Super Bowl, COVID-19 protests in Canada, Winter Olympics: The weekend’s biggest news.
The Cincinnati Bengals host the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl 56
Super Bowl 56, the 285th and final game of the NFL’s longest season, arrives Sunday and it’s down to the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams (NBC, 6:30 p.m. ET). The Bengals are appearing in the Super Bowl for the third time in franchise history and are seeking their first ever championship. The Rams – the second team in so many years to play the Super Bowl at their home stadium – last won the Super Bowl in 2000 while still in St. Louis. Louis. The quarterback match sees veteran Matthew Stafford, who has reached many new heights after a decade plus having played for the Detroit Lions, with Joe Burrow, who has the Bengals in the Super Bowl in just his second NFL season. But Super Bowl 56 can be decided in the trenches, with the Rams’ triple-year defensive player Aaron Donald and veteran edge-rusher Von Miller going against what could be an overmatched Bengals offensive line. This is how you look.
The police dissolves protests at the US and Canada border
The ongoing protest against COVID-19 restrictions was broken up as police swept through the demonstration near the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Detroit with Canada on Sunday, arresting a few truck drivers and other protesters still trying to block the country’s largest border crossing. On Saturday, many protesters traveled after officers wearing neon yellow vests over their uniforms warned protesters over a loudspeaker system that they would be arrested if they did not go. It was not immediately clear when the bridge, which was shut down by protests for a week, would reopen. The closure of the bridge has severely hampered trade between the United States and Canada and caused the car industry to slow down production in both countries.
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Diplomacy continues as the United States warns Americans to leave Ukraine
President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke on Sunday about the potential of a Russian invasion of the Eastern European country. Biden reiterated during the 50-minute call that the United States would “react quickly and decisively” if Russian President Vladimir Putin sends Russian forces into Ukraine, a White House statement said. Biden’s top national security assistant again warned on Sunday that the Russian military has the capacity to invade Ukraine “this week” under the pretext of a “false flag” operation portraying Ukrainians as the aggressors. The Biden administration has strengthened the US military presence in Europe as an assurance to allies, and is warning Americans in Ukraine to leave the country because of the threat of an invasion. Here’s the latest on the crisis.
Speedskater Erin Jackson writes history at the Winter Games
With a shine of 37.04 seconds, Erin Jackson won the women’s 500 meters at the National Speed Skating Oval on Sunday night in Beijing – and in the process, achieved a number of first places. The 29-year-old is the first American to win an individual speedskating medal since 2010. The first American woman to do so since 2002. And according to US Olympic and Paralympic Committee historian Bill Mallon, the first black woman to do so. won gold in an individual sport at the Winter Olympics, period. “Hopefully it has an effect,” Jackson said. “Hopefully we can see more minorities, especially in the United States, come out and try some of these winter sports.”
Fauci: “Complete” pandemic may soon end
Is this a light at the end of the “complete” pandemic tunnel? Dr. Anthony Fauci said it looks like the United States may soon reach adequate levels of immunity to limit the spread of coronavirus. When that happens, Fauci said local health agencies should feel safe in ending mask mandates, adding that such restrictions could go down in history this year. Some of this optimism has been driven by the constant decline in daily American infections. The U.S. reports fewer than 200,000 COVID-19 cases a day for the first time since Christmas, a U.S. TODAY analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University shows. The number of cases is now less than a quarter of the peak of the current omicron rise. However, the United States is still on track to reach 1 million COVID deaths in April.
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This is a collection of stories from across the United States TODAY Network. Starring: Associated Press.