Today is Sunday, Feb. 22, the 53rd day of 2026. There are 312 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Feb. 22, 2022, three white men were convicted of federal hate crimes in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, who was jogging through their neighborhood near Brunswick, Georgia, when he was attacked in 2020. (The men are serving life sentences after being convicted of murder in state court.)

Also on this date:

In 1732, the first president of the United States, George Washington, was born in Westmoreland County in the Virginia Colony.

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In 1784, a U.S. merchant ship, the Empress of China, left New York for the first trade voyage of an American ship to China.

In 1819, a weakened Spain, facing revolutions in Latin America, signed a treaty ceding Florida to the United States.

In 1862, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated to a full six-year term as president of the Confederate States of America after his election the previous November. He previously served as the Confederacy’s provisional president.

In 1959, the inaugural Daytona 500 race was held; although Johnny Beauchamp was initially declared the winner, the victory was later awarded to Lee Petty.

In 1967, more than 25,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese troops launched Operation Junction City, aimed at smashing a Viet Cong stronghold near the Cambodian border.

In 1997, scientists in Scotland announced they had successfully cloned an adult mammal for the first time, a sheep they named “Dolly.”

In 1980, the “Miracle on Ice” took place at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, as the U.S. Olympic hockey team upset the Soviet Union, 4-3. (The U.S. team went on to win the gold medal two days later, 4-2, over Finland.)

In 2010, Najibullah Zazi, accused of buying products from beauty supply stores to make bombs for an attack on New York City subways, pleaded guilty to charges including conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction. (He spent nearly a decade after his arrest helping the U.S. identify and prosecute terrorists and was given a 10-year sentence.)

In 2020, pioneering Black mathematician Katherine Johnson, who calculated rocket trajectories and Earth orbits for NASA’s early space missions and was later portrayed in the 2016 film “Hidden Figures,” died at the age of 101.

In 2024, a private lander built by Intuitive Machines made the first U.S. touchdown on the moon in more than 50 years, but the spacecraft only managed a weak signal and spotty communications with flight controllers.

Today’s birthdays:

Actor Paul Dooley is 98.
Actor James Hong is 97.
Actor Julie Walters is 76.
Basketball Hall of Famer Julius Erving is 76.
Golf Hall of Famer Amy Alcott is 70.
Actor Kyle MacLachlan is 67.
Golf Hall of Famer Vijay Singh is 63.
Hockey Hall of Famer Pat LaFontaine is 61.
Actor Paul Lieberstein (TV: “The Office) is 59.
Actor Jeri Ryan is 58.
Actor-singer Lea Salonga is 55.
Tennis Hall of Famer Michael Chang is 54.
Singer James Blunt is 52.
Actor Drew Barrymore is 51.
Comedian Iliza Shlesinger is 43.
Dancer and singer Genneya Walton is 27.
Rapper Molly Brazy is 27.

The ceremony went on as scheduled Saturday night at Anderson Arena, with St. Thomas’ men’s hockey team honoring its nine seniors on the ice postgame.

What wasn’t part of the plan was for it to be done amid such a somber atmosphere.

The Tommies entered the weekend looking to take a stranglehold on the CCHA regular season title. Instead, they followed up a shootout loss to Augustana with a 4-0 loss on Saturday, which cost them a share of first place.

“We’ve got to right the ship,” Tommies coach Rico Blasi said. “We’ve got to get back to work. Maybe we didn’t work hard enough in practice last week. That’s on me.”

By taking five of a possible six points over the weekend, the Vikings take over first place in the CCHA, two points ahead of the Tommies and Michigan Tech. Minnesota State is four points back.

Augustana has completed its regular season, while the other three teams will finish up with a pair of games next weekend. The Tommies play at Bemidji State.

Asked about his team’s performance on Saturday, Blasi said, “I didn’t mind our game.”

Missing, however, was a spark that could have changed the outcome.

The Vikings led 1-0 midway through the third period before scoring twice in just over two minutes and capping things off with an empty-net goal. The second goal was a back-breaker,
with the Tommies turning the puck over at their own blue line and surrendering a breakaway goal.

The Tommies have had the most prolific offense in the conference this season, but the Vikings kept the clamps on them for most of the night.

“They played hard, they blocked shots,” Blasi said. “(Josh) Kotai is a premier goalie in the conference and probably in the country. I thought in the second period we had 15 scoring
chances. We didn’t get real good looks, we didn’t get a lot of second opportunities, so they did a really good job of that.”

The Tommies were 0-for-4 on the power play while working without one of its point men in Nick Williams, who was injured on Friday night.

“You’ve got to score on the power play,” Blasi said. “We weren’t clean on the power play. Willie being hurt and not being out there, that hurts us. Now we have to be comfortable with Willie not being around. That’s a big loss for our team.”

The Tommies are 1-3-1 in their last five games after having their 11-game winning streak snapped. The streak was snapped in a 4-3 loss at Michigan Tech. The Tommies then split a
series at Bowling Green.

Blasi said the results are not due to a dip in the team’s game down the stretch.

“The Tech series was pretty good, it could have gone either way both night’s,” he said. “I thought we played really well. We go up to Bowling Green, we win Friday, we played decent Saturday. It wasn’t a bad game, we just didn’t get the result. I thought we played pretty good (Friday) night until the end. Tonight was a 1-0 game until the turnover.”

Blasi said his team learned a hard lesson over the weekend.

“A this time of year you’ve got to play a little bit desperate,” he said. “You have to have a little controlled urgency, controlled desperation. Our guys know that, but I think now it’s sinking in a little bit. You saw a team in Augustana — this was their last two games and they were desperate and they played that way. We have to match that going forward.”

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Brandi Carlile is a national treasure.

That’s the biggest takeaway from the singer/songwriter’s magical, spirited and joyous performance Saturday night in front of a sold-out, absolutely reverent crowd at Target Center in downtown Minneapolis.

“Minneapolis! Look at you! Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes, you angels,” Carlile said early on in the show, which was broadcast live on 89.3 The Current.

Live video of the concert also streamed on veeps.com for $29.99, with the proceeds benefiting the Minneapolis-based legal aid nonprofit The Advocates for Human Rights. She told the crowd that the stream — which will be available for viewing for 48 hours — had raised half a million dollars.

“The great state of Minnesota,” Carlile said. “You set an example for the rest of us that nobody will ever forget. I’m starstruck, I’m nervous, I’m in awe of all of you.”

Carlile was obviously referring to the record surge of ICE agents in the state, but she didn’t preach and she didn’t proselytize beyond a brief monologue in the second hour of the show. Instead, she said things like “It has pained me not to be here … you’ve been on my mind every second of every day. I’ve thought about what special people you are. There’s no one else like you.”

The love flowed both ways during this stop on Carlile’s first-ever arena tour. Yes, she has played arenas in the past, including a triumphant show at the former Xcel Energy Center in July 2022, but this was her first time with her own sound and light systems. Still, she kept the production relatively simple with a large stage for her band, some footlights and a giant screen behind them all.

Going way back to her 2005 debut album, the Twin Cities have been one of Carlile’s biggest markets. She has played the metro more than 30 times and at one point took a moment to remember some of the many venues, including the 400 Bar, Varsity Theater, First Avenue, the Minnesota State Fair and Minnesota Zoo.

“It’s been such an incredible journey with you guys since the very beginning,” Carlile said. She later added that she draws bigger crowds in Minnesota than in her home state of Washington.

She opened with “Returning to Myself,” the title track of her eighth and most recent album. With an acoustic guitar across her chest, she performed in front of an orange spotlight that dramatically cast her silhouette onto a scrim that dropped midway through the song to reveal the full band. From there, she played much of the new record as well as its predecessor, 2021’s “In These Silent Days.”

As always, she proved equally adept at contemplative ballads and full-out rockers. “Mainstream Kid” fell squarely in the latter category and she tore through it with a ferociousness not often seen in the singer/songwriter set. She followed it up with another barn burner, “Broken Horses” and later, the slow-building epic “Right on Time.”

There were plenty more intimate moments, like when she took a pair of song requests from the crowd, backed only by her longtime bandmates Phil and Tim Hanseroth. The first, “Beginning to Feel the Years,” had a roadie scrambling backstage to find a ukulele and the second, “The Things I Regret,” stomped along with glee. (Both requests came from Carlile’s 2015 album “The Firewatcher’s Daughter.”)

She introduced “A War with Time” with a story about visiting New York for the first time, performed “A Woman Oversees” on electric piano joined by the Milwaukee siblings who go by the moniker SistaStrings and burned the place down with mammoth takes on her two best-known songs, “The Story” and “The Joke.”

Every time Brandi Carlile plays the Twin Cities, it’s tempting to say it was her best show here yet. Saturday’s concert was her best show here yet … until the next one.

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Minnesota United battled back with a 90th minute equalizer to draw 2-2 with Austin FC on Saturday at Q2 Stadium in Austin, Texas.

Kelvin Yeboah scored on a header at the back post to snag a road point in the Loons’ season opener. Devin Padelford, back from last year’s loan at St. Louis City, provided the assist on a lofted cross.

Minnesota was staring at a loss to being the season after Austin right back Jon Gallagher got enough space against the left side of the Loons defense to score at the back post in the 78th minute. Robert Taylor provided the cross to set up the 2-1 lead.

The Loons and Austin exchanged goals off corner kicks in the opening 45 minutes. Brendan Hines-Ike scored in the seventh minute for Austin, while Morris Duggan equalized with a header of his own in the 40th minute. It was Duggan’s first MLS goal after playing 1,360 minutes since 2024.

Austin goalkeeper Brad Stuver was forced to make two saves near the end of the half. One on Tomas Chancalay’s long-range curler in the 40th minute and Yeboah’s rip from near the penalty spot in the 46th.