Friday, Apr 9, 2010 1:39 PM UTC
18-year-old Eri Yoshida, the first woman to play pro baseball in Japan, will join the Chico Outlaws this Spring
By Associated Press
A female knuckleball pitcher from Japan will be playing for a minor league team in the United States.
Eri Yoshida, an 18-year-old pitcher who played pro ball in Japan last year, signed with the Chico Outlaws of the Golden Baseball League. The team said she will report to spring training next month.
“I am grateful for this opportunity to pitch for the Chico Outlaws,” Yoshida said. “This is a dream come true for me and I hope I can contribute to the team and help them win and also to continue to improve as a pro baseball player.”
Yoshida will be the first female to pitch for a pro team in the United States since Ila Borders retired more than 10 years ago, the team said.
“We are really looking forward to having Eri as a member of the Chico Outlaws this season,” team president Mike Marshall said.
The 5-foot, 114-pound Yoshida became Japan’s first female pro baseball player last year when she pitched for the Kobe Cruise 9 in the Kansai Independent League.
She was 0-2 in 11 appearances with a 4.03 ERA, giving up seven runs in 10 2-3 innings.
The team is making accommodations to provide separate locker room facilities and hotel rooms while traveling.
Yoshida learned how to throw a knuckleball by watching video of Tim Wakefield and recently got a few tips from the Boston Red Sox pitcher at the team’s spring training facility in Fort Myers, Fla.
The 10-team Golden Baseball League is an independent minor league with teams in Arizona, California and Canada.
The Outlaws open on the road on May 21 in Tijuana and return for their home opener on May 26th.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012 4:46 PM UTC
Out since 1992, the openly gay superhero will walk down the aisle in late June
By Associated Press, Associated Press
This comic book cover image released by Marvel shows "Astonishing X-Men," No 51. Marvel Comics said Tuesday, May 22, 2012 that the Canadian character named Jean-Paul Beaubier, right, will marry his beau, Kyle Jinadu, in this edition due out June 20. (AP Photo/Marvel Comics)(Credit: AP)
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Wedding bells will ring this summer for Marvel Comics’ first openly gay hero, super speedster Northstar.
The New York-based publisher said Tuesday that Canadian character Jean-Paul Beaubier will marry his beau, Kyle Jinadu, in the pages of “Astonishing X-Men” No. 51. That’s due out June 20.
Northstar revealed he was gay in the pages of “Alpha Flight” No. 106 in 1992. He was one of Marvel’s first characters to do so.
Since then, numerous comic book heroes and villains have been identified as gay, lesbian or transgender.
Marjorie Liu is writing the series. She says the decision to have the pair marry was fitting, noting that the relationship between Kyle and Northstar has grown in recent years.
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Marvel Entertainment LLC is owned by The Walt Disney Co.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012 3:16 PM UTC
The blood sample was taken after Reagan was shot in a 1981 assassination attempt
By Associated Press, Associated Press
LONDON (AP) — A Channel Islands online auction house has angered Ronald Reagan’s foundation by claiming to offer a vial that once contained his blood.
The PFCAuctions house says the vial contains some of Reagan’s dried blood residue. The auctioneers say it was used by the laboratory that tested Reagan’s blood when he was hospitalized after a 1981 assassination attempt in Washington.
Officials at the Ronald Reagan Foundation in California have told BBC News that the sale is despicable.
Auction house spokeswoman Kylie Whitehead told The Associated Press that the blood is being sold by a man whose late mother took it from the laboratory with permission weeks after the tests were made.
Bidding for the vial had passed the 7,000-pound ($11,000) mark Tuesday.
Reagan required emergency surgery after he was shot by John Hinckley Jr. outside the Washington Hilton Hotel.
Monday, May 21, 2012 6:50 PM UTC
By Associated Press, Associated Press
PENDLETON, Ore. (AP) — The daughter-in-law of Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman has been dismissed as a volunteer track coach at a small Eastern Oregon high school because she escorted a 17-year-old boy to last month’s prom.
Melissa Bowerman, 41, who had been coaching the Condon/Wheeler track and field team with her 73-year-old husband, Jon Bowerman, was ousted this month in a phone call from the superintendents of the Condon and Fossil school districts.
“There was an investigation done and through that investigation, there were some potential details that arose,” Condon superintendent Jan Zarate told the East Oregonian newspaper of Pendleton (http://is.gd/pBVR6a). “We started an investigation that led to us asking her to un-volunteer.”
Zarate declined to provide details of the investigation.
Melissa Bowerman, whose late father-in-law invented the waffle-soled running shoe and co-founded Nike with Phil Knight, said attending the Condon High School prom with a boy from the track team was an error in judgment. But she said the pair did not have an inappropriate relationship. She said they danced to a few slow songs but mostly played ping pong and foosball.
Melissa Bowerman, who has a son on the track team, said she went to the prom because the boy felt bad that he lacked a date and had been struggling in English class.
“If they go on (academic) probation and suspension, then they can’t go to the track meets,” Melissa Bowerman said. “I said, ‘OK, I will go with you, but we’ve got to talk about English first. You’re going to do better in English.”
Gilliam County Sheriff Gary Bettencourt, who received a complaint from a chaperone, said he has found no evidence that Melissa Bowerman broke the law.
The boy’s father, meanwhile, said he gave Melissa Bowerman permission to take his son to the dance.
“The first thing I thought, ‘Maybe this isn’t a good idea.’ But Melissa has been like a surrogate mom to these kids for years,” Bob Thomas said.
The track and field program has ballooned from six athletes to more than 30 in just four years under the Bowermans’ watch, and the Condon/Wheeler girls team won its first state title Saturday.
As the team prepared to depart for the state track meet last week, Condon athletic director Ron Kopp told the Bowermans that Melissa would not be allowed to ride on the team’s charter bus with the athletes. With the bus only half full, parents have historically accompanied their sons and daughters for the ride.
Jon Bowerman said he might resign because of the situation, and possibly sell his family’s ranch near Fossil.
“The only thing we’ve done wrong is build them a new track and get uniforms and build them a powerhouse program,” he said. “If she doesn’t come back, I’m not coming back.”
Besides co-founding Nike, Bill Bowerman coached track at the University of Oregon from 1949 to 1972, winning four national titles. His relationship with track great Steve Prefontaine has been featured in two films.
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Monday, May 21, 2012 5:27 PM UTC
As the NATO summit winds down, protests continue as commuters deal with heightened security in downtown Chicago
By Associated Press, AP
Anti-NATO protestors form a barricade in front of mounted police officers during a march, Saturday, May 19, 2012, in Chicago. On Sunday, the start of the two-day NATO summit, thousands of protesters are expected to march to the McCormick Place convention center, where NATO delegates will be meeting. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)(Credit: AP)
CHICAGO (AP) — Demonstrators launched another round of protests Monday in the final hours of the NATO summit, targeting Boeing headquarters and a suburban community that could become the site of a detention facility to hold illegal immigrants.
On the second and last day of the international meeting, the demonstrations were notably smaller than weekend protests that drew thousands into the streets.
Outside Boeing Co.’s headquarters, a relatively small crowd of protesters gathered in the street. Some released red and black balloons and confetti or blew bubbles. Others staged a “die-in,” lying on the ground as if dead.
An orange barricade blocked off the building’s entrances, and dozens of police officers stood guard. A police boat idled in the nearby Chicago River.
Occupy Chicago contends tax breaks for the aircraft manufacturer have deprived the state of millions of dollars. The group also objects to Boeing’s role in producing military hardware for the U.S. and its NATO allies.
Illinois leaders see such tax incentives as a way to attract large companies that bring thousands of jobs.
Targeting Boeing Co.’s Chicago office makes symbolic sense: The company is a major defense contractor that makes fighter jets, bombs and missiles.
But the Chicago office is just the headquarters for a much larger operation. The company employs more than 170,000 people across the United States and in 70 countries. Illinois doesn’t even rank in the top eight states in terms of the number of Boeing employees.
Boeing’s building was largely deserted Monday because it was among many Chicago companies that told workers to stay home because of the risk of traffic snarls and more protests.
In a statement, protesters seized on that as a victory: “Our call to action shut down the Boeing war machine.”
After the Boeing demonstration, immigration-rights activists planned to go to the small village of Crete, about 35 miles south of Chicago, where federal officials are considering building an 800-bed detention facility for illegal immigrants slated for deportation.
For commuters, the threat of more large protests meant navigating numerous transportation changes and tolerating inconvenient security rules.
More than two dozen rail stations were closed along a line that normally carries 14,000 riders in from the south suburbs. Platforms were being patrolled by a large contingent of law enforcement personnel and K-9 units. The Chicago Transit Authority rerouted 24 buses through a zone that included the lakeside convention center where world leaders were gathered.
On commuter trains, passengers were prohibited from bringing food or liquids — including coffee — and could only carry one bag.
“Now I have to buy my lunch. They are making me spend money,” said Pete Dimaggio, a credit manager.
But commuters who did brave their daily trip were finding something unusual: an abundance of seats on trains and buses, a sign that many workers heeded warnings to avoid going to the office.
Sunday’s protest march was one of the city’s largest in years, with thousands of people airing grievances about war, climate change, economic inequality and a wide range of other complaints. But the diversity of opinions also sowed doubts about whether there were too many messages to be effective.
Some of the most lasting images of that march were likely to be from a clash at the end, when a small group of demonstrators tried to push beyond a line of police blocking access to the site where world leaders were discussing the war in Afghanistan, European missile defense and other security issues.
Some protesters hurled sticks and bottles at police. Officers responded by swinging their batons. The two sides were locked in a standoff for two hours.
Forty-five protesters were arrested and four officers were hurt, including one who was stabbed in the leg, police said.
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Associated Press writers Don Babwin, Ryan J. Foley, Carla K. Johnson, Robert Ray, Jim Suhr, Nomaan Merchant and Michael Tarm contributed to this report.
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Thursday, May 17, 2012 3:25 PM UTC
NATO leaders will look at its military mission in Afghanistan, its missile defense strategy, and modernization
By Associated Press, AP
FILE - In this Oct. 14, 2011 file photo, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, right, greets South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and his wife Kim Yoon-Ok on their arrival at O'Hare International Airport for a visit to Chicago. Emanuel and the city will be in the international spotlight when it hosts the NATO summit May 20-21, 2012. Myung-bak is among the 50 heads of state expected to attend. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty, File)(Credit: AP)
A look at the main issues for the NATO alliance at the summit meeting for heads of government in Chicago on Sunday and Monday.
THE PLAYERS
An alliance formed in 1949 to deter Soviet aggression. The central principle is that an attack in Europe or North America against any member is an attack against all. The alliance has grown to 28 member nations, ranging from the United States, Britain, France and Germany to former Soviet bloc countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. Albania and Croatia are the newest members
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AFGHANISTAN
The summit will affirm the shift in NATO’s military mission in Afghanistan from a combat role to an advisory role next year, and on plans to help underwrite the Afghan military after the NATO-led military mission ends two years from now. NATO is pledging to maintain a multinational combat force in Afghanistan until sometime in 2014, with a firm deadline to end the mission by 2015. NATO nations, along with others such as Australia that participate in the NATO-led mission, have planned a gradual withdrawal of combat forces ahead of that deadline.
The election of Socialist President Francois Hollande in France complicates that agenda. Hollande campaigned on a promise to pull French troops out of Afghanistan by the end of this year — two years early.
Public sentiment in Europe and the United States favors a faster pullout than NATO now plans. The United States and Britain, which have the largest forces in Afghanistan, are trying to avoid a rush to the exits by other partners.
The summit will also showcase efforts to get firm financial commitments for support of Afghan forces. NATO argues that even the projected bill of about $4 billion annually is cheaper than the cost of war. But some European governments apparently have neither the budget nor the will to keep paying. The United States expects to pay much of the cost but U.S. officials say Washington cannot foot the bill alone.
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NATO MODERNIZATION
Most alliance members have endured economic reversals that make any major new defense spending unappealing or impossible. The alliance is laboring under the weight of outdated or incompatible equipment, and suffers major gaps in military capability that the better-equipped and better-funded U.S. military often has to fill. Some of those shortfalls were on display during last year’s successful NATO air mission in Libya.
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates rattled NATO when he said the alliance risked falling apart if it continued to leave the hardest fighting and biggest bills to the United States.
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MISSILE DEFENSE
The alliance will declare that it has partly completed a missile defense shield for Europe. The system has achieved “interim capability,” against possible missile threats from Iran or elsewhere, NATO claims. Russia opposes the system, and has rebuffed NATO efforts to form a partnership.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is not attending the summit, largely because of the missile defense split.
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