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5-foot-9 Batista quite the big catch for Peabody

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:22 GMT

PEABODY — Peabody senior Eli Batista says his favorite NFL player to watch is New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley. And much like the former Penn State star, Batista can do it all on the football field.And it’s those talents that has helped a once dormant Peabody football team turn into one of the state’s best in recent years as winners of 21 of their last 22 games under coach Mark Bettencourt.For as good and talented as Batista is, if you ask Bettencourt, he’s quick to say the senior probably hasn’t gotten all the recognition due to him thanks in large part to how talented Peabody was last season.“It was all about Shea (Lynch), Danny (Barrett) and all those guys last season so Eli was kind of underrated,” Bettencourt said. “But what Eli has is a lot of self confidence without cockiness. He’s very humble and very coachable.”Though he stands only 5-9 and weighs just 160 pounds, Batista plays and performs much bigger, especially when the competition is at its fiercest.“He just ...

Analysis: Trevor Story stabilized Red Sox infield, now he must lead it

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:22 GMT

Trevor Story’s caught some bad breaks since signing with the Red Sox.Thanks to the MLB lockout freezing the 2022 offseason, Story didn’t even sign with Boston until right before Opening Day. As a result he got less than a week’s worth of spring training before making his debut, and it took almost six weeks before he started looking anything like his normal self.Once Story got going things went well, until he was hit by a pitch and suffered a broken wrist that kept him sidelined for most of the second half. Then this past offseason long-held concerns over his throwing elbow were finally realized, and after returning in August it felt like he could never get comfortable at the plate.Yet even a diminished Story made a tangible difference for the Red Sox down the stretch.After the starting rotation’s inability to pitch deep into games, Boston’s poor infield defense was the biggest factor in the club’s last-place finish. Between Rafael Devers’ re...

7 killed and 16 injured as a suspected migrant-smuggling vehicle crashes in southern Germany

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:22 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — A vehicle apparently packed with migrants left a highway in southern Germany at high speed on Friday and crashed as the driver tried to evade a police check, killing seven people and injuring 16, authorities said. The accident happened near Ampfing, east of Munich on the A94 highway, which leads to the Austrian border. The van left the road and overturned.Police described the van, which had 23 people on board, as “a suspected smuggler vehicle.” They said prosecutors had opened a homicide investigation.Bavaria’s top security official, state Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann, said that the dead included a young child. The injured were taken to nearby hospitals. The Austrian-registered van was designed to carry nine people, and it wouldn’t have been possible for many of the people on board to use seat belts, German news agency dpa reported. Police said the vehicle was carrying Syrians and Turks, while the driver was a stateless man resident in Austria.“...

Factory fishing in Antarctica for krill targets the cornerstone of a fragile ecosystem

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:22 GMT

ABOARD THE ALLANKAY off Antarctica (AP) — The Antarctic Endeavour glides across the water’s silky surface as dozens of fin whales spray rainbows from their blowholes into a fairy tale icescape of massive glaciers.But as a patrol of environmentalists approaches the Chilean super trawler in an inflatable boat, the cruder realities of modern industrial fishing come into view.From one of the ship’s drain holes, a steaming pink sludge cascades into the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean. It’s the foul-smelling runoff from processing the 80-meter (260-foot) factory ship’s valuable catch: Antarctic krill, a paper-clip-sized crustacean central to the region’s food web and, scientists say, an important buffer to global warming.“What’s coming out of the side are the remnants of the ecosystem,” says Alistair Allan, an activist for Australia’s Bob Brown Foundation, as he looks on from the inflatable boat. “If this was off the coast of Alaska, it would be a national park. But since it’s down he...

Dump truck with raised bin strikes bridge on Hwy. 404

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:22 GMT

A dump truck with a raised bin crashed into a bridge on a GTA highway overnight resulting in lane closures ahead of the Friday morning rush.Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) say a dump truck was travelling southbound on Highway 404 in Markham around 1 a.m. when it struck the overhead Highway 407 bridge.Police say the bridge sustained some damage and engineers are on scene to check its structural integrity.The driver was not injured.Two lanes of the southbound 404 are currently blocked. The investigation is ongoing.#Collision investigation underway. Dump Truck vs Bridge. #HWY404SB at #HWY407. The collision occurred at 1:00am. Lanes blocked for the next few hours. #407OPP #AuroraOpp Information call. Constable Dunnah 416-526-5844^td pic.twitter.com/4K0dlcq2sH— OPP Highway Safety Division (@OPP_HSD) October 13, 2023

China’s inflation data show economy in doldrums despite a slight improvement in trade

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:22 GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — China’s economy remains in the doldrums, data released Friday showed, with prices due to slack demand from consumers and businesses. Consumer prices remained flat in September compared with a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said, while wholesale prices fell 2.5%. Exports and imports also fell last month as demand fell in overseas markets. The faltering recovery of the world’s second largest economy from the shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic is dragging on regional and global growth, though economists have said the worst might have passed. Trade ticked up slightly from the month before and manufacturing is showing signs of improvement. Earlier this week, the International Monetary Fund cut growth forecasts for China, predicting economic growth of 5% this year and 4.2% in 2024, down slightly from its forecasts in July.The IMF attributed its downward revision to weaker consumer confidence, subdued global demand and a crisis in the property sector that has...

Biden awards $7 billion for ‘clean hydrogen’ hubs across the country to help replace fossil fuels

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:22 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Clean-energy projects in seven states from Pennsylvania to California have been selected by the Biden administration for a $7 billion program to kickstart development and production of hydrogen fuel, a key component of President Joe Biden’s agenda to slow climate change.His goal is to establish seven regional “hydrogen hubs” to help replace fossil fuels such as coal and oil with cleaner-burning hydrogen as an energy source for vehicles, manufacturing and generating electricity. Biden is expected to make the official announcement during an economic-themed visit to Philadelphia on Friday.The White House calls clean hydrogen “essential to achieving the president’s vision of a strong clean energy economy” and net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. by 2050.“As a clean fuel, hydrogen complements the role played by other clean energy sources, like wind and solar, to help the U.S. reduce emissions in energy-intensive sectors of the economy: steel and cem...

Russian authorities raid the homes of lawyers for imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:22 GMT

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Russian authorities on Friday searched the homes of three lawyers representing imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny and detained one of them, the politician’s allies said.The move against his lawyers is an attempt to “completely isolate Navalny,” his ally Ivan Zhdanov said on social media. Navalny has been behind bars since January 2021, serving a 19-year prison sentence, but has been able to get messages out regularly and keep up with the news. The raids targeting Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser are part of a criminal case on charges of participating in an extremist group, Zhdanov said. All three were detained after the search, apparently as suspects in the case, Navalny’s team said on Telegram.According to Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s chief of staff, the case against the lawyers comes at a time when the opposition leader is set to be transferred to a different penal colony, “unclear where.” Volkov, who is living abroad, c...

North Korea raises the specter of nuclear strike over US aircraft carrier’s arrival in South Korea

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:22 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea lashed out Friday at the arrival of a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group in South Korea, calling it a provocation and again raising the specter of using nuclear weapons to defend itself.Emboldened by its advancing nuclear arsenal, North Korea has increasingly issued threats to use such weapons preemptively. But the North is still outgunned by U.S. and South Korean forces, and experts say it is unlikely to use its nukes first, though it will continue to upgrade those arms without returning to diplomacy for the time being.The North’s latest nuclear threat came a day after the USS Ronald Reagan and its battle group arrived at South Korea’s southeastern port of Busan, following U.S.-South Korean-Japanese naval exercise in international waters earlier this week.South Korean defense officials said the carrier is to be docked at Busan for five days as part of an agreement to increase the temporary deployments of powerful U.S. military assets in respons...

Israel orders unprecedented evacuation of 1 million in Gaza as possible ground offensive looms

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:22 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s military told some 1 million Palestinians on Friday to evacuate northern Gaza and head to the southern part of the besieged territory, an unprecedented order applying to almost half the population ahead of an expected ground invasion against the ruling Hamas militant group.The U.N. warned that so many people fleeing en masse would be calamitous. Hamas, which staged a shocking and brutal attack on Israel nearly a week ago and has fired thousands of rockets since, dismissed it as a ploy and called on people to stay in their homes.The evacuation order, which includes Gaza City, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, sparked widespread panic among civilians and aid workers already running from Israeli airstrikes and contending with a total siege and a territory-wide blackout.“Forget about food, forget about electricity, forget about fuel. The only concern now is just if you’ll make it, if you’re going to live,” said Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the...