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Grading the Week: For Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid and the NBA, less is more

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:40 GMT

Here’s an idea that the NBA should consider: Less NBA.As this week’s slate of Nuggets games illustrated repeatedly — underscoring a theme that’s plagued the league for years during the load management era — you can have too much of a good thing.NBA schedule — FIt began, of course, with Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers’ visit to Ball Arena on Monday night.What had been a highly anticipated matchup between MVP front-runners Nikola Jokic and Embiid instead turned out to be a dud after the Sixers opted to sit Embiid at the end of a long road trip with calf soreness.Later on in the week, Jokic sat on back-to-back nights while resting a calf injury of his own, missing a home game against New Orleans on Thursday, followed by a trip to Phoenix the very next night.The biggest losers? The thousands of fans who paid full price to watch the NBA’s best, only to get a smattering of starters and backups.To be clear right off the bat: The Grading the ...

Avalanche Journal: What’s nagging the Avs in playoff-caliber games recently? “Different team last year. Deeper team.”

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:40 GMT

Once the Avalanche had faltered early and needed to scramble back Wednesday, it became clear what might nag this team in the playoffs.Fans felt the sinking feeling in their stomachs whenever Nathan MacKinnon’s line skated to the bench for a change.Who’s going to score when the top group isn’t on the ice?That was the feeling of helpless inevitability as the Avs attempted to claw back from down 3-1 in the third period of an eventual 4-2 loss to the Wild. And with the playoffs less than three weeks away, it’s what separates this Avalanche team from last year’s Stanley Cup-winning buzzsaw.The Avs (44-24-6) finished the month of March with a 10-5-1 record, continuing their upward momentum in the West that started in mid-January, but only 1-5-1 against teams that would make the NHL playoffs if the season ended today. (Against the same opponents in February, they went 4-1-2.)During those seven matchups, Colorado averaged 2.43 goals (1.86 at even strength) per ...

SF Giants’ Alex Cobb still feeling effects of knee heading into start vs. Yankees

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:40 GMT

NEW YORK — Alex Cobb said his Saturday start against the Yankees was never in doubt, in his mind. But to others, the Giants’ training staff, perhaps?“I think I needed more to prove it to other people, probably,” said Cobb, who will match up against New York right-hander Clarke Schmidt Saturday afternoon in the Bronx (1:05 p.m. PT, FOX).There was some cause for concern, after the swelling in Cobb’s knee, caused by a nasty comebacker in a spring training start, hadn’t subsided after two weeks. It had even moved into his hamstring. He struggled to lift his front leg in his delivery, and his lower leg was bruised black and blue.Cobb made one more spring start after the initial injury, and he believes he tweaked it sometime after that. The hamstring swelling subsided after about five days, allowing Cobb to get in a final tuneup session earlier this week after the rest of the team had broken camp.“It looked pretty ugly,” Cobb said. “But once...

Video game companies mark April Fools’ Day with events and faux products

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:40 GMT

It’s April Fools’ Day and that means, things are going to get a little weird when it comes to your favorite video games and peripheral makers. This is time of year when you read things such as Pokemon appearing in Google Maps or Amazon’s AI assistant for pets.Here are some of April Fools’ Day pranks from video game companies.As an April Fools’ Day prank, HyperX unveiled a headset that lets you stay hydrated. (HyperX) Hyper X: The gaming peripherals maker is adding a new feature to its headsets — water. According to a news release, its HyperX Cloud20 Hydration Headset takes the popular phrase “stay hydrated” to a new level by integrating it into the headset. Its Ngenuity software allows users to customize hydration reminder intervals and check reservoir levels. At least, the art looks cool.Razer: The company is finally living up to its name by creating a razor. They’re calling it the Razer Razer of course. It even has RGB if ...

How buyers leaving the Bay Area can avoid a shocking delay 

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:40 GMT

Q: We sold our house after the first weekend. The home we are buying out of state is contingent upon the sale of our Bay Area residence. Yesterday, we received a repair list from the buyer’s agent. It is a long email with attached inspection reports. It came as quite a shock.The homebuyers and their buyer’s agent know that we bought a home. Our house is full of moving boxes. They saw us busily preparing to move soon. The seller’s agent representing us believes that the homebuyers and their buyer’s agent are trying to take advantage of our situation. How can we save our home’s sale without high costs and delays? A: Renegotiations during residential real estate transactions need to be appropriately formatted. If you are using the California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.) forms, insist that the buyer’s agent use C.A.R. Form Request for Repairs (C.A.R. Form R.R. Revised 6/22). Using Advanced Real Estate Solutions forms, employ the PRDS Addendum Regarding Repairs, Corrections, or ...

Tornados arrasan el sur y el medio oeste de EE.UU. y dejan varios muertos y heridos

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:40 GMT

(CNN) — Tormentas y tornados devastadores azotaron el sur y el medio oeste desde este viernes hasta la madrugada del sábado, causando la muerte de al menos a cinco personas, dejando varios heridos, personas atrapadas en sus hogares y dañando negocios e infraestructura crítica, con la amenaza de un tiempo más severo que se avecina el sábado por la tarde.Este viernes se realizaron más de 50 informes preliminares de tornados en al menos seis estados, incluido Arkansas, donde las tormentas dejaron tres muertos: dos en la pequeña ciudad de Wynne y otra persona en North Little Rock, dijeron funcionarios locales.Las casas en E. Kiehl Ave. en Sherwood, Arkansas, sufrieron grandes daños el viernes después de que lo que se cree que fue un tornado azotó el área. (Colin Murphey/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/AP)Dos personas murieron en Indiana por una tormenta este viernes por la noche que dañó casas y un departamento de bomberos voluntarios cerca de Sullivan, una ciudad a unas 59 km al suroes...

US Congress goes wobbly on TikTok

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:40 GMT

Only days after TikTok’s CEO endured a bipartisan flogging on Capitol Hill, a Senate bill meant to rein in the company — released with much bipartisan fanfare and a bevy of endorsements earlier this month — is starting to look shakier.The bill, known as the RESTRICT Act, would give the Commerce Department and White House sweeping new powers to ban or restrict a wide range of communications and technology products coming from China. The bill would deprive TikTok of a crucial legal defense that it used to defeat the Trump administration’s attempted ban in 2020, and is considered key to any meaningful effort by the Biden administration to ban the Chinese-owned app.Until this week, the legislation appeared to be sailing ahead. Its chief sponsors, Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and John Thune (R-S.D.), had convinced more than 20 of their colleagues to sign onto the bill. And with the White House already on board and talks with House leadership allegedly unde...

Fatal fire complicates border city’s tensions with migrants

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:40 GMT

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — When Irwing López made it to Ciudad Juarez on the U.S.-Mexico border in January, the 35-year-old construction worker thought he had survived the worst and was steps away from his goal. He’d traversed jungle and raging rivers, and evaded Mexico’s notorious cartels, traveling thousands of miles from his native Venezuela. But then he found himself in a purgatory between U.S. immigration policies that pushed him back to Mexico and the unrelenting pursuit of Mexican immigration agents.And on Monday, López was reminded just how fragile his situation is. His friend and fellow Venezuelan Samuel Marchena was detained by immigration agents and hours later became one of the 39 migrants who died in a fire at a detention center.López, who sleeps in a shelter and washes windshields at stoplights for cash, said he won’t give up trying to enter the U.S., but he recognizes he’s not welcome in this sprawling border city that has grown tired of migrants i...

Doomsday plot? After 3 years, slain kids’ mom to stand trial

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:40 GMT

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — It has been more than three years since police announced that two kids were missing from a rural eastern Idaho town, and each twist in the grim investigation has seemed stranger than the last.Their mother claimed to be a deity, her estranged husband wrote in divorce papers. She called the children “zombies” before they vanished, a friend told police. A handful of followers seemed to buy into her doomsday claims, Arizona investigators reported. Those are just some of the details that could be aired in court starting next week, when Lori Vallow Daybell stands trial on murder, conspiracy and grand theft charges in the deaths of 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow, and Tylee Ryan, who was last seen a few days before her 17th birthday. Her husband, Chad Daybell, faces the same charges. And they are both also charged in the October 2019 death of Daybell’s late wife. Here’s a look at what is known and what is next in the bizarre case:HOW DID THE CASE BEGIN?JJ̵...

Alaska Native Scouts feted 67 years after rescuing Navy crew

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:40 GMT

GAMBELL, Alaska (AP) — Bruce Boolowon, then a lean 20-year-old, and a group of friends were hunting for murre eggs in a walrus skin boat on a remote Alaska island in the Bering Strait when they saw a crippled airplane flying low.“Something was wrong,” Boolowon, now 87, recalled of that day in 1955. “They came in and one engine was smoking.”Long before drones or weather balloons became military targets, a U.S. Navy P2V-5 Neptune maritime patrol aircraft had been attacked at about 8,000 feet (2,438 meters) by two Soviet MiG-15 fighters roaring out of nearby Siberia. The plane’s right engine was destroyed and the pilot was making a controlled crash landing.Its 11 crewmen had injuries in varying degrees of severity, caused either by the bullets sprayed by the two jet fighters, shrapnel or the fireball that erupted when the Neptune landed wheels up on the tundra of St. Lawrence Island and fuel tanks stored in the plane’s belly exploded. “And as the plane decelerated, the fireball d...