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‘It came out of nowhere’: Chicago Cubs president Jed Hoyer laments team’s recent losing skid

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:00:33 GMT

Halfway across the world, president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer followed the Chicago Cubs’ toughest loss of the season on his phone.Hoyer spent five days in Japan to scout, most notably getting eyes on Orix Buffaloes star right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, 25, who is expected to be posted in the offseason. The overseas trip had been planned for a while so the Cubs can keep an eye on the future as they try to get back into the postseason for the first time since 2020.“It’s a great baseball culture and obviously they have a lot of really good players and making sure that’s a market that we are actively involved in is something that’s really important,” Hoyer said Tuesday.The timing left Hoyer following from the ballpark’s scout seats Sunday morning in Toyko, 16 hours ahead of the Cubs’ 13-inning marathon that culminated in a gut-punching 7-6 walk-off loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks.“It was not one of my gold star moments,”...

Unifor reaches tentative deal with Ford, strike averted

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:00:33 GMT

TORONTO — Unifor says it has reached a tentative deal with Ford Motor Co. that could avoid workers going on strike.The union says the proposed contract will be brought to members shortly for a vote.Negotiations with Ford are expected to set expectations for what workers will get in contracts from General Motors and Stellantis.The tentative deal with Ford comes as U.S. autoworkers continue to strike against Ford as well as at General Motors and Stellantis plants.U.S. autoworkers are pushing for upwards of 40 per cent wage gains, while Unifor has not put out a number, saying only that it wants to see significant increases.Along with higher wages, Unifor says its other key priorities are pensions and issues around job security and the transition to electric vehicles.  This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2023.The Canadian Press

Michael J. Fox receives 2023 Elevate Prize Catalyst Award at Clinton Global Alliance

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:00:33 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Actor and philanthropist Michael J. Fox won this year’s Elevate Prize Catalyst Award, which the “Back to the Future” star plans to use to further his foundation’s work to find treatments for Parkinson’s disease.Fox, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at the age of 29 in 1991, received the award at the Clinton Global Initiative, or CGI, conference on Tuesday in New York. The annual prize, which went to Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai last year, includes $250,000 from the Elevate Prize Foundation and support to amplify the winner’s messaging.Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who interviewed Fox onstage at CGI, credited him with research advances in understanding Parkinson’s. “I don’t think this work would have made the progress it has if Michael hadn’t been so open,” she said.Fox said that once he got support from his family after his diagnosis, he did not hesitate about going public with his diagnosis.“There’s such shame associat...

Unifor reaches tentative deal with Ford Motor Company

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:00:33 GMT

Unifor has reached a tentative agreement with Ford Motor Company, the union announced on Tuesday night.The union says the proposed contract will be brought to members shortly for a vote. Negotiations with Ford are expected to set expectations for what workers will get in contracts from General Motors and Stellantis.The tentative deal with Ford comes as U.S. autoworkers continue to strike against Ford as well as at General Motors and Stellantis plants.Unifor members at Ford voted 98.9 per cent in favour of a strike if the bargaining committee failed to secure a new collective agreement.The new deal covers members at Canadian Ford facilities, including members at Ford’s Oakville Assembly Plant and Annex and Essex Engine Plants in Windsor, Ont., among others across the country.“We believe that this tentative agreement, endorsed by the entire master bargaining committee, addresses all of the items raised by members in preparation for this round of collective bargaining,̶...

Why new fighting in troubled Azerbaijan region may herald a new war with Armenia

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:00:33 GMT

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Azerbaijan’s launch of reportedly intense artillery firing in the Nagorno-Karabakh region on Tuesday raised fears that another full-scale conflict with Armenia could be underway, less than three years after a war that killed more than 6,000 people.Nagorno-Karabakh, with a population of about 120,000, is an ethnic Armenian region of Azerbaijan that has been a flashpoint since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The region and sizable surrounding territories came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by the Armenian military at the 1994 end of a separatist war. Azerbaijan regained the territories and parts of Nagorno-Karabakh itself in fighting in 2020.The latter war ended with an agreement to deploy Russian peacekeepers in the region, but tensions have soared since December when Azerbaijan began blocking the road that connects Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia proper. The artillery firing that Azerbaijan calls an “anti-terrorist operation” started hours...

Court hears arguments over injunction for Saskatchewan’s school pronoun policy

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:00:33 GMT

REGINA — A Saskatchewan judge heard arguments Tuesday over an injunction application that aims to halt a policy requiring students under 16 to receive parental consent if they want to go by different names or pronouns at school.Lawyers for UR Pride, an organization representing LGBTQ people in Regina, argued for the injunction, describing the policy as discriminatory because it could result in teachers misgendering students unable to get parental consent.Adam Goldenberg, a lawyer representing the group, told court it could also out students, potentially putting them at risk if they aren’t accepted at home.He said these repercussions violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including equality rights and the right to security of the person.The policy also does not account for the mature minor doctrine, a common-law rule that gives mature children autonomy, said Goldenberg.“There’s expert evidence establishing a range of irreparable harm, including extreme irrepara...

They said it: Leaders at the UN, in their own words

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:00:33 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Many leaders saying many things about many topics that matter to them, to their regions, to the world: That’s what the U.N. General Assembly invariably produces each year.And each year, certain voices dominate. Here, The Associated Press takes the opposite approach and spotlights some thoughts — delivered from the rostrum at the United Nations — from leaders who might have not captured the headlines and airtime on Tuesday, the first day of the 2023 debate.___“I look at the key menace of our time: disinformation. … It is an era of snack news, attention economy, the fabrication of facts, and of increasing disagreements about facts precisely because we no longer trust any narratives. We may have the freedom of information, but we are not protected against false information, manipulation and deceit.”— Nataša Pirc Musar, president of Slovenia___“Syrian refugees’ future is in their country, not in host countries. But until they are able to return, we must all d...

Bears raid Krispy Kreme doughnut van making deliveries in Alaska

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:00:33 GMT

Two bears on an Alaska military base raided a Krispy Kreme doughnut van that was stopped outside a convenience store during its delivery route.The driver usually left his doors open when he stopped at the store but this time a sow and one of her cubs that loiter nearby sauntered inside, where they stayed for probably 20 minutes Tuesday morning, said Shelly Deano, the store manager for Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson JMM Express.The bears chomped on doughnut holes and other pastries, ignoring the banging on the side of the van that was aimed at shooing them away, Deano said.“I was beating on the van, and they’re not moving. I could hear them breaking open the packages and everything,” she said. “I was like, ‘They don’t even care.'”This Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023 photo provided by Shelly Deano shows two bears getting into a donut truck in Anchorage. Alaska. Photo: Shelly Deano via AP.When the bears couldn’t be roused, base security was call...

Supporters of reparations for Black residents urge San Francisco to push forward

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:00:33 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Reparations advocates urged San Francisco supervisors Tuesday to adopt recommendations aimed at shrinking the racial wealth gap and otherwise improving the lives of Black residents as atonement for decades of discriminatory city policies, including the granting of a lump-sum $5 million payment to every eligible adult. San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors was expected to vote Tuesday to accept the final reparations plan issued by the city’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee. The city has set aside $4 million to open an office of reparations, but it has not acted on major recommendations. Supervisors have expressed enthusiasm for reparations but stopped short of backing individual proposals. The office of Mayor London Breed, who is Black, said in a statement Tuesday that she will “continue to lift up” marginalized communities but she believes that reparations are best handled at the federal level. San Francisco embraces its image as...

Park Ridge PD looking for dine and dash suspects

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:00:33 GMT

PARK RIDGE, Ill. — The Park Ridge Police Department is looking into a pair of service thefts where a group of men appear to have dined and dashed, skipping out on paying hundreds of dollars in bills for their meals.Park Ridge dine and dash suspectsPark Ridge dine and dash suspectsPark Ridge dine and dash suspectsPark Ridge dine and dash suspectsPolice said four men entered Nonna Silvia's Trattoria and Pizzeria on Sept. 9 around 6:30 p.m. and asked to be seated on the patio at a table located furthest away from the main door to the establishment.After consuming $155.33-worth of food and beverages, they left without paying. FBI releases photo, video from armored truck robbery at Chicago Heights grocery story A day later on Sept. 10 around 5:10 p.m., police said a group of four men walked into Poke Burrito and requested to sit on the patio.After eating and drinking $172.03-worth of the establishment's products, the men left without paying.According to police, the men appear to be the...