29 Feb 2024

14 protesters cited for trespassing at temporary governor’s residence in St. Paul

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Fourteen protesters were cited for trespassing Wednesday evening after they hopped a fence outside the temporary residence of Gov. Tim Walz in St. Paul, officials say.

The Minnesota State Patrol said about 100 people had gathered outside the Eastcliff mansion on Mississippi River Boulevard, where a pro-Palestinian advocacy organization was holding a protest demanding that state pension funds be divested from companies linked to Israel.

Shortly before 5:30 p.m., 12 women and two men climbed over the fence surrounding Eastcliff, where Walz and his family are living while the official governor’s residence on Summit Avenue undergoes renovations, according to State Patrol Lt. Jill Frankfurth.

“We support the right to exercise ones’ First Amendment rights, but jumping a fence and trespassing on private property is not the way to do that,” Frankfurth said in an email. “This type of behavior will not be tolerated and enforcement action will be taken.”

State Patrol troopers, who were assisted by St. Paul police officers, did not use force during the incident and no injuries were reported, Frankfurth said.

The State Patrol provides personal protection and security services for the governor and other state officials.

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29 Feb 2024

Mini surge enough for Minnesota to top Memphis

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Minnesota did not play particularly well against the Memphis Grizzlies for large stretches Wednesday at Target Center.

Playing on the second half of a back-to-back, the Timberwolves were lethargic on both ends of the floor. But a surge midway through the third quarter proved to be enough, as a string of stops leading to transition buckets on the other end lifted the Wolves to a 110-101 victory.

Anthony Edwards led the revival. A bystander for much of the first half, the 22-year-old was seemingly energized when he was switched onto Grizzlies star big Jaren Jackson Jr. on the defensive end.

The challenge of guarding Memphis’ best remaining player — Memphis (20-39) is sans Ja Morant, Desmond Bane and Marcus Smart in a lost season — lit a fire under Edwards, who was suddenly far more active on both ends of the floor. He matched Jackson’s physicality on the defensive end and started to attack the rim on offense via transition opportunities and cuts that exposed Memphis’ hyper-aggressive off-ball defense.

Edwards scored 17 of his 34 points in that third frame as Minnesota turned an 11-point deficit into a 3-point advantage heading into the final frame.

Minnesota (42-17) didn’t exactly pull away from Memphis in the fourth. The Wolves and the undermanned Grizzlies essentially went back and forth with buckets throughout most of the final frame.

Jackson’s miss on an open three-ball with 1 minute, 20 seconds to play essentially signaled Memphis’ official concession, as the Grizzlies — who’ve now lost 12 of their last 14 games — made no effort to get back on defense and Edwards waltzed down the floor before feeding Jaden McDaniels for a jam to put Minnesota up nine.

Jackson finished with 33 points and 13 rebounds, while Naz Reid added 19 points for the Wolves.

Briefly

Kyle Anderson missed the game with a hamstring injury suffered Tuesday against San Antonio. There is no immediate timetable for his return.

29 Feb 2024

Chicago Bears announce the hiring of Shane Waldron as their new offensive coordinator

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Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles and coach Matt Eberflus are working on revamping their coaching staff.

After firing five coaches earlier this month, including offensive coordinator Luke Getsy, the Bears began the offseason seeking at least new offensive and defensive coordinators and position coaches for the quarterbacks, wide receivers and running backs.

On Tuesday, the Bears officially announced the hiring of former Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator Shane Waldron as their new offensive coordinator. A deal had been reported Monday to be in the works.

“This was a very exhaustive search, but in the end I’m grateful the journey led us to Shane,” Eberflus said in a statement. “He is a great teacher and communicator with a diverse coaching background among some of the game’s most elite head coaches. I look forward to partnering with him as we build out the rest of the staff and get him started here.”

Waldron said in a statement: “I appreciate this opportunity given to me by Coach Eberflus and Ryan Pole. We can’t wait to get to work at a franchise with such a storied history and passionate fan base.”

Here’s how the offensive coordinator hiring process unfolded.

Jan. 18

The Bears are expected to interview former Arizona Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury, ESPN reported.

The rundown: Kingsbury, 44, spent this past season as a senior offensive analyst and quarterbacks coach at USC, where potential No. 1 draft pick Caleb Williams played. The Bears are getting deeper into their evaluations of Williams as they determine whether to draft a quarterback with the No. 1 pick this spring. Williams threw for 3,633 yards with 30 touchdowns and five interceptions in 12 games in 2023.

In four seasons as the Cardinals coach, Kingsbury was 28-37-1. The Cardinals fired him last January following a 4-13 season after the team made the playoffs a year earlier behind quarterback Kyler Murray. Before that, Kingsbury was the head coach for six seasons at Texas Tech, where he coached quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

He also was offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Texas A&M and Houston. Kingsbury played quarterback at Texas Tech and in the NFL, NFL Europe and CFL.

The Bears are interviewing Los Angeles Rams passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach Zac Robinson, Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer reported.

The rundown: Robinson, 37, has been part of Sean McVay’s coaching staff in Los Angeles for the last five seasons and in his current role the last two years. In 2021, Robinson also served as Matthew Stafford’s quarterbacks coach as Stafford matched a career high with 41 touchdown passes and led the Rams to a Super Bowl title.

This season Robinson contributed to a passing offense that ranked in the top 10 in yards and yards per play.

Robinson was a standout quarterback at Oklahoma State and a seventh-round selection by the New England Patriots in 2010. He spent four seasons in the NFL with the Patriots, Seattle Seahawks, Detroit Lions and Cincinnati Bengals.

The Bears have requested an interview with Philadelphia Eagles senior offensive assistant Marcus Brady, ESPN reported.

The rundown: Brady, 44, spent the 2023 season on Nick Sirianni’s Eagles staff after five seasons with the Indianapolis Colts.

He worked on the same Colts coaching staff as Bears coach Matt Eberflus for four years under Frank Reich, though on the opposite side of the ball from Eberflus. With the Colts, Brady rose from assistant quarterbacks coach (2018) to quarterbacks coach (2019-20) and then to offensive coordinator (2021-22) after Sirianni left for the Eagles. The Colts offense was one of the best in the league at running the ball in 2021, but it ranked 27th in total yards per game with 311.6 in 2022.

Brady also spent nine seasons coaching in the Canadian Football League.

Jan. 17

The Bears are interviewing Carolina Panthers offensive coordinator Thomas Brown, The Athletic reported.

The rundown: Brown, 37, completed his first year as the Panthers coordinator after three seasons with the Rams, with whom he won a Super Bowl under McVay.

The Panthers struggled behind rookie quarterback Bryce Young in 2023, averaging a league-worst 265.3 yards per game. With the Rams, Brown coached running backs and then tight ends and had the title of assistant head coach in his last two seasons.

The former Georgia running back was a running backs coach in college for eight seasons, including with Wisconsin, Georgia, South Carolina and Miami, where he also was the offensive coordinator. Brown also is scheduled to interview with the Tennessee Titans for their head coaching position.

Jan. 15

The Bears interviewed former Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator Greg Roman, NFL Network’s Peter Schrager reported.

The rundown: Roman, 51, is a longtime NFL coach who served as offensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers, Buffalo Bills and Ravens. Among his accomplishments is crafting the Ravens offense around dual-threat quarterback Lamar Jackson and helping Jackson to an MVP season in his second year in 2019. The Ravens had the best rushing offense in the league that year.

However, Roman and the Ravens parted after the 2022 season after the offense declined. The Ravens went from averaging 33.2 points in 2019 to 20.6 in 2022.

Jan. 12

The Bears interviewed Seahawks quarterbacks coach Greg Olson, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The rundown: Olson, 60, has been a college and NFL quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator since 1990. He has extensive experience as an NFL offensive coordinator, holding the position with the Lions, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, St. Louis Rams, Oakland and Las Vegas Raiders in separate stints and Jacksonville Jaguars.

He most recently was the Seahawks quarterbacks coach in 2023 and a senior offensive assistant with the Los Angeles Rams in 2022. Olson spent the 2003 season as the Bears quarterbacks coach.

The Bears planned to interview Kentucky offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Liam Coen, CBS Sports reported.

The rundown: Coen, 38, has one season of NFL offensive coordinator experience with the Rams in 2022, though McVay called the plays. He was an assistant wide receivers coach and assistant quarterbacks coach with the Rams from 2018-20.

Beyond that, Coen has been a college quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator since 2010 at Brown, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine and most recently Kentucky in 2021 and 2023.

Jan. 11

The Bears planned to interview 49ers passing game coordinator Klint Kubiak, ESPN reported.

The rundown: Kubiak, 36, is in his first season with the 49ers under Kyle Shanahan. Before that, he was the Denver Broncos passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2022 for Russell Wilson and their QBs coach from 2016-18.

Kubiak, the son of longtime NFL coach Gary Kubiak, also worked for the Minnesota Vikings as offensive coordinator in 2021 and quarterbacks coach from 2019-20, working with Kirk Cousins.

Jan. 10

The Bears requested an interview with Seahawks offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, NFL Network reported.

The rundown: Waldron, 44, was the Seahawks offensive coordinator the last three seasons, helping quarterback Geno Smith to a comeback season in 2022. Before that, he spent four seasons with the Rams as passing game coordinator, quarterbacks coach and tight ends coach under McVay.

He also served as an offensive assistant with the Patriots (2008-09) and Washington (2016) and worked in operations with the Patriots early in his career. He has coached in college, high school and the UFL.

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29 Feb 2024

Judge orders Trump removed from Illinois primary ballot

by | posted in: Politics | 0

An Illinois judge ruled Wednesday that former President Donald Trump’s name should be struck from the March 19 Illinois Republican primary ballot because he engaged in insurrection in the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and is disqualified from holding the office of president.

Cook County Judge Tracie Porter made her ruling based on the case law surrounding the Colorado Supreme Court’s 4-3 decision in December that removed Trump from that state’s ballot based on the “insurrection clause” of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing the Colorado decision.

While Porter ruled primary votes cast for Trump should not be counted by Illinois election officials, she stayed the effect of her ruling until March 1 in anticipation of an appeal in higher state courts and a ruling from the nation’s highest court in the Colorado case.

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Porter ruled that in signing his statement of candidacy for the Illinois Republican primary ballot on Jan. 4, Trump “falsely swore” that he was “‘legally qualified’ for the office he sought because the Colorado Supreme Court had already ruled that the former president “had been found to engage in insurrection.”

Porter’s ruling came in an appeal of the Illinois State Board of Elections’ Jan. 30 decision to reject an effort to disqualify Trump from the primary ballot due to his role in the U.S. Capitol riot, which was aimed at preventing the count of Electoral College votes from the states that made Democrat Joe Biden president.

Under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, those who have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution “as an officer of the United States,” shall not be able to serve in Congress or “hold any office, civil or military” if they have engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution.

In its 8-0 bipartisan vote, the elections board allowed Trump’s name to stay on the ballot and rejected an objection that he “knowingly” lied by signing a statement of candidacy attesting he was qualified to hold the office of the presidency.

Porter, in her ruling, found the State Board of Election’s decision that Trump was eligible for the ballot because he did not “knowingly” file a false statement of candidacy was “without basis and contrary to existing Illinois law.”

Regardless of how Porter had ruled in the case, it was expected that an appeal would be filed, with proponents of Trump’s removal from the ballot seeking to get the issue to the Illinois Supreme Court, where Democrats hold a 5-2 advantage. The Colorado case was decided on a party-line vote led by Democrats.

The Trump campaign swiftly vowed to appeal Porter’s ruling.

“Today, an activist Democrat judge in Illinois summarily overruled the state’s Board of Elections and contradicted earlier decisions from dozens of other state and federal jurisdictions,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “This is an unconstitutional ruling that we will quickly appeal. In the meantime, President Trump remains on the Illinois ballot, is dominating the polls and will Make America Great Again!”

The case to remove Trump was brought on behalf of a group of Illinois voters backed by the organization Free Speech for People, which has pushed similar legal challenges to the former president’s access to the ballot in other states on 14th Amendment grounds.

“This is a historic victory,” Ron Fein, the legal director of Free Speech For People, said in a statement. “Every court or official that has addressed the merits of Trump’s constitutional eligibility has found that he engaged in insurrection after taking the oath of office and is therefore disqualified from the presidency.”

Porter said she found the Colorado Supreme Court majority’s opinion was “well-articulated, rational and established in historic context.”

“This court shares the Colorado Supreme Court’s sentiments that (it) did not reach its conclusions lightly. This court also realizes the magnitude of this decision and its impact on the upcoming primary Illinois elections,” Porter wrote.

In her ruling, the judge said she also took into account the findings of a State Board of Elections hearing examiner, Clark Erickson, a retired Republican judge from Kankakee County, that Trump had “engaged in insurrection” based on the findings of “a legally authorized investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives.”