injuries

July 23 (UPI) — A magnitude 5.0 earthquake struck the northeastern Texas Panhandle on Thursday morning, seemingly causing no damage.

The temblor struck at 5:21 a.m. CDT nearly 24 miles south-southeast of Spearman, a city of about 2,800 people, the U.S. Geological Survey said in a statement.

It struck at a depth of 3 1/2 miles, it said.

Spearman experienced no damage or injuries, the city said in a statement, warning residents to brace for potential aftershocks in the days to come.

“Most will be minor, but stay alert,” the city said.

It said the earthquake was felt as far east as Tulsa, Ok., located about 315 miles from Spearman.

The USGS said most buildings in the region are resistant to earthquake shaking, though there are vulnerable buildings, including those made from unreinforced brick masonry and reinforced masonry construction.

July 16 (UPI) — U.S. Army medics in Europe said Thursday they are testing a new handheld diagnostic tool that can identify traumatic brain injuries in as little as 15 minutes.

Military officials predicted the new i-STAT Alinity device, made by Abbott Laboratories, can revolutionize the way medics can detect and treat such injuries quickly in the battlefield environment.

Rather than traditional methods of assessing brain injury or concussion by making subjective judgements based on questioning patients, the new device can yield objective information by measuring unique biomarkers that are present in the blood of the injured.

Lt. Col. Bradley Dengler, the neurosurgery consultant to the Army Surgeon General and director of the Military Traumatic Brain Injury Initiative at the Uniformed Services University, said the development of the i-STAT Alinity is a game-changer.

“This is probably the single most important advancement in traumatic brain injury care in the last 15 to 20 years,” he said in an Army release. “Historically, we’ve missed a lot of these injuries.”

Abbott Labs received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration to use the device with whole blood two years ago. The company says it allows doctors to help assess patients with suspected concussion at the bedside and obtain “lab-quality” results in 15 minutes.

Prior to that, the tests were only cleared for use with plasma or serum, requiring samples to be sent to a lab for processing and testing.

With that approval, the Army is now integrating the devices into air defense forward units under 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command. These units were judged to be among the most likely to benefit from the devices because they often operate in far-flung locations, hours away from advanced medical facilities and sophisticated brain scanners.

The i-Stat device measures two biomarkers from the brain that may be released into the bloodstream indicating a possible brain injury — ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1, or UCH-L1, and glial fibrillary acidic protein, or GFAP.

Dengler said the tests are extremely valuable because if the blood biomarkers are not elevated, there is a 99% chance that there is no bleeding in the brain.

That’s deemed a major improvement over the widely used Military Acute Concussion Evaluation, a 15-minute standardized cognitive assessment involving memory lists and concentration exercises.

Goalkeepers: Dayne St Clair (Inter Miami), Maxime Crepeau (Orlando City), Owen Goodman (Crystal Palace).

Defenders: Alistair Johnston (Celtic), Derek Cornelius (Marseille), Richie Laryea (Toronto), Niko Sigur (Hajduk Split), Joel Waterman (Chicago Fire), Luc de Fougerolles (Fulham), Moise Bombito (Nice), Alphonso Davies (Bayern Munich), Alfie Jones (Middlesbrough).

Midfielders: Stephen Eustaquio (Porto), Ismael Kone (Sassuolo), Tajon Buchanan (Villarreal), Mathieu Choiniere (Los Angeles FC), Ali Ahmed (Norwich City), Nathan Saliba (Anderlecht), Liam Millar (Hull City), Marcelo Flores (Tigres UANL), Jacob Shaffelburg (Toronto), Jonathan Osorio (Toronto).

Forwards: Jonathan David (Juventus), Cyle Larin (Southampton), Tani Oluwaseyi (Villarreal), Promise David (Union SG).

Like Wales, Romania missed out on World Cup qualification after losing their play-off semi-final in March.

The match in Bucharest will be the first meeting between the teams since 1993 when Wales lost at home to Romania to agonisingly miss out on the 1994 World Cup.

This will also be a first home match in charge for the great Gheorghe Hagi, the former Barcelona and Real Madrid playmaker who scored in Cardiff 33 years ago.

Hagi was appointed Romania’s manager for the second time in April, taking over from Mircea Lucescu, who died at the age of 80 following a heart attack.

Ghana, meanwhile, will be facing Wales for the first time and include Manchester City’s Antoine Semenyo in their squad.

Former Manchester United assistant manager Carlos Queiroz was appointed as Ghana’s head coach last month.

The 73-year-old Portuguese has replaced Otto Addo, who was sacked in March after friendly defeats by Germany and Austria.

The Black Stars, who are in the same World Cup group as England, Croatia and Panama, also failed to qualify for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations under Addo.

The matches against Ghana and Romania will serve as preparation for Wales’ return to the top flight of the Nations League in September, where they have been drawn with Portugal, Norway and Denmark.

Jones’ performance wrote another chapter in his Wembley story, which started when he helped Coventry win the EFL Trophy in 2017 and being on their books when they won the League Two play-offs in 2018.

His previous visit for Notts involved him scoring a penalty in the National League promotion final shootout against Chesterfield in 2023.

He followed that up by representing Malta as a substitute against England in November 2023 before going on to be named League Two player of the year in 2024 after breaking a record shared by Thierry Henry and Kevin de Bruyne with 24 assists.

“I’d like to think there’s another chapter at Wembley coming for me,” said Jones. “I haven’t lost with a club. I’d like to think Wembley is a good place for me.”

County’s promotion was their 14th in EFL history, one short of the all-time record held by Grimsby Town, and Jones says there is no reason why they cannot be optimistic about the future.

“My godfather said to me when I went to Notts, ‘I really believe you can do something similar to what you did at Coventry and go up the leagues. Notts seem like the sort of club who would do something like that, they are a massive club’,” said Jones.

“It wasn’t that long ago that I was a Coventry City player and we got promoted against Notts in the play-offs. I hope they have forgiven me for that.

“Who knows where we can go. We are a fantastic club and I’m sure we’ll attract a lot of talent who will want to come and join us.”

As for it being a third major success among his significant clubs, Jones said he spoke about Arsenal, Coventry and Notts County having fruitful campaigns in a family group chat at the start of the season, saying it “would be amazing”.

“And it’s happened, fantastic.”

SAN DIEGO — Andrew Friedman got the last laugh last year, and another ring. At the trade deadline, you screamed he had to do SOMETHING BIG to get a left fielder and a closer. He did neither. The Dodgers rode a parade of starters to win Game 7 in Toronto, before they rode in a parade in L.A.

There are few things Friedman despises more than a deadline trade. The price in prospects is too high, the guarantees are too few.

Friedman might well face that same dilemma this year. We are two months from the trade deadline, and he just might need to trade for a starting pitcher by then.

Blake Snell undergoes elbow surgery Tuesday. Tyler Glasnow is back to square one in his recovery from back spasms. The Dodgers believe both will be back by the trade deadline, but you never really know for sure when an injured pitcher will return, and whether he will need some time thereafter to regain his sharpness.

There is something else Friedman despises: finishing second. It is not just about getting into the playoffs. It is about winning the National League West, with one of the two best records in the league, thus ensuring a first-round bye.

However, in a division race that was projected to be a runaway, the Dodgers find themselves in second place. With a 1-0 loss in San Diego Monday, the Padres leapfrogged the Dodgers for the lead in the NL West.

The Dodgers also figure to have a short time frame to determine whether they might need bullpen help at the trade deadline. The Dodgers have said closer Edwin Díaz is expected to return from elbow surgery sometime after the All-Star break, which would confine that time frame to two weeks, if that.

On Monday, Friedman said he was confident that the three key pitching injuries would not push him toward the July trade market.

“It’s more that the timing of the injuries would be way easier if they were spaced out,” Friedman said in a text message. “Obviously, injuries are part of the game and we can’t be shocked when it happens.

“It’s the overlapping nature that is tough in the moment, but that doesn’t really change July thoughts (at this point) or October outlook.”

In the third week of May, nothing is urgent.

The Dodgers are supplementing where they can, picking up three pitchers cut by their former clubs. The only one with name recognition: Eric Lauer, who posted a 6.69 earned-run average for the Toronto Blue Jays and complained about the team using an opener ahead of him.

The Dodgers can mix and match for awhile, but a team that prides itself on positioning its starters best for October success finds itself in an awkward position.

With Snell and Glasnow out, the Dodgers have little choice but to ask Shohei Ohtani, Justin Wrobleski, Emmet Sheehan and Roki Sasaki to take regular turns. No one but Yoshinobu Yamamoto has done that recently.

“You have to deal with the circumstances that are presented to you,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We’re not pushing any of these guys right now. It could be a different conversation in September.

“Right now, they’ve got to take the baseball. In May, I don’t think it’s much cause for concern.”

Before the season, Fangraphs projected the Dodgers to win the NL West by 15 games, and to finish 17 games ahead of the fourth-place Padres. However, if what we see in the NL West right now is close to what we get all summer, that “different conversation in September” could involve not how to put a starter on a glide path toward October but whether that starter has exhausted himself to the point where he could not be counted on in an unexpected pennant race.

Ohtani is on pace to pitch 149 innings, a figure he last reached in 2022. He pitched 47 last year, none the year before.

Wrobleski is on pace to pitch 171 innings, 39 more than the professional high he set last season. He pitched 117 innings last year.

Sheehan is on pace to pitch 141 innings, 18 more than his professional high. He pitched 93 innings last season, none the year before.

Sasaki is on pace to pitch 137 innings, eight more than his professional high. He pitched 57 innings last season.

Maybe Lauer turns from a Dodger killer into a Dodger asset. Perhaps prospect River Ryan gets promoted into the starting rotation next month and sticks.

But July trades for starting pitchers need not be such a scary proposition. Friedman acquired Yu Darvish at the trade deadline in 2017 and Jack Flaherty at the trade deadline in 2024, and no one in Dodger Land is bemoaning the loss of Willie Calhoun, Trey Sweeney and Thayron Liranzo.