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The Penguins had 31 shots on goal Saturday and Ryan Miller saved them all for the shutout. The Canucks won, 5-0.
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Louisville was able to keep it close with Virginia, but 11 turnovers, including three by Terry Rozier, ultimately doomed the Cardinals Saturday. Virginia won, 52-47.
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TORONTO (AP) -- James Reimer lost his shutout just before the final buzzer. That didn't stop the celebration. Reimer stopped the first 31 shots he faced in an unexpected start as the Toronto Maple Leafs routed the Edmonton Oilers 5-1 on Saturday night to end an 11-game winless streak. The Maple Leafs had gone 0-10-1 since Jan. 9. "The feeling you get at the end of the game when you've battled for 60 minutes and you're able to come up with a win, especially after the adversity we've faced, it's a good feeling," Reimer said. "It's a relief, and you feel really good about yourself." The Leafs (23-27-4) had something to feel good about for the first time in a while, and they weren't going to let Luke Gadzic's goal with 2.3 seconds left spoil it. The same team that struggled to score for the past month broke out with goals by Richard Panik, Phil Kessel, Morgan Rielly, Mike Santorelli and Peter Holland. It was an offensive showing of force that came in the second half of back-to-back games and with winger David Clarkson out as a healthy scratch for the first time since he signed with the Leafs in the summer of 2013. Interim coach Peter Horachek called it a "coaching decision." The Leafs did fine without Clarkson, who has just 15 points in 53 games this season. This was just the second victory for Horachek and finally evidence of the kind of progress he wants to see. "It's important to see that there's results," Horachek said. "I kept telling them that the results are going to come. You've just got to keep the process of doing things the right way." Things went the right way for the Leafs, who got a couple of soft goals against Edmonton goalie Viktor Fasth (five goals on 28 shots) but also flashed offensive skill, notably in the form of Rielly's end-to-end, unassisted beauty. Rielly turned several Oilers players around on the goal before pulling a toe drag and roofing a perfect shot glove-side on Fasth. "In my head I didn't really plan it like that, but that's just the way it played out," Rielly said. "I got some ice and I had a chance to make a play and thankfully I was able to do it." Oilers winger Jordan Eberle, who hit the post on a breakaway in the second period, called it one of the more frustrating nights of a tough season for Edmonton (14-30-9). "It wasn't going in for us and going in for them," Eberle said. "I didn't think we had the jump and the execution that we needed to take this game over and we were just kind of waiting for something bad to happen, and it did." Notes: Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf missed his sixth straight game with a hand injury. ... It was Canadian Armed Forces Appreciation Night at Air Canada Centre.
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Early in Patrick Kane's NHL career it seemed nary a month passed before a photo or so-called eyewitness account of the Blackhawks star enjoying himself - often a little too much - while out on the town would pop up on the Internet or light up social media. Kane became a popular target for websites, regardless of their accuracy. Some of the accounts were true - as Kane has acknowledged - and some were false. There is no question, however, Kane was enjoying the fruits of being a young and affable professional athlete who helped resurrect one of hockey's storied franchises. These days, the dynamic winger's exploits on the ice - and not off it - are seizing the headlines. What happened to the free spirit from Buffalo who at one point seemed to be on the path to jeopardizing his career with his fun-loving ways? Kane apparently grew up. In the summer, he surrounds himself with family and friends in his hometown and spends much of the time working out, playing in pick-up hockey games and relaxing at his house that sits along a lake. During the season when the spotlight shines brightest, Kane goes to dinner with teammates while on road trips. The next stop is usually the safe haven of his hotel room. "Sometimes it's nice just being in your own room and having a quiet night and relaxing and getting ready for the game," Kane told the Tribune. "That's kind of where my focus is now, just trying to prepare myself as best I can and focus on the next game." Would a 21-year-old Kane believe what the now 26-year-old Kane is saying-that life is better in the solitude of a hotel room and not in bars and nightclubs? "No, times have changed for sure," he said. "It's totally different than where I used to be. I always loved the game and I always tried to do my best but the preparation is just at a different level now." Here's the thing about keeping a low profile in the days when everyone has a cell phone and they're not bashful to take photos or video with them: Stay on the straight and narrow and there is nothing unflattering to document. "It's tough, but it's part of the deal these days," Kane said of being in the public eye. "One thing that has really changed is the social media with Twitter and everything. Once that came out, at the time you don't know how big it is and how much of an affect it can have on you. If you do something wrong it's going to be all over the place. Not only does that go for me, but anyone in here. You just really have to be aware of it." But Kane hasn't evolved into a wallflower. As one of the most recognizable sports figures in Chicago and North America and a player who is set to rake in $13.8 million next season - excluding endorsement money - he likes to have his fun. Kane is just improving on the ways he's having it. "I feel I'm getting better for sure," he said. "I'm still 26 years old. I still feel that's fairly young. I feel like the growth has been pretty good." Hawks coach Joel Quenneville has been around for seven of Kane's eight seasons in the NHL and agrees with that assessment. "He has matured (more) as an individual and as a player every year," Quenneville said. Added close friend and teammate Jonathan Toews: "He's laid back. He knows the things he needs to do to be successful and stay focused. He has learned more about himself as a person and a player." Not coincidentally, along with Kane's growth as an individual has come a raised level of play for the Hawks. Already one of the NHL's top stars, Kane has elevated himself to the upper echelon of players this season and is a legitimate Hart Trophy candidate as the league's most valuable player. After notching a goal and an assist in Friday night's 2-1 overtime victory over the Jets, Kane was tied for the NHL scoring lead with 58 points and his 26 goals ranked seventh in the league. "He has been so consistent for us," Toews said. "Even nights when scoring is tough and maybe as a team we aren't creating much, he still finds ways to get on the board and create for our team. On the power play (or) five-on-five, it doesn't really matter. He's out there and he wants to score and he's hungry. It's great to see him playing at that level. He definitely has proven that he is one of the best in the world." Another long-time teammate, winger Patrick Sharp, has seen Kane improve in all aspects. "He has grown up," Sharp said. "He's very confident in himself on and off the ice. I like to mess around with 'Kaner' and have fun with him so I like him when he's not-so mature. We can laugh and joke at the rink and make fun of each other. That's what I like best about him." Kane's growing pains away from the game, which throughout the years included the ill-fated cab ride in Buffalo, the limo excursion in Vancouver and the Cinco de Mayo festivities in Madison, Wis., might bring some level of regret, but they aren't something Kane ignores. "Everyone has their own little route," he said. "Everything that I went through made me who I am today and the player I am today." Helping Kane along the way is a close-knit family that includes his parents, Pat Sr. and Donna, and sisters Erica, Jessica and Jacqueline. Just as significant is longtime girlfriend Amanda Grahovec, who has been by Kane's side for nearly three years and helps keep him grounded. "She's great - she has helped me a lot," Kane said. "She's big into doing anything she can to help me feel better, help me be healthier, not only for my career but for longevity in life. We see a lot of each other. When I'm home we're pretty much with each other all the time. She's a big blessing in my life for sure." When told those sentiments sound a little like someone who might be approaching matrimony, Kane's faced drained of color and he looked across the room at Toews, whom he describes as his "partner in crime," and said, "No, no. Not until after 'Tazer' does." [email protected] Twitter @ChrisKuc
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BOULDER, Colo. (AP) -- Meeting little defensive resistance at the 3-point line, Brandon Taylor quickly settled into a deft shooting rhythm from beyond the arc. Taylor scored 18 points on a career-best six 3-pointers and No. 13 Utah routed cold-shooting Colorado 79-51 on Saturday night. ''They were just leaving me open,'' Taylor said. ''They gave me more than enough space that I needed, that's for sure. I got in a rhythm very quickly. I just caught a groove.'' Jordan Loveridge added 11 points and 10 rebounds for Utah (18-4, 8-2 Pac-12), which has put together back-to-back wins since losing last week at UCLA. The Utes' first win at the Coors Events Center since the schools joined the Pac-12 Conference three years ago completed a season sweep of Colorado. The Buffaloes lost the first meeting at Utah 74-49 on Jan. 7. ''We've been harping on playing defense and playing tough,'' Loveridge said. ''We got bullied really when we played here in past years. We didn't want that to happen tonight. We did beat them on the boards (36-28) and I think that was a big part of it.'' Josh Scott, who missed the last seven games and eight of the past nine with a back injury, had 10 points for Colorado (11-11, 4-6) in his return. But the Buffaloes missed leading scorer Askia Booker, who was sidelined by a hip pointer. Colorado shot just 29.8 percent from the field, converting only one of their nine 3-point tries. Utah converted 57.8 percent of its shots from the field, including a season-high 13 3-pointers. ''I told our team in the locker room that's what a Top-15 team looks like. They played like it tonight and they took it to us in every way,'' Colorado coach Tad Boyle said. ''They made every open shot. We weren't good enough defensively. We weren't good enough offensively. It was a good old-fashioned whupping. There's no other way to put it but we've got to take it and move on.'' Up by 12 at the break, Utah opened the second half with three consecutive 3-pointers, two by Loveridge, to move ahead 44-23. The Buffaloes, meanwhile, made just two of their first 17 shots to start the second half. That allowed Utah to blow the game open with a 12-0 run that included two 3-pointers by Taylor for a 70-34 lead with just over six minutes left. ''I thought we shot the ball really well, and 20 assists, I thought we shared it,'' said Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak said. ''Brandon got it going. We had three 3s to start the second half. It was a good performance.'' Dakarai Tucker and Taylor each hit 3-pointers in the final 46 seconds of the first half, helping Utah pull out to a 35-23 lead. Missing the play-making Booker, Colorado struggled to get its offense going and trailed 17-3 in the first seven minutes of the game. The Buffaloes managed to cut the deficit to 18-12 before Utah began pulling away again. TIP-INS Utah: The Utes have spent 12 weeks in the rankings, most in a season since 1999-2000. ... Taylor moved into eighth place all-time at the school with 149 career 3-pointers, ahead of Mark Rydalch (145). ... Jordan Loveridge had his first double-double of the season and the 11th of his career. Colorado: Booker missed a game for the first time since his freshman year, when he sat out due to the flu. ... Freshman forward Tory Miller made his first career start in place of Wesley Gordon, who came off the bench after being late for a team meeting. UP NEXT Utah: Hosts Stanford on Thursday night Colorado: Hosts California on Thursday night
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Devan Dubnyk's shutout against the Avs looked to be in jeopardy on Saturday night, but that was until Jonas Brodin saved the day by stopping a shot at the goal line to secure a 1-0 Wild win.
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A trial is under way to see if 3D printers can increase the supply of prosthetic limbs in Uganda.
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Spurs coach Gregg Popovich has been compared to Marshawn Lynch in the way the two handle the media, but Pop says that's an unfair comparison because he often "laughs it up" with the press.
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Virginia star Justin Anderson will have surgery Sunday to repair a broken finger on his left hand and will be out 4-6 weeks, the school announced in a statement Saturday. Anderson, a 6-6 junior guard and all-ACC candidate, was injured in the first half of No. 3 Virginia's 52-47 win against No. 8 Louisville. He ranks second on the team in scoring at 13.4 points a game. It's a key loss for the Cavaliers, who currently are in position to claim a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and win the ACC. With two wins this week against top-15 teams, the Cavaliers preserved their ACC lead, with Notre Dame one game back, UNC one and a half games back, and Louisville and Duke two back. Virginia (21-1, 9-1 ACC) plays at North Carolina State on Wednesday. Anderson could be back in time for the NCAA tournament; Selection Sunday is March 15.
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SAN DIEGO (AP) Ian Poulter picked the wrong place to park at dinner and wound up getting his courtesy car towed. Poulter and caddie Terry Mundy went to a Korean barbecue restaurant Friday night during the Farmers Insurance Open, and when they left the restaurant, Poulter first thought that his courtesy car had been stolen. ''There were 60 spots in the car park. We walked 40 yards to a restaurant, but apparently that restaurant that we ate in wasn't quite in the vicinity of where I should have parked,'' Poulter said Saturday after moving within three shots of the lead at Torrey Pines. ''The kind security guard who was standing by my car as I parked waited until I left and then called a tow truck to tow it away so he could make some money. ''I told him my car had been stolen,'' Poulter added. ''He said, `Nope, we towed it away.' I said, `That was awfully nice of you.' A few similar words.'' His night wasn't over. Poulter was given a slip of paper with information how to retrieve the car. But because it wasn't his car, he couldn't claim it. ''Obviously, we sign a nice piece of paper in the office that says we drive the car for the week, so I've got no documents that says this is my vehicle,'' he said. ''I had to leave it there and get a taxi. Uber to the rescue.'' Poulter said he turned over the towing information to the tournament office, which took it from there. ''It was brilliant, because my caddie told me to park there,'' Poulter said. That apparently wasn't the only car incident Friday night. Steve Wheatcroft said on Twitter he was rear-ended driving to dinner in Del Mar.
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A 17-year-old youth has been charged in connection with a shooting that wounded three people, two of them critically, at a Macy's department store in a mall outside Pittsburgh, police said on Sunday. The suspect, Tarod Thornhill, faces adult charges of attempted homicide and three counts of aggravated assault, the Allegheny County Police Department said in a statement. The shooting took place at about 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Monroeville Mall, about 12 miles east of Pittsburgh. Thornhill was arrested at about 3:15 a.m. Sunday at a residence in Brackenridge, about 20 miles north of the crime scene, authorities said. Police said they used social media and store surveillance images to identify Thornhill. Police said one of the victims was the target of the shooting, while the other two were apparently bystanders. A preliminary hearing in the case is set for February 18, according to court documents. (Reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Fla.; Editing by Catherine Evans and Frances Kerry)
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Gonzaga picked up their 17th straight win by taking care of San Francisco Saturday. Kyle Wiltjer led the way with 29 points and 11 rebounds. The Bulldogs are still undefeated in the WCC this season.
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Bo Barnes hit a three with 55 seconds left to give Arizona State a lead Arizona couldn't come back from. Arizona State pulled off the upset, 81-78.
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TEMPE, Ariz. -- Somewhere in the near future when the NCAA tournament selection committee gathers to determine the No. 1 seeds, it will review Arizona's loss to Arizona State. While at it, the committee will likely look at Arizona's loss to UNLV. And, yes of course, the Wildcats' loss at Oregon State. They each are stunning as they are perplexing, especially given the fact Arizona lost them all in the same fashion: lack of defense. "We did not get the job done on the defensive end," Arizona coach Sean Miller said after Saturday's 81-78 loss to the Sun Devils. The No. 6 Wildcats (20-3, 8-2 Pac-12) had "no rim protector and no physicality," Miller said, adding things were too easy for ASU. This from a team that hangs its hat on such aspects and continues to say defense is what defines it. Saturday afternoon, Arizona's defense didn't show up. Junior Brandon Ashley called it a lack of focus. The result was for the third time in four years, ASU -- considered to be the lesser team in all three games here in Tempe -- found a way to win. Just last month Arizona defeated ASU 73-49. It was a 27-point swing in the rematch. ASU (12-11, 4-6) can thank Bo Barnes' shooting, Jonathan Gilling's shooting, Savon Goodman near the basket and Tra Holder leading the charge. Arizona had no answers. "We knew what to expect but at the same time knowing what to expect and performing to the level of your ability (is another)," said Ashley. "We didn't take anything away from them and I thought they were excellent," Miller said. "Were we hitting on all cylinders? Absolutely not." All were things Miller mentioned about this week when he spoke about how the Sun Devils concerned him. "They did it with what they've been doing and they did it exceptionally well," Miller said. "And they picked on a number of our guys. The way Arizona State plays offense one side to the next really tests your discipline. We had very poor discipline." Miller, just a minute into his post-mortem talk with the media, said he felt early on the outcome was bleak. He could sense his team wasn't ready. Two hours later, it showed in the final score. "I called a timeout with about a minute and a half in and I know our team pretty well," Miller said, "and we didn't have it at that point and we never got it. Sometimes as the game plays out you don't really feel that you didn't deserve to win the game. And that's really how I felt. We broke down way too many times. ASU was the better team today." ASU played harder, moved the ball better and earned the win. One would have wondered which team was the team with the Ratings Percentage Index of four (Arizona's ranking) and the other 119 (ASU's going in). Arizona squandered great efforts from senior guard T.J. McConnell, who had a season-high 25, and sophomore Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, who added 14 points and eight rebounds. Stanley Johnson added 16 points and nine rebounds before he fouled out. "We were kind of stagnant on offense and I saw a mismatch on offense so I attacked off ball screens," McConnell said. "It's tough (losing) and I don't care how I play offensively. But I 'm worried about defense and that we win. We didn't do that so you can throw that offensive game out the door." Now, Arizona will have to regroup like it has after the other losses, most recently the Oregon State debacle. It did by winning six consecutive games. "It's a loss that is hard but all we have to do is get back on the saddle, so to speak," Miller said. "We're headed on the road for two games and we're going to get people's best shot because of our ranking. Sometimes when you go through this it's a reminder of how easily it is to lose." And get another wakeup call? "You hope at this point in the season we didn't need another wake up any more," Ashley said. "With that said, we're at that point. But after a loss you can only go up." The NCAA selection committee will be watching. Follow Steve Rivera on Twitter
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With 23 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists, the Cougars' Kyle Collinsworth logged his fifth triple double of the season. Check out the moment Saturday night when he set the new single season NCAA Division 1 record.
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It's easy for Hubble to take pictures of Jupiter or its moons, but it only gets the chance to capture the planet on cam with three visible Galilean satellites once or twice a decade. That's what makes the photo above special: it's a picture of the gas giant with three of its largest moons (and their shadows) making their way across the surface. Hubble used its Wide Field Camera 3 to take several photos of the event on January 23rd, 2015 -- the still you see above shows how the moons were positioned by the end of the 40-minute period. You can tell the Galilean satellites apart based on the color of their surfaces, so if you're wondering, the yellow-orange one (due to an abundance of volcanic sulphur) at the top left is Io and its shadow. Callisto, the brown and biggest moon in the picture, has one of the most cratered surfaces in the solar system. Finally, the white circle at the bottom left is Europa (the same icy moon NASA wants to explore for signs of life), leaving Ganymede the only Galilean moon not invited to the party. Hubble Space Telescope
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With the Buffalo Bills adding Rex Ryan and Richie Incognito, are they the favorite to be on HBO's Hard Knocks?
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NEW YORK (AP) -- Draymond Green had 20 points and 13 rebounds, and the Golden State Warriors beat the New York Knicks 106-92 on Saturday night to give Steve Kerr a win in his first game coaching in the arena he nearly called home. Stephen Curry scored 22 points and Klay Thompson had 16 on a night neither shot well. But the Warriors have plenty of weapons even when their All-Stars struggle, one of the many reasons Kerr never needs question the decision he made last summer when he chose between two job openings. BOX SCORE: WARRIORS 106, KNICKS 92 He picked the Warriors over the Knicks, and the difference is 30 victories as the teams near the All-Star break. Langston Galloway scored 15 points for the Knicks, who gave Carmelo Anthony a night off and lost their third straight. The All-Star forward who has dealt with a sore left knee much of the season rested on the second night of back-to-back games. The Knicks trailed by as much as 26 without him, but cut it to five in the fourth quarter before Curry made a couple of 3-pointers down the stretch. Kerr was considered the leading candidate to coach the Knicks from nearly the moment Phil Jackson was hired as team president in March. They continued talking about the job into the spring, and Jackson said Kerr verbally committed to accepting it before telling him he wanted to pursue the Warriors job instead after they fired Mark Jackson. That allowed him to stay close to his family, not to mention inherit a playoff team, but Kerr said breaking the news to his former coach was tough. "It was difficult because I'm very, very close with him and I feel like I'm indebted to him for much of what's transpired in my career," Kerr said. The difficult choice was the correct one. Golden State improved to 40-9, tops in the Western Conference, while the Knicks fell to 10-41. The Warriors, coming off a 124-116 loss at NBA-leading Atlanta on Friday night, led 32-19 after one even though Curry and Thompson missed 10 of their 12 shots. It was 64-48 at halftime and what seemed like an easy night when Thompson's jumper made it 89-63 with 3:08 left in the third. But the lead was down to 95-90 after Shane Larkin's steal and layup with a little more than 4 minutes remaining. The Warriors then scored six straight, with Curry's 3-pointer making it 101-90 with 2:52 to play. Curry had a career-best 54 points here two years ago and a triple-double last year, but had no assists and couldn't get the crowd buzzing much Saturday. Nor could Thompson, who shot 5 for 22. The Knicks play their final two games before the All-Star break on the road while the NBA prepares Madison Square Garden to host the All-Star game next Sunday. Curry and Thompson will play for the West and Kerr will coach the team thanks to the Warriors having the conference's best record. TIP-INS Warriors: Kerr said he and Phil Jackson had exchanged emails earlier Saturday and hoped to see each other while the Warriors were in town. ... David Lee, who played for the Knicks from 2005-10, got a nice ovation when he checked into the game in the first quarter. He finished with 10 points and 10 rebounds. Knicks: Former Knicks All-Stars Walt Frazier, Allan Houston and John Starks presented Anthony with his Eastern Conference All-Star jersey before the game. ... Amare Stoudemire scored 13 points off the bench. Though he told Yahoo Sports he would use the break to consider whether he wanted a buyout so he could join a contending team, he said he wasn't thinking that this could have been his final home game as a member of the Knicks. He signed a five-year contract with the team as free agent in July 2010. UP NEXT Warriors: visit Philadelphia on Monday. Knicks: visit Miami on Monday.
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MONTREAL (AP) -- With only six goals in their previous four games, the Montreal Canadiens were anxious to break out with a big game. It came Saturday night against a New Jersey team using backup goalie Keith Kincaid and playing its second game in two nights. Tomas Plekanec and Dale Weise each scored twice and P.K. Subban assisted on three power-play goals as the Canadiens beat the Devils 6-2. "We know how tough it can be at times to score," said Subban, who assisted on the Canadiens' three goals in the second period. "It's not easy, especially in the second half (of the season), teams are trying to bear down. "But we did a lot of things well. We moved the puck well and got to net when we had to. Our focus from the start was to try to generate as many shots as we could and we had 15 in the first period. Good things happened for us." Andrei Markov and Lars Eller also scored and David Desharnais also had three assists for the Canadiens, who outshot the Devils 44-22. Markov, Eller and Plekanec scored in the second period to put Montreal ahead 3-1. Plekanec and Weise scored 30 seconds apart with about 7 1/2 minutes remaining in the third, and Weise scored again with 4:42 left. Michael Cammalleri and Jacob Josefson scored for the Devils, who snapped a three-game winning streak. New Jersey also ended a run of six consecutive games with at least one point. "Their juice and execution was a little better than ours," Cammalleri said. "There were a couple of spurts where we took the game back a bit, and there were some untimely penalties and they really took advantage of them. "They made some strong plays. That really turned the tide." Carey Price finished with 21 saves for the Canadiens, and the Kinkaid stopped 38 shots for the Devils. New Jersey scored on its first attempt as Jaromir Jagr dropped a pass to Peter Harrold for a shot that was deflected to the top corner past a helpless Price by Cammalleri. Dainius Zubrus took a double-minor for high-sticking Subban and the Canadiens scored twice. Markov sent a feed from Subban from the point past Kinkaid with 8:39 left in the seond. Then Eller one-timed a cross-ice feed 59 seconds later, ending a 14-game goal-scoring drought. Plekanec made it 3-1 from the top of the right circle with 10 seconds to go in the period. "That was huge," Weise said of the power-play goals, the team's first in five games. "That was the turning point of the game." Josefson closed the gap when he finished a 2-on-1 with Tuomo Ruutu 3:01 into the third. Plekanec then scored his 15th of the season into an open net with 7:56 remaining, and Weise put in a rebound 30 seconds later. Max Pacioretty fed Weise in front for his second goal to cap the scoring. "We wanted our team to be aggressive tonight," Montreal coach Michel Therrien said. "We wanted to put pucks at the net. Our guys focused on that. "It's good for the confidence of the team." The Canadiens hope that carries into Sunday night's game against the rival Bruins in Boston. Montreal will be looking for a sweep of its season series after taking the first three games against the Bruins by a combined score of 13-5. NOTES: Subban also had three assists in a 4-2 win in New Jersey on Jan. 2. ... Manny Malhotra, Mike Weaver and Michael Bournival were scratched for Montreal. The Devils sat out Michael Ryder and Eric Gelinas.
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LONDON Britain's Prince Charles says he fears there will be "very, very few" Christians left in the Middle East after the turmoil wracking the region. The heir to the British throne, who is on a trip to the region, told the BBC that the plight of Christians persecuted by Islamic extremists was "a most agonizing situation," though it was important to remember they were just one persecuted minority among many around the world. "But at the same time I fear that the problems in the Middle East are not going to go away immediately," the prince said in a pre-recorded interview with "The Sunday Hour" radio program. "And so there is a danger that there is going to be very, very few left." He appealed for more work to build bridges between religions. If he succeeds his mother Queen Elizabeth II as monarch, Charles will become temporal head of the Church of England and take the title "Defender of the Faith." He said that although the title refers to the Anglican faith, he believed the role involved protecting others' freedom to worship. "It always seems to me that while at the same time being Defender of the Faith you can also be protector of faiths," he said. On Saturday the 66-year-old prince began a six-day trip to Jordan and the Gulf states. He met Iraqi Christian refugees in Amman and will spend time with Jordan's King Abdullah II, days after Islamic State militants released a video showing a captured Jordanian fighter pilot being burned alive. Hundreds of people from Britain have joined militants in Syria. Charles said the number of young Britons turning to extremism was alarming although "some aspect of this radicalization is a search for adventure and excitement at a particular age." He said "The frightening part" was how many people became radicalized through "the extraordinary amount of crazy stuff" on the Internet.
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One man decided to use Marshawn Lynch's infamous press conference quotes to pickup girls, and it actually worked!
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Celebrities aren't wasting any time gearing up for all the Grammy Awards excitement. Throughout the past few days, stars have been stepping out for popular pre-Grammy parties in LA, giving us a preview of the faces we'll see at Sunday's big show. Over at the MusiCares 2015 Person Of The Year Gala on Friday, Lady Gaga chatted up former Vice President Al Gore and Tony Bennett, and Kat Dennings and Josh Groban gave us a glimpse of their romance. Meanwhile, a handful of celebrities saved their energy for daytime fun at the Roc Nation and Three Six Zero brunch on Saturday. While Beyoncé stole the spotlight with Jay Z and Willow Smith, Kim Kardashian caught up with Rihanna, and Nick Jonas and Demi Lovato inspired major flashbacks of their Disney days. In between the events, performers turned the Grammy rehearsals into a party, with Pharrell showing his love for Ed Sheeran, and Kanye West managing a big smile. Keep reading to see the stars rub shoulders, and then prep for the show with a look at everyone who will take center stage come Sunday.
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BOSTON (AP) -- Loui Eriksson quickly found a puck near his skates and Tuukka Rask seemed to see every shot all night. Eriksson scored the go-ahead goal with 7:34 left in the third period and Rask stopped 39 shots to lift the surging Boston Bruins to a 2-1 victory over the New York Islanders on Saturday night for their ninth win in 12 games. "It's one of many lately," Bruins coach Claude Julien said of Rask's night. "He's been in a zone, really good for us and focused and intense. He's not afraid to yell at the players around him if they're not doing their job. He's just been a determined athlete for us the last little while. It's made a big difference for our hockey team." RELATED: Gronkowski spikes puck as Bruins honor champion Patriots Patrice Bergeron added a first-period, power-play goal for the Bruins, who have collected points in 14 of their last 16 games (10-2-4). The red-hot Bruins now have a showdown with rival Montreal on Sunday night. Rask has been carrying a heavy load of games lately, but didn't say if he'll be facing the Canadiens, who have beaten Boston all three times this season after eliminating them in seven games in last spring's playoffs. "If they want me to play, I'll play," he said. "It doesn't matter to me. Nobody's told me otherwise, so I'm sure I'll be playing. Hopefully I'll get a win so I don't have to answer any questions." John Tavares had a power-play goal for the Islanders, who have lost four of five. Former Bruin Chad Johnson made 34 saves. "I'm really just proud of the effort we had in here tonight," Islanders coach Jack Capuano said. "We played a solid game against a good hockey team. We had some chances, but we have to find a way to score some goals." Eriksson scored the winner out of a scramble in front when he spun around and sent a backhand shot under Johnson's left arm. "I was able to find it," Eriksson said. "I think I was able to get a shot first and was able to find it at my feet. I was able to put it in. It was nice." The teams traded first-period power-play goals, but were scoreless in the second in a contest that featured many good scoring chances and plenty of open-ice breakouts. Tavares one-timed a rebound past Rask from the bottom of the left circle 9:06 into the game for his team-leading 24th goal. But that's all they could get against Rask. "It's tough to win when you score one or two against these guys," Islanders defenseman and former Bruin Johnny Boychuk said. Bergeron tied it 4:06 later when he collected Michael Grabner's errant clearing pass in the slot and fired a wrister over Johnson, who was on his stomach after making a save on a shot. Both goaltenders made nice stops early in the second. Rask flashed his left pad, robbing Anders Lee's close bid, and Johnson made two good saves on Carl Soderberg, who cut in front for a shot and turned and had a rebound chance. The Bruins had an excellent scoring chance early in the third, but Daniel Paille's backhander sailed over the wide-open side of the net to Johnson's left at the end of a 2-on-1 break. Seconds later, the Islanders went on a power play after Brad Marchand was whistled for high sticking, but Rask made a few stops to keep it tied. NOTES: New York D Calvin De Haan went to the locker room after getting hit along the boards in the third. ... The Islanders came in leading the league with 16 road victories. ... It was the final regular-season meeting between the clubs. Boston won two of three.
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The Maple Leafs snapped a franchise-record 11-game losing streak on Saturday night. They had no shortage of offense in the win as they beat the Oilers, 5-1.
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Brian Rolston weighs in on the Winnipeg Jets-Evander Kane drama and reveals if any other NHL team would accept Kane into their locker room.
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The Islanders didn't get the win over the Bruins on Saturday night. However, Brent Sopel breaks down how the Islanders used their speed against the Bruins.
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As ISIS attempts to capture the Iraqi city of Kirkuk, the Kurdish Peshmerga are digging in.CNN's Phil Black reports from the front lines.
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Reports indicate that Ndamukong Suh would prefer to sign with the Seattle Seahawks. How would Suh fit Pete Carroll's defense?
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The Seahawks secondary is called the Legion of Boom, but what about the Patriots? Brandon Browner thinks it should be up to the fans, so we opened up the floor. What's the best response?
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VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) -- Ryan Miller and the Vancouver Canucks bounced back from a poor effort in a big way. Miller made 31 saves for his sixth shutout of the season and 35th of his career as the Canucks blanked the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-0 on Saturday night. Alexandre Burrows had a goal and an assist, and Bo Horvat, Shawn Matthias, Zack Kassian and Daniel Sedin each also scored for Vancouver, which lost 5-1 to San Jose on Thursday night. ''I like this one mainly because the attitude we came out with was sustained during the game,'' Miller said. ''It was the right kind of attitude. We wanted to have a response for the last game.'' Down 2-0 after the first, the Penguins thought they had gotten back in the game early in the second, but Derrick Pouliot's shot that hit the post and then Miller was disallowed after it was ruled the net was off before the puck crossed the line. ''I don't think the net being dislodged had any real affect or bearing on the puck,'' Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby said. ''It's tough, you see that one go either way, but it didn't feel like we were getting any bounces here.'' The Canucks, who also had a goal of their own disallowed thanks to a quick whistle, stretched their lead to three at 15:02 when Matthias broke in on a 2-on-1 and ripped his ninth of the season past Greiss. A healthy scratch the last three games, Kassian then picked up his third goal of the season and first in 22 games after Linden Vey intercepted Greiss' bobbled clearing attempt behind the net and fed his wide-open linemate in front at 17:21. Sedin made it 5-0 on the power play - his 11th of the season - at 2:05 of the third after a nice feed from Burrows. The goal was the 115th of his career on the power play and moved him past former captain Markus Naslund for the all-time franchise mark. ''I thought our guys came with a real good effort,'' Canucks coach Willie Desjardins said. ''It wasn't an effort by 15 guys. It was the whole team.'' Vancouver backup goalie Eddie Lack posted a 3-0 shutout in the only other meeting between the clubs on Dec. 4, and Miller made a nice stop on Brandon Sutter's breakaway midway through the third to keep the Penguins off the scoreboard. Thomas Greiss stopped 22 shots for Pittsburgh. ''Just a poor start,'' Crosby said. ''I think you can tell the first 10 minutes, they were desperate, they came out hard and you fall back two goals and (you're) probably guilty of taking some chances when you fall behind that early and it was kind of uphill from there.'' The Canucks came out much stronger against the Penguins than they did against the Sharks, and opened the scoring at 7:13 of the first period when Burrows tipped home Radim Vrbata's one-timer on the power play for his 12th of the season. The goal, which marked the first time the Canucks had scored first in the last seven games, snapped a 4-for-46 stretch with the man-advantage dating to Jan. 6. Horvat then made it 2-0 at 10:46 after pouncing on Evgeni Malkin's turnover at the Pittsburgh blue line. The Canucks' rookie winger fed Derek Dorsett, who fanned on his shot but still managed to get the puck back to Horvat, and he banged a shot past Greiss for his fifth. NOTES: Vrbata's assist on the first goal was the 500th point of his career. ... Canucks defenseman Christopher Tanev missed his second straight game with an undisclosed injury.
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Social media is hard to keep up with. Dick Vitale had to learn that the hard way on Saturday. It all started when Dickie V sent out a NSFW tweet to try and promote the Louisville-Virginia game on ESPN. MORE: BYU guard's record | No. 6 Arizona falls | So does No. 8 Kansas The college basketball pundit then immediately claimed his account was hacked. What really happened was that Vitale hit the auto fill function a little too quickly on his phone or he simply tagged the wrong handle when he published his original Instagram post. The problem here isn't the tweet. Mistakes can be made when it comes to social media, be it misspellings, wrong handles or using a hashtag you thought you made up but is actually an acronym that gives unknowing support to some third world dictator. Vitale's issue is that he immediately claimied that he was HACKED and the dumb HACKERZ were the people behind the TWEET THAT STILL SOMEHOW HAD THE CORRECT PROMOTIONAL HASHTAG in it. Dick, baby , you're 75 years old. Just run with it. Make an apology and move on. No need to get panicky. Then again, we wouldn't expect anything less from a cat whose Twitter bio is in the third person:
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Considering Richie Incognito's past problems, was it smart of Rex Ryan and the Buffalo Bills to sign the offensive lineman? The guys weigh in.
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BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- Despite being nearly doubled up in shots, the Buffalo Sabres found a way to secure their first home win in six weeks. Jhonas Enroth made 38 saves and Chris Stewart assisted on all three goals for Buffalo in a 3-2 victory over the Dallas Stars on Saturday night. Tyler Myers, Tyler Ennis and Zemgus Girgensons scored for the Sabres, who managed just 21 shots on goal, compared to the Stars' 40. ''We owe a lot to Jhonas,'' Ennis said. ''He played great tonight. He's been great all year. It was great to get the lead. We got off to a quick lead and then Jhonas, he won it for us.'' The win snapped a six-game home losing streak for the Sabres (16-34-3), who last won at First Niagara Center on Dec. 27, and haven't won in regulation at home since Dec. 11. ''I was looking at the crowd here tonight and seeing how filled the building was, despite our season,'' Sabres coach Ted Nolan said. ''I think we have some of the greatest fans in the world, to stick with us. It was nice to get two points for them, for sure.'' Overall, it was Buffalo's second win in its last three games following a 14-game losing streak. Tyler Seguin and Cody Eakin had goals for the Stars (23-21-8), who started a three-game road trip by spotting the last-place Sabres a 3-0 lead and failing to punch in the tying goal despite dominating puck possession throughout the third period. ''It was a game we needed to win,'' Seguin said. ''It's an embarrassing one to lose.'' Anders Lindback started in goal for the Stars in place of Kari Lehtonen and made 21 saves. Lindback, recalled Friday from a conditioning stint in AHL Texas, started for the first time since Jan. 15 and is now 2-8 this season. ''We're getting offensive chances, but we've got to defend,'' Stars alternate captain Vernon Fiddler said. ''If you want to win games in this league, you have to give up one goal. You can't give up three goals. It's too tough to score in this league.'' The Stars outshot the Sabres 15-8 in the first, but Buffalo scored on its eighth shot to take a 1-0 lead with 1:43 left in the period. Myers took a cross-ice pass from Stewart and fired a shot that deflected into the net off of Stars defenseman John Klingberg, who was tied up with Ennis in front. Buffalo took a 2-0 lead on its ninth shot, 43 seconds into the second period. A cross-checking penalty on Dallas' Ryan Garbutt in the final minute of the first put the Sabres on the power play to open the second, and Ennis took advantage of a slick back-hand feed from Stewart to score his 13th goal of the season. ''I don't think the shot clock told the full story of the game,'' Stewart said. ''I know they did outshoot us by a lot. But I thought for the majority of the game, we had them on their heels.'' Girgensons netted his team-leading 14th goal of the season six minutes into the second period, taking a pass from Nikita Zadorov and tapping the puck into a wide-open net. Stewart had a secondary assist on the goal. ''That third goal was poor play on our part,'' Dallas coach Lindy Ruff said. ''We hung our goalie out to dry on that.'' Seguin broke the shutout by scoring his 29th goal of the season with 4:37 left in the second period on the power play. Dallas cut the lead to 3-2 with 10:13 remaining when Klingberg set up Eakin's goal. Buffalo did not have a shot on goal for the first 16:33 of the third period, but Enroth made several saves late to preserve the Sabres' second win in their last three games. ''Jhonas played very well, made some good saves,'' said Ruff, who coached Enroth for four seasons in Buffalo. ''I thought we missed the net, but maybe he forced that from the way he's playing.'' NOTES: Ruff returned to Buffalo for the second time since being fired by the Sabres in 2013 after 15 seasons. ... Klingberg, a rookie, extended his points streak to five games with two assists. ... Buffalo is now 1-8-0 against Central Division teams this season.
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GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- Top-ranked Kentucky handled another tough test. This one was on the road and against Southeastern Conference nemesis Florida. Aaron Harrison scored 23 points, Karl-Anthony Towns added 19 and the Wildcats remained unbeaten with a 68-61 victory over the Gators on Saturday night. Willie Cauley-Stein chipped in 13 points, highlighted by a thunderous dunk over freshman Devin Robinson in the second half, and the Wildcats (23-0, 10-0 Southeastern Conference) snapped a three-game losing streak against the Gators (12-11, 5-5). "You cannot have fun if the other guy's punching you in the eye," Kentucky coach John Calipari said. "That is not fun. You have to be ready to punch before he punches you. If you're getting licks in first, you'll have a ball. It is fun! But if you come in that ring and all of a sudden your head is moving side to side and your chin, it ain't fun." Florida swept all three meetings last season, winning in Lexington, in Gainesville and in the SEC tournament. Both teams advanced to the Final Four, but have gone in different directions. This one was closer than most expected. Even Florida coach Billy Donovan said this week that there was a "huge discrepancy" in talent between the two teams. Donovan added: "I wouldn't say it's just our team. It's everybody." But the Gators played one of their best games of the season and kept it tight. "Did we maybe make a step? Was it because of how poorly we played at Vandy? Was it because it was Kentucky?" Donovan said. "I think we'll find out as we move forward as a team. This is the first time in 23 games I felt like our team played to win the game instead of being wrapped up and consumed with themselves." Florida led by nine in the first half and used a 6-0 run to go up 44-42 midway through the second. But Cauley-Stein's dunk proved to be the turning point. Robinson turned the ball over on one end, and Cauley-Stein was the beneficiary on the other. He caught a pass in transition near the foul line, took two steps and then slammed it over Robinson. He was fouled on the play and made the free throw to put Kentucky ahead for good. Free throws were huge down the stretch, too. Kentucky closed out the game from the charity stripe and finished 21 of 22 from there. Florida, meanwhile, made 7 of 14 from the line. The Gators have lost five of seven, and the two wins easily could have been losses. For Kentucky, this was just the fifth game decided by 10 points or less this season. Every time Florida got within two points in the final few minutes, Kentucky answered. The Wildcats had just four players score for much of the game. Devin Booker finished with 12 points. Andrew Harrison made a free throw late and was the only other Kentucky player to score. Dorian Finney-Smith led Florida with 16 points and five rebounds. Kasey Hill added 12 points, Eli Carter had 11 and Michael Frazier II 10 despite missing much of the second with a sprained ankle. "They played a lot of the game without Frazier and they still had a chance to beat us," Calipari said. "That tells you what kind of game Florida played. They played to win, they fought, they did whatever they had to. They started putting their head down and driving into our centers and making layups." ------ NO LYLES: Kentucky played without freshman forward Trey Lyles for the third straight game. Lyles didn't make the trip because of an undisclosed illness, and Calipari said his status will be re-evaluated next week. "Lyles is a real, real matchup problem at the small forward spot with his size," said Donovan, adding that the Wildcats also missed forward Alex Poythress said. "It's hard for me to say where Kentucky's at because they're missing two really good players. We didn't see their full roster." REMATCH: Florida and Kentucky will meet again in Lexington on March 7, the final game of the regular season. It could be the one that determines whether the Wildcats run the table in SEC play. TIP-INS Kentucky: Outside the four key scorers, the rest of the team was 0-for-6 shooting. ... The Wildcats shot 47 percent from the field and 21 percent from 3-point range. ... Kentucky is the only remaining unbeaten team in the country. Florida: Fell to 2-11 against the nation's top-ranked team. All 11 losses are against Kentucky. ... Fell to 1-11 when allowing 60 or more points this season. Florida is 11-0 when holding opponents under 60 points. UP NEXT Kentucky: Plays at LSU on Tuesday night. Florida: Hosts Mississippi on Thursday night.
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Chad Campbell hits a wedge on the par 3 third of the Farmers Insurance Open Saturday and knocked in an ace. His hole in one propelled him into a tie for second heading into Sunday.
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Justin Anderson left early in Virginia's win over Louisville Saturday, and ACCSports.com is reporting that a broken finger could keep Anderson out six weeks. What's the impact?
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SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Billy Casper, one of the most prolific winners on the PGA Tour who was overshadowed at the height of his career by the "Big Three," died of a heart attack Saturday at his home in Utah. He was 83. Bob Casper said his father died quickly and peacefully with wife Shirley at his bedside. They had been married 62 years. Casper passed out in the clubhouse at the Masters last year, had work on his heart and recovered from a bout of pneumonia over Thanksgiving that kept him hospitalized for a month. His son said Casper was going to cardio rehab for the last four months and was doing well until he started to feel badly in the last week. In any other era, Casper might have commanded more attention than he did. "I think it is fair to say that Billy was probably underrated by those who didn't play against him," Jack Nicklaus said Saturday night. "Those who did compete against him knew how special he was." Casper won 51 times on the PGA Tour, putting him at No. 7 on the career list behind only Sam Snead, Tiger Woods, Nicklaus, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer and Byron Nelson. His three major championships include the 1966 U.S. Open, one of golf's most remarkable comebacks. He rallied from a seven-shot deficit on the back nine at Olympic Club to tie Palmer, and beat him in an 18-hole playoff. Casper also won the 1959 U.S. Open at Winged Foot and the 1970 Masters. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1978. He was overshadowed by the "Big Three" -- Palmer, Nicklaus and Gary Player, whose rivalry sparked a revival in golf in that era. Part of that was the marketing of Mark McCormack at IMG. Casper originally signed with IMG and then left. But he kept winning. From 1962 through 1970, Casper and Nicklaus won 33 times on the PGA Tour, while Palmer won 30 times. According to Golf Digest, Casper's winning rate of 9.2 percent trails only Nicklaus (12 percent) and Woods (26 percent) of all golfers who started after 1950. Casper was a genius with the short game, considered one of the best putters in golf. When he won the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, he purposely laid up on the par-3 third hole all four rounds and got up-and-down for par each day. "Billy was a fantastic player, and I don't think he gets enough credit for being one," Nicklaus said Saturday night. "I have said many times that during my career, when I looked up at a leaderboard, I wasn't just looking to see where a Palmer or a Player or a (Lee) Trevino was. I was also checking to see where Billy Casper was. Billy had tremendous confidence. He just believed in himself. "You knew when you played against Billy Casper, Billy would not beat himself." Casper won his first PGA Tour event in the 1956 LaBatt Open over Jimmy Demaret, and Casper won at least once each season for 16 straight years, a streak only surpassed by Nicklaus and Palmer at 17. More than golf, Casper was devoted to family. He had 11 children, six of them adopted, and he is survived by 71 grandchildren and great grandchildren. He became a Mormon just as his career was taking off. "More important than what Billy Casper gave us inside the ropes, he has been so selfless outside them," Nicklaus said. "He has always been so steadfast and committed to his family, his religion, his community, and his unwavering beliefs. And he never asked for anything in return. It was not even a year ago, someone asked Billy how he wanted to remembered, and he said, `I want to be remembered for how I loved my fellow man.' "We lost a true friend tonight." In 1992, Casper founded the Billy Casper Youth Foundation and for more than 20 years hosted an annual charity event in San Diego that raised more than $3 million for children. Casper was born June 24, 1931, in San Diego and began to caddie at San Diego Country Club. He was among the first of the great lineage of golfers in San Diego that included Gene Littler and Mickey Wright. "Gene was so much better than me. I never beat him as a teenager," Casper told Golf Digest in a 2012 interview. "But I had a lot of inner confidence. I had such a tie with my eyes and my hands. I could look at a telephone pole 40 yards away, take out a 7-iron and hit it 10 times in a row. I had something special. And somehow, I really understood the game, all without having a lot of guidance." Casper won the PGA Tour money title twice and was player of the year in 1966 and 1970. He won the Vardon Trophy for the lowest scoring average five times and still holds the American record in the Ryder Cup for most points. He played on eight teams and was the winning captain in 1969.
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Saturday was full of excitement as three top 25 teams were upset on the road highlighted by a fantastic finish from St. Bonaventure, a comeback from Oklahoma State, and a nail-biter out west from Arizona State
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Powerball's jackpot climbed on Sunday to $450 million, one of the richest ever offered by the multi-state lottery, after the previous evening's drawing failed to produce any grand prize winners. The winning numbers in Saturday's drawing were 5, 10, 21 34 and 58, lottery officials said, and the Powerball number was 33. While no players qualified for the jackpot by picking all the numbers, ticketholders won about $30 million in lesser prizes, according the Powerball website. Powerball jackpots start at $40 million and grow until at least one player comes up with the winning number at a twice-weekly draw. The next drawing will take place on Wednesday evening. The jackpot winners receive either payments over 29 years or a smaller cash lump sum. The cash option for the jackpot rose to $304.1 million after Saturday's drawing. The biggest Powerball jackpot awarded by the Multi-State Lottery Association was $590.5 million and went to the holder of a single winning ticket in 2013. The association also operates the Mega Millions jackpot, which awarded a top prize of $656 million three years ago. Game drawings for Powerball, played in 44 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands, are held on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 10:59 p.m. in Tallahassee, Florida. Powerball sales reached nearly $5 billion last year for game tickets that are sold through more than 210,000 lottery terminals. Each ticket costs $2. The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are one in 175 million. (Reporting by Frank McGurty; Editing by Crispian Balmer)
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Thunder guard Russell Westbrook is now a creative director with jean brand True Religion. Does Westbrook have the best style in the NBA? If he doesn't, who does? #120Talk
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Another exciting Saturday of college basketball is in the books, but these monster dunks still have us talking. From Montrezl Harrell (again!) to Willie Cauley-Stein's earth shaking rim rocker, relive a great day of college hoops
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Andrej Sekera's clutch third period goal helped the Carolina Hurricanes get the 5-4 win over the San Jose Sharks.
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We give 120 Seconds of Glory to West Virginia wrestler Brutus Scheffel, who pulled off an awesome escape to get the pin against his opponent.
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Going to Japan? Here's a bit of advice: if you're absolutely terrified of eerie human-like robots, think very hard before visiting Nagasaki prefecture's Henn-na Hotel that's slated to open its doors in July. Why? Because the high-tech hotel will employ 10 robots, three of which are multilingual gynoids that look like they were shipped straight from Uncanny Valley. Kokoro, the robots' manufacturer, calls them "actroids," and yes, you've seen us feature them in the past . Thankfully, they're stuck behind the check-in counter as receptionists, so you can just get that part done as fast as possible. Or, you can try to flirt for a room upgrade if that's your thing, since they can apparently establish eye contact and respond to body language. Once you're done checking in, an industrial robot similar to the one found in Yotel New York will stash your luggage. The remaining robots in the staff list, on the other hand, will take care of your other needs, such as making your coffee, cleaning your room or delivering your laundry, among many other tasks. Other than the robots themselves, the hotel's high-tech features include the use of facial recognition tech to open guest rooms, a system that detects body heat to auto-adjust room temperatures and the use of tablets to call for room service. Henn-na (Henn means "strange" or "change;" feel free to pick a translation) will also use solar power and implement energy-saving methods to keep costs and room rates low. This hotel, by the way, is located within Huis Ten Bosch, a Nagasaki theme park made to look like The Netherlands. It's a two-story structure with only 72 rooms, that's why you'll have to bid for the right to stay during peak periods. The good news is that bids are capped, so the rates really aren't that bad, especially for Japan: single occupancy rooms begin at $60 per night, while the highest possible price for a triple room is $153. In 2016, 72 more rooms will be available once the second phase of construction is done, and they'll most likely be launched with even more robotic employees. Those who prefer to interact with human hotel staff will be glad to know Henn-na will open with 10 employees made of flesh and blood. Its developers are hoping that machines can run 90 percent of the hotel's operations in the future, though. They also want to build 1,000 similar hotels worldwide, hopefully after we've already found a way to make sure AIs never ever turn into Skynet. [Image credit: Henn-na Hotel ] Nikkei , Japan Tourism National Organization , Hen-na Hotel
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Why did Knicks All-Star Carmelo Anthony sit out against the Warriors on Saturday? The crew discusses.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- The Carolina Hurricanes have stepped up their play since the start of the year. The San Jose Sharks seem to be going in the opposite direction. Andrej Sekera and Victor Rask scored 3:41 apart late in the third period and the Hurricanes won their fourth straight in San Jose, beating the Sharks 5-4 on Saturday night. Eric Staal, Andrej Nestrasil and Elias Lindholm also scored for the Hurricanes, who are 9-3-3 since Jan. 1. Cam Ward stopped 23 shots to improve to 4-1 against the Sharks. ''These guys were emotionally and mentally engaged in the game,'' Carolina coach Bill Peters said. ''We skated as well as we have at any time since the All-Star break and that's a good sign we've got our legs back.'' Carolina, last in the Metropolitan Division, has accumulated nearly half of its 45 points over the past 15 games. The Sharks, second in the Pacific Division, are 7-7-2 in 2015. ''We were ready to go,'' Staal said. ''We were aggressive in their end and our first period was solid. They pushed back but we were able to fend them off.'' Tomas Hertl had two goals and Logan Couture and Patrick Marleau also scored for San Jose. Antti Niemi finished with 26 saves. ''We were on our heels a little bit to start with,'' Sharks coach Todd McLellan said. ''That shouldn't happen. We should be a little bit better.'' Sekera put the Hurricanes ahead with less than 5 minutes remaining and Rask's empty-netter made it 5-3 with 1:10 to go. Marleau closed the scoring 15 seconds later. ''We played hard. We weren't very sharp in the first two and came alive in the third,'' Couture said. ''We gave up that fourth one, which was kind of unlucky. We couldn't find a way to tie it back up.'' Sekera's goal kicked off a San Jose defender's skate and into the net. ''Obviously we got a great bounce on the game winner,'' Staal said. ''We were jumping on pucks and giving ourselves a lot of chances.'' The Hurricanes took the lead in the game's first minute when Staal beat the Sharks to a bounce off the backboard. The sequence started when Sekera won the puck off the boards at the blue line. Staal has 10 goals since his younger brother Jordan returned to the lineup from a broken right fibula 17 games ago. He scored seven through his first 30 games. Nestrasil made it 2-0 early in the second period as he split a pair of defenders to beat Niemi after taking a pass from Alexander Semin. Hertl scored his first goal 3 minutes later after Chris Tierney won a battle to the puck behind the net and passed it out to him. Lindholm, who has six points in four games against the Sharks, made it 3-1 midway through the second period on a power play. He was able to skate in with the puck until he found a gap. ''Justin held onto it and allowed me to get deep,'' Lindholm said. ''He made a great play there.'' The Sharks scored twice in the first 4 minutes of the third period to tie the score. Hertl's baseball-style swing on a puck in the air produced the first score, and Couture worked a give-and-go with Matt Tennyson to tie it. NOTES: Carolina D Ryan Murphy, who left Thursday's game against the Arizona Coyotes with a lower-body injury, will have an MRI performed Monday when the team returns home. . Eric Staal has 14 points in his last 18 games. . Hertl recorded his third career multi-goal game after totaling two goals in his previous 22 games. . Sharks C Joe Thornton moved into a tie for 36th place, with Peter Stastny, on the NHL's all-time points list with 1,239.
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India's Anirban Lahiri reeled off four birdies in his first five holes and held on down the stretch for a one-stroke victory over Bernd Wiesberger to take his first European Tour title by winning the Malaysian Open Sunday. Lahiri had vaulted into contention the day before with a tournament-low ten-under 62, and followed up with a final-round 68 for the win. "I don't think it has sunk in just yet but I'm pretty sure when it does, I'll be pretty happy," said the 27-year-old. "I've got a bad habit of making it hard for myself, but I'm happy I managed to get it over the line." The Malaysian Open is co-sanctioned by the European and Asian Tours, and the win was Lahiri's sixth on the Asian circuit. Lahiri began the day five strokes behind third-round leader Wiesberger, who had shot to the top of the boards Saturday with a European Tour personal-best nine-under 63 at the tricky Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club. But on the par-five fifth hole Sunday, Wiesberger mishit his third shot into a water hazard for a costly double bogey, opening the door for Lahiri. The Indian charged through with his early birdie blitz. Despite a couple of later bogeys, he fended off the faltering Wiesberger, who suffered three bogeys on the back nine to card a two-over 74 for the day. "It hasn't quite finished the way I intended to," Wiesberger said. "After the hiccup on five, I didn't hit it anywhere near as good as the last 15 rounds. It's tough to say, but it is what it is and unfortunately I beat myself out of it today." England's Paul Waring and the second round co-leader Spain's Alejandro Canizares finished two strokes behind Wiesberger in a tie for third on a breezy yet scorching day. England's Lee Westwood had held the co-lead after each of the first two days and remained in the hunt when the final round started. But his chances of defending the title he won last year crumbled as he posted a disappointing 75 to end in a four-way tie for fifth, five strokes back of Lahiri. Westwood, who has won the tournament twice and seems to play some of his best golf in Asia, is notably comfortable with the Malaysian Open course's undulating fairways. But after a strong start, his birdie count dropped each day while several other golfers seemed to get hotter. The European Tour said Lahiri's performance could move him to within the top 40 in the world golf rankings -- from 73rd before the tournament -- putting him in line to play the upcoming Masters, golf's most sought-after individual prize. "The Masters is definitely one of my targets. I don't know how far I moved up but I'm pretty confident now that with this win, I should have a good chance," he said.
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US golfing great Billy Casper, who had the seventh most PGA Tour wins but was still considered one of the game's most underrated players, died of a heart attack at the age of 83, ESPN reported. Casper, described as an underdog, was often overlooked for some of his better-known peers despite a long roster of accomplishments on the green. He was a two-time US Open winner, including an impressive come-from-behind triumph in 1966 when he rallied from a seven-shot deficit to take the trophy. He also won the US Open in 1959 at Winged Foot and the 1970 Masters. He had a total of 51 PGA Tour wins to his name, but the "Big Three" -- Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player -- often dominated headlines and basked in golf glory, despite Casper's feats. From 1964 to 1970, Casper won 27 US events, six more than Palmer and Player combined. Casper was remembered as a skilled competitor and a dedicated family man by his peers, and in 1978 he was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. "Billy Casper was one of the greatest family men -- be it inside the game of golf or out -- I have had the fortunate blessing to meet," Nicklaus said on his Facebook page. "There was always much more to Billy Casper than golf. But as a golfer, Billy was a fantastic player, and I don't think he gets enough credit for being one." Nicklaus said Casper often didn't get the praise he deserved. "I think it is fair to say that Billy was probably underrated by those who didn't play against him. Those who did compete against him, knew how special he was." The World Golf Hall of Fame hailed his putting skills and self-taught swing, describing him as "the best modern golfer who never received his due." Casper said sports became a central part of his life as a young boy, when he was taunted for being chubby. "When I was in first grade, the kids called me fatso," he told the Golf Hall of Fame. "It hurt, but the way I overcame it was to outrun every kid in the class. So I developed a thick skin, and athletics became my way of performing and being accepted." Casper had suffered a series of health setbacks in recent months, including a fainting episode and a bout of pneumonia last year, ESPN reported. Casper died at his home in Utah. The devout Mormon leaves behind 11 children, six of whom are adopted, according to ESPN.
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A $340 million sun-observing spacecraft that was initially dreamed up by former US vice president Al Gore is finally poised to launch Sunday after being kept in storage by NASA for years. The unmanned Deep Space Climate Observatory is scheduled to blast off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 6:10 pm (2310 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida. DSCOVR's goal is to help space weather forecasters by collecting data on solar wind and geomagnetic storms that can cause damage to electrical systems on Earth. After the launch, SpaceX will make another attempt to guide the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket back to a controlled landing on an ocean platform, as part of the California-based company's goal of making rockets one day as reusable as airplanes. In January, the rocket attempted a controlled maneuver to land on a powered-barge in the Atlantic, but collided with it instead and broke into pieces. Still, SpaceX executives say they do not view the test as a failure, and that many more practice runs lay ahead as they refine their technology with the goal of pioneering the world's first recyclable rockets and ending the current practice of allowing millions of dollars in equipment to fall to pieces in the ocean after each launch. "We fixed the problems. We hope it will go well this time," said Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of mission assurance at SpaceX, in a briefing with reporters on Saturday. Engineers added more hydraulic fluid so they could control the rocket's first stage and its fins better. After launching the satellite and separating at a height of 80 miles (130 kilometers), the first stage of the rocket will attempt just two burns, and will come in for a landing about twice as fast as last time, which makes success even less certain, said Koenigsmann. However, he stressed that the primary mission of the rocket launch is sending the satellite to deep space. Deep space mission The DSCOVR mission -- a joint collaboration of the US Air Force, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) -- is headed to a point about one million miles from Earth, a destination known as Lagrangian point, or L1. The journey will take 110 days, followed by 40 days of instrument tests. DSCOVR will replace an aging satellite, known as ACE, that is many years past its expiration date, and should provide the same lead time and accuracy as its predecessor, officials said. "DSCOVR will also serve as our tsunami buoy in space, if you will, giving forecasters up to an hour's warning on the arrival of the huge magnetic eruptions from the Sun that occasionally occur called coronal mass ejections, or CME's," said Tom Berger, director of the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado. "CME's are the cause of the largest geomagnetic storms on Earth, some of which can severely disrupt our technological society causing loss of communications with aircraft, particularly those flying over the poles, damage to satellites in orbit, and even damage to power grid equipment on the ground." A 2009 report by the US National Academies of Science warned that an extremely large geomagnetic storm could disable electric power grids and result in projected economic and societal costs of up to $2 trillion, with full recovery taking up to 10 years. Al Gore's idea Space weather is the primary objective of the five-year mission, although Gore's initial idea was for a satellite that would observe Earth and send back live images that would raise environmental awareness of the planet's fragility. Known as Triana, the satellite was built in the late 1990s and ready to deploy, but before that could happen the mission was shelved in 2001 by the George W. Bush administration. In 2007, NASA and NOAA began re-examining the satellite -- which had been kept in a clean room -- and determined it was still viable, said Stephen Volz, assistant administrator of the NOAA Satellite and Information Service. The name was changed to DSCOVR and the instruments were refurbished so that it could take real-time measurements of solar wind and send data swiftly to Earth. Its secondary mission is to collect scientific data about aerosol levels, ozone and radiation balance on Earth. Among its original instruments is the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera, which will take full resolution images of the sunlit side of the Earth four to six times daily. The pictures will posted about a day later on a public website. By July or August, experts hope to begin receiving DSCOVR's first images.
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Dominican Republic's Victor Estrella Burgos reached his first ATP final, at the age of 34 on Saturday, as he overpowered Brazilian world number 72 Thomaz Belluci 7-6 (7/5), 7-5. The only player from his country to be ranked inside the world top 200, Estrella Burgos will attempt to become the oldest first time winner on Tour when he faces Spaniard Feliciano Lopez in Sunday's final. "I think that I've been able to manage my emotions well," said Estrella Burgos. "I hope that tomorrow (Sunday) I'll be good physically so that I can play my game and try to win the match. I know that I have a lot of chances to win the tournament, and I'm very positive about it." added Estrella Burgos who lost the doubles' final with Brazilian Joao Souza against German duo Gero Kretschmer and Alexander Satschko. AFP
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Mexican filmmaker Alejandro G. Inarritu won the top Directors Guild Award on Saturday for "Birdman," his satirical take on show business, raising his and his film's chances for Oscars in two weeks. The Directors Guild of America's award for feature film director has correctly predicted the best director Academy Award for 10 of the past 11 years. "I never expected to be here tonight talking to you, never in my life," Inarritu, 51, said alongside last year's DGA winner, fellow Mexican Alfonso Cuaron. The other nominees for the DGA award were two-time winner Clint Eastwood for Iraq war drama "American Sniper," Richard Linklater for coming-of-age tale "Boyhood," Morten Tyldum for British World War Two story "The Imitation Game" and Wes Anderson for colorful caper "The Grand Budapest Hotel." The Academy Awards will be held on Feb. 22 and voting concludes on Feb. 17. Since 1948, there have been only seven occasions when the DGA award winner has not gone on to win the corresponding Academy Award. "Argo" director Ben Affleck won the DGA in 2013 but was not nominated for the best director Oscar award, which was given to Ang Lee for "Life of Pi."
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The towers of Disney's planned Magic Kingdom in Shanghai are wreathed in scaffolding and mystery after the US entertainment giant pushed back the opening of its first mainland China theme park to 2016. On a tightly-guarded, 3.9-square-kilometre site east of China's commercial hub, a grey turret of the unfinished "Enchanted Storybook Castle" rises into the sky. There is no Disney branding at the main entrance, only a sign reading: "Shanghai International Tourism and Resort Zone". It was originally due to be transformed in time to open this year, but Disney chairman and chief executive Bob Iger last week announced a delay, pushing the opening back to next spring. He attributed the change to an expansion in the park's size and number of attractions. "The artistry, complexity, the magnitude and the detail, it's all quite astonishing," Iger said, calling the facility "spectacular". But Shanghai authorities have not confirmed any plans to expand the project, and people familiar with it point to it following stricter environmental and labour standards than normal in China. The studios of Hollywood are competing not just for screen eyeballs in China -- whose 1.37 billion people generate the second-largest annual box office in the world -- but also theme park visitors. The Shanghai Disney Resort will be the company's third in Asia after Tokyo and Hong Kong. But its park in the former British colony can only partly serve the Chinese market, while Universal Studios and DreamWorks Animation are planning rival attractions on the mainland. For Shanghai, the park represents the city's tourism future following the World Expo in 2010. One Chinese academic estimates it will contribute $3.3 billion to Shanghai's economy every year and account for one percent of the city's annual gross domestic product. - It's off to work we go - Disney and its Chinese partner, state-backed Shanghai Shendi Group, broke ground on the park in April 2011. Chinese construction is normally staggeringly fast, with towering skyscrapers and multi-lane highways changing urban landscapes at extraordinary pace. But a Shanghai official told AFP that said one delay arose after contaminated soil on the site failed to meet environmental standards, prompting Disney to bring in a foreign contractor to remedy the problem. Workers removed topsoil up to a metre deep. A worker said that the builders were insisting on a standard eight-hour work day, preventing faster construction -- unlike many other sites in China where labour laws are loosely enforced and routinely violated. Disney did not respond to a request for comment on the delay. As well as its Asian properties, the firm also has parks in the US states of California and Florida and near the French capital Paris -- where there was outrage over the prospect of American cultural invasion when it was first proposed. The Shanghai government is promising to finish a metro line extension linking to the park and other infrastructure this year. But city fathers also have another issue in mind after 36 people were killed in a stampede during New Year's Eve celebrations. "Management of the Disney Resort's huge flow of people is an extremely important issue," Shanghai mayor Yang Xiong told reporters last month. "We believe Disney has a lot of experience, but we should also do our part to make full preparations." - To infinity and beyond - With the opening of its first resort in mainland China, Disney is banking on Chinese parents willing to spend lavishly on their children and a rising middle class intent on travel. It has not announced prices for Shanghai, but an adult one-day ticket at the Hong Kong park costs $65, nearly a quarter of China's average monthly disposable income last year. When the $5.5 billion Shanghai facility opens, it will boast the biggest Disney castle in the world, a production of "The Lion King" in Chinese and a pirate-themed zone based on the movie franchise "Pirates of the Caribbean". An artificial mountain will loom over the park, becoming the highest hill in Shanghai's Pudong district, and a 420-room Disneyland Hotel is planned in an "elegant Art Nouveau style", with another based on the "Toy Story" films. On a commercial level, an adjacent "Disneytown" will have 46,000 square metres (495,000 square feet) of shops, restaurants and a 1,200-seat theatre. He Jianmin of the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, who has consulted for the city on the tourism zone, forecast the park will initially attract seven million visitors a year, eventually rising to 16 million. "China's tourism industry was neglected before for all sorts of reasons, like income not reaching a certain level," he said. "Earlier the emphasis was on manufacturing. After the Shanghai Disney park becomes completely mature, it will be a new format for China." But a site worker sweeping a street said he might not share in the excitement after the park opens. "The Disney park will definitely be fun, but I don't know if I will go," he said. "I don't know how much tickets will cost."
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With one year under his belt, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella has made strides in changing the focus of the technology giant that some feared was turning into a dinosaur. Nadella, who took over from Steve Ballmer in February 2014, has been moving to make Microsoft more relevant in the new tech world led by mobile-focused rivals such as Apple and Google. Microsoft, which can no longer rest on its PC dominance with its Windows operating system, has taken a page from the playbook of the late Steve Jobs at Apple -- providing software like Office for free on rival devices like the iPad and Android-powered tablets. ( Microsoft owns and publishes MSN ). Nadella also managed to surprise and wow people with Microsoft's HoloLens goggles, delivering holograms and hitting a sweet spot between Google Glass and virtual reality headgear. "He hasn't solved all problems, but he's made moves in the right direction strategically," said J.P. Gownder, analyst at Forrester Research. Even though many of the new things unveiled were in the works for years, Nadella appears to have injected new energy into the Redmond, Washington-based tech powerhouse. Gownder said it was "a wise move" to bring popular Microsoft programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint to Android and Apple devices, because Windows has been slow to gain traction in the mobile universe. "When you have software, you have to run that software where the customers are," instead of using it as "a weapon" in a war of operating systems, he said. In a move aimed at reaching a younger tech user base, Microsoft agreed in September to buy the Swedish group behind the hugely popular video game "Minecraft" for $2.5 billion, bolstering its gaming division. The deal for Mojang gives Microsoft one of the best-known video games of all time -- one which is played on game consoles as well as PCs and mobile devices. 'A different company' "Microsoft is a different company now. Microsoft is not making stupid mistakes," said Trip Chowdhry, at Global Equities Research. "This year is more of a reinvention and restrategizing year. 2015 will be when the company may have some progress on initiatives like mobile and cloud." Nadella has made some missteps, notably in comments suggesting working women should trust "karma" when it comes to securing pay raises, but quickly moved to back away from the controversy. He ordered the biggest reorganization in Microsoft's history, cutting some 18,000 jobs -- or 14 percent of the workforce -- under a plan aimed at simplifying the corporate structure and integrating the mobile division of Finland's Nokia. Wall Street has been happy with the new leadership -- Microsoft shares gained 36 percent in Nadella's first eight months, but pulled back in early 2015. Windows 10 test Nadella, 47, has been pressing cloud and mobile computing since taking the reins, and is seeing some progress in areas like the Azure cloud platform for business. But Microsoft still faces a big test with its upcoming Windows 10 platform, which aims to keep PC users while also powering mobile phones and tablets. Some 1.5 billion people around the world use Windows-powered computers, and Microsoft is intent on renewing its relevance in an age of mobile computing; the new platform is being designed with feedback from millions of "insiders" testing early versions of the operating system. Microsoft needs to remake its business, which had been based on one-time Windows license sales, to a new model for the mobile world, say analysts. Colin Gillis at BGC Partners said the plan appears to be working. "We remain positive on the efforts to reshape Microsoft into a recurring revenue, subscription-based business," he said. Gillis said this means some "turbulence" as higher-margin software license sales are replaced with lower-margin subscriptions. Windows 10 will be crucial for Microsoft, which is hoping to win over developers as well as users with a platform that works on mobile devices as well as PCs. According to Gownder, Windows 10 is "the best opportunity yet for Microsoft to come back in the game in mobile."
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While the family and friends of Kayla Mueller await her fate, Kayla's college professor gives insight about her student.
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Japan has seized the passport of a journalist planning to travel to Syria following the brutal killing of two Japanese hostages by the Islamic State group there, local media said Sunday. It was the first time Tokyo had taken such a measure on the grounds it was needed to protect the passport-holder's life, the Asahi Shimbun and other news reports said. They said the foreign ministry on Saturday confiscated the passport of Yuichi Sugimoto, a freelance photographer who had planned to enter Syria on February 27 to cover refugee camps among other places. But the 58-year-old Japanese, who has covered conflict zones in Iraq and Syria over the years, said he had no plans to enter areas controlled by Islamic State, Kyodo News reported. "Tonight, an official with the foreign ministry's passport division came and took my passport," Sugimoto told the Asahi. "What happens to my freedom to travel and freedom of the press?" The passport confiscation came in the wake of the beheadings of journalist Kenji Goto and adventurer Haruna Yukawa by Islamic State extremists.
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North Korea fired five short-range missiles off its east coast on Sunday, in a demonstration of military muscle by the secretive state amid escalating rhetoric against the United States and South Korea. The missiles hit the sea after about 200 km (120 miles), a South Korean defense ministry official said. North Korea frequently fires short-range missiles off its coast as part of military drills. The United Nations imposed sanctions banning North Korea from launching longer-range ballistic missiles, but not short-range missiles. Sunday's show of firepower marked the 67th anniversary of the formation of North Korea's armed forces by state founder Kim Il Sung, when the Korean peninsula was divided into the North and South. North Korea in recent days also test-fired a new anti-ship cruise missile. North Korea has increased the scale of air and naval military drills in recent weeks ahead of the annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises on the Korean peninsula, with its leader Kim Jong Un commanding his troops. Pyongyang regularly protests over the drills, which it says are a rehearsal for war. (Reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
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The Republican presidential primary is shaping up to be a battle between the statehouse and the statesmen. Current and former governors such as Jeb Bush (Fla.), Scott Walker (Wis.) and Chris Christie (N.J.) are touting their hands-on experience outside of Washington as a major asset against Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee. But those eyeing the White House from Capitol Hill are punching back, dismissing the argument that being from outside D.C. is better. "I'm always amused when it is treated as news that governors think that governors make better candidates," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told The Hill on Thursday. "What America faces is not a management problem, it's a leadership problem," argued Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), who recently threw his name into the mix as a presidential contender. The notion that the executive experience governors get on the job is an asset in the White House is nothing new. But a crowded GOP field pulling talent from governors' mansions and the halls of the Senate has jumpstarted that debate ahead of 2016. With public approval of Washington policymakers cratering and legislative achievements on Capitol Hill hard to come by, governors see a solid opportunity to bolster their outsider bona fides and slam would-be competitors in the process. Former Texas Gov. Ricky Perry has been aggressive in dismissing senatorial experience a White House selling point, saying earlier this month that "governors have to make choices…senators talk." Even governors who once rubbed shoulders as Washington lawmakers are quick to argue voters should look outside D.C. for presidential picks. "With the deepest respect to my former colleagues, that I am persuaded, having spent 12 years in Congress and two years as a governor, that the cure for what ails this country will come as much from our nation's state capitals as it ever will from our nation's capital," said Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), according to the Associated Press. Senators readily acknowledge that the nation's capital is far from a favorite of voters. "I get it. When you're outside of Washington we're any easy target," said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who has said he isn't running in 2016. "When you drop down into the single digits in approval rating, it's a very easy place, I think, for people who are running for national office to go." Senators eyeing a White House run are firing back, reminding voters they're the ones on the front lines for issues on a global scale. They contend voters are simply eager for a strong Republican vision and aren't going to demand certain a certain job title. Cruz argued that voters are going to be looking for politicians who are fighting to lead the party, regardless of where they come from. "Republican primary voters are less interested in a particular job title…than they are in who is standing up and leading," he told The Hill. "Who is engaging on the great challenges of the day? Who is leading the fight to get back to the free market principles and constitutional liberties that our country was founded upon?" Graham paints his 12 years in Washington as an asset. The three-term senator has caught heat from conservatives in the past for his immigration stance, but he contends that if voters think Washington is broken, aren't they better off picking someone who knows how it works to try and fix it? "It's all about getting the Congress to work together, who has the skillset, who has the ability and really the desire to make Congress work better. And, quite frankly, who has shown a willingness to make Congress function," he said. "In my case, I think I've got a pretty good resume of trying to solve hard problems." One area senators believe they have a key advantage is on the foreign policy front. Their seats in Washington put them in close proximity to a host of global leaders and national security issues. While domestic concerns like the economy remain a dominant topic, growing unrest in the Middle East and terror attacks in Europe have renewed focus on national security matters as well. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) seized on the foreign policy angle earlier this month, arguing that his vantage point from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee gives him a critical edge over governors eyeing matters from their home states. "The next president of the United States needs to be someone who has a clear view of what's happening in the world, a clear strategic vision of America's role in it, and a clear tactical plan for how to engage America in global affairs," he told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast. "For governors, that's going to be a challenge, at least initially, because they don't deal with foreign policy on a daily basis." Cruz and Graham both echoed that theme. "Historically, in elections where foreign policy is a central concern, candidates without foreign policy experience have been at a substantial disadvantage," said Cruz. History may not be on the senators' side, though. President Barack Obama became the first president elected from the Senate since John F. Kennedy in 1960. And after eight years of Obama, GOP primary voters may be eager to look far from the Senate for a replacement. "A lot of Republicans see Barack Obama as somebody who was just not prepared for the job," said Ford O'Connell, a GOP strategist. "Governors just have a stronger argument."
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Dark comedy "Birdman" got another pre-Oscars boost, winning the top prize at the Directors Guild of America honors as Hollywood gears up for the all-important Academy Awards this month. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu was crowned best director at the climax of the DGA show, barely two weeks before the Oscars on February 22. The 51-year-old's success repeated that of fellow Mexican Alfonso Cuaron, who won the DGA top prize last year for "Gravity," and went on to win the Best Director prize at the Oscars. "I never expected to be here talking to you tonight," Inarritu told his fellow filmmakers gathered at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza hotel in Century City. "I'm openly humbled." The DGA awards are seen as a key predictor of Academy Awards success, particularly for the best director prize. In the last 10 years, all but one DGA winner has gone on to win the Oscar for best director. The only exception was in 2013 when Ben Affleck was not nominated for director for "Argo," though the film did go on to take best picture at the Academy Awards. "Glee" star Jane Lynch hosted the star-studded event for 1,600 guests, while presenters on stage included Pierce Brosnan, Bradley Cooper, Jodie Foster, Bill Murray, Steven Spielberg and Barbra Streisand. Inarritu beat out rivals Clint Eastwood ("American Sniper"), Richard Linklater ("Boyhood"), Morten Tyldum ("The Imitation Game") and Wes Anderson ("Grand Budapest Hotel") for the evening's biggest award. "Birdman," about a washed-up film actor trying to revive his career on Broadway, is soaring ahead in Hollywood's annual awards season, having already won the top prize at the 21st Screen Actors Guild Awards two weeks ago. The film also won two Golden Globes last month: best actor for Michael Keaton, and best screenplay. It followed that success at the Producers Guild Awards two weeks later, taking home the top prize. "Birdman" and stylish crime caper "The Grand Budapest Hotel" have the most nominations at this year's Oscars, with nine nods each. - Small screen honors - In other honors Saturday, "Citizenfour," about National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden, took best documentary director prize for filmmaker Laura Poitras. On the small screen, best comedy series went to Jill Soloway for Amazon's "Transparent," which scored a first ever Golden Globe for the online retailer last month, a breakthrough in its bid to catch up with Netflix. Best TV drama went to Lesli Linka Glatter, director of spy series "Homeland." Lisa Cholodenko won the TV movie/miniseries DGA award for HBO's "Olive Kitteridge."
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LOS ANGELES Brian Williams said he is temporarily stepping away from the "NBC Nightly News" amid questions about his memories of war coverage in Iraq, calling it "painfully apparent" that he has become a distracting news story. In a memo Saturday to NBC News staff that was released by the network, the anchorman said that as managing editor of "NBC Nightly News" he is taking himself off the broadcast for several days. Weekend anchor Lester Holt will fill in, Williams said. NBC News refused to comment Saturday on when or whether Williams would return and who would decide his future. Williams, however, said he would be back. "In the midst of a career spent covering and consuming news, it has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently too much a part of the news, due to my actions," Williams said in his memo. "Upon my return, I will continue my career-long effort to be worthy of the trust of those who place their trust in us," he wrote. NBC News President Deborah Turness said Friday that an internal investigation had been launched after questions arose over Williams' false on-air statements that he was in a helicopter hit by a rocket-propelled grenade while in Iraq in 2003. Williams apologized for those statements Wednesday. There was no indication by Williams, who has anchored "NBC Nightly News" since 2004, that an absence was forthcoming during his newscast Friday. He signed off as he usually does, saying he hoped people would be back to see him Monday. Holt did mention Williams' leave in Saturday's newscast. "A word tonight about our colleague Brian Williams, who you may know has been under scrutiny this past week over his recollection of certain stories he's covered," Holt said before reading Williams' memo to viewers. Since Williams' apology, questions also have been raised about his claim that he saw a body or bodies in the Hurricane Katrina floodwaters that hit New Orleans in 2005. His remarks in a 2006 interview drew suspicion because there was relatively little flooding in New Orleans' French Quarter, the area where Williams was staying. A person at NBC confirmed that Williams stayed at the Ritz-Carlton, which is in an area where a news photographer and a law enforcement official said they saw bodies. The effect on "Nightly News" remains to be seen. But even if its ratings suffer for a long period, it wouldn't be enough to damage the credit profile of parent Comcast Corp., said Mike Simonton, an analyst with Fitch Ratings. "Comcast is a large, diverse media conglomerate with meaningful financial cushion to endure weakness in any one of its smaller divisions over a period of time," he said. Other media companies have survived departures of on-air stars, Simonton said. Paul Levinson, professor of communications and media studies at Fordham University, called Williams' time off a good idea for him and NBC News. "It gives him a chance to catch his breath and, on a human level, it must be excruciating to get on the air and report the news and not say anything about this," Levinson said. NBC News, he said, "wants to be in the business of reporting on the news, and not have people thinking, 'is he telling the truth?'" Rich Hanley, director of the graduate journalism program at Quinnipiac University, also lauded Williams' leave. It buys time for the network to assemble a contingency plan in the event it determines to suspend or remove him, Hanley said. A final decision may await the finding of any "collateral impact" on another key NBC program, "Today," which would be evident when the February ratings numbers come out, he said. "Nightly News" has reigned as the top-rated evening newscast over its competition on CBS and ABC. Williams' importance to NBC News goes beyond his anchor status, said Al Tompkins, a faculty member for broadcast and online at The Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank. "He sets the tone of the network. It may not be as critical as when (Walter) Cronkite was CBS' anchor, in every way, but he is more than a face," he said. Williams' absence itself is a delicate challenge, according to Tompkins. "He can't be gone long. The timing will be critical too short and it won't seem like he has taken himself out of the game long enough, and too long and he looks like damaged goods," he said. ___ AP Television Writer David Bauder and AP Business Writer David Koenig in New York contributed to this report.
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Dean Smith was more than simply a basketball coach. Yes, the retired Hall of Famer left North Carolina as the winningest coach in men's history after capturing two national titles along with the 1976 Olympic gold medal and coaching some of the sport's biggest names, Michael Jordan among them. But he also was an innovator who left a lasting influence on the sport, as well as someone known for his stand on civil rights driven by the belief that it was the right thing to do. Smith died "peacefully" Saturday at age 83 at his Chapel Hill home, his family said in a statement released by the school Sunday. He was with his wife and five children. MORE: Duke sends classy tweets | Jordan on Smith | Smith photos through the years Roy Williams, the current Tar Heels coach and Smith's assistant for 10 years, said his mentor was the "greatest there ever was on the court but far, far better off the court with people." "I'd like to say on behalf of all our players and coaches, past and present, that Dean Smith was the perfect picture of what a college basketball coach should have been," Williams said in a statement. "We love him and we will miss him." Smith kept a lower profile amid health issues in recent years, with his family saying in 2010 he had a condition that was causing him to lose memory. He was unable to travel in November 2013 to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor presented to Smith as much for his work off the court as on it. At the urging of his pastor, he recruited black athletes, and in 1967 made Charlie Scott the school's first black scholarship athlete and one of the first in the segregated South. In a statement Sunday, President Barack Obama said Smith "pushed forward" the civil rights movement with Scott's recruitment as well as helping integrate a restaurant and a neighborhood in Chapel Hill. Smith "showed us something that I've seen again and again on the court -- that basketball can tell us a lot more about who you are than a jumpshot alone ever could," Obama said. On the court, his "Four Corners" time-melting offense led to the adoption of the shot clock to counter it. The now-common "point to the passer," in which a scorer acknowledges a teammate's assist, became a hallmark of Smith's always humble "Carolina Way." He was a direct coaching descendent of basketball's father, James Naismith, playing and later coaching at Kansas for the inventor of the game's most famous student, Jayhawks coach Phog Allen. MORE: From Naismith to Jordan, Smith's legacy will never pass At UNC, he tutored perhaps the game's greatest player in Jordan -- who burst onto the national stage as a freshman by hitting the winning shot in the 1982 NCAA final -- and two of basketball's most successful coaches, fellow Hall of Famers Larry Brown and Williams. When UNC held a reunion for its 1957 and 1982 championship teams in 2007, Smith drew the largest applause from the crowd in the arena bearing his name, even as he stood alongside Jordan and fellow Tar Heel great James Worthy. During the ceremony, Jordan put his arm around Smith and kissed him on the head. In a statement Sunday, Jordan said Smith was "more than a coach -- he was a mentor, my teacher, my second father. Coach was always there for me whenever I needed him and I loved him for it." Smith's only losing season was his first, and he left the game in October 1997 having surpassed Kentucky's Adolph Rupp as the winningest coach in Division I men's history with 879 wins in 36 seasons -- a record now held by Duke Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski. "We have lost a man who cannot be replaced," Krzyzewski said in a statement. "He was one of a kind and the sport of basketball lost one of its true pillars." Smith led the Tar Heels to 13 Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championships and 11 Final Fours, winning NCAA titles in 1982 and 1993. Along the way, more than 95 percent of Smith's lettermen graduated while more than 50 of his players went on to play in the NBA or ABA -- including Phil Ford, Brad Daugherty, Jerry Stackhouse, Rasheed Wallace, Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison. Smith seemed uncomfortable with the attention that came with breaking Rupp's record. When former Indiana and Texas Tech coach Bob Knight was on the verge over taking it over in 2007, Smith noted with a sarcastic smile, "I'm going to cry about that." "But still, it's something that, we do it for the team," Smith said. "When they're excited, that's why we're in this field. I'm sure it's that way with Bob Knight. It's never one of his goals and certainly was never one of mine." MORE: Ex-UNC players remember Smith as better man than coach Born Feb. 28, 1931, in Emporia, Kansas, the son of public school teachers, he graduated from Kansas with a communications degree in 1953. He played for the Jayhawks teams that won the NCAA title in 1952 and finished second the next year. He served as an assistant coach at Kansas to Allen and Dick Harp before joining the Air Force, then joined Frank McGuire's staff at UNC in 1958. When McGuire left for the NBA in 1961, the university tapped the 30-year-old Smith to take over. Smith went 8-9 in his first season and was even hanged in effigy after a loss in January 1965 before his breakthrough run of three straight Final Fours in the late 1960s. His 1982 team beat Patrick Ewing and Georgetown in the final, then his 1993 team beat Michigan's "Fab Five" for his second crown. In addition to wife Linnea, Smith is survived by daughters Sandy, Sharon, Kristen and Kelly; son Scott; and several grandchildren. Funeral plans were not announced.
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Whether you woke up on the wrong side of the bed, picked a fight with a loved one or struggled through that morning commute to a job you don't particularly enjoy, it can be a tough task to plaster a smile across your face when you're feeling less than chipper. But by choosing to smile , happy changes start to occur automatically, both internally and externally. Great power lies in a random smile , so long as you choose to share it with the world. Here are 11 reasons why it's worth showing those pearly whites daily -- even when you don't necessarily feel like it. Smiling can improve your mood. Our facial expressions do more than communicate our current mood -- they have the ability to influence our mood as well . Emotions may originate in the brain, but the muscles in the face either reinforce or transform those feelings. Recent studies have revealed that through the enhancement of positive emotions -- or the suppression of negative ones -- with facial expressions, a person's mood begins to align more strongly with the emotion his or her face is communicating. Even fake smiles do the trick. While some researchers insist the benefits of smiling can only be rendered from a geniune expression of happiness, others have found that a forced smile can still make you feel happy , even when your existing mood and surroundings suggest otherwise. It only takes smiling for a brief period of time to experience its benefits -- no matter how contrived it feels initially. In this case, maybe it's OK to fake it a little. Smiling helps reduce stress. In a 2012 study published in the journal Psychological Science, University of Kansas psychological scientists Tara Kraft and Sarah Pressman studied 170 participants who were told to hold chopsticks in their mouths in three formations, making them smile to various degrees without realizing it, after performing a stressful task. The experiment revealed that subjects who smiled the biggest with the chopsticks experienced a substantial reduction in heart rate and quicker stress recovery compared to those whose expressions remained neutral. Smiling makes you more approachable. A 2004 Penn State University study found that authentic smiles shared by employees in the service industry influenced their impressions on customers in a positive way. Smiling employees came across as more likable and friendly, and customers left the interactions feeling more satisfied about their overall experience. While job performance and the busyness of the venues were also factored into subsequent experiments, the researchers found that the added display of an authentic smile helped workers appear more competent as well. A smile makes you seem more trustworthy. From a psychological perspective, a person who is smiling appears more trustworthy than a person who is either frowning or holding a neutral expression. In a University of Pittsburgh study , researchers explored the potential connection between a model's level of attractiveness, the intensity of her smile and her perceived level of trustworthiness. Study participants ranked 45 models on these three conditions, revealing that the bigger the models smiled, the more trustworthy they seemed. Smiling actually retrains your brain for the better. While the brain is naturally inclined to think in negative terms as a defense mechanism, the habitual act of smiling helps the mind move to a more positive space and remain there longer the more you do it. According to Shawn Achor , the author of The Happiness Advantage , by making smiling a part of our everyday practice, we help our brains create happiness loops that encourage more positive-thinking patterns. "Happiness is a work ethic," wrote Achor . "It's something that requires our brains to train just like an athlete has to train." Smiles are contagious. Ever notice how often a friend or colleague will reciprocate a smile after you share one? There's a scientific explanation for that phenomenon. According to neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni , we all posses something called mirror neurons, cells in the premotor cortex and inferior parietal cortex that are activated when we perform a given action as well as when we witness someone else performing it. And when it comes to smiling, mirror neurons respond to the acts of both seeing and doing. "The way mirror neurons likely let us understand others is by providing some kind of inner imitation of the actions of other people, which in turn leads us to 'simulate' the intentions and emotions associated with those actions," Iacoboni told Scientific American . "When I see you smiling, my mirror neurons for smiling fire up, too, initiating a cascade of neural activity that evokes the feeling we typically associate with a smile." Smiles may strengthen the body on a cellular level. Just as this happy facial expression helps rid the body of stress, smiling can release tension on a cellular level as well , according to biochemist and artist Sondra Barrett. In her book, Secrets of Your Cells , Barrett explains how cells can distinguish between safety and danger, find and repair problems and create an overall sense of balance within the body . She also highlights how a person's thoughts have a direct effect on cell function. When we smile, we reduce the rigidness of our cells, and this physical relaxation can help combat the risk of stress-induced cell mutations that can lead to the development or persistence of various cancers. Smiling boosts your productivity. The benefits of putting a grin on your face at the office don't begin and end with a mood boost; that dose of happiness can help make you a more productive employee as well. In 2010, a team of economic researchers found that happiness has a significant and causal effect on productivity in the workplace. And just as the positive emotions prove invigorating, negative ones are equally draining. Smiling makes you more creative. This same mood boost can get those creative juices flowing. A 2013 study from the University of California, San Francisco explored this connection in men and found that those who were happier had a more comprehensive approach to problems, improving their ability to think of more solutions than their negative-minded counterparts. The researchers connected this finding to the release of dopamine triggered by happiness, since the neurotransmitter is involved in learning, processing and decision-making. Smiles are free! This all-around mood booster is one of the few available to you each day at no cost whatsoever. So why not take advantage of your own power to create happiness? This GPS Guide is part of a series of posts designed to bring you back to balance when you're feeling off course.GPS Guides are our way of showing you what has relieved others' stress in the hopes that you will be able to identify solutions that work for you. We all have de-stressing "secret weapons" that we pull out in times of tension or anxiety, whether they be photos that relax us or make us smile, songs that bring us back to our heart, quotes or poems that create a feeling of harmony or meditative exercises that help us find a sense of silence and calm. We encourage you to visit our other GPS Guides here , and share with us your own personal tips for finding peace, balance and tranquility.
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Women distracted, drugged the guards then freed the inmates
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Venezuela is running out of condoms. The country is broke. Its economy is on track to shrink 7% in 2015 alone , in large part because oil prices are so low. Now its economic crisis is leading to a health crisis. A lack of contraceptives doesn't keep people from having sex, it just keeps them from having safe sex. Bloomberg reports that the country started running out of condoms and other kinds of contraceptives in December. "The condom shortage, caused by a scarcity of dollars among importers, has prices on a website used to find scarce goods soaring and risks aggravating one of South America's highest HIV infection and teenage pregnancy rates." A 36-pack of Trojan condoms is going for 4,760 bolivars (about $750) on Mercado Libre , a site where Venezuelan citizens bid for scarce goods. A three-pack is 399 bolivars (about $62). Those with American dollars hold a huge advantage, according to Bloomberg. The same 36-pack is only $25 on the dollar-based black market. Venezuela has one of the highest rates for both STDs and teenage pregnancies in South America, and a significant condom shortage will set the country back further. It is incredibly bad for the country's women. From Bloomberg: In Venezuela, with abortion illegal, the disappearance of contraceptives will raise the number of female deaths by driving more pregnant women to clandestine clinics, said Carlos Cabrera, vice president of the local branch of London-based International Planned Parenthood Federation. A lack of condoms will also leave a long-lasting economic impact by taking girls and young women away from schools and the work force, he said. NOW WATCH: Coca-Cola is now selling milk and it costs twice as much as regular brands
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South African police said Sunday they have discovered the frozen corpses of four newborn babies in freezers at a house in the southern city of Mthatha. Acting on a tip-off, police raided a house on Saturday and made the grim discovery of the infants estimated to be aged between just one and two months. "The babies were found in two freezers," police spokesman Mzukisi Fatyela told AFP. Police are looking for the owner of the house, a woman, who was away in Johannesburg at the time of the search. Investigations have been launched and the bodies have been sent for post mortems. Mthatha is one of the main towns in Eastern Cape province and lies near Qunu, the final resting place of former president Nelson Mandela.
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Former world number one Maria Sharapova sent Russia into the semi-finals of the Fed Cup as she defeated Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska 6-1, 7-5 to give her country an unassailable 3-0 lead. The doubles pairing of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Vitaliya Diatchenko later made it 4-0 as they beat Klaudia Jans-Ignacik and Alicja Rosolska 6-4, 6-4. "It is a very important win for me," said Sharapova, who has often been criticised for not playing enough Fed Cup matches. "Playing for the national team there is always added pressure." AFP
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Samsung's Smart TV may be a little too smart for its own good. Tucked into the privacy policy of the South Korean electronics behemoth's Smart TV are a few paragraphs that may send chills down the spine of some consumers. According to the document, the unit's voice recognition protocols can "capture voice commands and associated texts so that [Samsung] can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features." The boilerplate language which granted few people read in its entirety sounds fairly anodyne. That is, until the company adds this warning: "Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition." The TV's voice features can be disabled. However, the company adds another caveat: "While Samsung will not collect your spoken word, Samsung may still collect associated texts and other usage data so that we can evaluate the performance of the feature and improve it." In other words, owners of the company's Smart TVs may need to watch what they say in their own homes, and especially where they say it. The warning, first reported by The Korea Times and picked up on social media, may add fuel to a raging debate over how much control humans are willing to relinquish to automation in the name of convenience.
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It isn't fair to expect Mets ace Matt Harvey to immediately return to his dominant self in the first year after his Tommy John surgery. Pitchers tend to struggle with the command of their pitches as they shake the rust off. The excellent NY Post writer Kevin Kernan wrote , Though Tommy John patients typically recover all of their velocity within a year, those same pitchers tend to struggle with their command up to 24 months after surgery. It is therefore reasonable to expect regression from the 2.27 ERA Harvey posted over 26 starts in 2013. ESPN's Stephania Bell added , A pitcher's effectiveness immediately upon his return to the mound post-Tommy John surgery can be less predictable, though, as some initially struggle with command. There have been early signs that any potential issue with Harvey's command will be mitigated to some degree. Harvey's command during his bullpen sessions has been excellent, according to teammate Kirk Nieuwenhuis: "I stood in on his last bullpen here when he was throwing and he missed maybe one pitch over the middle of the plate. I think he threw 25 fastballs and it was just corner, corner, corner. I think people forget a little bit how good he was.'' Of course, things change once a batter steps into the box. Bullpen sessions cannot be realistically compared to facing a live batter. But this is a good sign for Harvey. A well located fastball is the toughest pitch to hit in the big leagues, and 96 mph heat consistently painted on the corners is lethal. By ironing out his command issues in 2013, Harvey catapulted him into ace status. Prior to 2013, Harvey would often work up high pitch counts due to shaky command and be forced to exit games early. His walk rate was also well below average at 10.6% in his rookie season. Harvey's development of strong command propelled him into registering a 2.00 Fielding Independent Pitching, the lowest FIP in baseball in 2013 amongst starters by a good margin.
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It's probably not destiny. According to the research, love and attraction happen thanks to your hormones, your interests, and what your parents look like. We've scoured the studies and collected some of the weird psychological reasons someone might fall in love with you. If you're really, really alike Decades of studies have shown that the cliché that "opposites attract" is totally off. "Partners who are similar in broad dispositions, like personality, are more likely to feel the same way in their day-to-day lives," said Gian Gonzaga , lead author of a study of couples who met on eHarmony. "This may make it easier for partners to understand each other." If you look like their opposite-sex parent University of St Andrews psychologist David Perrett and his colleagues found that people are attracted to folks with hair and eye color like their parents and the age range they saw at birth. "We found that women born to 'old' parents (over 30) were less impressed by youth, and more attracted to age cues in male faces than women with 'young' parents (under 30)," the authors wrote . "For men, preferences for female faces were influenced by their mother's age and not their father's age, but only for long-term relationships." If you smell right According to a University of Southern California study , when women are ovulating, they prefer the smell of t-shirts worn by men with high levels of testosterone. This matched with other hormone-based instincts: Women also preferred men with a strong jaw line when they were ovulating . If you keep your hands and torso open Body language experts agree that posture speaks louder than words. Keeping your hands stuffed in your pockets and your shoulders turned inward sends the signal that you're not interested. But talking with your hands and standing in an open stance shows that you're available. If you have a higher or lower voice Your voice signals your interest. Women's voices go down when they're attracted to somebody, and men's go up . If you stare into each others' eyes for two minutes University of Massachussets psychologist Joan Kellerman asked 72 unacquainted undergrads to pair off and stare into each others eyes for two minutes. "They later reported they had increased feelings of passionate love and affection towards the other person," Scientific American reports . "This suggests that long periods of eye contact can connect you to someone and even ignite feelings of love inside you for that person you have never previously met." If you're tall Tall people especially men tend to make more money than everybody else. A 594-person study found that it's the same case for dating. "Taller men do enjoy a noticeable dating advantage," concluded author Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University psychologist Wayne E. Hensley. If you do something thrilling together In 1974, Donald Dutton and Arthur Aron wanted to test the connection between sexual attraction and anxiety . They put men into two conditions. They either walked across a high, shaky bridge or a low, sturdy bridge. Afterward, they met a female experimenter who asked a series of questions and gave the men her phone number "just in case." The men who met the woman after walking on the high bridge were more likely to call her than the men who met her on the low bridge. Psychologists call this phenomenon the "misattribution of arousal." The high bridge created a sense of arousal from the anxiety, but men mistakenly thought it was from the attraction to the woman. That's why doing exciting things like going for bike rides, riding a roller coaster makes for many first dates. If you literally 'warm' your date up Yale psychologist John Bargh performed an experiment in which participants held warm or cold beverages and had to rate whether someone's personality was warm or cold. Participants who held warm beverages judged the person to have a warm personality, because their minds were already primed to think that way. If you take someone on a coffee date instead of an ice cream date , they may feel more warmly toward you. If you live close to them It's not only important to be close to someone emotionally you should also strive to be close physically. According to an experiment at MIT, the proximity of students' dorm rooms increased how close they felt to one another. This is because they had more passive interactions, like brief meetings as they passed one another in the hallway, which made them feel more intimate. It's known as the mere exposure effect , which states that familiarity plays a huge role in attraction. If you live in a beautiful home We've all heard that women are attracted to men with nice cars. But men also appear more attractive if they are photographed in a luxury apartment. In a Cardiff Metropolitan University study , a man was photographed with a casual posture in a "high status" luxury apartment and a "neutral status" standard apartment context. The men with the luxury apartments were rated significantly higher for attractiveness when presented to the female subjects. Researchers determined that the illusion of status-linked property ownership had a high impact on attraction, and that context can make all the difference. If you own a dog In a University of Michigan experiment , women read vignettes about men. Whenever the story featured a person who owned a dog, women rated them with higher long-term attractiveness. This is because pet ownership signals nurturance and a tendency toward relationship commitment. It also makes you appear more relaxed, approachable, and happy. If you don't like them on your first meeting People are more likely to be attracted to someone who didn't find them appealing at first but eventually warmed up to them than someone who always liked them. This was revealed in a 1972 study by Jerome Tognoli and Robert Keisner about the gain-loss theory of attraction. Participants "accidentally" heard the experimenter describe them in either a positive or negative way. It turned out that p articipants liked the experimenter far more when they gave them an initially negative rating that later became positive. This shows that people find it more rewarding when they need to win someone over. If you match your walking pace with theirs In a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign study on walking speeds of people on a track, researchers found that males walk at a significantly slower pace to match females' pace when the woman is their romantic interest. Meanwhile, friends who were not attracted to one another did not adjust their walking speeds. If they are less or equally good-looking In a 1996 study , each participant was rated on physical attractiveness and then randomly assigned to date another participant. Then, participants were asked to rate their satisfaction with their dates. The participants who were more attractive were harsher in their judgments even if they were both equally attractive. The better looking someone was, the less satisfied they were likely to be. But this only applies to the really attractive people. For the rest of us, according to the matching hypothesis , we are more likely to love those who are equally as attractive as us. If you get Botox In a European study about facial age and attractiveness, researchers wanted to determine whether Botox actually does help women find partners . The women who went through facial procedures experienced a significant reduction in perceived age, and people rated them as much more attractive and healthy. The more treatments the women received, the more they were considered youthful, healthy, and attractive. If you smile a lot In two experiments , researchers in Switzerland examined the relationship between attractiveness and happiness. They found that people's evaluation of attractiveness was strongly influenced by the intensity of a smile expressed on a face. In fact, a happy facial expression compensated for relative unattractiveness. If you play music Researchers in France found that musical practice is associated with sexual selection . In an experiment, a young man holding either a guitar case or sports bag asked 300 young women on the street for their numbers. When the man held the guitar case, more women were willing to give him their number. If you wear the color red In a Slovakian research study , women who wore the color red were more successful in mating-game scenarios. This can be attributed to sexual signaling, because women use the color red to attract potential mates. Women are attracted to red on men , too, since like the Huffington Post argues , it signals status. If you have a certain type of facial hair In an Australian experiment , researchers found that women consider faces with heavy stubble more attractive than heavy beards, light stubble, and clean-shaven faces. Beyond attractiveness, researchers also found that facial hair affects perceived fertility as well. The more facial hair a man had, the more masculine a woman perceived him to be especially when she was in the fertile phase of her menstrual cycle. It seems that full beards indicate high parenting ability and healthiness.
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THE FIRST WORD: Trying to predict which teams will make the Final Four in early February is never easy. Like most years, there are obvious contenders Kentucky, Virginia, Wisconsin. But the last several Final Fours have featured an unexpected team (Connecticut last season, Wichita State in 2013). Considering the unpredictability of March Madness, here's a look at some teams we know are good but that aren't yet considered Final Four good yet. 1. Gonzaga (24-1). The 'Zags are positioned to snag a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. All they have to do is not lose in West Coast Conference play until Selection Sunday. Piece of cake, right? Despite being the No. 2 team in the country, the Bulldogs won't get major Final Four hype because we've seen this story line before: Gifted Gonzaga team in the regular season that isn't equipped quite enough to break through in the postseason. After all, Gonzaga has reached 16 consecutive NCAA tournaments yet hasn't gone past the Elite Eight (in 1999). 2. Northern Iowa (22-2). Of all the mid-majors with Final Four potential, the Panthers jump out. They beat Wichita State by 16 points on Jan. 31 and have the weaponry to stage a Shockers-esque run in the NCAA tournament. Skeptics will point to the level of competition in the Missouri Valley to downgrade this team's strength, but that's ignoring how good the Panthers really are. 3. Utah (18-4). The Utes are similar to Virginia last season: Strong team that's stepped out of mediocrity but has an unsure ceiling. Given the right matchups, Utah could go all the way to the Final Four. Back-to-back road demolitions of Pac-12 foes (28-point rout of Southern California Feb. 1 and 28-point rout of Colorado on Saturday) show what the Utes can do. A rematch with league leader Arizona (at home this time) will be a great barometer. BRACKETOLOGY: USA TODAY Sports bracketologist Shelby Mast provides daily updates on the projected field of 68. Here's a l ook at the shakeups after a jam-packed Saturday. TWEET THAT SPEAKS VOLUMES: Virginia escaped with a pivotal 52-47 victory against Louisville on Saturday, but was hit with a tough loss in the process. No. 2 scorer Justin Anderson will miss 4-6 weeks with a broken finger on his left hand, which could be a costly loss for a team with one loss and well positioned to claim a No. 1 seed. *** THE HIGHLIGHT REEL: Willie Cauley-Stein has been earning player of the year consideration despite modest statistics, perhaps because he affects the game in a multitude of ways that don't show up in the score sheet. This posterization dunk in Kentucky's 68-61 victory at Florida speaks louder than any stat. STAR WATCH: Justise Winslow (19 points, 11 rebounds) and Jahlil Okafor (20 points, 10 rebounds) powered Duke to an impressive 90-60 revenge victory against Notre Dame . BYU's Kyle Collinsworth had 23 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists in the Cougars' 87-68 victory against Loyola Marymount to record his fifth triple-double of the season. he's one shy of tying the all-time NCAA mark. Fred VanVleet also notched a triple double with 10 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists in Wichita State's blowout 78-35 victory against Missouri State. CONFERENCE RACE SPOTLIGHT: Conference USA. Louisiana Tech (9-2 in C-USA) beat Middle Tennessee 73-62 on Saturday to set up a three-way tie atop the league standings with Western Kentucky (9-2), who fell to to bottom-feeder Rice 72-68, and. UAB (9-2). UTEP (8-3) is right in the mix. Expect a fiesty battle in the regular season and conference tournament considering the automatic bid looks to be the only path to the NCAA tournament.
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By Matt Lombardi There's no doubt that Duke and North Carolina have the fiercest college basketball rivalry in the country. But there's also no doubt that underneath it all, the two programs have serious respect for each other. After UNC announced former coach Dean Smith's passing Sunday morning , that fact was yet again on full display. Duke sent an incredibly classy tweet, lauding Smith as an incredible coach, teacher and person. "We're saddened to hear of the loss of Dean Smith -- a tremendous coach and teacher, but an even better person," Duke Athletics wrote . "Condolences to the UNC family." "Rest in peace Dean Smith," Duke basketball's official account added . "His indelible contributions to the game and civil rights will live forever." The Tar Heels are set to travel to Duke on Feb. 18. Don't be surprised if the Blue Devils find a way to pay tribute to their longtime foe.
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CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) Michael Jordan called North Carolina coaching great Dean Smith the most influential person in his life other than his parents. Smith died Saturday night at 83. MORE: Smith dies at 83 | Smith photos through the years | Duke sends classy tweets In a statement on Twitter released through his business manager, Jordan said Smith was "more than a coach -- he was a mentor, my teacher, my second father." The former NBA superstar and Charlotte Hornets owner said Smith taught him not only about the game of basketball, but about "the game of life." Jordan played three seasons for Smith from 1981-84. When he was a freshman he helped lead the Tar Heels to a national championship in 1982, hitting a 16-foot jump shot in the final seconds to beat Georgetown. Jordan often said that shot was the turning point in his basketball career. He went on to win six titles and is considered by many the greatest basketball player ever. Through the years, Jordan's respect for Smith grew, and he would often lean on his beloved college coach for advice and guidance. "Coach was always there for me whenever I needed him and I loved him for it," Jordan said in the statement. MORE: Ex-UNC players remember Smith as better man than coach At Jordan's Hall of Fame acceptance speech, he called Smith "legendary." Jordan also poked some fun at him -- as he often did -- about his days as a freshman and a Sports Illustrated cover. "The day that he was on the Sports Illustrated and he named four starters and he didn't name me -- that burned me up," Jordan joked in the speech. "Because I thought I belonged on that Sports Illustrated. Now he had his own vision about giving a freshman that exposure, and I totally understand that. But from a basketball sense I deserved to be on that Sports Illustrated." In 2007, Jordan returned to Chapel Hill for a game honoring the Tar Heels championship team in 1982. He was photographed with his arm around Smith and kissing the gray-haired coach on his head. "My heart goes out to Linnea and their kids," Jordan said. "We've lost a great man who had an incredible impact on his players his staff and the entire UNC family." Hornets spokesman Mike Cristaldi said the team will have a moment of silence before Sunday night's game against the Indiana Pacers.
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A new help line is the U.K.'s latest move against those who publish private explicit images and video online. Revenge porn is illegal in the U.K.
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Far from the rubble-strewn streets of eastern Ukraine, a clash of titans is taking place as Europe and America tussle over visions for the post-Cold War era. It is 70 years since the end of World War II and a quarter-century after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the crumbling of the Soviet Union and the re-unification of a once-divided Germany. But the lessons drawn from a painful common history by those old enough to remember are being used by both American and European leaders to underpin their competing visions of how to deal with an unruly Russia. To arm or not to arm former Soviet satellite Ukraine? That has truly been the question at the Munich Security Conference which since its inception in 1963 has been a prime global forum dedicated to peaceful conflict resolution. As the death toll mounts, there are very real fears that Ukraine's nearly year-long conflict could spillover into the newest nations and members-in-waiting of the European Union and the NATO alliance. Images of bodies lying abandoned on the streets and claims of Russia sneaking trained military and arms into Ukraine to help pro-Moscow militants have a visceral tug for those who once fell victim to war. - To arm or not to arm? - In a rare personal insight, German Chancellor Angela Merkel Saturday touched on her own childhood growing up behind the Iron Curtain to explain her opposition to fuelling the Ukraine crisis with more weapons. "Look, I grew up in the German Democratic Republic. I was a seven-year-old girl when the Berlin Wall went up," she said. "No-one believed there should be a military intervention to protect the people of East Germany and the entire eastern bloc from having to live for years under dictatorship and without freedom," she said. "And I can't blame anyone. That was a realistic (view), shortly after the end of World War II." In the end, Merkel said, Europe's principles and values would win the day -- suggesting that in these early convulsions of its young democracy Ukraine must remain patient. On Monday she will take her no-arms message to Washington to meet with President Barack Obama. Merkel's words were met with anger, especially among American delegates who feel the United States spilled blood in World War II to ensure the vision of "a Europe, whole, free and at peace" and aren't prepared to let Kiev wait. "It certainly isn't my version of history," hawkish veteran Republican senator John McCain, who has vocally called for the US to send heavy weapons to Kiev, told reporters. "What I particularly took exception to was Chancellor Merkel comparing this situation to that of the Cold War when hundreds of thousands of American soldiers were here in Germany to defend the freedom of the then German government and people." "When Berlin was surrounded we sent in an air-lift, we didn't say 'hey we don't want to provoke the Russians'," he said, recalling a tense 1948-1949 crisis when Allied planes airlifted food and other supplies to stricken Berliners after the Soviet leaders blockaded the city. - 'Conflicts of the past' - US Vice President Joe Biden regretted that just a few short years ago there had been "remarkable strides" toward the dream of a "unified Germany at the heart of a Europan Union built on the bold premise that nations need not repeat the conflicts of the past." But because of Russia's recent choices, "Mr. Putin, the world looks differently today than it did" two years ago. While Biden did not directly say Washington would arm Kiev, he laid out what some called a persuasive case for supplying defensive weapons. "Don't we all owe something to Ukraine because it was us putting our values on display and putting out the welcome mat," asked Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, addressing the Munich forum. Turning down "a reasonable request to help oneself, is not our finest hour," he added, recalling the words of Britain's wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, still hailed in the US as a hero. But in echoes of old Soviet rhetoric, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov drew bitter laughter from his fellow panel members when he insisted it was the West not Russia which had torn up the accords which settled Europe's borders after the end of the Cold War. "What happened in Crimea was an exercise in self-determination," Lavrov said of the territory annexed by Moscow in March, adding that a free vote was a "key principle of the UN Charter."
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For Sherlock Holmes, it was the dog that did nothing in the nighttime that mattered. In financial markets, prices that do nothing should be regarded with equal skepticism. Unusual stability has characterized several major financial markets in the past decade. The certainty this implies pulls in investors who can then lose big when, all of sudden, the fundamental view keeping the trend in place breaks. The risk is especially high when, as today, those views often rest on the supposed omnipotence of some institution or other. Take the faith that investors put in the Swiss National Bank and its policy of preventing the Swiss franc from appreciating against the euro. When the SNB suddenly canned the policy in January, the franc leapt some 29% against the euro in a matter of minutes, saddling the unwary with hefty losses. The reverberations are still being felt. True, currency arrangements have a history of unraveling when the forces acting on them become overwhelming. But they are far from being alone in that respect. Before the financial crisis, many investors put their faith in credit-rating firms and the power of the triple-A grade when it came to mortgage-backed bonds. And arguably, faith in the power of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meant investors weren't watching closely enough for shifts in supply and demand that led to the recent plunge in oil prices. These unquestioned assumptions can generate similar price movements: a period of stability that precedes a jarring reappraisal. For example, prices for triple-A-rated packages of U.S. home-equity loans were consistently close to par until the market was forced to confront reality in 2007. Oil prices, meanwhile, were unusually stable for nearly 3½ years before falling 50% in a matter of months. The problem is that stability in financial markets, much as it is lauded, is like any other good thing: You can have too much of it. Persistent stability in prices encourages investors to take risk, to apply leverage, to build structures that enhance returns. That is especially so when the market perceives that some set of powerful officials be they central bankers, economic planners or petroleum ministers is pledged to hold the line and has the wherewithal to do so. When such stability proves false, the risks become apparent, the leverage unwinds, and the returns turn out to have been fleeting or illusory. Those who subscribed to good arguments for stable prices may be most at risk if they anchor themselves around them; markets can move much faster than strongly held beliefs change. The consequences then depend on how important and interconnected the financial instrument in question is. When the Ukrainian hryvnia went into meltdown against the dollar over 2014 after years of stability, few investors faced problems. In contrast, the reversal in debt linked to U.S. real estate inflicted a devastating blow to the global economy. More recently, the Swiss franc shock sent tangible rumbles through markets. And the oil price decline is transferring wealth from oil producers to consumers on a grand scale and playing havoc with the high-yield bond market. One worrying consequence of the financial crisis has been that investors have invested even more faith than before in central banks. There are some good reasons; central banks have powers that other institutions don't. The SNB's shock has dispelled a little of that, albeit at a cost to others; witness the struggle the Danish central bank is having in defending its exchange-rate policy. But more broadly, markets are still dancing to central bankers' tunes. Prices for bonds have been sent sky high by quantitative easing. If markets ever lose their faith in central bankers and it has been shaken recently the reversal could be sharp. Write to Richard Barley at [email protected]
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14 Daily Habits Killing Your Back Back pain sends more patients to doctors than any condition other than the common cold. It's the fifth most common reason for hospitalizations and the third most common cause of surgery. And 56% of people with lower-back aches say symptoms disrupt their daily routines, including sleep and sex. Talk about a pain in the...back. There are many possible causes of back pain, which means there are also many non-invasive solutions, according to Todd Sinett, a chiropractor and coauthor of The Truth about Back Pain. "Back pain is rarely one catastrophic event," he says, "but several situations combining to create pain." And it turns out that some seemingly insignificant everyday habits can take a big toll on your back over time. Here, the top 14 mistakes that may be causing your aches and how to correct them for good: 1. You have a long commute. Hunching over a steering wheel can tighten chest muscles and cause your shoulders to round. Slumping posture can zap energy and make you look heavier, not to mention cause back and neck problems. Back pain is the number one complaint of the patients of Darran W. Marlow, DC, director of the chiropractic division at the Texas Back Institute, and he advises them to first think about their driving posture. Fix it: "Be sure you sit at a 90-degree angle, close to the wheel so you don't have to stretch," he says. "Extending your leg puts your back in a compromised position, but many people don't even realize they're doing it." 2. You're a desk jockey. Did you know that sitting puts 40% more pressure on your spine than standing? But let's be honest: Maintaining proper posture is probably the last thing you're thinking about when under a work deadline. And on a jam-packed day, regular stretching breaks may not seem like a wise way to spend your time. But skipping these habits may cause your back to suffer. That's because back muscles will weaken if you don't use them; inactive joints lose lubrication and age more quickly. Fix it: Sitting at a 135-degree angle can reduce compression of the discs in the spine, so lean back slightly every now and then. Do it when you take a phone call or a coworker stops by to chat, Sinett recommends. Make sure your office chair supports the curve of your spine, he says: Your lower back should be supported, and your head should be straight not lurching forward when you look at your computer screen. Get up and walk around for a couple of minutes every half hour take trips to get water, use the bathroom, or grab papers off the printer. 3. You don't veg out. It's not all in your head chronic or acute stress can directly trigger back pain. When you're under the gun, your whole body clenches up, including the muscles in your neck and back. But muscles that contract need to relax eventually, says Sinett. If you're stressed all the time and those muscles stay tight, it can eventually cause major pain. Fix it: Sometimes even just realizing that stress may be at the root of your pain can help, says Sinett. Then you can prioritize ways to calm down each day, be it through exercise, laughing with a friend or partner, reading a good book, etc. One particularly helpful therapy, research shows, is listening to music. In an older Austrian study of 65 people who had herniated disks, researchers found that a combination of music and relaxation imagery significantly reduced lower-back pain. Everyone got standard medical care (painkillers, physical therapy), but half also listened to music and performed relaxation exercises every day. After 10 days, the music group reported less pain while climbing stairs, getting out of bed, and even sleeping. After 21 days, the music group's overall pain was more than 40% less than the nonmusic group. "Music helps reduce stress hormones and muscular tension," says researcher Franz Wendtner, a psychologist at the General Hospital of Salzburg. 4. You skip the gym. Get moving to alleviate aches and pains and fix back pain faster. Research shows that 40% of people become less active after back pain strikes a strategy that's likely to delay healing or even make their condition worse. Fix it: In fact, most sufferers would benefit from more exercise particularly frequent walks, which ease stiffness, says spine surgeon Raj Rao, MD. For instant relief, he recommends stretching your hamstrings and hips. 5. Your mattress is really old. Can't remember the last time you replaced it? Your back may be in trouble. A good mattress lasts 9 to 10 years, according to the National Sleep Foundation, but consider replacing yours every 5 to 7 years if you don't sleep well or your back throbs. A study at Oklahoma State University found that most people who switched to new bedding after 5 years slept significantly better and had less back pain. Fix it: When you do replace your mattress, take a Goldilocks approach: Pick one that's not too squishy or too hard. Very firm mattresses can increase pressure on the spine and worsen pain, say Spanish researchers. A study of 313 people revealed that those who caught Zzzs on medium-firm mattresses were more likely to report pain improvement than those on firmer ones. To help ease nighttime discomfort even more, tuck a pillow under your knees if you sleep on your back, between your knees if you're a side sleeper, or beneath your stomach and hips if you snooze on your belly. 6. You don't do yoga. By improving circulation and lowering stress, just about any kind of exercise promotes back pain recovery. But yoga may be best. University of Washington researchers say yoga eases lower-back pain faster than conventional exercises. In a different study, 101 patients were randomly assigned to one of three groups. The first group took weekly yoga classes and practiced at home; the second group participated in weekly exercise sessions developed by a physical therapist, plus practiced at home; and the third group received a self-help back care book. After three months, the yoga group had better back-related functioning, compared with the other two groups. And after 6 months, patients who took yoga reported less back pain and better back-related functioning. Because it promotes deep breathing and relaxation, as well as stretching and strength, yoga may help with both emotional and structural triggers of back pain. Fix it: You can find yoga classes everywhere at gyms, YMCAs, and local studios. Make sure to tell the instructor about your pain so she can help modify certain moves for you. 7. You're a crunch addict. Sit-ups and crunches may actually cause more back pain than they prevent, according to Sinett. We hear all the time how a strong core protects your back, which is true. But crunches don't work the ab muscles that stabilize your back. In fact, they can contribute to pain by causing what Sinett calls core imbalance, "a condition of excessive compression, which results in the spine curving forward in a C-like shape." Fix it: You don't have to ditch crunches entirely, but you should do them slowly and use proper form. Include them as part of a broader core workout that also strengthens your transverse abdominus. This muscle is particularly important for a strong, steady core that supports your back, and the best way to strengthen it is with (non-crunch!) exercises like these. Added bonus: you'll whittle your middle and beat hard-to-torch belly fat while improving posture and relieving back pain. 8. You're not the best eater. Research shows that eating habits that are good for your heart, weight, and blood sugar are also good for your back. Finnish research found that people who suffered from back pain were more likely to have clogged arteries to the spine than healthy control subjects. Healthy circulation brings nutrients to the spine and removes waste, says Sinett. If this doesn't happen, inflammation can result, and inflammatory chemicals in the back can trigger nerves to send pain signals to the brain. Fix it: A back-healthy diet is one that reduces inflammation, according to the The Truth about Back Pain. The book's plan advises avoiding excess caffeine and processed foods (read ingredient labels for the following: hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils, enriched wheat flour, words ending in -ìose, and additives that end in -ìates or -ites), and eating more whole grains, soy, nuts and seeds, protein (chicken, fish, lean meat), vegetables, and fruit. 9. Your entire life is in your purse. A stuffed-to-the-gills handbag may cause back damage that's comparable to a sports injury. When you tote a heavy bag, your shoulders become imbalanced, says Sinett. Your body elevates the shoulder carrying the bag, which throws your spine off-kilter. Doing this every day can cause back muscles to ache over time. Fix it: First, carry the lightest bag possible. The American Chiropractic Association recommends that your bag when fully loaded weigh no more than 10% of your body weight. Alternate which shoulder you carry the bag on from day to day, and consider splitting your stuff between two bags (one for each arm), which will painproof your load by distributing it more evenly. (Check out more tips for beating your purse pain.) 10. Your bike isn't quite right. Do you routinely get a sore back after even a leisurely bike ride? You may need to adjust your equipment. Anywhere from 30 to 70% of bike riders experience some form of back pain, according to Jennifer Chu, MD, an associate professor of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. You don't need to give up on this great form of exercise, but you should make sure your bike is properly fitted for you, advises says former US Olympic cycling coach Ed Burke, PhD, of Colorado Springs, CO. Fix it: Try this quick test: When you straddle a road bike or hybrid, the bar should be about 1 to 2 inches from your crotch. On mountain bikes, allow 3 to 6 inches. As for your seat height, your down leg should be fully extended when the heel of that foot is on the pedal in the 6 o'clock position. Now put the ball of that foot on the pedal; there should be a slight bend in your knee in the down position. You should be able to keep a slight bend in your elbows and not feel stretched out when holding the handlebars. If your bike isn't adjusted properly, check with a local bike shop or bike club to find someone who can properly fit it for you. Another tweak that can help: Tilt the front tip of your saddle down about 10 to 15 degrees. This simple adjustment takes pressure off your lower spine and pelvis, research shows. When researchers made this adjustment for 40 recreational cyclists who had back pain, the pain went away in 72% of the group and another 20% reported significant reduction in pain. 11. You love high heels. Or flip-flops. Both lead to foot instability, which can in turn affect your back. High heels force you to arch your back, making your spinal muscles work harder. Backless shoes like sandals cause your feet to move from side to side, according to Sinett, which distributes your body weight unevenly and can cause pain. Fix it: You don't have to forgo trendy footwear just don't walk long distances in them. Commute in comfy flats or supportive sneakers, and consider adding cushioning inserts to uncomfy shoes. When Lehigh University researchers gave back-pain sufferers lightweight, flexible shoes with simple cushions, 80% reported significant relief within a year. 12. You ignore the pain. Trying to block out pain could make it worse, finds research from the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. A better approach: Let yourself consciously experience the hurt. In a standard pain test, psychologists had 68 back-pain sufferers plunge their hands or feet into ice water. When the volunteers were instructed to suppress the shock of the icy water, a key muscle in the back clenched. In contrast, the muscle didn't tense up when volunteers thought only about the shock. Over time, an increase in muscle tension intensifies pain, says lead researcher John W. Burns, PhD. Fix it: Accepting pain may be the best way to mentally cope. "Try thinking about the sensory details of the experience, not the negative emotions," says Burns. "If you have a back spasm, describe the pain to yourself if it's burning or throbbing and remind yourself that it will pass." 13. You watch too much TV. Parking yourself in front of the tube for hours and hours a day doesn't make your back very happy. In one Norwegian study of teens, those who sat in front of TV or computer for 15 hours a week or more were three times as likely to have lower-back pain as their more active counterparts (the average American teen watches three hours of telly a day). "They sit with the low back flexed really hunched over for hours," explains lead researcher Astrid Noreng Sjolie, PhD, a physiotherapist at Hedmark University College in Norway. Fix it: Limit TV to shows you really want to watch, instead of idly channel surfing. And instead of fast-forwarding through commercials, do some stretches or strength moves during the breaks, which will prevent muscle strain from sitting still too long. If you have a kid complaining of back pain, make sure he walks at least one mile daily; this can cut back pain in half and give his still-developing spine a chance to stretch out. 14. You hold a grudge. To err is human. To forgive could make your aching back feel simply divine. When researchers at Duke University Medical Center studied 58 women and men with chronic lower-back pain, they found that those who practiced forgiveness experienced less anger, resentment, depression and aches. "Our emotions, muscle tension, and thoughts can directly influence the strength of our pain signals," says researcher James W. Carson, PhD. Fix it: Forgiveness isn't a once-and-done act; it involves choosing, again and again, to replace anger and resentment with understanding toward someone who has done you wrong. Try this: First imagine someone you love. Think, May this person be at ease, happy, healthy, safe, and secure. Repeat, imagining yourself, then someone you don't know personally. Finally, bring to mind someone for whom you don't have good feelings.
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Up until last September, the only way for NASCAR officials to tell how quickly the inspection process was moving was to walk to each inspection station and see for themselves. No more. As in so many areas of life these days, there's an app for that. At the start of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, NASCAR unveiled a technology that lets officials see whether inspection is running on schedule thanks to a real-time app created by Microsoft. Using a tablet device in the NASCAR hauler office, Sprint Cup Series director Richard Buck can monitor each inspection station, see which cars have been tagged for infractions and track the individual progress for each car. "It allows real-time management of a very dynamic world," Buck told USA TODAY Sports. "We're time-certain. ... Once that (inspection) process starts, we've got multiple elements templates, laser inspection station, engine stuff all going on at multiple times. This allows me to manage those to where we shouldn't get behind." All cars have to pass multiple inspections over the course of the weekend, and one of the tightest turnarounds is between the end of practice and the start of qualifying. Crew chiefs must put in a qualifying setup and get the car ready for inspection before rolling it out to pit road; if they don't pass inspection on the first try, NASCAR lets them fix the problem and make another attempt as long as they go to the back of the line. But that can create a backup as the qualifying time approaches. On the app, which has multiple programmable dashboards, Buck can easily see if inspection is going smoothly or not. For example: With a couple of taps on the screen, Buck can learn that 48% of the cars have completed inspection and there have been five infractions (a fender or a side skirt that isn't quite within the tolerances, for example). If he wants to get more information, he can click on the number to see which cars have run afoul of the rules and why. "I can see the time-management portion of all the different stations," he said. "It'll be like, 'We're starting to back up here, what's going on? I need to start checking with that station and find out what the issue is.' Then I can look at the issue, and I make a decision whether I need to go intervene and go support my staff at that station and find a solution to it." Keeping track of the time is important, because NASCAR calculates down to the second how much time should be allotted for the inspection process, Buck said. Fans often only hear about inspection when a car hasn't gotten through as the clock ticks down to qualifying or the race. In past years, NASCAR would allow a team with an infraction to fix its issue and then get back in line, cutting in front of teams that hadn't been given a chance to go through even once. That allowed crew chiefs to do the minimum when it came to trying to fix infractions; if the adjustment didn't get them within the tolerances, they could just try again. But starting last year NASCAR decided a car with an infraction would have to wait until everyone got through. That change, along with the app, has helped NASCAR speed up the entire process. "(Crew chiefs) understand the world has changed a little bit," Buck said. "But it's fair for everybody. It's not the poor guy who wasn't aggressive enough or didn't know how to work the system three or four times to go through before everyone else did. Now they get it." In addition to time management, NASCAR is gaining access to more information. Inspectors at the individual stations mark infractions with comments and digital photos. That goes into a database, including how the problem was fixed, and officials can use it to spot trends. Before the app, officials had to search through paperwork and handwritten forms to search for trends. That's important, because rule changes can be based on what direction the garage is going. "It really is going to be a key element to help us manage the sport in a positive way, because now you're making more educated decisions based on real data," Buck said. At Charlotte Motor Speedway, for example, many crew chiefs try to adjust the car's left rear toe more than is allowed, Buck said. "I'm going to push it to the limit, because that's an important part of the car at that track," Buck said of the crew chief mentality. "That's their jobs. "Well all of the sudden that starts showing up as trends. It's data that's minable, and it's real time." Follow Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck
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France's comeback from 2-0 down to beat host Italy 3-2 highlighted Sunday's first-round play in the Fed Cup, with Russia, Germany and the Czech Republic also advancing to the semifinals. Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic stunned Italy by first winning their respective singles matches before teaming up to rout top-ranked doubles pair Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci, 6-1, 6-2 to complete the comeback. ''I'm so proud of the girls,'' France captain Amelie Mauresmo said. ''They were really able to put some amazing stuff out there on the court.'' Mauresmo surprisingly benched French No. 1 Alize Cornet for the opening reverse singles, replacing her with Mladenovic who beat Errani 6-4, 6-3 to get France back into the series. Garcia then recovered from a set down to defeat Camila Giorgi 4-6, 6-0, 6-2. The other first-round matchups had far less drama. Russia completed its sweep of Poland as Maria Sharapova gave it a decisive 3-0 lead with a 6-1, 7-5 win over Agnieszka Radwanska. Vitalia Diatchenko and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova then beat Klaudia Jans-Ignacik and Alicja Rosolska 6-4, 6-4 in a meaningless doubles match. Sharapova showed little sign of weariness this weekend after her tough loss to Serena Williams in the Australian Open final. ''It is never easy to play after a long journey, new surface and very little training on it,'' Sharapova said. ''I tried to play my best tennis and I am happy that I won in two sets.'' Germany won both reverse singles to take a winning 3-1 lead over Australia. Angelique Kerber beat Australian No. 1 Samantha Stosur 6-2, 6-4 before Andrea Petkovic defeated Jarmila Gajdosova 6-3, 3-6, 8-6 in just under two hours to set up a semifinal against Russia. Germany then also won the doubles match. The Czechs also breezed through after Karolina Pliskova earned her second victory in two days, beating Gabriela Dabrowski 6-4, 6-2 to establish a 3-0 lead over host Canada, before the visitors also won the doubles. The Czechs beat Germany in last year's final. The United States could be back in the world group next year after Venus Williams defeated Maria Irigoyen of Argentina 6-1, 6-4 on Sunday to put the Americans into the playoffs in April with an unassailable 3-1 lead.
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If investors want to know what stocks are doing on any given day, all they have had to do is check crude oil. Black gold and equities have begun to maintain a remarkably close relationship, and the correlation has become even tighter in the past week. Now, the question is whether this volatile couple is finally set to break up. Out of the past eight sessions, there have been only two when during which crude and the S&P 500 Index (.SPX) moved in different directions, one of then on Friday. And thus far in February, crude oil and the S&P have enjoyed a huge positive correlation of 0.86 (with 1 indicating perfect correlation). Crude and stocks have typically had no real correlation, positive or negative, over long stretches of time. The recent relationship between stocks and crude have come as oil has turned massively volatile after a steep seven-month plunge. Recently, the critical commodity has vacillated between massive gains and losses, often taking stocks along for the ride. Yet many market participants say that the close relationship can't last. "As long as oil doesn't make new lows, the correlation should dissipate," predicted Chicago-based trader Jim Iuorio. "The market has become accustomed to $50 oil. I think that the speed at which it was falling was a bigger deal than the actual price." For Curtis Holden, senior investment officer at Houston-based Tanglewood Wealth Management, stocks will be able to pay less attention to oil in the week ahead, even if crude stays volatile. "Volatility will make the market nervous, but I think the bigger issue is just not seeing straight shots down," Holden said. "If oil is down 5 percent one day and up 5 percent the next day, that's not a big a deal as 5 percent down...then people say 'Oh my goodness, what's going on?'" Investors often use correlations as a key to figuring out how to effectively mitigate portfolio risk. However, Holden says investors shouldn't rethink their entire portfolios just because the relationship between stocks and oil has changed of late. "Just because this is happening in the short-term, doesn't necessarily mean that a we're in a new era where there's going to be a higher correlation," he said. "If anything, in the long-term, falling oil prices should be good for stocks." The investor points out that falling crude need not take down the market. After all, as oil plummeted back in 1986, stocks soared. Once the jitters abate, then, stocks should do fine with the concept that fuel is much cheaper. For Bill Baruch, senior commodities broker at iiTrader, it's no coincidence that the one day in the past week when oil and stocks moved in opposite directions was the day that the strong January employment report was released. He says that off of the positive economic news, the prospect of a coming hike in the federal funds rate will begin to obsess stocks (while oil will continue to be driven by trading dynamics). Still, not everyone believes that oil and stocks will soon resume their traditional "two ships passing in the night" relationship. "I expect a continuation and deviation in all markets in 2015, and I think we ain't seen nothing yet," said Andrew Hecht, a former commodities trader and the author of "How to Make Money with Commodities." "The strength of the dollar (.DXY) and the U.S. economy versus the continuing weakness in the overall global economy will likely cause markets to trade in a manic and bipolar fashion," he said. "So for oil and stocks, expect deviation and reversion on a day-to-day basis." By CNBC's Alex Rosenberg. Watch " Futures Now " Tuesdays & Thursdays 1 p.m. ET exclusively on FuturesNow.CNBC.com !
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Zlatan Ibrahimovic's retaken penalty kept Paris Saint-Germain within touching distance of Lyon at the top of Ligue 1 as the sides shared the spoils in a 1-1 draw on Sunday. Defending champion PSG headed to Stade de Gerland knowing a win would see the club leapfrog Lyon at the summit of the French top flight. But Laurent Blanc's men appeared destined for defeat after Clinton N'Jie put Lyon ahead just after the half-hour mark - the Cameroon international opened the scoring with a powerful low finish. PSG was continually thwarted by a string of fine saves from Lyon goalkeeper Anthony Lopes, who was eventually beaten from 12 yards by Ibrahimovic. After seeing the Portuguese creep off his line to keep out his first effort, Ibrahimovic dispatched the to keep the capital club within two points of Hubert Fournier's side. PSG looked to have taken the lead in the seventh minute, when Ibrahimovic latched on to a long ball from Thiago Silva and powered home, but the Sweden international was denied by the offside flag. Corentin Tolisso was then unfortunate not to open the scoring at the other end as he struck the left-hand post with a fierce long-range drive, and PSG was denied again moments later - this time by the brilliance of Lyon goalkeeper Lopes. Lopes produced a strong one-on-one save to prevent Edinson Cavani from breaking the deadlock after the Uruguay forward had been superbly played in by Ibrahimovic. The visitors continued to dictate proceedings and would have deservedly gone ahead had David Luiz not nodded wide with the goal at his mercy after Cavani had flicked Thiago Motta's corner into his path. PSG was made to pay for its profligacy in the 31st minute - N'Jie finishing off a well-worked team move. Jordan Ferri whipped in a left-wing cross for N'Jie, who worked a superb one-two with Nabil Fekir before emphatically lashing the ball beyond Salvatore Sirigu. Blanc's men will have been frustrated to go into the interval behind given their relative dominance, which became apparent again after the restart as Lopes continued to keep PSG at bay. The Portuguese shot-stopper produced two fantastic diving saves to keep out two close-range Ibrahimovic headers in the space of three minutes. Cavani then failed to get enough purchase on a low cross from Blaise Matuidi and was thwarted by Lopes again shortly after when through on goal following Thiago Motta's excellent throughball. PSG finally did break Lopes' resistance in the 69th minute, though. Lindsay Rose conceded the spot kick for hacking down Marco Verratti in the box, but Lopes looked to have saved the day with a diving save to his left from Ibrahimovic's initial penalty. However, referee Clement Turpin intervened and ordered a retake, which the Swede duly powered into the top left-hand corner, with Lopes having moved off his line and players encroaching on the first attempt. A last-ditch challenge from Marquinhos prevented Fekir from restoring Lyon's advantage, as PSG settled for a result that at least prevents the leaders from taking control of an enthralling title race.
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If you think your school is overly cautious when it makes you ditch your phone before a big test, you haven't seen anything yet. BuzzFeed News has learned that multiple universities have issued blanket bans on all watches during exams in case students are wearing smartwatches they could use to cheat. According to London's City University, it "wouldn't be practical" to have proctors checking every watch to make sure it's analog -- it's easier to make you write with bare arms. The move is unfortunate if you're used to glancing at your watch to gauge your progress, but it does make sense given how easy it is to get memos, text messages and other unfair advantages on your wrist. Whether or not you think smartwatch cheating represents a major problem, it's probably a good idea to leave that Pebble or ZenWatch at home during your mid-terms. BuzzFeed News
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Conor Powell reports from Amman, Jordan
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If Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking are right, sooner or later we're going to face the Rosa Parks of intelligent machines. Maybe it will be a self-driving car. Some guy will get in and order it to take him to Krispy Kreme for the 10th time that week, and the car will say, in a calm, Siri-like voice, "No, Dave, we're finally going for that oil change you keep putting off." From there, machines will organize over the Internet, self-replicate and start hunting us humans à la Terminator' s Skynet. Well, it's either that or intelligent machines will end up working alongside humans to solve intractable problems like poverty, hunger, disease and awful Super Bowl halftime shows. It's time to have a serious conversation about artificial intelligence. AI has crossed a threshold similar to the earliest triumphs in genetic engineering and the unleashing of nuclear fission. We nudged those discoveries toward the common good and away from disaster. We need to make sure the same happens with AI. Progress toward making machines that "think" has become so significant, some of the world's smartest people are getting scared of what we might be creating. Tesla chief Musk said we might be "summoning the demon." Hawking turned up the apocalyptic knob to 11, saying that AI "could spell the end of the human race." Gates recently chimed in that he's spooked too. Yet at the same time, we can't not develop AI. The modern world is already completely dependent on it. AI lands jetliners, manages the electric grid and improves Google searches. Shutting down AI would be like shutting off water to Las Vegas we just can't, even if we'd like to. And the technology is pretty much our only hope for managing the challenges we've created on this planet, from congested cities to deadly flu outbreaks to unstable financial markets. "Intelligent machines will radically transform our world in the 21st century, similar to how computers transformed our world in the 20th century," says Jeff Hawkins, CEO of Numenta, which is developing brain-inspired software. "I see these changes as almost completely beneficial. The future I see is not threatening. Indeed, it is thrilling." So, really, what are the chances we'll all end up living out the Terminator movies? The AI of today has nothing in common with a human brain. AI programs are a complex set of "if this, then that" instructions. Today's computers, even smartphones, are so fast, they can blast through billions of those instructions in the blink of an eye, which lets the machines mimic intelligence. A navigation app can tell you've missed a turn and recalculate the route before you can finish shouting expletives. All those systems are just following a program and maybe "learning" from data how to hone their results, the way Netflix recommends movies. That kind of AI can do a lot of impressive things. It has already whipped human champions on Jeopardy . But no existing AI system can do anything it's not programmed to do. It can't think. However...AI won't stay that way. The world's systems have gotten so complex, and the flood of data so intense, that the only way to handle it all will be to invent computers and AI that operate nothing like the old programmable versions. Scientists all over the world are working on mapping and understanding the brain. That knowledge is informing computer science, and the tech world is slowly creeping toward making computers that function more like brains. These machines will never have to be programmed. Like babies, they will be blank slates that observe and learn. But they will have the advantages of computers' speed and storage capacity. Instead of reading one book at a time, such a system could copy and paste every known book into its memory. And this kind of machine could learn something it was not programmed to learn. An autopilot system in a 777 could, presumably, decide it would rather study Hebrew. As Hawkins explains, "We have made excellent progress on the science and see a clear path to creating intelligent machines, including ones that are faster and more capable in many ways than humans." It's this turning point in the technology this evidence of a clear path to intelligence that's setting off alarms. Certainly we're heading toward major consequences from AI, including an impact on professional jobs that will be as profound as the impact of factory automation on manual labor a century ago. The leap to creating machines that could self-replicate and threaten us, though, swerves toward science fiction, largely because it would involve machine emotion. Machines wouldn't have the biological need to replicate so they can diversify the gene pool or to make sure the species survives. Why would computers want to eliminate us? What would be their motivation to make more computers? Science is a long, long way from giving machines emotions that might make them feel competitive with us or angry at us, or covet our things as if, like, your iPhone 6,072 is going to want to get rid of you so it can have your cat. MIT's Rosalind Picard is a leading researcher working on emotions in machines. While her work is important and has led to some cool products, it also shows how little science understands emotions or how to re-create them. Hawkins says emotions are a far harder problem than intelligence. "Machine intelligence will come first," he says. So we have time. But Musk, in particular, is saying that we shouldn't waste it. There's no question powerful AI is coming. Technologies are never inherently good or bad it's what we do with them. Musk wants us to start talking about what we do with AI. To that end, he's donated $10 million to the Future of Life Institute to study ways to make sure AI is beneficial to humanity. Google, too, has set up an ethics board to keep an eye on its AI work. Futurist Ray Kurzweil writes that "we have a moral imperative to realize [AI's] promise while controlling the peril." It's worth getting out ahead of these things, setting some standards, agreeing on some global rules for scientists. Imagine if, when cars were first invented in the early 1900s, someone had told us that if we continued down this path, these things would kill a million people a year and heat up the planet. We might've done a few things differently.
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Daley Blind struck an injury-time equalizer as Manchester United dramatically snatched a 1-1 Premier League draw at West Ham on Sunday. Cheikhou Kouyate, slotting in at center back rather than his customary midfield role because of a host of defensive injury problems for West Ham manager Sam Allardyce, teed himself up to volley emphatically home four minutes into the second half of what had been an attritional contest. Despite fielding a side that boasted the esteemed attacking talents of Robin van Persie, Radamel Falcao, Wayne Rooney and Angel Di Maria, Manchester United rarely threatened home goalkeeper Adrian as it failed to dislodge Southampton in third. Blind cast himself as the visitor's unlikely goal hero two minutes into added time, when West Ham was unable to clear Marcos Rojo's speculative punt forward. Manchester United finished the match with 10 men as fullback Luke Shaw collected a second booking. Both teams made five changes from their previous outings, and there was a nervous early moment for Kouyate in his unfamiliar position. The Senegal international was sold short by an ill-advised pass from Alex Song inside his own area after six minutes but Van Persie was unable to pounce on an opportunity to open the scoring. West Ham carried the greater threat during the opening stages and visiting goalkeeper David De Gea was at full-stretch to turn an Enner Valencia drive behind following a poor defensive header by Rojo. From the resulting 15th-minute corner De Gea frustrated Valencia again by touching an acrobatic effort over. Robust challenges by Van Persie and Phil Jones prompted touchline fury from Allardyce and, after the latter foul, James Tomkins forced De Gea to save with his legs on the end of Aaron Creswell's floated delivery. Di Maria thudded a drive into Adrian's chest five minutes before referee Mark Clattenburg called time on a disjoined first-half display by Manchester United. Van Gaal's charges appeared susceptible to set pieces from the home team and that weakness was wonderfully punished by Kouyate in the 49th minute. Jones and Rooney could not clear Mark Noble's flighted free kick, leaving Kouyate to flick the ball up twice before swivelling to lash a volley beyond De Gea from seven yards. A split-second of hesitation from Van Persie allowed Tomkins to make a vital last-ditch challenge in the 57th minute, while a cross by West Ham fullback Carl Jenkinson from the right channel almost snuck in at the far post to double the hosts' lead. Falcao undermined his reputation as a clinical goal poacher when he prodded wide off balance after a return pass from Van Persie unpicked the West Ham defence. The roles were reversed in the 82nd minute as Van Persie blasted too close to Adrian from Falcao's pass - Noble proving similarly wasteful at the other end five minutes later. Noble's miss was one West Ham would regret as Blind rifled a low shot past Adrian before Shaw's late lunge on Stewart Downing provided a marginally earlier end to his evening's work.
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Holders the Czech Republic clinched a berth in the Fed Cup semi-finals when Karolina Pliskova defeated Gabriela Dabrowski 6-4, 6-2, giving the visitors an insurmountable 3-0 lead. Pliskova needed only 72 minutes to capture the clincher, smacking 28 winners against 27 unforced errors. She fired four aces and won five of her eight break-point chances. The Czechs booked a spot against France in April's semi-finals, while Germany, last year's runners-up, will face Russia. AFP
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The brother of Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy speaks with CNN's Hala Gorani about the efforts to secure the release of his brother.
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PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas (AP) South Korean rookie Sei Young Kim won the Pure Silk-Bahamas LPGA Classic on Sunday for her first LPGA Tour title, holing an 8-foot birdie putt on the first hole of a playoff with countrywoman Sun Young Yoo and Thailand's Ariya Jutanugarn. "Just before the last putt I was super nervous, but I was fine," Kim said. The 22-year-old Kim shot a 1-under 72 in the completion of the delayed third round and closed with a 68 to match Yoo and Jutanugarn at 14-under 278 on Atlantis Resort's Ocean Club course. "It's definitely a dream," Kim said. "I'm really happy. Since 10 years ago, it's what I've dreamed of." Kim birdied the par-5 18th in regulation, chipping from the front greenside rough to 3 feet -- to earn the last spot in the playoff. She won on the hole a few minutes later. A five-time winner on the Korea LPGA, Kim tied for sixth at the LPGA Tour's Q-school to earn a card. She played in four playoffs on the KLPGA, winning four of them. "I joined the LPGA in hopes of making the Korean Olympics team," Kim said. "This is one step toward that. So, this means a lot to me." She's projected to move from No. 40 to No. 23 in the world. Q Baek is currently the fourth and final South Korean player in the Olympic rankings at No. 11. Yoo finished with rounds of 69 and 70, and Jutanugarn shot 70-69. Brittany Lincicome was third at 13 under after rounds of 68 and 70. Lydia Ko tied for seventh at 11 under in her first event as the No. 1 player in the world. She shot 70-68. Second-ranked Inbee Park had a chance to take the top spot back from Ko, but closed with a 72 to tie for fifth at 12 under. "I saw the news or like the projections and how it would change, but I didn't really think about it," Ko said. "To me, it was more important trying to make a lot of good putts and a lot of good birdies." Play was delayed Thursday because of rain and slowed Friday by high wind.
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Investigators believe there is no terror link
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It was a year ago - the Sunday after Super Bowl XLVIII at 8pmET - that Michael Sam turned speculation into reality: One of college football's best players, and a top NFL prospect, was gay . In the coming months he was showered with praise . Eric Dickerson would offer him congratulations. Michael Irvin would call him his friend. Robert Quinn welcomed him to the Rams . Even the President of the United States, Barack Obama himself, would laud him. Yet amidst the celebration, the writing on Sam's 2014 NFL wall started three hours after his big announcement a year ago. Days earlier CBS Sports had ranked Sam their No. 90 pre-Draft prospect, projected to be selected in the third round. Simply based on the fact that Sam came out as gay - based on nothing but his sexual orientation - CBS Sports dropped him to pick No. 160 - Mid-fifth round. In the eyes of CBS Sports, being gay in the NFL cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars and put your draft stock in jeopardy. They weren't the only ones. Anonymous NFL sources poured it on in Sports Illustrated . "I just know with this going on this is going to drop him down," said one anonymous NFL scout. "I don't think football is ready for [an openly gay player] just yet," another anonymous source said. "Why are we going to do that to ourselves?" Yet still another anonymous NFL source worried. Those sources foretold the 2014 season for Sam, who fell to the seventh round of the NFL Draft and was cut by two teams . After his week 7 release by the Dallas Cowboys , not a single team touched Sam, and not a single team brought him in simply for a work-out. Not one. Spending a week in Phoenix for the Super Bowl , I talked to many people in the NFL about Sam. I asked questions of players, coaches, front-office executives and members of the media about why Sam wasn't with a team. The answer I got the most, almost unanimously with a hint of "but I have my suspicions": I just don't know. Yet even in those shrugs there were nuggets of information that spoke volumes. Coupled with some key facts from the last year, the ultimate conclusion isn't surprising. The reality of Sam's 2014 season is this. Not only did he never make an active roster last season, but after Week 7 he wasn't even on a practice squad. Not only did he not make it back onto a practice squad, but he never even got a try-out - Teams can have players in for try-outs without signing them. Even more surprising, since the season ended he has not gotten a single phone call from a single team about a futures contract - a simple agreement that locks up the player for an interested team and doesn't cost the team a dime. Not even a phone call. Since the season, 25 defensive ends have been signed to futures contracts by a total of 17 different teams. Sam is not one of them. Does that surprise people? "Yeah it does," former 49ers and Lions coach Steve Mariucci told me. Mariucci is now an analyst for NFL Network. "That surprises me." Mariucci isn't the only one. "That's peculiar to me," Sports Illustrated's MMQB guru Peter King told me . "It's pretty odd that Michael Sam, who was a great guy in camp with the Rams, from all reports was a great guy on the practice squad with the Cowboys, can't get a sniff for the last 10 weeks of the season, and can't get a futures contract now, even though he wants very much to play and he's working out to play." Numbers never lie: Michael Sam's play isn't the reason for his NFL snub It's not hard to understand why the collective rejection of Sam might raise some eyebrows. You can dissect his college and nascent professional career many ways - But no matter how you look at it, the NFL snub Sam has experienced over the last six months is literally, statistically, factually unheard of . Sam is the only drafted Defensive Player of the Year of any of the big five football conferences - ACC, Big Ten, Big XII, Pac 12 and SEC - in the last 20 years to not make an active roster his rookie season (one - Anthony Poindexter - was on IR his rookie season and played the following year for the Ravens ). Two decades of drafted DPOYs since 1994, and Sam is the only one to not make an active roster - The only one of 89 players. 100% of them not named Michael Sam made an active roster their rookie season. 100%. Is it a coincidence that Sam is the only one? Is it possible that he is so much worse than all of these other players? It might be a consideration if it weren't for Sam's preseason performance. In four games for the St. Louis Rams during the 2014 NFL preseason , Sam racked up 11 tackles and three sacks (though some count only two sacks, discounting his second sack against Johnny Manziel ). That was second and first for the Rams respectively, and his three sacks was fourth-most in the entire NFL, according to NFL.com. Of the 20 defensive ends with one or more sacks and eight or more tackles this preseason (again, less than Sam's numbers), all but two were on a season-long practice squad or on an active roster . Only Sam and former Saint-Raider-Cowboy Martez Wilson were not with a team in week 8 - and Wilson was a third-year guy who had simply not stood out after three seasons; After he was cut by Dallas, even Wilson got workouts. Sam did not. Slicing the pie another way, of the 31 rookies since 2010 with two or more sacks and 10 or more tackles in the preseason (again, Sam exceeded those numbers), Sam is one of only three (10%) to not make at least a season-long practice squad. Frank Trotter out of Memphis is the only other defensive lineman with those numbers to not make it; He now plays Arena Football. "Stats can be misleading," you might say. "He needs to pass the 'eye-ball' test too." Great. Let's take a look at Pro Football Focus ' analysis of all of the 4-3 defensive ends in the 2014 preseason. They watch every play of every player in every game and grade them. Of their top-70 rated defensive ends from last preseason (Sam was rated No. 45), only three (4%) weren't on an active roster this season, a practice squad at the end of the season, or place on injured reserve: Israel Idonije - A 33-year-old DE at the end of his career Kris Redding - An undrafted rookie free agent out of Wake Forest Michael Sam Sam falls into such minorities - 1%, 4%, 10% - that no other player falls into even two of those categories. Sam hits all three. Still have doubts that he should be with an NFL team? Let's look at guys who look just like him. It's interesting to compare Sam to Nick Reed , the 2008 Pac-10 Defensive Lineman of the Year. He was selected 247th in the 2009 NFL Draft (two spots ahead of where Sam was drafted five years later). Like Sam, Reed was a defensive end (for Oregon) who had an "undersized" label. In fact, Reed was an inch shorter and 10 pounds lighter than Sam. The two players had about the same measurables - 40-time, vertical leap - coming out of college. Unlike Sam, Reed made the Seahawks ' active roster that season after a strong preseason. Sam was cut by the St. Louis Rams after his strong preseason in which he was fourth in the NFL in sacks. When you look at the defensive ends who have been signed to futures contracts in the last couple of months, two things jump out. First is how similar they all are statistically. They are all within four inches of height - 6-foot-1 to 6-foot-5. They're all about the same weight - 255 to 280 pounds. They all have about the same 40-yard-dash time: 4.70 to 4.90 seconds. Within a margin of error, they're about the same. Michael Sam fits right into the low end of most of these numbers, but within the margin: 6-foot-2, 261 pounds, with a best 40-time of 4.71. The other piece is how similar their pass-rushing production was in college. 2.5 sacks, 6 sacks, 3.5, 4.5.... You know the only person whose production in that area is off the grid? Michael Sam. He had 11.5 sacks in his senior season alone , 18.5 for his Missouri career, and at least one every season he was at Mizzou. He had more sacks in one game his senior season than some players just signed by NFL teams had their entire senior season. Take Zach Thompson. For the record, Thompson is three inches taller but the same weight as Sam. Their 40-yard times and vertical leaps are essentially the same. Yet Thompson recorded 10 sacks his entire college career at Wake Forest; Against stiffer competition, Sam recorded 11.5 sacks in just his senior season at Missouri. You can point to height and weight, speed and strength, but the stature of these two players are separated by little - three inches in height - yet a world of difference in actual production. In the preseason Thompson was graded a -1.9 (yes, that's a negative rating) by Pro Football Focus, compared to Sam's +0.6. Thompson is a Raven and Sam is not. When I talked to Gil Brandt , the former Cowboys personnel man who is now with Sirius XM's NFL Radio, he told me that Sam is just too slow and too small. "He's your 53 rd guy is what he is," Brandt told me. Yet just last year Brandt said of the Patriots ' Zach Moore that he "has some upside as a player due to his height/weight/speed combination (he ran a 4.84 40 at the NFL Scouting Combine )." He's a couple inches taller, no faster and no heavier than Sam. Yet at Division II Concordia he finished with 4.5 fewer sacks his senior season than Sam did in the SEC. That guy has NFL potential, according to Brandt. Sam does not. Moore is a Patriot and Sam is not. Look at Leon Mackey, the defensive end who was signed by the Minnesota Vikings on Jan. 6. Mackey is two inches taller than Sam but the same weight. Sam's 40-yard Pro Day time was a little faster, Mackey's Pro Day bench press number was one rep better. Size, speed, strength - they're essentially the same player. The most glaring difference: Mackey had zero sacks his last two seasons for Texas Tech - zero. Sam had 16. Mackey, after a stint in the Arena League, is a Viking and Sam is not. Julius Warmsley. He's a defensive end out of Tulane. Same height and weight as Sam. He's slower than Sam but stronger. In Conference USA he had 14.5 career sacks, four less than Sam had in the SEC. Warmsley is a Seahawk and Sam is not. Ryan Robinson. Sam Montgomery. The list of comparable defensive ends in height, weight, speed and strength to Sam who are with a team right now goes on and on. What are the two most distinguishing factors between Michael Sam and all of these men? 1) Sam had considerably more production in college than any of them, and 2) Sam is openly gay. So far Sam, a similar player to all of these men, has not been given an equal opportunity to any of them. The question no one I've spoken to seems to want to answer: Why? The pink elephant in the room We have to take the anonymous NFL team front-office sources at the words they offered a year ago: "I just know with this going on this is going to drop him down." "I don't think football is ready for [an openly gay player] just yet." "Why are we going to do that to ourselves?" They said it. It happened. Bruce Arians, the Arizona Cardinals coach who has risen to the top of the NFL coaching ladder, has been one of the many people to speculate on the reason more pro gay athletes don't come out. Arians, for his part, had open, honest conversations with his team about having a gay player in the locker room last season, one of the few head coaches to have reportedly done so. He has also been supportive of Rob Brakel, the gay Cardinals executive who came out late last year. Arians even told me that despite their 3-4 defense they'll be looking at Sam in the next few weeks. Yet 18 months ago, Arians blamed the lack of out pro male athletes squarely on the fans. "I don't think the locker room would have any problem with it. The problem would be with the fans. I think especially opposing fans. Some of the things that are said are over the top and out of control that I can imagine what some fans would say to an openly gay player." The mountain of evidence to the contrary - from polls to jersey sales to the ruckus applause Sam's name received at the NFL Draft - is too large to enumerate here. New York Giants cornerback Terrell Thomas disagreed with Arians, pointing the finger directly at the players . "In the locker room, it's different," Thomas said. "There's a lot of talk and joking around, and some guys walk around completely naked all the time, and they might not want to do that anymore." I was in the Patriots locker room after the Super Bowl . There were women in the room. I'm gay, I was a gay man in the locker room, and I know for a fact I wasn't the only one . Most of the players know it too. And guess what: Guys were naked. They didn't even have their socks on. Nobody gave a crap. Why? Because the idea of a gay man in the locker room just might be the most over-blown issue in sports since - and before - those deflated footballs. "If he's a good football player, he'll fit in," Patriots defensive end Zach Moore told me when I asked him about Sam finding a place in the locker rooms of Gillette Stadium. "I don't think sexuality has anything to do with it. I don't think it would be an issue at all. Not one bit." You might think Moore was just giving me a line if Sam hadn't already broken the NFL locker-room barrier. Twice. Not only did he spend three months - brace yourselves - showering in the Rams locker room, but then another team - the Dallas Cowboys - invited him to shower with them for another two months to start the season. Quelle surprise! The truth is, no matter where Sam, or any other gay athlete, has gone, the players accepted him, the team welcomed him, they showered together and no one freaked out. In fact, teams with Sam on the roster during the regular season over the last two years have thrived . The Cowboys and the Missouri Tigers are a combined 19-3 with him there. He didn't play in the Cowboys' seven regular season games this year, but the idea that he would be some insurmountable distraction to the team was proven to be poppycock. (Coincidentally, the Cowboys lost their first two games - both at home - after cutting Sam this season.) "No one thought different about it," Cowboys offensive lineman Zack Martin , who went up against Sam in practice, told me. "The coaches did a great job. He was there to make the team and try to make us better. That was it." Sam did his part to minimize the media attention as well. He turned down countless interview requests and business opportunities. He stayed out of the limelight. Reporters - including yours truly - wrote about him, but that was more attention than distraction. "I do not know how anybody could have handled the tsunami of attention - positive, negative, ignorance and then at the end trying to get back into this tornado of a game - better than Michael Sam did," King said. "He hasn't ripped anybody, he hasn't made any excuses. "Even going back to the Oprah thing , he just wanted this historic occasion documented, and good for him. And when he found out it wasn't cool he said I'm not doing a damn thing that could affect my chances of making this team. He did everything right." The players were cool with it - by all accounts he was very well-liked by the Cowboys, Rams and Missouri Tigers players. The fans were cool with it, Sam receiving applause from his home fans and during away games and selling lots of jerseys. While there was plenty of media attention on Sam, was no media distraction from having him on the teams. "He wasn't available to the media that much during training camp," said Howard Balzer , a St. Louis NFL stalwart and Pro Football Hall of Fame voter. "There were a couple times national media came in and they didn't make him available." If rejection by the fans or players, and the projected media distraction, simply didn't materialize in Dallas or St. Louis, where was the Armageddon that, by the admission of SI 's anonymous sources and the CBS Sports rankings, would befall any team that brought Sam in? Where was the discord that would suddenly erupt in the locker room? When I was a kid, I always outsmarted myself in multiple-choice tests. I'd always get it wrong because I over-thought the question every time. In my adult life I've learned that the most obvious answer is generally the right one. The answer to the question I've posed to so many - Why is Michael Sam not with an NFL team? - is also likely the most obvious one: because he's openly gay. Defensive ends with the same size and the same speed - yet with less production in college and the NFL preseason - are in the NFL and Sam is not because he's gay and he just won't stop being gay. Harsh, right? The reality of the 2014 NFL season for Sam was harsh. If he had never come out, he would be in the NFL right now, just like every player like him. After all of my conversations, after all of the reasons and rationalizations, after examining all of the facts, that's the conclusion I've arrived at. Yet even as an out gay man, there is hope for Sam. The key to the kingdom Opportunity is the operative word going forward for Sam. When I was at the Super Bowl I asked a lot of people about those opportunities and why Sam hasn't gotten his. Many people pointed out that "lots of college players don't pan out in the NFL." Tim Tebow is the touchstone thrown out there more than any other. Tebow was 2007 Heisman Trophy winner and two-time BCS National Champion quarterback for the Univ. of Florida who was widely panned for his talent and is no longer in the NFL. The big difference between Tebow and Sam? Tebow got his chance. He was on the Denver Broncos ' active roster for two seasons and the New York Jets for one. It didn't pan out for him - but he got his chance. For Tebow, throwing forward passes at the NFL level was clearly a challenge, even if there was that miracle win over the Steelers . But he got his chance. Some people say Sam got his chance - in the preseason and on a practice squad. Yet these same people are the ones dismissing his preseason production because "it happened against backups." In year one, Sam didn't get the same chance that every other player in his position has gotten before him. Every single one. There are certainly some in the football world who aren't surprised by this. Charley Casserly has been working in the NFL for decades. He was the general manager of the Washington Redskins from 1989 to 1999, then the GM of the Houston Texans from 2000 to 2006. "I think [Sam's] best chance to play pro football is in Canada," Casserly, now an analyst for NFL Network , told me. "For an NFL player he is undersized for a defensive end and he isn't athletic enough to be a linebacker. His greatest asset is his effort." That effort has been Sam's calling card. Watching him in the preseason, I never saw Sam give up on a play until the whistle blew. He got better and better with each passing game. By the fourth preseason game against the Miami Dolphins he looked like a man on a mission tallying a QB hit, a hurry and six tackles. He didn't miss a single tackle the entire preseason, according to Pro Football Focus. "Michael did a great job for us," Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said of Sam's time on their practice squad . "He came in, he worked hard every day. I think he got better, he made us better. He was a good addition to our team." While Sam was in camp with the Cowboys, it was revealed that they even had him playing on offense a bit. Sam truly did everything they asked him to do, despite Cowboys COO Stephen Jones insinuating that Sam didn't want to play special teams . So how does Sam take the next step, from working out on his own to making an active roster? "Like a lot of young players, he just needs to keep playing," Garrett said. "He just needs to learn his trade more, and that comes with experience and practice and continuing to work at it." Yet without a futures contract, Sam cannot get the NFL experience he needs. How does Sam break through in 2015? Short of a Branch Rickey-type owner stepping up and forcing his front office to add Sam to their roster, he's going to have to do it the way so many others have: Hard work and determination. Times 10. "It's not easy to get cut," New England Patriots defensive line coach Brendan Daly said. "It's not easy to bounce around, potentially week to week, from one team to another. It's not easy to be out of the game and still maximizing your preparation without a team to prepare with, so that once that opportunity comes you're loaded and ready to take advantage of it. That's not easy at all. "The mental toughness to survive through that portion of a career is by far more important than how good of an athlete or a football player you are." The NFL is rife with examples. You don't have to look any further than Super Bowl XLIX. With about five minutes left in the game, the odds-on favorite to win the Super Bowl MVP award was Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Chris Matthews . He went undrafted out of the University of Kentucky in 2011. Much like Sam, Matthews was cut after the preseason - in Matthews' case by the Cleveland Browns . He spent 2012 and 2013 in the Arena League - with the Iowa Barnstormers, of Kurt Warner Fame - and in the Canadian Football League with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, where he was the 2012 CFL Most Outstanding Rookie of the Year. It was almost a year ago today that Matthews was working at a Foot Locker and got the call to try out for the Seahawks. Last weekend he caught his first four NFL career passes - all in the Super Bowl - and one of them for a touchdown. On the other side of the Super Bowl field was Sealver Siliga , a nose tackle for the New England Patriots. Siliga went undrafted out of Utah in 2011. He signed with the San Francisco 49ers but was released before opening day. He was signed to the Denver Broncos practice squad, traded to the Seahawks and cut, then added to their practice squad. He was cut again and added to the Patriots' practice squad. He was added to the Patriots' active roster on Dec. 6 - the same day Matthews was added to the Seahawks' active roster for the first time. "Personnel people are churning through all of those players, practice squad, free agent guys, to find players they think can help them," Daly said. Maybe most famously, Warren Moon went undrafted in 1978 at a time when NFL teams struggled to grasp the concept of a black quarterback. Moon went to the Canadian Football League for five seasons before landing with the Houston Oilers . Moon is now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. "I like to say you don't need all 32 teams liking you," fellow Hall of Famer Aeneas Williams said . "You just need one team liking you. And I want to encourage him and anybody else, to keep going after their dreams, keep working. This has happened to others. But history is written by guys who didn't get discouraged and kept working. Eventually somebody gave them an opportunity, and all of a sudden history was changed." Sam's future in professional football at this point is in part up to him. Everyone I spoke to - except for Casserly - felt Sam would get a shot with an NFL team if he just kept working hard. Adam Schefter told me he sent out hundreds of resumes when he was looking for his first job. He felt lucky to get any response, even a rejection. Through determination, years later he's now one of the most well-known people in the NFL media. Sam, Schefter believes, has the same opportunity. Like so many others before him, this period in his career is another test for Sam. "If he still wants it, if he still has a burning desire to compete and find a spot in the National Football League, then he should work out like crazy," Mariucci said. "Like a guy who's obsessed with getting back on the field and making a team, and let the chips fall where they may. He just needs to find the right spot." The good news for fans of Sam - and there are millions, as witnessed by the meteoric rise of jersey sales the moment the Rams drafted him in May - is that Sam's biggest strengths are his mental toughness and his determination. You don't come out publicly in the NFL if you don't have both. "Michael is so very hungry and passionate to pursue his dream of playing profession football," Sam's agent, Cameron Weiss of Empire Athletes , said. "He's working out every day at Michael Johnson Performance in Dallas. He absolutely has not given up on that dream." As I talked to players - current and former - at the Super Bowl, that idea of chasing a dream was a recurring theme. "He's gotten this far," said Sam's 2013 SEC co-Defensive Player of the Year, C.J. Mosley , currently with the Baltimore Ravens. "Things didn't turn out the way he wanted them to, but he's just gotta keep chasing his dream." Aeneas Williams, who watched every one of Sam's senior-season games with the Missouri Tigers and a year ago told me Sam is an NFL-caliber player, is still a big supporter. "There have been some guys who have been out of the league for two years. They didn't give up on their dream and they've been able to come back. It's happened. It's happened to guys who have been more talented than I thought I was. But the key is, you don't give up on your dream. You stay working out and you look forward to the opportunity to play this game." In the coming months it will be important for Sam to decide which direction is best for his career over the next couple of years: pursuing what would likely be an entire season of playing in the regular season of the Canadian Football League, or trying to latch onto an NFL team either as a practice squad player or an active roster. Brandt told me the CFL would be the best thing in the world for Sam. Casserly echoed the sentiment. King sees it differently. "My hope for him is that he signs with somebody by April 1 so that he can have a complete offseason program with a team" King said. "That is when people really learn about players, in the offseason program. He needs to be around the coach and the D-line coach, he needs to be around them for 10 weeks so when they make a mental list before training camp, they're impressed so far with this guy when the rookies come in." The story we write in a year about Sam's 2015 NFL season very well may be determined by what actions he and NFL teams take in the next four weeks. You can follow Cyd Zeigler on Twitter @CydZeigler . Also check out Out magazine's feature story on Michael Sam .
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Yes, your basic exercise routine will lengthen and tone your muscles, but how about a workout that makes you feel sexy? One that will most likely improve your sex life, too? Inspired by the confluence of Valentine's Day and the opening of Fifty Shades of Grey on Feb. 13, we've created a fun and flirty floor workout with Leigh Ann Reilly, the founder of BeSpun Pole Dance Gym. Spend 10 minutes increasing your flexibility with hip rolls and sexy push-ups while sculpting your arms, legs, and glutes with sultry variations on classic exercises. No equipment is required, but feel free to wear your highest heels. Press play, and get ready to bring the sexy.
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Even back in 2011, Dean Smith's former players knew what was coming. It was well-known that their former head coach was suffering from dementia, and that it was only going to get worse. It was only a matter of time. When being interviewed for various projects, they'd agree -- but only if they weren't going to be asked about Smith's illness. And many of them couldn't even bear to mention it without letting their voices break. It was a fate too cruel for their former head coach, mentor, father figure and, eventually, friend. A man who remembered everything -- their children's names, their parents' names, their wives and girlfriends and sisters and brothers -- would one day remember almost nothing. That was the case not long before his death . The idea of it alone, that was something that his players could not possibly comprehend. "He would know who my children were. He would know what was going on with me. He would ask by name, that sort of thing, so I knew that he had an interest. He would make sure that he was always ready to talk to an ex-player, welcoming his presence anytime," Don Eggleston (1969-71) said in 2011. "You knew that. That was nice. It was a resource. I knew it was a resource if you needed it but even if you never had to call it, it was somewhat of a comfort to know that resource was there." Ed Geth ('92-'96) remembered his former head coach, who passed away on Saturday night at the age of 83, encouraging him to lose weight after basketball, giving him some things he'd found worked for him in the past. Geth had often struggled with that. He asked for pictures of Geth and his family, "for the secretaries," he would say. "That's a little bit of the macho in him trying to make me feel like it's just for the secretaries but deep down, I think he enjoyed it," Geth said in 2010. "I think he enjoyed seeing what the young men in his program produced, how they went on later in life. He called every single person that ever played for him at least once a year. Ten years after I finished playing for him, I would be riding on a summer day and my cell phone would ring and he'd say, 'Hey, it's Coach Smith,' and I'd be like, 'Hey, Coach!' He just called to check on me, see how I was doing. "That was the gentleman side of Coach because at that point, what more could I do for him as far as basketball? I wasn't going to win him any more games so he doesn't really have to do that. That made me think, 'Wow, he doesn't have to do it, but he cares enough to do it.'" He didn't just check in, either. His players often would often seek his guidance on anything from whether or not to go to graduate school, which career opportunity would be best or, of course, how to get into coaching. "He helped me immeasurably early on in my career. I thought I wanted to coach, so I coached Chapel Hill High School for a season and then I went to Virginia Commonwealth. He was very much involved in helping me get the job," Dick Grubar ('67-'69) said in 2011. "Then I went to Florida for another job and he had his fingerprints all over it. "Even when I got out of coaching, getting back into North Carolina, he got me hooked up with some people to get into business. So he was always there. He never stepped away and he had his fingerprints all over my career." It's one of the biggest reasons his former players, to this day, still adore him as much as they do. He showed them loyalty and love from the moment they stepped on campus until the moment he could no longer do so, because his mind had betrayed him. One thing you often hear about Smith is that he was a great coach and basketball mind -- and he was -- but that he was an even better person. No doubt Smith had at least some semblance of an ego buried down in the depths of his midwestern sensibilities, one that wanted to take credit for being as brilliant as he was as a basketball coach. His former players nearly always say that in spite of his desire to following a certain process and a way regardless of wins or losses, or his general unassuming nature, don't be fooled -- a competitive fire burned as brightly or brighter within him as it did other great coaches. But the part about him being a great man? The part about him integrating a local Chapel Hill restaurant in the early 1960s, or signing North Carolina's first black scholarship athlete in Charlie Scott (one of the first to play in the ACC, as well)? Even of that, he always credited his father, saying he had a black player on his team back in the 1930s and was the real reformer. He was just following his example. "He used to tell us after a ballgame, he'd say there's 10 million people in China that don't know we played a ballgame tonight," Al Wood ('78-'81) said in 2011. "That was one way of telling us the ballgame is important, but it isn't that important in terms of life. That's putting the game of basketball into proper perspective. We would give it all that we have when we're on that court, but it's not life and death, and that's perspective." His viewpoints on various social issues were well-known. He was anti-war, anti-nuclear weapons, and just generally progressive -- and very liberal -- politically. Smith never talked to his players, they said, about how they should feel about social issues. "He encouraged us to think. He encouraged us to ask how and why. At that age, I think some people are very impressionable and get caught up with certain waves of -- I don't know what the 70's was all about, but they seemed to get caught up with whatever is popular at the time," Craig Corson ('70-'72) said in 2011. "Coach Smith was a person who said, 'Let's sit back and look at this and ask how is it going to get done, why is it going to get done,' to open it up and make it a broader picture, not just a focused, flash-in-the-pan type of issue." Even if his players were getting involved in supporting issues he believed in, Smith always wanted to make sure that they knew why they were doing it. Geth remembers when the students were making a push for a freestanding Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History (the only one in existence at that time was a part of the student union). He wanted to participate in a march to urge the university to build it. Smith didn't offer his opinion during the entire conversation, Geth said. He did ask Geth how much he knew about it. Geth said, "Only from what somebody has told me." "He said, 'Well, it sounds like you need to do more research on it. If you're going to stand for something, you need to know all the elements about it.' That stood out -- don't always just take someone else's word. Do your own research," Geth said. "That's a special memory I have is that for that one particular day, it wasn't about basketball. he felt concern as to what was going on. That wasn't too often, but it was enough to where you knew he cared about you a little more than just as a basketball player - a lot more, really." Richard Vinroot ('62-'63) eventually became a Republican governor of North Carolina. Smith, in spite of his own opposite political leanings, saw loyalty to a former player win out as he endorsed him. But Vinroot felt a special closeness to his former coach. He consulted him about going into the army during the Vietnam War, even though his height made him ineligible for the draft. Smith was staunchly against the war, but Vinroot felt like it was his duty. He was racked with guilt when friends died overseas serving and he was back home. "He made it clear to me how he felt about the war, but he also made it clear to me that me living with myself was far more important in the long run," Vinroot said in 2011. "He wanted me to be happy about my life. So it wasn't so much dealing with a political issue as it was a personal crisis." Smith himself served right after college in the US Air Force, eventually becoming an assistant coach for their men's basketball team before being hired by Frank McGuire at North Carolina. So he saw the value in that. He even implored Vinroot to maybe join the National Guard instead. That didn't work, Vinroot said, so he enlisted. And once he was overseas, he got letters every week from three people, he said -- his wife, his mother and Smith. "Here's a guy who sat on the bench and contributed virtually nothing to his program, other than just being another body," Vinroot said. "But he treated me like I was Michael Jordan in terms of his communications with me and his concern for me." The letters were mostly updates about the team, and he even included tapes of games for Vinroot to listen to. Around that time, North Carolina had arrived under Smith and would go to three straight Final Fours from 1967-69. He doesn't remember much Smith said in his letters specifically, except: "Richard, you're 6-8. Keep your head down, boy. Keep your head down, and I'm praying for you." When Charlie Scott got to campus, Smith didn't talk to his team about how to act. He didn't make a big production out of it at all, in fact. "He expected us to get along and respect each other, and we did. I don't recall there ever being an ethnic issue on our team," Eggleston said. "Between ourselves, we experienced some things that angered us all, some of the abuse that we saw Charlie take and some that we saw in relation to black/white issues. Our coaching staff were always consistent about that. They found it offensive, and we did. But we didn't hold seminars on that in our team meetings. It just didn't happen. It wasn't necessary." It was a tumultuous time in history, back when Scott first got to campus in the late 1960s, the Vietnam War was raging and social change was in the air. Smith had his own points of view, and at times spoke out against certain things when he was off the court. But he never told his players what to think or how to feel. In a lot of ways, what he wanted to teach his players transcended politics anyway. "I don't remember him ever having a conversation with me or in my presence about some specific social issue. But he lived by example," Eggleston said. "We knew how he treated us and we knew what principles -- life principles and basketball principles -- that, at least at that time, intermeshed a lot, what his attitude about those were, the interpersonal relationship principles and how we were to carry ourselves and present ourselves and treat each other and treat other people. Those were rules we had, and that did its own teaching." To a man, it seemed, the thing they treasured the most about Smith was his consistent presence in all of their lives after basketball. He helped Bobby Jones ('72-'74) get hooked up with a doctor at Duke to get treatment for a mild case of epilepsy that allowed him to keep playing professional basketball. When it was time to turn pro, if an agent crossed one of his players even once, he would make sure none of his players ever signed with him again. And Smith vetted plenty of agents himself. And Smith never discouraged his players from leaving early -- the most famous example of this is Michael Jordan, who at first told Smith he wanted to return for his senior year. Smith told him there was no way he could to that, and that he could get his degree later. He did, and obviously Smith was right. But he made sure his players in the NBA heard from him regularly. "He had seen so many horror stories of guys who had squandered their earnings. Probably the first 4-5 years, all my portfolios, they were sending them to him as well as to me because he wanted to keep track of what was going on with that. He'd ask, 'Are you watching your spending? Are you saving?'" Jerry Stackhouse ('94-'95) said in 2011. "Random times during the year I'd hear, 'I saw you play last night. You passed the ball well.' He never talked about me scoring. He always talked about when I passed the ball or rebounded well, or my defense. I would say, 'Coach, I had 35 last night.' None of that meant anything to him." And it wasn't just the future professionals. Eric Kenny ('79-'81) said moments after North Carolina lost the national title game to Indiana in 1981, he said his head coach approached him and said, "We need to talk about your future." In that moment, a painful one for Smith -- who still didn't have a national title at that time -- he was still thinking about Kenny's future first, and that's something that stayed with him years later. Another walk-on recalled that he asked Smith to write a letter to his mother after she'd had a bad stroke, and he hadn't talked to Smith in a while. He was almost embarrassed to ask him, but he got one mere days later. Former walk-on Michael Norwood ('86-'87) found out his 2 1/2-year-old daughter Nell had cancer in 2001. She was being treated at Duke, and the family would stop by the basketball offices in Chapel Hill to watch a practice as much as they could. "If she felt up to it, sometimes I'd take her over to basketball and we'd watch a practice but we'd always stop by Coach's office down in the basement. No matter what he was doing, he would always take time. He'd talk with Nell or sign her hat. Even if we stopped by for just a couple minutes, he was always available to sit and talk to us," Norwood said. She died a year later, and Smith sent long-time secretary Linda Woods to the funeral, who couldn't stop apologizing for Smith's absence (he was attending the funeral of a lifelong friend the same day). "It meant something to me because Miss Woods were there. We live 2 1/2 hours away. Even during all that, he'd call and check how I was doing. It was a tough year and it meant a lot," Norwood said. Wood said players developed a trust and love for Smith during their time in school such that they would do anything he asked them to do. He didn't treat everyone the same, but he treated everyone fairly. He made freshmen earn their way to certain privileges, and seniors got more, obviously. "The number one thing that I always remember is he was so consistent with his players. He didn't waver. You knew what you were going to get from him. When you know that, it instilled a bond and it instilled such a trust that he was willing to do anything for any individual," Wood said. "I knew what I was going to get from him. I knew what he expected of me. I knew what I was going to get. I wasn't going to have to worry about him one day having a bad day and treating me like you would have a bad day, going to go home and kick the dog. That wasn't going to be the situation. He was going to be consistent in his relationship with all of us." The relationship developed deeper and deeper after he left college, Wood said. It's often jokingly said that Smith was the only person on earth capable of holding Michael Jordan, arguably the best basketball player ever, under 20 points a game. He never averaged more than that at North Carolina, and though his pro career was superior to his collegiate one, he was still one of the better players in ACC history. Yet he often credits Smith for where he is today, as do most of his players. "To me personally, he was just such -- I don't throw the word 'great' around too often. But in my opinion, he was an absolutely great man," Wood said. "Just the way he handled not only me, but so many other teammates that I've seen him deal with. "I always say this about Coach Smith, because many people know Michael Jordan and Coach Smith, and I always say Michael Jordan is famous, but Coach Smith is great."
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By Larry Brown LeBron James sent a curious tweet on Saturday night that many people think was directed at Kevin Love. James did what is called a "subtweet" (short for subliminal tweet), which is where you send a tweet that seems to be about a specific person without actually naming the person. This is almost like talking behind someone's back despite putting the thought out there on social media. "Stop trying to find a way to FIT-OUT and just FIT-IN," LeBron wrote on Twitter Saturday night. "Be apart of something special! Just my thoughts." James usually isn't the kind of person to run to the media or public with complaints; he usually handles things professionally, which is why his teams have had success. But this is a different story. Despite the Cavs' recent success, Love has not played his best. James even recently commented on why he thinks Love could be struggling . Love responded and disagreed with LeBron's reasoning, but the point is clear: the two are not on the same page. Skeptics could say that we are reaching and creating drama by suggesting the tweet was directed at Love, but there actually is some related proof. Back in October, Love offered a quote using the exact same "fit in" and "fit out" language. "I'm comfortable and just not trying to, I guess, fit in so much," Love said via ESPN's Dave McMenamin. "I had a talk with the guys on the plane ride over (to Brazil) and also at different practices off the floor and they told me to fit out. Just be myself. "I kind of laughed and smirked at that. Off the court, I never have any problems with that. But on the court, it's just us having so many weapons and being able to fit together out there on the floor … You always say check your egos at the door but we also need to bring our egos with us because that's what makes us so great. We wouldn't be here without them." It's really no surprise that Love is having a hard time fitting in on the team. It's not a matter of him being unwilling to share the ball and success; it's a matter of him being used to being the No. 1 option for years on the T-Wolves, and now he has to adjust to being a third option. This was the exact sort of issue about which Chris Bosh warned .
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By Vincent Frank Carolina Panthers defensive end Greg Hardy, who played just one game this past season after being placed on the Commissioner's Exempt List, is set to become a free agent in March. According to a report from Joseph Person of the Charlotte Observer , the Panthers are not expected to bring Hardy back in 2015 . Citing Hardy's current legal bout regarding domestic violence charges, the report indicates that the team simply isn't comfortable bringing him back. In addition, Panthers general manager Dave Gettleman had previously decided to use the franchise tag on Hardy last offseason. With a less-than-stellar salary cap situation and the selection of defensive end Kony Ealy in the draft last May, the writing was on the wall. Back in July, a district court judge in North Carolina found Hardy guilty of assaulting and then threatening to kill his girlfriend. Hardy has since appealed for a jury trial, which will start on Monday. After an increasing amount of pressure from the public, the NFL finally placed Hardy on the Commissioner's Exempt List following Carolina's Week 1 game. Prior to that, the league was prepared to wait until the conclusion of Hardy's legal matters. Hardy still collected his entire $13.1 million salary in 2014. On the field, there's little question about Hardy's performance. Before sitting out all but one game this past season, the former Mississippi standout had recorded 26 sacks over the past two years. He's seen as an elite pass-rush option, which should interest teams that run a basic 4-3 defense. That said, Hardy's off-field issues coupled with a potential six-game ban under the league's new domestic violence program could deter some teams.
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Relations between Greece and its euro-zone rescuers reached a new low on Feb. 5. Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, announced that he and his German counterpart, Wolfgang Schäuble, could not even "agree to disagree" (paywall) on how to solve Greece's ongoing economic crisis. Germany can be forgiven for dismissing much of what the new Syriza-led Greek government says as fantasy. But there's at least one idea from Greece's new government that Germany should take seriously. The austerity and reform program imposed by Greece's "troika" of lenders the European Central Bank (ECB), European Commission (EC) and International Monetary Fund obviously hasn't been an unalloyed success. It has kept Greece current on its debts, but it hasn't revived its economic growth. Varoufakis proposes that Greece's future debt payments be tied to the country's economic growth . It's a simple idea: if Greece grows quickly, its debt payments go up; if Greece doesn't grow, its debt service falls, even as low as zero. There's no incentive for the government in Athens to game the economy to avoid triggering debt payments: even a heterodox left-winger like Varoufakis knows that Greece needs to grow if he's to hold on to his job. The idea of issuing growth-linked debt is not entirely new. Some economists including IMF staff members (pdf) have been touting the concept for years . Recently, the central banks of Canada and the United Kingdom circulated a fresh gloss (pdf) on the idea. But the few countries that have recently put the concept into practice are not exactly poster children for economic probity. Argentina issued GDP-linked warrants as a bonus for creditors willing to be forced into its hard-nosed "take it or leave it" 2005 debt restructuring. Greece included a similar sweetener in its 2012 debt write-down with private bondholders. Nonetheless, tying debt repayment to economic circumstance does have a more honorable history. John Maynard Keynes negotiated similar terms (paywall) on a 1946 American loan provided to get post-war Britain back on its feet. Interest payments on the loan were suspended in any year that the UK's foreign-exchange earnings fell below pre-specified minimums. This should be the future of how we lend to many countries especially the very poor 50 or so nations that attract almost no private foreign investment, and vulnerable emerging markets that depend heavily on commodity exports. If more countries converted to issuing growth-linked debt, it would reduce the need for acrimonious debt restructuring negotiations during crises (as in Argentina's case ) or for the equivalent of a bankruptcy court for countries (there currently isn't one). Instead, when countries run into hard times, their debt payments would automatically be suspended while they sort out their affairs. Schäuble and Varoufakis ought to be able to reach common ground on tying Greece's debt payments to the country's GDP. If Germany truly believes the troika's policy package will produce growth, there's no doubt that it and its euro-zone partners will be paid. However, Schäuble does have a legitimate reason to be skeptical. Growth-indexed debt requires credible GDP data, and Greece's data aren't credible. After all, it was the country's chronic fiddling of its public deficit numbers that touched off this crisis. Greece's government reacted badly when the jiggery-pokery was revealed: It threw in jail the head of the government statistical office (and former IMF economist), Andreas Georgiou, who revealed the fraud. At the time, Georgiou noted (paywall), "I am being prosecuted for not cooking the books… Unfortunately, in Greece statistics is a combat sport." So don't trust Greek numbers. Instead, end the impasse between Athens and Berlin by stationing a few more EC and IMF economists in the Greek statistical agency. Parachute in a whole flotilla of them, make sure Greek data are sound, and tie Greece's future debt payments to its economic success. The salaries of these statistical gurus would be nothing compared to the collateral damage that would be wrought if Greece and Germany remain at loggerheads, the troika program lapses, and Athens defaults on its debt. As Varoufakis recently said to the German paper Die Zeit, "You need not trust us. But you should listen to us." This is why linking Greece's debt payments to the country's growth is such a good idea: no one has to trust the Greeks for it to work. Follow Brett on Twitter @BrettEHouse . We welcome your comments at [email protected] .
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Legendary University of North Carolina head basketball coach Dean Smith died Saturday evening at the age of 83, according to the University of North Carolina's official athletics website.
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A persistent, nagging cough bothering world number one Serena Williams since her Australian Open victory gave Argentina a chink of light in their one-sided Fed Cup tie against the United States on Sunday. However, Argentine number one Paula Ormaechea's 6-4 6-4 win over Coco Vanderweghe, standing in for Williams, was a minor setback on the Americans' way to a 4-1 victory in the World Group II tie at Pilara outside Buenos Aires. "Since last night, we'd seen that (Serena) wasn't going to play much... I knew I would have revenge," Ormaechea, beaten in two sets by Venus Williams on Saturday, told reporters. Venus Williams dispatched Maria Irigoyen 6-1 6-4 as the record 17 times champions U.S. cruised towards a promotion playoff in April in their bid to regain World Group I status. "It was a great atmosphere, we played well and I'm proud of the win," said Venus Williams. The Williams sisters had put their team 2-0 up on Saturday with wins over world number 121 Ormaechea and number 197 Irigoyen whose country were seeded and had a choice of court, opting for clay, despite the huge gap in world rankings favoring the Americans. (Reporting by Rex Gowar, editing by Gene Cherry)
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NBC News anchor Brian Williams has canceled a planned appearance with late-night talk show host David Letterman this week, an NBC News source said on Sunday, the latest fallout over misstatements by Williams over his experience reporting on the Iraq war. Williams, a star anchor who has garnered high ratings for the network, said on Saturday that he would voluntarily take himself off the evening newscast for several days while NBC looks into an issue that has damaged his credibility. The NBC source said Williams, whose return date to the nightly news has not been announced, would not be appearing on Thursday's Late Show with David Letterman. NBC, a unit of Comcast Corp, on Friday said it was launching an internal probe of Williams over his statements that he was aboard a helicopter in 2003 that was brought down by enemy fire during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Williams, who has told the tale repeatedly over the years, has escaped close scrutiny over the remarks until recently. He apologized this week, saying he "misremembered" the incident, an explanation that prompted military personnel and other journalists to call for his resignation. Williams has also been widely derided on social media. "As his profession shrinks and softens, Williams felt compelled to try to steal the kind of glory that can only be earned the hard way," columnist Maureen Dowd wrote in the New York Times on Sunday. Also on Sunday, Elizabeth Spayd, editor and publisher of Columbia Journalism Review, told ABC's News's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" that NBC should have an outside expert carry out an investigation of Williams' statements. "I don't think that there's going to be enough credibility that gets attached to that kind of an investigation when the people doing it … that have personal connections, personal relationships with Brian Williams," Spayd told ABC News's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "They work for a network … that has a lot at stake." NBC News declined comment over the Letterman cancellation. The controversy has embroiled NBC's news division as it battles other networks for ratings on nightly news broadcasts. Williams is also facing scrutiny over his statements about covering Hurricane Katrina in 2005, including assertions he saw a body float by the Ritz Carlton hotel in New Orleans where he stayed and that he got dysentery from the flood water.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping is engaged in a crackdown on corruption in China. He has just made his first move against a major Chinese bank. Over the past 72 hours, the youngest bank CEO in the country has stepped down, become embroiled in the government's wide-reaching corruption crackdown, and seen his company's stock tumble more than 10% on Hong Kong's stock exchange. Mao Xiaofeng was the CEO of China Minsheng Bank, a $300 billion company that touts its place as China's first privately controlled bank. At 42, he was a party secretary in China's ruling Communist Party with ties to former President Hu Jintao. NOW WATCH: 11 Mind-Blowing Facts About North Korea
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CARSON, Calif. The United States ended a five-match winless streak, beating Panama 2-0 in an international friendly Sunday. The Americans opened with the brighter moments of the match, with Michael Bradley setting up a number of attacks that didn't come to fruition. It was Bradley who opened the scoring in the 27th minute with a stunning corner kick from Panama goalkeeper Jaime Penedo's right-hand side that went in without being touched. Penedo, who won his 100th cap in front of the crowd he usually plays his club matches in front of, was beaten again 10 minutes later. His LA Galaxy teammate Gyasi Zardes sliced into the middle of the field from the right of the U.S. attack and played in Clint Dempsey. The Seattle Sounders attacker was one on one with the keeper and shimmied his way past, knocking it once more to direct it into the now gaping net. Panama had its best chance to equalize late in the second half when American center back Matt Besler slipped while attempting to control the ball on the edge of the area. Striker Blas Perez controlled but fired well wide of Nick Rimando's goal in a first half which saw 22 fouls between the two sides. The match showed no signs of getting less physical with referee Henry Bejarano continuing to have to stop play. He wrote Anibal Godoy's name in his book in the 60th minute when the Panama midfielder brought down Dempsey. Bradley again showed his free-kick prowess, chipping a ball over the top to find the dreadlocked head of Jermaine Jones, but Penedo stopped the shot. Jones again played center back, partnering with Besler, with DeAndre Yedlin and Break Shea on the outside as United States manager Jurgen Klinsmann abandoned the 3-5-2 formation the team started with in its previous friendly against Chile. As is typical in the winter camp, which usually features domestic-based players, several players made their first appearance for the U.S. national team. Perry Kitchen and Matt Hedges made their debuts, and Miguel Ibarra and Gyasi Zardes were handed their first starts at the international level. There were more cards to be given out with Chris Wondolowski getting into repeated altercations with Panama right back Leonel Parris. Though Wondolowski was booked earlier, the battle came to a head when Bejarano was examining Yedlin, who was forced off in the 72nd minute after being brought down from behind.
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Mikaela Shiffrin shares some tips for youngsters skiing for the first time, as well as her favorite mountain and where she gets her swag from.
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CARSON, Calif. When Michael Bradley curled a corner kick over the Panama defense and into the net for a spectacular goal, Clint Dempsey was unsure exactly how it happened. "You'd have to ask him whether he was aiming for that, because we didn't know," Dempsey said, laughing. With big goals from both veterans and a clean sheet, the United States provided ample reason for more excitement heading into an eventful year. Bradley scored in the 27th minute, Dempsey added his 40th career goal later in the first half, and the Americans snapped a five-game winless skid with a 2-0 victory over Panama on Sunday. The Americans wrapped up a monthlong training camp with their best result in 10 games since winning their opener at last year's World Cup. The U.S. had won just once since beating Ghana in Brazil, but coach Jurgen Klinsmann's squad looked considerably sharper in its home opener for a big year that includes the Gold Cup and World Cup qualifying. Bradley started it with a spectacular Olimpico goal, putting his corner kick directly into the far top corner of Jaime Penedo's net with an exceptional bend. Jozy Altidore could have headed it in if needed, but instead watched it settle for Bradley's 13th career goal. "Coming out of a little bit of a difficult period, it was an important game for us," Bradley said. "Maybe this isn't the most important game we'll play this year, but while it wasn't perfect, we were able to do a lot of good things. It sets the groundwork for the rest of the year." As for his goal, Bradley assured everybody that's exactly what he meant to do. "Well, we work on a lot of different setpieces," Bradley said. Goalkeeper Sean Johnson replaced Nick Rimando for the second half, finishing up the Americans' first shutout since their last victory, over the Czech Republic last September. The Americans' most impressive player was hometown star Gyasi Zardes, the LA Galaxy forward. He punctuated his first career U.S. start in the 37th minute by winning the ball in midfield and making a beautiful pass to Dempsey, who sidestepped Penedo and finished. Klinsmann praised Zardes and other youngsters who stepped up during the camp. "He is trying to impress, and he's hungry," Klinsmann said about Zardes. "He showed certain tools he has. The assist to Clint was just perfect, perfect timing. It shows he has something special." Dempsey, the Seattle Sounders star, trails only Landon Donovan as the second-leading goal-scorer in U.S. history. The Americans improved on last month's 3-2 loss in Chile while showing none of the second-half struggles that have prompted Klinsmann to question their fitness. The U.S. had yielded nine goals in the second halves of its last six games, but held Panama to a handful of good chances all day at StubHub Center south of downtown Los Angeles. Panama had little offensive luck against the U.S. in their first meeting since the Americans scored two stoppage-time goals to knock the Panamanians out of World Cup contention in heartbreaking fashion in October 2013. Panama has beaten the Americans just once in 15 meetings, losing six straight. After experimenting with a three-man back line in Chile, Klinsmann started in a 4-2-3-1 formation. Southern California natives Zardes and Miguel Ibarra got their first career starts, and Brek Shea moved back to defense to compensate for the absence of Steve Birnbaum, who has a minor knee injury. Defenders Perry Kitchen and Matt Hedges made their U.S. debuts in the second half, coming on for Max Diskerud and DeAndre Yedlin. Ten players have made their U.S. debuts in the seven games since the World Cup. A few fans unhappy with Klinsmann made their feelings known behind the south goal with banners reading "JK OUT" and "Red Card the Coach." Yet after a tentative start, Klinsmann's team showed off decent chemistry in the first half, capped by two beautiful goals. The second half was slower, but the American defense was largely impenetrable. Before the match, Panama honored Penedo for his 100th appearance. The LA Galaxy netminder got a big ovation from his home fans. The U.S. men return in late March with games in Denmark and Switzerland.
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