When Royce Lewis pulled up at first base in pain a couple weeks ago in Houston, it evoked fears of a more serious injury, much like the one he suffered a few months back. On the same type of play, Lewis strained his left hamstring while running during a spring training game and it cost him the first 35 games of the season.

But pretty quickly after the second injury occurred on June 14, the Twins said they believed the hamstring injury to be mild, and on Tuesday Lewis was activated from the injured list. His return comes as the Twins are in Miami for a three-game series against the Marlins set to begin Tuesday night.

The move has been all-but-official for days because the Twins made the corresponding move to clear a space on the roster on Sunday night, when the Twins outrighted infielder Jonah Bride for release or assignment. Acquired for cash from the Marlins in April, Bride was hitting .208 with a .511 OPS while playing sparingly. Notably, he pitched in four games for the Twins, handling six innings of mop-up duty.

Lewis returns after spending the weekend playing for Triple-A St. Paul, where he went 0 for 8. After going through an 0-for-36 stretch earlier in his season, Lewis had been hitting .393 with three extra-base hits in the nine games before his injury.

Because of the two hamstring injuries, Lewis has played in just 30 games for the Twins this season, entering Tuesday hitting .202 with a .585 OPS. During his latest absence, Brooks Lee saw a majority of the playing time at third base. On Tuesday, Lee was in the lineup at second base with Lewis back at third, hitting eighth.

Culpepper named to Futures Game

Kaelen Culpepper’s solid start to his minor league career has earned him a trip to the Futures Game later this month in Atlanta.

Culpepper, drafter by the Twins 21st overall in the 2024 draft, began his season at Class-A Advanced Cedar Rapids, where he hit .293 with nine home runs, 34 RBIs, 15 stolen bases and 63 hits in 54 games before earning a promotion. Entering Tuesday, in eight games at Double-A, the shortstop was hitting .273 with a pair of home runs.

Culpepper, the Twins’ No. 4 prospect per MLB Pipeline, is their only representative at the game, which will take place at 3 p.m. CT on July 12 at Truist Park in Atlanta, days before the All-Star Game is held there.

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Hurricane Flossie strengthened to a Category 2 cyclone Tuesday off the Pacific coast of Mexico and could become a major hurricane before weakening later this week, forecasters said.

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The National Hurricane Center said Flossie had maximum sustained winds at 110 mph and that rain was falling over parts of coastal Mexico. The hurricane was centered 180 miles southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico. On Tuesday afternoon, it was on the brink of becoming a Category 3 hurricane.

The hurricane was forecast to continue strengthening and could be a major hurricane as soon as Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. A major hurricane is classified as Category 3 or higher, with maximum sustained winds of at least 111 mph.

Flossie was moving to the northwest at 10 mph and was expected to generally continue that motion over the next few days. The system should move away from southwestern Mexico by Tuesday night, forecasters said.

A tropical storm warning was in effect from Punta San Telmo to Playa Perula. Rainfall totals up to 6 inches were possible in some areas, the hurricane center said.

Forecasters expect Flossie to rapidly weaken starting late Wednesday.

By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Chinese nationals have been charged with spying inside the United States on behalf of Beijing, including by taking photographs of a naval base, coordinating a cash dead-drop and by participating in efforts to recruit members of the military who they thought might be open to working for Chinese intelligence.

The case, filed in federal court in San Francisco and unsealed Monday, is the latest Justice Department prosecution to target what officials say are active efforts by the Chinese government to secretly collect intelligence about American military capabilities — a practice laid bare in startling fashion two years ago with China’s launching of a surveillance balloon that U.S. officials ultimately shot down over the coast of South Carolina.

“This case underscores the Chinese government’s sustained and aggressive effort to infiltrate our military and undermine our national security from within,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement announcing the case. “The Justice Department will not stand by while hostile nations embed spies in our country – we will expose foreign operatives, hold their agents to account, and protect the American people from covert threats to our national security.”

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Officials identified the defendants as Yuance Chen, 38, who arrived in the U.S. on a visa in 2015 and later became a lawful permanent resident, and Liren “Ryan” Lai, 39, who prosecutors say lives in China but came to Texas this past spring as part of an effort to supervise clandestine espionage operations on behalf of China’s Ministry of State Security or MSS.

The two were arrested on charges of secretly doing China’s bidding without registering as foreign agents with the Justice Department, as required by law. It was not immediately clear if they had lawyers. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately return a message seeking comment Tuesday.

According to an FBI affidavit filed in connection with the case, investigators believe Lai had been developing Chen to be a Chinese intelligence asset since at least mid-2021.

Their activities, the FBI says, included coordinating on a dead-drop of at least $10,000 in cash to another person operating at the direction of the MSS. They also conducted surveillance of a Navy recruiting station in California and Navy base in Washington state, including through photographs and videos that investigators believe were sent to Chinese intelligence.

Authorities say Lai and Chen also discussed recruiting Navy employees to work for China, with Chen obtaining during a tour of a Navy installation photographs of names and hometowns of recent recruits. Many listed China as their hometown and investigators believe the information was sent to China, the FBI affidavit says.

The case is one in a series of prosecutions concerning Chinese intelligence-gathering, including concerning the military.

Last year, for instance, the Justice Department charged five Chinese nationals with lying and trying to cover their tracks, more than a year after they were confronted in the dark near a remote Michigan military site where thousands of people had gathered for summer drills.

And in 2023, two Navy sailors were charged with providing sensitive military information to China, including details on wartime exercises, naval operations and critical technical material.

A 14-year-old died and a 13-year-old was critically injured in a motorized scooter crash in St. Paul Tuesday morning.

Officers responded to the West Side about 8:50 a.m. on a report of a crash. The teens were riding a scooter together when the driver of a pickup truck struck them at Ohio and George streets, said Alyssa Arcand, a St. Paul police spokeswoman.

Preliminary information indicates the 14-year-old was driving the scooter in the street, ran a stop sign before the crash, and that neither of the teens were wearing helmets, Arcand said.

Officers provided first aid and St. Paul Fire Department medics transported the 14-year-old driver and the 13-year-old passenger to Regions Hospital. The 14-year-old boy was pronounced dead at the hospital. The 13-year-old boy was being treated for life-threatening injuries, according to police.

The pick-up driver did not show signs of impairment and is cooperating with the investigation, Arcand said.

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