BIRMINGHAM, England (AP) — Three straight wins, no goals conceded and top of the league on maximum points.
Aston Villa’s first ever appearance in the Champions League couldn’t be going any better.
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Bologna's fans hold banners at the end of the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Aston Villa and Bologna at the Villa Park in Birmingham, England, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira)
Aston Villa's head coach Unai Emery during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Aston Villa and Bologna at the Villa Park in Birmingham, England, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira)
Fans unveil a giant banner prior to the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Aston Villa and Bologna at the Villa Park in Birmingham, England, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira)
Aston Villa's John McGinn celebrates scoring their side's first goal of the game during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Aston Villa and Bologna at the Villa Park in Birmingham, England, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (David Davies/PA via AP)
Aston Villa's Jhon Duran, left, celebrates scoring his sides second goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Aston Villa and Bologna at the Villa Park in Birmingham, England, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (David Davies/PA via AP)
Villa’s 2-0 home win over Bologna on Tuesday maintained the 100% start to the English team’s first campaign in Europe’s top club competition since 1983 — when it was called the European Cup, which Villa won in 1982.
“What we are building here is amazing,” said Villa captain John McGinn, one of the scorers against Bologna at a rocking Villa Park.
Villa opened with a 3-0 win at Swiss outsider Young Boys and then beat German giant Bayern Munich 1-0 in its first home game of the revamped competition.
Halfway through the third round of league games, Villa is in first place and no other team has nine points.
“We are playing seriously, we are playing focused, responsible and the team is progressing and mature in everything,” said Villa manager Unai Emery, who took charge two years ago with the team just above the relegation zone.
Key this season has been the form of Jhon Duran, the 20-year-old Colombia international who is enjoying his breakthrough year at Villa.
Duran was handed a rare start against Bologna ahead of first-choice striker Ollie Watkins and was about to be replaced by his fellow center forward when he hooked home a volley in the 64th minute from Morgan Rogers’ cross.
Watkins was on the sideline waiting to come on and was seen applauding the goal by Duran, who now has seven for the season in 12 games — mostly as a substitute. One of them was a memorable long-range winner against Bayern.
“When he was watching that I was thinking of changing him, he accelerated and scored a goal,” Emery said, laughing. “It was fantastic. He was asking for more (time) because he was thinking he could score more goals.”
Duran was not amused at immediately being taken off after his goal. He angrily punched a seat in the dugout and then headed down the tunnel soon after. But he came back at the end of the match to join in with his team's celebrations.
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Bologna's fans hold banners at the end of the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Aston Villa and Bologna at the Villa Park in Birmingham, England, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira)
Aston Villa's head coach Unai Emery during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Aston Villa and Bologna at the Villa Park in Birmingham, England, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira)
Fans unveil a giant banner prior to the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Aston Villa and Bologna at the Villa Park in Birmingham, England, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira)
Aston Villa's John McGinn celebrates scoring their side's first goal of the game during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Aston Villa and Bologna at the Villa Park in Birmingham, England, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (David Davies/PA via AP)
Aston Villa's Jhon Duran, left, celebrates scoring his sides second goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Aston Villa and Bologna at the Villa Park in Birmingham, England, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (David Davies/PA via AP)
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — President Joe Biden tore into his predecessor on Tuesday, suggesting that global leaders are terrified of what Donald Trump's return to the White House could do to democratic rule around the world.
“Every international meeting I attend,” Biden said, specifically referencing his whirlwind trip to Germany last week, “They pull me aside — one leader after the other, quietly — and say, ‘Joe, he can’t win.’ My democracy is at stake.”
His voice rising, Biden then asked if, “America walks away, who leads the world? Who? Name me a country.”
The comments came during what was supposed to be a rather staid speech on health care in New Hampshire. They were a dose of unfiltered politics at an event otherwise focused on Biden’s policy legacy with the race to replace him just two weeks from concluding. And they made clear that the president also sees not having Trump succeed him as an important piece of how he might go down in history.
After the speech, Biden went to a campaign office to support New Hampshire Democratic candidates and continued his broadsides against Trump, even saying at one point, “We’ve got to lock him up.” Some supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris — who replaced Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket in July — have yelled that during her rallies.
That line drew applause from those assembled at the campaign office, but Biden quickly corrected himself: “Lock him out, that's what we have to do."
Biden didn't mention Harris much during his comments, though he noted that she'd been endorsed by some high-profile Republicans. That includes former Rep. Liz Cheney, the GOP's onetime No. 3 in the House and daughter of ex-Vice President Dick Cheney. Instead, Biden continued to focus on Trump, slamming him for being proud about being friends with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and joking that Trump “believes in the free press like I believe I can climb Mt. Everest.”
He said Trump and supporters of his “Make America Great Again” movement have “anti-democratic” attitudes toward the way the Constitution functions and “virtually no regard” for it.
“Think about what happens if Donald Trump were to win this election," Biden said, adding, “He’s not joking about it, he’s deadly earnest” and "It’s a serious, serious problem."
“We must win," Biden said.
Biden was in New Hampshire's capital of Concord with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the last candidate he beat to win the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. They both appeared at Concord Community College to trumpet the Department of Health and Human Services finding that almost 1.5 million Medicare enrollees saved nearly $1 billion on prescription drugs during the first half of the year.
Much of those savings came as a result of a cap on out-of-pocket drug costs created by the sweeping climate and health care law that the Biden administration helped carry through Congress in 2022. It put an annual maximum of $3,500 that recipients of Medicare, the government's health insurance coverage plans for seniors, pay for their prescriptions while making recommended vaccines for older Americans, like immunization for shingles, free.
Biden said that seniors aren't the only ones benefitting from the savings: “It's also saving taxpayers billions of dollars."
Next year, the drug cost cap for Medicare recipients falls to $2,000 per year, which will save some of the sickest Americans more. But the change has come at a price for others – it’s contributed to rising drug plan premiums that the government has tried to keep down by paying insurers billions of dollars from the Medicare trust fund. Still, some insurers have raised plan prices significantly – or pulled plans from markets.
The legislation is expected to deliver major savings in other ways, though, for taxpayers and Medicare enrollees in the long term.
For the first time ever, the federal government will negotiate the price of 10 of Medicare’s costliest drugs. The negotiated list prices, announced in August, will take effect in 2026. Taxpayers spend more than $50 billion yearly on the 10 drugs, which include popular blood thinners Xarelto and Eliquis and diabetes drugs Jardiance and Januvia.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that Medicare drug pricing negotiations will save taxpayers $3.7 billion in the first year.
But his championing of lower drug prices was overshadowed by the warnings Biden offered about Trump.
“No president has ever been like this guy. He’s a genuine threat to our democracy.”
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Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Amanda Seitz and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.
President Joe Biden, center left, is escorted by Col. Paul Pawluk, Vice Commander, 89th Airlift Wing, center right, as he walks from Marine One before boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)
President Joe Biden, left, is escorted by Col. Paul Pawluk, Vice Commander, 89th Airlift Wing, right, as he walks from Marine One before boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)
Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-N.H., speaks before President Joe Biden arrives to deliver remarks on lowering the cost of prescription drugs, at NHTI Concord Community College, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Concord, N.H. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on lowering the cost of prescription drugs, at NHTI Concord Community College, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Concord, N.H. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on lowering the cost of prescription drugs, at NHTI Concord Community College, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Concord, N.H. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
