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Mike Preston: With Ravens in first place, rest of AFC North is quickly heading south | COMMENTARY

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:58:17 GMT

A month into the season, the AFC North isn’t looking so tough anymore.On Sept. 9, a genius sports columnist from The Baltimore Sun wrote that it was the toughest division in the NFL. He apologizes. OK, it was me. At this point of the season, I stand corrected.If the season continues to unfold the way it has during the first four weeks, the Ravens are going to run away with the division title. They easily beat up on the Browns in Cleveland on Sunday, 28-3, and are in first place with a 3-1 record.Both the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Browns are 2-2, and the Cincinnati Bengals, who have played in the past two AFC championship games, are 1-3 and heading south.If the Ravens were just managing to get by, it would be one thing, but they’ve played the past few games without five, six or sometimes seven starters. They had a hiccup last week in a 22-19 overtime loss to the Indianapolis Colts in Baltimore, but they are still winning without receivers Odell Beckham Jr. and Rashod ...

The Ravens’ new offense hasn’t been as explosive as expected. It hasn’t slowed Lamar Jackson.

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:58:17 GMT

Lamar Jackson is doing things that he has never done.His 74.3% completion rate is eight percentage points higher than his career-best mark in a season. His 16 yards per attempt are nearly 3 1/2 yards more than the highest rate of any year of his career as the full-time starter. He’s leading a Ravens offense that is tops in the NFL in red zone efficiency at 80% with 12 touchdowns scored in 15 trips.“He’s able to do so many other things that other quarterbacks can’t do,” tight end Mark Andrews said. “That’s a beautiful thing. Lamar Jackson’s second to none.”Technically, he is — only Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen has a higher completion percentage at 74.8.But for all of Jackson’s passing fancy, the additions of wide receivers Odell Beckham Jr., Zay Flowers, Nelson Agholor, a new offensive coordinator in Todd Monken and $170 million spent on the offense — most in the NFL — the Ravens haven&...

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

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:58:17 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 Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:58:17 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 Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:58:17 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 Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:58:17 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 Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:58:17 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 Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:58:17 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 Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:58:17 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 Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:58:17 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...