The 49ers fire defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen, AP source says

Sport

The 49ers fire defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen, AP source says

2025-01-08 10:53 Last Updated At：11:00

SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — The San Francisco 49ers fired defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen after just one disappointing season, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the move hadn't been announced.

The Niners are making significant changes to their coaching staff after going 6-11 this season and missing playoffs. Special teams coordinator Brian Schneider also was fired on Tuesday, the person said on condition of anonymity because that hadn't been announced either.

This is the third straight offseason that San Francisco will change defensive coordinators, starting when DeMeco Ryans left following the 2022 season to take over as head coach for Houston.

Steve Wilks was hired last season and helped San Francisco reach the Super Bowl but was fired anyway, with coach Kyle Shanahan saying his scheme wasn't a good fit with the Niners' players.

Shanahan then promoted Sorensen into the role after he had spent the previous two seasons working mostly with the secondary and running the team's weekly meetings focused on creating and avoiding turnovers.

Sorensen wasn't able to get the defense back to the level it reached under Ryans. San Francisco ranked 29th in the league in scoring defense, allowing 25.6 points per game, and was tied for the seventh fewest takeaways with 17. The Niners had just two takeaways over the final nine games and ended the season allowing at least 40 points in back-to-back games for the first time since 2015.

Injuries played a role in the struggles with key players like Nick Bosa, Javon Hargrave, Dre Greenlaw and Talanoa Hufanga all missing time.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Middle East latest: Israeli hostage found dead in Gaza, military says

2025-01-09 03:58 Last Updated At：04:00

Israeli forces have recovered the body of a hostage held in Gaza, the military said Wednesday, adding that it was identifying additional remains that could belong to another captive. The recovery of Yosef AlZayadni, 53, from an underground tunnel comes as Israel and Hamas are considering a ceasefire and hostage release deal.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and abducting around 250. A third of the 100 hostages still in Gaza are believed to be dead.

Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday killed at least five people in the Gaza Strip, including two infants and a woman, Palestinian medics said. Israel’s military says it only targets militants, accusing them of hiding among civilians.

Israel’s air and ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza has killed over 45,800 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry. It does not say how many were fighters, but says women and children make up over half the fatalities. The military says it killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

And in Yemen, the U.S. military says it carried out a wave of strikes against underground arms facilities of the Houthi rebels. The Iran-backed Houthis have targeted shipping for more than a year and recently ramped up missile attacks on Israel, saying they seek to force an end to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

Here's the latest:

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is expected to defer to the incoming Trump administration to decide whether to lift sanctions on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its leader, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the outgoing administration’s thinking on the matter.

The officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday that the Biden administration has sought to take a careful approach on HTS, the new de facto authority in Syria after overthrowing President Bashar Assad.

The officials added that lifting a foreign terrorist designation is a cumbersome process and that it’s unlikely that the administration could come to a final decision on the matter with just 12 days to go before Trump takes office.

HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was once aligned with al-Qaida, met in December with the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, who led the first U.S. diplomatic delegation into Syria since Assad’s ouster.

The U.S. on Monday eased some restrictions on Syria’s transitional government to allow the entry of humanitarian aid. And the Biden administration in December decided to drop a $10 million bounty it had offered for the capture of al-Sharaa.

By Aamer Madhani

BEIRUT — A French journalist was released after the Israeli army detained him on Wednesday in southern Syria.

Sylvain Mercadier, who contributes to the French publication Marianne, was documenting Israeli military activity when he was taken into custody alongside his fixer, according to Marianne.

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesperson, said the journalist had come “too close” to soldiers on a number of occasions and did the same on Wednesday. He said the troops “took him shortly and then released him, understanding he’s not posing a threat.”

Mercadier said Israeli soldiers beat him while he lay on the ground and hit his colleague, Mohammed al-Fayyad, in the back of his head with a rifle butt.

“We were handcuffed and blindfolded. … We were threatened and humiliated,” he said in a post on X. They were left with cuts and bruises, notably where their wrists were tightly restrained, after more than four hours of what Mercadier called mistreatment.

“We had done nothing but do our work: journalism,” he wrote.

Mercadier said he was reporting near Hamidiye, a village in Quneitra province. Israeli forces captured the area last month, which lies in a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone in Syria's Golan Heights.

He said he followed Israeli soldiers' orders to stop filming and allowed them to search his vehicle, but was arrested after he and al-Fayyad protested the soldiers' attempt to confiscate a laptop.

PARIS — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is again saying that a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas is “very close” and he hopes “we can get it over the line” before handing over U.S diplomacy to the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.

“In area after area, we’re handing off, in some cases, things that we haven’t been able to complete but that create real opportunities to move things forward in a better way,” he said Wednesday on a stop in Paris for meetings.

Blinken said that even if the Biden administration's plans for a ceasefire and hostage deal don’t come to fruition before Trump’s inauguration, he thinks they’ll be put into practice afterward.

“I believe that when we get that deal – and we’ll get that deal – it will be on the basis of the plans that President Biden put before the world,” he said.

The body of an Israeli hostage held in Gaza, 53-year-old Yosef AlZayadni, was recovered in an underground tunnel in southern Gaza, the military said Wednesday. It said it was examining whether a second body was that of another hostage.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said earlier a second hostage's body had been recovered: AlZayadni’s son Hamzah.

The men were taken captive during Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, 2023. The return of the body comes as Israel and Hamas are considering a ceasefire and hostage release deal.

Israel believes a third of the remaining 100 hostages are dead. However, AlZayadni was believed to still be alive before Wednesday’s announcement.

AlZayadni, who had 19 children, had worked at a dairy in southern Israel’s Kibbutz Holit for 17 years, said the Hostages Family Forum, a group representing the families of captives. AlZayadni was kidnapped with three of his children. His teenage kids, Bilal and Aisha, were released in a weeklong ceasefire deal in November.

The family are members of the Bedouin community, part of Israel’s Palestinian minority who have Israeli citizenship.

TEL AVIV, Israel — An Israeli group representing some families of hostages held in Gaza displayed an image of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on a huge electronic billboard in Tel Aviv with a reference to his threat to unleash “hell” if the captives aren't freed before he takes office later this month.

The group behind the billboard, Tikva Forum, has called for Israel to use increased force against Hamas to secure the release of their loved ones.

The billboard shows a photo of Trump raising his fist moments after his assassination attempt, and threatens in English “the fire of hell will open” if the hostages aren't released.

Many in Israel have been energized by Trump's warning, hoping it could exert more pressure on Israeli and Hamas leaders to reach a deal to free hostages in exchange for a ceasefire in Gaza.

A third of the 100 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza are believed to be dead.

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria's de facto leader Ahmad al-Sharaa received a delegation from Bahrain on Wednesday and met with the Bahraini foreign minister, state media reported.

The visit was the latest in a flurry of diplomatic overtures by Arab countries to Syria’s new leaders after they overthrew former President Bashar Assad in a lightning rebel offensive.

Like other Gulf countries, Bahrain had cut off diplomatic ties with Syria under Assad’s rule during the Syrian civil war, but it reopened its embassy in Damascus in 2018 and gradually restored ties with the Assad government.

Bahrain is the current head of the Arab summit, and days after Assad’s ouster it had sent a message to al-Sharaa offering its cooperation with the new authorities and saying, “We look forward to Syria regaining its authentic role in the Arab League.”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. military says it carried out a wave of strikes against what it said were underground arms facilities of Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

U.S. Central Command said in a statement that Wednesday’s strikes targeted weapons used by the rebels to attack ships in the Red Sea.

The Houthis said seven strikes targeted sites in the rebel-held capital, Sanaa, and the northern Amran province, without providing further details. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The United States and its allies have carried out repeated strikes on the Houthis, who have continued to target shipping.

The rebels say they target ships linked to Israel, the U.S. or the U.K. to force an end to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli airstrikes killed at least five people in the Gaza Strip, including two infants and a woman, Palestinian medics said Wednesday.

One strike hit a home in the central city of Deir al-Balah, killing two men and a woman, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the casualties. It also received a 4-month-old boy who was killed in a strike on his family house in the nearby built-up Bureij refugee camp.

An Associated Press journalist saw the four bodies in the hospital morgue.

In Gaza City, an airstrike hit a home in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, killing a 3-week-old baby, according to the Health Ministry’s emergency service.

Israel’s military says it only targets militants, accusing them of hiding among civilians.

Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 45,800 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not say how many were fighters, but says women and children make up over half the fatalities. The military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

Israel has destroyed vast areas of the impoverished territory and displaced some 90% of its population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.