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SF Giants calling up infield prospect Casey Schmitt, Darin Ruf designated for assignment

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:00 GMT

The Giants are getting younger.Tuesday morning, the club announced it was promoting infielder Casey Schmitt, their second-round pick in 2020 who is considered by Baseball America to be the team’s third-best prospect.Schmitt comes to the Giants hitting .313 with 10 doubles and one home run in 32 games with Triple-A Sacramento. He wasn’t originally known as a power hitter, but some mechanical adjustments led to a big season last year, when he hit 21 home runs in 526 plate appearances across three levels.While Schmitt is primarily a third baseman who projects as a future Gold Glover, he’s also spent about 30% of his minor league innings at shortstop, where he is likely to find playing time as Brandon Crawford works his way back from a calf strain. Schmitt also has three games of experience at second base.Thairo Estrada has played every game at shortstop since Crawford’s injury, but with Schmitt on the squad, Estrada could move back to second base. J.D. Davis (.875 OPS) has been the hot...

The buzziest California wine region isn’t Napa or Sonoma

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:00 GMT

By Elin McCoy | BloombergIf you’re on an all-out quest to make great cabernet, you might aim for Napa or Bordeaux.Not Daniel Daou. After a decade-long global search for the right plot of land to start growing the grape, he found the ideal combo of soil and climate for his dream in Paso Robles, a land of oak-studded hills and winding back roads, a three-hour drive south of San Francisco. “Paso,” he says, “has a climate between Pauillac in Bordeaux and Oakville in Napa. It was my destiny.”Once sleepy and overlooked, the region has new energy and a definite wow factor. It’s California’s shiny new wine hot spot, and not just for cabernet. It’s where to go for top Rhone style wines, and tourism is booming.Brothers George and Daniel Daou helped push Paso into the current spotlight with their wines and compelling story. After fleeing the bombs of the 1973 civil war in Lebanon with their family (one rocket hit their house and almost killed them), they ended up in France, where they grew up....

Black history, minstrel themes collide in 2 S.F. productions

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:00 GMT

Titles don’t get much more provocative than that of Marc Anthony Thompson’s new show at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre, “The Ni¿¿er Lovers.”“I wanted to record all the people that called to get tickets at the theater to hear how they solved their dilemma to say the N-word,” says writer-composer-director Thompson. “But the emphasis is really on ‘Lovers.’ This play is really a celebration of a really great journey, and a really great love story.”It’s loosely inspired by the true story of Ellen and William Craft, an enslaved couple who escaped from Georgia to Boston in 1848. Light-skinned Ellen disguised herself as a white man for the journey, while her darker-skinned husband posed as her enslaved valet. (A book about them, Ilyon Woo’s “Master Slave Husband Wife,” came out a few months ago.)“I’ve been reticent to actually draw that connection myself, because we’ve taken just the kernel of that story, and we use it as a jumping-off point to talk about gender, race then, race ...

Regulators saw problems, but didn't make Silicon Valley Bank fix them fast enough: report

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:00 GMT

When state and federal regulators spotted problems at Silicon Valley Bank, they didn't do enough to make sure the bank acted quickly to fix them. That's one of the key takeaways from a report published Monday by the California state department that shared responsibility for overseeing the bank, which failed in March. The report came from California's Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, which, among other responsibilities, works with federal regulators to oversee state banks. Some of that oversight happens in the form of bank "exams," where government workers go in and investigate a bank's solvency, management and more. Actor Scott Baio says he’s leaving California after 45 years In the case of Silicon Valley Bank, California was sharing oversight with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. The Fed had "assumed a lead role for many supervisory activities," the report said. In years leading up to the bank's collapse, California and federal regulators ...

Israeli security agency defends use of threatening messages

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:00 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency is defending its use of a sophisticated surveillance tool that was used to send threatening text messages to Palestinian protesters during unrest at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site two years ago.A leading civil rights group has asked Israel’s Supreme Court to halt the practice, saying the threatening messages exceeded the authorities of the Shin Bet. It has also noted that the messages were sent erroneously to people uninvolved in the unrest.In a May 4 submission, the Shin Bet asked the court to dismiss the case. It said the tracking technology was a legitimate tool within the scope of its authority.It described the misfired messages as an isolated error, said it had identified “several specific flaws in the manner of sending the messages” and updated its guidelines to prevent similar mistakes in the future.It described the tool as “proportionate, balanced and most reasonable.”The messages were sent to hundreds of Pale...

Hall of Famer Denny Crum, who guided Louisville to NCAA men’s basketball championships in 1980 and 1986, dies at age 86

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:00 GMT

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Hall of Famer Denny Crum, who guided Louisville to NCAA men’s basketball championships in 1980 and 1986, dies at age 86.Source

Syria: US strike on al-Qaida leader allegedly kills civilian

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:00 GMT

QORQANYA, Syria (AP) — The U.S. military is investigating reports that it killed a civilian in a recent strike in northwest Syria that meant to target a senior al-Qaida leader, a military official said in a statement Tuesday.Relatives and neighbors of a 60-year-old man killed in the May 3 strike in the village of Qorqanya, a rural area in northern Idlib province, told The Associated Press that he was a farmer who raised sheep, chickens and cattle and had no involvement with armed groups.In an initial statement released the day of the strike, U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, said its forces had “conducted a unilateral strike … targeting a senior Al Qaeda leader.” It did not provide any further details.Maj. John Moore, a CENTCOM spokesperson, said Tuesday that U.S. forces “are in the process of confirming the identity of the individual killed in the strike.”“We are aware of the allegations of a civilian casualty and the outcome of the confirmation process will inform if further...

Nantes fires coach Kombouaré 4 four games from end of season

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:00 GMT

NANTES, France (AP) — French club Nantes fired coach Antoine Kombouaré on Tuesday with four league games left to play and the team deep in relegation trouble.The club said it reached a mutual decision with Kombouaré, a former Nantes defender, to end his contract. He will be replaced on a temporary basis by Pierre Aristouy, who is promoted from his position as reserve team coach.Nantes is in 17th place in the league, with four of the 20 clubs getting relegated this season. Auxerre is two points ahead of Nantes in 16th place, with Brest and Strasbourg three points ahead of Nantes.Kombouaré led Nantes to the French Cup title last year, the club’s first trophy since 2001, having saved it from relegation the previous season.Although Nantes reached the French Cup final again this season, his side was routed 5-1 by Toulouse, and Nantes has not won any of its past 11 league games.Kombouaré, who was reportedly at odds with club president Waldemar Kita for some time, has deep links with Nante...

Wisconsin judge revives complaint over 2020 fake electors

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:00 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin’s bipartisan elections commission must disregard its earlier ruling unanimously rejecting a complaint against fake presidential electors who attempted to cast the state’s ballots for former President Donald Trump when it rehears the case, a judge ruled Tuesday. A Republican commissioner who considered the original complaint must not take part in the reconsideration because he was one of the 10 fake electors, Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington ruled. That commissioner, Robert Spindell, as well as the state elections commission agreed in court filings before the judge ruled that he should never have participated.Fake electors met in Wisconsin and other battleground states that Trump lost in 2020, attempting to cast ballots for the former president even though he lost. Republicans who participated in Wisconsin said they were trying to preserve Trump’s legal standing in case courts overturned his defeat. The Wisconsin Elections Com...

Bears get QB Justin Fields assistance on draft’s last day

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:00 GMT

LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — The Chicago Bears entered the NFL draft looking to help quarterback Justin Fields while bolstering one of the league’s worst defenses.GM Ryan Poles and coach Matt Eberflus felt they accomplished both to varying degrees with their 10 total picks. And they started Saturday’s final rounds by giving their third-year quarterback more explosive assets. The initial help for Fields came on Thursday night with first-round tackle Darnell Wright, but continued on the final day Saturday when the Bears picked Texas running back Roschon Johnson and Cincinnati wide receiver Tyler Scott in the fourth round.“You want to support your quarterback,” Poles said. “We all know that’s where it starts. So you want to surround him with talent. “We had to wait a little bit to do it the way I wanted to do it, the way we wanted to do it. And we found some good opportunities to do that, to solidify the O-line, make sure that in the running game we stay balanced and then give ...