With five wins and two draws to start the season, high-flying NYCFC had the chance to restore their four-point lead atop the standings in the East. But the visitors came unstuck in Portland, where the counterattacking Timbers reigned supreme thanks to Sebastian Blanco, Fanendo Adi and Larrys Mabiala on Sunday. NYCFC controlled possession and completed almost 800 passes but Patrick Vieira’s men were caught out by the Timbers, who opened the scoring via Blanco’s looping header approaching the half-hour mark....

A new report from social analytics company General Sentiment reveals that when compared to the four major North American professional sports, MLS’s social footprint is growing far faster than any of the other four traditional sports brands. The league can boast that during the first five days of the 2015 season, social conversations about each of the 20 teams is up 34 percent from 2014 on average, according to General Sentiment....

The San Jose Earthquakes attacker possesses a skill-set that has long been the object of fascination for many American soccer observers. Thompson is quick, skillful, creative and has a silky touch on the ball that few can match. Moreover, he’s fearless, always willing to dribble in the final third or attempt an audacious piece of skill that most wouldn’t dream of trying. In the parlance of American soccer, Thompson “tries sh*t....

It’s a bit premature to talk about Gerardo Martino’s team being a title contender in year one, but MLS fans from coast to coast have been left impressed with the seemingly never-ending string of transactions that have all earned positive nods of approval. The landing of highly regarded Paraguayan midfielder Miguel Almiron in a multi-million dollar deal is obviously the centerpiece move to date, but a handful of other transactions have impressed as well — from the trade for Michael Parkhurst and landing Zach Loyd in the expansion draft, to flipping of another expansion draft pick for the No....

Take the New York derby. New York City FC’s transformation from expansion-year laughing stock to serious MLS Cup contender has added fuel to its rivalry with the Red Bulls — though the Red Bulls’ dominance of the series has kept it from reaching full bloom. Any good rivalry needs both sides to draw blood at times, and the fact that the rivalry is just in its third year reminds us that it still needs many more years of seasoning....

Three months in “office,” Cécilia, 49, had set herself apart from her predecessors in France and from the current crop of European First Spouses, who steer clear of public affairs. A former fashion model—tall, feline, reticent at times—she had seemed like the last First Lady who would throw herself brazenly into the world of international diplomacy. While her husband angled ferociously for the presidency, two years ago Cécilia said the prospect of being First Lady “bored” her....

The two Gauteng clubs are scheduled to square off in the 2017 Nedbank Cup final at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban. Mobara, who played for Bafana Bafana during their 2-1 defeat to Zambia in a friendly match last week, stated that Bucs are hungry for a win over Matsatsantsa. “Well, when I came back from the national team camp, I saw a team that wants to win the Nedbank Cup,” Mobara told the reporters....

Learning about all of this was genuinely wonderful, because it meant I finally encountered something I care less about this month than Doug McDermott’s NBA draft stock. This is March. This is the week ESPN has trained us to view as “Championship Week,” which means there will be more than a dozen conference tournaments contested and decided, a full field of 68 teams selected and seeded for the NCAA Tournament, and then the beautiful brand of insanity known as March Madness truly will begin....

In his first interview after Tuesday’s presidential debate, Wallace told the New York Times candidates could still talk over each other and “disrupt the proceedings” if their microphones are muted. “As a practical matter, even if the president’s microphone had been shut, he still could have continued to interrupt, and it might well have been picked up on Biden’s microphone, and it still would have disrupted the proceedings in the hall,” he said....

In a viral Reddit post published on r/AmITheA**hole, Redditor u/thesmithsthrow (otherwise referred to as the original poster, or OP) said her stepchildren have stolen snacks from her son’s lunch, putting his health in jeopardy, and detailed her fury with her husband’s flippant reaction to the repeated thievery. Titled, “[Am I the a**hole] for refusing to let my husband drive my son to school with his step siblings anymore?” the post has received more than 12,000 upvotes and 3,000 comments since October 18....

According to police, the Suboxone fell into the box by accident; however, two McDonald’s employees have reportedly been fired and charged. Police say they are expected to appear in court on Nov. 3. In a statement posted to their official Facebook page, Auburn Police said that on June 30, detectives received a call that a mother had found Suboxone in her 11-year-old son’s Happy Meal box. After an “extensive review” of the store’s surveillance footage, police identified the employee responsible for the incident....

Lee Reynolds, 34, thought he had “plenty of time” when Natalie Whitton, 31, went into labor in the early hours of Wednesday, July 27, with their second child. But as the pair were blasting along the M65 highway, near Burnley, in the north of England, in the U.K., he watched in shock as his new baby, Harrison, “shot out” into the footwell of his Ford Fiesta station wagon. Reynolds, who was on the phone to a midwife throughout most of the journey, said he remembered thinking, “Oh, sh*t!...

Laura Ann, from Ontario, Canada, decided to spice up cleaning by adding some prize money into the mix, hiding a hundred dollar bill under a dirty sock. She shared her sneaky tactic to her TikTok account @lauraann88, after her children refused to pick up dirty clothes left in the upstairs bathroom. The mom hid the cash as a reward for whichever one of her brood picked up the grey sock, left by the toilet, first, after it had been sitting on the floor for nearly a week....

Trena Peed let the two dogs out of the backyard to her home in the early hours of the morning and neighbors shortly heard her crying for help. The neighbors swiftly called 911. In calls heard by Fox 8, they can be heard telling the 911 receiver: “It’s dark. All I hear is her yelling and her dogs over there attacking her.” “All i know is that they…they done drug her into the dark,” they said on the call....

Hanna Burton was filming her son enjoying tummy time on the deck, when he began to cry loudly. The 24-year-old rubbed his back while soothing him, telling him “it’s ok,” when she realized his cries had attracted an unexpected guest. Burton, from Ohio, pans the camera to the treeline, where a doe can be seen bounding towards them. Alarmed, Burton quickly picks up her baby as the deer looks on, alert with its ears cocked....

Samir was shot 18 times in Philadelphia on Monday afternoon while waiting for a bus to take him home after school. His death comes as Philadelphia faces one of its deadliest years for homicides, and police aren’t confident they can put a stop to the violence that led to the fatal shooting of the 14-year-old. “Whatever it was that drove what happened yesterday afternoon, we may never be able to stop that, cause there were people that were intentionally going to take a young man’s life,” Philadelphia Police Deputy Commissioner Investigations Ben Naish told local news station WTXF....

Shared on the popular discussion site Mumsnet on Wednesday, the parent expressed her upset about what she called her “naked neighbors.” The poster explained: “The fence that belongs to our neighbor is only a low wire for half the yard and then one panel that [is] rotting and falling down, and a large gap that we have to cover with a huge plant pot to keep their dog out of our backyard....

Angela Morris’ daughter, Caia Morris Cooper, was left seriously ill and has spent nearly two weeks at Arkansas Children’s Hospital where she is being helped to breathe by a mechanical ventilator. Morris said she had opted not to have a coronavirus shot after being lulled into a “false sense of security that it was just like the flu and it wasn’t that serious” by misinformation. “I really thought that since she stayed home a lot and when I went out, I always wore my mask....

“Call me. I suffer,” writes one mom. And another: “tell me about face book. do you have a page on it? can anyone look at your page? I am worried about this type of thing.” Then there’s the short, but direct variety: “std’s are on the rise. love, mom.” These are the kinds of e-mails that a lot of us already forward to our friends for their amusement. In fact, that’s how the two women who started the blog came up with the project....

In a post shared under the username Tophy124 on Mumsnet’s Am I Being Unreasonable (AIBU) subforum, the mom said that her son, who “has been accident prone” since his dad has been away on a work trip abroad, “fell onto tile flooring from two feet up (in a standing position) and whacked his head very hard. I saw it happen but couldn’t get to him in time and am really worried about him....