NEW YORK — Royce Lewis endured a long wait to get to this point, the point where he was finally healthy enough to rejoin his teammates.

The last step of his journey took him a little longer than expected.

Lewis had spent the past week in Rochester, New York, rehabbing with the Triple-A Saints. But his itinerary to meet the team in New York City took him first to Detroit before returning him to the Empire State.

“The flight was great, though,” the ever-positive Lewis said.

The third baseman has plenty of reasons to be happy these days after a grueling, mentally challenging rehab process that started back in March and concluded with a six-game rehab assignment that he said “almost felt like spring training.”

Lewis suffered a severe right quadriceps strain while running the bases on Opening Day, forcing him to miss the next 58 games.

“When you love the game as much as I do — because I believe no one loves it more than I do — it’s a blessing to be here,” Lewis said. “I couldn’t imagine another day without it. Any day I’m here, it’s always the best day ever.”

While he always seems to have a smile on his face, his teammates could tell being away from the game over the past two months was wearing on him and provided encouragement when they could.

Center fielder Byron Buxton, no stranger to injuries himself, said he tried to impart to Lewis that “somebody’s always got his back,” while he was going through the rehab process.

“I knew how badly he wanted to play,” Buxton said. “For something like that to happen in the first game, it’s very crushing.”

While his teammates played the first third of the season, Lewis worked hard behind the scenes and exercised as much patience as he possibly could. Though he was eager to return quicker than he did, he said he understood that the best thing for him was to make sure he was 100 percent healthy before returning.

Now, the hope for Lewis and the Twins is to keep him that way. To that point, manager Rocco Baldelli phoned Lewis after he stole a base in his first rehab game to reiterate that objective.

Lewis described it as just playing the game the way he always has, but had an inkling that he might have done something wrong when he returned to the dugout and saw the look on manager Toby Gardenhire’s face, as well as those of his teammates.

Asked if there was any talk of toning it down, Lewis said there has been “talk about playing like Royce Lewis.”

“Royce is going to play like Royce. I’m really excited about that,” Lewis said. “I think that’s why we took some of that extra time and listening to the doctors about getting to full strength, so we could do that kind of thing.”

Edouard Julien optioned

It wasn’t an easy decision, Baldelli said, but optioning second baseman Edouard Julien to Triple-A to make room for Lewis on the roster was the move the Twins had to make as they try to get the infielder back on track.

“You’ve got to do what you know is right for the team but also for the player and I think that this is the right thing for Eddy and he’s going to use this time very well and productively and come back a much better version of himself,” Baldelli said.

Julien has been unable to replicate the success he had last year in his rookie season and Baldelli said their objective both to get his confidence level back at Triple-A while also working on some specific objectives on the technical side of things at the plate.

He was hitting .207 with a .676 OPS at the time of his demotion, a big drop from last season, in which he finished with a .839 OPS.

“He knows he has real adjustments that he’s going to have to make and there’s no better time than now to make those adjustments,” Baldelli said.

Briefly

Top prospects Walker Jenkins (hamstring) and Brooks Lee (back) have both completed rehab assignments for their respective injuries. Jenkins was activated by Single-A Fort Myers on Tuesday and Brooks Lee has rejoined the St. Paul Saints.

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Mahtomedi has been great this year when it comes to singles play. Tuesday was more of the same for the No. 4 seed Zephyrs.

The last time Mahtomedi faced Eagan was at the start of the season. The Zephyrs won that match 5-2 by winning three of the four singles matches. On Tuesday the Zephyrs won all four singles matches in Minneapolis at the Baseline Tennis Center. They finished with a 5-2 victory over Eagan in the Class 2A quarterfinals.

“We went into the match today knowing we could win in every spot, we just didn’t know where we would win,” said senior Jack Allaben of Mahtomedi. “We were a little nervous going into it, but we all had a positive mindset knowing we could win.”

Mahtomedi will square off with top-seeded Wayzata in the semis at 8 a.m. Wednesday back at the U. Second-seeded Rochester Mayo — who edged past Eden Prairie 4-3 in Tuesday’s quarters — will meet third-seeded Blake in the other semifinal at 10 a.m.

The title match is set for 4 p.m.

In the singles Tuesday, Mahtomedi’s Sam Rathmanner defeated Owen Heidke 6-0, 6-0; Brandon Pham beat Carter Michaels 6-3, 6-1; Allaben was victorious over Jack Gustafson 6-0, 6-1; and Will Lieberman defeated Will Heidtke 6-1, 6-3.

Their strength in singles showed Tuesday.

“Yeah. I mean one of our four singles lost to Eagan earlier in the season, so it was good that he turned it around and won it this time,” Allaben said of the Zephyrs being strong in singles all year. “He (Lieberman) has been improving all year and the rest of the singles were strong in general. That was kind of our plan.”

The Wildcats (17-4) were able to pick up two wins after winning sets over the Zephyrs (24-2) in doubles play. Aidan Wald and Zach Burge defeated Luke Poppinga and Will Gleason 6-2, 6-4, and Luke Roettger and Reese Nelson defeated Sowmik Garishakurti and Blake Prouty 6-4, 7-6 (4).

But Max Hendrickson and Eli Hendrickson were able to move past Jacob Braginsky and Omer Mitha in doubles 6-4, 7-5. The Zephyrs used the same lineup they have had all season long in their win over the Wildcats.

“We went with the lineup we have been using all year, knowing that everyone had a chance,” Allaben said.

CLASS A

St. Paul Academy is two wins away from a three-peat after the top seed bested Minnewaska 7-0 in the quarterfinals at Reed-Sweatt Tennis Center.

The Spartans dropped a total of four games across the seven matches.

They’ll meet fifth-seeded Rock Ridge in the semifinals at 8 a.m. back in Minneapolis after Rock Ridge upset Winona Cotter 4-3 in its quarterfinal Tuesday.

Breck and Foley will meet in the other semifinal at 10 a.m., with the title bout set for 4 p.m.

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A man was shot at by South St. Paul police last week after pointing a pellet gun at two officers, charges allege.

Nobody was hurt in Friday night’s incident, which happened at an apartment building garage in the 200 block of Grand Avenue West, according to a criminal complaint charging 54-year-old Demetrious Roosevelt Royal with one count of felony threats of violence.

Demetrious Roosevelt Royal (Courtesy of the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office)

Royal, of South St. Paul, remained jailed Tuesday in lieu of $80,000 bail. Court records do not yet list an attorney for him.

According to Saturday’s police statement and Monday’s criminal complaint:

Officers responded to the apartment building about 10:15 p.m. after a woman requested help in removing someone from her home. She said she was outside, then disconnected the call.

Officers did not see anyone outside the apartment building, so they went inside and walked toward the garage entrance. When an officer opened the garage service door, he saw a man, later identified as Royal, pointing a handgun at him and another officer.

“The handgun had a red laser attached to it and it was pointed directly at the officers,” the complaint reads.

The officers ran out of the line of fire and slammed the door behind them. They took up positions of cover outside the garage.

About 30 seconds later, as the officers were airing the situation and requesting back-up, Royal emerged from the garage through the overhead door. One officer saw the red laser briefly pointed in his direction, prompting the officer to fire one shot in Royal’s direction. He was not struck.

Officers ordered Royal to drop the gun. He raised his hands above his head and hit the ground. While face down, Royal slid a black object across the ground toward the officers. It was later determined to be a battery-powered red laser device that can be attached to a firearm.

Agents with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal searched the garage and found a Co2-powered pellet handgun inside a storage tote, which was otherwise empty. The pellet handgun was capable of having a flashlight or laser attached to it.

In an interview with law enforcement, Royal admitted to having the laser but not the pellet gun, the complaint says.

A BCA spokesperson said Tuesday the incident remains under investigation and that the agency plans to release additional details this week.

Royal does not have a criminal history in Minnesota beyond traffic offenses, court records show.

In asking a judge for the bail amount, prosecutors disclosed that Royal has eight out-of-state criminal convictions going back to 1989, including assault-displaying a weapon, possession of a stolen vehicle, burglary, robbery and domestic assault.

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The rate Earth is warming hit an all-time high in 2023 with 92% of last year’s surprising record-shattering heat caused by humans, top scientists calculated.

The group of 57 scientists from around the world used United Nations-approved methods to examine what’s behind last year’s deadly burst of heat. They said even with a faster warming rate they don’t see evidence of significant acceleration in human-caused climate change beyond increased fossil fuel burning.

Last year’s record temperatures were so unusual that scientists have been debating what’s behind the big jump and whether climate change is accelerating or if other factors are in play.

“If you look at this world accelerating or going through a big tipping point, things aren’t doing that,” study lead author Piers Forster, a Leeds University climate scientist, said. “Things are increasing in temperature and getting worse in sort of exactly the way we predicted.”

It’s pretty much explained by the buildup of carbon dioxide from rising fossil fuel use, he and a co-author said.

Last year the rate of warming hit 0.26 degrees Celsius (0.47 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade — up from 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) the year before. That’s not a significant difference, though it does make this year’s rate the highest ever, Forster said.

Still, outside scientists said this report highlights an ever more alarming situation.

“Choosing to act on climate has become a political talking point but this report should be a reminder to people that in fact it is fundamentally a choice to save human lives,” said University of Wisconsin climate scientist Andrea Dutton, who wasn’t part of the international study team. “To me, that is something worth fighting for.”

The team of authors — formed to provide annual scientific updates between the every seven- to eight-year major U.N. scientific assessments — determined last year was 1.43 degrees Celsius warmer than the 1850 to 1900 average with 1.31 degrees of that coming from human activity. The other 8% of the warming is due mostly to El Nino, the natural and temporary warming of the central Pacific that changes weather worldwide and also a freak warming along the Atlantic and just other weather randomness.

On a larger 10-year time frame, which scientists prefer to single years, the world has warmed about 1.19 degrees Celsius (2.14 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, the report in the journal Earth System Science Data found.

The report also said that as the world keeps using coal, oil and natural gas, Earth is likely to reach the point in 4.5 years that it can no longer avoid crossing the internationally accepted threshold for warming: 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit ).

That fits with earlier studies projecting Earth being committed or stuck to at least 1.5 degrees by early 2029 if emission trajectories don’t change. The actual hitting of 1.5 degrees could be years later, but it would be inevitable if all that carbon is used, Forster said.

It’s not the end of the world or humanity if temperatures blow past the 1.5 limit, but it will be quite bad, scientists said. Past U.N. studies show massive changes to Earth’s ecosystem are more likely to kick in between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius of warming, including eventual loss of the planet’s coral reefs, Arctic sea ice, species of plants and animals — along with nastier extreme weather events that kill people.

Last year’s temperature rise was more than just a little jump. It was especially unusual in September, said study co-author Sonia Seneviratne, head of land-climate dynamics at ETH Zurich, a Swiss university.

The year was within the range of what was predicted, albeit it was at the upper edge of the range, Seneviratne said.

“Acceleration if it were to happen would be even worse, like hitting a global tipping point, it would be probably the worst scenario,” Seneviratne said. “But what is happening is already extremely bad and it is having major impacts already now. We are in the middle of a crisis.”

University of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck and Berkeley Earth climate scientist Zeke Hausfather, neither of whom were part of the study, said they still see acceleration. Hausfather pointed out the rate of warming is considerably higher than 0.18 degrees Celsius (0.32 Fahrenheit) per decade of warming that it was between 1970 and 2010.

Scientists had theorized a few explanations for the massive jump in September, which Hausfather called “gobsmacking.” Wednesday’s report didn’t find enough warming from other potential causes. The report said the reduction of sulfur pollution from shipping — which had been providing some cooling to the atmosphere — was overwhelmed last year by carbon particles put in the air from Canadian wildfires.

The report also said an undersea volcano that injected massive amounts of heat-trapping water vapor into the atmosphere also spewed cooling particles with both forces pretty much canceling each other out.

Texas Tech climate scientist and chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy Katharine Hayhoe said “the future is in our hands. It’s us — not physics, but humans — who will determine how quickly the world warms and by how much.”

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Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

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Follow Seth Borenstein on X at @borenbears

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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