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Orioles sign Jorge Mateo, 3 others to 2024 deals, tender contracts to remaining 13 arbitration-eligible players

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:15 GMT

The band is staying together.The Orioles entered Friday’s nontender deadline tied for the most arbitration-eligible players in MLB with 17. With a number that high, it was expected that at least one player — perhaps more — would be let go and become a free agent.Instead, Baltimore signed four players, including shortstop Jorge Mateo and outfielder Ryan McKenna, and tendered contracts to the remaining 13, including slugger Anthony Santander, starting pitcher John Means and outfielders Cedric Mullins and Austin Hays.Mateo was seen as the most likely candidate to be nontendered given his struggles in 2023 (.607 OPS), the Orioles’ logjam of young infielders and his projected salary of approximately $2.6 million. But Baltimore values Mateo’s speed and glove at shortstop, agreeing to a one-year deal for the 2024 season to avoid arbitration. The club did the same with McKenna, whose versatility as a right-handed hitter against lefties, pinch-runner and late-in...

Dear Abby: BF is stuck in the low-priority zone

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:15 GMT

Dear Abby: My girlfriend and I started dating a couple years ago after getting out of long-term relationships. We have kids from those relationships, and she is still in court over custody. We haven’t been able to buy a house yet, mostly because of the cost of the court battle, so we live apart and can’t spend as much time together as we’d like. However, when we do have the time, she usually wants her kids to join. She says she wants her kids everywhere with her.She has also told me I will never come first. I have custody of my son and want to spend time with him, too, but I think we need to spend time as a couple and make our relationship important. I feel both the relationship and the kids should be priorities, but not always one over the other.Recently, we learned a band we both love and grew up listening to is coming to our town. We were excited about going, but she wants to buy tickets for herself and her son, because he said he likes the band when he hears hi...

Power restored to Donovan State Prison after three-day outage

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:15 GMT

SAN DIEGO — Power has been partially restored to Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility after one of the facility's main transformers malfunctioned nearly three days ago, leaving inmates without working lights or toilets.The outage began Wednesday morning around 8:35 a.m., leaving the 780-acre prison without electricity, air conditioning and running water. Large generators and portable toilets were brought in to help with some operations.According to the CDCR, San Diego Gas & Electric crews determined the loss of power was caused by damage to one of the primary transformers that supplies power to the majority of the facility.Officials with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation told FOX 5 in a statement that all housing units and clinics resumed full power through generators around 7 p.m. on Friday. All toilets and electronic tablets given to inmates are also up and working again."(RJD) continues its progress toward resuming normal operations," CDCR spokes...

Three major Louisiana statewide offices to be decided by voters Saturday

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:15 GMT

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — In Louisiana, where there has been a Democratic governor for eight years and Donald Trump won the past two presidential elections, runoffs on Saturday will decide whether Republicans control all five of the Deep South state’s top executive branch positions. The gubernatorial election was decided in October when Jeff Landry, a Republican backed by former President Trump, won outright and avoided a runoff. Voters will cast ballots this weekend to determine the winners of a slew of other races, including three vacant, statewide offices: attorney general, secretary of state and treasurer. The election will shape Louisiana’s executive branch of government, where most incumbents didn’t seek reelection and opened the door for new leadership in some of the state’s most powerful positions. Democrats hope to gain a statewide office in the reliably red state as the GOP tries to retain its current offices. No matter the winners, the state will hav...

The world’s attention is on Gaza, and Ukrainians worry war fatigue will hurt their cause

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:15 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — When Tymofii Postoiuk and his friends set up an online fundraising effort for Ukraine, donations poured in from around the globe, helping to purchase essential equipment for Ukrainian armed forces.As the fighting with Russia wore on and war fatigue set in, the donations slowed down, but money continued to come in steadily. Then the Israel-Hamas war broke out on Oct. 7.With the start of another major conflict, social media networks including X, formerly known as Twitter, were flooded with news from the Middle East. “Our fundraising posts and updates simply get lost in between those tweets,” Postoiuk said.The result has been a broad shift in the world’s attention away from Ukraine to the fighting in Gaza — a trend that worries many Ukrainians. They fear that a combination of global fatigue, competing political agendas and limited resources will result in less aid for their military, hurting the country’s ability to sustain its confrontation with Russia...

Officials stock up on overdose antidote naloxone after fentanyl-laced letters disrupt vote counting

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:15 GMT

SEATTLE (AP) — The suspicious letters sent to vote centers and government buildings in six states this month were undeniably scary, some containing traces of fentanyl or white powder, accompanied by not-so-veiled threats and dubious political symbols.Harkening back to the anthrax attacks that killed five people in 2001, the mailings are prompting elections officials already frustrated with ongoing harassment and threats to reach out to local police, fire and health departments for help stocking up on the overdose reversal medication naloxone.Even if there’s little risk from incidental contact with the synthetic opioid, having the antidote on hand isn’t a bad idea amid an addiction epidemic that is killing more than 100,000 people in the U.S. every year — and it can provide some assurance for stressed ballot workers, election managers say.“My team is usually in the direct fire just because we’re opening up thousands or millions of ballots depending on the election,” said Eldon ...

Censored art from around the world finds a second opportunity at a Barcelona museum for banned works

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:15 GMT

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — A drawing of a nude Donald Trump. A punching bag sculpture shaped like a woman’s torso. A display of women’s party shoes standing proudly on prayer rugs. All are pieces of contemporary art that have provoked debate and, sometimes, violent reactions.These pieces and dozens more that were subjected to some sort of censorship have found a home in Spain at Barcelona’s Museum of Forbidden Art, or “Museu de l’Art Prohibit” in Catalan. The collection of over 200 works, including ones by well-known creators such as American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and Spain’s own Pablo Picasso, is intended to challenge visitors and question the limits imposed on artists in an increasingly polarized world. Director Rosa Rodrigo said the museum is the only one in the world dedicated exclusively to art that faced petitions — often successful ones — for their removal from public view on moral, political, religious, sexual or commercial grounds. “The museum give...

How the US strikes a delicate balance in responding to attacks on its forces by Iran-backed militias

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:15 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Iranian-backed militants in Iraq and Syria have long battled with U.S. and coalition forces, launching sporadic attacks against bases in the region where troops are deployed to fight Islamic State group insurgents. But since Oct. 17, as civilian deaths in Israel’s war against Hamas began to skyrocket, there has been a dramatic spike in attacks by Iran’s proxies, operating under the umbrella name of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq. While most of the more than five dozen attacks have been largely ineffective, at least 60 U.S. personnel have reported minor injuries. Most often those have been traumatic brain injuries from the explosions, and all troops have returned to duty, according to the Pentagon.In response to the attacks, the U.S. has walked a delicate line. The U.S. military has struck back just three times as the Biden administration balances efforts to deter the militants without triggering a broader Middle East conflict. A look at the attacks and ...

Trump returns to Iowa for another rally and needles the state’s governor for endorsing DeSantis

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:15 GMT

FORT DODGE, Iowa (AP) — Former President Donald Trump will campaign Saturday in west-central Iowa as part of his fall push to sign up supporters and volunteers ahead of the state’s leadoff caucuses, now less than two months away. Trump is expected to headline an organizing rally in Fort Dodge, a GOP-leaning hub, the latest in a series of targeted regional stops aimed at seizing on the large crowds the former president draws to press attendees to commit to voting for him on Jan. 15. The midday event set for Fort Dodge High School would be Trump’s sixth Iowa visit since late September. While Trump has led Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley comfortably in polls of likely caucus participants, Trump’s campaign has been more aggressive in Iowa than any of the other early-voting states in the Republican presidential nominating calendar. Speaking on a radio show Thursday to promote his appearance, Trump ripped DeSantis as “doing very...

El Salvador’s Miss Universe pageant drawing attention at crucial moment for president

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:50:15 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Video montages of sash-clad pageant contestants strolling beaches in El Salvador, snapping selfies in front of fireworks and wandering the streets of downtown San Salvador speckled social media this week as celebrations for the Miss Universe 2023 pageant kicked off in the Central American country.“As President (Nayib) Bukele said, El Salvador is changing,” R’Bonney Gabriel, Miss Universe 2022, said in a speech before this year’s contestants. “While we’re here, we hope to shine a light on this country for the rest of the world to see.”The competition on Saturday night is the latest spectacle touted by Bukele in his effort to change the reputation of his historically violence-torn nation. But opponents and analysts say such displays are also being used by the populist leader to distract from human rights abuses in his crackdown on gangs and steps he has taken to curb criticism. Constitutional scholars and critics warn that he is slowly withering the coun...