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Joe Burrow threw three touchdown passes to Tee Higgins, including a game-winning scoring strike with 1:07 left in overtime, to give the host Cincinnati Bengals an electrifying 30-24 win over the Denver Broncos on Saturday. Cade York could have given Cincinnati (8-8) the win with 2:43 to go in the extra session, but his 33-yard field-goal attempt hit the left upright. The Bengals' defense buckled down, though, forcing Denver to go three-and-out to get Burrow, Higgins and the rest of the offense back out on the field. Cincinnati proceeded to go 63 yards in five plays, with Higgins' 3-yard TD catch giving the Bengals their fourth straight victory. Higgins finished with 11 catches for 131 yards. Marvin Mims Jr. forced overtime by hauling in a 25-yard score on fourth-and-1 to draw the Broncos (9-7) even at 24 with eight seconds left in regulation. Burrow had put Cincinnati in front by plunging into the end zone from 1 yard out just 1:21 earlier. Burrow completed 39 of 49 passes for 412 yards and the three touchdowns while Ja'Marr Chase had nine catches for 102 yards and set a single-season franchise record for receptions. He now has 117. Tight end Mike Gesicki played a key role in the Cincinnati passing game, grabbing a season-high 10 catches for 86 yards. Rams 13, Cardinals 9 Cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon intercepted a pass in the end zone with 37 seconds left to preserve Los Angeles' win over Arizona in Inglewood, Calif. Witherspoon made a diving catch after the ball bounced high off the helmet of Arizona tight end Trey McBride on the pass attempt by Kyler Murray. The Rams (10-6), who lead the NFC West by one game, have won five straight, while the Cardinals (7-9) have lost five of their last six. Los Angeles could clinch a playoff berth on Sunday depending on the outcome of other games. Matthew Stafford threw for 189 yards while completing 17 of 32 pass attempts without a touchdown or interception. Puka Nacua finished with 10 receptions for 129 yards. Murray was 33 of 48 for 321 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions. McBride made 12 catches for 123 yards to surpass 1,000 yards for the first time in his three NFL seasons. Chargers 40, Patriots 7 Justin Herbert passed for 281 yards and a season-high three touchdowns and Los Angeles clinched an AFC playoff berth with a dominating victory over New England in Foxborough, Mass. Ladd McConkey caught eight passes for 94 yards and two touchdowns and Derwin James had two sacks and a fumble recovery for the Chargers (10-6), who are playoff-bound in Jim Harbaugh's first season as coach. Derius Davis also had a scoring catch, J.K. Dobbins rushed for 76 yards and a touchdown on 19 carries and Cameron Dicker booted four field goals.Herbert completed 26 of 38 passes as the Chargers improved to 3-12 all-time in Foxborough, including playoffs. Drake Maye completed 12 of 22 passes for 117 yards and one touchdown for New England (3-13), which lost its sixth consecutive game. DeMario Douglas caught a scoring pass for the Patriots. -Field Level MediaWhatsApp May Soon Remind You About Messages You Forgot To Reply To!

Xiaomi has revealed its laptops for 2025, now open for pre-orders on in China. These laptops will officially launch on January 1, 2025. Designed as mid-range options, they come with the latest Intel Core processors, offering strong performance for work, multitasking, and everyday use. The laptops also provide generous storage options, making them great for handling large files and running multiple apps smoothly. They are built to meet the needs of students, professionals, and casual users. More details about their features are expected soon. Xiaomi Redmi Book 14/16 Pre-Order Details The Redmi Book 14 and 16 laptops are now available for pre-order ahead of their January launch. They carry the Intel Core i5-220H processor from the Raptor Lake-H Refresh series, released in late 2024. This chip balances power and efficiency with 4 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores, reaching speeds up to 4.9 GHz. Hyper-Threading technology allows it to handle 16 tasks at the same time, making it excellent for multitasking. The laptops come in three configurations: 16GB of RAM with a 512GB SSD. 16GB of RAM with a 1TB SSD. 32GB of RAM with a 1TB SSD, perfect for heavy tasks like video editing or advanced applications. These choices let users pick the right model based on their needs, from light use to professional work. Xiaomi showed off the Redmi Book 16 during the “Lu Weibing Annual Summary” event. It has a silver-grey finish with a new letter-style Redmi logo, giving it a clean and modern look. The laptop can handle up to 47W of power, thanks to improved cooling. It also offers long battery life, lasting up to 19.05 hours per charge, made possible by AI-powered battery management. Real-world tests will confirm this performance. The laptops run on Xiaomi’s HyperOS 2, designed to integrate smoothly with other Xiaomi devices. With HyperOS Connect, users can link their laptops and smartphones for a seamless experience. The Redmi Book 14 and 16 will launch in China on January 1, 2025, alongside the smartphone.Traveling this holiday season? 10 things the TSA wants you to knowNicky Apple turns 4 today and he is wicked excited. He gets up very early and opens all his presents in a few frantic minutes while his parents, Bill and Sandy Apple, try without success to slow down their spoiled brat of a child. The family is expecting guests later in the day. Jeffrey and Mia Freed are a childless couple, who travel the world studying children in primitive tribal cultures. Sandy, convinced that having a child is the most fulfilling thing a woman can do, is determined to persuade the Freeds to have one of their own. The University of Maine’s School of the Performing Arts skillfully puts a current cultural debate about the role of motherhood in society front and center in Tina Howe’s play “Birth and After Birth” at the Cyrus Pavilion Theatre in Orono. Howe, who died last year at the age of 85 , wrote the play in 1972 during the second feminist wave but continued revising it through 2006, when it was finally produced off Broadway. Jayden Moore (Bill Apple), Inanna Piccininni (Sandy Apple), Patrick “Patty” Morris (Nicky Apple), Wyatt Gamage (Jeffrey Freed) and Jess Baran (Mia Freed) create a tight knit ensemble and wring a whole lot of laughs out of a show with many absurd but few tragic touches. Howe saw herself as an absurdist playwright following in the footsteps of Samuel Beckett, author of “Waiting for Godot,” and Eugene Ionesco, best known for “Rhinoceros,” but chose to write from a female perspective. Director Rosalie Purvis, an assistant professor of theater and English at the university, said in the director’s note in the program that she chose the play to honor Howe’s “significant contribution to contemporary American theatre and her pioneering effort to bring motherhood quite literally center stage, incorporating the ‘female gaze’ into the genre of absurdism. “Currently, much of American political discourse has been reducing women’s perceived ‘functionality’ to only their gestational and child-rearing roles,” she said. Purvis wrings some fine performances out of her student cast. Her attention to details, whether it’s the use of a camcorder, using a red wagon like a piece of furniture or having the couples wear wedding rings, is impressive. Much of the absurdity and the humor in the show comes from having a grown man with a full beard portray 4-year-old Nicky. He runs around the stage in colorful pajamas, sucks his thumb, plays a version of Simon Says, demands grape juice and, for the most part, just behaves badly. Morris, who gave a searing performance last year as a father grieving the death of a child in UMaine’s production of David Lindsay-Abaire ’s play “Rabbit Hole,” is equally excellent here albeit in a far different role. Any parent who lives with or remembers living with an active 4-year-old will find the energy Morris brings to the role exhausting and exhilarating. It’s hard not to love his obnoxious Nicky because Morris is so good. He also does some very good imitations of past presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton in a sequence where the actor dons a series of masks and recites well-known quotes from the mostly dead politicians. Morris, a fourth-year student, sometimes is a bit too loud for the intimate Pavilion space but 4-year-olds often are loud unless they are up to something they shouldn’t be. Second-year Moore and first-year Piccininni are totally believable as Nicky’s parents, Bill and Sandy. Moore swaggers about the stage but is never brutish as the insurance salesman, who’s having a crisis at work. Piccininni beautifully indulges Nicky while extolling the joys and challenges of motherhood. Together, they beautifully bring to life a loving couple sometimes overwhelmed by the demands of parenthood. Gamage and Baran, second- and fourth-year students, respectively, don’t join the party until the second act. They are entirely convincing as an academic couple more interested in observing children rather than raising one. Both actors lean into the absurdity of the Freeds’ work in the telling of a story about an odd tribe of tree dwelling human beings with tails and how one of them gives birth. The duo give detailed and delightful performances. The technical work for “Birth and After Birth” is outstanding and the designers use the round building, built in 1908 as the Stock Judging Pavilion for the School of Agriculture, to great advantage. Daniel Bilodeau’s set brings the audience into the Apple’s toy-strewn living room and JP Sedlock’s lighting and sound design illuminate the characters beautifully. The costumes by Janet Sussman are colorful, creative and perfectly define each character. While many who lived through the nation’s second feminist movement in the 1960s and ’70s assumed the debate over whether women belonged in the workforce or the home had been answered with a resounding, “Both,” recent political discourse is resurrecting the issue. That makes Howe’s play, unfortunately, as relevant as when it was written. Purvis and her cast brilliantly capture all the comic absurdity of the question in “Birth and After Birth.” “Birth and After Birth” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 1 p.m. Sunday at the Cyrus Pavilion Theatre at the University of Maine in Orono. For information, visit umaine.edu/spa/tickets or call 581-1755.

ORONO, Maine (AP) — Christopher Mantis helped lead Maine past Holy Cross on Sunday with 17 points off of the bench in an 80-55 win. Mantis had five rebounds for the Black Bears (3-3). Quion Burns scored 16 points and added eight rebounds. AJ Lopez went 6 of 13 from the field (2 for 6 from 3-point range) to finish with 14 points. The Crusaders (4-3) were led in scoring by DeAndre Williams, who finished with 12 points. Joe Nugent added 11 points for Holy Cross. Caleb Kenney had 10 points. Maine took the lead with 11:42 left in the first half and did not relinquish it. The score was 35-26 at halftime, with Burns racking up nine points. Maine pulled away with a 19-3 run in the second half to extend a seven-point lead to 23 points. They outscored Holy Cross by 16 points in the final half, as Lopez led the way with a team-high 12 second-half points. NEXT UP Both teams play on Friday. Maine squares off against Elon and Holy Cross travels to play Virginia. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .MONTOGMERY, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama man who detonated a homemade explosive device outside the state attorney general’s office was sentenced to nine years in federal prison on Thursday. Kyle Benjamin Douglas Calvert, 27, to the charge of malicious use of an explosive device. Calvert admitted to constructing the bomb out of nails, firecrackers and screws, and then Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office in the early morning hours of Saturday, Feb. 24, prosecutors said. No people were hurt, and nearby buildings in downtown Montgomery were not damaged. Remnants of the bomb were not discovered until the following Monday, according to a statement from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. Law enforcement two weeks later. “Acts of violence like this one against our public institutions endanger public servants and entire communities, and they must not be tolerated,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. Calvert’s attorneys did not respond to an emailed request for comment on Thursday. Prosecutors said that Calvert had placed stickers reflecting a wide range of political ideologies around the area, some of which included the phrase, “Support your local antifa.” But Calvert said he does not have any “affiliation with antifa” in his plea deal. The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Honey, they shrunk the catalogs. While retailers hope to go big this holiday season , customers may notice that the printed gift guides arriving in their mailboxes are smaller. Many of the millions of catalogs getting sent to U.S. homes were indeed scaled down to save on postage and paper, resulting in pint-sized editions. Lands’ End, Duluth Trading Company and Hammacher Schlemmer are among gift purveyors using smaller editions. Some retailers are saving even more money with postcards. Lisa Ayoob, a tech-savvy, online shopper in Portland, Maine, was surprised by the size of a recent catalog she received from outdoor apparel company Carbon2Cobalt. “It almost felt like it was a pamphlet compared to a catalog,” she said. Catalogs have undergone a steady recalibration over the years in response to technological changes and consumer behavior. The thick, heavy Sears and J.C. Penney catalogs that brought store displays to American living rooms slimmed down and gave way to targeted mailings once websites could do the same thing. Recent postal rate increases accelerated the latest shift to compact formats. The number of catalogs mailed each year dropped about 40% between 2006 to 2018, when an estimated 11.5 billion were mailed to homes, according to the trade group formerly known as the American Catalog Mailers Association. In a sign of the times, the group based in Washington rebranded itself in May as the American Commerce Marketing Association, reflecting a broadened focus. But don't expect catalogs to go the way of dinosaurs yet. Defying predictions of doom, they have managed to remain relevant in the e-commerce era. Retail companies found that could treat catalogs with fewer pages as a marketing tool and include QR and promo codes to entice customers to browse online and complete a purchase. Despite no longer carrying an extended inventory of goods, catalogs are costly to produce and ship. But they hold their own in value because of growing digital advertising costs, helping retailers cut through the noise for consumers barraged by multi-format advertisements, industry officials say. In an unlikely twist, notable e-commerce companies like Amazon and home goods supplier Wayfair started distributing catalogs in recent years. Amazon began mailing a toy catalog in 2018. That was the same year Sears, which produced an annual Christmas Wish Book Wish starting in 1933, filed for bankruptc y. Fans of printed information may rejoice to hear that apparel retailer J.Crew relaunched its glossy catalog this year. Research shows that the hands-on experience of thumbing through a catalog leaves a greater impression on consumers, said Jonathan Zhang, a professor of marketing at Colorado State University. “The reason why these paper formats are so effective is that our human brains haven’t evolved as fast as technology and computers over the past 10 to 20 years. We retain more information when we read something on paper. That's why paper books remain relevant," Zhang said. “The psychology shows that three-dimensional, tactile experiences are more memorable.” Pint-sized presentations still can work, though, because the purpose of catalogs these days is simply to get customers’ attention, Zhang said. Conserving paper also works better with younger consumers who are worried about the holiday shopping season's impact on the planet, he said. Postal increases are hastening changes. The latest round of postage hikes in July included the category with the 8.5-by-11-inch size that used to be ubiquitous for the catalog industry. Many retailers responded by reducing the size of catalogs, putting them in a lower-cost letter category, said Paul Miller, executive vice president and managing director of the American Commerce Marketing Association. One size, called a “slim jim,” measures 10.5 by 5.5 inches. But there other sizes. Some retailers have further reduced costs by mailing large postcards to consumers. Lands' End, for one, is testing new compact formats to supplement its traditional catalogs. This year, that included folded glossy brochures and postcards, along with other formats, Chief Transformation Officer Angie Rieger said. Maine resident Ayoob said she understands why retailers still use catalogs even though she no longer is a fan of the format. These days, she prefers to browse for products on the internet, not by flipping through paper pages. “Everybody wants eyeballs. There’s so much out there -- so many websites, so many brands,” said Ayoob, who spent 35 years working in department stores and in the wholesale industry. Targeting customers at home is not a new concept. L.L. Bean was a pioneer of the mail-order catalog after its founder promoted his famous “Maine Hunting Shoe” to hunting license holders from out-of-state in 1912. The outdoor clothing and equipment company based in Freeport, Maine, is sticking to mailing out regular-sized catalogs for now. “By showcasing our icons, the catalog became an icon itself,” L.L. Bean spokesperson Amanda Hannah said. "Even as we invest more in our digital and brand marketing channels, the catalog retains a strong association with our brand, and is therefore an important part of our omni-channel strategy, especially for our loyal customers.” David Sharp, The Associated Press

Western Michigan beats Eastern Michigan 26-18 to become bowl eligible

GOP senator offers curious defense for Pete Hegseth drinking claims: ‘There’s a lot of alcohol that flows through Washington’