Today is Friday, May 2, the 122nd day of 2025. There are 243 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On May 2, 1994, Nelson Mandela claimed victory in the wake of South Africa’s first democratic elections.

Also on this date:

In 1863, during the Civil War, Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson was accidentally wounded by his own men at Chancellorsville, Virginia; he died eight days later.

Related Articles

St. Paul: Nearly 200 employees to be laid off as WestRock plant closes

Today in History: May 1, Obama announces killing of Osama bin Laden

Open house to mark Marine Village Hall remodel

Today in History: April 30, Monica Seles attacked during tennis match

For some Americans, the end of the Vietnam War after Saigon fell 50 years ago is still deeply felt

In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Buck v. Bell, upheld 8-1 a Virginia law allowing the forced sterilization of people in order to promote the “health of the patient and the welfare of society.”

In 1972, a fire at the Sunshine silver mine in Kellogg, Idaho, claimed the lives of 91 miners who succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning.

In 1997, Tony Blair, whose Labour Party crushed John Major’s long-reigning Conservatives in a national election, became Britain’s youngest prime minister in 185 years, at age 43.

In 2011, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who’d been killed hours earlier in a raid by American forces at his Pakistan compound, was buried at sea.

In 2017, Michael Slager, a white former police officer whose killing of Walter Scott, an unarmed Black man running from a traffic stop, was captured on cellphone video, pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges in Charleston, South Carolina. (Slager would be sentenced to 20 years in prison.)

In 2018, in a Fox News interview, attorney Rudy Giuliani said President Donald Trump had reimbursed Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, for $130,000 in hush money paid to porn actor Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election, comments that appeared to contradict Trump’s past claims that he didn’t know the source of the money.

In 2022, a draft was leaked of a Supreme Court ruling throwing out the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling that had stood for a half-century. The court cautioned that the draft was not final. (The decision would be released in essentially the same form the following month.)

Today’s Birthdays:

Singer Engelbert Humperdinck is 89.
Actor David Suchet (SOO’-shay) is 79.
Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., is 78.
Singer-songwriter Larry Gatlin is 77.
Rock singer Lou Gramm (Foreigner) is 75.
Actor Christine Baranski is 73.
Basketball Hall of Famer Jamaal Wilkes is 72.
Fashion designer Donatella Versace is 70.
Filmmaker Stephen Daldry is 65.
Country singer Ty Herndon is 63.
Actor-wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is 53.
Former soccer player David Beckham is 50.
Actor Kumail Nanjiani is 47.
Actor Ellie Kemper is 45.
Singer Lily Allen is 40.
NASCAR driver Kyle Busch is 40.
Olympic figure skating gold medalist Sarah Hughes is 40.
Musician Lucy Dacus is 30.
Princess Charlotte of Wales is 10.

As the Wild prepared to fight for their life on Thursday night at Xcel Energy Center, winger Marcus Foligno promised the “State of Hockey” that this time was going to be different.

All the adversity that has come to define this season for the Wild had steeled them for this exact moment in time.

This particular group of players wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

“The pesky Wild will persevere,” Foligno said. “I truly believe that we can get back in the series and win it, and so does everybody in that room.”

It proved to be the same old story a little more than 24 hours later as the Wild lined up to shake hands after suffering a 3-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights.

Just like every time they have qualified for the playoffs over the past decade, the Wild had bowed out in the first round once again.

That wasn’t lost on the locker room in the immediate aftermath.

“We hear the noise of getting by the first round,” Foligno said. “We understand it. We really feel like we could’ve done it this season. That’s the disappointing part.”

That doesn’t mean it was all for naught.

The present was the same for the Wild. The future feels different.

Let’s be honest. As tenacious as the Wild proved to be this season, the Stanley Cup was always going to be a tough ask.

The fact the Wild made the playoffs when so many players missed so much time was a testament to their mental fortitude. This was a successful campaign when zooming out and separating the forest from the trees.

It’s the biggest reason that fans actually believed them this time around.

“It stings worse after this game, because I think we all feel that we could’ve won the series,” head coach John Hynes said. “It was coming in against a really good team. Credit to them. They found a way to get it done.”

After consecutive overtime losses in Game 4 and Game 5 put them on the brink of elimination, the Wild spoke like a group that still believed, and they showed up with a mighty push for Game 6.

The first haymaker landed early in the first period when a high sticking penalty from center Marco Rossi resulted in a power play goal from Golden Knights defenseman Shea Theodore to make it 1-0.

The response from the Wild showed that this was going to be a heavyweight bout.

As the final seconds ticked away in the first period, Foligno made an incredible play to keep the puck alive, danced off a check in the corner, then dished the puck off to center Ryan Hartman, who beat the buzzer to level the score at 1-1.

That push continued into the second period, where the Wild got a fearless block from captain Jared Spurgeon that saved a goal, followed by a desperation poke check that also saved a goal.

After sustaining pressure for most of the frame, however, defenseman Brock Faber pinched up in the offensive zone, and Golden Knights star center Jack Eichel took advantage, streaking the other way on a breakaway to make it 2-1.

The knockout blow appeared to come came late in the third period when Golden Knights captain Mark Stone whacked a puck out of midair to make it 3-1.

Not so fast.

Naturally, with their back against the wall, the Wild provided a final gasp, with Hartman stepping up to cut the deficit to 3-2 in the final minutes. Though they couldn’t net the equalizer, fittingly, the Wild refused to go away until the final buzzer sounded.

“We battled,” Hartman said. “We felt like we had what it took to go forward.”

That’s the toughest pill to swallow. They did.

As the Wild turn the page, however, they don’t have to look too far for silver linings.

They have superstar winger Kirill Kaprizov and fellow superstar winger Matt Boldy leading the charge into the future. They have a host of other players that know their role, including Foligno, Faber, and irreplaceable center Joel Eriksson Ek, to name a few. They have the dead cap of former winger Zach Parise and former defenseman Ryan Suter mostly coming off the books this summer.

“We always say the future is bright,” Foligno said. “I really do believe we’re right there.”

If there’s any solace in the sadness, it’s that for the first time in a long time, that statement at least feels like it might be the case.

Related Articles

Bad beat: Wild’s push is too late as Vegas takes game, series

Wild embrace the hard of facing elimination, again

Facing elimination, Wild put on their game face

Vegas delivers gut punch as Knights push Wild to brink of elimination

Jon Merrill returns to Wild defense corps for Game 5

Jill Sobule, the award-winning singer-songwriter whose witty and poignant writing first attracted widespread attention with the gay-themed song “I Kissed a Girl,” died in a Woodbury house fire Thursday. She was 66.

Her death was confirmed by her publicist, David Elkin, in an email Thursday afternoon. It was not immediately clear how the fire started.

“Jill Sobule was a force of nature and human rights advocate whose music is woven into our culture,” John Porter, her manager, said in a statement. “I was having so much fun working with her. I lost a client & a friend today. I hope her music, memory, & legacy continue to live on and inspire others.”

Sobule was staying with friends, who “lost Jill, their house and their dogs,” Porter told The Hollywood Reporter.

During her more than three decades of recording, Sobule released 12 albums that addressed such complex topics as the death penalty, anorexia nervosa, reproduction and LGBTQ+ issues.

Woodbury Public Safety responders were alerted at 5:30 a.m. to a fire on the 9000 block of Pinehurst Road, according to the department. The house was fully engulfed in flames when they arrived.

Homeowners told responders that one person was likely still inside the home. Woodbury firefighters worked to extinguish the flames while searching for the missing person and they found her deceased, according to Woodbury Public Safety.

An investigation into the cause of the fire and the cause of death is ongoing. Woodbury Public Safety said there were no immediate signs of foul play.

Sobule’s first album, “Things Here Are Different,” was released in 1990. Five years later, she received widespread attention for her hit singles, “Supermodel,” from the movie “Clueless,” and “I Kissed A Girl,” which, despite being banned on several southern radio stations, made it into the Billboard Top 20.

She also starred in an autobiographical off-Broadway musical that initially premiered at the Wild Project in New York in 2022 and includes songs and stories about her life.

Sobule was known for taking control of her career by fundraising so she could make her next album. In 2008, after two major record companies dumped her and two indie labels went bankrupt beneath her, she raised tens of thousands of dollars from fans so she could make a new album.

“The old kind of paradigm, where you’ve always waited for other people to do things, you’d have your manager and your agent,” she said at the time. “You’d wait for the big record company to give you money to do things and they tell you what to do. This is so great. I want to do everything like this.”

Sobule was scheduled to perform in Denver on Friday night. Instead, there will be an informal gathering hosted by her friend Ron Bostwick from 105.5 The Colorado Sound at the performance space where attendees can “share a story or song,” according to her publicist.

A formal memorial to celebrate her life and legacy will be held later this summer.

“No one made me laugh more. Her spirit and energy shall be greatly missed within the music community and beyond,” Craig Grossman, her booking agent, said in a statement.

Related Articles

Singer Jill Sobule dies in Woodbury house fire

St. Paul police plan to encrypt dispatches, as have Minneapolis, other agencies

Apostle Supper Club across from the Xcel Energy Center to close

Slow down and look up: Extra law enforcement on MN roads starting Thursday

Charges: Man kills his mother, sexually assaults Burnsville woman the next day

Born in Denver, Colorado, on Jan. 16, 1959, she has described herself as a shy child who preferred observing over participating.

Sobule was known for playing dozens of shows a year and has described her live performances as vulnerable experiences. She said she often doesn’t have a set list and wings it.

She’s performed with such icons as Neil Young, Billy Bragg and Cyndi Lauper, and also inducted Neil Diamond into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, according to her website. She also sang a song as herself on an episode of “The Simpsons” in 2019.

“In a good way, I feel like I’m still a rookie,” she told The Associated Press in 2023 in an interview about her musical. “There’s so much more to do and I haven’t done my best yet.”

She is survived by her brother and sister-in-law, James and Mary Ellen Sobule, along with her nephews and cousins.

Pioneer Press reporter Talia McWright contributed to this report.

The end did not come without a fight for the Minnesota Wild. But it was an ending, nonetheless.

Facing elimination in Game 6 of their first-round series with Vegas, the Wild were unable to play with a lead — which was critical in these half-dozen games — and fell 3-2 on Thursday, with the Golden Knights claiming the series 4-2.

Vegas star forward Jack Eichel scored his first playoff goal at a critical time, snapping a second-period tie, as the Golden Knights won the final three games of the series to advance for the first time since their Stanley Cup win in 2023. Mark Stone added an insurance goal for the Knights with just under 4 minutes left in regulation as they held off the Wild’s late charge.

Ryan Hartman scored both goals for Minnesota, which has lost its past three playoff series in six games after leading all of them 2-1. Filip Gustavsson had 20 saves for Minnesota, which last won a first-round playoff series in 2015.

Adin Hill was the difference-maker as the Wild made a desperate third period push, as the Knights goalie had 29 saves in the win.

The season-long story about penalty-kill struggles added another chapter before the game was 5 minutes old, when Marco Rossi drew a double minor for high sticking on his first shift of the game. Vegas used the man advantage to forge an early lead on Shea Theodore’s wrist shot from the blue line.

With 20 seconds left in the opening period, the Wild had the puck behind their own net and looked, briefly, like they might be content to run out the clock and get to the first intermission. Instead, they initiated one final rush up ice, which ended noisily, when Hartman sent a shot through a crowd, tying the game with 4 seconds left in the first.

It was the first goal of the playoffs for Hartman, who had four assists in the first five games, and famously had a potential game-winner taken away in Game 5 when replay showed the team entered the offensive zone offside.

Minnesota made a strong push early in the second but could not take the lead, controlling the play for much of a two-minute man advantage without a breakthrough.

Instead, it was Vegas grabbing the momentum and the lead late in the period. Eichel, who had been held without a goal in the series’ first five games as the Knights’ top line struggled, got a breakaway after a lead pass from Stone that was just out of reach of Kirill Kaprizov’s desperate attempt to swat it away. Eichel’s low shot beat Gustavsson on the glove side.

But Minnesota refused to go quietly in the third, making push after push early in the period as Vegas seemed content to sit back, play defense and ice the puck when they could. Matt Boldy had a wide-open shot from the low slot only to have the puck poked away. A minute or so later, Hartman came in all alone after a set-up pass, but Hill made the save.

After Stone knocked a puck out of the air and past Gustavsson for a 3-1 lead, Hartman potted a tap-in from the side of the net just 21 seconds later to make it a one-goal game again. Hartman had a potential hat trick at his feet, but could not get a shot off following a rebound that was loose in the crease with 2:40 left.

The Wild sent Gustavsson to the bench with two minutes remaining.

The Wild went with the same lineup as Game 5, most notable for the return of Gustavsson, after he exited the previous contest after 40 minutes in with an illness. There was some speculation of potential defensive changes following the coverage gaffe that led to the Knights’ overtime winner, but coach John Hynes stuck with the status quo.

Vegas made a change at forward with Pavel Dorofeyev, their top goal scorer, missing from the lineup for the first time this season. He had played all 82 regular season games and the first five in the playoffs, but suffered an undisclosed injury late in Game 5.

Vegas, which won the Pacific Division, will host the winner of the first-round series between Los Angeles and Edmonton.

Related Articles

Wild embrace the hard of facing elimination, again

Facing elimination, Wild put on their game face

Vegas delivers gut punch as Knights push Wild to brink of elimination

Jon Merrill returns to Wild defense corps for Game 5

During Wild’s injury woes, Matt Boldy blocked out the noise