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Column: Chicago White Sox must finish 9-13 to avoid 100 losses — a fitting exclamation point on a horrid season

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:51:18 GMT

The March to 100 is on for the Chicago White Sox, who continue to find new ways to lose.Avoiding 100 losses won’t be manager Pedro Grifol’s stated goal. No one has told him the season is over.But it no doubt will be on his mind every day for the next 22 games, beginning Friday in Detroit, where the Sox start a three-game series.The Sox need nine wins to avoid reaching the tragic number, and they might have to do it without Michael Kopech in the rotation. Kopech was scheduled to go Saturday in Detroit, but the Sox starter is listed as TBD after Kopech’s latest walkfest.After Kopech failed to last two innings Sunday in a loss to the Tigers, Grifol said there was no talk of using him as a reliever the rest of the way.“You just can’t find starters like that with that kind of stuff that’s proven they can go deep in games and still go through an order three times,” he told reporters. “We have to do whatever it takes and exhaust every resourc...

Recipe: Celebrity chef Jacques Pepin’s Tapioca Banana Coconut Pudding is easy to make

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:51:18 GMT

For decades I’ve admired Chef Jacques Pepin. As a cookbook author, teacher, and PBS TV star, he changed the way I cook and think. Recently I took great delight when Food and Wine magazine arrived. His portrait graced the cover.The photo motivated me to pull down one of the culinary icon’s cookbooks and thumb through its pages to find a recipe with ingredients that I had on hand. “Jacques Pepin More Fast Food My Way” showcases dishes that are quick and easy to prepare, unlike the elaborate concoctions that he once cooked as personal chef to Charles de Gaulle. These are dishes that he makes at home when time is tight. Fast, but fresh.I turned to his Tapioca Banana Coconut Pudding, a comfort dessert that he described as simple, homey, and creamy. He uses the Minute brand of tapioca. The pudding cooks in a flash.Honey gives the dessert modest sweetness and lime zest adds subtle perkiness. A generous amount of sweetened whipped cream offers a lovely finale.Tapioca Banana Coconut PuddingY...

Bruce Springsteen has peptic ulcer disease. Doctors say it’s easily treated

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:51:18 GMT

By JONEL ALECCIA (AP Health Writer)Bruce Springsteen announced Thursday that he’s postponing a slate of concerts in September on the advice of doctors who treating him for peptic ulcer disease.Fans who aren’t familiar with this common and potentially serious gastrointestinal problem may wonder how it could sideline The Boss, who turns 74 later this month. Here’s what to know about the disease:WHAT IS PEPTIC ULCER DISEASE?It’s a condition marked by open sores that develop on the inside lining of the stomach and the small intestine, according to the Mayo Clinic.The most common symptoms are burning stomach pain, heartburn, nausea and bloating or belching.About 8 million people worldwide suffer from it. WHAT CAUSES IT?The most common cause of peptic ulcers is long-term use of anti-inflammatory pain relievers like aspirin or ibuprofen, according to Dr. Lawrence Kosinski of the American Gastroenterological Association.“As you get older, they’re more inj...

An American explorer trapped deep inside a Turkish cave says his health is improving

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:51:18 GMT

ISTANBUL (AP) — Rescuers from across Europe rushed to a cave in Turkey on Thursday, launching an operation to save an American researcher who became trapped almost 1,000 meters (3,000 feet) below the cave’s entrance after suffering stomach bleeding.Experienced caver Mark Dickey, 40, suddenly became ill during an expedition with a handful of others, including three other Americans, in the Morca cave in southern Turkey’s Taurus Mountains, the European Association of Cave Rescuers said.In a video message from inside the cave and made available Thursday by Turkey’s communications directorate, Dickey thanked the caving community and the Turkish government for their efforts.“The caving world is a really tight-knit group and it’s amazing to see how many people have responded on the surface,” said Dickey. “ … I do know that the quick response of the Turkish government to get the medical supplies that I need, in my opinion, saved my life. I was very close to the edge....

‘Flood the city,’ Video of ‘Freedom Convoy’ organizers’ shown at trial

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:51:18 GMT

OTTAWA — “Freedom Convoy” organizer Chris Barber called for people to “flood the city” in a social media video that was shown Thursday in court as part of his criminal trial.Barber, who operated a trucking business in Swift Current, Sask., and fellow protest organizer Tamara Lich, from Medicine Hat, Alta., are co-accused in the trial. They face charges related to their role in organizing the protest against COVID-19 health restrictions last year that blockaded Ottawa city streets for weeks with big-rig trucks and encampments.As testimony continued for a third day in Ottawa, the Crown called a Ottawa police Sgt. Joanne Pilotte, who compiled five hours of TikTok and YouTube videos posted by Barber, Lich and others participating in the protest.Over the course of the three-week demonstration that blocked streets around Parliament Hill in January and February 2022, thousands of protesters recorded and streamed videos, capturing the overwhelming sounds of honking h...

EPA staff slow to report health risks from lead-tainted Benton Harbor water, report states

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:51:18 GMT

BENTON HARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Health risks due to high lead levels in drinking water in a majority Black and impoverished Michigan city were not taken quickly to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency leadership, according to a report released Thursday.The EPA Office of Inspector General said staff monitoring the state’s response to lead levels and compliance in Benton Harbor failed to “elevate” the issue of health risks to the city’s residents, per an EPA policy that encourages staff to do so. The issues met several EPA elevation policy criteria, including the appearance of a substantial threat to public health and that normal enforcement and compliance tools seemed unlikely to succeed in the short term, the report said.In October 2018, the state notified the Benton Harbor water system it had exceeded 15 parts per billion in water samples — the federal threshold for taking action.Those levels stayed high. In 2021, activists ramped up pressure for more action, and stat...

Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh predicts “concrete steps soon” to address ethics concerns

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:51:18 GMT

CLEVELAND (AP) — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh told a judicial conference on Thursday he hopes there will be “concrete steps soon” to address recent ethics concerns surrounding the court, but he stopped short of addressing calls for justices to institute an official code of conduct.“We can increase confidence. We’re working on that,” Kavanaugh told the judicial conference in Ohio. He said all nine justices recognize that public confidence in the court is important, particularly now.“There’s a storm around us in the political world and the world at large in America,” he said. “We, as judges and the legal system, need to try to be a little more, I think, of the calm in the storm.”Justice Clarence Thomas acknowledged recently that he took three trips last year aboard a private plane owned by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow even as he rejected criticism over his failure to report trips in previous years.Reporting by the investigative news site ProPublica also revealed that...

After 25 years behind bars, a Black man walks free. Racist detective ignored a key witness

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:51:18 GMT

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — In the predawn hours of March 20, 1998, a neighbor heard screams coming from the home in Salem of Harriet “Sunny” Thompson and then saw a white man run from the house, leaving Thompson inside dead of stab wounds.Yet a Black man, Jesse Johnson, was convicted by a jury in 2004 of aggravated murder and sentenced to death. He walked free this week after 25 years behind bars when prosecutors decided to drop retrial efforts, two years after the Oregon Court of Appeals reversed Johnson’s conviction.The jury never got a chance to hear neighbor Patricia Hubbard testify to what she saw and heard that night. After Johnson was convicted, Hubbard told investigators that when she began describing what she had seen to a police detective, he responded, twice using a racial epithet: a Black woman got murdered and a Black man “is going to pay for it.”Johnson’s trial attorney never sought out Hubbard, a fact that the appeals court cited when it reversed the convict...

Palestinian leader’s comments on Holocaust draw accusations of antisemitism from US and Europe

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:51:18 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — The United States, Germany and the European Union on Thursday condemned recent comments about the Holocaust by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, accusing him of distorting history and promoting antisemitic stereotypes.In a speech last month to senior members of his Fatah movement, Abbas said that Adolf Hitler killed European Jews not because of antisemitism, but because of their “social functions” in society, such as money lending.“These people were fought because of their social function related to money, usury,” Abbas said in the speech. “From Hitler’s point of view, they were sabotaging, and therefore he hated them.”The speech was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a think tank in Washington founded by Israeli analysts that translates speeches from Arabic and other languages for Western audiences. Critics have accused MEMRI of promoting a pro-Israel agenda.In the Holocaust, 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their allies. Hitler...

Canadian consumer a ‘bright spot’ for Couche-Tard amid grab bag of pressures: CEO

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:51:18 GMT

LAVAL, Que. — Canada appeared to be a “bright spot” for Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. in its latest quarter as the convenience store giant battles a slew of pressures. President and CEO Brian Hannasch told analysts that the company’s Canadian operations led the way for a strong start to the convenience store giant’s financial year, while U.S. consumers seemingly feeling the financial pinch. “When we look at our sales in the U.S., we’re seeing certainly some trading down to more budget and price-conscious decisions,” Hannasch said on a conference call Thursday to discuss the company’s latest results. “We continue to see double-digit growth year over year on private label. So that tells me a certain segment of our customer base is stretched … a little bit.”However, he noted continued resilience in Canada. “We continue to see that be a bright spot in our business,” Hannasch said.Same-store merchandise sales, or sales at ...