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Israeli military forces raid Gaza’s largest hospital in operation against Hamas

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:58:17 GMT

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Israeli military raided Gaza’s largest hospital early Wednesday, conducting what it called a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area” of the facility, which has been the site of a standoff with the ruling militant group.Israeli authorities claim the militants conceal military operations in the Shifa Hospital. But with hundreds of patients and medical personnel inside, the military has refrained from entering.In recent weeks, Israeli defense forces have publicly warned that such use of the hospital “jeopardizes its protected status under international law,” the military said. On Tuesday, military officials conveyed again to Gaza authorities that all military activity in the hospital must cease within 12 hours.“Unfortunately, it did not,” the military said.Hamas has denied the Israeli accusations that it uses the hospital for cover.Israeli military officials gave no further details but said they were taking...

Chicago White Sox add pitching prospects Jake Eder and Cristian Mena to their 40-man roster

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:58:17 GMT

Jake Eder joined the Chicago White Sox organization in a 2023 trade deadline deal that sent infielder Jake Burger to the Miami Marlins.Cristian Mena ranked among the minor-league leaders in strikeouts.The Sox added both pitching prospects to their 40-man roster Tuesday.Tuesday was the deadline for teams to add to their 40-man rosters and protect eligible players from the Rule 5 draft on Dec. 6.Eder, 24, went 0-3 with an 11.42 ERA in five starts at Double-A Birmingham after being acquired in the Aug. 1 trade. He had 22 strikeouts in 17 1/3 innings.Overall in 2023, the left-hander had a combined 2-6 record with a 6.35 ERA and 70 strikeouts in 14 starts between Class A Jupiter and Double-A Pensacola in the Marlins organization and with the Barons.Eder also made six appearances (five starts) with the Glendale Desert Dogs of the Arizona Fall League, going 1-1 with a 6.11 ERA. He struck out 16 batters in 17 2/3 innings.Eder was originally selected by the Marlins in the fourth round of the...

Orioles’ Brandon Hyde named AL Manager of the Year, joins elite company as 4th Baltimore skipper to win award

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:58:17 GMT

Amid the Orioles’ poor start to the 2022 season, manager Brandon Hyde expressed confidence in not only the club’s future, but also his place in it.“I’m in this for the long haul,” Hyde told The Baltimore Sun last April. “I’ll be here when we’re winning.”At that point, early in his fourth season leading Baltimore’s baseball team, Hyde possessed one of the five worst winning percentages of any manager in major league history. Hired as a first-time manager before the 2019 season to guide the club through a rebuild, Hyde had overseen as many campaigns with more than 100 losses as every preceding Orioles manager had in the franchise’s first 65 years in Baltimore.Tuesday night, little more than a year and a half after his declaration, Hyde was named the 2023 American League Manager of the Year. In his fifth season at the helm, the Orioles won 101 games, winning the AL East and possessing the circuit’s top record. Hyde...

Bruins batter Sabres, 5-2

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:58:17 GMT

Wind sprints have a way of getting hockey players” attention, don’t they?A day after Bruins coach Jim Montgomery decided to end practice by treating his players to an eye-opening bag skate, the B’s responded with their most lopsided win of the season, pummeling the Buffalo Sabres, 5-2, at KeyBank Center on Tuesday.Against a young, talented Sabres team that just can’t seem to turn the corner from mediocrity, a total 10 Bruins got on the scoresheet and four B’s got their first goals of the season as the B’s put their uneven performance in Montreal last Saturday in the rearview mirror.For the first time this year, the outcome was never in doubt.The B’s exploded for three goals in the first period, including two in a span of 1:08 in the first five minutes.Danton Heinen opened the scoring at 3:01 with his first of the year. Matt Poitras won the puck behind the net and dished it up to Mason Lohrei before coming up to take it back from his fellow r...

Newburyport advances to first state field hockey title game

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:58:17 GMT

BURLINGTON – Neither team could find an edge through regulation in Tuesday night’s Div. 3 field hockey state semifinal, and the suspense of impending overtime against Dover-Sherborn brought Newburyport senior Delaney Woekel to tears.But even overwhelmed, that wouldn’t stop her from sending the Clippers to their first state final about 20 minutes later.Woekel scored her second goal of the game with 7:52 left in double overtime, clinching a 2-1 win for second-seeded Newburyport (21-1) over the No. 3 Raiders (17-3-2). The goal ended a defensive marathon that neither group allowed much within, rewarding the Clippers defense for staving off a five-shot fury from Dover-Sherborn in the first overtime.Sophomores Riley Lombard (defense) and Cody Saboliauskas (10 saves) were especially clutch leading up to Woekel’s goal.Newburyport will play the winner of Wednesday’s Watertown/Sandwich matchup in the Div. 3 state final this weekend at WPI.“We knew that that was what the game was going to be l...

4 arrested after gunshot at Brighton youth halfway house

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:58:17 GMT

Three residents of a youth halfway house in Brighton, as well as another man, were arrested after an employee of that home told police a gun was fired there Tuesday morning.Jan Luis Santiago-Morales, 18, of Brighton, was arrested and charged with unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition, discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a building and possession with intent to distribute a class B substance after police say they recovered 19 plastic bags of suspected crack cocaine in a jacket belonging to him.Santiago-Morales was the only resident of the home at 64 Brooks Street in Brighton, a youth group home run by Communities for People, when an employee heard “a loud bang” and found a bullet hole in Santiago-Morales’ upper-story bedroom, according to the police report.The employee called in to 911 at 10:19 a.m. reporting that earlier that morning he had heard the bang, ran up the stairs to investigate, bumped into Santiago-Morales as the latter was running down the stairs, smelled...

Goals off free kicks, strong goalkeeping carry Westport into Div. 5 title game

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:58:17 GMT

SCITUATE – In a rematch of last year’s second-round contest, Westport once again came up on top over Boston International.All it took was a pair of tallies off free kicks and great play in net from junior Noah Amaral as the No. 8 Wildcats edged the fourth-seeded Lions, 2-0, at Scituate High on Tuesday night in the Div. 5 state boys soccer semifinals.“I’ve had a good run these last three years, but this team has that X-factor,” said Westport coach Chris Parker about his team’s ability to get far into the state tournament. “Right from the get-go, I’ve been blessed to have the gritty teams, but this group has had that something extra.”It will be the first state title appearance for the Wildcats as they will face the winner of Wednesday’s Douglas/Bromfield matchup.“It’s an amazing feeling,” said senior captain Ben Novo about advancing to the state title. “We’ve been working so hard for this.”Boston International (19-3) may have had the shot advantage in the first half, but Westport (21-...

Driver, passenger killed in I-5 rollover crash

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:58:17 GMT

CHULA VISTA, Calif. -- A driver and passenger were killed in a rollover crash last weekend on Interstate 5, authorities said.The collision occurred around 3:02 a.m. on Interstate 5 near E Street in the Chula Vista area, Salvador Castro with the California Highway Patrol said in a news release Tuesday.A 27-year-old woman driving a black BMW X5 was traveling with a 22-year-old male passenger on I-5 northbound when the BMW veered off the roadway and overturned, according to CHP. The crash caused the roof of the BMW to come off, ejecting both the driver and passenger from the vehicle. 87-year-old linked to Miguel’s Cocina E. coli outbreak dies Moments later, a 28-year-old man driving a white Ford Mustang hit the back of the overturned BMW that was blocking the roadway, authorities said.When officers arrived on scene, the occupants of the BMW were pronounced dead, Castro confirmed. The Ford driver, who was determined to not be under the influence, remained at the crash site and coopera...

Salman Rushdie receives first-ever Lifetime Disturbing the Peace Award

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:58:17 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The latest honor for Salman Rushdie was a prize kept secret until minutes before he rose from his seat to accept it. On Tuesday night, the author received the first-ever Lifetime Disturbing the Peace Award, presented by the Vaclav Havel Center on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Only a handful of the more than 100 attendees had advance notice about Rushdie, whose whereabouts have largely been withheld from the general public since he was stabbed repeatedly in August of 2022 during a literary festival in Western New York. “I apologize for being a mystery guest,” Rushdie said Tuesday night after being introduced by “Reading Lolita in Tehran” author Azar Nafisi. “I don’t feel at all mysterious. But it made life a little simpler.” The Havel center, founded in 2012 as the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation, is named for the Czech playwright and dissident who became the last president of Czechoslovakia after the fall of the Communist regime in the late 1980s. The center has...

Japan’s economy sinks into contraction as spending, investment decline

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:58:17 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s economy slipped into a contraction in the third quarter, decreasing at an annual pace of 2.1% as consumption and investments shrank, the government reported Wednesday. Real gross domestic product, which measures the total value of a nation’s products and services, fell 0.5% in the July-September period for the world’s third largest economy, the Cabinet Office said. That would produce a 2.1% drop if the quarter’s performance continued for a full 12 months.The downturn came after the economy grew a revised 3.7% in the first quarter and a revised 4.5% in the second quarter on an annualized basis, according to the government figures.The third quarter’s performance was far worse than what had been expected, according to the financial services company ING, which had forecast an annual contraction of 0.5%.“Most of the miss in the consensus forecast came from weaker-than-expected domestic demand items, such as consumer spending, business investment and inven...