ROME — Italian film legend Gina Lollobrigida, who achieved international stardom during the 1950s and was dubbed “the most beautiful woman in the world” after the title of one of her movies, died in Rome on Monday, her agent said. She was 95.

The agent, Paola Comin, didn’t provide details. Lollobrigida had surgery in September to repair a thigh bone broken in a fall. She returned home and said she had quickly resumed walking.

A drawn portrait of the diva graced a 1954 cover of Time magazine, which likened her to a “goddess” in an article about Italian movie-making. More than a half-century later, Lollobrigida still turned heads with her brown, curly hair and statuesque figure, and preferred to be called an actress instead of the gender-neutral term actor.

“Lollo,” as she was lovingly nicknamed by Italians, began making movies in Italy just after the end of World War II, as the country began to promote on the big screen a stereotypical concept of Mediterranean beauty as buxom and brunette.

Besides “The World’s Most Beautiful Woman” in 1955, career highlights included Golden Globe-winner “Come September,” with Rock Hudson; “Trapeze;” “Beat the Devil,” a 1953 John Huston film starring Humphrey Bogart and Jennifer Jones; and “Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell,” which won Lollobrigida Italy’s top movie award, a David di Donatello, as best actress in 1969.

In Italy, she worked with some of the country’s top directors following the war, including Mario Monicelli, Luigi Comencini, Pietro Germi and Vittorio De Sica.

Two of her more popular films at home were Comencini’s “Pane Amore e Fantasia” (“Bread, Love and Dreams”) in 1953, and the sequel a year later, “Pane Amore e Gelosia” (“Bread, Love and Jealousy”). Her male foil was Vittorio Gassman, one of Italy’s leading men on the screen.

Lollobrigida also was an accomplished sculptor, painter and photographer, and eventually essentially dropped film for the other arts. With her camera, she roamed the world from what was then the Soviet Union to Australia. In 1974, Fidel Castro hosted her as a guest in Cuba for 12 days as she worked on a photo reportage.

Lollobrigida was born on July 4, 1927 in Subiaco, a picturesque hill town near Rome, where her father was a furniture maker. Lollobrigida began her career in beauty contests, posing for the covers of magazines and making brief appearances in minor films. Producer Mario Costa plucked her from the streets of Rome to appear on the big screen.

Eccentric mogul Howard Hughes eventually brought Lollobrigida to the United States, where she performed with some of Hollywood’s leading men of the 1950s and 60s, including Frank Sinatra, Sean Connery, Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis and Yul Brynner.

Over the years, her co-stars also included Europe’s most dashing male stars of the era, among them Louis Jourdan, Fernando Rey, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Alec Guinness.

While Lollobrigida played some dramatic roles, her sex symbol image defined her career, and her most popular characters were in lighthearted comedies such as the “Bread, Love” trilogy.

With lush eyelashes and thick, brown curls framing her face, Lollobrigida started a hairstyle rage in the 1950s known as the “poodle cut.” Gossip columnists commented on alleged rivalries between her and Sophia Loren, another Italian film star celebrated for her beauty,

In middle age, Lollobrigida’s romance with a man 34 years her junior, Javier Rigau, from Barcelona, Spain, kept gossip pages buzzing for years.

“I have always had a weakness for younger men because they are generous and have no complexes,” the actress told Spain’s “Hola” magazine. After more than 20 years of dating, in 2006, the then-79-year-old Lollobrigida announced that she would marry Rigau, but the wedding never happened.

Her first marriage, to Milko Skofic, a Yugoslavia-born doctor, ended in divorce in 1971.

In the last years of her life, Lollobrigida’s name more frequently appeared in articles by journalists covering Rome’s courts, not the glamour scene, as legal battles were waged over whether she had the mental competence to tend to her finances.

Maria Grazia Murru contributed reporting.

Associated Press

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Doctors who treated Damar Hamlin said the Bills safety was moved to a hospital in Buffalo on Monday, an uplifting sign of the remarkable progress he has made a week after going into cardiac arrest and having to be resuscitated on the field during a game in Cincinnati.

Hamlin was discharged from the University of Cincinnati Medical Center in the morning and flown to Buffalo, where he will continue his recovery.

“I can confirm that he is doing well. And this is the beginning of the next stage of his recovery,” Dr. William Knight said.

Headed home to Buffalo today with a lot of love on my heart.

Watching the world come together around me on Sunday was truly an amazing feeling.

The same love you all have shown me is the same love that I plan to put back into the world n more.

Bigger than football!

— 𝐃𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐫 𝐇𝐚𝐦𝐥𝐢𝐧 (@HamlinIsland) January 9, 2023

Doctors said Hamlin has been walking since Friday, and eating regular food and undergoing therapy. They said he was on a normal or even accelerated trajectory in his recovery from cardiac arrest, which is considered a life-threatening event, and that normal recovery can be measured from weeks to months.

“We continue to be ecstatic about his recovery,” Dr. Timothy Pritts said.

Hamlin’s return comes a day after he cheered on the Bills from his hospital bed during their regular season-ending 35-23 win over the New England Patriots. The game proved to be a cathartic outpouring of support for the Bills and Hamlin.

Hamlin was so excited watching teammate Nyheim Hines return the opening kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown that “he jumped up and down, got out of his chair, set every alarm off in the ICU in the process,” Pritts said with a laugh.

Pritts said it was still premature to comment on the potential cause of Hamlin’s cardiac arrest.

The Bills wore No. 3 Hamlin patches on their jerseys Sunday and honored their teammate by raising three fingers in the closing minutes, while tight end Dawson Knox celebrated his touchdown by forming his hands into the shape of a heart. Fans joined in, with many holding up red heart and No. 3 signs.

“Watching the world come together around me on Sunday was truly an amazing feeling,” Hamlin said in a tweet announcing he was heading home to Buffalo, “with a lot of love in my heart.

“The same love you all have shown me is the same love that I plan to put back into the world n more.”

The 24-year-old from the Pittsburgh area has made significant progress in his recovery since spending his first two days at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center under sedation and breathing through a ventilator.

He was awakened on Wednesday night and was eventually able to grip people’s hands. By Friday, Hamlin was able to breathe on his own and even addressed the team by videoconference, in which he told the Bills, “Love you boys.”

The last update from doctors came on Saturday, when they described Hamlin’s neurological function as “excellent,” though he remained listed in critical condition.

Later that day, Hamlin tweeted: “Putting love into the world comes back 3xs as much… thankful for everyone who has reached out and prayed. This will make me stronger on the road to recovery, keep praying for me!”

The NFL will showed support for Hamlin during all Week 18 games by including a pregame moment of support, painting Hamlin’s No. 3 on the 30-yard line and pregame shirts with “Love for Damar 3.”

Hamlin’s heart stopped on Monday night after making what appeared to be a routine tackle in the first quarter against the Bengals. The game was initially suspended before officially being canceled later in the week.

News of Hamlin’s discharge from the hospital in Cincinnati was greeted with enthusiasm.

“That’s unbelievable,” Bengals coach Zac Taylor said.

“I mean, just think about it — that was one week, not even a week ago. There’s no one in this room that would have expected he’d be in Buffalo,” he added. “God is great. He works miracles. This is certainly a miracle, there’s no question. … And just an amazing moment for Damar.”

Both people spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the league is still figuring out how to determine playoff seedings and scheduling. The NFL Players Association must approve changes.

The Bills-Bengals game had major playoff implications.

Buffalo (12-3) entered Monday night needing a win to maintain the AFC’s No. 1 seed. The Kansas City Chiefs (13-3) currently hold that spot. The Bengals (11-4) had a chance to earn that top seed with two more wins and a loss by the Chiefs.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J.  — Did you win money betting on Saint Peter’s, the longest-of-longshots men’s college basketball team that got to the Elite Eight in the national championship tournament this year?

If so, you’ve got plenty of company.

According to DraftKings sportsbook, customers won more money betting on Saint Peter’s than on any other team in 2022. And the Peacocks’ 67-64 victory over Purdue on March 25 was the top-winning game for customers at BetMGM.

Did you lose money betting on the New York Yankees, Green Bay Packers or the Alabama Crimson Tide? Plenty of others did too.

Several of the nation’s leading sportsbooks provided year-end data to The Associated Press giving a look at how people bet in 2022. None would provide actual dollar figures, terming that proprietary information.

Other moneymakers for DraftKings included North Carolina, Gonzaga, Kansas and Providence in the NCAA tournament; and the San Francisco 49ers, Minnesota Vikings and Washington Commanders in the NFL.

Big money-losers for DraftKings customers included the defending Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams, who did not even qualify for the playoffs in an injury-marred 2022 season; the Denver Broncos, a trendy pre-season Super Bowl pick whose trade for veteran quarterback Russell Wilson has backfired in a 4-11 season so far; the struggling Tom Brady-led Tampa Bay Buccaneers; Brady’s former team, the New England Patriots; the Miami Dolphins; and the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and Brooklyn Nets.

In terms of the total amount of money wagered, Golden State’s Steph Curry was the most bet-on player of 2022 for DraftKings, followed by the Rams’ Cooper Kupp, the reigning Super Bowl MVP; the Yankees’ Aaron Judge, the American League MVP; the Tennessee Titans’ Derrick Henry; Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce; the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic; The Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo; the Denver Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic; Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Ja’marr Chase, and the Boston Celtics’ Jayson Tatum.

In terms of the sheer number of bets, Titans running back Derrick Henry was first, followed by Kelce and Cleveland Browns running back Nick Chubb. Others on the list included New York Giants running back Saquan Barkley, Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor and Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Davante Adams.

The most bet-on players for customers of Caesars Sportsbook were Curry; Doncic; Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow; Tatum, and Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford.

Caesars’ most bet-on teams were the Yankees; Warriors; Los Angeles Dodgers; New York Mets and Phoenix Suns.

At BetMGM, the most bet-on players were Judge, Curry and Doncic.

Houston mattress dealer and big-time gambler Jim McIngvale, also known as “Mattress Mack,” had two huge wins with Caesars this year: betting $3 million on the Houston Astros to win the World Series at 10-1 odds for a $30 million payout, and winning nearly $8 million betting on Kansas to win the NCAA basketball tournament.

At BetMGM, the most bet-on players were Judge, Curry and Doncic. McIngvale also hit for $10 million on an Astros World Series bet with BetMGM.

A World Cup soccer game in which the U.S. beat Iran 1-0 was the third-most profitable game for customers this year at BetMGM.

That sportsbook also paid out big bets on the Super Bowl including million-dollar bets on the Rams to score more points than the Bengals in the first and fourth quarters.

As it was with most sportsbooks, the Super Bowl was the most bet-on game of the year at PointsBet, followed by the Bengals-Chiefs AFC conference championship game; the Oct. 10 Raiders-Chiefs game; the Sept. 9 season opener between the Rams and the Buffalo Bills, and the Dolphins-Bengals game on Sept. 29.

FanDuel, the official odds provider for The Associated Press, did not provide similar data for 2022.

___

Follow Wayne Parry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC

On December 26th, the Sacramento Police Department received a report that the Charles Swanston statue in Land Park was vandalized. Detectives are investigating this incident and are seeking any information that may help in their investigation. pic.twitter.com/I0wmo5g3C2

— Sacramento Police Department (@SacPolice) December 28, 2022

Tipsters could receive a $1,000 reward for information about what befell the nearly century-old granite statue of Charles Swanston in Sacramento’s William Land Park on Monday. The severed head was found on the ground nearby.

Swanston traveled west from Ohio as part of the California Gold Rush and quickly realized he’d make more money as a butcher, according to Sacramento City Historian Marcia Eymann.

Police are investigating whether the vandal — or vandals — had a beef with the Swanstons or if it was a random act.

“I have no idea why anyone, unless they’re vegetarians and didn’t like meat-packers” would do this to the statue, Eymann said Wednesday. “I find this very bizarre.”

The statue is the work of the late sculptor Ralph Stackpole, a famous San Francisco artist during the Great Depression era.

An early Sacramento pioneer and settler, Swanston then became a rancher and started a meat-packing business that made him rich. His son in the 1920s commissioned the statue, which is part of a fountain, and donated it to the city after Swanston’s death in 1911 at 101 years old, The Sacramento Bee reported.

The family’s ranch was located on what’s now William Land Park. Eymann said if not for his son’s donation, the city would likely have never put up a piece for Swanston.

“Not that anybody knows who he is, but that’s something very special that Sacramento had and now it’s destroyed,” she said.

Texas authorities have not confirmed their involvement, but the bus dropoffs are in line with previous actions by border-state governors calling attention to the Biden administration’s immigration policies.

The buses that arrived late Saturday outside the vice president’s Naval Observartory residence were carrying around 110 to 130 people, according to Tatiana Laborde, managing director of SAMU First Response, a relief agency working with the city of Washington to serve thousands of migrants who have been dropped off in recent months.

Local organizers had expected the buses to arrive Sunday but found out Saturday that the group would get to Washington early, Laborde said. The people on board included young children.Some were wearing T-shirts despite temperatures hovering around 15 degrees Fahrenheit. It was the coldest Christmas Eve on record for Washington, according to the Washington Post.

Laborde said employees had blankets ready for the people who arrived on Christmas Eve and moved them quickly onto waiting buses for a ride to a church. A restaurant chain donated dinner and breakfast.

Most of the arrivals were headed to other destinations and expected to remain in Washington only briefly.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s office did not respond to a request for comment Sunday morning. His office said last week that Texas has given bus rides to more than 15,000 people since April to Washington, New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.

Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, both Republicans, are strong critics of President Joe Biden on his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, where thousands of people are trying to cross daily, many to seek asylum. Officials on both sides of the border are seeking emergency help in setting up shelters and services for migrants, some of whom are sleeping on streets.

Republicans argue Biden and Harris, designated the administration’s point person on the root causes of migration, have relaxed restrictions that induced many people to leave their countries of origin. Biden has ended some policies but kept others enacted by former President Donald Trump, whose administration also grappled with spikes in border crossings and at one point separated immigrant families and children as a deterrence initiative.

The scope of the storm is nearly unprecedented, stretching from the Great Lakes to the Rio Grande. About 60% of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, the National Weather Service said.

Some 1,346 domestic and international flights were canceled as of early Sunday, according to the tracking site FlightAware.

Forecasters said a bomb cyclone — when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm — had developed near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow.

The storm unleashed its full fury on Buffalo, with hurricane-force winds and snow causing whiteout conditions, paralyzing emergency response efforts — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said almost every fire truck in the city was stranded — and shutting down the airport through Monday, according to officials. The National Weather Service said the snow total at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport stood at 43 inches at 7 a.m. Sunday.

Two people died in their homes in Cheektowaga, New York, when emergency crews could not reach them in time to treat their medical conditions, and another died in Buffalo. Four more deaths were confirmed overnight, bringing the Erie County total to seven. County Executive Mark Poloncarz warned there may be more deaths.

“Some were found in cars, some were found on the street in snowbanks,” said Poloncarz. “We know there are people who have been stuck in cars for more than 2 days.”

Freezing conditions and day-old power outages had Buffalonians scrambling to get out of their homes to anywhere that had heat. But with city streets under a thick blanket of white, that wasn’t an option for people like Jeremy Manahan, who charged his phone in his parked car after almost 29 hours without electricity.

“There’s one warming shelter, but that would be too far for me to get to. I can’t drive, obviously, because I’m stuck,” Manahan said. “And you can’t be outside for more than 10 minutes without getting frostbit.”

Ditjak Ilunga of Gaithersburg, Maryland, was on his way to visit relatives in Hamilton, Ontario, for Christmas with his daughters Friday when their SUV was trapped in Buffalo. Unable to get help, they spent hours with the engine running in the vehicle buffeted by wind and nearly buried in snow.

By 4 a.m. Saturday, with their fuel nearly gone, Ilunga made a desperate choice to risk the howling storm to reach a nearby shelter. He carried 6-year-old Destiny on his back while 16-year-old Cindy clutched their Pomeranian puppy, stepping into his footprints as they trudged through drifts.

“If I stay in this car I’m going to die here with my kids,” he recalled thinking, but believing they had to try. He cried when the family walked through the shelter doors. “It’s something I will never forget in my life.”

The storm knocked out power in communities from Maine to Seattle. But heat and lights were steadily being restored across the U.S. According to poweroutage.us, fewer than 300,000 customers were without power at 5 a.m. Pacific time on Sunday – down from a peak of 1.7 million.

Across the six New England states, about 121,300 customers remained without power on Sunday, with Maine still the hardest hit.

Storm-related deaths were reported in recent days all over the country: seven in Erie County, New York; 10 dead in multiple crashes in Ohio, including a pileup involving some 50 vehicles, a man whose sport utility vehicle ran into a snowplow and an electrocuted utility worker; four motorists killed in separate crashes in Missouri and Kansas; a Vermont woman struck by a falling branch; an apparently homeless man found amid Colorado’s subzero temperatures; a woman who fell through Wisconsin river ice.

In Florida, the thermometer plunged below freezing for the first time in almost five years at Tampa International Airport, and temperatures dropped into the 20s and 30s in other parts of central Florida area, according to the National Weather Service.

In South Florida, temperatures dropped to as low as 43 degrees in West Palm Beach. The temperature drop was conducive to iguanas falling out of trees since the cold-blooded reptiles typically become immobilized in unusually cold weather.

Along Interstate 71 in Kentucky, Terry Henderson and her husband, Rick, weathered a 34-hour traffic jam in a rig outfitted with a diesel heater, a toilet and a refrigerator after getting stuck trying to drive from Alabama to their Ohio home for Christmas.

“We should have stayed,” Terry Henderson said after they got moving again Saturday.

Vivian Robinson of Spirit of Truth Urban Ministry in Buffalo said she and her husband have been sheltering and cooking for 60 to 70 people, including stranded travelers and locals without power or heat, who were spending Saturday night at the church.

Many arrived with ice and snow plastered to their clothes, crying, their skin reddened by the single-digit temperatures.

“It’s emotional just to see the hurt that they thought they were not going to make it, and to see that we had opened up the church, and it gave them a sense of relief,” Robinson said. “Those who are here are really enjoying themselves. It’s going to be a different Christmas for everyone.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, just back from his quick trip to Washington, posted photos of the wreckage on his social media accounts. He noted the destruction came as Ukrainians were beginning Christmas celebrations that for many Orthodox Christians will culminate in the traditional celebration Jan. 7.

“This is not sensitive content — it’s the real life of Kherson,” Zelenskyy tweeted. The images showed cars on fire, bodies on the street and building windows blown out.

Yaroslav Yanushevych, the governor of the Kherson region, said in televised remarks that the number of people killed in the latest shelling of the city has risen from seven to 10.

He added that 55 people were wounded, 18 of them in grave condition. Yanushevych said scores of others, including a 6-year-old girl, were wounded by Russian shelling a day earlier.

Saturday marks 10 months since the start of the Russian invasion.

Ukraine has faced a blistering onslaught of Russian artillery fire, missiles, shelling and drone attacks since early October, much of it targeting the energy infrastructure in a bid to cut electricity and heating services as the freezing winter advances. The shelling has been especially intense in Kherson since Russian forces withdrew and Ukraine’s army reclaimed the city in November.

Earlier Saturday, the Donetsk regional governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said two people were killed and five wounded in shelling there over the past day. The deaths were in Kurakhove, a town of about 20,000 that’s 20 miles west of Russian-controlled Donetsk city.

About 60 shells hit three communities during the night in the area of Nikopol, said the Dnipropetrovsk regional governor, Valentyn Reznichenko.

Stepne, a settlement on the outskirts of Zaporizhzhia, was also hit by shelling but there were no details on casualties, according to the governor, Oleksander Starukh,

Zelenskyy has returned to Kyiv following his trip to Washington, in which he secured another $1.8 billion military aid package.

On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the war would end at the negotiating table once the “special military operation” achieves Russia’s goals. He said no reported Ukrainian peace plan can succeed without taking into account “the realities of today that can’t be ignored” — a reference to Moscow’s demand that Ukraine recognize Russia’s sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, as well as other territorial gains.

Superintendent Torie Gibson felt she had no choice but to make the unpopular decision. When learning Amador High’s football team had a group chat titled, “Kill the Blacks,” filled with derogatory language and racial slurs, she ended the Northern California school’s varsity season.

That meant the 100-year anniversary game between rivals Amador and Argonaut was called off.

“We canceled the football season, and we did it for all the right reasons because the behavior is not acceptable,” said Gibson, who oversees the Amador County Unified School District. “However, football is an extracurricular activity. It is not a given. It is not a right. It is strictly extra.”

The discipline was swift and abrupt. Moments before Amador was to play Rosemont — a predominantly Black and Latino school in nearby Sacramento — the game was called off.

There was more fallout. Amador’s football coach, athletic director and principal were put on leave.

In Gibson’s mind, the discipline was the easy part. The hard part will be setting the table for real change, and the key will be presentation. The school is based in a mostly white, rural area an hour’s drive east of Sacramento. Amador has just four Black students out of about 750.

“I think if we roll it out correctly and we provide the necessary support and we don’t shame people for who they are and we work it out so that we celebrate everyone, but really, truly look at our blind spots and our differences, I think it’ll make a big difference,” said Gibson, who is white.

The incident at Amador was one of several alarming examples of racism against Black people that occurred this fall in high school football around the nation. Athletes in the past were able to leave racism and other issues off the field, but today not even sports settings are immune from real world problems.

Administrators in some cases have used these incidents to start conversations about race that have been hard for them to bring up before and roll out programs they hope will have lasting impact.

A TikTok video created by players at River Valley High School in Yuba City, California, featured a mock slave auction. A social media post circulated showing five white males from West Laurens High School, a central Georgia school a little more than a two-hour drive southeast of Atlanta, at a football game wearing shirts that spelled out a racial slur targeting Black people. And at Guilderland High School in New York, about a half-hour’s drive west of Albany, several classmates showed up to a football game wearing black facepaint, prompting about 100 students to walk out of classes days later.

Richard Lapchick, the founder of The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at Central Florida, is using social media to draw attention to weekly examples of racism in sports and elsewhere. He said the institute, also known as TIDES, found 58 articles in its first week of searching, and he highlighted 11 on his Twitter feed.

“White supremacist acts have been unleashed across the nation in the current political climate,” Lapchick said. “I don’t think the general public knows how extensive it is.”

Gibson, the superintendent in Northern California, feels she has to start with implicit bias work in her district. She said she was encouraged by the fact that the school already has strong transgender and gay and lesbian advocacy groups.

“I think we are going to have a great opportunity to really make some change and to do some great work,” she said.

The mock slave auction at River Valley was done as a prank, but there was nothing funny about the repercussions. The varsity football team forfeited the remainder of its season after suspensions left it with too few players to continue.

River Valley Principal Lee McPeak said the district is working with a professional to implement programs to help learn from the incident.

“There are vital messages about race, discrimination and systemic changes that are necessary to help us turn important corners toward equity, respect and compassion, critical for our schools today,” he said.

At Guilderland High in New York, some students were outraged when some of their classmates showed up to a game in blackface. Administrators met with students through small group, roundtable discussions. The school said it was a “culminating moment” for students who had experienced discriminatory issues and injustices.

In the wake of all the incidents, the work toward learning and changing is just starting.

“It’s going to take us time,” Gibson said. “It’s going to be years of work. There’s no magic button to just fix it.”

The Arizona Department of Public Safety says a state trooper last week noticed a car in a high-occupancy vehicle lane on Interstate 10 in Phoenix with a “Seusspicious-looking” green passenger.

While the gag may have caused the officer’s heart to grow, it did not stop the driver from getting cited for being in the HOV lane during a restricted time.

The agency, however, could not help but post a photo of the Grinch figure with the driver’s face blurred on its Twitter account.

Last week, an #AZTrooper spotted a driver in the high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane with a Seusspicious-looking "passenger" on I-10 at Avondale Blvd at 8AM.
The trooper stopped the driver & determined the grumpy green guy was, in fact, an inflatable Grinch. (No other passengers.) pic.twitter.com/YcOfZHJVoX

— Dept. of Public Safety (@Arizona_DPS) December 13, 2022

Officials say they appreciate the “festive flair” but that the driver’s action was still illegal.

They are urging motorists to follow traffic laws.