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Do the Chicago Cubs need to explore different closing options after Michael Fulmer’s rocky start?

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:04:01 GMT

Michael Fulmer can’t lose the Chicago Cubs closer’s role if he’s not officially the closer.And if they have no official closer, you can’t really have a closer controversy.But that won’t stop Cubs fans from blaming manager David Ross when a game is blown late, as happened again Thursday in a 6-2 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.After his second blown save in three opportunities Thursday, Fulmer’s status has gone under the microscope.“I trust Michael Fulmer, I’ll make that statement for sure,” Ross said Friday. “When you feel like you’re not at your best, and you care a lot, which Michael Fulmer (does) about this team and performing for this team and organization, you might try a little bit harder.“I don’t know that trying harder in our game is the best formula for success. Getting back to making sure he has a plan to execute what he’s good at and continue to look at the information and see if we can fi...

NFL Draft 2023: Bijan Robinson and 7 potential Patriots running back picks

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:04:01 GMT

Welcome to Potential Patriots!Each day leading up to the NFL Draft on April 27, the Herald will introduce prospects the Patriots are likely targeting position by position. The Pats have 11 picks this year, starting at 14th overall, their highest selection in more than a decade. As for their other picks, the Patriots could pad their depth at virtually any position.Below is a breakdown of the Patriots’ best prospect fits at running back.Day 1Bijan Robinson, TexasHt/Wt: 5-11, 215Projected round: 1stScouting report: Arguably the most talented prospect in the entire class, Robinson is regarded as the best running back to enter the draft since Saquon Barkley. He’s armed with 4.4 speed, tremendous power, burst and running instincts, but that’s hardly all. Robinson forced 104 missed tackles last season, per Pro Football Focus, far and away the highest total in major college football; a stat that reflects Robinson can create yards on his own, the top trait that separates el...

Five years after Toronto van attack, ‘incel’ threat is growing: expert

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:04:01 GMT

Five years ago, after a man deliberately drove a van down a busy Toronto sidewalk in one of Canada’s worst mass murders, the country was confronted with a previously obscure extremist movement, which experts say remains a growing threat.The attacker, Alek Minassian, had claimed to be angered by women who wouldn’t sleep with him and inspired by“incels,” or involuntary celibates.While Minassian later cited various motivations for the violence and the presiding judge at his trial ultimately found he carried out the attack to achieve notoriety, his rampage on April 23, 2018 forced renewed attention on the capacity of misogynist movements to inspire violence.Arie Perliger, the director of security studies at the University of Massachusetts – Lowell, said law enforcement agencies now see incels and groups with misogynist ideology as a rising concern.“The threat is growing,” he said. “It will continue to be a problem.”Canada has not see...

Sudan army: Rescue of foreign citizens, diplomats expected

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:04:01 GMT

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — The Sudanese army said Saturday it was coordinating efforts to evacuate American, British, Chinese and French citizens and diplomats from Sudan on military aircraft, as the bloody fighting that has engulfed the vast African nation entered its second week. The military said that its chief, Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, had spoken to leaders of several countries who have requested safe evacuations of their citizens and diplomats from Sudan. The prospect has vexed officials as most major airports have become battlegrounds and movement out of the capital, Khartoum, has proven intensely dangerous. Burhan “agreed to provide the necessary assistance to secure such evacuations for various countries,” the military said.Questions have swirled over how the mass rescues of foreign citizens would unfold, with Sudan’s main international airport closed and millions of people sheltering indoors. As battles between the Sudanese army led by Burhan and a rival powerful paramil...

Dame Edna creator Barry Humphries dies in Sydney at 89

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:04:01 GMT

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Tony Award-winning comedian Barry Humphries, internationally renowned for his garish stage persona Dame Edna Everage, a condescending and imperfectly-veiled snob whose evolving character has delighted audiences over seven decades, has died. He was 89. His death was confirmed Saturday by the Sydney hospital where he spent several days with complications following hip surgery. Humphries had lived in London for decades and returned to native Australia in December for Christmas. He told The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper last month that his physiotherapy had been “agony” following his fall and hip replacement.“It was the most ridiculous thing, like all domestic incidents are. I was reaching for a book, my foot got caught on a rug or something, and down I went,” Humphries said of his fall.Humphries has remained an active entertainer, touring Britain last year with his one-man show “The Man Behind the Mask.”The character of Dame Edna began as a dowdy Mrs. Norm ...

Explorers find WWII ship sunk with over 1,000 Allied POWs

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:04:01 GMT

SYDNEY (AP) — A team of explorers announced it found a sunken Japanese ship that was transporting Allied prisoners of war when it was torpedoed off the coast of the Philippines in 1942, resulting in Australia’s largest maritime wartime loss with a total of 1,080 lives. The wreck of the Montevideo Maru was located after a 12-day search at a depth of over 4000 meter (13,120 feet) — deeper than the Titanic — off Luzon island in the South China Sea, using an autonomous underwater vehicle with in-built sonar.There will be no efforts to remove artifacts or human remains out of respect for the families of those who died, said a statement Saturday from the Sydney-based Silentworld Foundation, a not-for-profit dedicated to maritime archaeology and history. It took part in the mission together with Dutch deep-sea survey specialists Fugro and Australia’s Defense Department. “The extraordinary effort behind this discovery speaks for the enduring truth of Australia’s solemn national ...

For transgender kids, a frantic rush for treatment amid bans

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:04:01 GMT

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — As a third grader in Utah, mandolin-playing math whiz Elle Palmer said aloud what she had only before sensed, telling a friend she planned to transfer schools the following year and hoped her new classmates would see her as a girl.Several states northeast, Asher Wilcox-Broekemeier listened to punk rock in his room, longing to join the shirtless boys from the neighborhood playing beneath the South Dakota sunshine. It wasn’t until menstruation started, and the disconnect with his body grew, that he knew he was one of them.Both kids’ realizations started their families on a yearslong path of doctors, therapists and other experts in transgender medicine.Now teenagers, their journeys have hit a roadblock. Republican lawmakers across the country are banning gender-affirming care for minors. Restrictions have gone into effect in eight states this year — including conservative Utah and South Dakota — and are slated to in at least nine more by next year.Those who oppose...

China’s FM holds talks in Philippines amid strained ties

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:04:01 GMT

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — China’s foreign minister said Saturday his country is willing to work with the Philippines to resolve their differences, as tensions rise over Beijing’s behavior in the disputed South China Sea and Manila’s deeping military cooperation with the U.S. Foreign Minister Qin Gang held talks in Manila with his Philippine counterpart, Enrique Manalo, and was scheduled to meet with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. just days before he travels to Washington for a meeting with President Joe Biden.China has warned that a deepening security alliance between the United States and the Philippines should not harm its security and territorial interests and interfere in long-simmering territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Beijing has criticized a recent agreement by the Philippines and the U.S. to grant U.S. forces access to additional local military camps.The deal allows American forces to establish military staging grounds and surveillance outposts ...

One of the last of his generation, Second World War vet in New Brunswick dies

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:04:01 GMT

FREDERICTON — Angus Hamilton, who served as a radar technician in Southeast Asia during the Second World War and returned home to a successful career in the civil service and academia, has died in Fredericton at the age of 100.Born in Listowel, Ont., on April 18, 1922, Hamilton grew up on a farm, with the Great Depression shaping his early years“The war had come at the best possible time for me,” he wrote in his book, “For King and Country,” one of seven he authored chronicling his life“I was 17 in 1939 when the war began; I signed up when I was 18 and I had just turned 19 when I reported for duty. I wasn’t close to settling down. I was at the age when adventure calls.”In an interview in November when he attended a Remembrance Day ceremony in Fredericton, Hamilton said he had wanted to be a pilot, “like every boy, but my eyesight was not good enough.” Instead he became a radar technician with the Royal Canadian Air Force, serving...

Gas prices rise again in New Jersey and around the nation

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:04:01 GMT

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Gas prices continued to rise in New Jersey and around the nation at large this past week, but analysts say a drop in demand and falling oil prices may soon bring relief at the pumps.The average price of a gallon of regular gas in New Jersey on Friday was $3.52, an increase of eight cents from last week, AAA Mid-Atlantic said. Drivers were paying $4.08 a gallon on average a year ago at this time.The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.68, up two cents from last week. Drivers were paying $4.12 a gallon on average a year ago at this time.Oil prices fell this week amid ongoing market concerns that future interest rate increases could tip the economy into a recession, a move analysts say will likely leading to reduced oil demand and prices in the near future.The Associated Press