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Column: It’s only April, and the White Sox, Cubs — and Rick Sutcliffe — are already in rare form

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 12:00:33 GMT

Two glaring questions on the minds of Chicago baseball fans three weeks into the 2023 season:Are the White Sox as awful as their 7-12 record indicates?Are the Cubs as totally awesome as Marquee Sports Network analyst Rick Sutcliffe seems to believe?The simple answer to both questions probably is no.But recent events already have Sox fans in a deep funk and Cubs fans cautiously optimistic the tide has finally turned on the North Side.The Sox, who haven’t won a single series after dropping the rubber game Wednesday to the Philadelphia Phillies 5-2, have too much talent to continue on a 102-loss pace. The 11-6 Cubs, who swept the Oakland Athletics with a 12-2 victory to end their West Coast trip 5-1 and capture their fifth straight series, can’t possibly be a 105-win team.But that’s the beauty of April, when teams get an opportunity to show that everything they worked on in spring training can translate to the regular season. The Sox obviously haven’t lived up t...

Groups push for De Anza Cove redevelopment

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 12:00:33 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- A coalition of environmental groups are lending their support to the Rewild Mission Bay Campaign, which hopes to convince the City of San Diego to prioritize restoring and expanding wetlands on De Anza Cove as it moves forward with redeveloping the northeastern portion of Mission Bay.“With San Diego seeing a lot of effects from climate change, we really have to focus on green infrastructure," said Lucero Weber with San Diego Coastkeeper. The debate over how to best use and preserve the land has been going on now for several years. The city’s plan, De Anza Natural, envisions a balance of land uses that serves local and regional recreational needs, while also restoring natural habitats and preparing for the impacts of climate change. This group, made up of the Audubon Society, Outdoor Outreach, Coastkeeper and the Sierra Club, applauds the cities plan but says it should expand the wetlands significantly more.“We feel there needs to be a greater emphasis on maximum wetland...

House Republicans push asylum restrictions, border security

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 12:00:33 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans for months have railed against the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S. border with Mexico, holding hearings, visiting border communities and promising to advance legislation to clamp down on illegal immigration and drug trafficking.But so far, they have failed to unify behind a plan, delaying efforts to pass legislation.Now they are hoping to change that. Republicans on Wednesday jump-started work on an immigration and border enforcement package that would remake immigration law to make it more difficult to apply for asylum and easier for the federal government to stop migrants from entering the U.S. It combines proposals from a number of conservative hardliners into a single bill.The undertaking comes as Washington is putting renewed focus on border security, and the plight of thousands of migrants who show up seeking entry into the U.S., with a looming May deadline that is expected to end a federal COVID-era asylum policy. The hearing al...

Body recovered from rubble of collapsed NYC parking garage

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 12:00:33 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Crews used cranes to pluck cars, one by one, from the rubble of a New York City parking garage Wednesday as building inspectors sought to pinpoint a cause for the century-old structure’s deadly collapse. A body was recovered from the rubble.Workers searched for a garage worker presumed dead under tons of concrete and crumpled vehicles. Late Wednesday, the Fire Department said it had recovered a body and turned it over to the city’s chief medical examiner’s office. The identity of the victim was not immediately released, and it wasn’t immediately known if it was that of the missing garage worker. “Right now we’re transitioning to how we safely take down that building,” Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol said at a news conference, a day after the multilevel parking lot collapsed just as a stream of customers were returning from work to retrieve their cars.It was a delicate operation to remove as many as 90 vehicles scattered on the str...

Hawaii cites 2 for feeding feral cats, harming native geese

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 12:00:33 GMT

HONOLULU (AP) — State authorities have cited two women for allegedly harming nene — an endangered species of geese native to Hawaii — by feeding feral cats in a Big Island shopping center parking lot.The state Department of Land and Natural Resources said it issued the citations on Tuesday while about 50 people were protesting a decision by the shopping center’s owner to remove three cat-feeding stations. Some protesters were carrying large bags of cat food, the department said in a news release.The nene geese are listed as an endangered species under Hawaii state law and a threatened species under U.S. law. Stray cats have no predators in Hawaii, and their numbers have ballooned. Marketing research commissioned by the Hawaiian Humane Society in 2015 estimated Oahu alone had 300,000 feral cats.The department earlier this month sent a letter to Alexander & Baldwin, the owner of Queens’ Marketplace Shopping Center, saying nene had been observed eating food from the fee...

Minnesota Gov. Walz draws sharp contrasts with red states

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 12:00:33 GMT

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Gov. Tim Walz drew stark contrasts between Minnesota and Republican-led states Wednesday night, using his State of the State speech to highlight how he and his fellow Democrats have used their new control over state government to push through an ambitious liberal agenda.Walz, now three months into his second term, told lawmakers and other dignitaries in the House chamber how Minnesota Democrats are bucking the backlash seen in red states across the country against abortion rights, trans rights, pushes for racial equity and other cultural flashpoints.“I’ve seen some of these other governors on TV — they spend a lot of time on TV — and they’re always talking about ‘freedom,’” Walz said in his prepared remarks. “But it turns out what they mean is that government should be free to invade your bedroom, your children’s locker room, and your doctor’s office.”Walz didn’t name Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or other GOP leaders who’ve gained national follo...

B.C. First Nation sues port firm, others for disrupting ancestral remains

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 12:00:33 GMT

VANCOUVER — A First Nation is suing the British Columbia and federal governments and the company behind a railway terminal port in the province’s Interior, claiming it wasn’t property consulted about the project it says has “desecrated” its ancestral territory. Bonaparte First Nation Chief Frank Antoine said inland port development by Ashcroft Terminal Ltd. over the First Nations’ ancestral remains continues unabated with the support of the federal and provincial government. The nation filed a lawsuit Wednesday, saying it has been wrongfully misled and shut out of the development process. In June 2021, Antoine said members of the Bonaparte staged a sit-in protest on the site of Ashcroft Terminal’s inland port, where expansion activities unearthed ancestral remains and other culturally significant artifacts. “They just put it in a box, put it in a trailer and left it there until our membership decided to say enough is enough,” Antoine s...

Costa Rica president promises more police, tougher laws

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 12:00:33 GMT

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — President Rodrigo Chaves promised Wednesday to put more police in the streets and demanded changes in Costa Rica’s laws to confront record-setting numbers of homicides that have shaken daily life in a country long known for peaceful stability.Choosing to make his speech in the plaza in front of the country’s Congress, Chaves said too many violent criminals are allowed to walk free and called for more flexibility to extradite Costa Ricans to countries where they are wanted for drug trafficking crimes.Costa Rica recorded 657 homicides last year, the majority blamed on violence related to drug trafficking. The country has moved on from just being a passthrough for drugs moving from South America to the United States. It has become an important hub for drugs being shipped to the U.S. and Europe and there is also a growing domestic drug market.“I want people to be able to walk peacefully in the street, that kids go to the park safely, that children go to...

Illinois middle school wrestler sucker-punched by opponent after loss in viral video

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 12:00:33 GMT

SANDWICH, Ill. — An Illinois middle school wrestler is speaking out after a widely-shared video shows him getting punched by his opponent after a match.Jillian Hill’s 14-year-old son Cooper is a two-time state wrestling champion, competing in the 125-128-pound division. On April 8, Cooper competed in the Beat the Streets tournament at Oak Park High School with his team out of Spar Academy in Aurora. "He had won the match by tech-fall and when they came to the circle, Cooper extended his hand to shake his hand," Hill told WGN News. "That’s when the assault happened." Downtown beating witness: ‘They were going to kill that young man’ The video shows Cooper, in an orange singlet, shaking his competitor's hand just seconds before the Maine West student punches him in the face. Cooper immediately fell to the ground."I remember there was this stinging in my face. I balled up and I checked for blood. I looked up to see my stepdad and mom checking me," Cooper told WGN News."Coop...

Frank Ocean steps away from second Coachella set after leg injury: reports

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 12:00:33 GMT

SAN DIEGO (KSWB) -- Frank Ocean will not be returning to perform at the second weekend of Coachella after fracturing his leg on the grounds of the festival, according to multiple outlets.This comes after fans expressed disappointment on social media over the singer’s performance during the festival's first weekend in Indio.In a statement to Variety and TMZ, a representative for Ocean said the singer suffered a leg injury on festival grounds leading up to the first weekend of Coachella. Because of that, he was "unable to perform the intended show but was still intent on performing, and in 72 hours, the show was reworked out of necessity."The injury has also sidelined him for what was set to be his second live performance in nearly six years. Ocean has two fractures and a sprain in his left leg, his representative said Wednesday.Ocean was the headliner on Sunday night but his set was an hour late and appeared to come to an abrupt end. It sparked criticism from festivalgoers who quickl...