CINCINNATI (AP) — Sal Stewart hit two homers — including one when Cincinnati went deep four times in the fourth inning — Noelvi Marte drove in four runs and the Reds defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 11-5 on Wednesday night.
Chase Burns (11-1) picked up his 10th straight winning decision for the Reds, who are 3-7 in their last 10 games.
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Cincinnati Reds pitcher Chase Burns throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies in Cincinnati, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Philadelphia Phillies Justin Crawford dives in to home plate to score on a wild pitch as Cincinnati Reds pitcher Chase Burns, left, reaches in with a late tag during the second inning of a baseball game in Cincinnati, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Cincinnati Reds' Elly de la Cruz, right, celebrates with Edwin Arroyo, left, after hitting a two-run homer during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies in Cincinnati, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Philadelphia Phillies J.T. Realmuto loses control of his bat during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Cincinnati Reds in Cincinnati, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Cincinnati Reds' Sal Stewart celebrates as he runs to home plate to score after hitting a solo home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies in Cincinnati, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Kyle Schwarber hit his major league-leading 32nd homer for the Phillies, which surpassed Mike Schmidt's 31 in 1979 for the most in franchise history before the All-Star break. J.T. Realmuto also went deep.
Stewart tied it with a two-run homer to right off starter Alan Rangel (0-2) in the third before Cincinnati became the first team in the majors to go deep four times in an inning this season.
Marte led off the fourth with a solo shot to put the Reds on top 3-2. With two outs, Elly De La Cruz hit a two-run drive to right-center off Tanner Banks and Stewart and JJ Bleday followed with solo homers.
It was the 15th time since 1961 — and first since 2023 — Cincinnati has had back-to-back-to-back homers.
It is the second two-homer game this season for Stewart, who was selected for the All-Star Game last week.
Marte also had a three-run double down the left-field line with the bases loaded in the sixth to extend the Reds' lead to 11-4.
Reds center fielder TJ Friedl made the defensive play of the night in the third when he made sprinted and made a running leap at the wall in right-center to deny Bryson Stott an extra-base hit.
Burns went five innings and allowed at least three runs for only the third time in 18 starts. The left-hander had a season-high six walks and tied a season low with two strikeouts in five innings.
Rangel, making his second big-league start, gave up three runs in 3 1/3 innings.
LHP Jesús Luzardo (7-4, 3.75 ERA), who was added to the NL All-Star roster on Tuesday, goes for Philadelphia while RHP Brady Singer (3-8, 5.03 ERA) takes the mound for Cincinnati.
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Cincinnati Reds pitcher Chase Burns throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies in Cincinnati, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Philadelphia Phillies Justin Crawford dives in to home plate to score on a wild pitch as Cincinnati Reds pitcher Chase Burns, left, reaches in with a late tag during the second inning of a baseball game in Cincinnati, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Cincinnati Reds' Elly de la Cruz, right, celebrates with Edwin Arroyo, left, after hitting a two-run homer during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies in Cincinnati, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Philadelphia Phillies J.T. Realmuto loses control of his bat during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Cincinnati Reds in Cincinnati, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Cincinnati Reds' Sal Stewart celebrates as he runs to home plate to score after hitting a solo home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies in Cincinnati, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A nearly 10-year battle for gay rights in Trinidad and Tobago is in the hands of a final appeals court in England.
Supreme Court judges in London held a hearing Wednesday on a landmark human rights case that could decriminalize gay sex in the eastern Caribbean nation, potentially setting a precedent for the largely conservative Caribbean region.
The case was filed in February 2017 by Jason Jones, who argues that so-called “buggery” laws in the twin-island nation that prohibit gay sex, dating from when the country was a British colony, are unconstitutional. Those found guilty could receive up to five years in prison.
Jones is represented by lawyers including Anand Ramlogan, the former attorney general of Trinidad and Tobago.
“Who are we to volunteer that gay people should starve because we don’t like the meat that they eat?” Ramlogan told the panel of judges. “Constitutional rights exist precisely because majorities are not always right. They ensure that the dignity and equality of every citizen are not left to the changing tides of public opinion.”
Opposing Jones are Trinidad and Tobago’s government, backed by the country’s Council of Evangelical Churches and its largest Hindu organization, Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha.
The case has wound its way through several courts. In April 2018, Trinidad’s High Court found the laws unconstitutional, but a local appeals court partially reversed that ruling in March 2025. Four months later, Trinidad's Court of Appeals allowed Jones to seek a ruling from the final court of appeals in England.
Attorneys representing Trinidad and Tobago's government are seeking a decision that upholds the March 2025 ruling. A majority of justices in 2025 found that the High Court erred by allowing judges to change a law. A provision in some Caribbean constitutions protects colonial laws from legal challenges, including in Trinidad and Tobago.
The case, which is now before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, is being closely watched by activists across the Caribbean.
Trinidad and Tobago is an independent country but also a republic within the British Commonwealth, so the Privy Council is its final court of appeals. The country has pushed for the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice to replace the Privy Council.
In an October 2023 speech, Justice Adrian Saunders, former president of the Caribbean Court of Justice, argued for that change, noting that the provision protecting pre-independence laws is especially tricky in Trinidad and Tobago.
“Caribbean judges being naturally ‘closer to the ground’ than their British counterparts in the (Privy Council) may well be keener to be more sensitive to and proactive in remediating the debilitating consequences of constitutional or legal provisions that deprive Caribbean people of the full enjoyment of their human rights,” he said.
In 1991, the Bahamas decriminalized homosexuality, while the U.K. government repealed such laws in 2001 in Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Elsewhere in the Caribbean, judges have recently struck down similar laws in Barbados, Dominica, St. Lucia and Antigua and Barbuda.
Gay sex remains a crime in Grenada, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and St. Vincent and the Grenadines — all former British colonies. In the U.K., gay sex was decriminalized in 1967, more than 400 years after buggery laws were passed during the reign of King Henry VIII, with the last executions associated with the crime occurring in 1835.
“Jason Jones asks for no special privilege. He asks that the Constitution protects him as it does every other citizen,” Ramlogan said.
Jones, 61, who has been openly gay since age 16, left Trinidad and Tobago in 1996 because of what he described as homophobic violence and discrimination.
“His experience is part of a wider picture,” LGBTQ groups supporting Jones said in a recent court filing. “(He) is unable to fully express his sexuality without being branded a criminal.”
Jones argues that criminalizing gay sex is a moral stance, asserting that “Trinidad and Tobago is a secular society and a multiracial one. Christian morality is neither universal nor superior.”
While the country’s so-called buggery laws have not been enforced in recent history, attorneys and activists say they still send a message.
“A law of this kind operates not only through arrest and conviction, but through the stigma, fear, concealment and exclusion,” according to a recently filed written argument by activists in favor of Jones.
It asserted that criminalizing gay sex “compounds stigma at precisely the stage at which young people may be forming identity, seeking support, accessing education and healthcare, and deciding whether it is safe to disclose abuse, bullying or self-harm risks.”
It's unclear when the Privy Council might issue a ruling. Justice Robert Reed, president of the Supreme Court, said at the end of the hearing that the case is “of great concern to many people on both sides of the debate” and that it raises some very complex legal questions.
FILE - A man enters the Supreme Court in London, on Oct. 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
