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Hot-shooting Funk leads Penn St to first NCAA win since ’01

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 09:07:20 GMT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Andrew Funk had the shooting game of his career on Penn State’s biggest stage in more than two decades.Funk went 8 of 10 on 3-pointers and scored 27 points Thursday night in a 76-59 win over Texas A&M for the Nittany Lions’ first NCAA Tournament victory in 22 years.“He’s an OK shooter,” Penn State star Jalen Pickett deadpanned before breaking into a wide smile. “He puts in a lot of work on his jump shot. When he gets going like that, we’ve got to find him.”Funk, in his first year at Penn State after transferring from Bucknell, led the 10th-seeded Nittany Lions (23-13) to their ninth victory in 11 games. They next play No. 2 seed Texas in the second round of the Midwest Region on Saturday.“When you make that first and second one, the rim opens up a little bit for sure,” Funk said. “In this offense I know I’m going to get a lot of shots from 3. You get into a rhythm, especially in a game where the offense is flowing like that.”Penn S...

Boyd scores twice, Coyotes beat Canucks 3-2

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 09:07:20 GMT

TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — The Arizona Coyotes held a team meeting following the All-Star break in hopes of finding some kind of a spark during another disappointing season.Whatever was said worked, shaping the Coyotes into one of the NHL’s better team since the break.Travis Boyd scored twice, Ivan Prosvetov stopped 29 shots and the Coyotes stretched their points streak to six games with a 3-2 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday night.“We kind of hit the refresh button and ever since then we’ve been, positive each and every day and playing the right way,” said Coyotes forward Lawson Crouse, who scored in the third period. “That’s what’s led us to all these wins and points streaks.”Prosvetov helped the Coyotes withstand a string of early penalties in his second start this season and Boyd had his second multi-goal game this month after going five seasons without one. Arizona is 5-0-2 since losing to Carolina on March 3, has won five straight home games and its 25...

Kings use strong second period to beat Blue Jackets 4-1

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 09:07:20 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Carl Grundstrom had a goal and an assist in Los Angeles’ four-goal second period, Pheonix Copley made 30 saves and the Kings beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-1 on Thursday night.Drew Doughty, Anze Kopitar and Viktor Arvidsson also scored to help the Kings improve to 7-0-1 in their past eight games.Kirill Marchenko scored for Columbus. Daniil Tarasov was pulled in the second period after allowing four goals on 27 shots, and Michael Hutchinson made nine saves in relief. The Blue Jackets have lost five of six.After dominating the first period but having nothing to show for it, the Kings finally went up early in the second on Doughty’s fifth of the season. He used some nifty stick-handling to get into the slot before tapping in his own rebound.Kopitar made it 2-0 less than three minutes later, and that was plenty for the Kings to move to a 2-0-1 start on their seven-game homestand.Copley got his second shutout of the season and third of his career, while taking ...

Unheralded coaches Digard and Still looking to stay unbeaten

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 09:07:20 GMT

PARIS (AP) — Didier Digard’s digging in nicely at Nice and Will Still’s still unbeaten at Reims.The two young, unheralded coaches are making a name for themselves in the French league this season, and they head into this weekend’s matches defending unbeaten records.Seventh-place Nice is on a 10-game unbeaten streak before hosting ninth-place Lorient, while eighth-place Reims is a club-record 19 league games without defeat as it faces second-place Marseille. Both games are Sunday.Nice and Reims are locked on 43 points, separated by goal difference, and still in the hunt for the European places with 11 rounds of games remaining. Perhaps fittingly, they canceled each other out this season with two 0-0 draws.But the fact they have been performing so consistently is much down to their respective coaches.After a very difficult start, Nice’s climb up the table coincided with the appointment of the 36-year-old Digard. Nice had re-hired coach Lucien Favre to replace P...

SNP race: Kate Forbes’ conversion therapy stance ‘misses the point,’ Mhairi Black warns

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 09:07:20 GMT

LONDON — The Scottish National Party’s deputy leader at Westminster has taken a swipe at Kate Forbes’ position on LGBTQ+ conversion therapy, as Forbes’ views face close scrutiny in her bid for the country’s top political office.Forbes has said that coercive conversion therapy — where groups forcibly attempt to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity — is “abhorrent” and that she would back efforts to ban such practices. However, she has not committed to banning conversion therapy where the individual involved voluntarily consents — something pro-ban campaign groups say is never possible.Pressed on the issue multiple times by Sky News in a televised SNP leadership debate on Monday, Forbes said that if a gay person wanted to have conversion therapy, “that is their choice,” and would not say she would introduce a complete conversion therapy ban.In an interview with POLITICO, SNP Westminster deputy leader Mhairi ...

Orioles observations on Cole Irvin overcoming rough first inning, DL Hall taking next step in return from injury and more

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 09:07:20 GMT

Despite giving up two runs in the first inning Thursday, Cole Irvin was still satisfied with the way his opening frame went.No, not the four hits he gave up to the first four batters he faced, but instead the way he got out of that inning and settled down after against the Toronto Blue Jays.“It’s just part of the process,” Irvin said. “Those innings are good to get through and work through, and I still came out of that 20 pitches or less. I was able to get out of damage spots and just made good pitches.”Irvin, the left-hander the Orioles acquired from the Oakland Athletics this offseason, gave up just two more hits and zero runs after the opening barrage. He ended his night allowing two runs in 4 1/3 innings while walking none and striking out three against a lineup filled mostly with minor leaguers. The 29-year-old threw 66 pitches — 47 for strikes — and was pleased to start the fifth inning while being on a 70-pitch limit.“He threw t...

Parents allege abuse of students with special needs at East County school

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 09:07:20 GMT

LAKESIDE, Calif. -- Parents are outraged after learning of alleged abuse of their children with special needs at Lemon Crest Elementary School.Parents say a teacher’s aide abused multiple children with special needs, multiple times. The parents are calling for the teacher’s aide to be fired. “I couldn’t believe that somebody would do that to an innocent child,” mother Cynthia Raymond said. “My son is non-verbal, so he couldn’t tell me anything was happening.”Raymond says a teacher’s aide at Lemon Crest Elementary abused her nine-year-old son with special needs.“He was being changed by a male staff who was on his knees with his hands over my son’s hands and forcing him to punch himself in the head multiple times,” she said.Brittany McLaughlin claims her nine-year-old daughter in a wheelchair has needs also suffered abuse by the same teacher’s aide. National City teacher pleads not guilty to over a dozen felony charges, including sex abuse charges “He repeatedly put her hand in her ...

In Israel, TV’s dystopian ‘Handmaids’ is protest fixture

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 09:07:20 GMT

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — It’s become an ominous fixture of the mass anti-government protests roiling Israel: a coil of women in crimson robes and white caps, walking heads bowed and hands clasped. They are dressed as characters from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and the eponymous TV series. The women, growing in numbers as the demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies intensify, say they are protesting to ward off what they believe will be a dark future if the government follows through on its plan to overhaul the judiciary.“This display is a representation of the things that we fear,” said Moran Zer Katzenstein, founder of the women’s rights advocacy group Bonot Alternativa, or “building an alternative,” which is behind the Handmaid’s protest. “Women are going to be the first to be harmed” under the overhaul, she added.In a move that has sparked widespread opposition, Netanyahu’s go...

Former Israeli premier urges world leaders to shun Netanyahu

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 09:07:20 GMT

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s former prime minister on Thursday urged world leaders to shun Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as he presses ahead with a plan to overhaul the country’s justice system. The United States and Germany, two of Israel’s closest allies, called on Netanyahu to slow down.The rare calls for restraint and international intervention came as thousands of Israelis once again took to the streets to protest Netanyahu’s plan. Ehud Olmert, who served as prime minister from 2006-2009, told The Associated Press that global leaders should refuse to meet with Netanyahu. He appealed specifically to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who is expected to host Netanyahu in the coming weeks.“I urge the leaders of the friendly countries to the state of Israel to refrain from meeting with the Israeli prime minister,” Olmert said. He added that he was aware his call, as a former Israeli prime minister, “is quite extraordinary” but that the situat...

Unseasonably Cold Open To Coming Weekend, Which Is Likely To Be City's Coldest Since Late January.

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 09:07:20 GMT

Early January-level temps predicted including Saturday morning single-digit to near zero wind chills amid 35 mph wind gustsThe coming weekend to be be the 2nd-coldest to date of 2023 and the coldest weekend here since late JanuaryUPPER MIDWEST IN LINE FOR MORE SNOW OUT OF THIS STORMThe Saturday flurries offer just a taste of the wintry snows expected to sweep the upper Midwest with this storm. Sections of Upper Michigan and far northern Wisconsin, where snowfall will be lake enhanced and fall well into Saturday, are to see snowfalls of a foot to as much as 2 feet in favored areas downwind of Lake Superior. This comes on top a generous snow pack which sits 40" deep in Bayfield, WI and 34" in the Marquette and Munising areas of the Upper Peninsula.