiming that.
Harris spokesman Joseph Costello said the former president's McDonald's visit “showed exactly what we would see in a second Trump term: exploiting working people for his own personal gain.”
“Trump doesn’t understand what it’s like to work for a living, no matter how many staged photo ops he does, and his entire second term plan is to give himself, his wealthy buddies, and giant corporations another massive tax cut,” Costello said in a statement.
In an interview last month on MSNBC, the vice president pushed back on Trump’s claims, saying she did work at the fast-food chain four decades ago when she was in college.
“Part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonald’s is because there are people who work at McDonald’s in our country who are trying to raise a family,” she said. “I worked there as a student.”
Harris also said: “I think part of the difference between me and my opponent includes our perspective on the needs of the American people and what our responsibility, then, is to meet those needs.”
Trump has long spread groundless claims about his opponents based on their personal history, particularly women and racial minorities.
Before he ran for president, Trump was a leading voice of the “birther” conspiracy that baselessly claimed President Barack Obama was from Africa, was not an American citizen and therefore was ineligible to be president. Trump used it to raise his own political profile, demanding to see Obama’s birth certificate and five years after Obama did so, Trump finally admitted that Obama was born in the United States.
During his first run for president, Trump repeated a tabloid’s claims that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s father, who was born in Cuba, had links to President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. Cruz and Trump competed for the party’s 2016 nomination.
In January of this year, when Trump was facing Nikki Haley, his former U.N. ambassador, in the Republican primary, he shared on his social media network a post with false claims that Haley’s parents were not citizens when she was born, therefore making her ineligible to be president.
Haley is the South Carolina-born daughter of Indian immigrants, making her automatically a native-born citizen and meeting the constitutional requirement to run for president.
And Trump has continued to promote baseless claims during this campaign. Trump said during his presidential debate with Harris that immigrants who had settled in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents’ pets — a claim he suggested in an interview Saturday was still true even though he could provide no confirmation.
“It is a fundamental value of my organization that we proudly open our doors to everyone who visits the Feasterville community,” the McDonald’s location’s owner, Derek Giacomantonio, said in a statement. “That’s why I accepted former President Trump’s request to observe the transformative working experience that 1 in 8 Americans have had: a job at McDonald’s.”
Police closed the busy streets around the McDonald’s during Trump's visit. Authorities cordoned off the restaurant as a crowd a couple blocks long gathered, sometimes 10- to 15-deep, across the street straining to catch a glimpse of Trump. Horns honked and music blared as Trump supporters waved flags, held signs and took pictures.
John Waters, of nearby Fairless Hills, had never been to a Trump rally and had hoped to see the former president so close to his house after missing other nearby rallies.
“When I drove up, all the cars, unbelievable, I was like, ‘He’s here’s, he’s coming, he’s definitely coming with this all traffic,’” Waters said.
Trump is especially partial to McDonald's Big Macs and Filet-o-Fish sandwiches. He’s talked often about how he trusts big chains more than smaller restaurants since they have big reputations to maintain, and the former president’s staff often pick up McDonald’s and serve it on his plane.
Jim Worthington, a Trump supporter and fundraiser who owns a nearby athletic complex and chaired Pennsylvania’s delegation to the Republican National Convention, said he arranged Trump’s visit to the locally owned McDonald’s franchise.
The campaign contacted him looking for a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania and Worthington started looking for one. He got in touch with Giacomantonio through a friend and talked the franchise owner through some initial nervousness.
Giacomantonio needed to know that McDonald’s corporate offices would be OK with it, first. Second, he was concerned that being seen as a Trump supporter would hurt his business or a spark boycott, Worthington said.
“He certainly had concerns, but I eased his mind, and talked to him about the benefits,” Worthington said.
Associated Press writer Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.
Ken Lane, of Lancaster, Pa., is pictured outside the Lancaster Convention Center, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, where Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump will hold a town hall. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Donald Trump-themed stuffed toy ducks are pictured before the Republican presidential nominee former President arrives at the Lancaster Convention Center in Lancaster, Pa., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, where Trump will hold a town hall. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Ken Lane, of Lancaster, Pa., is pictured outside the Lancaster Convention Center, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, where Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump will hold a town hall. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Supporters of Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump gather outside the Lancaster Convention Center in Lancaster, Pa., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, where Trump will hold a town hall. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Supporters of Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump gather outside the Lancaster Convention Center in Lancaster, Pa., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, where Trump will hold a town hall. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump watches as a video featuring Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris plays during a campaign event, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024 in Detroit. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
