The Minnesota Frost proved the ability to rally last year when they came back after Game 1 losses in both playoff series on the way to winning the PWHL’s inaugural Walter Cup.

Minnesota is trying to do it again.

The Frost — who had to win the final two games of the regular season on the road just to qualify for the playoffs — lost 3-2 in Game 1 in Toronto on Wednesday. They pulled even in the best-of-five series on Friday in Toronto against the Sceptres with a 5-3 win, scoring twice in the third period.

Last year, the lost the first two games in Toronto in the first round and the first game in Boston in the finals. Being down has not seemed to affect Minnesota.

Sophie Jaques scored the game-winning goal at 13:47 of the third and Mellissa Channell-Watkins added a power-play goal with 71 seconds remaining. Lee Stecklein scored twice for the Frost and Michela Cava had a goal. Taylor Heise and Kelly Pannek each had two assists.

Maddie Rooney stopped 27 of 30 shots in goal for Minnesota.

Perhaps it’s no surprise the Frost even rallied in the game Thursday.

Toronto’s Hayley Scamurra opened the scoring 7:11 into the game for the lone goal in the first.

Minnesota then took control. Stecklein’s first goal came just 4:41 into the second. Cava scored a little over six minutes later and Stecklein made it a 3-1 game on the power play at 12:59 of the middle frame.

But the Sceptres also rallied.

Savannah Harmon scored on a power play at 16:56 of the second with only 14 seconds left in the man advantage with Heise in the penalty box for elbowing, the Frost’s lone penalty in the game.

Allie Munroe tied the game for Toronto 27 seconds later.

Despite being outshot 13-4 in the third, Minnesota managed to put two pucks behind Sceptres goaltender Kristin Campbell, who finished with 20 saves.

Toronto outshot the Frost 30-25. But Minnesota was 2 for 3 on the power play in evening the series, which shifts to the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Sunday with a 5 p.m. puck drop.

Curl-Salemme suspended

The Frost were also playing short-handed as forward Britta Curl-Salemme was suspended for Game 2 for a hit she delivered in Game 1. The PWHL Player Safety Committee handed down the suspension, the third of Curl-Salemme’s rookie season, on Friday morning.

Curl-Salemme scored the Frost’s first goal in Game 1, but moments later was assessed a 5-minute major and game misconduct for what PWHL Player Safety characterized as “a high and forceful check” on Toronto blue liner Renata Fast.

Curl-Salemme, was skating the puck out of her own end when she raised an elbow and appeared to catch Fast in the jaw. The hit, the league said in a statement Friday, made “the head the main point of contact on a play where such contact to the head was avoidable.”

Fast played in Game 2.

A rookie from Wisconsin, Curl-Salemme had been fined and suspended twice already this season, once for a high sticking incident on Jan. 2 against Boston and again for an illegal check to the head on Mar. 9 against Toronto.

Minnesota coach Ken Klee said Curl-Salemme was not “a malicious person,” and, while acknowledging it cost her a game, that Wednesday’s incident was a competitive hockey play.

“For players that play hard and aggressive, sometimes it’s tough,” Klee said. “It’s happening in a split second. It’s nothing malicious for her. I mean, obviously, we know that decisions are going to be made, but for her, she’s trying to play hard, trying to do her job.”

The PWHL’s Player Safety Committee is chaired by PWHL executive vice president of hockey operations and includes PWHL special advisor Cassie Campbell-Pascall, former NHL referee Bill McCreary, longtime NHL executive Mike Murphy and Matt McMahon, a member of the NHL’s Player Safety department.

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By FATIMA HUSSEIN and KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is on track to run out of money to pay its bills as early as August without congressional action, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned Friday.

He is calling on Congress to either raise or suspend the debt ceiling by mid-July.

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“A failure to suspend or increase the debt limit would wreak havoc on our financial system and diminish America’s security and global leadership position,” Bessent wrote in the letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson. “Prior episodes have shown that waiting until the last minute to suspend or increase the debt limit can have serious adverse consequences for financial markets, businesses and the federal government.”

Earlier this week, Bessent twice testified in front of congressional committees that the Treasury’s debt ceiling is “on the warning track.”

After the debt limit was reinstated in January, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen — in one of her last acts in the position — said the agency would institute “extraordinary measures” intended to prevent the U.S. from reaching the debt ceiling.

Since then, the Treasury Department has stopped paying into certain accounts, including a slew of federal worker pension and disability funds, to make up for the shortfall in money. Bessent has continued to notify Congress about the use of extraordinary measures in an effort to prevent a breach of the debt ceiling. In his latest letter, Bessent attributed the August deadline, known as the “X-date,” in part to receipts from the latest tax filing season.

A Bipartisan Policy Center analysis released in March estimated that the U.S. could run out of cash by mid-July if Congress did not raise or suspend the nation’s debt limit.

President Donald Trump had previously demanded that a provision raising or suspending the debt limit — something his own Republican Party routinely resists — be included in legislation to avert the last potential government shutdown under his Democratic predecessor, President joe Biden.

“Anything else is a betrayal of our country,” Trump said in a statement in December. That deal did not ultimately address the debt limit.

The letter to Johnson comes as Republicans consider a massive tax cut and border security package that includes an increase in the debt limit. Bessent’s request could give GOP lawmakers greater incentive to reach an agreement.

By HALLIE GOLDEN, Associated Press

Google will pay $1.4 billion to Texas to settle claims the company collected data on users without permission, the state’s attorney general announced Friday.

In 2022, Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Google, saying the search giant collected millions of biometric identifiers, including voiceprints and records of face geometry, through its products and services like Google Photos, Google Assistant, and Nest Hub Max.

“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law. For years, Google secretly tracked people’s movements, private searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry through their products and services. I fought back and won,” Paxton said in a statement Friday.

Google did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The news comes a little less than a year after Meta agreed to a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas in a privacy lawsuit over allegations that the tech giant used biometric data of users without their permission.

Joe Ryan doesn’t know what he was stricken with this week. He just knows it was bad — really bad.

Ryan went to see the movie “Sinners” on the team’s Monday off day, but his movie-going experience was interrupted by non-stop shaking, which he described as “super violent.” When he returned home, he laid down for about a half hour before perching himself in front of the toilet for the next five hours. He estimated he threw up 20 to 30 times between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m.

“I’ve never thrown up that much in my life,” the Twins pitcher said.

At one point about halfway through, he started puking blood. After the intense bout of vomiting ended, Ryan dealt with night sweats that kept him up nearly all night on Monday. He also said he had a 102-degree fever at one point during the ordeal.

Days removed from this experience, Ryan is now set to take on the San Francisco Giants, his hometown team, on Saturday. He was originally supposed to start on Thursday but that was pushed back with Bailey Ober and Chris Paddack each being moved up a day.

“I’ve never had something like that,” he said.

Ryan also said he had been dealing with something for the last two weeks or so, feeling the sensation of needing to vomit when his heart rate rose, including in-game. It was something he mentioned after his previous start in Boston, too.

The starer came into the ballpark on Tuesday, received an IV, tried his best to stay away from his teammates and went back home to try to sleep it off. On Wednesday, he came to the ballpark played catch and did a couple other things. Thursday he lifted and threw a bullpen in preparation for his start.

“(My) stuff is fine,” Ryan said. “I just feel weak. That’s the biggest thing.”

Lewis gets off day

Royce Lewis was not in the starting lineup on Friday as the Twins build the third baseman back up.

Lewis returned to the Twins’ lineup on Tuesday after missing the early part of the season with a hamstring strain suffered in mid-March during spring training. He served as the team’s designated hitter on both Tuesday and Wednesday before seeing action at third base finally on Thursday.

“He’s going to have occasional off days as he continues to build up,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He’s had a rehab assignment, but I think still that there’s going to be a build-up process for him in one way or another, so this is just part of it. He’s going to have a few of these types of days.”

Lewis entered the day 0 for 9 on the season, still looking for his first hit this year. Dating back to last season, he entered Friday hitless in his last 30 at-bats.

Briefly

Austin Martin returned from the injured list at Triple-A St. Paul on Tuesday after missing more than three weeks with a strained right hamstring. In his very first inning back, he strained that same hamstring again, suffering the injury while stealing home. He is expected to be down for a few weeks before the Twins try to build him back up. … Infielder Jose Miranda, who strained his hand trying to catch a falling case of water at Target on an April 14 off day, was activated from the Triple-A IL on Friday.  … Saturday’s game will be nationally televised on FOX.

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