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A male giraffe has been doing his part to promote Zoo Miami’s breeding program, with two of his long-legged babies born in the last few days. After a weekend of mother-and-child bonding, a male calf born to 14-year-old Mia made his debut on Monday. He was the 54th giraffe born at the Miami zoo, and number 55 came quickly: 6-year-old Zuri gave birth Monday to a female calf. The zoo says the two unnamed giraffe calves are the first offspring of 4-year-old father Malcolm. Giraffe populations in the wild have dropped significantly in recent years and are now officially listed as vulnerable. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Treasury Department said Wednesday it has issued more than 156 million payments as part of President Joe Biden's coronavirus relief plan, including 25 million payments that were primarily to Social Security beneficiaries who hadn't filed 2019…

BERLIN (AP) — A Brazilian activist dressed as the grim reaper is taking to the streets of Berlin every night in a one-man protest against what he calls the “deadly health policies” pursued by his homeland's president in the pandemic.…

Both winless teams in the majors are defending division champions. After finishing first in the AL West last year, the Oakland Athletics have matched the worst start in franchise history at 0-6. The 1916 Philadelphia Athletics also began the season with six consecutive losses. Over in the National League, the Braves are 0-4. Atlanta, coming off three straight NL East titles, gets two chances Wednesday to win for the first time in 2021. Max Fried is scheduled to start the first game of a doubleheader in Washington that will feature back-to-back seven-inning games. Oakland tries to stop its early skid at home against NL Cy Young Award winner Trevor Bauer and the World Series champion Dodgers.

The powerful tenures of China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin are looking as if they will extend much deeper into the 21st century than anyone originally expected. What’s more, as they consolidate political control at home, sometimes with harsh measures, the two leaders are working together more substantively than ever. That represents a growing challenge to the West and the world’s other superpower, the United States, which elects its leader every four years. This week, Putin signed a law allowing him to potentially hold onto power until 2036. Xi did something similar in 2018.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's environmentalist Greens will decide later this month which of their two co-leaders will make the party's first run for the chancellery in a national election in September, a senior party official said Wednesday. Annalena Baerbock and…

A leading human rights expert who is taking over leadership at Amnesty International is tackling vaccine equity as one of the major issues confronting the world today. Agnès Callamard is best known for her U.N. investigation into the killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and has made a career uncovering extrajudicial killings. Last week she joined Amnesty International as its secretary general. On Wednesday, the organization releases its annual report. It alleges that governments are using the pandemic as an excuse to clamp down on human rights, and calls for equitable vaccinations to end a pandemic that disproportionally hits the world’s most vulnerable. 

BRUSSELS (AP) — Life expectancy across much of the European Union has dropped last year, as the 27-nation bloc struggled with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The EU statistical agency Eurostat said Wednesday that “following the outbreak of the…

BEIJING (AP) — China has sentenced a former education official and a former legal official in the northwestern region of Xinjiang to death with a two-year reprieve on charges including separatism and bribe taking. Sattar Sawut and Shirzat Bawudun are…

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's Toshiba Corp. says it is considering a preliminary acquisition proposal that would take the technology conglomerate private. Toshiba said Wednesday that it asked for more details on the proposal it received on Tuesday, was giving it…

It was April 7, 2003. Exactly 18 years ago Wednesday, Syracuse defeated Kansas to win the NCAA men’s basketball national championship. The biggest win in school history, the biggest win in the Hall of Fame career of Orange coach Jim Boeheim. A couple hours after the game ended, Boeheim made a phone call. Even after the biggest win of his life, Augusta National was on his mind. Turns out, he had a deal with someone that if he ever won the national title, he'd get to play at the home of the Masters.

Kelly Oubre Jr. converted a pair of free throws with 7.7 seconds left to give Golden State the lead and Milwaukee missed at the end as the Warriors held off the Bucks 122-121. In a furious finish like those Golden State teams of years past, Stephen Curry made a 3-pointer with 1:06 to play on the way to 41 points with five 3-pointers as his team worked until the final buzzer to snap a three-game losing streak. Jrue Holiday scored the go-ahead basket after his offensive rebound with 29 seconds left.

Clayton Kershaw struck out eight in seven smooth innings to send the Athletics to their worst start in more than a century, and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat winless Oakland 5-1 for their fifth straight victory. Mookie Betts homered for the first time this season, a towering shot to left-center in the ninth. Max Muncy and Edwin Rios also went deep for the World Series champion Dodgers. At 0-6, the A’s have matched the poorest start in franchise history. The 1916 Philadelphia Athletics also began the season with six consecutive losses. Oakland and Atlanta are the only winless teams in the majors. Kershaw allowed one run and four hits without issuing a walk.

California is turning to a simpler, statewide approach as it prepares to lift most pandemic restrictions on businesses and workplaces by June 15. Gov. Gavin Newsom had previously adopted a system that put each of the 58 counties into one of four color-coded tiers, based on a slew of metrics on case rates and hospitalizations. That's all going out the window as long as most Californians can access the vaccine and hospitalization rates remain low by the start of summer. The news comes as California expects to have administered more than 30 million vaccine doses by the end of April and as case rates are low.

Students at Clemson University who found an unkempt graveyard on campus last year sparked the discovery of more than 600 unmarked graves most likely belonging to enslaved Black people, sharecroppers and convicted laborers. The revelation has Clemson working to identify the dead and properly honor them amid a national reckoning by universities about their legacies of racial injustice. The campus was built by forced laborers on a former plantation that belonged to Vice President John C. Calhoun, an advocate of slavery. The Calhouns bequeathed the land for the school to the state of South Carolina in 1888. 

Getting the vaccine to the world's farthest corners means delivering it by boat to Maine islands, by snowmobile to Alaska villages and via complex Amazon waterways in Brazil. Although the vaccination rollout has been choppy in much of the world and some places are still waiting for their first doses, there’s an urgent push to inoculate people in hard-to-reach places that may not have had COVID-19 outbreaks but also may not be equipped to deal with them if they do. Robin Nandy, the chief of immunization for UNICEF, says before it's over, drones, motorcycles, elephants, horses and camels will have been used to get vaccines to the most far-flung places.

Gerrit Cole struck out 13 and walked none over seven scoreless innings in his most dominant start since joining the New York Yankees, overwhelming the Baltimore Orioles 7-2 for his first win this season. Cole allowed four hits, three of them singles, in the type of the performance that showed why the Yankees made his baseball’s highest-paid pitcher with a $324 million contract. Jay Bruce backed him with his first Yankees home run and Aaron Judge added a three-run homer. New York has won a team-record 12 straight home games against the Orioles since May 2019 outscoring Baltimore 76-28.    

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares were mixed Wednesday after Wall Street took a breather, with major indexes edging lower. Japan's benchmark Nikkei fell 0.5% to 29,544.93 and the Shanghai Composite index sank 0.7% to 3,459.25. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.3%…

Now that Fernando Tatis Jr. has been placed on the injured list, the San Diego Padres hope their electrifying shortstop won’t be sidelined too long. Tatis should be able to avoid surgery on his left shoulder, the team said a day after he slightly dislocated it taking a hard swing. An MRI on Tuesday showed a slight labral tear and the Padres put the 22-year-old Tatis on the 10-day IL. General manager A.J. Preller said the club wasn’t ruling out anything, including Tatis’ possible return when he’s eligible. Meanwhile, the Cincinnati Reds and Detroit rookie Akil Baddoo are both off to smashing starts this season.

Akil Baddoo added another big hit in this charmed start to his big league career, lining an RBI single in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Detroit Tigers a 4-3 victory over the Minnesota Twins. Baddoo made his debut Sunday and homered on the first pitch thrown to him. Then he hit a grand slam in a 15-6 loss to the Twins on Monday. The 22-year-old entered Tuesday’s game as a pinch-runner and stayed in until he ended it with a winning hit to right off Hansel Robles. Nelson Cruz and Byron Buxton homered for the Twins, who rallied from a 3-1 deficit.