lifts

Nolan Schanuel drove in automatic runner Adam Frazier with a sacrifice fly in the 11th inning to lift the Angels to an 8-7 walk-off win over the Seattle Mariners on Sunday.

Mariners left-hander Gabe Speier (0-2) walked Zach Neto intentionally to open the bottom of the 11th, and both runners advanced on Oswald Peraza’s sacrifice bunt.

Schanuel, who grounded into a double play with runners on first and third to end the eighth, lofted a fly ball to left fielder Randy Arozarena, whose throw home was off line.

Shaun Anderson (1-0) struck out Cal Raleigh with the bases loaded to end the top of the 11th. Anderson gave up a run in two innings.

Mike Trout, who doubled and scored in the third, exited in the eighth after being hit on the left hand by Casey Legumina’s 94-mph fastball. X-rays were negative, and Trout is listed as day-to-day.

The teams exchanged runs in the 10th, Seattle scoring on Randy Arozarena’s single and the Angels (5-5) on Logan O’Hoppe’s sacrifice fly.

The Angels were one out away from victory in the top of the ninth when Raleigh blooped a two-out double and Julio Rodríguez poked Sam Bachman’s 91-mph slider to left for a single and a 6-6 tie. Mariners closer Andres Munoz threw a 1-2-3 bottom of the ninth.

Cole Young hit a three-run homer to give the Mariners (4-6) a 5-4 lead in the fifth, but Jo Adell and Frazier drove in runs with singles in the home half.

Seattle’s Leo Rivas hit a two-run single in the second.

Jorge Soler hit RBI singles in the first and third before the Angels took a 4-2 lead in the fourth when Josh Lowe scored on Rivas’ fielding error at third and Schanuel hit a two-out RBI single.

Up next for Angels: José Soriano (2-0, 0.00 ERA) will oppose Atlanta’s Chris Sale (2-0, 0.75 ERA) at home Monday to kick off a three-game set.

Caracas, April 2, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The US Treasury Department removed Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) “Specially Designated Nationals” list on Wednesday, April 1.

Rodríguez had been on the list since 2018. The sanctioned individuals are barred from any sort of economic or financial relationship with US entities and have any US-based assets frozen.

The Venezuelan acting head of state reacted to the decision with a message on her X account, calling it “a step in the direction of normalizing and strengthening relations between our countries.”

Rodríguez added that she is confident this step will lead to the lifting of all sanctions currently in place against Venezuela “in order to guarantee an effective binational cooperation agenda” that benefits both Washington and Caracas. In recent weeks, the Trump administration has issued licenses allowing Western corporations to engage with the Venezuelan energy and mining sectors, but wide-reaching coercive measures remain in place.

The US government targeted Rodríguez in September 2018, Trump’s first presidential term, alleging that the then–vice president was part of a group that contributed “to the destruction of democracy.” The same round of sanctions targeted First Lady and Deputy Cilia Flores, as well as Vladimir Padrino López and Jorge Rodríguez, who respectively served as defense and communications ministers at the time.

Delcy Rodríguez denounced the 2018 measures as “illegal” and “unjust,” arguing that they were part of an “economic blockade” that undermined her country’s right to food, health, and sovereignty.

The Venezuelan leader’s sanctions removal opens the door for direct engagement with US entities and multilateral organizations such as the IMF. Creditors have likewise expressed intentions to launch renegotiation efforts surrounding Venezuela’s sizable foreign debt.

The Trump administration’s move comes on the heels of a fast-tracked rapprochement with Washington that Rodríguez has spearheaded since the January 3 attacks and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro. Rodríguez, who took over the acting presidency, has hosted a number of high‑ranking US officials, among them Trump Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

Similarly, last week Rodríguez took part via videoconference in a business gathering in Miami organized by Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative Institute. During her address, she touted the country’s recent pro-business reforms and urged investors to come to Venezuela.

Caracas and Washington formally reestablished diplomatic ties on March 5, with the Trump administration recognizing the acting president as Venezuela’s “sole” leader days later.

Regaining control of CITGO

The lifting of coercive measures against the Venezuelan acting president raised the possibility of the Rodríguez acting government retaking control of US-based assets that had been frozen and placed under the control of the hardline opposition. According to Reuters, Venezuelan authorities are preparing to take control of the boards of directors of the US subsidiaries of state oil company PDVSA, including refiner CITGO. However, the US State Department must also sign off on the appointments.

This past March, PDVSA’s board ratified Asdrúbal Chávez, cousin of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, as director of all its US subsidiaries. Nonetheless, Chávez, who was previously denied a US visa to run Houston-based CITGO, has been unable to manage the companies for more than seven years.

CITGO has been administered since 2019 by boards of directors appointed by a defunct Venezuelan opposition‑led National Assembly whose term expired in January 2021. The company, which is Venezuela’s most valuable foreign asset, underwent a long and protracted court-mandated auction to satisfy creditor demands which concluded with a winning bid from vulture fund Elliott Management.

The CITGO sale requires a US Treasury license in order to conclude. The Trump administration has not publicly disclosed whether it will greenlight or halt the ownership transfer.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

April 1 (UPI) — NASA launched its most powerful rocket yet, the Space Launch System, on Wednesday to send the crewed Artemis II mission to the moon, the first in more than five decades.

The mission had liftoff around 6:35 p.m. EDT from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Within minutes of liftoff, Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman told operators on the ground, “we have a beautiful moonrise, we’re headed right at it.”

The four-person crew — which also includes NASA’s Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen — is expected to enter the moon’s orbit in about six days. The spacecraft won’t land on the moon, but will orbit around it before returning to Earth.

The 2-hour launch window for Artemis II began around 6:24 p.m., and most of the pre-flight checks were successfully.

Shortly after the crew members boarded the craft, though, NASA officials had to address a pair of issues.

Derrol Nail, of NASA, said officials fixed a problem with the Space Launch System rocket’s flight termination system.

Later, there was a problem with the battery on the launch abort system on Orion. This system ejects the capsule away from the rocket in case there’s a problem with the rocket during flight. NASA detected issues with temperature readings on the battery but had resolved the issue before schedule launch.

The 10-day trip will be the first crewed flight to the moon in more than 50 years and the farthest distance from Earth traveled by humans.

About 9 minutes after the launch, the Artemis crew entered orbit, traveling about 15,000 mph. During Earth orbit, the crew has a series of tasks to complete before they’re able to make their way to the moon.

The Artemis I mission in 2022 flew around the moon but didn’t have a crew aboard.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

The mission is a major step in NASA’s plan to return humans to the moon and eventually send astronauts to Mars.

The Artemis II space mission has blasted off from the US state of Florida, sending four astronauts on a historic journey around the moon and marking the first time humans have travelled beyond low-Earth orbit in more than 50 years.

The mission, which launched on Wednesday, is a major step in the US space agency NASA’s plan to return humans to the moon and eventually send astronauts to Mars.

The 32-story rocket rose from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center where tens of thousands gathered to witness the lift-off.

The Artemis II crew – NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen – are set for a nearly 10-day journey around the moon and back, taking them farther into space than humans have travelled in decades.

“On this historic mission, you take with you the heart of this Artemis team, the daring spirit of the American people and our partners across the globe, and the hopes and dreams of a new generation,” said Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the launch director. “Good luck, Godspeed Artemis II. Let’s go.”

Five minutes into the flight, Wiseman, the commander, saw the team’s target: “We have a beautiful moonrise, we’re headed right at it,” he said from the capsule.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that state laws forbidding “conversion therapy” for minors may violate the free speech rights of licensed counselors.

The 1st Amendment ruling is likely to undercut similar laws in California and 23 other states.

In an 8-1 decision, the justices said Colorado’s ban on “talk therapy” may prevent Christian counselors from helping teens work through their feelings about sexual attractions or their gender identity.

State lawmakers passed the new measures in response to healthcare professionals who said that efforts to change a teenager’s sexual orientation were both ineffective and harmful.

Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor in Colorado Springs, sued and argued the state’s law violated her rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion.

She said she does not seek to “cure” young clients of same-sex attractions or to “change” their sexual orientation. Instead, she said she is guided by their goals.

“As a talk therapist, all Ms. Chiles does is speak with clients; she does not prescribe medication, use medical devices or employ any physical methods,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said for the court.

But she could run afoul of the state’s law because she said she may help some of her clients “reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions or change sexual behaviors.”

If so, the law “censors speech based on viewpoint” and is therefore unconstitutional, he said.

“Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety. But the 1st Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country,” Gorsuch wrote.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented alone in a 35-page opinion. She said the issue was one of regulating medical practice.

“The 1st Amendment cares about government efforts to suppress ‘speech as speech’ (based on its expressive content), not laws, like [Colorado’s] that restrict speech incidentally, due to the government’s traditional, garden-variety regulation of such speakers’ professional conduct,” Jackson wrote. “States have traditionally regulated the provision of medical care through licensing schemes and malpractice regimes without constitutional incident.” she continued.

The Trevor Project, a crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ young people, condemned the ruling.

“The Supreme Court’s decision to treat the dangerous practice of conversion therapy as constitutionally protected speech is a tragic step backward for our country that will put young lives at risk. These efforts, no matter what proponents call them, no matter what any court says, are still proven to cause lasting psychological harm,” Chief Executive Jaymes Black said in a statement.

The conservative First Liberty Institute called the ruling a “great victory for religious liberty.”

“Americans should never have their professional speech censored simply because the government disfavors that speech,” said Kelly Shackelford, the group’s president.

The ruling is the third significant defeat for LGBTQ+ rights advocates in the last year.

The conservative majority upheld state laws that prohibit puberty blockers and other “gender affirming” care for minors. And last month, the justices said parents in California have a right to know about their child’s gender identity at school.

They said California’s student privacy policy violated parents’ rights, including the free exercise of religion.

The Alliance Defending Freedom appealed her case to the Supreme Court and described her as “a practicing Christian [who] believes that people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design.”

Her clients “seek her counsel precisely because they believe that their faith and their relationship with God establishes the foundation upon which to understand their identity and desires,” they said. “But Colorado bans these consensual conversations based on the viewpoints they express.”

The state law defines “conversion therapy” as “any practice or treatment by a licensee that attempts or purports to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to … eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”

Violators may be fined up to $5,000, but no one had been fined, the state says.

The challengers had lost in the lower courts.

A federal judge and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver rejected the free speech claim. By a 2-1 vote, the appeals court said the state law was not a ban on free expression. Rather, it regulated the conduct of licensed medical professionals. States have the authority to regulate the practice of medicine.

In their appeal to the high court, lawyers for Chiles said the state was “censoring” voluntary conversations and forbidding speech on only one side of a controversy.

The Trump administration supported the 1st Amendment challenge because the state seeks “to suppress a disfavored viewpoint.”

In response, the state said its law “safeguards public health” by prohibiting “a discredited practice” that was shown to be harmful. It stressed the law regulates licensed professionals only and does not extend to religious ministers or others who provide private counseling to young people.

In 2012, California was the first state to ban licensed counselors from using conversion therapy for minors.

Then-Gov. Jerry Brown said these “change” therapies “have no basis in science or medicine and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery.”

Equality California condemned the court’s ruling and said it “has weakened the ability of state licensing boards to intervene if clinicians use unproven, misleading, or coercive techniques.”

The group urged support for a pending bill in Sacramento that would “extend the statute of limitations for survivors to pursue civil claims against licensed mental health providers who subjected them to these harmful practices.”

Tuesday’s ruling was also criticized for undercutting state regulations of medical practice a year after taking the opposite view in a Tennessee case.

In June 2025, the court in a 6-3 decision upheld laws in Tennessee and 24 other red states that prohibit “gender affirming” puberty blockers and hormone treatments for minors.

The majority said then it was deferring to the state and their lawmakers who decided to prohibit such medical treatments for minors.

But in the Colorado case, the court majority did not defer to the state’s judgment that conversion therapy was harmful and potentially dangerous.

The decision is also the third victory for the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom in its free speech challenges to Colorado laws. A maker of custom wedding cakes and the designer of websites won suits seeking an exemption from the state law that required them to provide equal service for same-sex weddings.

March 31 (UPI) — Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday that helicopter pilots who conducted a flyby of musician Kid Rock‘s Nashville estate over the weekend would not be punished, an abrupt reversal of the U.S. Army’s decision to suspend the Apache helicopter crews amid review of their conduct.

“@USArmy pilots suspension LIFTED,” Hegseth said on X. “No punishment. No investigation.

“Carry on, patriots,” he said.

He also thanked Rock, whose real name is Robert James Ritchie, a vocal ally of President Donald Trump.

“You’re a disgrace,” Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican House of Representative from Illinois and a retired U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard officer, said in an expletive-laced statement responding to Hegseth’s announcement, in which he called the defense secretary an “unqualified clown.”

Rock published a pair of videos to social media on Saturday showing him cheering on a pair of Apache helicopters flying by and hovering near his Nashville estate, which he has called “The Southern White House.”

“This is a level of respect that [expletive] for brains Governor of California will never know,” Rock wrote in the caption to the videos. “God bless America and all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to defend her.”

After the videos went viral, the U.S. Army announced Monday that it was conducting an administrative review of the incident.

Army spokesman Maj. Montrell Russell confirmed Tuesday that two Apache helicopters from the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade at Fort Campbell, Ky., located about 60 miles north of Nashville, had conducted a flight in the Nashville area that has attracted media and the public’s attention.

“The personnel involved have been suspended from flight duties while the Army reviews the circumstances surrounding the mission, including compliance with relevant [Federal Aviation Administration] regulations, aviation safety protocols and approval requirements,” Russell said in a statement.

Hegseth offered no explanation for the reversal, which came not long after Trump told reporters at the White House that he had not seen the video.

Asked what he thought of the crews’ suspension, Trump said, “Well, they probably shouldn’t have been doing it.”

“Yes, you’re not supposed to be playing games, right? I’d take a look at it,” he said.

“They like Kid Rock. I like Kid Rock. Maybe they were trying to defend him. I don’t know.”

Rock has long been a vocal supporter of Trump and has appeared at the White House and in a recent Health and Human Services Department promotional video where he is seen working out bare-chested with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy.

He has also lashed out at Trump’s critics, notably California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Troy Terry scored on a breakaway 1:29 into overtime for his second goal of the game after Mikael Granlund tied it late in regulation and the Ducks rallied to defeat the Buffalo Sabres 6-5 on Sunday night.

Anaheim ended Buffalo’s seven-game road winning streak when Tage Thompson couldn’t keep in the puck in the Ducks’ zone and Terry held on a 2-on-0 break to score on a backhander.

Granlund tied the score at 5 with 1:44 remaining in the third period on a power play with Ville Husso pulled for an extra attacker.

Chris Kreider and Jackson LaCombe had power-play goals in the first period, Beckett Sennecke also scored, Husso made 24 saves and the Ducks have won consecutive games as part of a four-game points streak.

Alex Lyon had his 10-game road winning streak — tied for the third-longest by a goaltender in NHL history — snapped after giving up six goals on 33 shots. That included giving up goals to Sennecke and Terry on two of the Ducks’ four shots in the second period.

Alex Tuch, Josh Doan, Jack Quinn, Owen Power and Zach Benson scored for the Sabres, who extended their franchise-record road points streak to 14 games. It was their second loss in the last 14 games overall.

Lyon hadn’t lost a road start since Dec. 8, when Buffalo was last in the Eastern Conference with a 2-9-2 record outside of upstate New York. The Sabres had since won 20 of 24 road games as part of an astonishing turnaround that has them set to end the longest playoff drought in the NHL and on track to claim a first division title since 2009-10.

A victory for Lyon would have tied San Jose’s Evgeni Nabokov in 2009-10 and Minnesota’s Devan Dubnyk in 2014-15 for the longest undefeated road run in league history.

DESPITE winning dream roles, Anya Taylor-Joy admits her real wish is to retreat from Hollywood and live on a farm.

The 29-year-old is one of the world’s best-known actresses but has spent years feeling nervous on the red carpet, struggled to watch her award-winning performances and now wants calm.

She voices love interest Princess Peach in the new Super Mario Galaxy movie, which is released on April 1.

But Anya described her ideal life as “on a farm”.

She said: “I want goats, chickens, ducks, horses — all of it. I want to work, come into the city when I want to, then disappear and ride all day.”

The film is the follow-up to 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which grossed more than £1billion worldwide.

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Princess Peach is the main female character and head of state of the Mushroom Kingdom.

Anya said: “I was so touched by how strong she is and how cool. The fact that’s going to be a role model kids can have nowadays is unbelievable. I left feeling very inspired by her.”

Anya knows all too well that life can be difficult as a child.

She was born in Florida, then lived in Argentina for five years where she rode horses in the idyllic countryside.

Her African-Spanish mum, a psychologist, and Scottish-Argentine dad, who raced powerboats, then moved the family to London when she was six — and things became dramatically different.

Anya was bullied, “locked in lockers, barred from classrooms, not invited to things” and did not speak English.

Watching films helped her navigate through the traumas.

She told the Happy Sad Confused podcast: “I’ve never been good at being cool, this is why I didn’t get along well with people in school.

“If I like something, I love it and it just pours out of me.

“But if I was sad, like if my hamster died, my parents could put me in front of a movie and I would feel better at the end of it.

“I could get lost in something like that.”

It was her love of movies that eventually helped her learn English.

She says: “I learned English when I was eight. I stuck it out for two years in London, refusing to speak English because I wanted to go home. Then eventually I was like, ‘I have no friends, this is going to be a needed skill’.”

Anya told her parents she was going to be an actress.

But first, after being “picked up” outside Harrods, she became a model at 16.

She was recruited by Sarah Doukas, boss of Storm model agency, who had discovered Kate Moss.

But at first Anya thought she was a stalker.

She said: “It was absurd. A black car comes up, starts chasing me. I pick up my dog, start running and a head comes out of the window and they say, ‘If you stop, you won’t regret it,’ and I stop.

“It was the head of a modelling agency. I don’t encourage other people to do this.

“I had no idea what I was doing, but luckily it worked out and my parents came with me the next day to the modelling agency.”

Her parents always supported her. Anya said: “They’d had six kids, so were like, ‘Oh, just do whatever you’re going to do’.

“I’m so grateful for the approach my parents have had because I did some pretty ballsy things in my teenage years and luckily they paid off, but they were always supportive.”

She did many auditions before getting her breakthrough role at 19 in film The Witch.

Anya said: “I thought that audition went so badly. I truly thought I had messed that up massively because I had a huge panic attack before I went into it, and luckily that really worked for the scene.”

It was then that Anya found where she truly belonged.

She said: “Going into work every single day felt like such a joy.

“I could breathe because I’d found a place where I was doing something I loved, with people who didn’t think I was a psychopath. And I could have fun with it. I loved every second of making that movie.”

She found it “mind blowing” that The Witch was a hit and forced herself to watch the performance.

Anya said: “It’s like getting hit by a bus. I personally don’t agree with not watching your films, it’s not all about you. It’s a whole bunch of other people who have done a lot of work and different departments that you have to go and support, because they deserve it and you love them. So I have to watch it.

“But the first time, I always feel I’ve let people down and I’m always like, ‘Oh, I messed it up’.

“Then I process it and the second time I watch it, it’s slightly more palatable and I’m able to lose myself a bit more.

“By the third time I’m just like, ‘OK, whatever’. You just have to get over yourself and applaud the people you care about that worked with you.”

Anya became a household name in 2020 after starring in Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit, which led to a Golden Globe for Best Actress.

She went on to roles in horror film Last Night In Soho, black comedy The Menu and the apocalyptic film Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Anya said she works “very hard, very gratefully hard” because she feels lucky to do a job she feels passionate about.

But it is not always easy. Despite her modelling background, Anya struggles with the limelight.

She said: “When I first started doing red carpets, I couldn’t handle the notion of being pretty.

“I was like, ‘I don’t do that’. I am a scummy, mud-caked ferret and striving for anything different felt disingenuous and scary.”

She has even been known to dress up “like an East Berlin spy” at times so nobody recognises her.

Now she is trying to make time for some balance in her life.

She said: “I’ve been living on film sets for five years and, occasionally, I think it would be nice to find out what Anya would do with three months if she wasn’t playing another person.

“So I’m trying to be more careful with my time there.

“You spend 18 hours a day thinking, behaving and breathing as another human being. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to figure out what it is that you like.”

And the person she wants to spend it with is her husband, US musician Malcolm McRae, who she married in 2021.

The couple split their time between homes in the Hollywood Hills and London.

She said: “I’ve finally found someone who will happily sit in silence with me, reading. We’re basically 80 years old and seven at the same time, and it works really well.

“When you are together, you are really valuing the time you have. Everyday, mundane activities are so full of joy.

“I love going to the petrol station with him and filling up the car and going to get breakfast.”

But right now, her focus is all on Princess Peach.

Anya told US Today: “She wants to find out where she comes from and is on a quest for adventure and prioritising herself a little bit more.”

Princess Peach sounds very much like the actress playing her.