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Casey Schmitt homers in debut, Giants beat Nationals 4-1

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 14:07:17 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Casey Schmitt homered for his first career hit in his major league debut and the San Francisco Giants beat the Washington Nationals 4-1 on Tuesday night.“It was just so much emotion,” Schmitt said. “Just everything kind of bundled into one. It was surreal.”The 24-year-old was selected from Triple-A Sacramento earlier Tuesday and went 2 for 4 with dozens of friends and family members in attendance.“I’m really excited that I was able to do that in front of the home crowd, doing it with my family as well,” he said. “It was really special.”Schmitt tracked down the home run ball and traded a signed bat and ball to the young fan who caught it.“My parents are going to have the ball,” he said. “So it’s going to be really cool to see that at home at the end of the season.”Mitch Haniger drove in two runs and Logan Webb limited the Nationals to one run in seven innings.Webb (3-5) struck out seven and allowed nine hits and a walk, pitching out of several jams. Washing...

Jokic has triple-double, Nuggets rout Suns for 3-2 lead

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 14:07:17 GMT

DENVER (AP) — Nikola Jokic had a triple-double after making up with Suns owner Mat Ishbia and Michael Porter Jr. sank five 3-pointers to help the Denver Nuggets beat Phoenix 118-102 on Tuesday night in Game 5 to regain the series lead.Joker had 29 points, 13 rebounds and 12 assists for his 10th career playoff triple-double, breaking a tie with Wilt Chamberlain for most by a center in NBA history. Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinal is Thursday night in Phoenix.The home team has won every game in the series. If that holds true again, the decisive winner-take-all clash will come Sunday back in Denver, where the top-seeded Nuggets own the NBA’s best home record at 39-7, including 5-0 in the playoffs.After Denver lost two straight at Phoenix, Nuggets coach Michael Malone devised a five-point plan for the Nuggets to regain control of the series: patch up their transition defense, slow Devin Booker, get more from his bench, unleash MPJ and knock down open 3s.Check, check, check, ch...

Valdez fans 12, sends Ohtani to 1st loss in Astros’ 3-1 win

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 14:07:17 GMT

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Framber Valdez says he probably threw too hard and made too many mistakes early in his career when he got into mound matchups against a pitcher of Shohei Ohtani’s caliber.These days, the Houston Astros’ ace rises to such challenges with poise and precision.Valdez racked up 12 strikeouts over eight innings of three-hit ball and sent Ohtani to his first mound loss of the season in the Astros’ 3-1 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Tuesday night.Ohtani (4-1) passed Babe Ruth in career mound strikeouts while giving up six hits over seven innings, but the two-way superstar allowed five straight Astros to reach base in a three-run fifth, highlighted by Martín Maldonado’s two-run homer.Ohtani finished with seven strikeouts, but he has yielded at least three runs in three consecutive starts for the first time in his major league career.“(Valdez) is a great pitcher,” Ohtani said through his interpreter. “I knew it was going to be a low-scori...

Vaughn’s homer lifts White Sox over Royals, 4-2

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 14:07:17 GMT

KANSAS CITY, Mo, (AP) — Andrew Vaughn’s two-run homer in the sixth inning broke a 1-1 tie and lifted the Chicago White Sox to a 4-2 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Tuesday night.Lucas Giolito (2-2) allowed two runs on five hits over six innings in a game that started two hours late because of rain.Kendall Graveman worked the ninth for his first save. He said the delay played into his hands.“It was a bonus for me pitching at 9 at night because I’m a night owl,” he said. “I was right at home. It was one of those nights when the stuff was a little bit better, velocity-wise.”Jordan Lyles (0-6) threw a complete game, the first by a Royals pitcher in more than two years, allowing four runs on six hits with no walks. Brad Keller was the last Kansas City starter to go the distance, in his 11-0 shutout of Pittsburgh on Sept. 13, 2020.“He’s incredible,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said of Lyles. “He always wants the next inning, whether he pitches five, six, se...

Mueren tres personas, entre ellos un francés, en un atentado cerca de una sinagoga en Túnez

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 14:07:17 GMT

(CNN) — Al menos tres personas murieron y otras nueve resultaron heridas en un atentado perpetrado este martes cerca de una sinagoga en la isla tunecina de Djerba, según el Ministerio del Interior de Túnez.Un guardia de seguridad del Centro de la Infantería de Marina de la Guardia Nacional mató a un compañero “con un arma y se hizo con su munición”, indicó el Ministerio en un comunicado en Twitter.A continuación, el atacante “intentó llegar cerca del lugar de culto de El-Ghriba (la sinagoga) y comenzó a disparar al azar contra las unidades de seguridad allí desplegadas, donde éstas se enfrentaron a él y lo mataron a tiros”.Entre las tres víctimas figuran el otro guardia de seguridad y dos visitantes, según el Ministerio. El recuento no incluye al autor de los disparos, que fue abatido por las fuerzas de seguridad.El Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores de Túnez dijo este miércoles que un tunecino de 30 años y un francés de 42 estaban entre los muertos.Dos h...

No winning ticket sold for Tuesday’s $28 million Lotto Max jackpot

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 14:07:17 GMT

There was no winning ticket sold in Tuesday’s Lotto Max $28 million draw.The jackpot for the next draw on May 12 will be an estimated $33 million.The Canadian Press

Italy begins to reckon with Fascist-era colonial collections

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 14:07:17 GMT

ROME (AP) — For decades, Italy has worked to recover ancient Roman-era statues, Etruscan vases and other treasures that were looted from its soil and sold to museums around the world. Now, the country is coming to terms with the fact that it, too, has stolen items in its museum collections: the relics of a brutal colonial empire in North Africa that it hasn’t fully reckoned with.For over a year, a team of museum directors, university researchers and scholars has been conducting a “census” of the collections in the 498 Italian state museums to get a handle on what exactly they contain. The aim is to provide government authorities with preliminary data of the weapons, artifacts, and ritual objects Italian museums may hold, to respond to requests for restitution that have only increased amid a general reckoning over the legacies of European colonial empires and the related racial justice movements. The survey comes as museums and governments across Europe and the Americas have undergon...

Israel kills 2 Palestinian gunmen in new West Bank violence

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 14:07:17 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military said it killed two Palestinian gunmen who fired on troops in the occupied West Bank early on Wednesday, the latest in near-daily violence roiling the region.The shooting came as tensions are at a fever pitch following a series of Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip that killed three senior Islamic Jihad militants and 10 others — most of them women and children — on Tuesday. Palestinian militants have pledged to retaliate and Israel says it is prepared for a further escalation of hostilities. The Israeli military has instructed residents of southern Israel to remain near bomb shelters, and schools were still closed for a second day as a precaution against attacks by Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip. In the West Bank, the military said that Palestinian gunmen opened fire at troops in the Palestinian town of Qabatiya in the northern West Bank during an army raid. Troops returned fire, killing the two men, and confiscated their firearm...

Fears over scores of zoo animals caught in Sudan crossfire

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 14:07:17 GMT

ASWAN, Egypt (AP) — Dozens of zoo animals in Sudan’s capital — including an elderly crocodile, parrots and giant lizards — are feared dead after street battles between the country’s rival forces made the location unreachable. At least 100 animals, all kept inside enclosures, will have gone more than three weeks without food or water, said Sara Abdalla, the head zoologist at the zoo, which is part of the Sudan Natural History Museum. Millions of people in Sudan have endured shortages of food, water and medicines after the conflict halted the most basic services. But as the sounds of explosions ring across the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, Abdalla has been wracked with worry over her animal charges, particularly those that are increasingly rare to find in their natural habitats in Sudan. “I feel a great deal of misery and sadness, as well as helplessness,” she said in a telephone interview from Khartoum. “I have assumed that we lost the birds and mammals.”The zoo is home t...

Why Nikola Jokic and Bruce Brown invaded an impromptu Suns huddle during Game 5

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 14:07:17 GMT

Nikola Jokic is not one to hide his intentions on the basketball court.So he made no secret about what he was doing snooping around an impromptu Suns huddle in the third quarter of Tuesday night’s Game 5.“I mean, just to see what they’re drawing and see the play,” he said with only a hint of humor in his voice after the game. “I thought that could help us a lot. That’s what I was doing.”Devin Booker was headed to the free-throw line, but there was no timeout issued on the floor, so Jokic and Bruce Brown got right into Phoenix’s business near Monty Williams along the sideline.Kevin Durant shoves Nikola Jokic out of the Suns’ huddle pic.twitter.com/xeHcNGj3Un— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) May 10, 2023Eventually, Kevin Durant pushed Jokic. The big man followed with his best Matt Ishbia impression and sold the charge effectively, drawing a technical foul.The officials reviewed the incident and issued Brown a technical, too, which crew chief David Guthrie told a pool reporter a...