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Castellanos hits 3-run homer in 1st inning in Phillies’ 5-4 victory over Cardinals

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:00 GMT

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Nick Castellanos hit a three-run homer, lifting the NL wild-card leading Philadelphia Phillies to a 5-4 victory over St. Louis on Friday night to assure the Cardinals of their first losing season since 2007.“I’m doing my job,” Castellanos said. “Am I thrilled about every aspect of my season personally? No, because I know I’ve hit periods of inconsistency. I’m always a person to drive to get better. I have an unhealthy knack for never really being satisfied with anything I do.”It’s only the second time in the last 24 seasons (2000-present) that the Cardinals (65-82), currently in last place in the NL Central, have endured a losing season. St. Louis has MLB’s second-longest active streak of winning seasons at 15 (2008-22). The Yankees currently have 30 winning seasons.St. Louis stranded 15 runners. The Cardinals loaded the bases in the eighth and ninth and scored just one run.“I don’t think we played our best baseball out there tonight,” Philadelphia manager Rob...

Fernando Tatis Jr. homers, drives in 3 runs as Padres beat A’s 8-3 in Bob Melvin’s return

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:00 GMT

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Fernando Tatis Jr. homered in the first, added a two-run single in the second and set a career high for hits while playing in his 400th career game, leading the San Diego Padres past the Athletics 8-3 on Friday night in manager Bob Melvin’s return to Oakland.San Diego’s José Azocar hit a three-run shot in the ninth for his first career home run, in his 269th at-bat.The A’s showed a video tribute after the first inning for Melvin, their winningest manager who spent nearly 11 seasons guiding the A’s before departing to manage the Padres after the 2021 season. He hadn’t been back for nearly two years.Tatis surpassed his previous career best of 135 hits from 2021. He also joined Juan Soto and Manny Machado with at least 25 home runs — becoming the third trio in San Diego history to do so in a single season. They join the 2001 Padres of Phil Nevin, Ryan Klesko and Bubba Trammell and the 2019 group of Hunter Renfroe, Machado and Franmil Reyes...

Man snags 2 foul balls in span of 3 pitches at Citi Field, gives them to his mom as birthday gift

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Patrick Wedderburn exchanged hugs with family and friends Friday night as he held aloft his once-in-a-lifetime haul in section 321 at Citi Field — two foul balls snagged in a three-pitch span during the eighth inning of the Mets’ 5-3 loss to the Cincinnati Reds.But the 23-year-old from Farmingville on Long Island didn’t hesitate when asked what he planned to do with the baseballs.“I’m gonna give her both of them,” he said as he gestured to his mother, Christa, who was at the park as part of her birthday celebration.Patrick, wearing a Pete Alonso jersey, said he was looking at his phone in the fifth row of section 321 — two levels behind home plate at Citi Field — when the first foul ball off the bat of TJ Friedl landed in the second row.“I looked up, I saw it bouncing right there, I dove over, grabbed it,” Patrick said.Friedl then fouled a pitch off towards the third base side before hitting another Drew Smith offering into section 321.“Before I could even think abou...

Trio helps Wings rally past Dream 94-82 in playoff opener

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:00 GMT

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Satou Sabally had 32 points, Arike Ogunbowale scored 24 and Teaira McCowan added a double-double to help Dallas overcome a slow start and beat Atlanta 94-82 in a first-round playoff opener on Friday night.Sabally notched a playoff-high for the fourth-seeded Wings, sinking 11 of 20 shots from the floor — with three 3-pointers — and all seven of her free throws. She also had five rebounds, four assists and four steals. Ogunbowale added nine rebounds, seven assists and four steals for the Wings, who went 3-0 against Atlanta in the regular season. McCowan totaled 17 points — on 6-of-7 shooting — and 14 rebounds, including seven on offense. It was her second career postseason double-double.Rhyne Howard, the top pick in the 2022 draft, finished with 36 points for the Dream, who were playing in the postseason for the first time since 2018. Howard made 13 of 29 shots, including 8 of 15 from beyond the arc. Allisha Gray pitched in with 21 points, seven boards and thre...

Tarik Skubal throws 7 dominant innings, Javier Baez drives in 4 in Tigers’ 11-2 victory over Angels

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:00 GMT

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Tarik Skubal struck out nine over seven stellar innings of three-hit ball, and Javier Báez had a homer and a three-run double in the Detroit Tigers’ 11-2 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Friday night.Jake Rogers also homered for the Tigers, who have won four of six. Spencer Torkelson and Kerry Carpenter drove in two runs apiece as Detroit opened its 10-game California trip with a blowout in a weekend series between two teams about to miss the playoffs for the ninth consecutive season — the longest active postseason droughts in the majors.Skubal (6-3) was dominant in his third straight victory, issuing no walks and retiring the Angels’ first nine hitters before Kyren Paris’ bunt single leading off the fourth. Skubal struck out the side in the sixth, and he finished the seventh after a mound visit from Detroit’s training staff.The Tigers scored a season-high seven runs in the eighth inning off reliever Jhonathan Diaz before Angels infielder Edu...

How China schooled the West on climate change

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:00 GMT

The West: China’s doing nothing on climate. Also the West: China’s dominating green tech, we must fight back! Brussels this week launched an investigation into China’s subsidies for electric cars — a move that risks higher tariffs and a trade war with Beijing. But the announcement, from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, also exposes a deeper truth: decades of drift have left Europe in danger of losing the auto industry it considers a part of its soul.For years, the West has complained that China was a climate villain. That the enormous coal fields of Shanxi somehow excused slow burn climate policy in Washington, Paris or Berlin. Now Beijing is the one lecturing the West about climate credentials.China’s efficient electric car industry has “made great contributions to the global response to climate change and the green transformation, including in the European Union,” said the Chinese commerce ministry in a statement slamming the EU probe.“What we are...

Poland is shaken by reports that consular officials took bribes to help migrants enter Europe and US

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:00 GMT

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s conservative governing party was hoping to make migration a key campaign theme ahead of the country’s national election. But not like this, with arrests, dismissals and an attempted suicide among its own ranks.The Law and Justice party is being rocked by reports that Polish consulates issued visas in Africa and Asia in exchange for bribes, opening the door for migrants to enter the European Union — which some hoped to use as a way into the United States.Details about the corruption scandal are coming to light a month ahead of the country’s national election Oct. 15, leaving Law and Justice struggling to control the damage. A former deputy foreign minister who was dismissed amid reports of his involvement in the scandal was hospitalized after an apparent suicide attempt.Law and Justice has been the election frontrunner in a field of several parties, and it’s not clear if the affair will dent its support. But opposition politicians have seized on t...

The cost of damage from the record floods in Greece’s breadbasket is estimated to be in the billions

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:00 GMT

ZAGORA, Greece (AP) — The apples were almost ripe for harvesting when the worst storms in more than a century struck Greece’s breadbasket in Thessaly.Now, farmers on the forested slopes of Mount Pilion, which overlooks the plain of Thessaly, say they face millions of euros in damage from the flooding that began earlier this month. They will be lucky to salvage a third of their crop — and that will only happen if wrecked road access to their orchards is patched up in time.As bad as the damage suffered by the Pilion farmers was, their peers in the plain were hit by even greater devastation from last week’s disastrous floods that left 16 people dead, days after wildfires killed 20 people in northeastern Greece.The storms flooded 720 square kilometers (280 square miles), mostly prime farmland, totally destroying crops. They also swamped hundreds of buildings, broke the country’s railway backbone, savaged rural roads and bridges and killed tens of thousands of livestock...

Letter showing Pope Pius XII had detailed information from German Jesuit about Nazi crimes revealed

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:00 GMT

ROME (AP) — Newly discovered correspondence suggests that World War II-era Pope Pius XII had detailed information from a trusted German Jesuit that up to 6,000 Jews and Poles were being gassed each day in German-occupied Poland, undercutting the Holy See’s argument that it couldn’t verify diplomatic reports of Nazi atrocities to denounce them.The documentation from the Vatican archives, published this weekend in Italian daily Corriere della Sera, is likely to further fuel the debate about Pius’ legacy and his now-stalled beatification campaign. Historians have long been divided about Pius’ record, with supporters insisting he used quiet diplomacy to save Jewish lives while critics say he remained silent as the Holocaust raged.Corriere is reproducing a letter dated Dec. 14, 1942 from the German Jesuit priest to Pius’ secretary which is contained in an upcoming book about the newly opened files of Pius’ pontificate by Giovanni Coco, a researcher and archivist in the Vatican’s Ap...

'Piqui's Law' passed after SoCal boy murdered by father in custody battle

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:00 GMT

The tragic death of a South Pasadena boy during a contentious custody battle has now led to the creation of new legislation protecting children from abusive parents. In a unanimous vote on Friday, state assemblymembers passed “Piqui’s Law,” which was sponsored by Senator Susan Rubio of Baldwin Park. The law mandates domestic abuse training for judges, especially when dealing with child safety during custody battles with abusive parents.The law is named after Aramazd Andressian, Jr., a 5-year-old boy known as “Piqui,” who was killed by his father after a trip to Disneyland in 2017.The boy’s mother, Ana Estevez, had warned officials that the boy’s father, Aramazd Andressian, whom she was divorcing was an abusive man. Despite her pleas, the man was granted joint custody of their son.Aramazd Andressian, Jr., a 5-year-old boy known as “Piqui,” pictured with his father in a family photo.Aramazd Andressian, Jr., a 5-year-old boy known as “Piqui,” in a family photo.Aramazd Andressian, Jr., ...