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Ravens sign veteran QB Josh Johnson to compete for backup role

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:01:06 GMT

Josh Johnson is returning to Baltimore.The 37-year-old free agent quarterback has signed with the Ravens, the team announced Monday. Johnson has played for an NFL-record 14 teams and this marks his third stint with Baltimore.A fifth-round pick out of San Diego by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2008, he played for the Ravens in 2021 and was on the roster during the 2016 offseason before being released that September.He also gives the Ravens a veteran presence in their quarterback room and will compete with Tyler Huntley, Anthony Brown and undrafted free agent Nolan Henderson for a backup role behind Lamar Jackson, who earlier this month signed a five-year extension worth a reported $260 million.Johnson has started nine games in his NFL career, though teams were just 1-8 with him at the helm.One of those starts was with the Ravens two years ago. After Baltimore signed him from the New York Jets’ practice squad that December, Johnson started in Week 16 against the Cincinnati Bengals...

Absent Celtics pride most embarrassing as Boston falls down 0-3

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:01:06 GMT

There’s so much blame to go around through the Celtics’ despicable conference finals run that it would be impossible to put the lion’s share on just one person.In what’s turned out to be a complete dud of a championship run for a Boston franchise looking to hang its 18th title banner, it’s been the vaunted Celtics pride that has been most absent.Forget surrendering Games 1 and 2 on the TD Garden’s parquet floors. If it wasn’t embarrassing enough to forfeit home-court advantage to the conference’s eighth seed, these Celtics flat-out gave up in the third quarter of Game 3 in Miami, when the Heat lead first ballooned to 30 points.With an opportunity to fight tooth and nail to avoid an 0-3 playoff deficit no team in NBA history has ever overcome, the Celtics did the exact opposite.They laid down. They took their beating and never once in the second half looked to fight back.“I don’t even know where to start,” said star fo...

New documentary offers rare glimpse inside Ontario women’s prison

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:01:06 GMT

Canadian media are rarely allowed inside prisons, especially for extended periods of time, but Citytv was granted unprecedented access over the past few months to the Grand Valley Institution for Women, spending about two weeks with the inmates and staff that live and work in the multi-security-level prison in Kitchener, ON.It’s one of only five prisons for women in Canada, and home to some of Canada’s most notorious killers, including Terri-Lynne McClintic, who is serving a life sentence for murdering 8-year-old Victoria Stafford in 2009 and Jennifer Pan, convicted of a kill-for-hire attack on her parents.But if you were expecting hard time and rough conditions for these convicted child killers, that’s not quite the environment at Grand Valley.“It really doesn’t feel like a prison in many respects. I mean, yes, there were security features and barbed wires, and you have to go through screening to get in,” noted reporter and producer Cristina Howo...

Arizona, California and Nevada propose water cuts from Colorado River to avert forced cuts

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:01:06 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Arizona, California and Nevada on Monday proposed a plan to significantly reduce their water use from the drought-stricken Colorado River over the next three years.The plan would conserve an additional 3 million acre-feet of water from the 1,450-mile river that provides water to 40 million people in seven U.S. states, parts of Mexico and more than two dozen Native American tribes.At least half that amount — or 1.5 million acre-feet of water — would have to be conserved by 2024, the plan said. In exchange for temporarily using less water, cities, irrigation districts and Native American tribes in the three states will receive federal funding, though officials did not say how much funding individual users in the states would get. Specifics of the deal announced Monday were sparse, including exactly how the cuts would be spread out. JB Hamby, chairman of the Colorado River Board of California, said in a statement his state would be responsible for 1.6 million acre-fee...

Michigan governor set to sign state’s new red flag gun law

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:01:06 GMT

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will give final approval Monday afternoon to a red flag law that aims to keep firearms away from those at risk of harming themselves or others as the state grapples with ways to slow gun violence in the wake of its second mass school shootings.Whitmer plans to sign the legislation just outside of Detroit, with Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, Attorney General Dana Nessel and former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords all expected to be in attendance. Giffords began campaigning for gun safety after she was shot in the head in 2011 in Tucson, Arizona.Michigan will join Minnesota as the second state in under a week to implement a red flag law after Democrats in both states won control of both chambers and the governor’s office in November. New Mexico previously was the last state to pass a red flag law in 2020. The new law, also known as extreme risk protection orders, is expected to go into effect next spring. It will allow family members, po...

Ford to buy lithium for electric car batteries from Quebec’s Nemaska Lithium

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:01:06 GMT

MONTREAL — Ford and Nemaska Lithium have signed an 11 year deal that will see the American automaker buy lithium products from the Quebec company for use in electric car batteries. The deal will see Ford become Nemaska’s first customer. The companies issued a joint news release saying Ford will buy up to 13,000 tons a year of lithium hydroxide produced at Nemaska’s factory in Bécancour, Que., about 150 kilometres northeast of Montreal.The factory, currently under construction, is slated to open in 2026 and is expected to be the first of its kind in CanadaThe factory will convert spodumene concentrate, a lithium ore mined at Nemaska’s Whabouchi mine in northern Quebec, to lithium hydroxide. Nemaska is co-owned by Quebec’s economic development agency, Investissement Québec and Livent, a Philadelphia-based lithium company. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 22, 2023.The Canadian Press

Top prosecutor in trial of officer who killed George Floyd writes book recounting case

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:01:06 GMT

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota prosecutors were so worried a judge would move the murder trial of former Officer Derek Chauvin out of the city where he killed George Floyd that they conducted a mock trial in a deep red rural county to test their strategy, Attorney General Keith Ellison reveals in a new book.It worked. Ellison was pleasantly surprised that even the mock jurors in Stearns County of central Minnesota would have convicted Chauvin and three co-defendants of manslaughter, and almost all would have convicted them on the top charge of second-degree murder. Two simulated juries in Hennepin County, where the case ultimately stayed, came back guilty on all counts.“Break the Wheel: Ending the Cycle of Police Violence,” will be released Tuesday by Twelve, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group, two days ahead of the third anniversary of Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020. Chauvin, who is white, kneeled on the Black man’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes. A bystander video captured Floyd...

German chancellor calls some climate activists’ protests ‘nutty’

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:01:06 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday sharply criticized climate activists as “nutty” for drastic protests such as blocking streets or gluing themselves to famous paintings in museums.“I think it’s completely nutty to somehow stick yourself to a painting or on the street,” Scholz said during a visit to an elementary school in the town of Kleinmachnow outside of Berlin, German news agency dpa reported.The chancellor added that he did not think anybody’s opinion on climate change could be changed by such actions but rather that these protests made people angry.“That’s an action that I don’t think is going to help,” Scholz told the students.Members of the group Last Generation have repeatedly blocked roads across Germany in an effort to pressure the government to take more drastic action against climate change. In recent weeks, they’ve brought the traffic to a halt on an almost daily basis in Berlin, gluing themselves to busy junctions and highways.Ove...

Pakistan frees Imran Khan associate even as authorities plan to prosecute thousands of his followers

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:01:06 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A Pakistani court Monday ordered the release of an associate of former Prime Minister Imran Khan from detention, even as authorities pressed on with efforts to prosecute thousands of his followers accused of recent anti-government violence.Shireen Mazari, who served as rights minister under Khan during his 2018-2022 term in office, was arrested last Thursday in the capital, Islamabad, on charges of inciting people to violence. She has been a vocal critic of Pakistan’s military and the government of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who replaced Khan after his ouster in a no-confidence vote in Parliament in April 2022.Mazari’s daughter, Imaan Mazari, had petitioned a high court, arguing that her mother’s arrest was unlawful. She said the Lahore High Court ordered her mother’s release on Monday but that she was still at a detention facility in Rawalpindi.It remained unclear when Shireen Mazari would actually walk free. She was also arrested earlie...

World summits' 'family photos' show Putin's isolation

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:01:06 GMT

They're known as “family photos,” the images of world leaders posed in faux relaxation during global summits.And like portraits of a family that has isolated a dysfunctional member, recent “family photos” from the G7 and G8 — the world's most industrialized nations — show how Russian President Vladimir Putin has been outcast.The Russian president has faced unprecedented international isolation since his nation invaded Ukraine in February 2022. An International Criminal Court arrest warrant hangs over his head and clouds his prospects of traveling to many destinations, including those viewed as Moscow’s allies.It was only 10 years ago when Putin stood proudly among his peers at the time -– former U.S. President Barack Obama, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — at a Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland. But Russia has since been kicked out of the group, which consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the Unit...