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NFL power rankings, Week 5: Ravens, despite injuries, in a class of their own in AFC North

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 23:06:15 GMT

Each week of the NFL season, The Baltimore Sun will rank all 32 NFL teams. The rankings will take into account not just weekly performance, injuries and roster depth, but how well each team measures up as Super Bowl contenders.Here are the rankings heading into Week 5:1. San Francisco 49ers (4-0, No. 2 last week)Last week: Win vs. Cardinals, 35-16Up next: vs. CowboysThe Niners make winning look so easy. Behind a career-high four touchdowns from Christian McCaffrey and a nearly perfect day from Brock Purdy — who finished 20-for-21 for 283 yards to set a franchise record for completion percentage in a game — San Francisco won its 14th straight regular-season game. The 4-0 start has come against a relatively easy schedule, so Sunday night’s game against Dallas will be an important measuring stick.2. Buffalo Bills (3-1, No. 6)Last week: Win vs. Dolphins, 48-20Up next: vs. JaguarsFacing the hottest team in the league, the Bills showed they still rule the AFC East. Th...

Chicago Bears WR Chase Claypool didn’t attend the game at Soldier Field, but Matt Eberflus expects him at Halas Hall on Monday

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 23:06:15 GMT

Chicago Bears wide receiver Chase Claypool was not at Soldier Field on Sunday to watch his team blow a 21-point lead in a 31-28 loss to the Denver Broncos.The Bears said they asked Claypool to stay home after deciding he would be a healthy scratch for the first time this season.Bears coach Matt Eberflus originally said the team told Claypool “it was a choice (whether to attend), and he’s at home right now.” But a media relations staffer later clarified the team gave the instruction to stay home.Eberflus, however, said he expects Claypool to be at Halas Hall on Monday as the Bears prepare for the Washington Commanders on Thursday.The Bears benching Claypool came after he answered “no” when asked Friday if the team was using him in the best way to showcase his talents.When asked what coaches can do to better utilize him as the offense looks for a spark, he said, “I’ll let them decide that. I’m not going to give any pointers. That...

War and political instability will likely take center stage at a summit of European leaders in Spain

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 23:06:15 GMT

GRANADA, Spain (AP) — European leaders will gather on Thursday in and around one on of the most renowned havens of tranquility — Spain’s Alhambra Palace — in an attempt to fix their increasingly turbulent continent where war and political instability are starting to unhinge nations and institutions.Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Aleksander Lukashenko of Belarus were not invited, but just about everyone else is expected to fly into southern Granada to assess the many wounds that have blighted Europe over the past months and years. “Crises are everywhere,” said European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on the eve of the gathering. One wound is so recent that President Aliyev of Azerbaijan pulled out of the gathering at the last moment, when expectations rose that a possible summit-within-the summit would unite key players and go-betweens in his country’s crisis with neighboring Armenia. The humanitarian tragedy of some 100,000 Armenians fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh,...

Google packs more artificial intelligence into new Pixel phones, raises prices for devices by $100

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 23:06:15 GMT

Google on Wednesday unveiled a next-generation Pixel smartphones lineup that will be infused with more with more artificial intelligence tools capable of writing captions about photos that can be altered by the technology, too.The injection of more artificial intelligence, or AI, into Google’s products marks another step in the company’s attempt to bring more of the technology into the mainstream – a push they signaled they were embarking upon during their annual developer’s conference five months ago.“Our focus is on making AI more helpful for everyone in a way that is bold and responsible,” Rick Osterloh, Google’s senior vice president of devices and services, said during Wednesday’s event held in New York. As if to leave no doubt about Google’s current priorities, Osterloh described the new Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro phones as a conduit for having “AI in your hand.”The company’s next moves will include allowing its 7-year-old Google Assistant to tap into the company’s recently...

Oops! Nobel chemistry winners are announced early in rare slip-up

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 23:06:15 GMT

STOCKHOLM (AP) — The most prestigious and secretive prize in science ran headfirst into the digital era Wednesday when Swedish media got an emailed press release revealing the winners of the Nobel Prize in chemistry and the news prematurely went public.The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said it was investigating.About four hours before the official announcement was planned Wednesday, several Swedish media received a press release from the academy revealing that U.S.-based scientists Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov had won the 2023 chemistry prize for their work on quantum dots.The Associated Press did not receive the press release in advance and decided not to publish the names until confirmed by the academy, but many Swedish media organizations did. Many were suspicious of the email at first. They published the information, however, since the academy didn’t write it off as false, merely insisting that the final decision on a winner had not yet been taken.“We don’t k...

Police raid on a house in western Mexico uncovers workshop for making drone-carried bombs

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 23:06:15 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A police raid on a house built to look like a castle uncovered a workshop for making drone-carried bombs, authorities in Mexico’s western state of Jalisco said Wednesday.State police distributed photos of 40 small cylindrical bombs with fins meant to be released from drones. Police also found bomb-making materials, including about 45 pounds (20 kilograms) of metal shrapnel and 15 pounds (7 kilograms) of gunpowder.A suspect was spotted running into the house but he apparently escaped out the back, and no arrests were made, officials said.The raid occurred Wednesday in Teocaltiche, a town in an area where the Jalisco and Sinaloa drug cartels have been fighting bloody turf battles. In August, five youths went missing in the nearby city of Lagos de Moreno, and videos surfaced later suggesting their captors may have forced the victims to kill each other.In August, the Mexican army said drug cartels have increased their use of drone-carried bombs, which were unkno...

Amphibians are the world’s most vulnerable animals and threats are increasing

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 23:06:15 GMT

The world’s frogs, salamanders, newts and other amphibians remain in serious trouble.A new global assessment has found that 41% of amphibian species that scientists have studied are threatened with extinction, meaning they are either vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. That’s up from 39% reported in the last assessment, in 2004. “Amphibians are the world’s most threatened animals,” said Duke University’s Junjie Yao, a frog researcher who was not involved in the study. “Their unique biology and permeable skin make them very sensitive to environmental changes.”The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, found that the loss of habitat from the expansion of farming and ranching is the single biggest threat to amphibians worldwide. But a growing percentage of amphibian species are now also pushed to the brink by novel diseases and climate change, the study found.Amphibians are especially vulnerable animals. They have distinct life stages that each...

Top Wisconsin Senate Republican calls on Assembly to impeach state’s top elections official

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 23:06:15 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Republican president of the Wisconsin Senate on Wednesday called on the Assembly to impeach the presidential battleground state’s nonpartisan top elections official, who has remained in office while Democrats fight in court against a Senate vote to fire her.Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe’s actions “could rise to the level of corrupt conduct in office,” Senate President Chris Kapenga said in a letter urging Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to pursue impeachment.The Republican-controlled Senate voted last month to fire Wolfe despite the state’s Democratic attorney general and the Legislature’s nonpartisan attorneys saying they did not have the authority to do so at that time.Vos, who has been criticized by Democrats for establishing a secret panel to investigate the criteria for impeaching a liberal state Supreme Court justice, did not immediately respond to a Wednesday email seeking comment. The GOP-led Assembly ca...

AP, theGrio join forces on race and democracy panel discussion, as 2024 election nears

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 23:06:15 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press and theGrio have come together for a candid conversation about issues facing Black Americans ahead of the 2024 election and amid high levels of polarization, discussing topics ranging from targeted racial violence to barriers to voting.The panel discussion, titled “Race and Democracy: The Facts and The Fury,” is the first of its kind between the nation’s oldest wire service and Allen Media Group’s multimedia platform. It will be carried on APNews.com and theGrio.com, Wednesday at 12 p.m. Eastern. It also will air on theGrio Television Network Series “TheGrio with Marc Lamont Hill” at 7:30 p.m. ET.“At a time when many Black people say they aren’t seeing themselves represented fairly and humanely across the media, it’s critical that they see legacy news outlets like the AP speaking truth and supporting it with facts,” said Aaron Morrison, editor of AP’s race and ethnicity team. “The future of our democracy depends on responsible journalism that d...

South African mining employs many and may only have decades left, report warns

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 23:06:15 GMT

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South Africa’s overall mining profits slipped by more than $5 billion in the last financial year, while the country that was once the world’s largest gold producer might have less than 30 years of a viable gold industry left without renewed investment, according to a new report by big four auditing firm PwC.The report released Tuesday also estimated that South Africa’s iron ore mining industry may only last 13 more years without further commitment from companies to identify, pursue and extract new deposits. The country is among the world’s top 10 producers of the raw material key to the steel-making process.PwC’s annual report on the South African mining industry said global drops in some commodity prices following the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the reduced profits. But so did South Africa’s local challenges of currency fluctuations, high inflation, power blackouts and logistical problems in exporting minerals because of d...