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Patriots training camp 2023 preview: Bold predictions, breakout players and cut candidates

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:10 GMT

Welcome back, football.The Patriots open training camp Wednesday with the first of three consecutive practices starting at 9:30 a.m.The team faces its lowest expectations locally in perhaps decades, projected to finish fourth in a loaded AFC East. During camp, the Pats will determine whether Mac Jones is primed for a bounce-back season, which rookies could make an early impact and much more. As Patriots players and coaches work through all of that, here’s what to know and how to follow the most important developments from training camp.Top position battleOffensive tackleAfter the 2023 NFL Draft concluded without the Patriots taking an offensive tackle, there didn’t seem to be much of a competition to be had at the position this offseason. Left tackle Trent Brown remained on the roster, and prospective right tackle Riley Reiff signed a starting-caliber salary in free agency.The spring provided more questions than answers, however, and clouded the situation. Brown was on t...

Patriots training camp countdown No. 1: What will Bill O’Brien’s offense look like?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:10 GMT

Welcome to 7 Patriots training camp questions!Each day leading up to the start of camp, the Herald has explored one of the biggest questions facing the Pats this summer. Several pertained to the offense, which welcomed back Bill O’Brien this offseason and added JuJu Smith-Schuster and Mike Gesicki. Others covered the defense and special teams, units that might rely heavily on rookies and must overcome the loss of longtime captain Devin McCourty.Once the Patriots hit the practice field, here’s the No. 1 question they must answer before opening their season on Sept. 10 against the Eagles.No. 7: Can Mac Jones return to form?No. 6: How will the Patriots replace Devin McCourty?No. 5: Who will make a Year 2 leap?No. 4: Will the special teams be fixed?No. 3: Does the offense have enough at offensive tackle?No. 2: Can Christian Gonzalez start right away?No. 1: What will Bill O’Brien’s offense look like?Related ArticlesNew England Patriots | Patriots traini...

Patriots 53-man roster projection: Pats keep just five receivers

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:10 GMT

The NFL is switching things up on cutdown day this year.In years past, the NFL staggered cuts by requiring teams to trim their roster from 90 players to 85, then 80, then all the way down to 53. This season, there’s just one cutdown date on Aug. 29, when teams must trim their rosters from 90 players to 53.Related ArticlesNew England Patriots | Patriots training camp countdown No. 1: What will Bill O’Brien’s offense look like? New England Patriots | Patriots sign WR Jalen Hurd, ex-Navy LB Diego Fagot to fill out roster New England Patriots | Patriots 2023 training camp: The top 5 position battles in Foxboro New England Patriots | Patriots training camp countdown No. 2: Can Christian Gonzalez start? New England Patriots | Patriots training camp countdown No. 3: Can the offense succeed with these offensive tackles? We’re getting out ahead of things by projecting what the PatriotsR...

Sleek and shiny torch for Paris Olympics unveiled with carbon footprint in mind and a year to go

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:10 GMT

PARIS (AP) — The torch that will be used to carry the Olympic flame around France and on its final leg at the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Games next July is a sleek silver-colored cylinder of recycled steel that is gracefully tapered at both ends and is being made in limited numbers to save resources.Paris organizers unveiled French designer Mathieu Lehanneur’s torch design Tuesday — part of a week of activities that mark the year-to-go countdown to the July 26 opening.Organizers said 2,000 torches — five times fewer than for some previous editions of the Olympics — are being produced from recycled steel.Each one weighs 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds) and is 70 centimeters (27.5 inches) tall.Paris is using the same torch design for both the Olympics and Paralympic Games.Once lit in Ancient Olympia, Greece, the flame will be transported by boat to the southern French city of Marseille.The torch relay will start from there on May 8, with 10,000 torchbearers taking turns to car...

UN: Operation to siphon oil out of rusting tanker moored off Yemen begins to ‘avoid Catastrophe’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:10 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — An international team began siphoning oil out of a decrepit oil tanker off the coast of Yemen on Tuesday, the United Nations chief said, a crucial step in a complex salvage operation aiming to prevent a potential environmental disaster.For years, many organizations have warned that the neglected vessel, known as SOF Safer, may cause a major oil spill or even explode.“The ship-to-ship transfer of oil which has started today is the critical next step in avoiding an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe on a colossal scale,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement.More than 1.1 million barrels of oil stored in the rusting tanker were being moved to another vessel the U.N. purchased, he said.The oil transfer operation came after months of on-site preparatory work and was scheduled to be completed in less than three weeks, the U.N. said.The Safter tanker was built in the 1970s and sold to the Yemeni government in the 1980s to store up to 3 million barrels...

US pilot accused of illegally training Chinese aviators postpones Sydney extradition hearing

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:10 GMT

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A former United States military pilot’s Sydney extradition hearing on U.S. charges, including that he illegally trained Chinese aviators, was postponed Tuesday while authorities investigate the role of an Australian spy agency in his arrest.Boston-born Dan Duggan, 54, was arrested by Australian police in October near his home, in Orange, New South Wales, and has been fighting extradition to the United States. The former U.S. Marine Corps major and flying instructor maintains he has done nothing wrong and is an innocent victim of a worsening power struggle between Washington and Beijing.“This is a signal, signal sending. It has nothing to do with me personally,” Duggan told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in a telephone call from maximum-security prison.“It’s more to do with the signal that they want to send in a geopolitical sense,” he added in an interview broadcast on Monday.His lawyers successfully applied Tuesday in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Cour...

Asia-Pacific needs disaster warning systems to counter rising climate change risks, report says

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:10 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — Countries in the Asia-Pacific region need to drastically increase their investments in disaster warning systems and other tools to counter rising risks from climate change, a United Nations report said Tuesday. The report issued Tuesday by the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, or ESCAP, says nearly $145 billion is needed to set up systems to minimize deaths and damage from floods, earthquakes, drought and other disasters. Artificial intelligence, satellites, remote sensing and other technologies can aid in forecasting, notifying the public in times of emergency and providing other services, but telecommunications systems must be fortified to ensure that vulnerable communities will get that information, said the report, which was released to mark the U.N.’s Disaster Resilience Week. Most countries have failed to spend even 10% of what is needed, the report said. Half of all countries lack early warning systems and even fewer have systems that are...

Ties with far-right hinder Spain’s Popular Party forming a government despite election win

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:10 GMT

MADRID (AP) — Chances to form a government have dwindled for Spain’s conservative Popular Party after its election win after two small regional parties refused to lend their support due to the potential presence of the far-right Vox party in the cabinet.Alberto Nuñez Feijóo’s right-of-center Popular Party, or PP, won the most votes in Sunday´s ballot and finished with 133 seats, far short of the 176 majority figure in the 350-seat Spanish parliament.Feijóo tried garnering support from other parties but the numbers do not add up. As of Tuesday, he only has the support of ultra-nationalist Vox, with 33 seats and the tiny conservative UPN party, which has only one seat.On Monday, two small conservative parties — the Basque region’s PNV with five seats and the Canary Coalition with one — dealt Feijóo a blow by saying they would not support any government with Vox party members in it. Meanwhile, focus has shifted toward the radical Catalan secessionist party, Junts (Tog...

Climate change fingerprints found on heat waves around the world: Study

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:10 GMT

The fingerprints of climate change are all over the intense heat waves gripping the globe this month, a new study finds. Researchers say the deadly hot spells in the American Southwest and Southern Europe could not have happened without the continuing buildup of warming gases in the air.These unusually strong heat waves are becoming more common, Tuesday's study said. The same research found the increase in heat-trapping gases, largely from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas has made another heat wave — the one in China — 50 times more likely with the potential to occur every five years or so.A stagnant atmosphere, warmed by carbon dioxide and other gases, also made the European heat wave 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 degrees Celsius) hotter, the one in the United States and Mexico 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer and the one in China one 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) toastier, the study found.Several climate scienti...

Gov. Greg Abbott signs $18 billion tax cut package for Texas property owners

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:10 GMT

AUSTIN (Texas Tribune) – Gov. Greg Abbott has signed an $18 billion tax cut for Texas property owners, sending the proposals to voters for their approval later this year.The package puts $12.6 billion of the state’s historic budget surplus toward making cuts to school taxes for all property owners, dropping property taxes an average of more than 40% for some 5.7 million Texas homeowners and offering brand-new tax savings for smaller businesses and other commercial and nonhomesteaded properties. $18 billion deal reached: Texans to get biggest property tax cut in state’s history On Saturday, Abbott added his signature to Senate Bill 2, the property tax cuts bill, and Senate Bill 3, a franchise tax relief bill, which were passed by Texas lawmakers two weeks ago after months of negotiations between the state’s top Republicans.A third measure, House Joint Resolution 2, will go before voters in a constitutional election in November. Voters wo...