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With COVID-19 cases surging across the country, officials are urging people to avoid gathering in large groups over the upcoming holiday. But the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health at Michigan Medicine, which received responses from 1,443 parents of at least one child aged 12 or under, found some parents may prioritize continuing holiday traditions over reducing the risk of transmitting the virus. One in three parents said the benefits of gathering with family for the holidays are worth the risk of getting or spreading the virus, according to the poll....

A group of Lakewood High athletes formed the Spur Posse (named after the San Antonio basketball team) four years ago as a sort of highschool fraternity. One of their main activities was “hooking up,” or having sex, with as many girls as possible. By dint of their local-hero status and sweet-talking skills, the Spur Posse athletes took turns having sex with the same girls, gleefully boasting about it later and insisting that their partners were not only willing articipants but, in some cases, also “sluts....

The talks finally ended last week as something totally unexpected: a success, at least according to the participants. After an 11th-hour phone call from Japan’s Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu to President George Bush helped smooth the way toward agreement, the two sides issued a 38-page report committing each to structural reform of its economy. The agreement allows the Big Two to go to next week’s economic summit in Houston having–for the moment, anyway–put irritating disputes behind them....

Erdogan is undeterred. Instead of slowing down the pace of change, the AKP has announced its biggest and boldest reform package yet. Emboldened by a resounding victory in snap elections last summer, the party has embarked on a wholesale overhaul of the hard-wiring of the country’s political system. Central to the new order is a redrawing of Turkey’s 1981 Constitution designed to give more power to the people—including direct presidential elections—as well as introducing more freedom of speech and religion....

But the case is not clear-cut. Beverly Wuthrich, the mother, pleaded guilty last year to child neglect. Investigators found out that she had recently registered a business with the suggestive name “Ultimate Fantasies,” though no business transactions were ever conducted. To further complicate matters, Beverly has admitted that she and her husband, Andreas, have an unspecified blood relationship, though their marriage is legal under Swiss law. She remains optimistic, though, about Raoul’s future....

Saddam Hussein was born on April 28, 1937 to a poor landless peasant family in the village of Ouja, near Tikrit. His father either died or disappeared before Saddam’s birth, so the child was sent to live with his maternal uncle, Khairallah Talfah, an Iraqi army officer and devout Sunni Muslim nationalist. Under his uncle’s influence, a 19-year-old Saddam joined the Arab nationalist (and anti-Western) Baath Socialist Party. A year later he was denied the admission to the prestigious Baghdad Military Academy, a humiliating blow to his career hopes....

On board the Straight Talk Express one day last month in New Hampshire, McCain was asked by NEWSWEEK if he would import the idea to Washington if elected. He didn’t hedge. Besides promising weekly press conferences, the senator said he would ask the Capitol Hill leadership in both parties to select 10 members of Congress each for a weekly televised question session. “I think it’s a great idea,” McCain enthused....

All this might seem to be the stuff of a superheated imagination were it not for the fact that Washington is awash with conspiracy theories about the BCCI scandal and the so-called October Surprise. Casolaro’s entry point for this maze of rumor and innuendo was the Inslaw case, which has been simmering since 1983. Inslaw was a Washington-based computer-software company that went bankrupt in 1985 after a bitter dispute with the U....

Now Rumsfeld himself has been thrown out after six stormy years, a chastened if still-proud man who will spend the rest of his days grappling with the judgment of history. His tenure at the Pentagon is thick with irony. The squinty-eyed tough guy whom Bush once described as a “matinee idol,” the podium wit who declared “I don’t do quagmires,” is now viewed as the author of one of the worst quagmires in American history....

The Minneapolis City Council voted to cut $8 million from the police budget and reinvest $2 million community safety and mental health programs last year. Debates over more comprehensive police defunding proposals continue, while voters could weigh in on the issue in November if petitioners are successful in their effort to put a proposal replace the police with a “department of public safety” makes it on the ballot. Meanwhile, the number of Minneapolis Police Department officers has dropped by a third, while violent crimes have been surging in the city....

In the third quarter of the Week 11 divisional matchup, Brown took a hard hit following a catch, and took a knee on the sideline following the hit. Officially, Brown would be ruled as questionable to return with a chest injury. Earlier in the game, Brown sustained a hand injury and was listed as questionable to return. He did, eventually, check back into to the game with the injury....

Yankees first baseman Luke Voit left Saturday’s game after he was hit in the face with a fastball by Chad Bettis in the fourth inning and Austin Romine and Aaron Judge got some chin music as well. Boone was blunt in his assessment of the Rockies’ pitching in New York’s 11-5 win. “Throw the ball over the plate,” he said, via NJ.com. Up-and-in fastballs are part of the game and an essential pitch when facing off with the Yankees....

Yankees slugger Aaron Judge said he felt a chill, as he does whenever he’s in the park. Maybe he wanted the thermostat raised to 78. Of course he didn’t. The A/C was just a handy way for him to avoid saying he trolled Astros second baseman Jose Altuve. Judge was rounding third base on his third-inning home run when he pulled the sides of his jersey top toward his chest....

Each of the winners announced is a William V. Campbell Trophy finalist for the award given to the best scholar-athlete in the nation. MORE: SEC icons | Best BCS moments | First-and-10 The 16 winners are (with GPA and majors): QB Trevor Adams, Northwest Missouri State: 3.94 GPA, Biology & PsychologyS John Arena, Johns Hopkins: 4.00 GPA, NeuroscienceLB Max Bullough, Michigan State: 3.56 GPA, FinanceQB Derek Carr, Fresno State: 3....

Bulldogs coach Mark Richt said Murray heard a pop in his left knee when he made a cut on a 28-yard run in the second quarter of the Bulldogs' 59-17 win over Kentucky. Murray was limping at the end of that series, which ended with his touchdown pass to tight end Arthur Lynch. But he remained in the game for one more possession. He left the game after he was hit by defensive end Za'Darius Smith on an interception with 2:17 remaining in the half....

MORE: Packers’ unfinished offseason business | All-time hated players We’re not sure why any Packers “fan” would be angry about Rodgers’ cadences, which generate offside and encroachment penalties on a weekly basis to help Green Bay win football games. Richard Klatt from Big Bend, Wis., however, thinks they’re ruining football. No joke. “I hope that this season the Packers can refrain from their unprofessional play-calling,” Klatt wrote to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which published his letter....

The Green Bay Packers quarterback, 38, faced criticism late in 2021 when, after testing positive for the novel coronavirus, he revealed that he had not been vaccinated as he expressed skepticism about the vaccine’s efficacy. His comments were all the more controversial because he told reporters back in August 2021 that he had been immunized against COVID-19, though he didn’t detail how. He isolated for 10 days in November 2021 after testing positive for COVID-19....

Aaron Rodgers reportedly has played his last snap with the Packers amid turmoil between he and the Green Bay front office, with trade rumors bubbling up on the first day of the 2021 NFL Draft. While original reports suggested that Rodgers would be pleased with a trade to one of three teams — the Broncos, 49ers and Raiders — ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reports that the interest is mutual (via Bleacher Report): After selecting Trey Lance No....

Former India cricket captain Sourav Ganguly on Tuesday said that A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s simplicity touched not just him but everyone who met the former president of India, who passed away in Shillong on Monday night. Kalam, 83, collapsed while delivering a lecture to students of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in the Meghalaya capital when he suffered a cardiac arrest. “I had met him quite a few times and knew him personally....

Fernandez’s contract is due to expire at the end of June and will not be renewed, Barcelona said in a statement released on Thursday. The outgoing sporting director faced criticism over the departure of Neymar last year in a world-record transfer to Paris Saint-Germain, while some of his signings during his tenure failed to have the expected impact at Camp Nou. Abidal played for Barca between 2007 and 2013, though serious illness and a subsequent liver transplant curtailed his involvement towards the end of his spell....