After opening with the band’s 2024 single “Coming Home,” Old Dominion lead singer Matthew Ramsey marveled at what a beautiful night it was Thursday at the Minnesota State Fair.

He wasn’t kidding. By the time the Nashville five piece took the Grandstand stage, the temperature had dipped below 80 degrees and the darkening skies took on a purple shade. It was, indeed, a perfect night and Old Dominion turned out to be the perfect band to open the Grandstand.

The sold-out crowd of 14,118 agreed as well and gave a warm, boozy reception to the band, who come across more like a ’70s soft pop/rock band than your typical country group. By and large, they skip songs about trucks and bars and instead sing about romance, relationships and love. And they write big, juicy hooks that are easy to grasp, even if they’re a bit on the generic side.

They focused on the hits throughout the 110-minute show, including the Top 5 hits “Break Up with Him,” “Song for Another Time,” “Snapback,” “No Such Thing as a Broken Heart,” “Written in the Sand” and “One Man Band.” Several band members have written hits for other acts, so it wasn’t a surprise to hear them cover their frequent tourmate Kenny Chesney’s “Save it for a Rainy Day,” which Ramsey cowrote.

Ramsey also noted it was the band’s third time playing the State Fair, following a 2015 debut on the free stage formerly known as the Leinie Lodge Bandshell followed by their Grandstand debut three years later. He also told the crowd it was the biggest so far on their current tour.

It was a particularly special night for the band, Ramsey told the audience, as their sixth album “Barbara” debuted on streaming services at 11 p.m. To celebrate, they played the new track “Late Great Heartbreak” live for the first time ever. I’m sure plenty of people replayed the Eagles-esque track during their ride home. (The cover art features a mature lady in cat eye glasses, a look some folks in the crowd replicated for the show.)

In what seems like an odd pairing, local indie pop band Yam Haus opened. It turns out a member of Old Dominion heard Yam Haus’ “Green Lights” and liked it enough to offer them the gig, Lars Pruitt said from the stage. And, really, “Green Lights” would’ve sounded right at home in Old Dominion’s set, with its easygoing, melodic groove.

Pruitt said playing the Grandstand was a “dream come true” and, near the end of their 45-minute set he asked the crowd to cheer if they think the headliners should take them on the road sometime. Judging by the roar that emerged from the stands, Yam Haus not only won over a few new fans, maybe just maybe they landed future road work with Old Dominion.

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Need another example of how good the Minnesota Lynx have been this season?

Playing their 35th game of the WNBA season, the Lynx couldn’t quite get a needed basket in the final seconds and lost 75-73 Thursday in Atlanta.

It’s the first time the league’s top team has lost back-to-back games this season. The Lynx lost 85-75 at New York Tuesday.

Bridget Carleton found her offensive rhythm with a season-high 16 points, including four triples, and Jessica Shepard continues to make the most of her starting opportunity with 15 points and a season-best 16 rebounds. Kayla McBride had 15 points.

A close game was expected between the top two teams in the league standings. The Lynx (28-7) won 96-92 in overtime at Atlanta June 27, and the Dream (23-13) won 90-86 one month later at Target Center, Minnesota’s lone regular-season home loss.

Carleton, who scored the first eight Lynx points, tied a season-high with five makes on a season-high 13 attempts. In her past four games combined, Carleton was 3 for 11 from the field, including 1 of 8 on 3-pointers, for eight points.

“We set the tone with her. The matchup starting the game, we knew who would be guarding her, so we got aggressive and got her off with the mindset of being aggressive. We just talked to BC about how much the group needs her, especially without Phee and she rose to the occasion for us today,” coach Cheryl Reeve said.

Forward Napheesa Collier was upgraded to questionable on the team’s initial injury report but still missed her sixth straight game with a sprained right ankle. That again put Shepard in the Starting 5.

Trailing by five with 1:31 to play, the Lynx forced the Dream into a desperation shot as the shot clock was about to expire and Alanna Smith hit a triple at the other end with 48.9 seconds left.

After a Lynx challenge resulted in an Atlanta backcourt violation, Smith nearly tied the game with 28.2 seconds left, but her shot from close did not go down. Two Dream free throws push the lead back to four, but Carleton’s inbounds pass went to Shepard in the lane for a bucket to get the Lynx back within two.

Another backcourt violation by the Dream gave Minnesota the ball with 12.6 seconds left. Carleton inbounded to Smith who got it to Courtney Williams for a drive. However, the ball slipped out of her hands near the basket with 1.7 seconds left.

“We did a great job on defense giving ourselves a chance to win the game,” Shepard said. “The things we did earlier in the game made us come up short. … But we gave ourselves a chance.”

A 13-2 run to end the third quarter had Minnesota up 60-54, but Atlanta scored 14 of the first 16 points in the final quarter for a 68-62 lead with 4:50 to play.

Minnesota trailed by two at the break despite outshooting the Dream 51.6% to 39.8% in the opening 20 minutes and having a 21-13 rebounding advantage, led by Shepard’s 10. The difference is Minnesota turned the ball over 13 of its 18 times which Atlanta turned into 18 points.

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By MEAD GRUVER

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A Wyoming man who allegedly hit a wolf with a snowmobile, taped the wounded animal’s mouth shut and showed it off in a rural bar before killing it has been indicted on an animal cruelty charge by a grand jury nearly a year and a half after the incident.

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Cody Roberts last year paid a $250 fine for illegal possession of wildlife but avoided more serious charges as investigators struggled to find cooperative witnesses. Wyoming law gives wide leeway for people to kill wolves and other predators by a variety of means in the vast majority of the state.

Even so, the 12-person grand jury found enough evidence over the past two weeks to support the charge of felony animal cruelty, Sublette County Attorney Clayton Melinkovich said in a statement Wednesday.

Melinkovich had no further comment on the case. Roberts has not commented on the case and did not have a listed working number, nor an attorney on file in state District Court who might comment on his behalf.

If convicted, Roberts faces up to two years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Widely circulated photos showed a man identified as Roberts posing with the wolf, its mouth bound with tape, on Feb. 29, 2024, in a bar near Daniel, a town of about 150 people about 50 miles south of Jackson.

Video clips showed the same animal lying on a floor, alive but barely moving.

The light punishment against Roberts led to calls for a Wyoming tourism boycott, to little apparent effect. Yellowstone National Park had its second-busiest year on record in 2024, up more than 5% from 2023.

Grand juries in Wyoming are rare. The last one to get significant attention, in 2019, found that a sheriff’s deputy did not commit involuntary manslaughter by killing an unarmed man after a traffic stop.

Government-sponsored poisoning, trapping and bounty hunting all but wiped out wolves in the lower 48 states in the 19th and 20th centuries. Starting in the 1990s, a reintroduction program brought them back to Yellowstone and central Idaho, and their numbers have rebounded.

Though wolves remain listed as a federally endangered or threatened species in most of the country, they have no such protection in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, where they can be hunted and trapped.

Exceptions include Yellowstone and neighboring Grand Teton National Park, where hunting is prohibited and the wild canines are a major attraction for millions of tourists. In 85% percent of Wyoming, wolves are classified as predators and can be freely killed by virtually any means.

The so-called predator zone includes Sublette County, where the wolf was killed. Groups including the Humane Society argued that Wyoming’s animal cruelty law could nonetheless apply there.

By MELISSA GOLDIN

The food pyramid that once guided Americans’ diets has been retired for more than a decade, but that has not stopped President Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from regularly criticizing the concept.

He often highlights the pyramid, misrepresenting dietary standards and criticizing health initiatives of the Biden administration. Such claims were featured in a video aired Tuesday, before his appearance on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime.”

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

KENNEDY: “The dietary guidelines that we inherited from the Biden administration were 453 pages long. They were driven by the same commercial impulses that put Froot Loops at the top of the food pyramid.”

THE FACTS: The original food pyramid did not mention any specific products. But at the very top, it recommended that oils, fats and sugar be consumed “sparingly.” Grains such as bread, cereal, rice and pasta were on the bottom tier, where six to 11 portions a day were recommended. The current dietary guidelines are 164 pages long, not 453. They were released in December 2020 during Trump’s first term, along with a four-page executive summary.

A scientific report used to develop the dietary guidelines is published every five years by an advisory committee. The latest report, released in December by the Biden administration, is 421 pages long. Trump’s first administration released an 835-page scientific report in July 2020 that informed the current guidelines.

“The dietary guidelines include several documents, including a scientific report which summarizes the scientific evidence supporting the dietary guidelines,” said Laura Bellows, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell University. “It can be long due to the comprehensive nature of the document. That said, these findings are distilled down into concise guidelines that are foundational to the creation of consumer information and educational materials.”

Experts said that Froot Loops, a breakfast cereal, would have fallen into multiple categories under the pyramid concept, offering vague guidance to consumers.

“It’s a bit trickier than just one grouping,” Bellows said in an email. She said Froot Loops “would fall more in foods that we should ‘moderate’ … but does contribute to the grain group.” The cereal is high in sugar, she added, but does have fiber and other key nutrients.

The Agriculture Department introduced an updated pyramid guide in 2005 that incorporated new nutritional standards. It retired the pyramid idea altogether in 2011 and now uses the MyPlate concept, which stresses eating a healthy balance of different foods based on factors such as age and sex.

MyPlate recommends making half of the grains one eats in a day whole grains and cutting back on added sugars. Similar to the food pyramid, this puts Froot Loops, which has whole grains and added sugars, in both categories.

“MyPlate, not the Food Pyramid, has been the visual graphic for the US Dietary Guidelines since 2011,” said Bellows. “So, referring to the ‘top of the pyramid’ is a dated reference.”

Kennedy’s other criticism of Froot Loops has focused primarily on its manufacturer’s use of artificial dyes to enhance its color. He has made getting rid of artificial colors in foods an important part of his “Make America Healthy Again” plan.

Asked for comment on Kennedy’s remarks, the Health and Human Services Department said work is on track to release the final 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

The agency said Kennedy is committed to ensuring those guidelines “are grounded in gold-standard science and reflect a clear focus on healthy, whole, and nutritious foods.”

Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.