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CHICAGO (AP) — Max Kepler and José Miranda hit run-scoring singles to put Minnesota ahead in the seventh, and the Twins rallied late for their 10th straight win, 10-5 over the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday.

Miranda added his third hit for another RBI in a four-run ninth that put it away for the Twins, whose winning streak is their longest since June 2008 and the longest in baseball this season. Willi Castro added an RBI single to cap a three-hit day that included a double and triple.

Alex Kirilloff hit a solo shot off Chicago starter Chris Flexen. Ryan Jeffers knocked in two runs with a double for Minnesota, which has beaten Chicago in eight straight dating to last season.

Tommy Pham hit his first homer with the White Sox and added an RBI double. He’s batting .375 with Chicago in six games since joining them last Friday.

Kory Lee went deep, and Robbie Grossman double twice and drove in a run for the White Sox, worst in the majors at 6-25. Chicago has dropped three straight after sweeping a three-game series from Tampa Bay last weekend.

The Twins trailed until they tied it a 4 in the sixth inning, scoring two unearned runs with two outs when Castro’s routine grounder ticked off the glove of shortstop Paul DeJong and rolled between his legs for an error.

Minnesota’s Bailey Ober (3-1) scuffled to the win, despite allowing four runs on six hits in six innings.

Flexen allowed two runs on four hits in five innings and left with a 4-2 lead. Dominic Leone (0-1), the second of five Chicago relievers, gave up two runs in the seventh and took the loss.

Twins center fielder Byron Buxton left the game in the second inning with right knee soreness after an unsuccessful attempt to steal second base.

Buxton singled leading off the inning, didn’t slide and was thrown out by Lee. Buxton walked off the field slowly and was replaced in the bottom half by Castro, who moved from third base.

An All-Star in 2022, Buxton was limited to 85 games as a designated hitter last season because of a right knee injury.

Before the game, Minnesota selected the contract of right-handed reliever Caleb Boushley from Triple-A St. Paul. Left-hander Kody Funderburk was optioned to the farm club.

The White Sox recalled lefty Jared Shuster from Triple-A Charlotte and optioned RHP Prelander Berroa.

UP NEXT

Twins: RHP Chris Paddack (2-1, 5.88 ERA) starts Friday against Boston in Minneapolis.

White Sox: RHP Brad Keller (0-0, 0.00) faces Cardinals RHP Sonny Gray (3-1, 1.16) at St. Louis on Friday.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina’s Senate is debating a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors with just days left in a 2024 session where they have largely avoided social hot-button issues.

The bill, passed by the state House in January during the General Assembly’s opening days, would bar health professionals from performing gender-transition surgeries, prescribing puberty blockers and overseeing hormone treatments for patients under 18.

School principals or vice principals would have to notify parents or guardians if a child wanted to use a name other than their legal one, or a nickname or pronouns that did not match their sex assigned at birth.

Sen. Richard Cash started debate on the bill on Wednesday by asking the Senate to approve it. “We are talking about a serious subject. Nobody is taking this lightly,” the Republican from Powdersville said.

The bill’s passage seemed likely.

The Senate has 30 Republicans, 15 Democrats and one independent. Democrats last week did not force an on-the-record vote when the proposal would have needed two-thirds approval to move to the top of the list of bills to be taken up. After about an hour of debate, the Senate adjourned to likely take up the issue again Thursday.

The bill also would prevent people from using Medicaid to cover the costs of gender-affirming care.

Doctors and parents testified before committees in both the House and Senate that people younger than 18 do not receive gender-transition surgeries in South Carolina and hormone treatments begin only after extensive consultation with health professionals.

They said the treatments can be lifesaving, allowing young transgender people to live more fulfilling lives. Research has shown that transgender youth and adults are prone to stress, depression and suicidal behavior when forced to live as the sex they were assigned at birth.

That testimony was most important to Brent Cox, who was waiting to talk to a lawmaker in the Statehouse lobby Wednesday in a “Protect Trans Youth” T-shirt. He said his heart breaks for the way children are treated when they may be dealing with transgender or LGBTQ+ issues but this issue was especially galling because lawmakers were going against doctors.

“I think people who are unqualified when it comes to medical decisions need to consult with their physicians, just like people rely on and would listen to their doctor if they had a cancer diagnosis,” Cox said.

Supporters of the bill have cited their own unpublished evidence that puberty blockers increase self-harm and can be irreversible.

“This decision is of far greater consequences, for instance, than getting a tattoo, choosing a career or even a spouse,” Cash said.

The proposal is part of a broader push to roll back transgender rights from Republican lawmakers in statehouses across the U.S.

But it hasn’t been successful everywhere.

On Monday, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes South Carolina, ruled that West Virginia’s and North Carolina’s refusal to cover certain health care for transgender people with government-sponsored insurance is discriminatory. The case is likely heading to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Kansas also failed to become the 25th state to restrict or ban such care for minors when its Legislature was unable to override a governor’s veto the same day.

South Carolina’s General Assembly has taken a slower, more deliberate approach to social issues during a session dominated by debates that led to a law allowing the open carrying of guns and a broad bill to encourage more energy generation by loosening regulations on power plant approvals.

The American Civil Liberties Union is tracking 31 bills in South Carolina it said target the LGBTQ+ community. The ban on gender-affirming care is the only one likely to pass and is less strict than the bans in other states.

Other conservative proposals like new regulations giving the state Board of Education oversight on school library books or banning vaccine mandates for private businesses appear unlikely to pass before the regular session ends May 9.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed legislation Wednesday that would establish a broader definition of antisemitism for the Department of Education to enforce anti-discrimination laws, the latest response from lawmakers to a nationwide student protest movement over the Israel-Hamas war.

The proposal, which passed 320-91 with some bipartisan support, would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal anti-discrimination law that bars discrimination based on shared ancestry, ethnic characteristics or national origin. It now goes to the Senate for a vote.

Action on the bill was just the latest reverberation in Congress from the protest movement that has swept university campuses. Republicans in Congress have denounced the protests and demanded action to stop them, thrusting university officials into the center of the charged political debate over Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war was launched in October, after Hamas staged a deadly terrorist attack against Israeli civilians.

If passed by the Senate and signed into law, the bill would broaden the legal definition of antisemitism to include the “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.” Critics say the move would have a chilling effect on free speech throughout college campuses.

“Speech that is critical of Israel alone does not constitute unlawful discrimination,” Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said during a hearing Tuesday. “By encompassing purely political speech about Israel into Title VI’s ambit, the bill sweeps too broadly.”

Advocates of the proposal say it would provide a much-needed, consistent framework for the Department of Education to police and investigate the rising cases of discrimination and harassment targeted toward Jewish students.

“It is long past time that Congress act to protect Jewish Americans from the scourge of antisemitism on campuses around the country,” Rep. Russell Fry, R-S.C., said Tuesday.

The expanded definition of antisemitism was first adopted in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental group that includes the United States and European Union states, and has been embraced by the State Department under the past three presidential administrations, including Joe Biden’s

Previous bipartisan efforts to codify it into law have failed. But the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas militants in Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza have reignited efforts to target incidents of antisemitism on college campuses.

Separately, Speaker Mike Johnson announced Tuesday that several House committees will be tasked with a wide probe that ultimately threatens to withhold federal research grants and other government support for universities, placing another pressure point on campus administrators who are struggling to manage pro-Palestinian encampments, allegations of discrimination against Jewish students and questions of how they are integrating free speech and campus safety.

The House investigation follows several high-profile hearings that helped precipitate the resignations of presidents at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. And House Republicans promised more scrutiny, saying they were calling on the administrators of Yale, UCLA and the University of Michigan to testify next month.

The House Oversight Committee took it one step further Wednesday, sending a small delegation of Republican members to an encampment at nearby George Washington University in the District of Columbia. GOP lawmakers spent the short visit criticizing the protests and Mayor Muriel Bowser’s refusal to send in the Metropolitan Police Department to disperse the demonstrators.

Bowser on Monday confirmed that the city and the district’s police department had declined the university’s request to intervene. “We did not have any violence to interrupt on the GW campus,” Bowser said, adding that police chief Pamela Smith made the ultimate decision. “This is Washington, D.C., and we are, by design, a place where people come to address the government and their grievances with the government.”

It all comes at a time when college campuses and the federal government are struggling to define exactly where political speech crosses into antisemitism. Dozens of U.S. universities and schools face civil rights investigations by the Education Department over allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Among the questions campus leaders have struggled to answer is whether phrases like “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” should be considered under the definition of antisemitism.

The proposed definition faced strong opposition from several Democratic lawmakers, Jewish organizations as well as free speech advocates.

In a letter sent to lawmakers Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union urged members to vote against the legislation, saying federal law already prohibits antisemitic discrimination and harassment.

“H.R. 6090 is therefore not needed to protect against antisemitic discrimination; instead, it would likely chill free speech of students on college campuses by incorrectly equating criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism,” the letter stated.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the centrist pro-Israel group J Street, said his organization opposes the bipartisan proposal because he sees it as an “unserious” effort led by Republicans “to continually force votes that divide the Democratic caucus on an issue that shouldn’t be turned into a political football.”

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Associated Press writers Ashraf Khalil, Collin Binkley and Stephen Groves contributed to this report.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Willy Adames homered twice with four RBIs and Colin Rea pitched six scoreless innings to lead the Milwaukee Brewers over the Tampa Bay Rays 7-1 on Wednesday in the finale of a contentious three-game series.

Milwaukee reliever Abner Uribe was suspended for six games and starter Freddy Peralta for five by Major League Baseball for their roles in a brawl on Tuesday night. Rays outfielder Jose Siri was suspended for three games, and Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy for two. All four also were fined.

Murphy started his suspension on Wednesday, leaving associate manager Rickie Weeks to lead the team. Siri’s suspension was cut to two games as part of an agreement, and he served the first game Wednesday. Uribe and Peralta can continue to play until their appeals are resolved.

Playing against his former team, Adames hit a solo homer in the third off Zach Eflin (1-4) and a three-run drive in the seventh against Erasmo Ramírez for his fifth big league two-homer game.

“I just try to win every day. It doesn’t matter who’s in the other dugout,” Adames said. “Obviously, when you see familiar faces, it makes it more fun.”

Rea (3-0) gave up four hits over six innings with two walks and six strikeouts in a 99-pitch outing — his highest pitch count since July 25, 2016, for San Diego at Toronto.

“I felt like I could have kept going,” Rea said. “I definitely had some chances to put them away earlier. We got ahead and then I kind of wasted some pitches.”

Bryan Hudson, Uribe and Thyago Vieira finished a five-hitter, and the Brewers took two of three from the Rays.

Umpires made Vieira change his glove due to a problem with its color combination.

“He did have it on last night. I think what happened is things kind of sped up on them last night when he got in there,” Weeks said. “They couldn’t really address it right then and there.”

William Contreras hit a go-ahead, two-run double in the third off Elfin, who allowed three runs and six hits in 5 2/3 innings. Eflin is 0-3 in his last five starts.

Tampa Bay went 0 for 8 with runners in scoring position and left nine guys on base.

“We’re just not getting it done. That big hit is really tough to come by right now,” manager Kevin Cash said.

Tampa Bay finished a 1-5 trip.

“We just didn’t do many things very well. We just got beat. Outplayed and outperformed in really every aspect,” Cash said.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Rays: OF Josh Lowe, expected to return from an oblique strain, is dealing with hamstring tightness and will head to Triple-A Durham, where he is expected to play on Thursday, Cash said. … INF Isaac Paredes was out of the lineup due to body and arm soreness.

UP NEXT

Rays: RHP Aaron Civale (2-2, 5.06 ERA) starts Friday against the visiting New York Mets

Brewers: RHP Joe Ross (1-3, 5.40) starts Friday at the Chicago Cubs, who send RHP Hayden Wesneski (2-0, 0.87) to the mound.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

DETROIT (AP) — Kenta Maeda got his first win for Detroit, allowing four hits over six innings in a 4-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday as the Tigers took two of three games in the series.

Matt Vierling had three RBIs for the Tigers, who are 31-16 against St. Louis in interleague play. The teams also met in three World Series, with the Cardinals winning in 1934 and 2006, and Detroit taking the title in 1968.

“That’s the team I grew up rooting for, so having a day like this is huge,” said Vierling, a St. Louis native.

Maeda (1-1) allowed a fourth-inning home run to Willson Contreras that landed in shrubbery above the center-field fence. He struck out five and walked none.

“Both pitchers filled up the strike zone, but we were able to jump on top, which is always big in a series-deciding game,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “Kenta had pretty good stuff.”

A 36-year-old right-hander who signed a $24 million, two-year contract during the offseason, Maeda had a 7.64 ERA in his first four starts but has lowered it to 5.02 by allowing one run over 11 innings in his last two outings. He spent his first seven big league seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Minnesota.

Contreras’ homer was the Cardinals’ only extra-base hit, and they drew just two walks.

“We had a couple of situations late where we had two runners on and the guys we wanted at the plate,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “They didn’t go our way, but there will be a time when we turn those into crooked numbers. We just aren’t driving the ball at the moment.”

Alex Lange got four outs for his second save, taking over for Jason Foley after Tuesday’s doubleheader.

“Our bullpen isn’t a one-man show or a two-man show,” Hinch said. “We’ve got eight guys down there who are ready whenever we need them. We had a couple guys down today and that moved roles to different people.”

Miles Mikolas (2-4), facing Detroit for the first time, gave up three runs and six hits in six innings.

Vierling singled leading off the second and scored on Colt Keith’s double, then hit a two-run, two-out homer in the third and added a sacrifice fly in the eighth.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Cardinals OF Dylan Carlson (shoulder) started a rehab assignment with Triple-A Memphis on Tuesday, going 0 for 1 with two walks as the designated hitter. Carlson has been sidelined since an outfield collision in spring training.

UP NEXT

Cardinals: RHP Sonny Gray (3-1, 1.16) is scheduled to start Friday at home against Chicago White Sox RHP Brad Keller (0-0, 0.00), whose only appearance this season has been a five-out relief outing,

Tigers: RHP Reese Olson (0-4, 3.18) is expected to start on Friday at the New York Yankees.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

DoorDash reported higher-than-expected revenue in the first quarter, as strong growth in U.S. grocery orders helped make up for slowing restaurant demand.

But the company’s shares fell 12% in after-hours trading Wednesday as investors appeared concerned about rising costs.

DoorDash said its net loss narrowed to $23 million in the first quarter, compared to a loss of $161 million in the same period a year ago. The loss, of 6 cents per share, was higher than the 3-cent loss Wall Street had forecast, according to analysts polled by FactSet. DoorDash said it increased both marketing expenses and research costs during the quarter.

DoorDash also said it expects pretax earnings between $325 million and $425 million in the second quarter. The midpoint of that range — $375 million — is less than the $394 million that analysts are forecasting.

The San Francisco-based delivery company said Wednesday its revenue rose 23% to $2.51 billion in the January-March period. That was higher than the $2.45 billion Wall Street was expecting, according to analysts polled by FactSet.

DoorDash said its total orders climbed 21% to 620 million. That also surpassed expectations; analysts were forecasting 607 million orders.

The value of U.S. grocery orders doubled from the same period last year. DoorDash began offering grocery delivery in 2020 and continues to add grocery options. In March, Giant Eagle expanded the number of stores offering same-day DoorDash delivery in Pennsylvania and other states. In April, DoorDash added some West Coast grocers to its offerings, including Haggen and Vallarta Supermarkets.

DoorDash said U.S. restaurant order value also grew, but at a slower pace than last year. That reflected results released this week from McDonald’s and Starbucks, which both reported lower store traffic in the most recent quarter as inflation-weary customers in the U.S. and other markets shift from dining out to eating at home.

DoorDash said new rules in New York and Seattle establishing minimum wage requirements for delivery drivers has increased prices for consumers, resulting in reduced sales. It estimated that the new rules will result in $110 million in lost sales annually for its merchants in New York and $40 million in lost sales in Seattle.

But DoorDash said the rules had a minimal impact on its business, lowering total orders by less than 1% in the first quarter.

For one day, workers ruled the world’s biggest streets.

Thousands strong marched Wednesday to mark May Day, the first day of the month when workers’ rights are celebrated in demonstrations around the globe.

From Seoul to Paris, Istanbul to Berlin, they drew attention to stagnant wages and the high cost of living as they took aim at their governments. In some cases, their governments returned fire.

In Turkey, police in riot gear shot rubber bullets and tear gas at thousands of protesters who clashed with officers as they tried to break through a barricade and reach Istanbul’s Taksim square in defiance of a ban.

Tear gas also rose from the streets of Paris, where workers seeking higher pay and better conditions were joined by others rankled by the upcoming Summer Games. They torched replica Olympic rings.

Standing out in the crowds were the many messages held high on banners or scrawled in pen on simple signs.

“We work to live!!! Not to die!!!” read the sign held by a man in Manila, Philippines. “The rich want war — the youth want a future,” a banner said in Berlin. “Don’t touch the eight-hour workday!” warned a placard in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Thousands of protesters in Seoul sang, waved flags and shouted pro-worker slogans as they stepped up criticism of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s conservative government and its anti-labor policies.

“The lives of our laborers have plunged into despair,” said Yang Kyung-soo, leader of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. “We can’t overlook the Yoon Suk Yeol government. We’ll bring them down from power for ourselves.”

In Jakarta, Indonesia, marchers carried banners and wore slogans on their hats protesting a 2020 law that they said harms worker rights and the environment. Metal workers carried bright red flags and wore darker red headscarves. Others dressed as mimes with frowns painted on their faces.

In Beirut, pro-Palestinian marchers mixed with workers demanding an end to economic misery. Young women supporters of the Lebanese Communist party posed for selfies and flashed victory signs.

Most will return to their jobs Thursday.

ATLANTA (AP) — Jailers in Georgia must now check the immigration status of inmates and apply to help enforce federal immigration law, under a bill that gained traction after police accused a Venezuelan man of beating a nursing student to death on the University of Georgia campus.

Gov. Brian Kemp signed the bill into law Wednesday at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center in Forsyth. Most provisions take effect immediately.

The Republican governor signed a separate law that requires cash bail for 30 additional crimes and restricts people and charitable bail funds from posting cash bonds for more than three people a year unless they meet the requirements to become a bail bond company. That law takes effect July 1.

Kemp said Wednesday that the immigration bill, House Bill 1105, “became one of our top priorities following the senseless death of Laken Riley at the hands of someone in this country illegally who had already been arrested even after crossing the border.”

Jose Ibarra was arrested on murder and assault charges in the death of 22-year-old Laken Riley. Immigration authorities say Ibarra, 26, unlawfully crossed into the United States in 2022. It is unclear whether he has applied for asylum. Riley’s killing set off a political storm as conservatives used the case to blame President Joe Biden for immigration failings.

“If you enter our country illegally and proceed to commit further crimes in our communities, we will not allow your crimes to go unanswered,” Kemp said.

Opponents warn the law will turn local law enforcement into immigration police, making immigrants less willing to report crime and work with officers. Opponents also point to studies showing immigrants are less likely than native-born Americans to commit crimes.

The law lays out specific requirements for how jail officials should check with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to determine whether prisoners are known to be in the country illegally. Georgia law previously only encouraged jailers to do so, but the new law makes it a misdemeanor to “knowingly and willfully” fail to check immigration status. The bill would also deny state funding to local governments that don’t cooperate.

The law also mandates that local jails apply for what is known as a 287(g) agreement with ICE to let local jailers help enforce immigration law. It is unclear how many would be accepted because President Joe Biden’s administration has de-emphasized the program. The program doesn’t empower local law enforcement to make immigration-specific arrests outside a jail.

Republicans said Senate Bill 63, requiring cash bail, is needed to keep criminals locked up, even though it erodes changes that Republican Gov. Nathan Deal championed in 2018 to allow judges to release most people accused of misdemeanors without bail.

“Too many times we have seen some of our cities or counties, it’s been a revolving door with criminals,” Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones said.

Supporters said judges would still have the discretion to set very low bails. A separate part of the 2018 reform requiring judges to consider someone’s ability to pay would still remain law.

But the move could strand poor defendants in jail when accused of crimes for which they are unlikely to ever go to prison and aggravate overcrowding in Georgia’s county lockups.

It’s part of a push by Republicans nationwide to increase reliance on cash bail, even as some Democratic-led jurisdictions end cash bail entirely or dramatically restrict its use. That split was exemplified last year when a court upheld Illinois’ plan to abolish cash bail, while voters in Wisconsin approved an amendment to the constitution letting judges consider someone’s past convictions for violent crimes before setting bail.

By Clark Mindock

(Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday said a lawsuit filed by 21 young people claiming the U.S. government’s energy policies violate their rights to be protected from climate change must be dismissed, this time for good.

A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a five-page order that the case should have been dismissed after the court first weighed in on the matter in 2020, when it said courts could not mandate broad policy changes that are better left to Congress and the executive branch.

While the young plaintiffs have since trimmed the lawsuit to seek only a declaration that their rights have been violated, the 9th Circuit said lawsuits must address harms that can be remedied by courts and such a declaration would not directly help the plaintiffs.

The panel’s order instructed a lower court overseeing the case to dismiss the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs plan to ask an 11-judge “en banc” panel of the 9th Circuit to reconsider the decision, Julia Olson, an attorney for the plaintiffs at the non-profit law firm Our Children’s Trust, said. A similar request after the 2020 ruling was denied.

“This is a tragic and unjust ruling, but it is not over,” Olson said. “A declaration of our constitutional rights is one of the few things that has moved our nation to greater justice and equality throughout history.”

The U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment.

The plaintiffs had argued in their 2015 lawsuit that the government has permitted, authorized and subsidized fossil fuel extraction and consumption despite knowing those actions cause catastrophic global warming.

They said climate change exacerbates things like wildfires, drought and flooding, which in turn jeopardizes their health and property. By contributing to climate change, the plaintiffs said U.S. energy polices violate their rights to due process and equal protection under the U.S. Constitution.

The young people were between the ages of 8 and 19 when they filed their lawsuit, Juliana v. USA.

After the 9th Circuit’s 2020 order dismissing the case, a federal judge in Eugene, Oregon, allowed the youth to amend their lawsuit.

The U.S. government opposed the plaintiffs’ bid, saying it was “substantially identical” to issues the parties already litigated.

Numerous other youth-led climate lawsuits have been filed in recent years by Our Children’s Trust, similarly arguing state and federal policies promoting fossil fuels violate the rights of young people.

While several of those have been dismissed, a Montana state judge last year ruled in favor of a group of young people who said the state’s permitting of fossil fuel projects violates a 1972 amendment to the Montana constitution requiring the state to protect and improve the environment.

A similar lawsuit by a group of young Hawaiians based on that state’s constitution is due to go to trial in June.

The U.S. Constitution contains no such explicit provision. A group of young people have also filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection accusing the agency of “intentionally” discriminating against U.S. children by allowing the release of dangerous levels of climate change-causing greenhouse gas pollution in California federal court.

(Reporting by Clark Mindock, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Michael Erman)

(Reuters) – U.S. shale producer Devon Energy beat first-quarter profit estimates on Wednesday as higher production from Delaware basin helped it offset a decline in natural gas prices.

The Oklahoma City-based company also raised its full-year 2024 production outlook by 2% to a range of 655,000 to 675,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd).

U.S. crude prices were largely range bound in the first three months of 2024 despite rising geopolitical tensions, as non-OPEC members kept up supplies, while a milder winter season and oversupply pushed natural gas prices to a 3-1/2-year low in the quarter.

Its total production stood at 664,000 boepd in the January-March quarter, higher than 641,000 boepd it reported last year. Delaware Basin asset accounted for 66% of company wide volumes at 437,000 boepd.

Devon said realized prices, without hedges, for natural gas in the reported quarter was $1.30 per thousand cubic feet (mcf), 43% lower than last year’s $2.29 per mcf.

The oil and gas producer reported adjusted income of $1.16 per share for the three months ended March 31, topping average analysts’ estimate of $1.11 per share, according to LSEG data.

Devon added that due to the addition of a fourth Delaware completion crew in January, the company’s capital program in 2024 is expected to be weighted towards the first half of the year.

As a result of this activity, second quarter production is expected to increase to a range of 670,000 to 690,000 boepd.

“This improved outlook raises production targets and increases free cash flow projections, which will enhance our ability to accelerate the return of capital to shareholders,” said CEO Rick Muncrief.

(Reporting by Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)