Today is Wednesday, April 16, the 106th day of 2025. There are 259 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On April 16, 2007, Seung-hui Cho, a 23-year-old Virginia Tech student, killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus before taking his own life. It remains the deadliest school history in US history.

Also on this date:

In 1945, a Soviet submarine in the Baltic Sea torpedoed the ship MV Goya, which Germany was using to transport civilian refugees and wounded soldiers. As many as 7,000 people died as the ship broke apart and sank minutes after being struck.

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In 1947, the French cargo ship Grandcamp, carrying over 2,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, blew up in the harbor in Texas City, Texas. A nearby ship, the High Flyer, which was carrying ammonium nitrate and sulfur, caught fire and exploded the following day. The combined blasts and fires killed nearly 600 people and injured 5,000 in the worst industrial accident in U.S. history.

In 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in which the civil rights activist responded to a group of local clergymen who had criticized him for leading street protests. King defended his tactics, writing, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

In 1972, Apollo 16 blasted off for the moon with astronauts John Young, Charles Duke and Ken Mattingly on board.

In 2010, the U.S. government accused Wall Street’s most powerful firm of fraud, saying Goldman Sachs & Co. had sold mortgage investments without telling buyers the securities were crafted with input from a client who was betting on them to fail. (In July 2010, Goldman agreed to pay $550 million in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but it did not admit wrongdoing.)

In 2012, a trial began in Oslo, Norway, for Anders Breivik (AHN’-durs BRAY’-vihk), charged with killing 77 people in a bomb and gun rampage in July 2011. (Breivik was found guilty of terrorism and premeditated murder and given a 21-year prison sentence.)

Today’s Birthdays:

Singer Bobby Vinton is 90.
Basketball Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is 78.
Football coach Bill Belichick is 73.
Actor Ellen Barkin is 71.
Singer Jimmy Osmond is 62.
Actor Jon Cryer is 60.
Actor-comedian Martin Lawrence is 60.
Actor Peter Billingsley is 54.
Actor Lukas Haas is 49.
Actor-singer Kelli O’Hara is 49.
Actor Claire Foy (TV: “The Crown”) is 41.
Rapper Chance the Rapper is 32.
Actor Anya Taylor-Joy is 29.
Actor Sadie Sink is 23.

The NBA announced the dates for Minnesota’s first-round series against Los Angeles.

Times are broadcast networks are set for the first four tilts in the best-of-seven series, with the three dates set for the “if necessary” Games 5-7.

There is a rare amount of days off in this series, with two days off between Games 1 and 2, Games 2 and 3 and Games 4 and 5.

Here are the dates, times and broadcast networks for the Timberwolves’ opening round:

Game 1 in Los Angeles: Saturday, April 19, 7:30 p.m. on ABC

Game 2 in Los Angeles: Tuesday, April 22, 9 p.m. on TNT

Game 3 in Minneapolis: Friday, April 25, 8:30 p.m. on ESPN

Game 4 in Minneapolis: Sunday, April 27, 2:30 p.m. on ABC

Game 5* in Los Angeles: Wednesday, April 30

Game 6* in Minneapolis: Friday, May 2

Game 7* in Los Angeles: Sunday, May 4

*= if necessary

Because the Wild play in Minnesota, and there is apparently a clause in the state constitution that says local sports teams aren’t ever allowed to do things the easy way, the local hockey club chose drama instead.

Needing just one standings point to make the playoffs for the first time under head coach John Hynes, the Wild got the job done in the most nailbiting, teeth-clenching way possible on Tuesday night in their regular season finale.

Joel Eriksson Ek scored an extra attacker goal with 20.9 seconds left in regulation to give Minnesota the one standings point needed. Matt Boldy scored in overtime for a 3-2 Wild win.

“It took some competitive stamina for us to be able to get it, obviously with the 82nd game and 20 seconds left in the game. But I think it was good. I’m really happy for the guys,” Hynes said. “We battled hard throughout the year. Another hard-fought game tonight and found a way to win it, and now we’ve got a chance to compete for the Stanley Cup.”

Filip Gustavsson had 22 saves for Minnesota, which pressured the Anaheim net all night but could only get two of its 37 shots in regulation past Ducks goalie Lukas Dostal. After starting the season red-hot, the Wild saw their once-secure playoff chances get more and more unstable over the course of the past month, as the impact of a season-long rash of injuries took its toll.

But with their postseason berth secured, Gustavsson offered to give up the net. So Hynes put Marc-Andre Fleury in goal for the overtime, to thunderous applause from the fans. The future hall of famer is retiring at season’s end.

“Very surprised. I’d been sitting there for a few hours. But it was good from Gus and Hynesy to let me go in,” said Fleury, who had his family and a childhood friend in attendance. “I’m happy I got to play just a little bit more at home.”

Fleury had five saves in the extra session, which included killing a penalty. The end result was his NHL record 71st overtime win, which led to a thunderous standing ovation and chants of his name from the fans as Fleury left the ice.

The Wild will open the playoffs on the road, likely Sunday, at Las Vegas.

Unlike recent games where they have started slow and played from behind, the Wild were the aggressors right from the start, with the large crowd gasping when Boldy – redirecting a Kirill Kaprizov shot – and then Marcus Foligno put pucks off the goalpost on consecutive shifts.

Minnesota broke through before the opening period was half over, when a Mats Zuccarello pass found Johansson behind the Anaheim defense, and his flip shot beat the goalie low on the stick side.

But Anaheim would pull even before the period was over, as a bouncing puck headed for the crease eluded defenseman Jake Middleton’s attempts to corral it, then slid beneath Gustavsson’s right leg pad.

Back-to-back penalties on the Ducks late in the first and early in the second gave Minnesota four minutes of man advantage where they threatened and tested Dostal’s glove, but did not score. Minnesota outshot Anaheim 11-3 in the period with nothing to show for all of the effort.

Things got more complicated for the Wild near the midway point of the third when the Ducks got a 2-on-1 rush to the net and took their first lead when Colangelo tucked a shot between Gustavsson’s knees.

Hynes called a timeout late and had Gustavsson on the bench when Eriksson Ek popped in a rebound, putting the crowd into delirium and the Wild back in the playoffs.

“We played well. That wasn’t our fate, I don’t think. I think our fate was winning the game like we did,” Middleton said. “Maybe it was fate to go to overtime and get Flower in the way we did, too. What an all-class move by Gus there.”

For Hynes, it was reinforcement of the mental toughness he has been preaching all season.

“Yeah, it’s something that we’ve talked about all year, even coming into the year, being able to win high-stakes games and understanding not getting too high or too low but really being able to stay focused on the task that’s in front of us, whatever that might be,” he said. “Guys did a good job, and when it mattered the most, we had it.”

While the Wild elected to delay newly-signed defenseman Zeev Buium’s NHL debut, Anaheim signed Western Michigan captain Tim Wasche after he helped the Broncos win their first NCAA title last Saturday. Wasche made his NHL debut on Tuesday, centering the Ducks’ fourth line.

In addition to Buium, defenseman Declan Chisholm and forward Vinnie Hinostroza were healthy scratches for Minnesota.

The wife of a Republican state lawmaker cruised to victory Tuesday night in a special primary election in Minnesota’s 6th Senate District, where the seat was vacated after the arrest and resignation of GOP Sen. Justin Eichorn.

In the eight-candidate Republican field, Keri Heintzeman won about 47% of the vote. Retired Grand Rapids veterinarian John Howe was in second place with about 15% of the vote. Former state Republican Party chair and current Nisswa Mayor Jennifer Carnahan was in third place with about 11% of the vote.

Other Republican candidates were Steve Cotariu, a Merrifield veteran and businessman; Josh Gazelka, a Brainerd resident who is the son of former state Sen. Paul Gazelka; Doug Kern, a Brainerd business owner; and Angel Zierden, a former Breezy Point mayor.

Heintzeman’s husband, Rep. Josh Heintzeman, R-Nisswa, represents House District 6B.

In the DFL primary, Denise Slipy, an environmental health and safety professional from Breezy Point, ran unopposed.

Slipy will face Keri Heintzeman in the April 29 special election. The outcome won’t affect the balance of power in the Senate, where Democrats currently have a two-vote majority. District 6, which stretches from Brainerd and Baxter north to Grand Rapids, has shifted Republican but Democrats hope political winds might be shifting.

Eichorn resigned last month after he was charged with attempting to solicit a minor in what turned out to be an underage sex sting operation in Bloomington.

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