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Column: Two years after the great sell-off, are the Chicago Cubs in a better position?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:28 GMT

The narrative that the Chicago Cubs are facing an Aug. 1 deadline to decide on their future has been bandied about recently, and it makes sense considering two of their biggest stars can leave as free agents at the end of the season.But Cubs management really made the biggest decision on its path forward two years ago when president Jed Hoyer executed the Great Summer Sell-Off of 2021, starting with the Anthony Rizzo trade to the New York Yankees on July 29.Whether you agreed with his moves or not, there was no denying Hoyer changed the direction of the franchise in one 48-hour stretch by dealing several stars for prospects, putting the 2016 championship in the rearview mirror and pointing to the “next great Cubs team” on the horizon.But two years later, the question must be asked:Are the Cubs any closer to being that “great” team? If not, how long must Cubs fans wait before they see signs of improvement?The organization may be better off than in ’21, a...

Man, 20, killed in Carlsbad hit-and-run; suspect arrested

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:28 GMT

CARLSBAD, Calif. -- A 20-year-old man was killed Saturday in a hit-and-crash in Carlsbad, said California Highway Patrol.Around 2:25 a.m., officers from the Oceanside Area Office responded to reports of a vehicle versus pedestrian collision on the Poinsettia Lane onramp to southbound Interstate 5. 1-year-old ‘accidentally shot’ by 3-year-old sibling dies in North County According to CHP, a white Toyota Prius was driving in the southbound lanes of I-5 from the Poinsettia Lane onramp around 2:15 a.m. when for reasons still under investigation the vehicle collided into a 20-year-old man from Texas.Following this crash, authorities say the Toyota Prius fled the area.Paramedics responded to the collision site and the pedestrian was pronounced dead at the scene, CHP said. His identity will be released through the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office following an autopsy.On Wednesday at 12:20 a.m., CHP says the suspected driver of the Toyota Prius, Andrew Bryan Dean, was located by...

A starless red carpet? TIFF attendees say festival enthusiasm waning due to strikes

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:28 GMT

TORONTO — When the Toronto International Film Festivalrolls out the red carpet in September, it may not have the usual draw of movie A-listers.The Hollywood actors’ strike could drastically change this year’s experience, say festival-goers and industry players now facing the prospect of a more subdued TIFF with far fewer stars in attendance.Performers represented by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) walked off the job last Friday, joining the already-striking Writers Guild of America (WGA) and bringing most Hollywood productions to a halt. SAG-AFTRA has made it clear that its members cannot do any promotions of their projects,including at film festivals, during the strike.TIFF, scheduled to run from Sept. 7 to 17, has not outlined what it will do if the strike stretches into the festival period, but has said its impact “cannot be denied.”Eric Tisch, a film programmer at a non-profit based in Toronto, says ...

American model Gigi Hadid and friend don’t let marijuana arrest spoil Cayman Islands vacation

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:28 GMT

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — American model Gigi Hadid and a friend went ahead with a vacation in the Cayman Islands after local authorities arrested the pair for marijuana possession and later released them.Hadid, who arrived on a private aircraft from the U.S., was arrested after Customs and Border Control agents searched her luggage and found a small amount of cannabis, the agency said in a statement Tuesday.Officials identified her as Jelena Noura Hadid, which is the 28-year-old model’s legal name.Hadid and her friend arrived in the Cayman Islands on July 10 and pleaded guilty on July 12 to importing a controlled drug and a drug utensil. They were fined more than $1,200, with no conviction recorded, authorities said.“All’s well that ends well,” Hadid posted Tuesday on Instagram, along with a photo of her and a friend at the beach.A representative told The Associated Press that Hadid had bought the marijuana legally in New York City with a medical license, and that he...

Top progressives are backing Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign. But some activists have reservations

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:28 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — President Joe Biden would seem an unnatural fit for the activists at Netroots Nation, an annual gathering of progressives that was created to harness online rage over George W. Bush’s administration. More recently, it has championed the message of economic populism from Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, two of Biden’s rivals for the Democratic nomination in 2020.But the antipathy toward Democrats seen as too mainstream or moderate did not largely extend to Biden at the group’s recent conference in Chicago. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, even concluded the event by recounting how she had become a Biden convert. “When Biden was in, I was like, ‘Oh, man,’” said Jayapal, D-Wash., lamenting that Sanders and Warren had fallen short in the presidential primary. “But I gotta tell you, I am a Biden fan now.”That brought cheers, which was no easy feat given that pro-Palestinian activists moments earlier had...

Egypt pardons jailed activists, including two prominent rights defenders, official reports say

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:28 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s president has pardoned two prominent rights activists, including one with ties to Italy who was sentenced this week, the country’s state-run news agency reported Wednesday.Among those pardoned by President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi was rights activist Patrick George Zaki, who was a post-graduate student in Italy and who was sentenced to three years in prison on Tuesday over an opinion article he wrote in 2019, the MENA news agency said.Zaki’s case has echoed in Italy, where many were reminded after the sentencing this week of the tragic fate of Italian student Giulio Regeni who was abducted and killed in Cairo in 2016. Also pardoned was Mohammed el-Baker, a rights lawyer, who was arrested in September 2019, the agency reported. El-Baker was sentenced to four years in prison late in 2021 over charges of disseminating false news, misuse of social media and joining a terrorist group.The report said the two were among a group pardoned on Wednesday but did no...

Israeli president seeks to reassure Congress on his country’s democracy, U.S. ties

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:28 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Israeli President Isaac Herzog sought to reassure U.S. allies Wednesday on the state of Israel’s democracy and the strength of the U.S.-Israel relationship, in a speech to Congress acknowledging “intense and painful debate” at home over actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline government.Herzog, whose post in Israel is largely symbolic, became the second Israeli president, after his father, Chaim Herzog, to address Congress. While his speech officially marked modern Israel’s celebration of its 75th year, he also indirectly addressed deep unease in the Biden administration and among Democratic lawmakers over the Netanyahu government’s controversial overhaul of Israel’s judicial system, expanded Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, and other matters.The divide was reflected in the audience of House and Senate members Wednesday. While lawmakers in attendance repeatedly rose to their feet in thundering applause of Herzog&#...

Northwestern’s ‘rampant’ hazing was ‘devastating’ for athletes of color, ex-football players say

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:28 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said his law firm and other attorneys have received reports of hazing within Northwestern University’s baseball and softball programs, in addition to growing complaints of hazing within the school’s football program, which players described as rampant and devastating.At Wednesday news conference, Crump and Chicago attorney Steven Levin said they have not filed a lawsuit yet on behalf of any athletes but represent 15 people and have been in touch with dozens of former athletes. Crump said the majority of those are football players.Warren Miles Long, a running back on Northwestern’s football team starting in 2013, said players were put into a culture where sexual violence and hazing was “rampant.” He said new recruits had no sense of whether it was normal or limited to Northwestern.Former Northwestern quarterback Lloyd Yates is among more than 15 men and women who have retained Crump and the Chicago-based Levin & Perconti law to seek ...

Movie Review: A bomb and its fallout in Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:28 GMT

Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” is a kinetic thing of dark, imposing beauty that quakes with the disquieting tremors of a forever rupture in the course of human history.“Oppenheimer,” a feverish three-hour immersion in the life of Manhattan Project mastermind J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), is poised between the shock and aftershock of the terrible revelation, as one character calls it, of a divine power.There are times in Nolan’s latest opus that flames fill the frame and visions of subatomic particles flitter across the screen — montages of Oppenheimer’s own churning visions. But for all the immensity of “Oppenheimer,” this is Nolan’s most human-scaled film — and one of his greatest achievements.It’s told principally in close-ups, which, even in the towering detail of IMAX 70mm, can’t resolve the vast paradoxes of Oppenheimer. He was said to be a magnetic man with piercing blue eyes (Murphy has those in spades) who became the father of the atomic bomb but, in speaking ag...

Russia strikes Ukraine’s critical port facilities in Odesa after halting grain deal

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:28 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia unleashed intense drone and missile attacks overnight Wednesday, damaging critical port infrastructure in southern Ukraine, including grain and oil terminals, and wounding at least 12 people, officials said.The bombardment crippled significant parts of export facilities in Odesa and nearby Chornomorsk and destroyed 60,000 tons of grain, according to Ukraine’s Agriculture Ministry.It came days after President Vladimir Putin pulled Russia out of its participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a wartime deal that enabled Ukraine’s exports to reach many countries facing the threat of hunger. It also followed a vow by Putin to retaliate against Kyiv for an attack Monday on the crucial Kerch Bridge linking Russia with the Crimean Peninsula, which the Kremlin illegally annexed in 2014.The Agriculture Ministry, citing experts, estimated it would take a year to restore the damaged facilities. The destroyed grain was supposed to have been loaded onto a vessel ...