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Chicago Bulls focused on finding an early spark in their must-win play-in game: ‘We’ve got to come out and be the aggressor’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:58 GMT

The Chicago Bulls have come out slow in the final week of the season, losing the first quarters of their last three games entering Friday and struggling to dig themselves out of first-half deficits. As he prepares his players for their first taste of single elimination in the NBA play-in tournament, coach Billy Donovan knows that is no longer an option.If the Bulls don’t strike first Wednesday against the Toronto Raptors or Atlanta Hawks, their season could come to a crashing halt.“There’s no question that at times we’re taking the temperature to see how the game’s being played,” Donovan said. “And I do think that we’ve got to come out and be the aggressor. Sometimes what’s happening is the fight is getting dictated early. You want to be the one forcing other people to respond.”The play-in tournament, which began in 2021, has the Nos. 7-10 seeds battling for the final two playoff spots in each conference, creating higher st...

Orioles players felt a ‘buzz’ during a home-opening victory. They hope it’s just the start.

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:58 GMT

Grayson Rodriguez didn’t pitch Friday, but he still garnered one of the loudest cheers during the Orioles’ home opener.Judging by the pregame player introductions at Camden Yards, the top pitching prospect, who made his MLB debut Wednesday in his home state of Texas, is already one of the most popular players on the team.“It felt like a dream,” Rodriguez said. “Man, that atmosphere was awesome. It’s something I’ve really dreamed about, something I’ve really wanted to experience as a player. It was just fantastic.”The pomp and circumstance of the day wasn’t dampened by the postponement of the original home opener Thursday, nor the chilly, overcast afternoon. It helped that the Orioles beat the New York Yankees, 7-6, to improve to 4-3 on the season.Baltimore fans still packed the park with a sellout attendance of 45,017 and performed all the typical duties — shouting “O” during the national anthem, booing ri...

Maryland lawmakers work on cannabis, guns, near session end

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:58 GMT

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland lawmakers kept working Friday on passing some remaining priority measures of the Democratic-led legislature in the waning days of the session. At the top of the list: bills to enable a recreational marijuana market to open July 1 and to respond to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last year that expanded gun rights.With the session set to end at midnight Monday, a sense of urgency was setting in for supporters of bills that had not yet been passed by the General Assembly in the 90-day session. Police led seven protesters away in handcuffs in front of the Capitol, as they rallied to urge lawmakers to pass a bill that would enable any resident to enroll in a health plan through the state’s Health Benefit Exchange, regardless of their immigration status. The measure called the Access to Care Act has passed the House but has not advanced in the Senate.Sen. Melony Griffith, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, told reporters later in the day that th...

Access to abortion pill in limbo after competing rulings

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:58 GMT

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Access to the most commonly used method of abortion in the U.S. plunged into uncertainty Friday following conflicting court rulings over the legality of the abortion medication mifepristone that has been widely available for more than 20 years.For now, the drug the Food and Drug Administration approved in 2000 appeared to remain at least immediately available in wake of two separate rulings that were issued just minutes apart by federal judges in Texas and Washington.U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone in a decision that overruled decades of scientific approval. But that decision came at nearly same time that U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice, an Obama appointee, essentially ordered the opposite and directed U.S. authorities not to make any changes that would restrict access to the drug in at least 17 states where Democrats sued in an effort to protect availability. The extraordinary timin...

Chasing Horse sex abuse charges upheld, drug crime dropped

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:58 GMT

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada judge on Friday threw out a drug trafficking charge against a “Dances With Wolves” actor but upheld a Las Vegas grand jury’s sweeping indictment on 18 sexual abuse-related felony crimes.In her order issued late Friday afternoon, Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny said state prosecutors presented enough evidence for “a reasonable grand jury to conclude that the sexual assaults occurred against two minors” but found that “there was no substantive testimony” connecting Nathan Chasing Horse to the psilocybin mushrooms investigators found while searching his home. Chasing Horse, 46, had asked Kierny to toss the entire indictment, saying his accusers wanted to have sex with him and that the mushrooms found inside a refrigerator in his home did not belong to him. One of his accusers was younger than 16 — the age of consent in Nevada — when she says Chasing Horse began abusing her. Public defender Kristy Holston said she had no comment on the judg...

Utah man who killed wife, 5 kids left suicide note

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:58 GMT

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah man who fatally shot his wife, her mother and their five kids left a suicide note saying he “would rather rot in hell” than continue being controlled by his wife, investigators wrote in a report released on Friday.“This is nonsense and I can’t handle it for one more day. We will not be a burden on society. I kept asking for help and you wouldn’t listen,” Michael Haight, 42, wrote in a suicide note included in the report.“I would rather rot in hell than to put up with another day of this manipulation and control over me,” Haight wrote.The suicide note marks a contrast from other revelations included in the 57-page page investigative report released by the city of Enoch on Friday, in which Haight, not his wife, is described as controlling and abusive in texts from his kids and by community members interviewed after the tragedy.The report builds off documents released after the tragedy that described Haight as the subject of a child abuse ...

US reviewing whether Ukraine war documents were leaked

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:58 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Defense Department and the Justice Department are reviewing a handful of documents that were released on several social media sites and appear to detail U.S. and NATO aid to Ukraine, but may have been altered or used as part of a misinformation campaign.The documents, which were posted on sites such as Twitter, are labeled secret and resemble routine updates that the U.S. military’s Joint Staff would produce daily but not distribute publicly. They are dated ranging from Feb. 23 to March 1, and provide what appears to be details on the progress of weapons and equipment going into Ukraine with more precise timelines and amounts than the U.S. generally provides publicly.They are not war plans and they provide no details on any planned Ukraine offensive. And some inaccuracies — including estimates of Russian troops deaths that are significantly lower than numbers publicly stated by U.S. officials — have led some to question the documents’ authenticity.“...

Chains and pains: How one Mexican town celebrates Holy Week

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:58 GMT

ATLIXCO, Mexico (AP) — Barefoot, half naked and blindfolded, throngs of middle aged men groan as they drag their bodies along blazing cobblestone streets.Pieces of cactus sit lodged on their arms and legs, and 70-pound chains hang around their necks and clatter around their ankles as crowds watch them pass.For these men, it’s not a form of torture, but rather a cherished tradition that has played out for more than a hundred years in the Mexican town of Atlixco.Every year on Good Friday in the small Mexican town of Atlixco, more than a hundred men make the trek known as the Procesión de los Engrillados — the Procession of the Chained.In this country where nearly 80% of the people are Roman Catholic, the participants believe it’s a way to give thanks or to pay penance for their sins.“It’s an act of gratitude for all that God has given me, and a way to ask for forgiveness for all the bad I’ve done to be a better person,” said Martín Cazares, 42, who has participated in the march for tw...

Judge in Washington orders feds to keep abortion pill access

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:58 GMT

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A federal judge in Washington state on Friday ordered U.S. authorities not to make any changes that would restrict access to the abortion medication mifepristone in 17 Democratic-led states that sued over the issue, countering a ruling by a judge in Texas on the same day that ordered a hold on federal approval of the drug.The dueling decisions threw into question access to the nation’s most common method of abortion, one that scientists have approved for use for decades.U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, a Trump administration appointee in Amarillo, Texas, signed an injunctio n directing the Food and Drug Administration to stay mifepristone’s approval while a lawsuit challenging the safety and approval of the drug continues. That ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom.In Washington state, Spokane-based Judge Thomas O. Rice, an Obama administration appointee, partially granted a request from 17 states and the...

NHL to have ‘busiest day’ in league’s history Saturday

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:58 GMT

With 16 games on the schedule for April 8, the National Hockey League (NHL) is gearing up for a historic Saturday.All 32 teams in the NHL are set to play in the same day, marking the first time this has happened, the league says.On the eve of the first 16-game day in NHL history, #NHLStats can guarantee one thing about tomorrow: your team is in action. Rest up. pic.twitter.com/8hjoSMbiXa— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) April 7, 2023The earliest game is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. PT/12:30 p.m. ET, with the Carolina Hurricanes facing off against the Buffalo Sabres.Meanwhile, puck drop for the latest game of the day, between the Colorado Avalanche and LA Kings, is set for 7:30 p.m. PT/10:30 p.m. ET.There are a number of crucial wild card races to keep an eye on. In the Western Conference, the Calgary Flames will play the Vancouver Canucks, and the Nashville Predators will face the Winnipeg Jets.In the Eastern Conference, the Pittsburgh Penguins will play the Detroit Red Wing...