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Avalanche Journal: Two months in, who are the contenders, pretenders in the NHL?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:21:53 GMT

The 2023-24 NHL season is two months old, and one of the biggest storylines is how many teams with high expectations have stumbled out of the starting gate.Look no further than any preseason Stanley Cup odds. The five teams that had the best odds to win a title per BetMGM were sixth, 11th, 14th, 19th and 25th in the league standings after the games Friday night. The most recent Stanley Cup champions were first, sixth, 15th, 20th, 18th and 21st.There’s enough data to start to form some opinions, and to identify some weaknesses. There is time for disappointing teams to get it together, but it’s unlikely that they all will.This field feels pretty wide open. The 2021 Tampa Bay Lightning or 2022 Colorado Avalanche would almost certainly be a significant favorite against anyone in the NHL right now. But those teams aren’t going to be in the 2024 tournament.Which teams look like true Stanley Cup contenders? Which ones have started well but aren’t actually threats to win 16 playoff games?No...

Brandon Royval, a homegrown talent from MMA epicenter Factory X, vies to become first Denver-born fighter to win UFC belt

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:21:53 GMT

ENGLEWOOD — Before Brandon Royval got his chance at a UFC belt, he almost ran out of gas.Royval walked into the 1stBank Center in Broomfield in November 2019 with a torn shoulder and broken foot. Between his job working overnight at a juvenile detention center and his training, he was hurt, hardly sleeping and one defeat away from quitting on his dream.“I was desperately trying to get to the UFC, staying up all night to work, practicing as much as I could,” Royval recalled. “I knew I was so close. I remember walking in there, thinking, ‘If I don’t win this fight, this is the end of my career. I can’t do this any longer, and I just need to move on with my life.’“Then I went out there and smoked the dude in like 20 seconds. The dream was back on.”Royval submitted his opponent with an arm bar 23 seconds into that bout for the Legacy Fighting Alliance title. About three months later, he got the call he’d been waiting for ...

Can Rockies follow Diamondbacks’ or Rangers’ path to postseason glory?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:21:53 GMT

NASHVILLE — The Rockies’ road to contention is steep and narrow, with little room for error.But is there hope for a team coming off a 103-loss season? The 2023 World Series says yes.In 2021, the Texas Rangers lost 102 games and the Arizona Diamondbacks lost 110. Yet there they were, just two years later, playing in the Fall Classic, with the Rangers prevailing in five games.The two organizations followed different yellow brick roads to reach their destinations. The Rangers spent big in free agency and traded boldly. The D-backs developed their young players and made shrewd trades.“(The Diamondbacks) have good young players,” Rockies general manager Bill Schmidt said last week during the winter meetings. “I said a year ago at this time that they were running ahead of us and were in the process of getting better.”Although the D-backs and Rangers built their teams differently, the clubs had a couple of things in common, beginning with a passion to win.R...

Three dead in outbreak of Rocky Mountain spotted fever, CDC warns

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:21:53 GMT

By Katherine Dillinger | CNNAn outbreak of the tickborne disease Rocky Mountain spotted fever has caused at least five illnesses, including three deaths, in the US since July, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Friday.The five cases were identified in Southern California and involved people who had traveled to Tecate, Baja California, in the previous two weeks. Four were under age 18, and three were US residents, the agency said in a health alert. All five were hospitalized, and three died.The CDC is warning health care providers that if a patient has symptoms of Rocky Mountain spotted fever and has recently traveled to northern Mexico, they should consider starting treatment with the antibiotic doxycycline right away, rather than waiting for test results to confirm the condition.“RMSF is a severe, rapidly progressive, and often deadly disease transmitted by the bite of infected ticks, although many patients do not recall being bitten by a tick,” the agency not...

From urchin crushing to lab-grown kelp, efforts to save Northern California’s kelp forests show promise

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:21:53 GMT

By JULIE WATSON | Associated PressCASPAR BEACH — A welding hammer strapped to her wrist, Joy Hollenback slipped on blue fins and swam into the churning, chilly Pacific surf one fall morning to do her part to save Northern California’s vanishing kelp forests.Hollenback floated on the swaying surface to regulate her breathing before free diving into the murky depths toward the seafloor. There, she spotted her target: voracious, kelp-devouring purple urchins.Within seconds she smashed 20 to smithereens. “If you’re angry, it’s a cathartic way to get it all out,” Hollenback joked. “It’s ecologically sanctioned mayhem.”The veterinarian who lives in Berkeley, California is part of a crew of volunteers who swim, snorkel and dive armed with pick axes and hammers on a sole mission: To crush purple urchins that largely destroyed 96% of California’s iconic bull kelp forests between 2014 and 2020, and with it harmed red abalone and other sea life they supported.The pilot project off the Mendocin...

Trial date reset for Bay Area attorney charged with child sex crimes

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:21:53 GMT

A Solano County Superior Court judge has rescheduled the jury trial from January to February for a former Vacaville attorney accused in a felony child sex assault case.James Glenn Haskell, 41 (Solano County Sheriff’s Office) Defendant James Glenn Haskell, 41, appeared Friday in Department 23 for a trial confirmation, and Judge John B. Ellis ordered him to return for the trial at 9 a.m. Feb. 13 in the Justice Center in Fairfield.Haskell – who has entered not-guilty pleas to all allegations – enhancements and prior offenses, also must return for a trial management conference at 8:30 a.m. Feb. 9, court records show.He is represented by Fairfield criminal defense attorney Thomas Maas. Deputy District Attorney Shelly Moore leads the prosecution.The latest development in the case comes after a two-day April preliminary hearing and Haskell’s held-to-answer arraignment. He faces 16 counts, felonies and misdemeanors.As previously reported, before the second day of the preliminary hearin...

Widow blames suicide of LA County sheriff’s deputy on excessive overtime

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:21:53 GMT

The widow of a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who killed himself last month has filed a $20 million claim alleging her husband suffered from deep depression after he was forced to work exhaustive, mandatory overtime for a dozen years at a jail facility.The claim, filed Friday, Dec. 8, against the county, blames the Sheriff’s Department for the death of Deputy Arturo Atilano-Valadez, who died from a gunshot wound at his home on Nov. 7. He is among eight current or former Sheriff’s Department employees to die by suicide this year, according to the agency, the largest sheriff’s department in the nation.“What has happened to my family is going to continue to happen to any other deputies forced to work (in the jail) all the time,” Michele Atilano said at a news conference. “My husband is just one of many, many who are sick and are being forced to work in the jail all of the time.”As of Friday, the Sheriff’s Department had not received a copy of the claim, which is a precursor to a f...

60-year-old arrested in fatal stabbing of 71-year-old in Southeast DC

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:21:53 GMT

A 60-year-old woman from Southeast D.C. was arrested for the fatal stabbing of a 71-year-old man on Tuesday.D.C. police say they arrested and charged Linda Archie with assault with intent to kill.She was charged in connection with the fatal stabbing of Charmaine Smith.According to police, officers were responding to the 900 block of 5th Street SE at around 3:45 p.m. when they found Smith suffering from stab wounds.He was taken to a local hospital. He died on Saturday.According to a police release, detectives are working with the United States Attorney’s Office to upgrade the charges.Source

Woodbridge centenarian keeps breaking running records — with no plans to stop

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:21:53 GMT

Roy Englert Sr. fought in World War II, practiced law for decades — and then picked up running the 400-meter dash at 61.He has retired from the military and his law practice, but at 101 years old he has no plans to quit running.“I’ve retired every year for the last five or six years but then something comes up and then I go try it,” he told WTOP. “I’ll keep going as long as I can.”Back in July, he won the gold medal in the men’s 400-meter dash at the National Senior Games in the over-100 age bracket. Englert has won many races. In 2018, he set a world record at the USA Track and Field Masters Outdoor Championship in the 95-99 age group.When he runs, he’s on the track with other runners in different age brackets. They are not his competition, he said. He races against records.“There are not many people my age running around a track,” Englert said.Englert picked up running in the early 1980s after reading a book called “Aerobics” by Dr. Kenneth Cooper.“He said that one needed to exerc...

Children of imprisoned Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi to accept Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:21:53 GMT

HELSINKI (AP) — The children of imprisoned Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi are set to accept this year’s Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf in a ceremony Sunday in the Norwegian capital. Mohammadi is renowned for campaigning for women’s rights and democracy in her country, as well as fighting against the death penalty.Ali and Kiana Rahmani, Mohammadi’s twin 17-year-old children who live in exile in Paris with their father, will be given the prestigious award at Oslo City Hall, after which they will give the Nobel Peace Prize lecture in their mother’s name. Mohammadi, 51, was awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize in October for her decades of activism despite numerous arrests by Iranian authorities and spending years behind bars. She is currently detained in a prison in Tehran.At a news conference in Oslo on Saturday, Kiana Rahmani read out a message from her mother, in which the imprisoned activist praised the role international media played in “conveying the voice of dissen...