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‘I haven’t really played up to my expectations yet’: Can Seiya Suzuki get hot and help spark the Chicago Cubs offense?

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 07:49:55 GMT

Seiya Suzuki’s behind-the-scenes work is the essence of where he hones his swing and timing, areas that have been out of whack for stretches this season.Suzuki typically does not offer much insight when asked about the specifics of any mechanical adjustments he works on, though it doesn’t have anything to do with concerns about giving too much information to the opposing team.“I just don’t like to talk too much,” Suzuki said through interpreter Toy Matsushita on Wednesday before the series finale against the Washington Nationals at Wrigley Field.Suzuki’s pregame and postgame cage work is where the foundation of his in-game success is built. After Monday’s loss to the Nationals, that’s where he headed to get in additional late-night work in an effort to get on track. His four-hit game, including a home run, in Tuesday’s 17-3 blowout victory is the type of hitter the Cubs believe he can tap into more frequently than they’ve s...

At least 21 injured in third night of Russian air attacks against southern Ukraine

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 07:49:55 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A third night of Russian air attacks targeted Ukraine’s southern cities, including the port city of Odesa, and wounded at least 21 people, Ukrainian officials said Thursday. At least 19 people were injured in Mykolaiv, a southern city close to the Black Sea, the region’s Governor Vitalii Kim said in a statement on Telegram. Russian strikes destroyed several floors of a three-story building and caused a fire that affected an area of 450 square meters (4,800 square feet) and burned for hours. Kim said two people were hospitalized, including a child.In the port city of Odesa, at least two were injured following a Russian air attack that damaged buildings in the city center and caused a fire affecting an area of 300 square meters (3200 square feet), said Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper. The attacks come one day after an intense Russian bombardment using drones and missiles damaged critical port infrastructure in Odesa, including grain and oil terminals. The at...

German police search for a lioness suspected to be on the loose in Berlin’s suburbs

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 07:49:55 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — German authorities warned people in Berlin’s southern suburbs on Thursday to watch out for a potentially dangerous animal, suspected to be a lioness, that was on the loose.Police in Brandenburg state, which surrounds the capital, issued a warning in the early hours of Thursday of an “escaped wild animal” and asked people in and around Kleinmachnow, Teltow and Stahnsdorf — just outside Berlin’s city limits — not to leave their houses and to bring their pets indoors.The warning was later extended to southern areas of Berlin and an alert was sent on an official warning app that the animal was suspected to be a lioness. Vets and hunters were participating in a search for the creature. Police had no immediate information on who owned it.Two men reported seeing a big cat running after a wild boar, the latter common in and around Berlin, police spokesman Daniel Kiep told local public broadcaster rbb.“The two gentlemen recorded a smartphone video and even experienc...

Pakistani Taliban kill 2 policemen and wound 2 others in gun attack in Peshawar city, police say

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 07:49:55 GMT

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani Taliban shot and killed two police officers and wounded two others in a gun attack at a roadside checkpoint in the city of Peshawar, police said Thursday, the latest violence in the restive northwestern region bordering Afghanistan.The attack took place overnight in the Regi Model Town neighborhood, area police chief Arshad Khan said. A search operation was launched in an effort to trace and arrest the attackers, who fled the scene by taking advantage of darkness, he said.The outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan group, or TTP, claimed responsibility in a statement.The latest attack comes two days after a suicide car bomber wounded six soldiers and two civilians by targeting a truck carrying security forces in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.The Pakistani Taliban are a separate group but an ally of the Afghan Taliban. They have become emboldened since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in ...

The female suspect in the fire at Wyoming abortion clinic is set to take a plea deal

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 07:49:55 GMT

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A judge is set to consider a plea deal Thursday for an abortion opponent who investigators say burned Wyoming’s first full-service abortion clinic in years.Lorna Roxanne Green, 22, told investigators she broke in and used gasoline to set fire to the Wellspring Health Access clinic in Casper because it was giving her anxiety and nightmares, according to court documents.Green is scheduled to appear in court for a change-of-plea hearing Thursday before U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson in Cheyenne. Details of her proposed deal with prosecutors have been off-limits to the public pending Johnson’s approval of the agreement.Charged with arson, Green faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, though a plea deal could bring a lighter sentence. Green has been free from jail since March while her case proceeds, and she pleaded not guilty at a court hearing in June.Her deal with prosecutors, revealed by court documents filed last week, suggests sheR...

Flooded with sightseers, Europe’s iconic churches struggle to accommodate both worship and tourism

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 07:49:55 GMT

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — A recent Saturday evening Mass at Sagrada Familia parish had all the hallmarks of a neighborhood worship service, from prayers for ill and deceased members to name-day wishes for two congregants in the pews.But it also featured security checks to get in and curious tourists peering down to take photos of the worshippers from above. The regular Mass is held in the crypt of modernist architect Antoni Gaudí’s masterpiece church, one of Europe’s most visited monuments.With tourism reaching or surpassing pre-pandemic records in Barcelona and across southern Europe, iconic sacred sites are struggling to accommodate the faithful who come to pray and the millions of visitors who often pay to view the art and architecture.“We’re working to get ahead of this, so that we don’t get to a collapse,” said the Rev. Josep Maria Turull, rector at Sagrada Familia and the Barcelona archdiocese’s director for tourism, pilgrimage and sanctuaries.An increasingly popular strategy is...

Israeli army fire kills Palestinian man during clashes at West Bank shrine

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 07:49:55 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian man near a shrine in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, Palestinian health officials said, in the latest bloodshed in a cycle of violence that has gripped the region.The months of fighting with rising fatalities have shown no signs of abating and has become the worst violence between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank in nearly two decades.Thursday’s shooting took place as Israeli forces escorted Israeli worshippers, including the Israeli police chief and the head of the local Jewish settler council, to a site known as the biblical Joseph’s Tomb in the Palestinian city of Nablus. The shrine has long been a flashpoint for clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops. Nablus has also become a central point of violence in the current escalation.The Israeli military said that during the visit, suspects opened fire and threw explosives, rocks and burning tires at troops, who returned fire. Palestinian news ...

In a refugee camp in Kenya, food shortages left kids hungry even before Russia ended grain deal

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 07:49:55 GMT

DADAAB, Kenya (AP) — Abdikadir Omar was trapped in an extremist-controlled town in Somalia for years until May, when he slipped out to make a 12-day journey with his wife and seven children to neighboring Kenya in search of food and safety.To his surprise, “I found peace but no food,” the 30-year-old told The Associated Press. He stood near the withered maize he tried to plant around his family’s makeshift shelter of branches and plastic sheeting outside one of the world’s largest refugee camps.As global food insecurity suffers another shock with Russia’s termination of a deal to keep grain flowing from Ukraine, the hundreds of thousands of Somalis who have fled climate change and insecurity offer a stark example of what happens when aid runs low.Omar, a farmer, was forced to give most of his produce as tax to al-Shabab, the al-Qaida-linked extremists who have controlled parts of Somalia for years, and the little that remained wasn’t enough to feed his family during Somalia’s ...

Landslide triggered by heavy rains kills 5 and traps many others in western India

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 07:49:55 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — A landslide triggered by torrential rains in India’s western Maharashtra state killed five people, with many others feared trapped under piles of debris, local media reported Thursday. Rescuers worked through the night to help save people trapped by the landslide, which occurred late Wednesday, and pull out bodies, an official told the Press Trust of India news agency. While 75 people have been rescued, many others are still stuck. The landslide hit a village in Raigad district and buried 17 of the 50 houses there. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde arrived at the site on Thursday and told reporters “the priority now is to rescue those still trapped beneath the rubble.”India’s weather department put Maharashtra on alert as the state has been lashed by incessant rains this week. The downpours have disrupted life for many in the state, including in the capital, Mumbai, where authorities on Thursday shut schools. Local train services have been disrupted wit...

Twins bats, Jhoan Duran remain hot in 6-3 victory over Mariners

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 07:49:55 GMT

SEATTLE — Luis Castillo came into Wednesday’s game against the Twins with a 6-7 record, but that was deceiving. The right-hander had struck out 122 batters and walked only 28 in 112⅓ innings and could boast of a 2.96 earned-run average.So, after the Twins beat the Mariners, 6-3, to improve to 5-1 on their West Coast road trip, they were particularly proud of how they handled Castillo, even if the veteran did give Seattle a quality start.The Twins touched Castillo for three earned runs on six hits, two of them solo home runs from Edouard Julien and Max Kepler, and had him on the hook for a 3-0 deficit before Seattle tied the game on Eugenio Suarez’s two-run homer in the seventh inning.The Twins scored the go-ahead run when Max Kepler scored on a passed ball by Seattle catcher Tom Murphy, and Alex Kirilloff added a two-run homer in the ninth before Jhoan Duran pitched the ninth for his 16th save, getting out of a jam with the help of some 104 mph fastballs.Yet, getting Castillo out of...