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Bill Madden: Yankees’ offense still home run or bust, Rays coming back to reality after passing 40-game quarter mark

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:13:19 GMT

With the 40-game quarter pole having just been passed, we are starting to get a good idea as to where this baseball season is headed.Things are suddenly looking up in New York for Yankees and Mets. The Rays are good but maybe not as good as they’ve seemed. The rise of the Rangers in Texas looks real, the Padre malaise in San Diego is mystifying, and the balanced schedule has exposed the great divide between the good teams and the really bad ones in places like Oakland, Washington, Kansas City, Detroit, Colorado and Cincinnati.Here’s our capsule assessment:YANKEES STILL HOME RUN OR BUSTTHE YANKEES ARE STILL FASHIONING THEIR (JUDGE) HOME RUN OR BUST OFFENSE BUT THEY’RE BEGINNING TO LOOK LIKE THE SUPERIOR TEAM IN THE AL EASTTaking three out of four from the Blue Jays in Toronto to move from last place to third was very encouraging especially since Luis Severino, Giancarlo Stanton and Carlos Rodon, counted on as three mainstays, have been on the sidelines. The gap betw...

Biden: GOP must move off ‘extreme’ positions, no debt limit deal solely on its ‘partisan terms’

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:13:19 GMT

HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) — President Joe Biden said Sunday that Republicans in the U.S. House must move off their “extreme positions” on the now-stalled talks over raising America’s debt limit and that there would be no agreement to avert a catastrophic default only on their terms.“It’s time for Republicans to accept that there is no bipartisan deal to be made solely, solely, on their partisan terms,” Biden said in Hiroshima, Japan, where he attended the Group of Seven summit. Biden said he had done his part in trying to raising the debt ceiling so the U.S. government can keep paying its bills, agreeing to cut spending. “Now it’s time for the other side to move from their extreme position,” he said.Biden and U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., were expected to talk later Sunday, likely as Biden flew home on Air Force One after cutting short his trip in light of the strained negotiations. “My guess is he’s going to want to deal directly with me in making...

Ukraine says troops still engaging Russian forces in Bakhmut after Moscow announces victory in city

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:13:19 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian soldiers were still engaging Russian forces in fierce battles in and around Bakhmut on Sunday, military officials said, hours after Moscow and the private army Wagner announced that their troops had taken full control of the eastern city.The fog of war made it impossible to confirm the situation on the ground in the invasion’s longest battle, and a series of comments from Ukrainian and Russian officials added confusion to the matter.Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minsiter Hanna Malyar even went so far as to say that Ukrainian troops “took the city in a semi-encirclement.”“The enemy failed to surround Bakhmut, and they lost part of the dominant heights around the city,” Malyar said. “That is, the advance of our troops in the suburbs along the flanks, which is still ongoing, greatly complicates the enemy’s presence in Bakhmut.”Her comments came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at the Group of Seven summit in Japan, appeared to suggest that ...

‘On the inside’: Why some Indigenous officers stick with the RCMP despite struggles

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:13:19 GMT

OTTAWA — Dean Gladue says he never experienced racism until joining the RCMP. The 26-year veteran began his career with the force in 1989 as special constable, a role assigned to police First Nations reserves. It was a rank below his non-Indigenous colleagues, who were better paid.It felt like he was “a second-class citizen,” he said in a recent interview. After the program shuttered, Gladue transitioned into a job as a regular constable. The 25-year-old Métis man would then overhear offhand comments around the office, with ones like how a “dead Indian’s a good Indian” later brushed off as stress when raised to a supervisor.“You just take the beating. You just take it,” he said.“Then as you get older, you start to realize, ‘Why did I do that?'”Gladue had been interested in policing since childhood, and saw the RCMP as a good career, especially once his pay improved. He also knew he could retire before 50, which he did.And h...

Skywatch: The parade of stars

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:13:19 GMT

Everyone knows that the sun is the brightest star in the sky, but do you know what the second-brightest is? If you said Polaris, you’re wrong, but don’t feel bad because that’s what many people think. Polaris is actually 40th. The second-brightest star seen from Earth is Sirius, a star in the winter constellation Canis Major, the Big Dog. Even though Polaris, otherwise known as the North Star, is only the 40th-brightest star, it’s a very important one.The best way to find Polaris is to use the Big Dipper. The Dipper is very high in the northern sky this time of year, nearly upside down. Draw a line in your mind’s eye between the stars Merek and Dubhe on the side of the pot section opposite the Big Dipper’s handle. Continue that imaginary line downward from Dubhe, and it will come very close to pointing at Polaris. If you make a fist at arm’s length, three fist-widths will get you to Polaris. Try it. It really works!(Mike Lynch)Polaris is wha...

Stillwater High School senior had same paraprofessional for 13 years

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:13:19 GMT

Emily Kargel met Cindy Williams-McClung on her first day of kindergarten at Lake Elmo Elementary School in the fall of 2010.Emily loved horses and art projects and music; she had long hair. Williams-McClung, the educational paraprofessional assigned to help Emily navigate school, loved horses and art projects and music; she had long hair.The two were destined to become best friends, as Williams-McClung tells it.Thirteen years later, the pair are still together. On Friday, they’ll don cap and gown as Emily graduates from Stillwater Area High School.They are believed to be the only student/paraprofessional duo who have been together for all 13 school years in the Stillwater district.As soon as you meet them, it’s clear the two share a special bond. “We’re girlfriends, besties,” Williams-McClung said. “I’m one of her posse.”‘Believe in them, then they believe in you’During teacher Jason Rohde’s Clay & Pottery class on Wednesday morning, the two worked together to make a...

Letters: Expensive biking visions? How about just bright paint and prompt repairs?

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:13:19 GMT

Instead of grandiosity, two simple actionsAs a longtime St. Paul bike rider, I am guessing that a majority of bikers would agree that the grandiose and expensive visions we read about are less important to us than two simple actions, no different from the simple actions needed to maintain our streetsfor motor vehicles.1. Prompt surface repair fall and spring.We don’t like potholes and rough pavement any better than motorists. If you want to win people over to biking, and not have them weaving back and forth to find a smooth pathway, just maintain the surface! (Of course, prompt repair of potholes in the driving lanes is also necessary to keep drivers from swerving over into the bike lanes.)2. Bright clear marking renewed annually.That line means a lot to us, and if it’s brightly visible, it’s more likely to keep motorists alert to our safety. An example of negligence by the city is the complete absence of the lane markers on both sides of Cleveland Avenue for several blocks north of...

Pamela Paul: The decade that cannot be deleted

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:13:19 GMT

It would seem impossible to forget or minimize the Cultural Revolution in China, which lasted from 1966 to 1976, resulted in an estimated 1.6 million to 2 million deaths and scarred a generation and its descendants. The movement, which under Mao Zedong’s leadership sought to purge Chinese society of all remaining non-Communist elements, upended nearly every hallowed institution and custom. Teachers and schools long held in esteem were denounced. Books were burned and banned, museums ransacked, private art collections destroyed. Intellectuals were tortured.But in China, a country where information is often suppressed and history is constantly rewritten — witness recent government censorship of COVID-19 research and the obscuring of Hong Kong’s British colonial past in new school textbooks — the memory of the Cultural Revolution risks being forgotten, sanitized and abused, to the detriment of the nation’s future.The Chinese government has never been particularly eager to preserve the ...

This week’s literary picks: Read Asian Pacific authors who have lived in Minnesota

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:13:19 GMT

It’s Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and the hard-working staff at the St. Paul Public Library compiled an interesting list of books by Asian Pacific authors who are from or have lived in Minnesota. Bring this along the next time you head for your favorite library.“Chinese-ness: The Meanings of Identity and the Nature of Belonging” by Wing Young Huie, winner of a 2019 Minnesota Book Award.“Thousand Star Hotel,” Bao Phi, confronts the silence around racism, police brutality, and invisibility of the Asian American urban poor.“Unbearable Splendor,” Sun Yung Shin, explores identity through poetic essays.“A Stranger’s Journey: Race, Identity, and Narrative Craft in Writing,” David Mura.“Life of Miracles Along the Yangtze and Mississippi,” Wang Ping, traces her journey from China to America through the stories of people who carried her along her travels.“The Late Homecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir,”  K...

Noah Feldman: Biden has no power to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:13:19 GMT

If Congress fails to raise the debt limit, can President Joe Biden somehow borrow more money to save the United States from default? The short answer is no. But that hasn’t stopped a group of Senate Democrats from urging Biden to act unilaterally by invoking the Fourteenth Amendment.The stand-off between the president and Congress over the debt ceiling has revived interest in a little-known provision of the Fourteenth Amendment that says the “validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law … shall not be questioned.” That statement, on its face, does require the government to pay its debts. But it doesn’t allow the president to ignore the law passed by Congress that caps borrowing.The U.S. Constitution puts Congress squarely in charge of both borrowing and spending. The validity of the public debts clause doesn’t magically allow the president to violate this most basic element of the separation of powers.This isn’t the fi...