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Biden, Xi met for hours and agreed to ‘pick up the phone’ for any urgent concerns: ‘That’s progress’

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:06:02 GMT

WOODSIDE, Calif. (AP) — U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping emerged Wednesday from their first face-to-face meeting in a year vowing to stabilize their fraught relationship and showcasing modest agreements to combat illegal fentanyl and re-establish military communications. But there were still deep differences on economic competition and global security threats. The most assuring takeaway from the meeting for Biden was that if either man had a concern, “we should pick up the phone and call one another and we’ll take the call. That’s important progress,” he said in a news conference following the talks. The two leaders spent four hours together at a bucolic Northern California estate — in meetings, a working lunch and a garden stroll — intent on showing the world that while they are global economic competitors they’re not locked in a winner-take-all faceoff.“Planet Earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed,” Xi told Biden.The U.S. president t...

Booker scores 31 in return from injury, Suns roll past Timberwolves 133-115

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:06:02 GMT

PHOENIX (AP) — Devin Booker scored 31 points in his return from a calf injury, Kevin Durant also scored 31 and the Phoenix Suns cruised past the Minnesota Timberwolves 133-115 on Wednesday night.The Timberwolves had their seven-game winning streak snapped. Booker returned after missing five games with a strained right calf. It was expected to be the first game of the season that all three Suns stars — Durant, Booker and Bradley Beal — played together, but Beal was a late scratch with a sore back.The combo of Booker and Durant provided plenty of production on Wednesday. Booker shot 12 of 22 from the field, adding five assists and four rebounds. Durant made 11 of 15 shots.Phoenix dominated the game for the majority of the night, taking a six-point lead after one quarter, a 22-point lead at halftime and a 28-point advantage into the final quarter. Eric Gordon scored 15 for the Suns, Grayson Allen added 14 and Drew Eubanks had 13, including a dunk over Karl Anthony-Towns.Anthony-Towns l...

Rams QB Matthew Stafford on track to return after missing one start with thumb injury

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:06:02 GMT

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) — If not for the black support tape on his right thumb, there would have been no indication Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford was less than three weeks removed from injuring it.Stafford took snaps and threw the ball without any apparent difficulty in practice Wednesday, giving him more confidence he will be able to play against the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday.It is a scenario Stafford didn’t believe was possible when he came out of the 43-20 loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Oct. 29 after hitting his thumb three different times, the last of which happened when he caught a 2-point conversion early in the third quarter.“I tried to grab (a football) and it didn’t have any strength and was pretty worried about it,” Stafford said. “Then went back in and did some tests and I thought it was going to be quite a bit worse than it was. So just happy that it’s not as bad as I thought.”Throwing in a steady rain gave Stafford another way to measure how much prog...

Tyrese Hunter scores 18 points, powers No. 19 Texas past Rice 80-64

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:06:02 GMT

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Tyrese Hunter scored 18 points, and No. 19 Texas defeated Rice 80-64 Wednesday night, extending its season-opening winning streak to three games.Hunter shot 3 for 5 from 3-point distance and the Longhorns (3-0) hit 10 of 22 (45.5%) overall.Kadin Shedrick scored 15 points, and Max Abmas added 13 and Dillon Mitchell finished with a game-best 13 rebounds for Texas.Rice (1-2), which made 22 3-pointers with 40% accuracy in its first two games, was slowed by the Longhorns’ defense and hit just 4 of 22 (18.2%) shots from long distance.Anthony Selden led Rice with 17 points. Travis Evee scored 11 and Max Fiedler was limited to seven points, less than half his average.Texas broke loose with a flurry of 3-pointers early in the second half, just as it did in its last win, against Delaware State on Friday.Brock Cunningham made the first 3-pointer after a steal, putting Texas ahead by 15 points. Cunningham finished with three steals. Abmas followed the Cunningham 3 wit...

Kyle Bradish places fourth in AL Cy Young voting, an Orioles starter’s highest finish since 1999

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:06:02 GMT

Kyle Bradish opened the 2023 season as the No. 4 starter in the Orioles’ five-man rotation. He ended it viewed as the No. 4 starter in the entire American League.In his second major league season, Bradish placed fourth in voting for the AL Cy Young Award, which annually recognizes the circuit’s top pitcher. New York Yankees ace Gerrit Cole, the AL’s only qualified starter who allowed a lower batting average than Bradish, received all 30 first-place votes from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America to win his first career Cy Young Award, the BBWAA announced Wednesday, with San Diego Padres left-hander Blake Snell winning in the National League.Bradish, a 27-year-old right-hander, is the first Orioles starter to appear on multiple BBWAA ballots since Hall of Famer Mike Mussina finished second in 1999. With a single third-place vote in 2007, Erik Bedard tied for fifth, while closer Zack Britton also came in fourth in 2016. An Oriole hasn’t won the aw...

Authorities search for possible downed aircraft in Torrey Pines: SDPD

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:06:02 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- Authorities on Wednesday are searching for a possible downed small aircraft in the area of Torrey Pines Gliderport, according to police.The call came in to first responders around 9:35 p.m., the San Diego Police Department told FOX 5.Authorities say a Cessna aircraft took off from Concord, California, but ended up running out of gas. Expect rain through this weekend in San Diego County Police are not sure how many people were on board at this time.The aircraft has not shown up at local airports, per SDPD.The U.S. Coast Guard, San Diego Fire-Rescue Department lifeguards and police are currently searching for the plane.

Here are the top elementary, middle schools in San Diego County: study

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:06:02 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- Several San Diego-area elementary and middle schools were recently ranked among the best in California, according to U.S. News & World Report.Seven local elementary schools and three middle schools placed in the top 50 in California.For elementary schools, the following made the list: La Jolla Elementary in La Jolla (No. 2), Pacific Rim Elementary in Carlsbad (No. 10), Ocean Air in Carmel Valley (No. 24), Jerabek Elementary in Scripps Ranch (No. 33), Carmel Del Mar Elementary in Carmel Valley (No. 44), Solana Highlands Elementary in Carmel Valley (No. 47) and Torrey Pines Elementary in La Jolla (No. 49). The top public high schools in San Diego County, according to Niche For middle schools, the following made the list: Pacific Trails Middle School in Carmel Valley (No. 25), Carmel Valley Middle School in Carmel Valley (No. 32) and R. Roger Rowe Middle in Rancho Santa Fe (No. 35).The media outlet analyzed 103,099 pre-K, elementary and middle schools from the U...

Chinese president signals more pandas will be coming to the United States

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:06:02 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping signaled late Wednesday that China will send new pandas to the United States, calling them “envoys of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples.”“We are ready to continue our cooperation with the United States on panda conservation, and do our best to meet the wishes of the Californians so as to deepen the friendly ties between our two peoples,” Xi said during a dinner speech with business leaders.The gesture came at the end of a day in which Xi and President Joe Biden held their first face to face meeting in a year and pledged to try to reduce tensions. Xi did not share additional details on when or where pandas might be provided but appeared to suggest the next pair of pandas are most likely to come to California, probably San Diego.The bears have long been the symbol of the U.S.-China friendship since Beijing gifted a pair of pandas to the National Zoo in Washington in 1972, ahead of the normalization of bilateral relati...

Their families wiped out, grieving Palestinians in Gaza ask why

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:06:02 GMT

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — The night a blast struck his family’s home in the Gaza Strip, Ahmed al-Naouq was more than 2,000 miles away but he still jolted awake, consumed with inexplicable panic. He reached for his cellphone to find that a friend had written — and then deleted — a message. Al-Naouq called him from London. The words that spilled from the other end of the line landed like world-shattering blows: Airstrike. Everyone killed. Four nights later, Ammar al-Butta was startled from sleep in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis when the wall of his bedroom collapsed over him. A missile had pierced his top-floor apartment and exploded one floor below.He lurched over the rubble, shining the light of his cellphone into the wreckage, calling out to his 16 relatives.“Anyone there?” he cried. There was only silence.Entire generations of Palestinian families in the besieged Gaza Strip — from great-grandparents to infants only weeks old — have been killed in airstrikes in t...

Blaze at a coal mine company building in northern China kills 25 and injures dozens

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:06:02 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — A fire burned in a coal company building Thursday in a northern Chinese city, killing 25 people and injuring a few dozen more.The building belongs to Yongju Coal Company and is in Lvliang city in northern Shanxi province, a major coal-producing region, according to state broadcaster CCTV. District officials issued a statement saying rescue and emergency services were at the scene. They evacuated 63 people, though it is unclear if the 25 dead were among that figure. By Thursday afternoon, the fire had been controlled and rescue work was ongoing, the local fire department told CCTV. Those injured were being treated in the hospital. The blaze appeared to have started in a building with offices and dormitories and not where coal was being mined.Coal mine accidents are not uncommon in China, though the government has been working on improving safety.___AP researcher Wanqing Chen in Beijing contributed to this report.The Associated Press