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Chicago Bears Q&A: Do you draft for need or ‘best player available’? How far would GM Ryan Poles trade down?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:18 GMT

We’re a little more than three weeks from the NFL draft, and even after trading the No. 1 pick, the Chicago Bears strategy remains full of intrigue. Brad Biggs attempts to sort it out in his weekly mailbag.Does a situation arise picking for need vs. picking the best player on your draft board? — @gcominos“Best player available” is one of the more twisted and misunderstood terms this time of year. It’s fueled at times by teams declaring after the draft how they were delighted so-and-so fell to them because he just happened to be the highest-graded player on their board.Would the Bears draft a safety with their first pick? I’d be stunned. Now, there’s not a safety worthy of a top-10 pick, but consider my point. Review the roster and the Bears have gaping needs at defensive tackle and on the edge, have yet to do enough to overhaul the offensive line and need another cornerback. They could go in at least three directions and satisfy “need&...

UBS confident about Credit Suisse deal despite ‘huge’ risk

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:18 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — The UBS chairman voiced confidence Wednesday that the Swiss bank will succeed in a government-engineered takeover of hobbled rival Credit Suisse, pledging the deal will reduce costs, benefit shareholders and buttress Swiss finance despite “huge” risks in knitting the global lenders together.Speaking to UBS shareholders, Colm Kelleher gave an overview of the 3 billion Swiss franc ($3.25 billion) takeover that he said would close in the next few months, alluding to the complexity of the first-ever merger of two “global systemically important banks.”Swiss government officials and regulators hastily orchestrated the deal that was announced on March 19 after Credit Suisse’s stock plunged and jittery depositors quickly pulled out their money. Authorities feared that a teetering Credit Suisse could further roil global financial markets following the collapse of two U.S. banks.“Whilst we did not initiate these discussions, we believe that this transaction is financially attrac...

Wall Street futures flat as markets await more economic data

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:18 GMT

TOKYO — Wall Street futures are mostly unchanged leading up to a series of economic reports and employment data that could influence the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies in its lengthening fight against inflation.Futures for the Dow Jones industrials and the S&P 500 fell less than 0.1% before the bell Wednesday.There are divisions on whether the U.S. economy is headed for a recession and how U.S. businesses will fair. The biggest question remains what the Federal Reserve will do next with interest rates after hiking aggressively over the last year to get high inflation under control.While new data on jobs and factory orders could suggest a greater chance of recession, it may also give the Fed reason to hold rates steady at its next meeting, for the first time in more than a year, offering a possible upside for markets.One report showed employers advertised 9.9 million job openings in February, a sharper fall-off than economists expected. The Fed has been paying close at...

Activist who ran for Belarusian presidency pleads guilty

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:18 GMT

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — An opposition politician who ran against authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in the controversial 2020 presidential election pleaded guilty Wednesday at the start of his trial on charges of public order breaches.Andrey Dzmitryeu, 41, was detained Jan. 11 and charged with “organizing and preparing actions grossly violating public order.” The activist, who heads the Tell the Truth movement, faces up to four years in prison.According to the Viasna human rights center, Dzmitryeu admitted participating in opposition rallies three times and blocking the streets in the Belarusian capital, Minsk.At the hearing at Minsk’s Moscow Court, Dzmitryeu was held in an iron cage-like enclosure and looked noticeably tired and thin.Following his arrest, Dzmitryeu was held at the notorious Okrestsina Detention Center, where human rights activists say political prisoners have been tortured.Belarus was shaken by huge anti-government protests after the disputed A...

French PM, unions meeting fails ahead of pension protests

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:18 GMT

PARIS (AP) — French trade union leaders walked out of talks with Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on Wednesday after failing to find a compromise on the contentious plan to raise the country’s legal retirement age from 62 to 64 years.The heads of France’s major unions, who want the withdrawal of the pension plan, met with Borne on Wednesday, a day before the planned 11th round of nationwide strikes and protests since January.A giant banner emblazoned with the words: “64, it’s no” was displayed by unionists on the top of the Arc de Triomphe monument soon after the meeting broke up. They removed it after police arrived at the landmark. “We have chosen to end that useless meeting,” the head of the hard-left CGT union, Sophie Binet, told reporters. “We have found in front of us a radicalized, stubborn, disconnected government. It’s a slap in the face of the millions of French who take to the streets.”The secretary general of the more moderate CFDT union, Laurent Be...

Severe storms threaten Midwest, South after deadly weekend

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:18 GMT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Severe thunderstorms packing the threat of large hail and tornadoes were forecast Wednesday across parts of the Midwest and South after more damaging storms hit the region still reeling from deadly weekend weather.The Storm Prediction Center said up to 40 million people from Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit to Memphis, Tennessee, were at risk for storms later Wednesday, with the greatest threat from lower Michigan, across the middle to lower Ohio River valley and into the mid-South.Storms were moving Wednesday morning across the Ozarks in northern Arkansas and southern Missouri, prompting tornado warnings. Suspected tornado damage with a widespread debris field and some injuries were reported Missouri’s Bolinger County in the state’s southeast near the communities of Grassy and Marble Hill, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said.Sgt. Clark Parrott of the Missouri State Highway Patrol told KFVS-TV it was not immediately clear how many were injured.Messages seeki...

Thai police say Chinese church members to be deported soon

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:18 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — More than 60 self-exiled members of a Chinese Christian church who were detained in Thailand after receiving U.N. refugee status will be deported by next week, probably to a third country, officials said Wednesday. Deputy national police chief Surachate Hakparn said representatives of Thailand’s Foreign Ministry and Immigration Bureau were holding talks with the U.N. Refugee Agency and the U.S. Embassy to discuss the fate of the 63 members of the Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church who were taken to court in the coastal city of Pattaya last Friday.“Within the next week, they will definitely be deported. What we don’t know is which country they will be deported to,” Surachate told The Associated Press.The members of the church, also known as the Mayflower Church, were granted refugee status by the U.N. agency after their arrival in Thailand last year. They say they faced unbearable harassment in China and are seeking asylum in the United States.Prior to their arrival in Thai...

Bulgaria: Borissov proposes coalition after contested vote

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:18 GMT

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, whose center-right GERB party clinched a narrow win in Bulgaria’s parliamentary election, invited his political opponents Wednesday to talks on forming a government.Results from Sunday’s election, Bulgaria’s fifth in two years, showed GERB with 26.5% of the vote, edging out the reformist We Continue the Change party by less than 2 percentage points. Four other parties passed the minimum support threshold needed to make it into the 240-seat National Assembly.Borissov led three governments in the last decade, but allegations of corrupt practices, links to oligarchs and suppression of media freedom, which sparked protests, gradually eroded his reputation. Speaking to reporters at his party’s headquarters, he said GERB would initiate talks with all groups in parliament to seek common ground for a viable governing coalition.Borissov was firm that lawmakers must approve a new government, arguing that holding yet another el...

B.C. decriminalized drugs. How’s it been going?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:18 GMT

In today’s Big Story podcast, at the end of January, British Columbia began a pilot program that decriminalized small amounts of drugs, including cocaine and opioids. It’s the first province-wide program of its kind in Canada and it comes amidst a spiralling overdose crisis. Already, opinions on the program are polarizing and some municipalities in BC are trying to find ways around it.To discuss the rollout of decriminalization, The Big Story is joined by Dr. Lindsey Richardson, and Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of British Columbia and Canada Research Chair in Social Inclusion and Health Equity.“Conversations that I’ve had with people in the community are really mixed,” she said, “they recognize that its a really important change that people have been fighting for for a long time … but that its only one piece in a broader puzzle.”So what do we know about how the program has been working so far? And what does ‘working’ re...

Report: Ex-Scottish leader’s husband arrested in party probe

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:18 GMT

LONDON (AP) — The husband of former Scottish first minister and Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon has been arrested in a party finance probe, British media reported Wednesday.Police in Scotland did not identify Peter Murrell as the 58-year old man arrested Wednesday “in connection with the ongoing investigation into the funding and finances of the Scottish National Party.” However, Britain’s Press Association, the BBC and others reported it was Murrell.“Clearly it would not be appropriate to comment on any live police investigation but the SNP have been cooperating fully with this investigation and will continue to do so,” the party said in a statement released after the arrest.Murrell, 58, resigned as the party’s chief executive March 18 amid a controversy about the party’s declining membership and the contest to replace Sturgeon. Sturgeon, 52, abruptly announced her resignation in February after eight years as party leader and first minister of Scotland’s ...