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NFL notes: Is Bill Belichick embracing sports science at Patriots training camp?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:40 GMT

Sprints to start certain practices.Star players coasting through others.Live goal-line periods cracking with colliding helmets and shoulder pads for the first time in two summers.Through 10 practices, Patriots training camp has been an exercise in the familiar — welcome back, Bill O’Brien — and in firsts. Most changes, particularly O’Brien’s return, have been welcome and productive, as the team’s offense springs to life again. But certain scenes have stupefied, even rankled, some ex-players; namely, how Bill Belichick could be content with his best players sitting out a combined dozen practices before the team’s first preseason game.“It’s so weird that Bill would let that happen,” said ex-Pats linebacker Rob Ninkovich of Matthew Judon’s contract “hold-in.”Under Belichick, the rule used to be if you can practice, you practice. No excuses.Now, it depends.New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick walks out onto the field ...

US loses to Sweden on penalty kicks, marks earliest Women's World Cup exit ever

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:40 GMT

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The United States played its best game of this Women's World Cup and it wasn't good enough to stop the two-time reigning champions from being eliminated from the tournament.The Americans' bid to win an unprecedented third consecutive title ended Sunday night on penalty kicks when Lina Hurtig converted and Sweden knocked the United States out of the World Cup 5-4 after a scoreless draw.It is the earliest exit in tournament history for the United States, four-time winners of the World Cup.“Just devastated. It feels like a bad dream,” said captain Alex Morgan. “The team put everything out there tonight, I feel like we dominated, but it doesn't matter. We're going home and it's the highs and lows of the sport of soccer. So, yeah, it doesn't feel great.”U.S. goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher fruitlessly argued she had saved Hurtig's attempt, but it was ruled over the line. The stadium played Abba's “Dancing Queen” in the stadium as the Swedes celebrated....

Russia mounts a massive missile and drone attack against Ukraine following its retaliation promise

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:40 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Moscow unleashed a massive missile and drone barrage on western Ukraine Sunday, following through on its promise to retaliate for a Ukrainian attack on a Russian tanker.Russian and Ukrainian shelling across the country overnight killed in at least six people, officials said. Separately, Moscow’s second-largest airport briefly suspended flights early Sunday following a foiled drone attack near the Russian capital.Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 70 attack drones and missiles, including cruise missiles from aircraft over the Caspian Sea and Iranian-made, Shahed-136/131 strike UAVs. Serhiy Tyurin, deputy head of Ukraine’s Khmelnytsky region military administration, said three waves of missiles hit the Starokostiantyniv area, damaging several buildings and igniting a fire at a warehouse. The strike may have been intended for the city’s airfield, officials said.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the facilities of aircraft engine manufacturer Motor S...

Death toll from train derailment in Pakistan rises to 30 with 60 others injured, officials say

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:40 GMT

MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) — The death toll from a train derailment in southern Pakistan rose to 30, with the number of injured to 60, and rescue operations were underway, officials said Sunday.Ten cars of a Rawalpindi-bound train got derailed, and some overturned, near the Pakistani town of Nawabshah trapping many passengers, said senior railway officer Mahmoodur Rehman Lakho.Senior police officer, Abid Baloch — present at the scene of the accident— said that so far 30 bodies have been recovered while more than 60 people were injured, some critically. He added that the death toll may rise as rescue operations continue.Baloch said women and children were among the dead and injured.Local television showed rescue teams extracting women, children and elderly passengers from damaged and overturned cars. Some of the injured were lying on the ground crying for help while locals gave out water and food.Lakho, who is in charge of railways in the accident area, said rescue crews took injured pass...

Woman suffers life-threatening injuries when struck by vehicle in North York

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:40 GMT

A woman is in hospital with life-threatening injuries after being struck by a vehicle in the Leslie Street and Sheppard Avenue East area Saturday night.At approximately 10:19 p.m., a 27-year-old woman was driving a Mazda 3 sedan north on Leslie Street and struck a 27-year-old woman was crossing Leslie Street at Sheppard Avenue East.The victim was then transported to hospital with life-threatening injuries. The driver of vehicle remained at the scene. The investigation is ongoing by traffic services.Anyone with information on the incident is asked to contact police.

'Monster hunters' wanted: New search for Loch Ness beast launching soon

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:40 GMT

LONDON (AP) — The Loch Ness Centre in Scotland is calling for “budding monster hunters” and volunteers to join in what it dubs the largest search for the Loch Ness Monster since the 1970s.The visitor attraction said this week that modern technology such as drones that produces thermal images of the lake will “search the waters in a way that has never been done before.”The new surface water search for the fabled “Nessie,” planned for the weekend of Aug. 26 and 27, is billed as the largest of its kind since the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau studied the loch for signs of the mythical beast in 1972. Experts warn about ‘bed rotting’ trend The Loch Ness Centre is located at the old Drumnadrochit Hotel, where in 1933 manager Aldie Mackay reported spotting a “water beast” in the loch, the largest body of freshwater by volume in the United Kingdom and one of its deepest.The story kicked off an enduring worldwide fascination with finding the elusive monster, spawning hoaxes and hundreds of...

Elon Musk says his cage fight with Mark Zuckerberg will be streamed on X

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:40 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk says his potential in-person fight with Mark Zuckerberg would be streamed on his social media site X, formerly known as Twitter.The two tech billionaires seemingly agreed to a “cage match” face-off in late June. Zuckerberg is actually trained in mixed martial arts, and the CEO of Facebook's parent company Meta posted about completing his first jiu jitsu tournament earlier this year.“Zuck v Musk fight will be live-streamed on X,” Musk wrote in a post Sunday on the platform. “All proceeds will go to charity for veterans.”Musk said earlier Sunday he was training for the fight by lifting weights.“Don’t have time to work out, so I just bring them to work,” Musk wrote on X. You’ll need this piece of info to file a Facebook settlement claim Whether or not Musk and Zuckerberg actually make it to the ring has yet to be seen — especially as Musk often tweets about action prematurely or without following through. But even if their cage match agreement is all a ...

How climate change could make your home harder to insure

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:40 GMT

(NerdWallet) - Just about every part of the U.S. has felt the impact of climate change this summer, with drifting smoke from Canadian wildfires, flash flooding in the Northeast and dangerously high temperatures across the South. Extreme weather not only poses health risks but can also make it harder and more expensive to insure your home.Climate change and natural disasters“Climate change acts as an amplifier of hazards,” says Aris Papadopoulos, a resilience expert at Florida International University’s Extreme Events Institute. Climate change is making natural disasters both more frequent and more intense, he says. And that means more risk to your home.For example, a warmer atmosphere brings more evaporation, heavier rainfall and rising sea levels — all of which could increase your home’s chance of flooding.Meanwhile, in the Western U.S., wildfires are happening more often and burning longer, says Kimiko Barrett, a wildfire research and policy analyst at Headwaters Economics, a nonp...

Letters: Time to recalibrate to 32 hours a week

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:40 GMT

No mergerRegarding the end of Fairview Sanford merger talks: Thank goodness!Carol Peine Raleigh, St. PaulThe writer is a former Fairview employee Recalibrate our labor marketIn (“Does it really matter who gets in to Harvard?”, Aug. 3), columnist Allison Schrager implies and I agree that it matters less whether you went to school and graduated from Harvard or from Texas A&M than it does if you never had the chance to go to college at all. In either case, the college graduate has a pretty decent chance of financial success in their lives. At the other end of the economic spectrum, however, the chances for financial success are dismal, and that’s where the real problem with income inequality lies in America.The upper class has been growing, pulling members up from the middle class. Unfortunately, the lower class has also expanded, and is now around 30% of the population. This is where we have the greatest problem with income inequality in the U.S.Some of thos...

White Abarrio runs "race of his life" to take the Whitney Stakes

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:40 GMT

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. (NEWS10) -- It's one of the most highly anticipated days on the Saratoga Race Course calendar: Whitney Day. Saturday marked the 96th running of the Grade One Whitney Stakes, and the race for four-year-olds and upward offered a mix of storylines.Beginning with the favorite of the six-horse field: Cody's Wish, the six-horse, which closed at 2-5 odds. Cody's Wish is the namesake of 17-year-old Cody Dorman, who was born with Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, and is unable to walk or speak.Dorman and his family made the trip from Richmond, Kentucky to Saratoga to witness first-hand Cody's Wish put his grade one race win streak of four to the test.But Cody's Wish got out to an awkward start and the field took advantage, namely White Abarrio, the five, which was jockeyed by Irad Ortiz, Jr.White Abarrio pushed ahead of the three, Giant Game, at the top of the homestretch, and never looked back. He opened up a nearly six-length lead by the finish, pulling off a 10-1 upset for ...