With 3:40 left in the first half ahead of a third-and-8, the Dolphins were forced to burn their first timeout of the game. While seemingly a relatively inconsequential moment in the grand scheme of the game, Tua Tagovailoa looked like he started to say something on the sideline. McDaniel seemed to quickly cut off Tagovailoa and take ownership of the moment, simply shaking it off and going, “No, I f—d up....

Miami’s punter and place kicker used pre-cooled footballs to prepare for the frigid temperatures in Pittsburgh, according to the Associated Press. The reasoning is because the footballs become harder when its colder, and the air pressure in them fall. That means the balls can’t be kicked as far. “They definitely become hard in the colder weather,” special-teams coordinator Darren Rizzi said. “But there’s only so much you can do in this kind of weather to practice....

These are two of the NFL’s surprise and feel-good stories of the first half of the regular season. The Lions (6-2 SU and 4-4 ATS) haven’t won a division title since 1993, but they are in the lead in the NFC North at the half-mile pole, one game ahead of Green Bay. The Dolphins (5-3 SU and ATS) have made their presence felt, too. At the moment, they are the foremost challengers to AFC East leader New England, for the Dolphins knocked off the Patriots (6-2) in Week 1....

League president Ulises Cabrera also got personal with Simpson by referring to his two children by name and divulging details about college applications they made. MORE SIMPSON: Broadcaster chides Dodgers for casual BP attire In a lengthy statement posted on Twitter, the DPL asserted that Soto, a league alumnus, is, in fact, 19 years old and laid out several instances during his younger years when his age and identity were verified....

The CNN host addressed Carlson’s comments on Tuesday, where he branded the Fox News talisman as having shown “ignorance.” Lemon said: “I just want to fill you in on something that is going on at the Fox propaganda network. I don’t usually respond to these things. I don’t like to punch down and I’d rather focus on issues on this show that are important to you, other than someone taking potshots at me....

Bayern edged past Leipzig on penalties after their DFB-Pokal tie in midweek finished 1-1. Bayern 6/4 to win to nil Leipzig director of football Ralf Rangnick sparked controversy by trying to confront Felix Zwayer after the referee blew for half-time, brandishing his mobile phone to show a replay of an incident in which his team were denied a penalty. Head coach Ralph Hasenhuttl criticised Rangnick’s antics but went on to accuse Zwayer of exhibiting “double standards” during the match....

There is a reasonable debate to be had about the role of SROs. On the one hand, the rhetoric about SROs leading to mass criminalization of everyday schoolhouse mischief is utterly overblown. As the Congressional Research Service has noted, the past two decades have seen a dramatic expansion of police in schools and a nearly 75 percent decrease in juvenile arrests. The story told by social justice activists—that bad SROs can increase tension and alienate students—has been the case in some schools....

“Democrats aren’t right about everything,” Rep. Ryan said during an interview earlier this summer. He’s right, of course—but even a cursory examination of his policy positions leaves one wondering which issues he actually thinks Democrats are wrong about. In just the past two years, he’s voted to federalize elections, admit the District of Columbia as the 51st state, impose onerous new background check requirements on gun owners, and grant mass amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, in addition to co-sponsoring legislation that would restrict the right of states to legislate on abortion, and voting in favor of President Joe Biden’s $3....

Watanabe has been one of the most reliable players down the stretch of games not only for the Nets, but throughout the entire league. The team has leaned heavily on him amid their six-game winning streak, and he has performed every time he’s been called on. Not only has he been in the team’s closing lineup for every game since returning from injury on December 10, he is third on the team in fourth quarter minutes behind only Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving....

I get lectures like that, too. Every teenager with concerned parents does. Last week I was sitting in a cafe eating bagels and drinking coffee with my mother, discussing my future. Looking at me with a bagel in one hand and her paper coffee cup in the other, she said, “Nothing magical happens when you turn 18. You don’t suddenly grow up.” I have to grow up now. I have choices to make....

The initial unanimity of the March 2020 sports cancelations has, in the age of omicron, ceased to exist. The National Hockey League, for instance, announced earlier this week a pause to its season. The NHL is nominally set to resume play on Monday, December 27, but it is difficult to see what could change on the ground between now and then. The NHL also announced that, due to the omicron surge, it would not be sending its athletes to Beijing in February to compete in Xi Jinping’s Winter Olympic Games....

Any visitor to China is overwhelmed by the contradictions inherent in its helter-skelter progress. During a journey in any direction, but particularly from the rich coastal provinces into the hinterland, you cover in the space of a few hundred miles every stage of economic development–from high-tech industrialization to primitive subsistence agriculture. Yet even in China’s richest provinces there were pockets of severe underdevelopment and backwaters of tradition–reminders of how difficult it must be to govern a country so extreme in its diversity....

Buyers on Alibaba-owned e-commerce site Taobao can order a 6-inch pensive statuette of the 45th president of the United States starting at 999 Chinese yuan ($150). The figurine features former President Trump meditating in a lotus position with his eyes shut. The miniature sculpture, which can be made in either porcelain or resin, is listed on Taobao as “Ancient India Know-All Buddha Trump.” The toy is accompanied by the phrase “Make Your Company Great Again,” a play on the president’s 2016 campaign slogan “Make America Great Again....

For all the drama Trump brought to international relations, top ministers from Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania all told Newsweek that the 72-year-old alliance is growing in strength, even as its members are split on how to respond to challenges new and old. “There was sometimes very harsh rhetoric on both sides,” recalled Latvian Foreign Minister Edgar Rinkevics in an interview with Newsweek. “I think that even at the very critical moments, there was a kind of understanding that NATO is relevant....

Republican figures are “putting distance between themselves and Donald Trump,” one Washington analyst told Newsweek on Tuesday; however another commented that many are “too afraid of their own voters to stage any kind of takedown of Trump from the top.” While Trump remains a very powerful figure in the GOP, and polls show he’s the favorite to win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, he has repeatedly clashed with members of his own party in recent weeks....

Former President Donald Trump said his Mar-a-Lago resort was raided by “a large group of FBI agents” on Monday night. Trump said the raid was hatched by “Radical Left Democrats” who are seeking to prevent him running for president in 2024. Prominent Republicans were quick to slam the FBI and DOJ, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis calling it “another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents....

Trump spent his time in Japan cozying up with leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Chinese President Xi Jinping, all of whom have been widely condemned in western democratic circles for a variety of human rights abuses, war crimes and corruption accusations. And after the meeting, he took an impromptu trip to the border of North and South Korea, where he met dictator Kim Jong Un and became the first U....

The former president made the remarks while delivering what was billed as a “Christmas greeting” at the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, on Sunday while he was in town for the final stop on “The History Tour” with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. But he went off-topic, discussing issues ranging from the country’s “embarrassing” withdrawal from Afghanistan to inflation. “I have to just start by wishing everybody a very, very merry Christmas,” Trump said, about a third of the way into his 10-minute address....