Today is Sunday, Sept. 22, the 266th day of 2024. There are 100 days left in the year. Autumn begins at 8:43 a.m. EDT.

Today in history:

On Sept. 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all enslaved people in Confederate states should be freed as of Jan. 1, 1863, if the states did not end the fighting and rejoin the Union.

Also on this date:

In 1776, during the Revolutionary War, Capt. Nathan Hale, 21, was hanged as a spy by the British in New York.

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In 1957, Haitian women were allowed to vote for the first time, 153 years after Haiti became an independent country; François Duvalier was elected president.

In 1975, Sara Jane Moore fired two shots in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford outside a San Francisco hotel, missing Ford by inches.

In 1980, the Persian Gulf conflict between Iran and Iraq erupted into a full-scale war that would continue for nearly eight years.

In 1985, rock and country music artists participated in “Farm Aid,” a concert staged in Champaign, Illinois, to help the nation’s farmers.

In 1993, 47 people were killed when an Amtrak passenger train fell off a bridge and crashed into Big Bayou Canot near Mobile, Alabama.

In 2014, the United States and five Arab nations launched airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria, sending waves of planes and Tomahawk cruise missiles against an array of targets.

In 2017, as the scale of the damage from Hurricane Maria started to become clearer, Puerto Rican officials said they could not contact more than half of the communities in the U.S. territory, where all power had been knocked out to the island’s 3.4 million people.

Today’s Birthdays:

Singer-choreographer-actor Toni Basil is 81.
Musician King Sunny Adé (ah-DAY’) is 78.
Football Hall of Famer Harold Carmichael is 75.
Rock singer David Coverdale (Deep Purple, Whitesnake) is 73.
Actor Shari Belafonte is 70.
Singer Debby Boone is 68.
Country singer June Forester (The Forester Sisters) is 68.
Singer Nick Cave is 67.
Singer Andrea Bocelli (an-DRAY’-ah boh-CHEL’-ee) is 66.
Singer-musician Joan Jett is 66.
Actor Scott Baio is 64.
Actor Bonnie Hunt is 63.
Actor Mireille Enos is 49.
Soccer player Thiago Silva is 40.
Actor Tatiana Maslany is 39.
Actor Tom Felton is 37.
Actor Teyonah Parris is 37.
Olympic gold medal skateboarder Coco Yoshizawa is 15.

Minnesota United waited almost eight years to get a regular-season win at Sporting Kansas City.

What’s another couple of hours to wait?

The Loons had to sit through a near-two-hour weather delay due to thunderstorms that hit Children’s Mercy Park at halftime. They had to survive Sporting Kansas City thundering a penalty off the crossbar in the final minute of the game. But when the sky cleared, they’d done something the franchise had never done before: take all three points in Kansas City.

A second-half goal from Kelvin Yeboah, plus an insurance goal in stoppage time from Bongokuhle Hlongwane, gave the Loons a 2-0 win.

“We weren’t in any way dominant in the game,” said manager Eric Ramsay. “But what you saw at the end was a group of players that are desperate to put the points on the board that are required to do what we want to do this year. And I think it’s another big step forward — albeit in a different way to the way in which I would have liked it to be a step forward.”

Minnesota came into the game with an 0-9-0 record in Kansas during the regular season, though MNUFC did win a playoff game in 2020, a memorable 3-0 victory.

The result meant that not only did Minnesota clinch a perfect three-win season against their nearest Western Conference rivals, they knocked SKC out of the playoff race. Against Sporting KC, St. Louis City, and San Jose, the bottom three teams in the Western Conference, the Loons are a perfect 6-0-0 this year; against the other ten teams in the West, Minnesota is 3-9-5.

It took one of the newest Loons to break the deadlock. Kelvin Yeboah carried the ball into the SKC penalty area, did a couple of stepovers, cut inside a defender, then placed a shot inside the far post for the game’s first goal in the 65th minute.

It was Yeboah’s fifth goal in his first five games as a Loon, a remarkable scoring streak for one of Minnesota’s two new Designated Players.

“There is always that Designated Player focal point,” said Ramsay. “If you bring in someone like Kelvin as a number nine, approaching his peak, someone who wants to come in and make a real mark, use this as a step, then that is what you expect from him. “

It was also an exceptional defensive performance from Minnesota’s back line, especially Michael Boxall, who was immense in the center – while playing in between two other center backs, Jefferson Díaz and Carlos Harvey, he’d never partnered with before. Boxall and company defended nine corners and survived 19 attempted SKC shots, but helped hold the home team to just four shots on target.

The exception was Miguel Tapias, who came into the game for Díaz with 15 minutes to go. Tapias’s wild attempt at a tackle on SKC’s Memo Rodrigues led to a penalty kick for the home team in the 90th minute of the match. Willy Agada, though, tried to hit the top corner with his penalty, and instead smacked the crossbar.

Three minutes later, Robin Lod slipped a pass to Hlongwane behind the KC defense, and with all sorts of time, Hlongwane made no mistake, scoring his team-leading 11th goal – and his fourth in four games.The game was 0-0 at halftime, and despite the two second-half goals, Ramsay wasn’t too pleased with his team’s performance.

“I must say, I don’t think we really got going after that break,” he said. “I think we ended up finding ourselves defending very deep. We looked pretty lethargic. We weren’t able to get good pressure on the ball and build pressure in the way that we wanted to do so.”

The win gave Minnesota a seventh road victory this season, a club record, and a third win in four. It also helped them keep pace in the Western Conference playoff race; the Loons are five points ahead of FC Dallas for the final playoff spot, with four games to play, and trail the Portland Timbers for eighth place – and the right to host the wild-card game – by only two points.

The standings, though, felt less important than the accomplishment. For Loons fans, finally taking home the points from a trip to Kansas City was far more valuable than just adding three points to the playoff chase.

Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck compared the Iowa Hawkeyes to a boa constrictor before the Battle for Floyd of Rosedale on Saturday.

“They can suffocate you,” he said on KFXN-FM. It was a prophetic comment.

Minnesota’s asphyxiation started right away in the third quarter, was slow and steady and the U’s time of death came well before the final whistle.

The Gophers had the worst run defense in the Big Ten last season and the Hawkeyes destroyed them on the ground Saturday. Kaleb Johnson, who led the nation in rushing yards going into the game, added 206 yards and three touchdowns on 21 carries. He averaged 9.8 yards per carry.

The Hawkeyes scored 24 unanswered points to recapture the rivalry trophy with a 31-14 win at Huntington Bank Stadium.

Gophers (2-2, 0-1 Big Ten) have not won consecutive Floyd games since 2010-11. The Hawkeyes (2-1, 1-0 Big Ten) have won 10 of the last 12 in the series.

The Gophers had earned its halftime break. Minnesota’s offense came alive with two touchdowns on the final two drives; its defense allowed Iowa only 107 total yards; and the U was feeling good up 14-7.

They didn’t show up for the second half. And fans in the sellout crowd were leaving by the start of the fourth quarter.

Iowa stacked chunk plays to go 67 yards over five plays and score a game-tying touchdown in just over two minutes of this second half. Johnson went untouched on a 15-yard rush to tie the game.

Then Johnson broke tackles at the line up scrimmage on a 40-yard touchdown run to make it 21-14. Iowa was held to 107 yards in the first half and had 127 yards in the opening two drives of third quarter.

A plethora of punts filled the first half — four apiece between the teams across the first 10 possessions. Then the Gophers found success with two touchdown passes from Brosmer on their last two drives.

Tight end Jameson Geers snagged the first TD in the back of the end zone to tie the game, 7-7, with four minutes left in the second quarter.

Then Elijah Spencer caught a swing pass, was spun around but kept his feet and dove into the end zone as Minnesota took a 14-7 lead in the final minute of the half.

Brosmer’s start wasn’t a strong. On the second possession, he threw behind Darius Taylor and Hawkeyes star linebacker Jay Higgins intercepted it.

Then Gophers defensive backs Jack Henderson and Za’Quan Bryan lost contain as Johnson broke a 23-yard run. Johnson scored on the next play to end a Gophers shutout streak that stretched more than eight quarters across the Rhode Island and Nevada wins in the previous two weeks.

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DaShawn Keirsey Jr.’s is capping off his big season in style — record style.

Keirsey, who recently returned to the St. Paul Saints after a short stint in the majors with the Minnesota Twins, had three hits on Saturday as St. Paul lost at home to Indianapolis 8-7.

But the Saints’ center fielder had three hits in the game, setting the franchise record for most hits in a season since the team joined Triple-A. Keirsey has 133 hits this season. He also drove in two runs on Saturday and will begin the final game of the season on Sunday with 81 RBIs, two more than Yunior Severino for the most in a singe season in franchise history.

It wasn’t enough on Saturday.

Indianapolis scored five runs in the first inning and two more in the second to take a lead from which St. Paul wouldn’t recover.

Randy Dobnak started and allowed seven runs on six hits and four walks in four innings. With the Saints rallying, reliever Travis Adams (0-2) took the loss while giving up a run in three innings in relief of Dobnak.

After the Indians led 7-0, the Saints scored five times in the bottom of the second. Jeferson Morales hit a three-run homer, Austin Martin added an RBI double before Keirsey plated another run with a single. Two innings later, Payton Eeles had an RBI triple and Keirsey struck again with an RBI single.

However, Ji Hwan Bae finished the scoring with an RBI single in the sixth for Indianapolis.

Jair Camargo and Carson McCusker each had two hits for St. Paul, who will host the Indians at 12:07 p.m. today in the season’s final game for the Saints.

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