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Column: Manager Bruce Bochy’s return to the game with the Texas Rangers is another win for the ‘old dudes’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:52 GMT

Few managers in the game have the star power to draw reporters to the visitors’ dugout like Bruce Bochy, who returned to lead the Texas Rangers this season three years after leaving the game.A plain-spoken old-school type, Bochy looks as if he could just as well be a Texas Ranger as manage a team that goes by the nickname. And a week shy of his 68th birthday, Bochy was back doing the thing he loves most.The sun was out Friday at Wrigley, making it feel 10-degrees warmer on the field than in the back of the dugout. Bochy found a seat in the sun near the dugout rail and asked the media scrum if it was OK with everyone.Everyone nodded. If it was OK with Bochy, it was OK.“Not too bad out here, is it?” Bochy asked.Everyone nodded. It was a great day, Chicago-wise.Bochy answered the usual pregame questions about his players’ health, lineup decisions and the new pitch-clock rules. Music blared over the speakers as he spoke because the notion of ballpark sounds being...

Chicago Cubs minor-league preview: Who to watch at each affiliate — including Brennen Davis, Matt Mervis and PCA

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:52 GMT

Throughout spring training, Chicago Cubs President Jed Hoyer and manager David Ross reiterated that the team would need more than just the 26 players on the opening-day roster to contribute over the course of the season.The 162-game schedule can test an organization’s depth and talent. As the minor-league season gets underway, the Cubs believe their farm system — rated between No. 10 and 16 in baseball by publications — continues to take steps in producing the type of big-league talent the organization needs to build a sustaining, winning team.“We’re not satisfied, we’re still hungry,” vice president of player development Jared Banner told the Tribune. “We’re still looking to get better. We think we can be even better than we are and we’re going to go out and try to prove it.”Triple-A IowaTop prospects: OF Brennen Davis, 1B Matt Mervis, RHP Caleb Kilian, RHP Cam Sanders, RHP Jeremiah Estrada, RHP Riley ThompsonNotable...

Before the play-in, Chicago Bulls center Nikola Vučević has another goal in mind: his 1st 82-game NBA season

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:52 GMT

When the Chicago Bulls took the court for their penultimate regular-season matchup Friday, only one veteran was on the court to start the game: center Nikola Vučević.Vučević was matter of fact about the decision to face the Mavericks in Dallas while most other veterans rested, saying the opportunity to play with younger teammates and square off against fellow European Luka Dončić was plenty of appeal to skip a rest game.“I’m not a big fan of sitting out,” Vučević said.But there was another goal for Vučević: a first opportunity to play all 82 games of a season.Vučević has averaged 67.4 games in his 11-year career. And he logged 80 games in 2018-19 during his first All-Star season. In his first full year with the Bulls in 2021-22, a bout with COVID-19 sidelined him for seven games in the second month of the season.If he plays Sunday in the season finale against the Detroit Pistons at the United Center, Vu...

More than 130,000 still without power in Quebec following deadly ice storm

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:52 GMT

More than 130,000 customers in Quebec are still without power as Hydro-Québec makes repairs to its energy grid after last week’s deadly ice storm.Most of the remaining outages are in the Montreal region.Hydro-Québec says some of the roughly 3,000 remaining outages are in hard-to-access areas or are trickier to resolve, slowing the progress.The province has announced some grocery stores can remain open on Easter Sunday — a statutory holiday — to help residents running low on food after the blackout.The temporary measure applies to stores in six particularly hard-hit regions: Montreal, Monteregie, Laval, Outaouais, Laurentides and Lanaudiere.More than a million people were without power at the peak of the outages caused by Wednesday’s storm, which left large swaths of southern Quebec and eastern Ontario under a coat of ice and is being linked to three deaths.This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 9, 2023.The Canadian Press

Pope at Easter: Pray for Ukrainian, Russian people, refugees

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:52 GMT

VATICAN CITY (AP) — In an Easter message highlighting hope, Pope Francis on Sunday invoked prayers for both the Ukrainian and Russian people, praised nations which welcome refugees, and called on Israelis and Palestinians wracked by the latest surge in deadly violence to forge a “climate of trust.” Francis, along with dozens of prelates and tens of thousands of faithful, marked Christianity’s most joyful day with Mass in a flower-adorned St. Peter’s Square. Easter proclaims the Christian belief that Jesus rose from the dead after crucifixion.The 86-year-old pontiff topped the celebration with a traditional speech about troubled places in the world. Encouraging “trust among individuals, peoples and nations,” Francis said the joyful expression of Easter “illumines the darkness and gloom in which, all too often, our world finds itself enveloped.”The pope’s Easter message is known by its Latin name, ”Urbi et Orbi,” which means “to the city and the world.”Since Russia i...

‘Almost no notice at all’: GO Transit changes frustrate commuters

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:52 GMT

It took one GO Transit scheduling change to turn Siddhartha Batra from a regular commuter to a full-time remote worker.A direct bus operated by the regional transit provider used to provide an easy way for the 31-year-old civil engineer to travel from his home in downtown Toronto to his job roughly 35 kilometres away in Mississauga, Ont.But some changes GO operator Metrolinx recently implemented on some of its most popular train and bus routes effectively doubled Batra’s travel time, based on estimates from GO Transit’s own trip tracker. The prospect of the longer commute prompted him to obtain permission to abandon the journey altogether and work from home permanently.“There is no way on Earth I’m travelling two hours on public transit, one-way,” Batra said in an interview. “I won’t be using it at all because it just doesn’t work anymore.”Batra is not alone in his frustration with the scheduling changes, which Metrolinx announce...

France: Marseille building collapses, fire stymies rescues

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:52 GMT

MARSEILLE, France (AP) — Up to 10 people may be buried under the debris of a building that collapsed following an explosion in France’s port city of Marseille, but a fire deep within the rubble hindered rescue efforts Sunday, the French interior minister said.Officials determined that at least four people lived in the building, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said. It was not known if anyone was killed in the collapse or explosion, or what triggered the blast, he said. Darmanin, who visited the site, provided the update nearly 11 hours after the five-story building collapsed before 1 a.m. More than 100 firefighters, aided by specialists, worked through the night to access and extinguish the fire, which the minister said was burning a few meters (feet) under the debris.The delicate operation proceeded with the aim of keeping firefighters safe, preventing further harm to people potentially trapped in the rubble and not compromising vulnerable buildings nearby. Some 30 building...

‘A hell of a choice’: Patients left frustrated amid delays to access assisted dying

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:52 GMT

John Scully has been living with a major depressive disorder diagnosis for four decades, and despite trying nearly every treatment known to medicine, from shock therapy to trans-magnetic stimulation, his condition has not improved.The 82-year-old says he wants that suffering to end. He wants to do it legally, painlessly, in a way that respects his loved ones. He wants medical assistance in dying.But like many Canadians who suffer from mental illnesses that their doctors have been unable to successfully treat, Scully has had to wait.The Liberal government passed legislation in 2021 that would expand eligibility to patients whose only condition is a mental disorder, which included a two-year delay so that practice guidelines could be developed. Last month, it hastily legislated another year of delay.Scully said in an interview that the wait is beyond agonizing.“I have utter contempt for the panels, and the government that has delayed the application of (assisted dying),” S...

Girl, 15, fatally shot in head on South Side ID'd

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:52 GMT

CHICAGO — A 15-year-old girl was fatally shot in the back of the head while sitting in a vehicle on the city's South Side early Sunday morning. Police have identified the girl as 15-year-old, Demea Morris of Chicago, IL. Morris was sitting in the back of a vehicle near the 10600 block of South Sangamon Cul De Sac around 12:51 a.m. when she was shot in the back of the head. 2 men critical after drive-up shooting in Grand Crossing Police say she was transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition and was later pronounced dead. There is currently no one in custody and police are investigating the incident.

Literary pick for week of April 9

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:52 GMT

Special guest birds from the Raptor Center are sure to liven Priyanka Kumar’s discussion about her book “Conversations with Birds” with Daniel Slager, publisher and chief executive of Minneapolis-based Milkweed Editions, at 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 12, at Open Book, 1011 Washington Ave. S., Mpls. It is free and open to the public.Priyanka Kumar will discuss her book, “Conversations with Birds” April 12, 2023 at Open Book in Minneapolis, in dialogue with Milkweed Editions CEO/publisher Daniel Slager. Kumar is a novelist, non-fiction writer and filmmaker. They will be joined by live birds from the Raptor Center. (Courtesy of Milkweed Editions)“Birds are my almanac. They tune me into the seasons, and into myself,” Kumar writes in her collection of essays. A filmmaker and novelist, she grew up at the feet of the Himalayas in northern India where she took for granted the lush natural world around her. After moving to North America as a teenager, s...