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SF Giants’ Farhan Zaidi: How fans feel about the team comes down to psychology

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:54:31 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO — Despite the Giants’ recent stretch in which they’ve gone 6-9 while being out-scored 70-46, president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said Friday the Giants look like a playoff team.With the first half coming to a close on Sunday, the Giants entered their series finale against the Colorado Rockies with a 48-41 record, 3 1/2 games behind the Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League West.Whether or not the first half has been successful really depends on perspective.“I think some of it just comes down to the psychology and how fans feel about the team,” Zaidi said Friday. “Everything has so much to do with what the expectations were. (Last year), we were coming off a 107-win season and when we were five, 10 games over .500, it just felt a little disappointing. This year, whether justifiably or not, I think expectations were low. We got off to a bad start and then started playing better and I think people were really excited.”Zaidi expects the Giants to be a...

Me & My Car: ’65 Alfa Romeo in Contra Costa getting better all the time

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:54:31 GMT

Alfa Romeo has a long and colorful history, starting with its name.Alfa is an acronym for the first letters of the original company name, Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili, founded in 1910. It’s first car was a 24-horsepower racer. In 1915, the entrepreneur and engineer Nicola Romeo took over the company, and the company name was changed five years later to Alfa Romeo.The company made military equipment until 1920, when the first Alfa Romeo-badged car, the Torpedo 20-30, was built. Racing was their thing, and Alfa Romeo did well in the early 1920s.In 1928 Nicola Romeo left the company, and by 1933 the Italian government led by Benito Mussolini took over the company that built fancy cars for the wealthy. Not surprisingly, Alfa Romeo’s factory got bombed heavily during World War II, and it took the company a while to become profitable after the war. Luxury cars were out, and Alfa Romeo began mass-producing vehicles that included sedans, coupes and open two-seaters.After World...

Hundreds gather in Sarajevo to pay their respects to Srebrenica massacre victims

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:54:31 GMT

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Hundreds lined the Bosnian capital’s main street Sunday as a truck carrying 30 coffins passed on its way to Srebrenica, where newly identified victims of Europe’s only acknowledged genocide since World War II will be buried on the 28th anniversary of the massacre.As the truck, covered with a huge Bosnian flag briefly stopped in front of the country’s presidential building in Sarajevo, people from the crowd tucked flowers into the canvas hiding the remains of the victims found in mass graves and identified through DNA analysis.“It is devastatingly sad that hundreds of victims still have not been found and that some people still deny the genocide (in Srebrenica),” Ramiza Gandic, who came to pay her respects, said.Newly identified Srebrenica massacre victims are reburied annually on July 11, the day the killing began in 1995, at a vast and ever-expanding memorial cemetery outside the eastern town.So far, the remains of more than 6,600 people ha...

Taylor Swift invita a su ex Taylor Lautner al escenario para estrenar el video musical de ‘Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:54:31 GMT

(CNN) — Fue una doble ración de Taylors el viernes por la noche, cuando la superestrella Taylor Swift le dio la bienvenida a su ex, el galán de “Twilight” Taylor Lautner, en el escenario durante la parada de la gira “The Eras Tour” en Kansas City.La ocasión fue para presentar el nuevo video musical de “I Can See You”, una de las canciones “desde la bóveda” (es decir, inédita) de “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)”, la edición regrabada de Swift de su tercer álbum de estudio de 2010, que se lanzó este viernes.Innumerables usuarios de las redes sociales capturaron el momento en que Lautner comenzó a hacer volteretas hacia atrás en el escenario en Missouri, mientras Swift lo recibía calurosamente.Swift también marcó el momento en sus redes sociales. Presentó el video musical a los fanáticos en su Instagram verificado y gritó a Lautner como “increíble”, y señaló que “no tenía un doble de riesgo” e...

Reportan 9 heridos de bala en tiroteo en Cleveland, Ohio

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:54:31 GMT

(CNN) — Al menos nueve personas recibieron disparos durante la noche en Cleveland, Ohio, según la policía.“El 9 de julio de 2023, aproximadamente a las 2:30 a.m. hora local, los agentes de policía de Cleveland acudieron a West 6th Street y Johnson Court, con motivo de que a varias personas les habían disparado. Los agentes estaban en el área asignada al departamento de distrito de Almacenes semanal y llegaron rápidamente y brindaron ayuda médica”, dijo a CNN la portavoz de la policía de Cleveland, Jennifer Ciaccia, en un comunicado este domingo por la mañana.Según Ciaccia, nueve víctimas sufrieron heridas de bala; sin embargo, no hay heridos fatales.Aumentan las ventas de armas en EE.UU. en medio de una serie de tiroteos masivos“La información preliminar indica que un sospechoso abrió fuego contra un grupo de personas y luego huyó del lugar”, continuó Ciaccia.Los investigadores están en proceso de revisar la evidencia, los videos y están entrevistando a las víctimas, según Cia...

Western powers race to finish security pledges for Ukraine

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:54:31 GMT

A small group of Western allies are engaged in “advanced” and “frantic, last-minute” negotiations to finalize a security assurance declaration for Ukraine ahead of this week’s NATO summit in Lithuania, according to four officials familiar with the talks.For weeks, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany have been discussing the issue with Kyiv, and have also reached out to other allies in NATO, the EU and the G7. The idea is to create an “umbrella” for all countries willing to provide Ukraine with ongoing military aid, even if the details vary from country to country.The effort is part of broader negotiations at NATO and among several groups of nations over how Western allies should display long-term support for Ukraine. Kyiv wants to join NATO as soon as possible, giving it access to the alliance’s vaunted Article 5 clause — an attack on one is an attack on all. But many allies within the alliance broadly agree Ukraine can only join after the war ends, at the...

Moscow says NATO leaders should discuss Ukraine nuclear plant

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:54:31 GMT

Russia said on Sunday that NATO leaders should discuss conditions at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant at their summit this week, as an accident at the facility could affect the territories of alliance members.Ukraine warned last week that Moscow could be preparing to blow up the nuclear power station, which could lead to a radioactive disaster, after Russian workers were told to leave the facility. Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday accused Kyiv of “systematic infliction of damage” to the Zaporizhzhia plant and warned of the possible fallout from a catastrophe there. “Key attention should be devoted” to the Zaporizhzhia facility at the NATO meeting starting Tuesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a Telegram post. “After all, the vast majority of the alliance members will be in the direct impact zone” of any potential accident, she said.Leaders of the NATO alliance will meet on July 11-12 in the Lithuanian c...

Zelenskyy brings home Azov fighters from Turkey, angering Moscow

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:54:31 GMT

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy returned to Ukraine on Saturday bringing home with him five former Azov commanders who had fought in the battle over Mariupol. The Kremlin accused Turkey of violating the prisoner-exchange agreement that was signed last year.“We are returning home from Türkiye and bringing our heroes home,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media. “Ukrainian soldiers Denys Prokopenko, Svyatoslav Palamar, Serhiy Volynsky, Oleh Khomenko and Denys Shleha. They will finally be with their relatives.” The Ukrainian president hugged the servicemen at the Istanbul airport and flew them home with him. Upon news of the release, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia had not been informed and that Turkey had promised to keep the former prisoners on its home soil. The move “goes against the terms of existing agreements,”Peskov said. “The conditions of return were violated by both the Turkish and Kyiv sides,” he said.“Nobod...

Yacht Rock Revue sets steady course for musical treasures

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:54:31 GMT

You’d think that people would’ve had enough of silly love songs. I looked around the Leader Bank Pavilion and I saw it wasn’t so.On Thursday night, on the huge Pavilion stage, Yacht Rock Revue sold nostalgia, escapism, the notion that musical chops matter, and a post-modernist take on popular music. But mostly, like Paul McCartney before them, the aviator-sporting middle aged guys in YRR sold silly love songs. Or at least re-sold them.An Atlanta-born tribute to ’70s AM Gold and ’80s Top 40, YRR went mainstream on the back of years of touring – the band plays the Cape Cod Melody Tent Wednesday and Thursday before returning to the Pavilion on Friday. Too good to remain purely a cover band, YRR made an album of originals in 2020 – the LP, “Hot Dads in Tight Jeans,” is a tasty cocktail of soft rock, indie pop, sparkling disco and glitchy electronica. The Revue’s covers and originals both work because they take the music (if not themselves) seriously.And yes, you can take Looking G...

Top EU lawmaker says firewall against German far right stands, but willing to work with Meloni

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:54:31 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — The leader of the conservative bloc in the European Parliament said in an interview published Sunday that his party would not cooperate with the far-right Alternative for Germany but expressed a willingness to work with Italy’s far-right premier to curb migration.Manfred Weber, the German EU lawmaker who heads the European People’s Party (EPP), dismissed suggestions that his bloc could drop its refusal to cooperate with Alternative for Germany at the state and federal level in the coming years amid growing support for the far-right party.“The firewall stands,” Weber told the Funke Medie Group, adding that Alternative for Germany “isn’t just a political competitor, but an adversary and enemy.”Weber, who is also co-leader of the conservative Christian Social Union at the national level, warned that the far right’s plans to dismantle the European Union would hurt Germany’s economy and security. Asked whether the EPP’s outreach to Italian post...