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Lionel Messi leaves late in 1st half for Inter Miami against Toronto with leg issue

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:24 GMT

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Lionel Messi returned to Inter Miami’s lineup on Wednesday night. It was a short-lived comeback, and his team rallied after he departed.Messi was subbed off in the 37th minute of Inter Miami’s match against Toronto, after spending a few minutes laboring with what appeared to be a leg issue. Miami came up big without him, winning 4-0 to move within five points of the final playoff spot in Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference.Robert Taylor, who came on for Messi, had two goals and an assist. But Messi’s status overshadowed everything.“He had an old injury that had been bothering him,” Inter Miami coach Gerardo “Tata” Martino said, as relayed through a team official who translated his remarks. “In this case, that he had with the national team.”The 36-year-old Messi had missed two matches — one for club, the other for country — in recent days, after sitting out Argentina’s World Cup qualifying win at Bolivia on Sept. 12, and Inter...

Hernández second fastest to hat trick as Crew beat Fire 3-0 to clinch playoff berth

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:24 GMT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Cucho Hernández scored three goals in the first 23 minutes — his second hat trick in the last three matches — and the Columbus Crew clinched a playoff spot with a 3-0 victory over the Chicago Fire on Wednesday night.The hat trick by Hernández was the second fastest from the start in league history. Nashville SC’s Hany Mukhtar set the league record with a hat trick in the first 16 minutes of a 5-1 victory over the Chicago Fire in July of 2021. His three goals came in a league-record span of six minutes.Columbus (14-9-6) ups its unbeaten run at home to 14 (10-0-4). The Crew set a club record with a 16-match streak in 2010. They had a 14-match run in 2008.Chicago (8-12-9) has been shut out in five straight matches for the first time in club history.Columbus grabbed a 1-0 lead on a PK goal by Hernández in the 8th minute following a yellow card on Fire goalkeeper Chris Brady. Hernández scored again on a PK for a 2-0 lead eight minutes later after Yaw Yeboah drew a y...

Gausman pitches streaking Blue Jays past Yankees 6-1 to maintain slim lead for 2nd AL wild card

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:24 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Kevin Gausman tossed six shutout innings, outpitching Michael King as they traded strikeouts all night, and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the New York Yankees 6-1 on Wednesday for their fifth consecutive victory.Locked in a heated playoff race, the Blue Jays scored five times in the final two innings and stayed a game ahead of Texas and Seattle for the second of three American League wild cards. Toronto hasn’t lost since getting swept at home in four games by the Rangers last week.Spencer Horwitz had three RBIs, Bo Bichette drove in two runs and the Blue Jays drew five walks in the eighth from two relievers — including four in a row and two with the bases loaded.That made a hard-luck loser of King (4-7), a converted reliever who set career highs across the board with 13 strikeouts over seven innings on 101 pitches in his seventh start this season. The lone run he allowed came on Bichette’s infield hit that glanced off his glove in the third, the last of thre...

Thomas and Bonner help the Sun advance to their fifth straight WNBA semifinals

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:24 GMT

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Alyssa Thomas tied a career-high with 28 points, DeWanna Bonner had 25 points and 10 rebounds, and the Connecticut Sun beat the Minnesota Lynx 90-75 on Wednesday night to advance to their fifth straight WNBA playoff semifinals.Connecticut will play the New York Liberty on Sunday in a best-of-five series. The Sun lost all four regular-season games with the Liberty this season. It was the second consecutive season that the Sun went on the road to win Game 3 of their first round playoff series.Tyasha Harris added 18 points off the bench for Connecticut. She made four of the Sun’s nine 3-pointers. Thomas also had 12 assists and six rebounds. Napheesa Collier led Minnesota with 31 points. Kayla McBride, who scored 28 points in Game 2 on Sunday, was held to 10 points on 3-of-12 shooting.Connecticut made eight of its first nine shots and scored 14 straight points to take a 20-6 lead. Minnesota was within 32-29 before Connecticut scored the next 11 points for a 14-p...

What you should know about Apple’s move to USB-C for the new iPhone

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:24 GMT

On Friday, Apple will release the iPhone 15. It comes with a faster processor and a better camera, but for many, those things are not what make this version so exciting.The newest model becomes the first iPhone which charges via USB-C.“Apple has abandoned their proprietary interface known as the ‘lightning connector’ to this USB-C, not because they wanted to, but because they were being forced to by [European Union] regulations,” said Ken Colburn of Data Doctors.EU officials passed a provisional agreement in June 2022 that will require a uniform charging cord in the 27-nation bloc, set to take effect by fall 2024. It’s part of a wider effort to make products sold in the EU more sustainable and cut down on electronic waste.Colburn said the new connector is not new technology — many computers and even newer iPads already use it — but Apple, he believes, held off on switching over for the iPhone because a lot of money is made on selling the proprietary lightning cables, not...

North Miami pawn shop manager says burglar emptied safe, took off with $160K in jewelry, money

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:24 GMT

A North Miami pawn shop is out a hefty sum of watches, gold, jewelry and money after, a manager said, a burglar broke in and emptied the safe.Speaking with 7News on Wednesday, Lev Troitskyi, a managing partner at Bee Pawn along Northwest Seventh Avenue, said the perpetrator broke in through the roof, early Friday morning.“All together, the robbery started at 4:51 a.m.,” said Troitskyi. “That’s where he basically opened the ceiling.”All together because, Troitskyi said, the roof robber dropped down through the ceiling a total of three times.“When the guy first broke into, he spent the first hour breaking into that safe.,” said Troitskyi. “All the employees knew that it’s empty. It’s just the one that we use to distract the attention.”Once the subject finished breaking into the decoy safe, Troitskyi said, the store’s alarm went off.The thief was captured on surveillance video as he went up and out and walked aroun...

Hearing impaired couple have trouble finding help to get off the street

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:24 GMT

She is deaf and cannot speak. Her husband cannot hear well. They are homeless and cannot communicate well to get off the street, which is why they got in touch with Help Me Howard with Patrick Fraser.Martha is deaf. Let her tell you whats that’s like.Martha Cano (American sign language): “Not good. Hearing people see me, talk to me, and I can’t understand.”Her husband Ronald is nearly deaf.Ronald Cano: “I can’t hear, I’m sorry.”Together, they’re homeless, in part because of their hearing.Martha Cano: “Yes, being deaf can be hard.”Back in July, Ronald got sick, missed a few days of work and came up short in paying the rent. The landlord wasn’t happy.Ronald Cano (translation): “‘Oh, you are not able to pay the rent? Then get out,’ and they kicked us to the streets.”An eviction without a notice is illegal, but the couple didn’t know who to turn to. So they packed their clothes in their...

Poland turns toward bets on offshore wind

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:24 GMT

The development of offshore wind farms in Poland has never before taken place on such a large scale. The PGE Group is the biggest investor in offshore wind farms in the Polish part of the Baltic Sea in terms of wind turbine capacity. As part of its offshore program, the PGE Group is currently implementing three offshore wind farm projects.Two of them are the offshore wind power plants Baltica 2 and Baltica 3, which comprise the Baltica Offshore Wind Farm with a total capacity of 2.5GW. PGE is implementing this project together with the Danish partner Ørsted. Both phases of the Baltica offshore wind farm have location decisions, environmental decisions, and grid connection agreements with the operator, and have been granted the right to a Contract for Difference (CfD).As part of its offshore program, the PGE Group is currently implementing three offshore wind farm projects.Last April, PGE and Ørsted took a major step in the Baltica 2 project. They signed the first of the contracts fo...

Rishi Sunak weaponizes net zero as election looms

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:24 GMT

LONDON — Rishi Sunak has rolled the dice on weaponizing net zero for electoral advantage. No one knows if it will pay off — and some say it’s already costing him dearly.In a Downing Street speech on Wednesday — coincidentally on the very afternoon the UN hosted talks in New York on increasing climate ambition — the British prime minister took a red pen to some of his country’s flagship targets.His goal? To make net zero a wedge issue at an election expected next year. Sunak’s Conservative Party is well behind the Labour opposition in the polls. Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has put the green agenda at the heart of his offer. Sunak, while vowing that he’s equally committed to the headline 2050 net zero target, seems to have spied a potential advantage in presenting his government as the pragmatic defenders of ordinary voters struggling through a grinding cost of living crisis.Getting to net zero, he said, would require an “extraordinary series of steps that will fundamen...

Chicago Cubs can’t pull off a comeback in 13-7 loss to Pittsburgh Pirates as Justin Steele makes his shortest non-injury start of the year

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:24 GMT

Left-hander Justin Steele has been a stabilizing force in a Chicago Cubs rotation that looks different from their Opening Day version.Through all the injuries, inconsistencies and role changes, Steele’s consistency helped the Cubs recover from being 10 games under .500 in early June to fighting for a wild-card spot. But for a second consecutive start, Steele allowed six runs and struggled to keep the Cubs in the game. His three-plus innings in Wednesday’s 13-7 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates represented his second-shortest outing of the season, exceeded only by his injury-related departure May 31.Steele struck out six batters through three innings when the Pirates started finding holes. Pittsburgh tallied six consecutive singles to begin the fourth inning, quickly ending his night and likely his case to win the National League Cy Young Award.“Six straight hits, the alarm goes off a little bit, like, what’s going on,” manager David Ross said.Steele was ch...