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Chains and pain: How one Mexican town celebrates Holy Week

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:28:36 GMT

ATLIXCO, Mexico (AP) — Barefoot, half naked and blindfolded, throngs of middle aged men groan as they drag their bodies along blazing cobblestone streets.Pieces of cactus sit lodged on their arms and legs, and 70-pound chains hang around their necks and clatter around their ankles as crowds watch them pass.For these men, it’s not a form of torture, but rather a cherished tradition that has played out for more than a hundred years in the Mexican town of Atlixco.Every year on Good Friday in the small Mexican town of Atlixco, more than a hundred men make the trek known as the Procesión de los Engrillados — the Procession of the Chained.In this country where nearly 80% of the people are Roman Catholic, the participants believe it’s a way to give thanks or to pay penance for their sins.“It’s an act of gratitude for all that God has given me, and a way to ask for forgiveness for all the bad I’ve done to be a better person,” said Martín Cazares, 42, who has participated in the march for tw...

Kamala Harris leads Tennessee rally, backs ousted lawmakers

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:28:36 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris made a last-minute trip Friday to Tennessee where she called for tougher firearm laws and criticized the Republican-controlled state House, which hours earlier expelled two Black Democratic lawmakers for their role in a protest calling for more gun control following a school shooting in Nashville. Harris received wild applause and several standing ovations as she told a crowd at Nashville’s historically Black Fisk University that the so-called Tennessee Three — ousted Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson and a third Democrat, Gloria Johnson, who avoided expulsion by a single vote — were being, in her words, silenced and stifled for standing up for the lives of schoolchildren. “Let’s understand the underlying issue is about fighting for the safety of our children,” Harris said. “It’s been years now where they are taught to read and write and hide in a closet and be quiet if there’s a mass shooter at their school, where our childre...

Reynolds stars as Pirates drill White Sox in Cutch’s return

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:28:36 GMT

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Bryan Reynolds homered and drove in six runs and the Pittsburgh Pirates celebrated Andrew McCutchen’s homecoming with a 13-9 win over the Chicago White Sox on Friday.Reynolds hit a two-run homer in the third and a bases-clearing triple in the fifth. Reynolds popped up and raced home when the relay throw from Chicago second baseman Elvis Andrus skipped by third baseman Yoán Moncada. Reynolds’ five home runs this season are the most by a Pirate through seven games since Hall of Famer Willie Stargell in 1971. McCutchen, who signed a one-year deal in January to rejoin the team he starred for earlier in his career, went 2 for 5 in his first game at PNC Park as a member of the Pirates since September 2017.The five-time All-Star and 2013 National League MVP received a loud ovation when he stepped to the plate in the first. Home plate umpire Ryan Wills, making an exception to MLB’s new pitch-clock rules, allowing the 36-year-old McCutchen to take in the m...

Con espinas y engrillados: mexicanos conmemoran dolorosamente el Viernes Santo

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:28:36 GMT

PUEBLA, México – Con fe y dolor, salieron este Viernes Santo a las calles los engrillados, mexicanos que se colocan cadenas y espinas en el cuerpo para peregrinar por el municipio de Atlixco, del estado de Puebla, centro del país.Los participantes acudieron desde temprano al santuario de Santa María de Guadalupe para prepararse y realizar su recorrido, que comienzan con una oración para que todo salga bien.Los hombres se despojan de su ropa para quedarse con una túnica pequeña que simula un taparrabo, que es lo único que cubrirá su cuerpo, mientras unos van descalzos y otros en sandalias. A pesar del rechazo de la Iglesia, filipinos recrean sus famosas crucifixiones en Viernes Santo En video: así es cómo Filipinas conmemora el Viernes Santo Se colocan en el atrio de la iglesia para iniciar el ritual, en el que primero se cubren los rostros con telas, algunas con dos agujeros para los ojos, mientras otros esperan la guía de u...

US judge in Washington state orders feds to keep access to abortion pill, countering ruling from Texas judge

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:28:36 GMT

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — US judge in Washington state orders feds to keep access to abortion pill, countering ruling from Texas judge.Source

At Mimi Yoga and FORM50 Fitness in Miami, breaking a sweat is no sweat

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:28:36 GMT

Miami is known for its beautiful beaches and not very healthy croquetas, but it’s also known for having fun fitness classes to keep you in shape. From a full body workout, to a place that really knows how to turn up the heat, we’re checking out two SoFlo spots that will definitely help you get your fitness on.Jonas Brothers: “Baby, you turn the temperature hotter, ’cause I’m burning up.”The Jonas Brothers have been burnin’ up the charts for a long time, but Mimi Yoga is burnin’ up the studio.Mimi Ghandour: “Mimi Yoga is a hot yoga studio in Wynwood, Miami.”This place is so good at helping you find your “zen-ter” that even Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner have shown up for class.Mimi Ghandour: “They both did amazing, to be honest with you, but Sophie is the yogi. She did great.”Working up a sweat here is no sweat.Mimi Ghandour: “Hot yoga is a heated yoga room. It helps you deepen your practice. It helps you deepen you...

Chicago Bulls focused on finding an early spark in their must-win play-in game: ‘We’ve got to come out and be the aggressor’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:28:36 GMT

The Chicago Bulls have come out slow in the final week of the season, losing the first quarters of their last three games entering Friday and struggling to dig themselves out of first-half deficits. As he prepares his players for their first taste of single elimination in the NBA play-in tournament, coach Billy Donovan knows that is no longer an option.If the Bulls don’t strike first Wednesday against the Toronto Raptors or Atlanta Hawks, their season could come to a crashing halt.“There’s no question that at times we’re taking the temperature to see how the game’s being played,” Donovan said. “And I do think that we’ve got to come out and be the aggressor. Sometimes what’s happening is the fight is getting dictated early. You want to be the one forcing other people to respond.”The play-in tournament, which began in 2021, has the Nos. 7-10 seeds battling for the final two playoff spots in each conference, creating higher st...

Orioles players felt a ‘buzz’ during a home-opening victory. They hope it’s just the start.

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:28:36 GMT

Grayson Rodriguez didn’t pitch Friday, but he still garnered one of the loudest cheers during the Orioles’ home opener.Judging by the pregame player introductions at Camden Yards, the top pitching prospect, who made his MLB debut Wednesday in his home state of Texas, is already one of the most popular players on the team.“It felt like a dream,” Rodriguez said. “Man, that atmosphere was awesome. It’s something I’ve really dreamed about, something I’ve really wanted to experience as a player. It was just fantastic.”The pomp and circumstance of the day wasn’t dampened by the postponement of the original home opener Thursday, nor the chilly, overcast afternoon. It helped that the Orioles beat the New York Yankees, 7-6, to improve to 4-3 on the season.Baltimore fans still packed the park with a sellout attendance of 45,017 and performed all the typical duties — shouting “O” during the national anthem, booing ri...

Maryland lawmakers work on cannabis, guns, near session end

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:28:36 GMT

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland lawmakers kept working Friday on passing some remaining priority measures of the Democratic-led legislature in the waning days of the session. At the top of the list: bills to enable a recreational marijuana market to open July 1 and to respond to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last year that expanded gun rights.With the session set to end at midnight Monday, a sense of urgency was setting in for supporters of bills that had not yet been passed by the General Assembly in the 90-day session. Police led seven protesters away in handcuffs in front of the Capitol, as they rallied to urge lawmakers to pass a bill that would enable any resident to enroll in a health plan through the state’s Health Benefit Exchange, regardless of their immigration status. The measure called the Access to Care Act has passed the House but has not advanced in the Senate.Sen. Melony Griffith, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, told reporters later in the day that th...

Access to abortion pill in limbo after competing rulings

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:28:36 GMT

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Access to the most commonly used method of abortion in the U.S. plunged into uncertainty Friday following conflicting court rulings over the legality of the abortion medication mifepristone that has been widely available for more than 20 years.For now, the drug the Food and Drug Administration approved in 2000 appeared to remain at least immediately available in wake of two separate rulings that were issued just minutes apart by federal judges in Texas and Washington.U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone in a decision that overruled decades of scientific approval. But that decision came at nearly same time that U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice, an Obama appointee, essentially ordered the opposite and directed U.S. authorities not to make any changes that would restrict access to the drug in at least 17 states where Democrats sued in an effort to protect availability. The extraordinary timin...