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Starters or relievers? Orioles pitchers Tyler Wells, DL Hall enter offseason with questions about future roles

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:36:35 GMT

After overcoming midseason adversity, Orioles pitchers Tyler Wells and DL Hall both said they believed the odysseys they trekked in 2023 would be good for them in the long run.They both started the year as starting pitchers, took steps back to lower levels because of fatigue and ended the season as reliable relievers in Baltimore’s bullpen.Despite the growth from their respective journeys in 2023, Wells and Hall will likely begin the 2024 campaign in the same murky roles they were in last spring training: as starting rotation candidates who are also attractive options to be moved to the bullpen.The two pitchers might have overcome similar challenges in 2023, but their approaches to the rotation competition during spring training couldn’t have been more different. Wells didn’t want to talk about it, while Hall said he fed off the “doubt” from those who didn’t believe he could be a starter. They could be in the same position when they report to spri...

Toronto to see big warmup on heels of coldest morning of the fall so far

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:36:35 GMT

GTA residents are waking up to the coldest morning of the season so far on Monday, but a warmup is on the way with the outside chance of record-breaking warmth later in the week.Environment Canada issued a frost advisory for the City of Toronto, Peel Region and Halton Region, with the overnight and early morning temperatures marking the coolest point of fall up to this point.CityNews 680 meteorologist Jill Taylor says the frosty conditions will be short-lived.“It is a cool frosty start to Monday, you may have give yourself extra time to scrape that frost of your windshield,” she says. “But this is just a brief cool down for us.”Things will heat up rather quickly Monday to reach a guaranteed high of 13 C, with mainly sunny skies. Then the real warmup begins with daytime highs from Tuesday to Friday expected to hover around 20 C. Taylor says it’s even possible we could see a record high on Friday. The current record-high on Oct. 27 in Toronto was 22.7 C s...

A Swiss populist party rebounds and the Greens sink in the election. That’s a big change from 2019

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:36:35 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — Switzerland’s anti-immigration populist Swiss People’s Party rebounded from searing losses four years ago to cement and expand its hold as the largest parliamentary faction after the election, official results showed, as two environmentally-minded parties lost ground despite record glacier melt in the Alpine country.Pre-election polls suggested that Swiss voters had three main concerns: Rising fees for the obligatory, free market-based health insurance system; climate change, which has eroded Switzerland’s many glaciers; and worries about migrants and immigration.The final tally late Sunday showed the people’s party, known as SVP by its German-language acronym, gained nine seats compared to the last vote in 2019, and climbed to 62 overall in parliament’s 200-seat lower house. The Socialists, in second, added two seats to reach 41 in that chamber, known as the National Council. It marked the latest sign of a rightward turn in Europe, after victor...

Decline of rare right whale appears to be slowing, but scientists say big threats remain

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:36:35 GMT

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The decline of one of the rarest whales in the world appears to be slowing, but scientists warn the giant mammals still face existential threats from warming oceans, ship collisions and entanglement in fishing gear.The population of North Atlantic right whales, which live off the U.S. East Coast, fell by about 25% from 2010 to 2020 and was down to only about 364 whales as of 2021. Now the whales are at around 356 in total, according to a group of scientists, industry members and government officials who study them. This suggests the population is potentially levelling off, as equal numbers of whales could be entering the population as are being killed, the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium said Monday. However, getting an accurate count of the aquatic creatures involves certain ranges of error, which put estimates for 2021 and 2022 at roughly around the same number.The whales were buoyed by a strong birthing year in 2021, when 18 calves were born into the ...

After years of decline, endangered right whale population could be levelling off

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:36:35 GMT

HALIFAX — The population of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales appears to be levelling off after years of discouraging declines, according to new data released today by an international team of marine scientists.While that news is encouraging, a senior scientist with the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium says the latest data also show the number of human-caused injuries continues to rise.“There’s a delay in those injuries being accounted for,” Philip Hamilton, senior scientist at the New England Aquarium in Boston, said in a weekend interview. “People get very focused on counting the (whales). People want to have a success. But we don’t have success yet, even though things are levelling off. We’re still in pretty dire shape.”Put another way, the recent flattening of the population trend indicates that human activities are now killing as many whales as are being born each year. That represents an “untenable burden on ...

Chevron buys Hess for $53 billion, 2nd buyout among major producers this month as oil prices surge

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:36:35 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Chevron is buying Hess Corp. for $53 billion and it’s not even the biggest acquisition in the energy sector this month as major producers seize the initiative while oil prices surge.The Chevron-Hess deal comes less than two weeks after Exxon Mobil said that it would acquire Pioneer Natural Resources for about $60 billion. Crude prices are up 9% this year and have been hovering around $90 per barrel for about two months. Chevron said Monday that the acquisition of Hess adds a major oil field in Guyana as well as shale properties in the Bakken Formation in North Dakota. Chevron is paying for Hess with stock. Hess shareholders will receive 1.0250 shares of Chevron for each Hess share. Including debt, Chevron valued the deal at $60 billion. Chevron said the deal will help to increase the amount of cash given back to shareholders. The company anticipates that in January it will be able to recommend boosting its first-quarter dividend by 8% to $1.63. This would still need ...

UAW’s confrontational leader makes gains in strike talks, but some wonder: Has he reached too far?

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:36:35 GMT

WAYNE, Mich. (AP) — Throughout its 5-week-old strikes against Detroit’s automakers, the United Auto Workers union has cast an emphatically combative stance, reflecting the style of its pugnacious leader, Shawn Fain.Armed with a list of what even Fain has called “audacious” demands for better pay and benefits, the UAW leader has embodied the exasperation of workers who say they’ve struggled for years while the automakers have enjoyed billions in profits. Yet as the strikes have dragged on, analysts and even some striking workers have begun to raise a pivotal question: Does Fain have an endgame to bring the strikes to a close?People with personal ties to Fain say his approach, on the picket lines and at the bargaining table, reflects the bluntly straightforward manner he developed as he rose through the union’s ranks. He is, they say, the right man for the moment. Others, though, say they worry that Fain set such high expectations for what he can extract from the companies...

Biden names technology hubs for 32 states and Puerto Rico to help the industry and create jobs

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:36:35 GMT

REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. (AP) — The Biden administration is designating 31 technology hubs touching 32 states and Puerto Rico to help spur innovation and create jobs in the industries that are concentrated in these areas.President Joe Biden is set to announce the hubs on Monday at the White House with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. “I have to say, in my entire career in public service, I have never seen as much interest in any initiative than this one,” Raimondo told reporters during a Sunday conference call to preview the announcement. Her department received 400 applications, she said. “No matter where I go or who I meet with — CEOs, governors, senators, congresspeople, university presidents — everyone wants to tell me about their application and how excited they are,” said Raimondo.The tech hubs are the result of a process Raimondo’s department launched in May to distribute a total of $500 million in grants to cities.The $500 million came from a $10 billion authorizati...

IRS crackdown on wealthy taxpayers brings in $160 million in back taxes

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:36:35 GMT

(The Hill) - The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has brought in $160 million in back taxes from wealthy taxpayers, amid a recent push to crack down on top income earners.The agency said Friday that it had collected $122 million from 100 taxpayers, on top of the $38 million it collected from more than 175 high-income earners earlier this year. The 100 taxpayers resulting in the latest haul are just a portion of the 1,600 individuals that the IRS is currently contacting for hundreds of millions of dollars in back taxes, according to the agency. In one case, an individual was ordered to pay more than $15 million for falsifying personal expenses — including the construction of a 51,000-square-foot mansion, luxury cars, artwork, country club memberships and homes for his children — as deductible business expenses.Another person was sentenced to more than four years in prison for fraudulently obtaining $5 million in COVID relief loans that he used to purchase multiple luxury cars...

Trump claims Sidney Powell was 'never' his attorney following lawyer's Georgia plea deal

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:36:35 GMT

(The Hill) - Former President Trump claimed Sunday that Sidney Powell was “never” his attorney, just days after Powell took a plea deal in the Georgia election interference case. “Despite the Fake News reports to the contrary, and without even reaching out to ask the Trump Campaign, MS. POWELL WAS NOT MY ATTORNEY, AND NEVER WAS. In fact, she would have been conflicted,” the former president said in a Truth Social post. Trump reiterated false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election and said that while Powell was not his attorney, she was "one of millions and millions of people who thought, and in ever increasing numbers still" think so, as well. The former president praised Powell, though, for her representation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn in 2019 following special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into the 2016 presidential election.“Ms. Powell did a valiant job of representing a very unfairly treated and governmentally abused General Mike...