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Bill Madden: Buck Showalter isn’t too blame for the mess that is this $345M Mets team

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:21 GMT

Suffice it to say, Steve Cohen feels little consolation over dodging a $185 million bullet with Jacob deGrom needing Tommy John surgery.The bleak deGrom news out of Texas was announced Tuesday, but three days later Cohen’s $345 million Mets had been swept by the Braves in Atlanta and began the weekend three games under .500 in fourth place in the National League East.Naturally, the talk radio yahoos are screaming for Cohen to start shaking things up at Citi Field, but while mistakes and miscalculations have been made, fault for this pratfall in Queens lies other than in the manager’s office. For it’s not Buck Showalter’s fault that Daniel Vogelbach has been an absolute bust as the primary DH, and it’s not his fault that Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, his twin $40-plus million supposed aces, gave up 10 runs in a combined 8 2/3 innings against the Braves, and it’s certainly not his fault that Pete Alonso got hit on the wrist with an errant Charl...

Trump set for first public appearances since federal indictment with speeches to GOP audiences

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:21 GMT

COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Saturday is set to make his first public appearances since his federal indictment, speaking to friendly Republican audiences in Georgia and North Carolina as he tries to rally supporters to his defense.Trump, who remains the front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination despite his mounting legal woes, is expected to use speeches at two state party conventions to rail against the charges and amplify his assertions that he is the victim of a politically motivated “witch hunt” by Democratic President Joe Biden’s Justice Department.The indictment unsealed Friday charged him with 37 felony counts in connection with his hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Trump is accused of willfully defying Justice Department demands to return classified documents, enlisting aides in his efforts to hide the records and even telling his lawyers that he wanted to defy a subpoena for the materials stored at his residence. T...

Zelenskyy says ‘counteroffensive, defensive actions’ taking place in Ukraine

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:21 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that counteroffensive and defensive actions were underway against Russian forces, asserting that his top commanders were in a “positive” mindset as their troops engaged in intense fighting along the front line.The Ukrainian leader, at a Kyiv news conference alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, responded to a question about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comment a day earlier that Ukraine’s counteroffensive had started — and Ukrainian forces were taking “significant losses.”Zelennsky said that “the counteroffensive, defensive actions are taking place in Ukraine. I will not speak about which stage or phase they are in.”“I am in touch with our commanders of different directions every day,” he added, citing the names of five of Ukraine’s top military leaders. “Everyone is positive. Pass this on to Putin.”Trudeau, the first foreign leader to visit Ukraine since devastating floods cause...

It’s graduation day for the youngest person in Canada to finish a university degree

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:21 GMT

Anthaea-Grace Patricia Dennis is about to become the youngest person in Canadian history to graduate from university.The 12-year-old is expected to accept her University of Ottawa diploma for a bachelor’s degree in biomedical science this evening.Patricia Dennis started her university studies when she was nine years old. She completed a 40-page thesis about the relationship between the brain and the hand for right-handed versus left-handed people. Her mother Johanna Dennis  says she knew her daughter was special when she was about two-and-a-half years old. The not-yet-teenager is looking to attend postgraduate school next.She told The Canadian Press in an interview that she’s excited to get her own lab and work with others on her research about the cerebellum, the part of the brain responsible for co-ordinating balance and movement. “I can now call myself a researcher,” she said. “I feel like the master of the cerebellum.”This report by The Canadi...

Syria’s Kurds to try IS fighters after their home countries refused to repatriate them

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:21 GMT

QAMISHLI, Syria (AP) — The Kurdish-led authority in northeast Syria announced Saturday that hundreds of fighters with the Islamic State group held in prisons around the region will be put on trial after their home countries refused to repatriate them.The statement by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria said it still calls for the creation of an international tribunal to put those fighters on trial. It called on the United Nations, international rights groups and local organizations to help facilitate the trials.The U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, is holding over 10,000 captured IS fighters in around two dozen detention facilities — including 2,000 foreigners whose home countries have refused to repatriate them. The statement said the fighters from about 60 nationalities had entered Syria years ago and were captured in battles against the extremists.“The terrorist organization carried out horrific crimes and mass massacres against peopl...

Working Strategies: Facing a mid-career disability; one man’s story

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:21 GMT

Amy LindgrenSecond Sunday Series — Editor’s Note: This is the 10th of 12 columns on work and disability appearing over 12 months — one on each second Sunday of the month, from September through August. Previous columns discussed whether to work with a disability, the subminimum wage, promotions for workers with disabilities, higher education decisions, self-advocating, career tips for family caretakers, testing limits as a worker with disabilities, the dilemma of revealing disabilities during job search, and overall concepts of disability in the workplace.Will you become disabled during your working years? If so, will you be able to work?Statistics are tricky but one commonly-used data point indicates 25% of today’s 20 year-olds will experience a disability during their working years. Some disabilities are short-term, with little impact on a worker’s career. Others are permanent but manageable in terms of work, while still others create a drastic change or even loss of w...

Chemotherapy shortages push cancer centers toward crisis

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:21 GMT

(The Hill) – Cancer centers are contending with shortages of key chemotherapy drugs, with potentially dire consequences once the scarcity starts hitting patients. Get the latest, news, weather, sports and community events delivered right to your inbox! A new survey released this week by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) found that 93% of cancer centers are reporting shortages of carboplatin and 70% are reporting shortages of cisplatin. These two drugs are commonly used together to treat a wide variety of cancers — including breast, lung, prostate and many types of leukemias — often with the aim of curing them.The survey conducted in May found that cancer centers were still able to treat patients with cisplatin without delays or claim denials, but only 64% of centers were able to keep patients on a regime of carboplatin. A fifth of cancer centers said they were able to continue prescribing carboplatin for some but not all of their patients.According to Mike Ganio, di...

A quick way to get a handle on the e-bike revolution — and have a little fun on the side

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:21 GMT

The are two ways to look at The Big Gear Show and e(revolution) e-bike show at the Colorado Convention Center this weekend.You can think of it as an exhibition of the latest electrical bikes, where you can seriously ponder whether it’s time to join the e-bike revolution, but stop by an outdoor gear show at the other end of the floor while you’re there.Or, you can head downtown to check out the latest in camping and hiking gear, but learn a little about e-bikes on the way out. Either one would make for a fine show by itself.Four dozen e-bike brands are represented with booths, and there is a 30,000-square-foot e-bike test track with five ramps where you can get a feel for how they roll. It probably will take a lap or two to get the hang of it because e-bikes are much heavier that road bicycles, but they’re not difficult to operate and they are fun to ride.Related ArticlesOutdoors | A new consumer-friendly outdoor trade show could be the start of something...

Opinion: Aurora police killed Jor’Dell over a pellet gun, but youth gun violence is to blame

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:21 GMT

The video of Jor’Dell Richardson’s dying moments is traumatic, and every person in Colorado should watch it immediately, shed tears at the tragedy, and pledge to do something to prevent even one more child from bleeding out in a back alley.The 14-year-old who had just returned home from a family vacation died over a pellet gun, a replica intentionally made to look real and threatening. He died for maybe a couple of hundred dollars of products from a smoke shop that he had robbed. He died for a summer thrill.Yes, he died at the hands of police, but the real culprits in his death are those who gave Jor’Dell the gun, told him to rob the store, and perhaps even dropped him off with a group of kids at the scene of the crime in a stolen Kia. They encouraged Jor’Dell to put his life in harm’s way … for nothing.Jor’Dell’s dying words should haunt us: “They made me do it. I don’t know who they are but they made me do it.”The Rev. Leon Kelly Jr.spoke at the press event where Aurora Chief of P...

Garage fire in Fairfax District destroys vehicles, forces evacuations; may be connected to series of other arsons in the area 

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:21 GMT

Multiple families were forced to evacuate their homes in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles after an intense fire ripped through a parking garage and destroyed two vehicles. No one was injured in Saturday morning’s fire, and firefighters were able to extinguish the flames before they spread to any apartment buildings. The blaze took place around 2 a.m. Saturday morning in the 400 block of North Curson Avenue and follows a series of other arsons in the Fairfax District that have left residents on edge. One man had his 1991 Ford F-150 torched on South Orange Drive on Wednesday, and the same arsonist may have also targeted another woman’s vehicle just one block away. Multiple families were forced to evacuate their homes after an intense fire ripped through a parking garage and destroyed two vehicles in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles, California on June 10, 2023. (LLN)Multiple families were forced to evacuate their homes after an intense fire ripped through a p...