In a matchup between two of the American League’s top pitching staffs, it’s no surprise that runs were hard to come by on Friday night.

After each scoring early, the two pitching staffs put up zeros throughout the middle and late innings of the game before Ty France hit a walk-off home run inning to send the Twins to a 3-1 win over the Kansas City Royals on Friday night at Target Field.

France unleashed on a first-pitch slider from Lucas Erceg, sending the ball deep into the night. It was France’s second-walk off hit as a Twin this season and first career walk-off home run.

The Twins’ only run prior to that point came in the second inning when Carlos Correa hammered a Noah Cameron pitch to center field. The ball, which traveled 429 feet, left the bat at 107.2 miles per hour and tied the game up at the time. It was Correa’s first at-bat since returning from the seven-day concussion injured list after colliding with teammate Byron Buxton last Thursday in Baltimore.

Correa said he experienced dizziness, headaches and brain fog in the days after suffering the concussion, but he looked good in his return, sending another fly ball deep to right field in his second at-bat of the night. He also collected an infield single in the ninth inning and scored on France’s home run.

While the Twins didn’t have that many opportunities to begin with in the game — they finished the day with just six hits — the Royals had a chance in almost every inning. And yet, Twins pitchers made sure those chances didn’t amount to anything.

Though Pablo López did not throw a 1-2-3 inning in his outing, he was able to pitch around traffic for the most part, after giving up a run in the first inning. López allowed seven hits in his outing, but each time he did, he maneuvered himself out of it. He departed with two outs in the sixth inning in favor of Brock Stewart, who got Kyle Isbel to pop up for the final out of the inning.

In the seventh, Louie Varland allowed a four-pitch walk to begin his outing but a key double play helped him out of the situation. And an inning later, after Maikel Garcia reached on a leadoff single, Griffin Jax picked him off before recording the next two outs of the inning. With a scoreless ninth, Cole Sands picked up the win for the Twins.

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The looks were there, but the shots did not fall Friday for the Minnesota Lynx until they absolutely had to fall.

Natisha Hiedeman swished home a 3-pointer with 1:04 remaining to cap a 18-0 run for the first Lynx lead of the game and Minnesota rallied to beat Connecticut 76-70.

“Coming out of the huddle we just said everybody needs to be aggressive,” said Hiedeman. “… Just taking what the defense give me.”

By scoring 23 of the game’s final 25 points, Minnesota is off to its first 4-0 start since beginning its 2017 championship season 9-0.

Marina Mabrey got the 0-3 Sun within one, but Hiedeman split four Connecticut defenders on a drive to the hoop and a 73-70 lead with 31.3 seconds left in a headache-inducing, raucous Target Center. The noise got even louder with a Bridget Carleton steal with 23 seconds left.

“It was so amazing. It was so fun, so loud. They were like our sixth man out there,” Napheesa Collier said.

With chants of “MVP” echoing in the arena, Collier calmly made two free throws to all but ice the win.

Collier did her usual thing with 33 points, and Jessica Shepard added 13 and Hiedeman 11 – both off the bench. Collier added 11 rebounds, her first double-figure mark this season.

“Phee is the most consistent player in the league,” Shepard said. “Every night you know what you’re going to get from here. Our team was really struggling tonight and she just kept putting the ball in the basket when we needed baskets and just kept us in the game.”

Not one to regularly express displeasure with officials, Collier more than once had words for someone with a whistle after being hacked on the way to the hoop and no foul being called. Reeve said that’s something the Lynx superstar should not have to go through.

“You put on another game tonight, and you see a post player doing that very same thing … they’re going to be immediately called a foul, immediately. Phee should not have to accept the level of contact she accepted tonight. I thought that was just egregious.”

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State lawmakers plan to work through the Memorial Day weekend to finalize Minnesota’s next $66 billion, two-year budget, which they failed to pass by Monday’s legislative deadline.

Republican Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, right, and House Democratic-Farmer-Labor Leader Melissa Hortman, left, address reporters during a news conference at the state Capitol in St. Paul on Thursday, May 22, 2025. (Alex Derosier / Pioneer Press)

Leaders hope they can wrap up negotiations between the House — evenly split between Republican and Democratic-Farmer-Labor members — and the DFL-led Senate by early next week, so that Gov. Tim Walz can call them back for a special session to pass a budget before the end of the month.

If they don’t, state employees will get layoff notices starting June 1 warning of a potential government shutdown in July. The fiscal year ends June 30, and the Legislature has to authorize new spending before then in order to keep the state running.

“Working groups” have been meeting since Tuesday, mostly in private, to finalize details on big spending areas like K-12 education and health and human services, which account for two-thirds of state general fund spending.

“Even though it’s slower than we would like, things are going well. It doesn’t appear that anyone has quit or given up, and that is a very good sign,” Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth of Cold Spring told reporters Thursday. “Our expectation is they’ll be here working until they can come up with an agreement and move it forward.”

There’s been progress on a handful of bills, but as of Friday evening, there was no public information on final deals for taxes or the biggest parts of state spending. A controversial provision in the budget deal reached by legislative leaders and the governor last week may be slowing progress on the health bill.

DFLers and Republicans agreed to end state-funded MinnesotaCare health insurance for adults in the U.S. without legal immigration status, a benefit DFLers created while in control of state government in 2023. Republicans agreed to preserve care for children, but many Democrats remain strongly opposed.

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy of St. Paul wants MinnesotaCare cuts to travel as a separate bill, but Republicans want it to run with the overall health package. At a Thursday joint news conference with Demuth, House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman of Brooklyn Park said they hadn’t resolved the matter.

Both the DFL and Republican House leaders said they’re confident Walz will sign all parts of the budget deal into law and still would approve cuts to immigrant care even if it traveled separately from a broader health bill.

Further complicating matters are the unique dynamics of co-leaders from both parties in the House working with the DFL majority in the Senate. The last time the House was tied was in 1979. Murphy called the House a “two-headed monster.”

“It’s been more challenging than usual to sew this all together,” she told reporters on Thursday.

Working groups have already passed their leadership-imposed Wednesday deadline to finish work on bills, so leaders from both parties said they are getting more closely involved. They haven’t moved to take over the bills for committee chairs yet, but the option remains on the table.

Murphy said she was skipping cabin plans for the weekend to make sure work gets done.

As of Friday, most negotiations have taken place in hearings that are not publicly posted or open to the general public.

A few key budget pieces had public hearings on Thursday — K-12 and human services — though the tax bill has been the only part that has had daily public hearings since the working group process started. The Legislature only passed a handful of the 20 or so budget bills in the regular session.

On Thursday, Hortman said the commerce, workforce and human services bills were close to completion. While there had been some trouble with energy and K-12 education, most of the budget deals were approaching completion.

House leadership sent Reps. Paul Torkelson, R-Hanska, and Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids, to help mediate. As of Friday, it was unclear if they were any closer to a deal.

“The only ones that are very far from having a fully formed bill ready to post is probably taxes and maybe health,” Hortman said Thursday. “The rest of them I think you are going to see posted spreadsheets soon and posted language not too long after that.”

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By MIKE PESOLI

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — For the last two years, Army Sgt. 1st Class Andrew Jay has been dutifully guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.

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Rain or shine, snow or sleet, for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, Jay and the other guards on watch duty serve as both protectors and commemorators of a national tribute to America’s unidentified and missing service members.

With Jay’s final walk scheduled for June 2, this Memorial Day will hold special significance for him as the cemetery prepares for a string of events honoring those who paid the ultimate price for their country.

“It’s meant a lot,” Jay, 38, told The Associated Press. “I’m going to try to make sure it doesn’t define me, but it was definitely a defining moment in my career.”

The Associated Press was given rare access to the changing of the guard at the sunrise hour, as the cemetery was still closed to the public.

Jay, who is from Indianapolis, volunteered for the position after serving in the Kentucky-based 101st Airborne Division, which specializes in air assault operations and is known for its record in World War II. He trained for almost 18 months for the guard duty.

“The training is unlike anything I’ve ever done in my career so far,” he said. “It’s more than the physical aspect of any other Army school you might think of.”

The guards, also known as sentinels for their watchful duty, train even on their off-days, walking on the mat for two hours straight to build up muscular endurance.

But that isn’t the only endurance required of the sentinels.

“It’s a lot of mental ability,” Jay said. “You have to be locked in for a nine-minute guard change, but then also your 30-minute walk. So, what you’re thinking about kind of varies between soldier to soldier.”

The sentinels spend half an hour walking the mat in the warmer months and an hour during colder months. They perform a dramatic changing of the guard at the grave site that visitors to the Washington area flock to see, marching 21 steps down the mat, turning and facing east for 21 seconds, then north for 21 seconds and then back down the mat for 21 more, repeating the process.

The number refers to the high military honor of the 21-gun salute, which can be heard booming throughout the cemetery and surrounding areas during military funerals on the grounds.

There are currently three unidentified U.S. service members buried in the tomb: one from World War I, one from World War II and one from the Korean War.

With Memorial Day approaching, the cemetery — which is run by the U.S. Army and has 3 to 4 million visitors annually — will hold a number of events to honor fallen service members. Just before Memorial Day weekend, the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment places American flags at the grave sites of more than 260,000 service members buried at the cemetery — an event known as “Flags In.” On the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, the public is invited to leave flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier for Flowers of Remembrance Day.

“Memorial Day still retains the purpose that it had back in 1868 during that first official observance here in Arlington,” said Allison Finkelstein, the senior historian of Arlington National Cemetery. “It is the day to remember and honor our war dead.”

There have been 733 tomb guards since 1958. On average, seven to nine tomb guards work every day.

“The honor of guarding them isn’t just about the Three Unknowns, it’s about everybody that lays here in the cemetery and what they gave in the pursuit of freedom,” Jay said.