Could Essien & Cole go to jail? The Poland international has caused problems to plenty of opponents down the years, but he has picked up a particular knack of netting against Madrid in Europe. His run of six efforts against the Liga giants started during his time with Borussia Dortmund and has continued since moving to Bavaria. Lewandowski’s most recent effort helped to offer Bayern a lifeline in their quarter-final clash with Madrid....

Still, with only 17 rounds in the regular season, early results are important. While teams are still looking to get stronger in the market or get players back to full fitness, the results this weekend and the one that preceded it could be the difference between playoffs or an early Christmas break. Cruz Azul 21/20 vs Chivas As we do each week on Goal, we’re going to take a look at the biggest stories heading into the round....

Stamkos broke the stick as he attempted a one-timer during an overtime power play. He tossed the stick toward the boards in frustration, but the top half left the playing surface and landed in the stands. MORE: Lightning struck by injuries The careless fling earned Stamkos a 10-minute misconduct penalty. He was forced to sit out the remainder of the game, including the shootout. In January 2014, Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews was assessed a 10-minute misconduct penalty after unintentionally throwing his stick into the crowd....

One is a team in the Stanley Cup’s Eastern Conference finals for the fourth time in six years. The other is making its first trip to the final four since 1993. The former, of course, is the Lightning, who last played a game in what feels like 100 years ago but was really just a week ago Monday when they knocked out the defending Eastern Conference champion and 2020 Presidents’ Trophy-winning Bruins in five games....

And focusing on star power distracts us from substance, such as the off-camera moves to gut corporate reform. Weill made oodles of money from his stock options, huge salary and bonus checks during the boom years, when Citi’s Wall Street subsidiary, Salomon Smith Barney, sold billions of dollars of now worthless securities to investors. Salomon has admitted wrongdoing, and Citi is trying to settle actual and potential charges. The hot news on Weill is that in 1999 he supposedly leaned improperly on Salomon’s star telecom analyst, Jack Grubman....

If Crown Prince Naruhito fails to father a male heir, the dynasty will be in even greater difficulty than it is already. The imperial family, whose first capital was established in the Yamato River valley near Kyoto, is not in any better shape than Japan itself. With a faltering economy and banks and businesses going bust, Tokyo needs some good news and a happy ending. What better than a smiling couple cooing over a newborn child?...

Justice Thomas has faced pressure to recuse himself from such cases since reports outlining the role that his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, played in attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Text messages she allegedly sent to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows showed her expressing support for overturning the election, based on unproven claims of voter fraud. “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!…You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice....

Hundreds of the president’s supporters marched on the nation’s Capitol on Wednesday, with many getting past barricades and police to occupy the building. Lawmakers were evacuated, as they had convened to formally count the electoral votes to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s win over Trump. In a Wednesday afternoon message, Biden condemned the actions of the Trump supporters. “At this hour, our democracy is under unprecedented assault, unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times,” the president-elect said in a speech from Wilmington, Delaware....

“Sen. Lindsey Graham is an idiot. Don’t take it from me. Take it from Graham himself,” wrote NRO editor Philip Klein in a Friday op-ed. Last Saturday, Biden walked back a declaration that he would refuse to sign the bipartisan infrastructure deal if it didn’t come in tandem with a reconciliation package. After Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other congressional Republicans expressed outrage, Biden reiterated support for the deal and said he wouldn’t veto the legislation without a reconciliation bill....

“Here’s a scenario that I think is real: there’s a hurricane, a natural disaster, no power, no cops, no anything,” the South Carolina Republican told reporters aboard Air Force One Friday, according to the White House pool report. He was joining Trump on his trips to the Hamptons for re-election fundraisers and then to Trump’s New Jersey golf club for vacation. “People—they’re not going to come to the AR-15 home,” Graham said....

Vonn made the announcement on her Instagram account on Wednesday. MORE: Media darling | Grisly injury treatment | Pull-ups in body paint Vonn crashed in Saturday’s super-G race and had to be brought down a hill on a rescue sled. She has what was believed to be a hairline fracture, but managed to ski through the pain in Sunday’s Alpine combined event. So I have made the decision to end my season....

The 29-year-old from Vail, Colo., announced her decision Tuesday, exactly one month before the opening ceremony in Russia. Her personal publicist, Lewis Kay, said in a statement that Vonn "will have surgery shortly." In a posting on Facebook, Vonn said she is "devastated" to miss the Olympics, "but the reality has sunk in that my knee is just too unstable to compete at this level." She took home two medals from the 2010 Vancouver Games, including becoming the first American woman to win an Olympic gold in the downhill....

“I’m very low maintenance and I’m actually embarrassed, I drove up and saw the big billboard with my picture on it and I’m like, ‘Come on,’” he said Monday, referring to the front of Barclays Center in Brooklyn. “But I just want to coach.” After a year away from it that he feared might turn into two, Hollins finally has another opportunity. The Nets hired him last week to replace Jason Kidd, who left for the Milwaukee Bucks after his bid for more power within the organization was denied....

Ok, that stat is not accurate, but the Lions rookie running back is off to a good start after scoring on his first carry of the regular season. Abdullah found a huge hole in the first quarter of Sunday’s game against the Chargers and left Pro Bowl safety Eric Weddle in the dust on his way to a 24-yard touchdown run. MORE: Week 1 moments | Milestones, records in reach in 2015 | Faulk picks Abdullah as rookie of the year...

After a busy slate of action, Week 18 concludes with a prime-time showdown between divisional foes and playoff hopefuls as the Packers host the Lions on “Sunday Night Football.” Green Bay and Detroit enter Week 18 with identical 8-8 records, but their paths to qualifying for the 2022 NFL playoffs are much different. MORE: Revisiting four other times Aaron Rodgers rallied Packers to playoffs For the Packers, it’s rather simple: win and you’re in....

Literacy Teaching Methods Some classes use a tool called Manipulative Visual Language (MVL). This technique helps deaf children visualize the sounds they can not hear. Literacy Products Gallaudet University’s Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center product catalog includes an entire section on literacy. Products available include a book on using dialogue journals, posters, and a writer’s handbook for deaf students. Several companies develop literacy products or resources for deaf children, too, including:...

It’s hard for any good teacher of English to get away from war; great literature is soaked in it. Along with love, war supplies us with the greatest human drama. And war, like love, seems to somehow be essential to the human condition. “You may not be interested in war,” Leon Trotsky once wrote, “but war is certainly interested in you.” For Samet, teaching these young cadets, the trick is to reconcile romantic notions of honor and glory with harsher realities, the randomness of death by IED or the savagery of bombing civilians—all the great and terrible things that humans do when fighting for their lives against other humans....

“Z” has become a well-known symbol of Russian solidarity since the invasion of Ukraine, although the letter is not part of Russia’s Cyrillic alphabet. On Tuesday, Lithuania’s parliament voted to ban public displays of the letter and other pro-Russia symbols, according to Reuters. In addition to “Z,” the ban included the black and orange ribbon of Saint George, which became popular among pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Displays of the letter “V” were also banned, according to Lithuanian National Radio and Television....

The downsides are minor: a little more work for trainers and sports information directors putting together the reports and the loss of some competitive advantage for coaches. But if everyone is releasing the same type of injury reports at roughly the same time, the gain or loss of an advantage is minimal. But injury reports are just the tip of the iceberg. The NCAA has a growing divide between schools that are relatively open and transparent and those that can get away with not releasing much of anything....

The Texas A&M coach sent Noil home over the holidays as the team prepared for the Texas Bowl against Kansas State in Houston, so the junior won’t even be around as a spectator in the Aggies’ final game of the season. MORE: 10 players to watch in the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl “I told him the focus is not going to be on you, you’re not here at the bowl game,” Sumlin said Monday night, via the Houston Chronicle....