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Orioles’ 2023 attendance up 24% compared with last year at same point; MLB attendance up 6%

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

Michele and Dave Cookson’s first date was almost an Orioles game. He asked her out to one — but she opted to go to a Coldplay concert instead.Eighteen years later, their umpteen-hundredth date was, however, an Orioles game last week, and there are more on the way. The season ticket-holding couple from Woodberry has attended over 250 games together and they are now visiting Camden Yards more than they did during the team’s recent rebuild.They attended about 15 games a year during the Orioles’ down seasons, but now — with the team on the other side of a long rebuild — that figure has already jumped to 30. The Orioles last reached the playoffs in 2016.“It was painful, some of those rebuild years, to stay here and watch the games,” Michele said last week, donning recently acquired City Connect gear.That hasn’t been the case this season as Baltimore (35-21), despite a listless homestand this past week, currently has the third-best rec...

Cape Cod shark documentary ‘After The Bite’ will stream on HBO Max this summer: ‘We can find ways to coexist’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

A documentary that explores the new normal of great whites sharks patrolling Cape Cod’s shallow waters as they hunt for seals, and the fallout from a young man being killed by an apex predator at a popular local beach, is coming to HBO Max this summer.Award-winning filmmaker Ivy Meeropol recently spoke to the Herald about her documentary, “After The Bite,” which dives into how the Cape’s coastal community is confronting dramatic changes to the marine environment and way of life.The explosion of the seal population along the Cape due to federal protections has sparked the phenomenon of great white sharks feasting on seals every summer and fall. As a result, there have been some shark and human encounters, including in 2018 when Arthur Medici was killed by a shark.During the years before that fatal shark bite, Meeropol like others had started to notice more seals in the area, and everyone was frequently talking about seals and sharks.“Then when Arthur Med...

Trump, DeSantis jab at each other on campaign trail in 1st dueling appearances as 2024 candidates

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

GRIMES, Iowa (AP) — Former President Donald Trump kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism of his chief rival Ron DeSantis on Thursday, jumping immediately on remarks by the Florida governor on the campaign trail to try to highlight his own strength as the leading GOP presidential candidate.Trump, appearing in Iowa as DeSantis campaigned in New Hampshire, made a point of telling about 200 members of a conservative club gathered at a Des Moines-area restaurant that they could ask him questions — an offer that came not long after DeSantis snapped at an Associated Press reporter who asked him why he wasn’t taking questions from voters at his events.“A lot of politicians don’t take questions. They give a speech,” Trump said to audience members, many of whom wore red “Make America Great Again” hats espousing his political movement. Trump, throughout the day, also repeatedly pushed back against DeSantis’ argument that it will take two terms in the White House to implement an age...

Blinken says no Ukraine cease-fire without a peace deal that includes Russia’s withdrawal

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that there can be no cease-fire in the war in Ukraine unless it is part of a “just and lasting” peace deal that includes Russia’s military withdrawal.Blinken said that “a cease-fire that simply freezes current lines in place — and enables Putin to consolidate control over the territory he has seized, and rest, rearm, and reattack — that is not a just and lasting peace.”Russia must also pay a share of Ukraine’s reconstruction and be held accountable for launching its full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022, Blinken said in a speech during a visit to Finland, which recently joined NATO and shares a long border with Russia.Allowing Moscow to keep the one-fifth of Ukraine territory it has occupied would send the wrong message to Russia and to “other would-be aggressors around the world,” according to Blinken.Washington is ready to support peace efforts by other countries, including recent overtures from...

U.S.: Tanks, F-16 jets part of long-term strategy for Ukraine, won’t be ready for upcoming offensive

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

PARIS (AP) — Training for Ukrainian forces on advanced U.S. Abrams tanks has begun, and while those systems will not be ready in time for the imminent counteroffensive, those weapons will be critical in the longer-term to Ukraine ultimately pushing Russia out of its occupied territories, Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Mark Milley said.Tank training began as the U.S. and allies began to work out agreements to train Ukrainians on F-16 fighter jets — another long-wished-for advanced capability. Ultimately, while the tanks are needed to expel Russian forces from Ukrainian territory, the F-16s would be part of a longer-term security plan to deter future attacks, Milley said Thursday. “Everyone recognizes Ukraine needs a modernized Air Force,” Milley said. “It’s going to take a considerable amount of time.” Milley said detailed planning on class sizes, the types of flying tactics and locations for training was underway now between the U.S. and allies such as the Netherlands and the U.K....

Champions League final referee keeps job after apologizing for ties to far-right leader

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — Polish soccer referee Szymon Marciniak apologized Friday for speaking at a business event tied to a far-right politician and was confirmed by UEFA to officiate next week’s Champions League final.Marciniak’s appointment for the game between Manchester City and Inter Milan on June 10, months after he refereed the World Cup final in Qatar, was at risk Thursday after a Warsaw-based anti-racism group alerted UEFA to his conference appearance this week.UEFA said Friday it accepted Marciniak’s “profound apologies and clarification” and that anti-racism group Never Again had also then asked for the referee to be retained.“I want to express my deepest apologies for my involvement and any distress or harm it may have caused,” Marciniak wrote in a statement published by UEFA, adding he was “gravely misled and completely unaware” of the links to Slawomir Mentzen, a leader of the far-right Confederation party.“I had no knowledge that (the conference) was associate...

Blue Jays reliever Anthony Bass hopeful next steps will make amends for anti-2SLGBTQ+ post

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

Anthony Bass is hopeful that some still-to-be-determined steps to make amends for sharing an anti-2SLGBTQ+ social media post earlier this week will eventually win back Toronto Blue Jays fans, who booed the reliever throughout his most recent outing for the club.“We’re in the process currently” of putting together an action plan, Bass said during a brief interview with Sportsnet and The Canadian Press on Thursday. “It wouldn’t be productive to expand upon it right now. I’m in the process of making that next step.”Bass issued a brief apology Tuesday but took no questions from media after platforming a post supporting the anti-2SLGBTQ+ boycotts of Target and Bud Light on his Instagram account a day earlier. Within that apology, he vowed to use “the Blue Jays’ resources to better educate myself to make better decisions moving forward.”While the way the apology was delivered and his refusal to take questions drew criticism, the Blue Jays would likely have handled the en...

In Norway, Indigenous Sami protest outside prime minister’s office against wind farm

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Dozen of activists, including Indigenous Sami, protested Friday outside the office of Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, vowing to block entry to remind Norway’s government that they want a wind farm removed because they say it endangers the reindeer herders’ way of life. In February, the same human rights activists occupied the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy for four days, and later also blocked the entrances to 10 ministries. The Norwegian government then apologized for failing to act despite a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Sami, and Gahr Støre also acknowledged “ongoing human rights violations.” “We were promised a change. We were promised that our human rights would be respected. Yet nothing has happened for almost 100 days” since Gahr Støre said the government would do something, activist Elle Nystad told Norwegian news agency NTB on Friday.“We will not give up until the wind turbines on Fosen are demolished and the land is retu...

Stock market today: World follows Wall Street up on hopes Fed will ease off rate hikes

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — Global stock markets and Wall Street futures rose Friday ahead of a U.S. jobs market update after Federal Reserve officials reignited hopes that another interest rate hike might be postponed.London and Paris opened up more than 1%. Hong Kong surged 4% after U.S. lawmakers approved a deal to avert a government debt default. Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul also advanced.Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index rallied 1% on Thursday after data showed manufacturing and retail activity weakening. That added to hopes the Fed might decide upward pressure on prices is easing and more rate hikes can be postponed or scaled down.“Skipping a rate hike” at this month’s Fed meeting would let policymakers “see more data before making decisions,” said a board member, Philip Jefferson. The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Patrick Harker, made similar comments.The statements “reignited the prospect of skipping a hike” after strong jobs data last week...

Biden to enforce ban on oil, gas drilling to protect tribal sites around New Mexico’s Chaco

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The Biden administration is implementing a 20-year withdrawal banning oil and gas development outside the boundaries of Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico.The action taken by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland in the nation’s No. 2 oil-producing state was announced Friday. It is intended to protect cultural and historic resources that tribal communities consider sacred.The order will apply to public lands and federal mineral within a 10-mile (16-kilometer) radius. President Joe Biden initially proposed this ban in November 2021 at the White House Tribal Nations Summit.The withdrawal applies only to federal public lands, not to entities that are privately, state or tribal-owned. Existing leases won’t be impacted either.This is a victory for members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation who have been pushing to make such a stop on oil and gas development permanent. Democrats reintroduced legislation last month that wo...