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Cardinals look to avoid series sweep against the Braves

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:10:45 GMT

Atlanta Braves (4-1) vs. St. Louis Cardinals (2-3)St. Louis; Wednesday, 1:15 p.m. EDTPITCHING PROBABLES: Braves: Bryce Elder (0-0); Cardinals: Miles Mikolas (0-0)FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK MLB LINE: Cardinals -123, Braves +105; over/under is 9 runsBOTTOM LINE: The Atlanta Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals square off in the last game of a three-game series. The Braves will sweep the series with a win.St. Louis went 93-69 overall and 53-28 at home a season ago. The Cardinals scored 4.8 runs per game while giving up 3.9 last season.Atlanta had a 101-61 record overall and a 46-35 record in road games last season. The Braves scored 4.9 runs per game in the 2022 season while allowing 3.8.INJURIES: Cardinals: Lars Nootbaar: 10-Day IL (thumb), Paul DeJong: 10-Day IL (back), Wilking Rodriguez: 15-Day IL (shoulder), Adam Wainwright: 15-Day IL (groin)Braves: Max Fried: 15-Day IL (left hamstring), Huascar Ynoa: 60-Day IL (elbow), Kolby Allard: 60-Day IL (oblique), Tyler Matzek: 60-Day IL (elbow), Kyle...

Reds and Cubs play with series tied 1-1

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:10:45 GMT

Chicago Cubs (2-3) vs. Cincinnati Reds (3-2)Cincinnati; Wednesday, 12:35 p.m. EDTPITCHING PROBABLES: Cubs: Marcus Stroman (0-0); Reds: Hunter Greene (0-0)FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK MLB LINE: Cubs -110, Reds -109; over/under is 8 runsBOTTOM LINE: The Cincinnati Reds and Chicago Cubs play on Wednesday with the winner claiming the three-game series.Cincinnati went 62-100 overall and 33-48 at home a season ago. The Reds pitching staff had a collective 4.86 ERA while averaging 9.0 strikeouts per nine innings in the 2022 season.Chicago had a 74-88 record overall and a 37-44 record in road games last season. The Cubs scored 4.1 runs per game while allowing 4.5 in the 2022 season.INJURIES: Reds: Jose Garcia: day-to-day (hamstring), Joey Votto: 10-Day IL (bicep/shoulder), Nick Senzel: 10-Day IL (toe), Tony Santillan: 15-Day IL (back), Justin Dunn: 60-Day IL (shoulder), Tejay Antone: 60-Day IL (elbow), Lucas Sims: 15-Day IL (back), Luke Weaver: 15-Day IL (forearm), Vladimir Gutierrez: 60-Day IL (elbo...

Brewers look to sweep 3-game series over the Mets

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:10:45 GMT

New York Mets (3-3) vs. Milwaukee Brewers (4-1)Milwaukee; Wednesday, 1:40 p.m. EDTPITCHING PROBABLES: Mets: David Peterson (0-0); Brewers: Corbin Burnes (0-0)FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK MLB LINE: Brewers -136, Mets +115; over/under is 7 1/2 runsBOTTOM LINE: The Milwaukee Brewers face the New York Mets looking to sweep their three-game series.Milwaukee went 86-76 overall and 46-35 at home a season ago. The Brewers scored 4.5 runs per game while giving up 4.2 last season.New York went 101-61 overall and 47-34 in road games last season. The Mets slugged .412 as a team in the 2022 season while hitting 1.1 home runs per game.INJURIES: Brewers: Justin Wilson: 60-Day IL (elbow), Luis Urias: 10-Day IL (hamstring), Aaron Ashby: 15-Day IL (labrum), Adrian Houser: 15-Day IL (groin), Tyrone Taylor: 10-Day IL (elbow), Jason Alexander: 60-Day IL (shoulder)Mets: Tommy Hunter: 15-Day IL (back), Justin Verlander: 15-Day IL (teres major), Stephen Ridings: 15-Day IL (lat), Edwin Diaz: 60-Day IL (knee), Elieser...

Sanna Marin to step down as leader of Finland’s Social Democrats

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:10:45 GMT

Outgoing Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said Wednesday she would resign as Social Democrat party leader. “Now it’s time to join the ranks again and step down from the party chair’s position,” Marin announced at a press conference, according to Finnish public broadcaster Yle.Marin, whose Social Democrats were defeated in a national election on Sunday, will be replaced by a new party leader at the next party congress, she added. She will continue to sit as a Social Democrat parliamentarian.Marin became prime minister in 2019 and has been a star of the European left since coming to power.But faced with concerns at home over Finland’s economic situation, her Social Democrats only came in third in the election, behind the center-right National Coalition Party and the anti-immigration Finns Party.

Zelenskyy visits Polish President Duda in Warsaw

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:10:45 GMT

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit Warsaw on Wednesday, where he will meet his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda in his second trip to Poland since the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine.Their talks will focus on security issues, economic cooperation and historical matters, Duda’s office said in a statement.“We want to conduct these talks in the spirit of thinking about the future,” presidential foreign policy adviser Marcin Przydacz said.This will be Zelenskyy’s second visit to Poland since the beginning of the war — but his first “official” one, according to the Polish presidential office.The Ukrainian president has only been outside of the country twice since February 2022. He first traveled to the U.S. last December, before heading to London, Paris and Brussels in a tour of allied European capitals in February. He then briefly stopped in Rzeszów, Poland, on his way back from Brussels, where he met with Duda.Duda has visit...

Editorial: A case Tony Soprano would like

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:10:45 GMT

There’s a big difference between prosecution and persecution.The 34-count indictment against former President Donald Trump is a political hatchet job years in the making. The timing is glaring.Alleged hush-money payments to a porn star — who is now feeding off the renewed notoriety like a shark in the summer — just adds to this Big Apple circus. It is clear these charges will hurt Trump among middle-aged women. That’s a voting bloc he’ll need — if he can survive the legal onslaught that has just been unleashed.Other cases are percolating, and we’ll weigh those on their merits. But this one?The legal foundation of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s case is that Trump allegedly conspired to illegally influence the 2016 election through a series of hush money payments. Porn stars and extramarital affairs make for spicy reading. But this case has been stewing for so long it is just overcooked.Bragg was just the right progressive prosecutor to come...

Cargo ship sinks off Turkish coast, 9 crew members missing

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:10:45 GMT

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A Guinea-Bissau flagged cargo ship with 14 crew members on board sank off Turkey’s Mediterranean coast on Wednesday, Turkish officials said. Five crew members were rescued while efforts to find nine others were underway.The Joe 2 sank off the coast of Kumluca, in Antalya province, while heading to Ukraine from the Turkish port of Iskenderun, the state-run Anadolu Agency quoted Gov. Ersin Yazici as saying. The cause of the ship sinking was not immediately clear.The Turkish Coast Guard Command said it received a distress call at 3:47 a.m. and dispatched a vessel, several boats and two helicopters. Two crew members were rescued by the coast guard helicopters while three others were saved by other vessels in the area, it said.All of the crew were Syrian nationals.The coast guard said an investigation has been launched by the chief prosecutor’s office for Kumluca. The Associated Press

In final speech, Ardern reflects on leading New Zealand

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:10:45 GMT

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — In her final speech to New Zealand’s Parliament on Wednesday, Jacinda Ardern described in emotional terms how she’d navigated a pandemic and a mass-shooting during her tumultuous five-year tenure as prime minister.She also told humorous anecdotes like how a European leader so admired the striking hair of Ardern’s chief-of-staff that he fluffed it like a hairdresser — which she joked had helped secure a free-trade deal — and how her mother once sent her a uplifting, if somewhat grandiose, message: “Remember, even Jesus had people who didn’t like him.”On a more serious note, she urged lawmakers to take the politics out of climate change. “There will always be policy differences,” Ardern said during her valedictory address, wearing a traditional Māori cloak called a korowai. “But beneath that, we have what we need to make the progress we must.” When Ardern finished speaking after about 35 minutes, she she was greeted wi...

Takeaways from AP’s report on elite Russian defector

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:10:45 GMT

LONDON (AP) — In October, an officer in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s elite personal security service defected while on a business trip in Kazakhstan.Now a wanted man in Russia, Gleb Karakulov spoke out for the first time in a series of interviews with the Dossier Center, an investigative group in London funded by Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The AP took steps to review and verify the material.“Our president has become a war criminal,” said the 35-year-old engineer. “It is time to end this war and stop being silent.”Karakulov is one of few Russians to flee and go public who have rank, as well as knowledge of intimate details of Putin’s life. Karakulov was a captain in Russia’s secretive Federal Protective Service. or FSO, tasked with setting up secure communications for the Russian president and prime minister. Here’s what he had to say about Putin and the war in Ukraine.PUTIN DOESN’T USE A MOBILE PHONE OR THE INTERNETIn 13 years of service, Karakulov s...

Quebec truck attack suspect due in court : In The News for April 5

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:10:45 GMT

In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what’s on the radar of our editors for the morning of April 5 …What we are watching in Canada …A Quebec man accused of driving his truck into groups of pedestrians last month is due back in court today.Steeve Gagnon is expected to be arraigned on three counts of first-degree murder and nine counts of attempted murder.Gagnon has been in custody since the March 13 crash, when several groups of pedestrians were struck on a main street in Amqui, Que., in what police have described as an intentional act.The appearance is set to take place at the courthouse in Amqui, about 350 kilometres northeast of Quebec City.Gagnon, 38, was charged with two counts of dangerous driving causing death, but the prosecutor had indicated more charges were expected, and a third victim has died since the accused’s initial court appearance.The three people killed were Gérald Charest, 65; ...