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SALEM, N.H. (AP) — Police in New Hampshire say an unruly driver zapped with a stun gun during a traffic stop yanked out the barbs and fled, prompting a two-state pursuit.

The fracas began after midnight Saturday in Salem when an officer pulled over 52-year-old Robert Zygarowski of Ellwood City, Pennsylvania. Police say he was uncooperative, and the officer shocked him.

Police say Zygarowski pulled out the barbs, jumped in his car and sped away, beginning a chase that ended when his tire blew in Massachusetts. Police say Zygarowski climbed out of his car, charged at the officer and fled in the marked cruiser.

Police say he later entered a gas station and announced he planned to shoot officers. The clerk called police, and Zygarowski was arrested.

Zygarowski is jailed awaiting a Monday arraignment.

You know, it is the 21st century, and it is possible to acknowledge that and make both the World Cup and the Olympics more affordable. The current waste and opulence simply aren't defensible anymore.

For the soccer pooh-bahs to demand that Brazil build new stadiums, costing billions of dollars, is unconscionable. How much more logical to utilize existing stadiums in neighboring countries, in large cities like Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Santiago.

As for the Olympics, rather than going through the notoriously rigorous process of voting for a new host city every few years, it would be sensible to pick three permanent sites, rotating them every Olympiad from Asia to Europe to the Americas — let's say, Tokyo to London to Los Angeles.

And even then, certain events could be allotted to nearby cities. For the LA Games, give San Francisco gymnastics, say, and San Diego the equestrian competitions.

The idea that such things as large cycling and swimming facilities have to be constructed every four years as, basically, a matter of planned obsolescence, is simply economically criminal.

Click on the audio link above to hear Deford's take on the issue.

LONDON (AP) — Imagine what the reception will be like for Andy Murray on Monday when he first strides onto the green grass of Centre Court at Wimbledon.

A year ago, Murray became the first British man since Fred Perry in 1936 to win the singles title at a tournament the locals refer to simply as "The Championships," ending a nation's long wait and sparking talk of a knighthood.

This year, Murray gets the defending champion's honor of playing the fortnight's first match on the most famous tennis court in the world. Seems safe to say that 15,000 or so of his closest friends will greet him with a full-throated roar.

"As the time gets nearer, and, you know, I get ready to play the first match on Monday, I'll definitely ... be excited about it," Murray said. "I will be nervous. It (is) an experience; something I have never experienced before. Players have talked about it in the past, that it's a great experience. But it can also be a nerve-racking one."

Murray had a slow start this season, coming off back surgery, and he hasn't reached a final since Wimbledon 50 weeks ago.

But he showed he's on the way back to peak form by reaching the semifinals at the French Open.

Performing that well on clay would seem to bode well for what he can do on grass.

"I expect to play well there. I'm really looking forward to going back. I think it will give me a lot of positive energy," Murray said. "I'm glad I'm back playing to a level that was able to get me through to the last stage of Slams."

As for how Murray will handle whatever jitters accompany his first trip back to the site of his most significant victory, his peers think he'll be just fine.

"The way he's got himself back into shape again, I think he can really believe again. That's what's most important now," said Roger Federer, who won seven of his record 17 major championships at Wimbledon and is coming off a grass title at Halle, Germany. "(Being) defending champion is never an easy thing. But then again, he played so well on grass the last few years. ... I would feel comfortable if I was Andy at this point."

Novak Djokovic, the 2011 champion and runner-up to Murray last year, agreed.

"I'm sure that Andy, with all the experience he has playing in the big matches, and especially here in front of his home crowd, understands and knows the way how to handle the pressure and expectation," Djokovic said. "So I expect him to do well."

The other reigning singles champion, France's Marion Bartoli, will not try to defend her title, announcing her retirement at 28, less than six weeks after the 2013 final. That actually fits well with the quirky career of Bartoli, who certainly did things her way, down to her two-fisted strokes for forehands, backhands and volleys.

While Murray's baseline game is rather conventional by today's standards, his coaching decisions have been groundbreaking. After parting in March with Ivan Lendl — whose hiring was followed by those of fellow past greats of the game Stefan Edberg (by Federer) and Boris Becker (by Djokovic) — Murray picked former women's No. 1 Amelie Mauresmo as a replacement this month.

"All I'm interested in is to be able to help him (reach) his goals," Mauresmo said. "That's about it."

Murray, who grew up in Dunblane, Scotland, has made plain that those aims are primarily about winning more Grand Slam trophies.

He earned his first at the 2012 U.S. Open, shortly after winning a gold medal at the London Olympics. Those triumphs followed his loss to Federer at Wimbledon that year. In 2013, Murray beat Djokovic in the Wimbledon final to end the 77-year drought.

Scotland's vote in September about whether to break away from Britain — Murray has steadfastly avoided weighing in — will be a popular topic of conversation around London this summer, and with England's early elimination from the World Cup, the attention on "Our Andy" at Wimbledon figures to be as strong as ever.

"Anytime you taste what it feels like to win it once, you obviously want to win it again. So there's an element of pressure you put on yourself, for starters, because you sort of want to see what that feels like at least one more time," said ESPN analyst John McEnroe, who won Wimbledon three times. "From that standpoint, he's going to be feeling pressure. Clearly now once people know he can do it, they're going to think he should do it again."

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Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Kevin McCarthy seems likely to inherit defeated Rep. Eric Cantor's No. 2 House Republican leadership job, but GOP restiveness along ideological and regional lines is on full display in a wide-open race for the party's next-ranking post of majority whip.

McCarthy, R-Calif., who has climbed quickly since arriving in Congress in 2007, seemed likely to become majority leader when House Republican lawmakers meet privately Thursday to elect their leadership lineup for the rest of this year.

"I have the courage to lead but the wisdom to listen," McCarthy, 49, told a reporter Wednesday. As the party's whip counter and the chief recruiter of 2010 candidates who helped the GOP capture House control that November, he said, "I understand people's frustrations."

Those frustrations seem plentiful as Republicans continue debating the meaning of Cantor's startling loss to a political neophyte last week in what was supposed to be a routine GOP primary in his Richmond, Virginia, area district. The next day, Cantor announced he would step down as majority leader on July 31, setting off the scramble for leadership jobs.

The contest to replace McCarthy as whip seemed a tough call among three rivals, with added doses of unpredictability because personal relationships matter and because Thursday's voting is by secret ballot.

The contenders are Reps. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, leader of an organization of House conservatives; Peter Roskam of Illinois, McCarthy's deputy whip; and Marlin Stutzman of Indiana, a second-term lawmaker who may attract votes from tea party lawmakers who feel Scalise has been too cooperative with party leaders.

Challenging McCarthy in a long-shot bid was second-term Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho. A conservative rebel who refused to back John Boehner, R-Ohio, as speaker on the first day of the new Congress in 2013, Labrador, 46, said the current leadership team must be changed.

"If you vote for the status quo tomorrow, you will prove that we are still not listening" to disgruntled voters, Labrador told fellow Republicans in a closed-door meeting Wednesday, according to remarks distributed by his staff. Such a result would imperil GOP efforts to win Senate control this November and capture the White House in 2016, Labrador said.

Though that sentiment was widely shared among some of the more conservative GOP lawmakers, many others said now was the time for calm. That — and lightning-fast moves by McCarthy last week to solidify support — seemed to make the majority leader race uncompetitive.

"Given the way Cantor is going out, it's important to show a little bit of stability," said Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif., who said he backed McCarthy.

A McCarthy victory would elevate the genial one-time deli owner who became a congressional aide and then a California state legislator before being elected to the House from Bakersfield, California. McCarthy has been close to Cantor, though his 72 percent rating by the American Conservative Union for key votes last year was less than Cantor's 84 percent.

Several factors were roiling the race for whip, including regional sensitivities.

With McCarthy's expected ascension and both Boehner and No. 4 GOP leader Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state unchallenged, that left only the No. 3 job available for a lawmaker not from a state President Barack Obama carried in 2012. In a nod to that, Roskam promised colleagues that if he became whip, he would appoint a deputy from a Republican-leaning state.

Also glaringly missing from the team was a lawmaker from the solidly GOP South. That omission could give Scalise an edge, though it wasn't the dominant factor for everyone.

"That's assuming somebody would go to the table and represent a particular region," said Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla., who said he was undecided. "That's our job," he said referring to lawmakers.

The issue of immigration was also coloring the voting. Some conservatives were abandoning Labrador — despite his 100 percent rating from the American Conservative Union — because he was part of a bipartisan group that unsuccessfully tried to craft an immigration compromise. Some tea party lawmakers equated that effort with granting amnesty to some immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

No matter how Thursday's races ends, many are expecting new contests when GOP lawmakers meet again after the November elections to choose leaders for the Congress that begins in January.

"What I can guarantee is there will be some races in the fall. I don't think anybody will be uncontested," said freshman Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C.

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Associated Press writers David Espo and Erica Werner contributed to this report.