CHICAGO — The Twins are the hottest team in baseball, so it’s a time where more and more fans are hoping to tune in. And yet, less and less are able to see their team play on TV.

Starting Wednesday, Comcast subscribers were no longer able watch any of the Bally Sports Regional Networks, affecting not just Twins fans but sports fans across the country. That’s because Comcast and Diamond Sports Group, which owns the Bally RSNs, were unable to reach a new carriage agreement by a Tuesday deadline.

Bally Sports North logo

“The Twins are disappointed by this massive disruption for our fans, who simply want to watch our games,” the Twins said in a statement. “This situation is a business negotiation between Comcast and Bally’s. The Twins have no role or voice in this matter. We are hopeful the two parties are able to come to an agreement as soon as possible.”

Comcast customers trying to tune into Bally Sports North on Wednesday were greeted with a message saying that the company had offered Diamond Sports Group “multiple options” to continue carrying their networks, all of which had been declined.

“We have been very flexible with Diamond Sports Group for months as they work through their bankruptcy proceedings, providing them with an extension on the Bally Sports Regional Networks last fall and a unilateral right to extend the term for another year, which they opted to not exercise,” Comcast said in a statement. “We’d like to continue carrying their networks, but they have declined multiple offers and now we no longer have the rights to this programming.”

As a result, Comcast is planning on applying a monthly credit to customers in coming weeks that will be between $8-10 per month.

Diamond Sports Group, in a statement of its own, alleged that Comcast “has refused to engage in substantive discussion.”

“It’s disappointing that Comcast rejected a proposed extension that would have kept our channels on the air and that Comcast indicated that it intends to pull the signals, preventing fans from watching their favorite local teams,” Diamond Sports Group said in a statement.

Already, Twins fans who use streaming services like YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV have been unable to view Twins games for years, a massive source of frustration both for the Twins and for many of their fans. Now, fans have even fewer options to watch the Twins.

Fubo and DirecTV will continue to carry Bally Sports North, and Twins fans who are out of market can watch games on MLB.TV. In-market fans will still face blackout restrictions on MLB.TV.

While it looked as if the Twins, hoping to expand their reach, might move on from Bally Sports North this offseason after their long-term contract expired, they ended up re-upping with Diamond Sports Group for the current season.

Caleb Boushley called up

The Twins called up Caleb Boushley, a Wisconsinite, on Wednesday morning to add a fresh arm to the bullpen.

Boushley has been pitching out of the Triple-A Saints’ rotation, where he had a 4.00 earned-run average across five starts. He entered Wednesday having made just one major-league appearance in his career, pitching in one game for his hometown Milwaukee Brewers last season.

“It gets your heart racing when you get the call,” he said. “There is a slight familiarity with the process now. I’ve done it before. I’m just excited to have an opportunity again.”

To make room on the roster, the Twins optioned Kody Funderburk, who threw two innings on Tuesday, to Triple-A. The rookie had a 3.38 ERA.

Briefly

The Twins will return home to Target Field on Friday with Chris Paddack on the mound to host the Red Sox.

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By ALI SWENSON (Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump on Tuesday lamented the possibility that Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protesters could be treated more leniently than the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in January 2021, marking the second time in a week the former president has invoked the ongoing campus protests to downplay past examples of right-wing violence.

Speaking in the hallway outside a Manhattan courtroom where his criminal hush money trial is taking place, Trump questioned whether student demonstrators who seized and barricaded a campus building early Tuesday, some of them vandalizing it in the process, would be treated the same way as his supporters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 to stop certification of the presidential results.

“I think I can give you the answer right now,” he said. “And that’s why people have lost faith in our court system.”

Trump’s remarks demonstrate anew how he and the Republican Party have tried to minimize the deadliest assault on the seat of American power in over 200 years, arguing that violent or criminal behavior by the left is a larger threat. Trump has called the rioters “unbelievable patriots” and has talked openly about the prospect of issuing pardons if he wins a second term.

His comments come as he runs to reclaim the White House and is juggling charges in four separate criminal cases. They promote his position that the charges are being orchestrated by Democrats to keep him out of the White House and that he and his supporters are the targets of political persecution by a fundamentally corrupt justice system.

“They took over a building. That is a big deal,” Trump said of the Columbia protesters. “And I wonder if what’s going to happen to them will be anything comparable to what happened to J6, because they’re doing a lot of destruction, a lot of damages, a lot of people getting hurt very badly. I wonder if that’s going to be the same kind of treatment they gave J6. Let’s see how that all works out.”

More than 1,350 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 800 of them have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving terms of imprisonment ranging from a few days to 22 years. According to the Justice Department, 89 have pleaded guilty to federal felony charges of assaulting law enforcement officers.

Legal scholars and political scientists said Trump’s strategy could help his campaign but point out there are stark differences between Jan. 6 and the campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war. College students have gathered in encampments on Columbia and other campuses to call for a ceasefire and demand their universities cut financial ties to Israel.

“The Columbia protests are not aimed at stopping the peaceful transition of power following an election, so they do not threaten the functioning of U.S. democracy,” said Richard Hasen, an expert in election law and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles law school.

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Hakeem Jefferson, an assistant professor of political science at Stanford University, said the demonstrations at a Columbia building that also was occupied during a civil rights protest in the 1960s reflect a long tradition of college students “pushing on the conscience” of their country.

“This is a tradition of protest. Disruptive, to be sure. Annoying to university administrators, to be sure,” Jefferson said. “To the contrary, what happened on January the 6th was a violent attempt to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. There is no tradition of that in American history. It is unprecedented. And that is why we should, of course, treat it differently.”

Some of the recent campus protests have erupted into clashes with police, and hundreds of students have been arrested. Protesters in some parts of the country have hurled water bottles or other objects at officers, and police have deployed chemical agents to disperse crowds or carried them away amid screams.

Trump’s remarks build on a strategy of Republicans and conservative social media influencers to reframe what constitutes an insurrection as part of an ongoing attempt to influence the public’s perception of Jan. 6. They have used the term to describe public demonstrations and even the 2020 election that put Democrat Joe Biden in the White House.

Some social media users on Tuesday called the takeover of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall an “insurrection,” and said the media wouldn’t describe it that way because the views of the protesters aligned with the political left. Fox News used the reference in an article Tuesday about the student protesters, reporting that “the insurrection began at approximately 12:30 a.m.”

Legal experts say the term “insurrection” has a specific meaning — a violent uprising that targets government authority — and that protests that do not involve an attempt to dismantle or replace a government shouldn’t be classified that way.

Tuesday was the second time in a week that Trump has compared the campus protests to past examples of right-wing violence.

Last week, he claimed the deadly 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where torch-wielding white supremacists chanted “Jews will not replace us” was “nothing” compared to the antisemitism displayed at the campus protests.

“The hate wasn’t the kind of hate that you have here,” he said.

He returned to the reference in his comment outside court on Tuesday, saying, “Charlottesville is peanuts compared to what you’re looking at now.”

The campus protests have pitted students against one another, and videos show instances of demonstrators making antisemitic remarks and violent threats. Some Jewish students say the hateful rhetoric has made them afraid to set foot on campus.

Meanwhile, organizers of the protests, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting the war.

Columbia University on Tuesday said students occupying Hamilton Hall would face expulsion.

“Protesters have chosen to escalate to an untenable situation — vandalizing property, breaking doors and windows, and blockading entrances — and we are following through with the consequences we outlined yesterday,” said Ben Chang, the university’s spokesperson.

Associated Press writer Melissa Goldin in New York contributed to this report.

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By TOM MURPHY (AP Health Writer)

The Change Healthcare cyberattack that disrupted health care systems nationwide earlier this year started when hackers entered a server that lacked a basic form of security: multifactor authentication.

UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty said Wednesday in a U.S. Senate hearing that his company, which owns Change Healthcare, is still trying to understand why the server did not have the additional protection.

His admission did not sit well with Senate Finance Committee members who spent more than two hours questioning the CEO about the attack and broader health care issues.

“This hack could have been stopped with cybersecurity 101,” Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden told Witty.

Multifactor authentication adds a second layer of security to password-protected accounts by having users enter an auto-generated code. It’s common on apps protecting sensitive data like bank accounts and meant to guard against hackers guessing passwords.

Hackers gained access to Change Healthcare in February and unleashed a ransomware attack that encrypted and froze large parts of the company’s system, Witty said. The attack disrupted payment and claims processing around the country, stressing doctor’s offices and health care systems by interfering with their ability to file claims and get paid.

While UnitedHealth quickly disconnected the affected systems to limit damage and paid a $22 million ransom, Witty said. The company is still recovering.

“We’ve literally built this platform back from scratch so that we can reassure people that there are not elements of the old attacked environment within the new technology,” Witty said.

Witty told senators that the company was in the process of upgrading Change’s technology, and he was “incredibly frustrated” to learn about the lack of multifactor authentication, which is a standard across UnitedHealth.

In March, the Office for Civil Rights said it would investigate whether protected health information was exposed and whether Change Healthcare followed laws protecting patient privacy. The company said earlier this month that personal information that could cover a “substantial portion of people in America” may have been taken in the attack. But company officials have said they see no signs that doctor charts or full medical histories were released after the attack.

Witty also told senators he was “deeply, deeply sorry,” and the company would not rest until the problem had been fixed.

Change Healthcare provides technology used to submit and process insurance claims — about 14 billion transactions a year. UnitedHealth bought Change Healthcare in a roughly $8 billion deal that closed in 2022.

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By DAVID BAUDER (AP Media Writer)

NEW YORK (AP) — Even as many Americans say they learn about the 2024 election campaign from national news outlets, a disquieting poll reveals some serious trust issues.

About half of Americans, 53%, say they are extremely or very concerned that news organizations will report inaccuracies or misinformation during the election. Some 42% express worry that news outlets will use generative artificial intelligence to create stories, according to a poll from the American Press Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The poll found 47% of Americans also expressing serious concern that news outlets would report information that has not been confirmed or verified, and 44% worry that accurate information will be presented in a way that favors one side or another.

Half of Americans say they get election news always or frequently from national news outlets, a percentage that is higher among older respondents, the poll found.

“The level of engagement is good,” said Michael Bolden, CEO of the American Press Institute. “The thing that’s most concerning is that they’re not sure they can actually trust the information.”

Years of suspicion about journalists, much of it sown by politicians, is partly responsible, he said. People are also less familiar with how journalism works. The poll found about half of respondents say they have at least a moderate amount of confidence in the information they receive from either national or local news outlets when it comes to the 2024 elections, though only about 1 in 10 say they have a great deal of confidence.

“There may have been a time when people knew a journalist because one lived on their block,” Bolden said. “The way the industry has been decimated, that’s much less likely.”

Simply putting out the news often isn’t good enough anymore, he said. There’s a growing disconnect between news organizations and communities that the outlets need to address, by helping to let people know what journalists do and how people reporting news are their friends and neighbors, he said.

Outlets should lean into a convenor role, bringing people together for newsworthy events, he said.

About half of U.S. adults say they follow the news about presidential elections closely, with older adults being more engaged. About two-thirds of Americans age 60 or older say they keep a close eye on presidential election news, compared wth roughly one-third of those under age 30.

The same trend is seen with local and state election news. While the poll found that 46% of Americans age 60 or older say they follow news about local and state elections closely, only 16% of people age 18 to 29 said the same thing.

“As they transition to becoming older people, will they begin to care?” Bolden asked. “If they don’t begin to care, what will that mean for local and state communities?”

Young people, those under age 30, are about as likely to get election news from social media or friends or family as they are to get it from national or local news outlets, the poll found. Black and Latino adults are somewhat more likely to express “a great deal” of confidence in the reliability of social media as a source of election news than white Americans are.

That’s both a warning sign, since there is a lot more misinformation to be found on social media, and an opportunity for traditional outlets to make more of their work available this way, Bolden said.

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About 6 in 10 Democrats say they get election news from national outlets at least frequently. That’s more than the 48% of Republicans or 34% of independents, according to the poll. Republicans are more likely than Democrats and independents to express concern about inaccurate information or misinformation in news coverage during the upcoming elections. About 6 in 10 Republicans are concerned about this, compared with about half of Democrats.

Besides inaccuracies, many also expressed serious concern about election news that focuses too much on division or controversies or concentrates on who may win or lose — the horserace aspect of political coverage — rather than issues or the character of candidates.

Most Americans say that for them to make informed decisions about the 2024 state and local elections, they want national and local news outlets to highlight candidates’ values or their different positions on key social issues. In each case, about three-quarters of U.S. adults say they would like “a lot” or “some” coverage of these topics.

The poll of 2,468 adults was conducted March 21-25, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

David Bauder writes about media for The Associated Press. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder.