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Orioles minor leaguer Luis Ortiz was a ‘fighter’ throughout cancer battle: ‘Everybody’s feeling it’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:28 GMT

Koby Perez recognizes that Luis Ortiz had a long way to go, but as a big left-hander with a low 90s fastball and impressive breaking ball, Ortiz had the profile of a pitcher with a bright future.“That’s the type of guy that usually finds his way in the big leagues at some point,” said Perez, the Orioles’ senior director of international scouting.Whether Ortiz could have reached that potential will never be known. He died Saturday, about a year after being diagnosed with leukemia. He was 20 years old.“I can’t believe the way he took it on,” Perez said. “Anytime he was around me, he acted really mature about it. He took it as well as anybody would ever take something like that.“He was a fighter. He said he was going to fight, and he did all the way to his last breath.”Ortiz was 16 when he signed with the Orioles out of his native Dominican Republic in July 2019, receiving a bonus of $400,000 that was among the largest of Balt...

Battenfeld: Bank failures fueling insecurity and angst among American voters

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:28 GMT

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and two other large banks is fueling economic insecurity and angst among an already rattled American public and is prompting a major damage control effort by President Biden.Throw in Republicans’ threats to raise the retirement age and cut Social Security and Medicare and you have a recipe for a very nervous electorate to go to the polls next year.Biden and Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren are already scurrying to assure nervous Americans the bank system is “safe” and avoid blame for the bank collapses, saying they were due to lax regulatory policies under Donald Trump.Blame Trump is usually the Democrats’ answer for every problem.But Biden himself is now taking heat for the banking collapses.“The bottom line is this: Americans can rest assured that our banking system is safe. Your deposits are safe,” Biden said.That promise is unlikely to assuage the public, which is already dealing with rampant inflation, rising mortgage interest rates and n...

ASK IRA: Do close games show Heat are close to redemption or ruin?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:28 GMT

Q: All Heat games this year have been gut-wrenching. I do believe that opponents lick their chops when they are going to play the Heat. Because they know Miami will not blow them out and therefore they will have a chance to win. They know the Heat does not have that fourth-quarter shutdown defense anymore. They know that the Miami Heat will make mistakes and turn the ball over. They know they will get many second-chance points and get more points in the paint than the Heat, as well as make more 3-pointers. But they also know they just might lose, as is what happened to the Utah Jazz tonight. – Roland, Borrego Springs, Calif.A: Honestly, it’s as if all Heat games should be taken in from a dentist’s chair, because it very much feels like pulling teeth, win or lose. Think about it, the Heat have played 70 games and 50 (50!) have been defined by the NBA as clutch games (games within five or fewer points at any point in the last five minutes). Allow that to marinate. Th...

Whether the Chicago Bears leave or not, taxpayers are on the hook for growing Soldier Field debt payments

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:28 GMT

As the Chicago Bears make plans to build a new stadium, taxpayers still are on the hook for the old one. A big bill is coming soon —and the primary method of paying for it may not be enough.Whether or not the team leaves for its newly acquired site in Arlington Heights, the public is obligated to pay for the 2003 renovation of Soldier Field that was meant to keep the team there.Due to refinancing and years of primarily paying interest instead of principal, the debt owed for Soldier Field has ballooned from the original $399 million to $631 million, according to the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, or ISFA, which manages the debt payments. The increase in the debt alarms experts who work in stadium financing.“No sane person would have agreed to this deal,” said J.C. Bradbury, a professor of economics at Kennesaw State University in Marietta, Georgia, who has studied sports stadium financing.Recently, due to the COVID pandemic crushing travel and tourism, the 2%...

Garbage tarnishes Paris luster as pension strike continues

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:28 GMT

PARIS (AP) — The City of Light is losing its luster with tons of garbage piling up on Paris sidewalks as sanitation workers strike for a ninth day Tuesday. The creeping squalor is the most visible sign of widespread anger over a bill to raise the French retirement age by two years.The malodorous perfume of rotting food has begun escaping from some rubbish bags and overflowing bins. Neither the Left Bank palace housing the Senate nor, across town, a street steps from the Elysee Palace, where waste from the presidential residence is apparently being stocked, was spared by the strike.More than 5,600 tons of garbage had piled up by Monday, drawing complaints from some district mayors. Some piles disappeared early Tuesday with help from a private company, the TV station BFMTV reported.Other French cities are also having garbage problems, but the mess in Paris, the showcase of France, has quickly become emblematic of strikers’ discontent.“It’s a bit too much because it was even hard to na...

Russian missile hits another Ukraine apartment block, 1 dead

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:28 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian missile struck an apartment building in the center of Kramatorsk on Tuesday, killing at least one person and wounding three others in one of Ukraine’s major city strongholds in its eastern Donetsk region as it fights against Moscow’s invasion, officials said.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that six apartment buildings were damaged in the blast and rescue efforts were continuing. He posted a video showing gaping holes in the facade of the low-rise building that bore the brunt of the strike.The Ukrainian general prosecutor’s office and regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko also reported on the attack, posting photos of the building with mounds of rubble in front of it. The war, which erupted after Russia’s launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, has brought heavy civilian casualties. Tuesday’s victims were among at least six civilians killed and 30 wounded in 24 hours, Ukraine authorities said.“Russian troops are striking residential buil...

Lebanon’s pound hits a new low as banks go back on strike

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:28 GMT

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s embattled currency hit a new low Tuesday, trading at an unprecedented 100,000 Lebanese pounds to the dollar on the black market as the crisis-hit country’s banks went back on strike. The pound has kept sinking since Lebanon’s financial meltdown erupted in 2019, following decades of rampant corruption and mismanagement by the country’s political and financial elite. Three-quarters of Lebanon’s population of over 6 million now lives in poverty and inflation is soaring. The new rate of 100,000 pounds to the dollar was posted on mobile apps Tuesday used by private money exchangers. Exchange shops and businesses use rates off these apps, and authorities have failed to shut down the apps and crack down on a ring of suspected exchangers across the country who run the programs.While the official exchange rate is set by the Central Bank at 15,000 pounds for $1, the black market rate is now used for nearly all transactions.With trust in th...

Asian shares fall, European markets mixed amid bank worries

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:28 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — European markets were mixed Tuesday after a broad retreat in Asia led by declines in bank shares as investors watched to see what’s next following the second- and third-largest bank failures in U.S. history.Oil prices fell nearly $2 a barrel while U.S. futures were higher.While direct global exposure to risks from the U.S. failures outside the U.S. appears limited, the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank have shaken confidence in the industry at a time when the Federal Reserve and other central banks are struggling to fine-tune policies to crush stubborn inflation without snuffing out post-pandemic economic recoveries. Worries over a possible spreading of risks throughout financial systems have been countered, however, by hopes that the Fed might slow its interest rate hikes to relieve pressures on markets. European benchmarks were mixed in early trading. France’s CAC 40 rose 0.1% to 7,019.04. Germany’s DAX added 0.5% to 15,032.84. Britain’s FTSE 100 she...

Man gets 3-year banning order for racially abusing Toney

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:28 GMT

NEWCASTLE, England (AP) — A man who racially abused Brentford striker Ivan Toney on social media has been banned from every soccer stadium in Britain for three years in what police described Tuesday as a “landmark ruling.”Antonio Neill sent a racist message to Toney on his Instagram account after the striker scored two goals against Brighton in a Premier League match on Oct. 14.Police started an investigation after Toney shared a picture of the abuse and the message was traced to the 24-year-old Neill, who lives in Blyth, a town in northern England.Neill appeared in a magistrates’ court in Newcastle on Jan. 25 and pleaded guilty to sending an offensive message.On Monday, he was handed a four-month sentence suspended for two years as well as a three-year soccer banning order, the first to be issued under a government act which became law in 2022. That widened the scope for banning orders to be issued for online hate crimes relating to a person with a connection to a soccer orga...

Maine lobster industry sues over do-not-eat listing

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:28 GMT

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A coalition representing the Maine lobster industry is suing an aquarium on the other side of the country for recommending that seafood customers avoid buying a variety of lobster mostly harvested in their state.Industry groups including Maine Lobstermen’s Association are suing the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California for defamation, arguing in a lawsuit filed Monday that their prized catch shouldn't be on a “red list" published by Seafood Watch, a conservation program it operates.Last year, Seafood Watch put lobster from the U.S. and Canada on its list of seafood to avoid due to the threat posed to rare whales by entanglement in fishing gear used to harvest American lobster, the species that makes up most of the U.S. lobster market. Here’s who is paying to restore Silicon Valley, Signature Bank deposits Endangered North American right whales number only about 340 and they’ve declined in recent years.But the lobster industry is arguing to the U.S. District Co...