Author: THE CONNECTING NEWSPAPER

Burton’s win comes two weeks after Austin Dillon, who was 32nd in points at the time, won at Richmond and would have punched his playoff ticket had NASCAR not rescinded it due to its highly controversial nature. Up until 2022, neither of those wins would have guaranteed a playoff bid because NASCAR required playoff drivers to be in the top 30 in regular-season points — a rule that was too lenient as it was.Now it’s gone entirely, and these are the consequences. Bubba Wallace and Ross Chastain, two drivers who have been competitive all season long, are respectively 21 and…

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Editor’s Note: This story was updated with the final sale price and other details following the auction. CNN  —  In 1998, Michael Jordan laced up a pair of his iconic black and red Air Jordan 13s to bring home a Bulls victory during Game 2 of his final NBA championship — and now they are the most expensive sneakers ever to sell at auction.The game-winning sneakers sold for $2.2 million at Sotheby’s in New York on Tuesday, smashing the sneaker auction record of $1.47 million, set in 2021 by a pair of Nike Air Ships that Jordan wore earlier in…

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Ohio Sen. JD Vance, former President Donald Trump’s running mate, on Saturday said Trump would veto a federal abortion ban if a bill were to be passed by Congress. Asked on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” about GOP lawmakers like South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham who would want to see Trump advocate for and pass an abortion ban, Vance told moderator Kristen Welker that Trump has “explicitly” said he would veto a ban. “I mean, if you’re not supporting it, as the president of the United States, you fundamentally have to veto it,” Vance argued. The latest position from the…

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To say Harrison Burton’s tenure in the NASCAR Cup Series has been rough would be a massive understatement. Five top-10 finishes and a best points finish of 27th were all Burton had to show for his Cup Series career through his first 97 starts, but that all changed on Saturday at Daytona. Burton lined up second for the race’s final restart, and with two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch to his inside, he had a tall task in front of him if he wanted to break through for his first Cup Series win.  Hollywood couldn’t have scripted it any better: With a…

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DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, Hezbollah says it has completed the first phase of its attack on Israel with “a large number of missiles” in response to the killing of commander Fuad Shukr at the end of July. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to convene a meeting of the security council on Sunday morning while the defence minister has declared a “special situation” for 48 hours. Ben Gurion Airport was closed in the early hours of Sunday, as Israeli forces struck southern Lebanon in what they say was a “preemptive” attack launched when they detected Hezbollah preparing to attack northern Israel.…

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Police said an arrest has been made in the murder investigation of a popular sneaker reseller shot to death in SoHo in June. Javier Osorio-Mejia, an established high-end sneaker reseller in Bayonne known as Upscale Cracc, was followed into the city where he was killed in an attempted robbery, police said following his death. Osoio-Mejia had been with a woman at a Queens club, which the pair left in the early morning of June 25. Police believe they were followed when they left the club, and jumped on Greene Street in SoHo around 5:15 a.m. Osorio-Mejia was shot three times…

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SWITZERLAND / IRELAND – Ireland is contributing EUR 200,000 (approximately CHF 190,000) to the Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) to support its ongoing efforts to enhance global food safety and agriculture trade. This donation will help advance STDF projects and programmes to improve access to global and regional markets for developing economies and least-developed countries (LDCs). Thanking Ireland for its generosity, WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said: “Small-scale farmers and producers in developing and least-developed countries often face significant hurdles in accessing global food markets, particularly in meeting sanitary and phytosanitary standards. Through the work of the STDF, made possible…

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Another game, another milestone reached by first-year WNBA star Caitlin Clark.  Clark surpassed the 500-point mark on Saturday. Having already topped the 200-assist plateau, the incredible rookie became the fastest player to do both, doing so in only 29 games. Unsurprisingly, Clark’s record-making achievement came in a standout performance. She scored 23 points (8-of-18), with three three-pointers, eight assists and five rebounds — though it wasn’t enough to get past the Minnesota Lynx, who defeated the Indiana Fever, 90-80.For Clark, the effort marked her eighth game this year with at least 20 points, eight assists and five rebounds. That’s the…

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CNN  —  Paul Templer was living his best life. He was 28 and conducting tours in his native Zimbabwe, with a focus on photographic safaris. He had been away for a few years, including a stint in the British army. But he had returned to Africa’s bush country “and fell back in love with it. The wildlife, the flora, the fauna, the great outdoors, the space – just everything about it. I was at home.” Templer said Zimbabwe’s guide certification program was rigorous, and there was a lot of pride among the guides who passed. He reveled in showing tourists…

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The two astronauts who will spend extra time at the International Space Station are Navy test pilots who have ridden out long missions before. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have been holed up at the space station with seven others since the beginning of June, awaiting a verdict on how — and when — they would return to Earth. NASA decided Saturday they won’t be flying back in their troubled Boeing capsule, but will wait for a ride with SpaceX in late February, pushing their mission to more than eight months. Their original itinerary on the test flight was…

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