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NFL picks: Dallas’ roaring start, the AFC West’s offensive defenses and a big game in Detroit

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:21:22 GMT

Around the NFCDallas rolling. The ultimate measure will be postseason success, but it’s hard to imagine a much better start for Dallas. Its defense under Dan Quinn looks like the NFL’s best with Micah Parsons leading the way. The team’s scored 70 points already in two games and enters Sunday at Arizona as a 12.5-point favorite. In a league built on parity, Dallas’ point differential (plus-60) through two games was twice the next-closest (San Francisco). That’s a pretty good way to open the season, though they suffered a big blow this week when star corner Trevon Diggs tore his ACL in practice.Rare 2-0 battle. Speaking of parity, there are eight 2-0 teams in the league and, just as everybody predicted, three of them are in the NFC South. Tampa’s one of them, and the Bucs play in the lone matchup of unbeaten teams on the Week 3 docket Monday night when they host Philadelphia. Baker Mayfield’s very much enjoyed throwing to Mike Evans (12 catches, 237, two touchdowns) so far, but this w...

Grading The Week: Sorry, Val Nichushkin. Nathan MacKinnon might forgive you. But we’ve still got trust issues.

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:21:22 GMT

You’re right: Val Nichushkin doesn’t owe the scribes anything. It’s his life. It’s his $49 million. It’s his name on the Stanley Cup.Look, we’ll be honest. The kids on the Grading The Week staff have got some trust issues with you, Chu Chu Train. And do you blame us? Seattle left a scar.Family reasons? Fair enough. But even if nothing untoward happened in that hotel, everything during and after the big Avs forward’s sudden departure from the team last spring during a hotly-contested first-round playoff series with the Kraken was so nuclear, and so hush-hush, that it led the public, and reporters, to presume — and to assume — the worst.Regardless of the how and why, the “what” was clear as day: One of the best players to wear Burgundy and Blue was mysteriously unavailable for the defending Stanley Cup champs in a dog-eat-dog playoff fight.Which explains why, when we polled the GTW crew this week, even though most said they were wi...

Nuggets Journal: Ogi Stojakovic lives out “childhood dream” as assistant coach on Serbia national team’s silver medal run at FIBA World Cup

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:21:22 GMT

About 10 minutes before the Nuggets took the floor, assistant coach Ognjen “Ogi” Stojakovic answered an unexpected call. He was preparing for one of the most important competitions of his career — the series opener of the Western Conference Finals — but suddenly, another major tournament was on his mind, one every bit as meaningful to him personally.Svetislav Pesic, head coach of Serbia’s national basketball program, was inviting him to join the coaching staff for the upcoming FIBA World Cup.“It was a childhood dream to be part of the national team with Serbia,” Stojakovic told The Post. “Basketball is a religion. When I started to coach, I was thinking about that (goal).”But the Lakers were waiting. Stojakovic accepted Pesic’s offer then managed to pocket his big news, not wanting to distract any of his Denver colleagues from the task at hand. He joined the players and helped with their pregame warm-ups. The Nuggets were soon on their way to a series sweep.After eventually receivin...

Mathews: California needs to censure the whole idea of censure

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:21:22 GMT

Let’s censure the whole idea of censure.Because it’s consuming the precious time and money of California’s local governments.Censure is the name often given to resolutions, which have little punitive force, that city council or school board members issue against colleagues they don’t like. Why this censure surge? It’s a national fad — censure resolutions are popular in Washington and other state capitals after the censure earlier this year of Burbank Rep. Adam Schiff for the unforgivable crime of impeaching an insurrectionist president.But my own travel around the state suggests more fundamental reasons for the trend.First, after the isolation of the pandemic, our elected officials, like the rest of us, are struggling to relate to one another in person. Second, our monstrously myopic society has a quasi-religious obsession with policing expression and tone — even as it tolerates ceaseless violence.Finally, the censure surge reflects our growing ignorance of democracy. To a stunning ...

Brooks: Epic quests and a theory of Elon Musk’s maniacal drive

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:21:22 GMT

In his biography of Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow writes that Hamilton “always had to fight the residual sadness of the driven man.” That sentence has stayed with me because I’ve also noticed that there can be something sad about extremely ambitious people — like they’re striving furiously to fill a hole that was carved into them by traumatic experiences during childhood, and they have never quite succeeded.Some historians and psychologists have marveled at how many of the most significant figures in history lost a parent at an early age, either to death or abandonment — from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. These are what one psychologist termed “eminent orphans.”It’s easy to put Elon Musk into that category. He had a miserable childhood in South Africa marked by verbal and physical abuse from a father who repeatedly told him he was worthless, according to Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Musk. He had no friends and lived in a world in wh...

Dear Abby: My husband ruins every vacation. Can I leave him home?

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:21:22 GMT

DEAR ABBY: I love to travel, yet I loathe traveling with my husband.Related ArticlesAdvice | Dear Abby: Why do they think I should give up my barstool for them? Advice | Dear Abby: I shouldn’t have to compete with my son’s clingy girlfriends Advice | Dear Abby: Everyone heard him call his co-worker baby, and I was humiliated Advice | Dear Abby: He never wants to see me again, but we may be thrown together Advice | Dear Abby: How can I break my wife of her rude obsession? He gets anxious and extremely mean on the days leading up to the trip and especially while en route. I do all the planning and pay for everything, and I regard his behavior as not only ungrateful and rude, but unnecessary.Is it wrong for me to not want him to come on the next big trip I plan?Also, while we travel, all he wants to do is sleep, eat and drink. I’m all about taking in the local culture and making sure to no...

Tropical Storm Ophelia rolls through DC region over the weekend

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:21:22 GMT

Beach-goers brave the weather and walk along the sand at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023, as Tropical Storm Ophelia approaches in Virginia Beach, Va. The storm was gaining strength as it churned toward the North Carolina coast on Friday, promising a weekend of heavy rain and windy conditions throughout the mid-Atlantic. (Kendall Warner/The Virginian-Pilot via AP)(AP/Kendall Warner) Beach-goers brave the weather and walk along the sand at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023, as Tropical Storm Ophelia approaches in Virginia Beach, Va. The storm was gaining strength as it churned toward the North Carolina coast on Friday, promising a weekend of heavy rain and windy conditions throughout the mid-Atlantic. (Kendall Warner/The...

La tormenta tropical Ophelia toca tierra en Carolina del Norte

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:21:22 GMT

(CNN) — La tormenta tropical Ophelia tocó tierra este sábado por la mañana en Carolina del Norte, cerca de Emerald Isle, según una actualización del Centro Nacional de Huracanes (NHC, por sus siglas en inglés).La tormenta tocó tierra alrededor de las 6:15 a.m. hora de Miami, con vientos máximos sostenidos de 112 km/hOphelia ya estaba llevando fuertes vientos, lluvias e inundaciones en las costas de Carolina del Norte y Virginia más temprano, donde las comunidades están sufriendo cortes de electricidad.Se espera que la tormenta genere fuertes lluvias en una amplia franja del Atlántico medio, incluyendo Maryland, Delaware, Nueva Jersey y Nueva York, a partir del sábado por la mañana y durante todo el fin de semana.Alrededor de 52.000 hogares y empresas de Carolina del Norte y Virginia se habían quedado sin electricidad a primera hora del sábado, según el sitio de seguimiento PowerOutage.us.Algunos lugares en el este de Carolina del Norte y el sureste de Virginia podría ver entre...

12.000 atletas y un megaestadio con forma de loto: los Juegos Asiáticos llegan a China

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:21:22 GMT

(CNN) — El líder chino Xi Jinping declarará el sábado inaugurados los Juegos Asiáticos en un megaestadio con forma de loto situado en Hangzhou.El estadio, apodado “el Gran Loto” por la forma de su techo, consta de 28 estructuras grandes y 27 más pequeñas en forma de pétalo. El estadio tiene capacidad para 80.000 personas, según su operador.Participarán más de 12.000 atletas de los 45 miembros del Consejo Olímpico Asiático, lo que los convierte en los mayores Juegos Asiáticos de la historia, según informó el sábado la agencia estatal china de noticias Xinhua.A la ceremonia inaugural han llegado dignatarios de todo el mundo, como el rey de Camboya, Norodom Sihamoni, el presidente de Siria, Bashar al-Assad, el dirigente de Hong Kong, John Lee Ka-chiu, y el primer ministro de Corea del Sur, Han Duck-soo.A la ceremonia asistirán unas 50.000 personas, mientras que más de 1.200 voluntarios estarán en el lugar para ayudar, informó Xinhua.El campeón mundial de natación Qin ...

Ludvig Åberg dealing with lofty expectations as Europe’s widely admired Ryder Cup rookie

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:21:22 GMT

Tomas Setterhill realized pretty quickly there was something different about Ludvig Åberg.As a coach and head pro at Eslöv Golf Club in southern Sweden, Setterhill had seen plenty of talented young golfers come and go but one thing struck him as he took Åberg under his wing from the age of 9.“He didn’t get down on himself,” Setterhill recalled. “You see many juniors who, when they make a bogey or double bogey, they get angry. But Ludvig just kept playing.”That composure remained with Åberg through high school in Sweden, through college in the United States as he rose to the No. 1 amateur ranking and it’s still there now, while he’s winning titles in his first few months as a pro and as the world’s most talked-about young golfer.Now comes the real test of that temperament: Amid the tension and raucous atmosphere of a Ryder Cup, a stage he has reached quicker than any player in history.Look through the years and golf’s biggest team event can bring the fire out of even the ...