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Column: Wailing over Craig Counsell’s deal is silly — neither he nor the Chicago Cubs did anything wrong

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:13 GMT

When Ryne Sandberg signed a then-record four-year, $28.4 million contract extension with the Chicago Cubs during spring training in 1992, baseball executives were apoplectic.Sandberg’s average annual salary of $7.1 million far exceeded the $5.8 million average New York Mets slugger Bobby Bonilla received only a few months earlier.What were the Cubs thinking?Minnesota Twins general manager Andy MacPhail was among those livid over the toppling of baseball’s salary structure.“My 3-year-old son could have made that deal (with Sandberg),” MacPhail said. “To jump from 5.8 (million) to 7.1! That was absolutely stupid a year ahead of free agency. That’s stupidity and timidity.“Sandberg sets an artificial deadline and gets away with it! It’s a terrible deal. We’re going to spend ourselves into oblivion. I don’t blame the players. It’s the owners’ fault. We keep giving it to them.”Two years later, MacPhail left his ...

Joan Baez said she wanted a ‘warts and all’ film about her life. She got one

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:13 GMT

At the start of the new documentary, “Joan Baez I Am A Noise,” there’s a quote from the writer Gabriel García Márquez that fills the screen for a moment: “Everyone has three lives: the public, the private, and the secret.”It’s a signal that this film has stories to share about the 82-year-old folk singer and political activist that have never before been told.That wasn’t the original intent, Baez says with a wry smile on a recent video call.“It was going to be about the last tour,” Baez says of a run of 2018 farewell shows. “Then at a certain point, I realized I had to let them in farther than just that.“I literally handed them the key, the three directors, to the storage unit,” she says. “In the film, when I walk into it, that’s the first time I I’ve ever been in there.”With that key, co-directors Karen O’Conner, Miri Navasky, and Maeve O’Boyle entered a chamber of treasures that Baez had forgotten existed.“I knew that my mom had kept some stuff,” Baez says. “In the back of my head...

How to pick the perfect beer to pair with your pizza

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:13 GMT

Is there a better combination than pizza and beer? The answer is an unequivocal “no.”Here’s my scientific and sensory explanation for why these two are the perfect pairing. Pizza’s crust, cheese and sauce components each offer something special to connect to the fermentation, textures and flavors of beer, mingling to create magical mouthfuls that, as Mary Poppins would say, are practically perfect in every way.Both pizza and beer are products of fermentation and are both made with grains. Yeast makes the dough rise by eating up the wort — a mixture of water and malted grains, like barley or wheat — to create alcohol, carbonation and beer’s complex flavors.Pizza needs cheese — and cheese also pairs remarkably well with beer. While many argue that it’s wine and cheese that pair best together, many sommeliers I know will admit that the best a wine can do is not get in the way. Beer with cheese, however, is magical. The bitterness and crispness in beer easily cut through the fattiness a...

Taylor Swift, SZA and maybe Morgan Wallen? Our predictions for Friday’s Grammy nominations

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:13 GMT

Mikael Wood | (TNS) Los Angeles TimesThe competition for Grammy nominations is a little stiffer this go-around: After two years in which the Recording Academy selected 10 nominees for each of the top four prizes, the group is lowering the number to eight for the 66th Grammy Awards, nods for which are due to be announced on Friday. (The annual ceremony itself will be held Feb. 4 at Crypto.com Arena.) To be eligible for consideration, a recording must have been released between Oct. 1, 2022 and Sept. 15, 2023.Here are our predictions for nominations in some of the more closely watched categories, with potential honorees listed in alphabetical order.ALBUM OF THE YEARBoygenius, “The Record”Zach Bryan, “Zach Bryan”Drake & 21 Savage, “Her Loss”Foo Fighters, “But Here We Are”Olivia Rodrigo, “Guts”Taylor Swift, “Midnights”SZA, “SOS”Morgan Wallen, “One Thing at a Time”Possible surprise: Jon Batiste, “World Music Radio”Possible snub: “One Thing at a Time”Each a commercial blockbuster and ...

Science says teens need more sleep. So why is it so hard to start school later?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:13 GMT

Catherine Sweeney, WPLN | KFF Health News (TNS)NASHVILLE, Tenn. — High school classes start so early around this city that some kids get on buses at 5:30 in the morning.Just 10% of public schools nationwide start before 7:30 a.m., according to federal statistics. But in Nashville, classes start at 7:05 — a fact the new mayor, Freddie O’Connell, has been criticizing for years.“It’s not a badge of honor,” he said when he was still a city council member.Since his election in September, O’Connell has announced that pushing back school start times is a cornerstone of the education policy he is promoting. He and others around the country have been trying to stress that teenagers aren’t lazy or to blame for getting too little sleep. It’s science.“All teenagers have this shift in their brain that causes them to not feel sleepy until about 10:45 or 11 at night,” said Kyla Wahlstrom, a senior research fellow at the University of Minnesota in the College of Education and Human Development. She...

Massachusetts lawmakers discussed using convention centers as overflow sites for migrants, homeless families

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:13 GMT

Massachusetts state lawmakers discussed using convention centers like the Hynes in downtown Boston as an overflow site for homeless and migrant families waiting for emergency shelter, the top House Democrat said Wednesday.Conversation around a large-scale site comes as the House was in the process of considering legislation that shuttles $50 million to the creation of overflow locations for families placed on a state-run waiting list, and as emergency shelters are expected to reach the Healey administration’s self-imposed capacity of 7,500 families within days.The money is tied to $250 million for Gov. Maura Healey to respond to an influx of migrants and crushing housing costs that have strained shelters across the state and a requirement that the administration set up an overflow site within 30 days or have the shelter cap “revoked.”House Speaker Ronald Mariano said officials have discussed “a lot of different options” when asked if the Hynes Convention Center or other similar loca...

Colorado funeral home owner, wife, arrested on charges linked to the handling of at least 190 bodies

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:13 GMT

By JESSE BEDAYN and MEAD GRUVER (Associated Press)COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The owner of a Colorado funeral home and his wife were arrested Wednesday in Oklahoma on charges linked to the discovery of 190 sets of decaying remains at one of their facilities, including some that apparently had been languishing there for four years.Jon and Carie Hallford were jailed in Oklahoma on $2 million bond on suspicion of four felonies — abuse of a corpse, theft, money laundering and forgery — after their arrest in Wagoner, east of Tulsa. They couldn’t be reached for comment and didn’t have attorneys listed in jail records. Neither has a listed personal phone number, and the funeral home’s number no longer works.During a news conference in Colorado Springs announcing the charges, District Attorney Michael Allen said authorities wouldn’t be releasing many details about the case in order to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation. But he sai...

National Zoo’s giant pandas fly home amid uncertainty about future panda exchanges

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:13 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The day that panda lovers have been dreading has finally come.The National Zoo’s three giant pandas, Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and their cub Xiao Qi Ji. on Wednesday began their long trip to China, leaving behind an empty panda exhibit with no certainty that pandas ever would again take up residence there.“It is a moment with some heartbreak in it,” said National Zoo Director Brandie Smith. “But it is also a moment of joy because we are celebrating the success of the world’s longest running conservation program for a single species.”The pandas had been loaded into large white crates away from the public view. Forklifts took them to waiting trucks — along with several bushels of bamboo for road snacks. Their faces were occasionally visible through a small window at the side of the crates. Zoo personnel walked alongside them. They were taken to Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia, where a specially outfitted Boeing 777F dubbed the FedEx Panda Express w...

Wounded North Carolina sheriff’s deputies expected to make full recovery

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:13 GMT

LUMBERTON, N.C. (AP) — Two North Carolina sheriff’s deputies who were seriously wounded when they attempted to arrest a wanted man this week are expected to make a full recovery, authorities said Wednesday. Robeson County sheriff’s deputies Jonathan Walters and Kaelin Locklear were injured by gunfire and a police vehicle on Tuesday as officers tried to serve a warrant on Shawn Tobin Locklear Jr., who is not related to the deputy. The sheriff’s office said Shawn Locklear allegedly fired at the deputies and was shot several times before being taken into custody. He was in critical but stable condition at UNC Medical Center in Chapel Hill, a sheriff’s office news release said.Sheriff Burnis Wilkins and his top lieutenants visited the two wounded deputies at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center in Fayetteville. Deputy Kaelin Locklear was listed in stable condition, while Walters was being treated in the intensive care unit, the statement said. The sheriff’s office has...

Judge sets bail for Indiana woman accused of driving into building she believed was ‘Israeli school’

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:13 GMT

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indianapolis woman accused of backing her car into a building she believed held an “Israeli school” was ordered Wednesday by a judge to stay away from synagogues and other Jewish religious and cultural centers.Ruba Almaghtheh, 34, was formally charged Tuesday with intimidation, criminal recklessness and institutional criminal mischief, all felonies. A Marion County judge entered a not guilty plea for her and set her bond at $200,000 during her initial court hearing Wednesday.Two adults and three children were inside the Israelite School of Universal and Practical Knowledge on Saturday when Almaghtheh allegedly backed into it and shouted “Free Palestine.” No one was injured. Her attorney, Gary Colasessano, told The Associated Press that his client doesn’t remember driving into the building. He said he believes she experienced an “episode,” possibly due to several medications she takes for physical disabilities and the mental stress of a pending divo...