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The Patriots’ glue guy linebacker keeping Bill Belichick’s defense together

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:02 GMT

FOXBORO — If Jahlani Tavai played basketball, describing his impact and role on the Patriots would be easy.He’d be a glue guy.An overlooked connector who maintains defensive communication, plays different positions and revels in the dirty work, Tavai ranks fourth on the team in tackles (48) and special teams snaps played. Defensively, the Patriots allow fewer yards per run with Tavai on the field than when he’s off, and he allows a passer rating of 50.3 when targeted in coverage.Tavai can play most spots in the front seven. Once the Pats lost rookie defensive end Keion White to a concussion in Las Vegas, he flexed out and played a season-high 35 snaps on the edge. His sturdy run defense helped limit Pro Bowl running back Josh Jacobs to 2.9 yards per carry after White’s exit.Last week in Miami, Ja’Whaun Bentley suffered a hamstring injury, and Tavai logged more snaps at inside linebacker than ever before. He also tallied three pressures and two pass breakups i...

Friday’s high school roundup/scores: Henry Hasselbeck, Xaverian pass by St. John’s (Shrewsbury)

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:02 GMT

Henry Hasselbeck ran for two scores and threw a pair of TD passes, while Jonathan Monteiro caught a pair of touchdown passes as No. 2 Xaverian (7-2) rolled to a 49-7 win over St. John’s (Shrewsbury) in a Div. 1 first-round football contest.In the first round of the Div. 5 playoffs, Zack Timmons and Caleb Caceres each rushed for two touchdowns, lifting No. 3 Shawsheen (8-0) to a 49-8 win over No. 14 Belchertown (7-2).Tyler Lennox put on a show with six touchdown passes, four of them to Robbie Peterson, as Carver coasted to a 55-0 victory over Franklin Tech in a Div. 8 first round matchup.In ISL action, Bo MacCormack ran for 191 yards and three touchdowns on 28 carries as BB&N (5-2) beat St. Sebastian’s, 38-7. … Johny Grinion ran for 202 yards and four touchdowns as Noble and Greenough (3-4) doubled up on Brooks, 28-14. … Max Stevelman threw four touchdown passes, with Amir Lindsey and Jeremy Kiefer hauling in two scores each as Rivers (5-2) rolled to a 38-8 win over St. Mark’s.Ch...

Ukraine minister says he wants to turn his country into a weapons production hub for the West

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:02 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s newly appointed head of defense industry says he is working tirelessly to ramp up local arms production and wants to turn the country into a weapons production hub for the West.Oleksandr Kamysyhin, the minister for strategic industries of Ukraine, said that Russia’s invasion of his country and the Israel-Hamas war raging in the Middle East have highlighted the need for countries to spend on their defense systems.“We’re really focusing on making Ukraine the arsenal of the free world,” Kamyshin told The Associated Press in an interview late Friday.Kamyshyn said approximately 500 companies in Ukraine’s defense industry are contributing to the country’s efforts to increase weapons production in order to counter Russia’s attempts to seize more territory. Among those are 70 state-owned factories, over 200 primarily private factories producing unmanned systems, and more than 200 private sector companies involved in the production of various types of weaponry ...

Supporters celebrate opening of Gay Games in Hong Kong, first in Asia, despite lawmakers’ opposition

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:02 GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — Scores of athletes celebrated the opening of the Gay Games in Hong Kong on Saturday despite opposition from anti-LGBTQ lawmakers, marking the first time the international sporting event to be held in Asia. Nearly 2,400 participants from about 45 territories, including Britain, the United States, and Australia, will compete in a variety of games, from tennis and swimming to culturally rich activities like dragon boat racing and mahjong in the nine-day event. Following the procession of athletes, a series of performances followed, highlighting Hong Kong’s Chinese culture, but also incorporating modern dance, musical theater and lion dancers. LGBTQ+ activism is a rare spot that is still making considerable progress in Hong Kong under a government crackdown on its civil society following the 2019 pro-democracy protests. The games foster hopes for a wider inclusion of sexual minorities in the Asian financial hub after court wins last month over housing and inherita...

Former Guinea dictator Camara, 2 others escape from prison in a jailbreak, justice minister says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:02 GMT

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — Gunmen stormed the main prison in Guinea’s capital early Saturday and freed former dictator Moussa “Dadis” Camara, the country’s justice minister said, announcing the closure of the West African nation’s borders.The announcement by Justice Minister Charles Alphonse Wright came several hours after heavy gunfire erupted in the Kaloum district of the capital, Conakry. Among the others who escaped were Claude Pivi and Blaise Goumou, Wright said. “We will find them. And those responsible will be held accountable,” Wright told local Radio Fim FM.Camara, who came to power in a 2008 coup d’etat, had been detained in connection with a stadium massacre during his brief time in power. He had lived for years in exile after surviving an assassination attempt by one of his bodyguards before returning home in late 2021.Camara is one of more than a dozen suspects who were charged in connection with the 2009 massacre, when Guinean security forces fired upon p...

At least 9 wounded in Russian attacks across Ukraine. European Commission head visits Kyiv

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:02 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian attacks in Ukraine wounded at least 14 civilians over the past day, officials said Saturday, as the president of the European Commission returned to the Ukrainian capital to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The governor of the Zaporizhzhia region, Yurii Malashko, said nine people were injured in a Russian rocket strike on the village of Zarichne. Overall, 26 cities and settlements in the region came under attack over the past day, he said.In the Kherson region, five people were injured, said Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin. He said attacks in the region came from artillery, mortars, drones, warplanes and tanks. Nikopol, a city of the opposite bank of the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest, came under fire but no injuries were immediately reported, according to Dnipropetrovsk regional Gov. Serhii Lysak.European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen arrived in Kyiv on Saturday morning and was met by Zelenskyy at ...

Spy service director expressed ‘full confidence’ in employees after ‘troubling’ leak

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:02 GMT

OTTAWA — The head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service told employees he stood by the spy agency’s handling of sensitive information following a “troubling” leak of classified material, a newly released memo shows. In a Feb. 24 message to staff, CSIS director David Vigneault expressed continuing faith in employees’ dedication and adherence to the law after a newspaper story cited secret spy service documents on foreign interference.“The source of this leak is troubling for the Canadian government and, of course, for us here at CSIS,” Vigneault said in the memo, obtained by The Canadian Press through the Access to Information Act. “In order for us to gather and share classified information as necessitated by our mandate and by the CSIS Act, we must have full confidence in the measures taken to adhere to the legal obligations surrounding its security, to ensure the full protection of our techniques, sources and employees.”The me...

Hamas leader’s home is hit in airstrike as Israel presses its attacks and U.S. envoy seeks aid route

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:02 GMT

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel’s military hit the family home of the exiled leader of Hamas on the outskirts of Gaza City with an airstrike Saturday and pressed ahead with attacks across in the besieged enclave where a humanitarian crisis is rapidly worsening.With food, water and the fuel needed for generators that power hospitals and other facilities running out, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged an immediate cease-fire to allow aid in.“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is horrific,” Guterres said late Friday in an unusually blunt statement. “An entire population is traumatized, nowhere is safe.”U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been in the region since Friday trying to find ways to ease the plight of the civilians caught in the fighting and was meeting with Arab foreign ministers on Saturday. His mission is complicated by Israel’s insistence there can be no temporary cease-fire until all hostages held by Hamas are released. Guterres said he had not for...

Australian premier will protest blogger’s detention conditions while meeting the Chinese president

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:02 GMT

SHANGHAI (AP) — Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Saturday he would protest a lack of transparency in China’s treatment of a detained Australian democracy blogger when meeting with President Xi Jinping in Beijing during a trade-focused state visit.The detention of Yang Hengjun without conviction for almost five years will be one of the topics raised with Xi when they meet in the Great Hall of the People on Monday.Yang is being held in a Beijing detention center awaiting the verdict of a 2021 closed-door trial on espionage charges. The 58-year-old’s family fears he is dying.“I’ll be saying that Dr. Yang’s case needs to be resolved and I’ll be speaking about his human rights, the nature of the detention and the failure to have transparent processes,” Albanese told reporters in the northern Australian city of Darwin hours before he was to fly to Shanghai.The Chinese Foreign Ministry this week defended Yang’s prosecution, saying his case had been handled in strict accordance with the...

St. Paul’s Pilgrim Baptist Church recognized for role in anti-slavery Underground Railroad

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:02 GMT

Born and raised in St. Paul, Elyse Pearson-Hill was always fascinated by the history of the sizable church just down the street. It was said that Pilgrim Baptist Church was founded by escaped slaves, whom the Rev. Robert Hickman dubbed his “pilgrims” as he led them by cover of night out of the plantations and farm fields of Missouri and up the Mississippi River to St. Paul.Pilgrim Baptist Church’s Cedar St. location. (Courtesy of Pilgrim Baptist Church)Little did she realize during her teen years at St. Paul Central High School in the 1970s that she would someday play a role in elevating that church to a historic status.With her help, Pilgrim Baptist Church has been newly listed as the first Minnesota location on the National Park Service’s “National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom,” a directory of more than 700 notable sites where slaves seeking their freedom hid or found refuge.The National Park Service listed the church, which was chart...