WASHINGTON (AP) — Shea Langeliers homered three times and finished with five hits in his first game batting in the leadoff spot, and the Athletics pounded the slumping Washington Nationals 16-7 on Tuesday night.
Langeliers opened the game with a drive to center off MacKenzie Gore for his 20th homer. The 27-year-old catcher hit another leadoff shot in the fifth and the seventh.
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Washington Nationals pitcher MacKenzie Gore throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Athletics in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Terrance Williams)
Athletics' Brent Rooker (25) follows through on his swing after hitting a single against Washington Nationals pitcher MacKenzie Gore during the second inning of a baseball game in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Terrance Williams)
Athletics' Gio Urshela hits a double against Washington Nationals pitcher MacKenzie Gore during the first inning of a baseball game in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Terrance Williams)
Athletics' Shea Langeliers (23) is greeted by Lawrence Butler, right, after hitting a home run against Washington Nationals pitcher MacKenzie Gore during the first inning of a baseball game in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Terrance Williams)
Langeliers scored four times and finished with 15 bases. He became the fourth catcher with multiple three-homer games in a career — joining Hall of Famers Johnny Bench and Gary Carter, and Travis d'Arnaud. Langeliers and d'Arnaud are the only two to hit three from the leadoff spot.
Langeliers also connected for three homers in a 4-3 victory at Texas on April 9, 2024.
JJ Bleday had four hits for the A's for the second straight game. He homered and finished with six RBIs.
Darell Hernaiz also went deep, and Nick Kurtz scored four times. Brent Rooker finished with four hits and three RBIs.
A's right-hander Luis Severino (6-11) permitted three runs in six innings in his fourth consecutive win.
The last-place Nationals dropped their sixth consecutive game. They have surrendered 103 hits during the slide.
Gore (4-12) was charged with eight runs and 12 hits in three-plus innings. PJ Poulin pitched a scoreless inning in his debut after seven minor league seasons.
Bleday greeted Clayton Beeter with a two-run drive in the fourth, giving the A's a 9-0 lead.
The A’s finished with 24 hits for their best total since they had 25 on Sept. 10, 2019, in a 21-7 road win over the Astros.
Left-hander Jeffrey Springs (10-7, 4.00 ERA) starts for the A's on Wednesday. The Nationals hadn't announced their starting pitcher.
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Washington Nationals pitcher MacKenzie Gore throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Athletics in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Terrance Williams)
Athletics' Brent Rooker (25) follows through on his swing after hitting a single against Washington Nationals pitcher MacKenzie Gore during the second inning of a baseball game in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Terrance Williams)
Athletics' Gio Urshela hits a double against Washington Nationals pitcher MacKenzie Gore during the first inning of a baseball game in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Terrance Williams)
Athletics' Shea Langeliers (23) is greeted by Lawrence Butler, right, after hitting a home run against Washington Nationals pitcher MacKenzie Gore during the first inning of a baseball game in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Terrance Williams)
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Myanmar insisted Friday that its deadly military campaign against the Rohingya ethnic minority was a legitimate counter-terrorism operation and did not amount to genocide, as it defended itself at the top United Nations court against an allegation of breaching the genocide convention.
Myanmar launched the campaign in Rakhine state in 2017 after an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. Security forces were accused of mass rapes, killings and torching thousands of homes as more than 700,000 Rohingya fled into neighboring Bangladesh.
“Myanmar was not obliged to remain idle and allow terrorists to have free reign of northern Rakhine state,” the country’s representative Ko Ko Hlaing told black-robed judges at the International Court of Justice.
African nation Gambia brought a case at the court in 2019 alleging that Myanmar's military actions amount to a breach of the Genocide Convention that was drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.
Some 1.2 million members of the Rohingya minority are still languishing in chaotic, overcrowded camps in Bangladesh, where armed groups recruit children and girls as young as 12 are forced into prostitution. The sudden and severe foreign aid cuts imposed last year by U.S. President Donald Trump shuttered thousands of the camps’ schools and have caused children to starve to death.
Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya Muslim minority to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982.
As hearings opened Monday, Gambian Justice Minister Dawda Jallow said his nation filed the case after the Rohingya “endured decades of appalling persecution, and years of dehumanizing propaganda. This culminated in the savage, genocidal ‘clearance operations’ of 2016 and 2017, which were followed by continued genocidal policies meant to erase their existence in Myanmar.”
Hlaing disputed the evidence Gambia cited in its case, including the findings of an international fact-finding mission set up by the U.N.'s Human Rights Council.
“Myanmar’s position is that the Gambia has failed to meet its burden of proof," he said. "This case will be decided on the basis of proven facts, not unsubstantiated allegations. Emotional anguish and blurry factual pictures are not a substitute for rigorous presentation of facts.”
Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi represented her country at jurisdiction hearings in the case in 2019, denying that Myanmar armed forces committed genocide and instead casting the mass exodus of Rohingya people from the country she led as an unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents.
The pro-democracy icon is now in prison after being convicted of what her supporters call trumped-up charges after a military takeover of power.
Myanmar contested the court’s jurisdiction, saying Gambia was not directly involved in the conflict and therefore could not initiate a case. Both countries are signatories to the genocide convention, and in 2022, judges rejected the argument, allowing the case to move forward.
Gambia rejects Myanmar's claims that it was combating terrorism, with Jallow telling judges on Monday that “genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference that can be drawn from Myanmar’s pattern of conduct.”
In late 2024, prosecutors at another Hague-based tribunal, the International Criminal Court, requested an arrest warrant for the head of Myanmar’s military regime for crimes committed against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who seized power from Suu Kyi in 2021, is accused of crimes against humanity for the persecution of the Rohingya. The request is still pending.
FILE - In this Sept. 7, 2017, file photo, smoke rises from a burned house in Gawdu Zara village, northern Rakhine state, where the vast majority of the country's 1.1 million Rohingya lived, Myanmar. (AP Photo, File)
