Author: chicagoinquirer

by Rob Maaddi NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs are pursuing history and a few of Taylor Swift’s records. Saquon Barkley, Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles stand in their way. The Chiefs (17-2) will try to become the first team to win three straight Super Bowls when they face the Eagles (17-3) on Sunday in the Superdome. It’s a rematch from two years ago when Hurts nearly led the Eagles to a championship only to watch Mahomes snatch it away by rallying Kansas City to a 38-35 win on Harrison Butker’s 27-yard…

by Steve Megargee MILWAUKEE — Jaren Jackson Jr. scored 37 points and the Memphis Grizzlies continued their recent mastery of Milwaukee with a 132-119 victory over the Bucks on Sunday night. Memphis has won its last seven meetings with the Bucks, who last beat the Grizzlies 126-114 in Milwaukee on Jan. 19, 2022. The Grizzlies won this one without star guard Ja Morant, who missed a second straight game due to a sore right shoulder. Jackson briefly went to the locker room late in the first quarter after taking an inadvertent elbow to the face from Ryan Rollins on the…

by Tara Copp WASHINGTON — The Air Force has removed training courses with videos of its storied Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs — the female World War II pilots who were vital in ferrying warplanes for the military — to comply with the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The videos were shown to Air Force troops as part of DEI courses they took during basic military training. In a statement, the Air Force confirmed the courses with those videos had been removed and said it “will fully execute and implement all…

By Rick Callahan WESTFIELD, Ind. (AP) — Decades after investigators unearthed thousands of human bones and bone fragments on a suspected Indiana serial killer’s property, a renewed quest is playing out in laboratories to solve a long-running mystery: Who were they? A new team working to identify the unknown dead says the key to their success will be getting relatives of men who vanished between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s to provide samples of their own DNA. Those samples can then be screened against DNA profiles scientists are extracting from the remains, which were found starting in 1996 on Herbert…

by Wafaa Shurafa, Sam Mednick and Samy Magdy TEL AVIV, Israel — Hamas militants handed over four captive female Israeli soldiers to the Red Cross in Gaza City on Saturday after parading them in front of a crowd. Israel followed with the release of 200 Palestinian prisoners or detainees as part of the fragile ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. The four Israeli soldiers smiled broadly as they waved and gave the thumbs-up from a stage in Gaza City’s Palestine Square, militants on either side of them and a crowd of thousands watching before they were led off to waiting Red…

by Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Japonica and Farnoush Amiri WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed Pete Hegseth as the nation’s defense secretary late Friday in a dramatic tie-breaking vote, swatting back questions about his qualifications to lead the Pentagon amid allegations of heavy drinking and aggressive behavior toward women. Rarely has a Cabinet nominee faced such wide-ranging concerns about his experience and behavior as Hegseth, particularly for such a high-profile role atop the U.S. military. But the Republican-led Senate was determined to confirm Hegseth, a former Fox News host and combat veteran who has vowed to bring a “warrior culture,” rounding…

by Joshua Goodman and Molly Quell THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — As the International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor sought war crimes charges this year against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over actions in Gaza, he was engulfed in a very different personal crisis playing out behind the scenes. Karim Khan faced accusations that he tried for more than a year to coerce a female aide into a sexual relationship and groped her against her will. He’s categorically denied the allegations, saying there was “no truth to suggestions of misconduct.” Court officials have said they may have been made as part…

by Tim Reynolds LeBron James is extending his All-Star records. And Giannis Antetokounmpo is the people’s choice, again. The NBA revealed the starters — some of them, anyway — for the revamped All-Star Game on Thursday night, and there wasn’t much in the way of surprises. James is now officially an All-Star for the 21st year, and Antetokounmpo is now the ninth player to win the fan vote in back-to-back seasons. The other starters: — New York’s Jalen Brunson and Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell as the Eastern Conference guards. — Boston’s Jayson Tatum and New York’s Karl-Anthony Towns as the East…

by Tim Reynolds PARIS (AP) — The first enormous roar from the crowd came before the game even started. All Victor Wembanyama needed to do to get the fans in Paris into a full-blown frenzy was, it turned out, say hello into a microphone. The cheering just from that lasted about 30 seconds. Welcome home, Wemby. For the first time as an NBA player, Wembanyama played in his homeland on Thursday — the star attraction in this two-game set of games between San Antonio and Indiana, a series that concludes on Saturday night. “Tonight was definitely different,” Wembanyama said. “It’s…

by Mike Catalini and Gene Johnson SEATTLE (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order denying U.S. citizenship to the children of parents living in the country illegally, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional” during the first hearing in a multi-state effort challenging the order. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution promises citizenship to those born on U.S. soil, a measure ratified in 1868 to ensure citizenship for former slaves after the Civil War. But in an effort to curb unlawful immigration, Trump issued the executive order just after being sworn in for his second term…