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You know that close friendships feel good. But did you know just how much of a health boost they can be? According to a 10-year study of older people in Adelaide, Australia, satisfying friendships predict longevity better than even close family ties, and they can protect against obesity, depression, and heart disease, among other health problems. "When women get stressed, our instinct is often to find a friend and talk things through," says Joan Borysenko, PhD, author of Inner Peace for Busy Women . "Both touch and talk release the hormone oxytocin, which has a profoundly calming effect on your mind and body." You don't need 600 Facebook friends or a swamped social calendar to reap these impressive perks (in fact, both can backfire). Research shows the following "types" of relationships are especially potent for your health. Here's how to cherish these friendships and make sure you stay close for the long haul. 1. A childhood friend Longtime intimates are special for many reasons. They knew you and your family while you were growing up and likely have many memories and stories of you that no one else does. "These friends remind you that you are still the person you've always been," says Rebecca G. Adams, PhD, a leading friendship researcher and sociology professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Nurture these ties by starting a members-only website groups on Yahoo, Google, or Facebook are free and make it easy. Use them to plan vacations or share links to digital photo albums. Or keep things low tech just stick a card in the mail now and then, and stay in touch with phone calls. Research from the University of Notre Dame shows that people who chat at least every 15 days have the best chance of staying close over time. 2. A new friend "As we get older, we can fall into ruts," says Pamela McLean, PhD, a psychologist in Santa Barbara, CA. "New friends ignite different kinds of thinking and fresh ways of being." What's more, they'll connect you to another network of people, says Rosemary Blieszner, PhD, a professor at Virginia Tech who has researched friendships among older women. That network can be helpful if you're looking to make a career change or find a new pool of potential dates. Find new friends at the office, befriend your kids' friends' parents, or try new activities, like that Zumba class at the gym. 3. A spiritual friend Photo by Blasius Erlinger/Getty Images A study from Duke University Medical Center found that people who regularly attended religious services or engaged in activities such as prayer, meditation, or Bible study had a 50% lower risk of dying over a 6-year period than others of the same age and health status. That's not to say it's easy to forge a connection in a room of 300 worshippers or while meditating on your own. Seek more intimate opportunities at a local church or temple: Volunteer in a canned food drive campaign, or attend a lecture series. Or try a neighborhood yoga center or community college; they often offer spiritually meaningful courses. 4. A workout friend Experts agree that exercising whether walking, golfing, or salsa dancing is one of the most important things you can do for your physical and mental health and longevity. And a good friend may be the glue that makes this healthy habit stick. A University of Connecticut study of 189 women ages 59 to 78 found that strong social support was key to maintaining a new exercise regimen for 1 year. For best results, set a joint exercise goal together whether it's going for a neighborhood walk 4 days a week or running a 5K. It's the best way to boost the get-healthy payoff of a workout partner because neither of you is poking and prodding the other, which is a recipe for resentment, says Marcia G. Ory, PhD, a researcher at Texas A&M Health Science Center. 5. A younger friend Research shows that an essential element of a happy life is to nurture and feel useful to others by cooking a wholesome meal, say, or passing on what you've learned through experience. For many women, that itch gets scratched by raising children. But mentoring younger friends (from the office, for example) can give you that same feeling, Blieszner says. To maximize the benefits of this friendship, let advice flow in both directions. A younger confidante can explain the social networking site du jour or offer a fresh take on current events. 6. Your mom Despite the inevitable conflicts between grown moms and daughters, the relationships are generally strong, supportive, and close. "There is great value in this bond because mothers and daughters care so much for one another," says study author Karen L. Fingerman, PhD. If you'd like to be closer but run into the same roadblocks over and over, here's some advice to overcome the most common issues. You find it hard to enjoy time with mom: Stop trying to change her, and focus on what you do enjoy, says Fingerman. You keep clashing over the same old issues: The women who had the strongest relationships didn't take the conflicts personally. Instead, they tended to see criticism as a reflection of their mother's habits or traits. The relationship feels too close for comfort: Daughters who did the best with this accepted that their mothers wanted more time together. Instead of telling their moms what they couldn't do, these daughters focused on when they could get together and what they could do for their mothers. 7. Your partner's friends The more a couple's family and friends intermingle, the happier spouses are after even just 1 year of marriage, found one study that examined the social circles of 347 couples. "We were surprised," says researcher Kenneth Leonard, PhD, a professor of clinical psychology at SUNY Buffalo. "Including your spouse in your network of friends is nearly as important for marital happiness as making them feel they are a part of your family." (Check out these 10 daily habits of happy couples .) 8. Yourself So, how does one befriend herself, exactly? It starts with self-knowledge, says Pamela Peeke, MD, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of Maryland. "Getting to know yourself is an amazing adventure," she says. "Think of what makes you fall in love with someone: how genuine, sincere, and caring they can be; the unconditional love they offer, no matter what. Doesn't that describe how you should feel about yourself?" Peeke recommends you repeat the following mantra as a reminder: "I love and honor myself as I do the other important people in my life." To give yourself the TLC you deserve, write down 7 things that make you feel happy and healthy (cooking dinner, talking to a friend, running, reading a book), and make sure you do at least one every day. MORE: 14 Little Ways To Lift Your Mood | 7 | 7,100 | health |
Former Australian Captain George Gregan says his money is on Ireland to win this year's Six Nations. | 8 | 7,101 | video |
If you're rushing to plan a fabulous Valentine's day, don't fret, there are a few apps that can help you add a spark to the holiday. Krystin Goodwin (@krystingoodwin) highlights a few of the best apps to plan a flawless evening for you and your Valentine! | 8 | 7,102 | video |
One of the big mysteries of national signing day 2015 was Byron Cowart and his college choice. In the end, this five-star defensive end committed to Auburn over Florida this morning. However, Cowart has not sent in his Letter of Intent to the Tigers. According to his high school coach, Sean Callahan, Cowart signed two LOIs this morning before his announcement on ESPNU to both Auburn and Florida. He then followed through with his television commitment obligation and gave his pledge to Auburn knowing he may send in his LOI afterwards. That indeed became the case, as Cowart is now torn between the Tigers and Gators. Callahan said that Cowart will huddle up with his mom, mentor, and himself and try and sort through what school he will eventually sign with. It could come later today, tomorrow, next week or even next month. Cowart is well aware that today is only the first day he can sign his LOI. At the end of the day Cowart will not do anything until he feels he's 100% comfortable with his decision. Cowart, 6-foot-4, 260-pounds, is the No. 1 defensive end in the country and No. 3 player overall. Stay tuned with Scout for the latest. | 1 | 7,103 | sports |
SAN DIEGO The tournament that Tiger Woods used to dominate now feels more like a big practice ground with splendid views of the Pacific. Woods always says he doesn't enter a tournament unless he thinks he can win, and he has done that 79 times on the PGA Tour. There was nothing Wednesday to suggest he felt any differently at Torrey Pines, even though he is coming off an 82 at the Phoenix Open, the highest score of his career. But while he is playing at Torrey Pines, where he is an eight-time winner as a pro, his mind was clearly on the Masters. "The whole idea is to make sure that I'm ready for Augusta, so I got a lot of rounds to play between now and then," Woods said Wednesday after a pro-am round at the Farmers Insurance Open that was cut to nine holes because of fog. How many rounds he gets in depends largely on this week. Woods has plunged to No. 56 in the world and is not eligible for the World Golf Championship at Doral next month. He typically would play the Honda Classic and Doral in consecutive weeks in south Florida, take a week off, play Bay Hill and then have two weeks off before the Masters. If he doesn't qualify for Doral, he would have only three tournaments all of them with 36-hole cuts before Augusta. "If I happen to play well enough to get into Doral, then great," Woods said. "I got four more rounds there. If I don't, then still trying to peak for Augusta. ... But I have to go out and earn my way there (Doral). I'm just going to have to play better than I did last week." The road to the Masters has never looked like such an uphill climb. Woods missed consecutive cuts on the PGA Tour for the first time in his career, though the tournaments were six months apart. He took four months off to completely heal from back surgery and regain his strength, and he chose to change his swing under a fourth coach, Chris Como, who was with him at Torrey Pines on Wednesday. Against an 18-man field at his unofficial Hero World Challenge at Isleworth the course he has played more than any other Woods tied for last and put on a shocking displaying of chipping. With two months to practice before the Phoenix Open, he tied for last with a club pro at TPC Scottsdale with a chipping performance that was even worse. Typical with Woods, everyone seemed to have a solution for him, not that he heard any advice. "My phone's been off the last couple of days," Woods said with a smile. "I've just been working on my game, just Chris and I." He made a detour to San Diego on Tuesday by going to Colorado to watch girlfriend Lindsey Vonn finish third in the world super-G. Woods looks out of his element in the snow, though at least he wasn't missing any teeth. He should really feel at home at Torrey Pines, where he has won this PGA Tour event seven times and won his third U.S. Open and last of his 14 majors in 2008. There was a time when Woods never finished out of the top 10. But he tied for 44th in 2011, the year he wound up missing two majors to heal from leg injuries, and then last year he missed the 54-hole cut with a 79 in the third round. A poor finish this week he has gone 10 straight tournaments out of the top 15 would send him to his lowest world ranking since he won his first PGA Tour event in Las Vegas in 1996. Woods made it clear that his attempt to go back to his old swing would take time, and he mentioned for the second straight week that he was stuck between the old swing pattern under Sean Foley and the new pattern he wants to develop under the eye of Como. Woods is 39, with five surgeries behind him. He has been on tour for nearly two decades. The competition is younger and hungrier. Woods has an entirely different lifestyle, a single father whose schedule is determined on which weeks he keeps his two children. As for golf, he attributes his poor form to being caught between the patterns. It is most noticeable with the chips, which are either fat or thin. Woods said he was in his backyard chipping, hitting full shots and "just trying to commit to the pattern." "That said, when I get out here and I have to hit a shot, I'm caught right in between," he said. "I'm battling through those times. ... My good is really good. Unfortunately, my bad is really bad." He plays the opening two rounds with Rickie Fowler and Billy Horschel, starting Thursday on the North Course at Torrey Pines. That's where Woods played his pro-am on Wednesday. On his final hole, the par-5 ninth, he hit a fairway metal well right of the green, leaving him over a mound and across the green to the flag. Woods never hit the shot. He had an assistant retrieve the ball and he was done for the day. | 1 | 7,104 | sports |
Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) said on Wednesday that its 12,123 U.S. shops would begin offering coconut milk on Feb. 17, as it seeks to keep pace with soaring demand for non-dairy and non-soy milk alternatives. Starbucks began offering soy milk in 1997. Consumer tastes have since evolved, driving strong demand for other non-dairy alternatives made from products such as coconuts, hemp, rice, almonds and other nuts. The move from the world's biggest coffee chain also comes as smaller rivals such as Peet's Coffee and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf also offer non-soy dairy milk alternatives. Starbucks declined to name its coconut milk supplier. As it does with soy milk, Starbucks will add a 60 cent charge to drinks made with coconut milk. U.S. retail sales of non-dairy, non-soy milk alternatives are expected to nearly double to almost $2.4 billion by 2019, according to research firm Euromonitor International. Those gains appear to be coming at the expense of cow and soy milk. Euromonitor expects U.S. dairy milk sales, which were $14.7 billion in 2014, to fall about 11 percent to around $13.2 billion by 2019. Soy milk sales, which hit $577 million last year, are expected to drop 30 percent from that level in 2019, according to Euromonitor. | 3 | 7,105 | finance |
The House-passed Department of Homeland Security funding bill, which includes language rolling back and blocking President Obama's immigration orders from 2012 and 2014, was blocked for a second time Wednesday after again failing to pass a procedural hurdle, 53 to 47. Democrats voted in solidarity against it. One Republican, Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada, crossed the aisle once again and voted with Democrats to block the bill from coming forward. Two failed votes later, most Senate Republicans remain committed to their strategy: Keep putting Democrats on record supporting the president's executive action on immigration and then blame them for a filibuster that could inevitably lead to DHS shutting down. Democrats, meanwhile, are also dug in as the minority and only prepared to vote on one thing: a clean funding bill to keep the lights on at the Department of Homeland Security. A repeat performance from Tuesday, Wednesday's vote is not expected to be the last. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office says that another vote could happen as soon as Thursday, catapulting the Senate into a week-long game of deja vu. Many conservative Republicans are firmly behind their leadership's decision to keep bringing the same legislation up for a procedural vote. On Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner argued that if Senate conservatives wanted to make a stand against Obama's immigration action, they would be the ones on the front line to fight. Many of them are pleased with McConnell's commitment to not back down. "[McConnell] has moved this bill forward, he has stood firm that we should bring it to the floor, that we should pass it," says Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., a senator who has been known to rally conservatives in the House around immigration causes. "He's done the right thing." Republicans lament that while Democrats want to whine about what is in the legislation, they are not willing to vote to move the bill forward where amendments would be possible. "Is there anything wrong with just discussing it?" asks Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. "I think that the public has to know that the Democrats don't want to discuss what the president did last November." But, patience among some of the more moderate members of the caucus, members who want to exhibit the party's propensity to govern, may be starting to wear thin. "Is that the definition of insanity? Voting for the same bill over and over again," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. asks. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who worked on the bipartisan immigration bill that passed the the last session of Congress, says it's up to McConnell, but he's not sure the DHS funding bill is the best time to have an immigration debate. "My preference has always been to address Obama's action with legislation," Flake says. "I think we see the end of this movie." Sen. Jim Inhofe does not expect to find resolution with this tactic. At some point, he says Republicans will have to find a new way forward. "I think three is enough," Inhofe says. ""There is going to be an effort to keep bringing it up and keep the issue alive and as you know there is division within the conference on this." In upcoming days, McConnell may find himself beginning to be boxed in as he has to continue to quell the conservatives without risking more defections from the moderates in his conference. Some say that the repeated votes may be nothing more than a way for McConnell a legislator who has a reputation for making deals to show his right flank that he's willing to go to the mat for legislation, but he may also end up making a point to some in his caucus that the reality is even with a new majority, the party cannot get exactly what it wants. "We understand what the House did, but we hope they understand our constraints as well, but we cannot shut down the Department of Homeland Security with the threats that we have from ISIS and overseas," McCain says. As the deadline looms, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, was trying to find a way to break the Democratic filibuster. She offered an amendment Wednesday to strip the House bill of the contentious repeal of the president's 2012 executive action hoping it might get some Senate Democrats to vote to move onto the bill. But, moderates were not interested. "DHS is something that should be a clean bill. I have always said that," said Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia who has been known to cross the aisle on key votes when he was asked whether he would support moving forward with the DHS funding bill if the Collins amendment was promised. He said he'd take a look at it, but that he believed it needed to stand alone. "I am willing to debate immigration or anything else separate, but not under these circumstances." Rep. John Carter, chairman of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, however, said that he would be open to a DHS funding bill that only targeted the latest executive action. "Politically, [McConnell] needs to make a lot of noise. Because the constituency is very upset about that November surprise," Carter said. "If we have to compromise, the fight is on November." | 5 | 7,106 | news |
GAINESVILLE - A question nobody is asking but everyone should be asking in the wake of National Signing Day: Why was Will Muschamp allowed to recruit against a school that is paying him $6.3 million during the next three seasons? How ironic and idiotic, huh? Even now that he's gone, Muschamp is still making Gator fans curse and mumble and log onto Twitter and vent about how he is destroying their program. Fortunately for UF, Jim McElwain - the jovial, joking new coach - was able to overcome the Muschamp malaise on Wednesday and actually put a smile on the face of Gator Nation during his inaugural signing day McElwain might have just pulled off the most entertaining salvage job since Sanford and Sons. He took a recruiting class that was in the junkyard when he arrived - a banged-up and battered old jalopy - and turned it into a pretty nice little ride. He somehow transformed that 1992 Geo Metro he found when he arrived into a 2012 Honda Accord with low mileage. No, it's not the Rolls Royce classes that Alabama, Florida State and USC hauled in, but it at least gets the McElwain era cranked up and rolling in the right direction. For UF's coaching staff to pull off a top-25 class and land two five-star recruits - mammoth offensive tackle Martez Ivey of Apopka (the No. 1 offensive lineman in the country) and Baker County High's CeCe Jefferson (the No. 2 defensive end in the country) - is remarkable considering the adverse circumstances they were recruiting under. The Gators only had six commitments and a class ranked 86th in the country when McElwain took over eight weeks ago, and he finished with a class much more highly ranked (No. 21) than that of another more publicized first-year coach - Michigan's Jim Harbaugh (No. 38). Traditionally, a college head coach's first class is weak because the staff only has a few weeks to make the connections and build the relationships other coaches have spent years cultivating. When you also consider Muschamp's final two years at UF were a train wreck and his job security was constantly in question, it's no wonder top recruits flocked to other more successful, less volatile programs. The most monumental obstacle McElwain had to overcome was Muschamp himself. How many head coaches take over a program and then have to go head-to-head in recruiting with their predecessor? When Urban Meyer took the UF job, he didn't have to directly recruit against Ron Zook. When Muschamp took over, he didn't have to immediately go mano-a-mano against Meyer. But after he was fired at UF, Muschamp - always a relentless recruiter - immediately took a job as the defensive coordinator at Auburn and quickly targeted the recruits he built relationships with at Florida. Early on signing day, Muschamp convinced arguably the No. 1 player in the country - Seffner Armwood defensive end Byron Cowart - to choose Auburn over Florida. Later in the day, four-star linebacker Jeffrey Holland out of Jacksonville Trinity Christian Academy also chose Auburn over Florida. "My uncle played for Auburn," Holland told reporters. "And Coach Muschamp, that was a big deal right there. That put the icing on the cake." Question for UF Athletic Director Jeremy Foley and other college ADs who flush money down the toilet like it's used toilet paper: When you pay a coach like Muschamp $6.3 million in buyout money after you fire him, why not write something into the coach's contract that says, "You are forbidden from taking another job within the conference for at least one calendar year after your termination. Otherwise, you forfeit the buyout." "The guy [Muschamp] is a great ball coach and he obviously had some insights that I'm sure they were able to use," McElwain said of Auburn's highly ranked recruiting class. "But it's never about anybody else. It's about what we have and who we are and we are very secure in that and know we are going to move forward and be successful in what we are trying to accomplish. That [Muschamp factor] is part of the game. Never really thought about it, to be honest." To be honest, that's not being honest. Of course, McElwain, Foley and the rest of Gator Nation are annoyed that Muschamp is now recruiting against them. You think they like the fact that Coach Boom tried his best to blow up McElwain's first recruiting class? You think it's a stretch to say Muschamp is the main reason Florida's class is top 25 instead of top 10? Why was Will Muschamp allowed to take $6.3 million of the Gators' money and then immediately begin taking their recruits, too? [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @BianchiWrites. Listen to his radio show every weekday from 6 to 9 a.m. on 740 AM. | 1 | 7,107 | sports |
New study examines mortality rates. | 7 | 7,108 | health |
As Jordan reels from the horrific killing of one of its fighter pilots by Islamic State militants, the death also highlights how inextricably involved the country has become in the conflict in Syria. Jordan shares an extensive border with Syria, and the proximity has made it one of the main recipients of refugees from the country, as well as a host for covert U.S.-led training of Syrian rebels. While this flow of Syrians into Jordan has raised concerns over security and strain on resources, there's also worry over the significant number of Jordanians who have become foreign fighters in Syria. Out of the countries adding to the militants in Syria and Iraq, few are in the same league as Jordan. According to the most recent figures by The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, Jordan has an estimated 1,500 citizens fighting in Syria and Iraq. Only Saudi Arabia and Tunisia are believed to have contributed higher numbers of militants, with high-end estimates of 2,500 and 3,000, respectively. Both of these countries have millions more citizens to draw from as well, giving Saudi Arabia a fighters per capita ratio of 107 per million and Tunisia 280 per million, Radio Free Europe reports . Jordan's ratio is reported as 315 per million, putting them as the top contributor of foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria per capita. One of the prominent cities from which Jordanians emerge as combatants is reportedly Zarqa, birthplace of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- who led the Islamic State's precursor, al Qaeda in Iraq. The New York Times reported this past April that one-third of the foreign fighters heading to Syria from Jordan were coming from Zarqa, abruptly leaving town "only to resurface across the border with the Nusra Front, Syria's Qaeda affiliate, or the Islamic State." It is hard to estimate the number of Jordanian fighters choosing to join Islamic State militants. A 2014 report by The Soufan Group points out there's also been no official estimate given by Jordan officials on the number of Jordanians fighting in Syria, let alone with the Islamic State group. The ICSR report, which estimates there are 20,730 total foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, does not distinguish which group the combatants join. ICSR director Peter Neumann said in an interview with The WorldPost that around 80 percent of Western foreign fighters join the Islamic State group, while those from Arab nations tend to go to a more diverse range of militant groups. There's been much hand-wringing over the effect that the multitude of foreign fighters will have on their home countries, with some analysts claiming the threat is overblown while others insist on increased security. Jordan is opting for the latter, with a harsh anti-terror law in place that features lengthy prison term for alleged Islamic State supporters, including five to 15 years in jail for posting the group's videos. As of October 2014, between 60 and 90 people have reportedly been arrested under the law for alleged connections to the Islamic State group, a number that is likely to rise. In the wake of the killing of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh, Jordan's King Abdullah II vowed to continue the fight against the Islamic State on Wednesday, declaring, "We are waging this war to protect our faith, our values and human principles and our war for their sake will be relentless." | 5 | 7,109 | news |
Lactic acid is fitness enemy No. 1. It builds up in your muscles, makes them ache, and, for the sake of everything that is fit and pure, needs to be flushed out of your system and massaged from your muscles. Lying on your back with your legs up against the wall will surely help. Or, at least, that's what a lot of people including some trainers, physiologists, and academics will tell you. But they're wrong. Or, let's call it, misinformed. The body doesn't actually produce lactic acid. It produces lactate. And, while that's mostly a matter of semantics, we're going to call it lactate because 1) that's what it produces, 2) your body's pH is too high for lactic acid to exist in the body, and 3) lactate doesn't make your muscles more acidic. In fact, not only does lactic acid not make your muscles sore, but its production actually helps ease your muscles' mid-workout burn, explains Janet Hamilton, C.S.C.S., an exercise physiologist at Running Strong in Atlanta. When you perform a high-intensity workout like strength training, tennis, or a boxing circuit your body demands a ton of fuel, which it supplies through glycolysis, breaking down carbs, glycogen, and other molecules to produce a high-energy compound called ATP, Hamilton says. ATP is then broken down, releasing energy and other molecules, including hydrogen, throughout your muscles. Get this: It's actually those hydrogen ions that are wreaking havoc on your workout. When hydrogen builds up in your muscles, it causes a drop in your body's pH, making it more acidic, interfering in your muscles fibers' ability to contract, and causing a mid-workout burn that will eventually cut your exercise short. So why do people blame lactic acid (or, excuse us, lactate)? It all goes back to the 1920s, when scientists first observed that lactate was a by-product of glycolysis. What's more, as blood levels of lactate increased, so did the muscle fiber's acidity, she says. Basically, high levels of lactate in your bloodstream are associated with a mid-workout "hurts so good" burn. But lactate isn't causing it. It's a common case of mistaking correlation with causality. Think about it this way: Just because you wear your swimsuit in the summer doesn't mean that pulling it on in the winter will make the temps rise 50 degrees and the water thaw. See, apart from hydrogen, glycolysis also yields a by-product called pyruvate, which can snatch up rogue hydrogen ions floating through your muscles, forming lactate. Why? To try to keep your body from becoming too acidic, she says. You get that? Lactate forms to rid your body of workout-wrecking hydrogen ions. As if that weren't enough to rehab lactate's rep, consider this: Lactate easily converts back into pyruvate, which your body can use to create even more workout-revving energy, Hamilton says. Lactate is fitness fuel. SO WHAT'S CAUSING THE BURN? While the formation of lactate can ease the pain, pyruvate can't always gobble up the hydrogen ions fast enough, meaning you can still get some burn and fatigue when you hit it hard, says Los Angeles based trainer Mike Donavanik , C.S.C.S. Hydrogen-caused fatigue in your muscles tapers off within minutes to hours after your workout (depending, of course, on how much hydrogen you build up), he says. Any soreness after that typically called delayed-onset muscle soreness is caused by micro-tears, as well as swelling in your muscles, says Anthony Wall, M.S., exercise physiologist and director of professional education for the American Council on Exercise . But neither hydrogen nor lactate (and especially not lactate!) has anything to do with it. • • • Also on Details.com: How Basketball Star Tim Hardaway Jr. Got His Body How Building Arm Strength Can Help Your Cardio Workout The Only 5 Exercises You Will Ever Need | 7 | 7,110 | health |
The Islanders have dropped three straight games. How much does this team miss Kyle Okposo, who is out with a torn retina, and how can they bounce back? | 1 | 7,111 | sports |
Which college football team had the best haul on National Signing Day? #120Talk | 1 | 7,112 | sports |
CLEMSON, S.C. He was basically a nobody back then, a guy known and appreciated for his enthusiasm, but rarely taken seriously when he pushed and prodded the Clemson coaching staff to go out and recruit the best players in the country. While so many ingrained in the Clemson culture were conceding the five-stars to the splashier programs, Dabo Swinney then just a recruiting coordinator and wide receivers coach under Tommy Bowden was going head-to-head with Florida, Florida State and Miami, determined to pull the best running back in the country right out of their back yard. "There was a mentality when I came that here we couldn't get the C.J. Spillers, and I just never bought into that," Swinney said. "I was like, why not? Why can't we sign C.J. Spiller? I text him every week, he wants to come visit, and if we get him here we have a shot because Clemson is special. My mentality back then is if we can land a player like C.J. Spiller and he has success then hey, we'll have a shot with another one and another one and another one." On Wednesday morning, Swinney sent Spiller another text, reminding him that nine years had passed since he signed with Clemson and everything that followed can be traced back to that day. It has taken time and evolution and a track record of success, but Swinney's prediction that Spiller would open the floodgates for elite players coming to Clemson has been realized in a major way. Regardless of which scouting service you looked at Wednesday, nearly all of them ranked Clemson's class in the top 10, some even in the top five. Regardless, it was a major haul with a pair of five-star skill players from Florida in running back Ray-Ray McCloud and receiver Deon Cain, a consensus top-five defensive tackle in Christian Wilkins and a top-three offensive tackle prospect in Mitch Hyatt among the 26 signees. Since Swinney became permanent head coach following the 2008 season, Clemson has recruited blue-chip stars like Sammy Watkins, Stephone Anthony and Deshaun Watson, but never this many in the same year. And now, after going 42-11 the past four seasons, Swinney believes this could be the class that lifts Clemson from fringe contender status to among the elite programs in the country. "I don't have any doubt when we look back four-to-five years from now, this group of players has potential that is very special," Swinney said. "We're trying to be the best, get to the very top and if we continue to be about the right things, we'll get where we need to be and it's going to be a lot of fun when we do." *** From a perception standpoint, few programs have come as far as quickly as Clemson. Once dismissed as a fraud that got by against the ACC's weak sisters but gagged on the big stage, the Tigers have beaten Oklahoma, Ohio State, Georgia and LSU the past three seasons and haven't lost to a team outside the top 25 since N.C. State in 2011. That's not an accident. At this point, the only negative marks on Swinney's tenure are his 2-5 record against South Carolina and the fact that two of the best teams in Clemson history played in the same division as Florida State teams that won the national title in 2013 and got to the College Football Playoff in 2014. The Florida State problem isn't going away anytime soon, but at least from a talent standpoint, the gap doesn't appear to be getting wider anymore. Even when the Tigers had Tajh Boyd as a senior quarterback and Watkins playing receiver in 2013, the Seminoles outclassed Clemson at practically every position. When they meet next year and the year after that, the rosters will be much closer to even. Part of the reason for that is Swinney's insistence on streamlining and modernizing the program's recruiting operation in the past couple years. Clemson has spent millions in the last half-decade building facilities that can match almost anyone in the country, but until Swinney lured Thad Turnipseed from Alabama to oversee what he calls "Clemson Google," he still felt like they were inefficient and behind their competitors. Though Turnipseed hasn't replicated Alabama's player personnel department, which includes 16 operations coordinators, player development directors and football analysts "We're definitely a lot smaller, but we're exactly what we need," Turnipseed said Clemson now has a staff of people dedicated to the logistical side of recruiting, encompassing everything from recruiting schedules to creating graphics for recruits. Turnipseed, whose official title is director of recruiting and external affairs, also helped guide Swinney through the process of renovating the players lounge and improving the locker room and got a $260,000 budget increase to buy more recruiting software, secure more private plane time for coaches to recruit and improve their mailed recruiting materials. "Everything that used to be done in my office with maybe one student assistant has been replaced by Thad and his assistants that work back there all the time (on recruiting)," said Jeff Scott, who has been Clemson's recruiting coordinator since 2008 but will move up to offensive coordinator in 2015. "A lot of times I was doing wide receiver stuff and at lunch I'd go in for 90 minutes and do recruiting, then go to practice. At some point you're turning one off to turn the other one on and recruiting had gotten so big we needed someone to come in and do nothing but recruiting full time, and it's allowed us to really take that next step." *** And from where Clemson has been the past few years, the only step left is the biggest of all. This program doesn't have the budget of Alabama, the cachet of Southern Cal or the captive recruiting base of a place like LSU or Ohio State. It's still a grind to get the best players in the country to pick Clemson, but each year more and more are interested and now more and more are coming. After six full years under Swinney, there's no need to beg recruits to take a leap of faith or sell promises of success sometime down the road. Unlike when he was in Tajh Boyd's living room, convincing him to put his future in the hands of an unproven coach while Oregon's Mike Bellotti and Ohio State's Jim Tressel were waiting out front, Swinney is no longer the scrappy lightweight in any recruiting battle. "It's night and day because now you have performance and not just potential," Swinney said. "I wouldn't be right here if it wasn't for C.J. Spiller, so just one by one, a little piece here, a little piece there, but now six years in we do have a track record. We have a level of consistency that is special, and it's awesome to see our brand nationally relevant and that's been my goal. I never dreamed of just trying to be relevant in the ACC. That's important, but we want to be nationally relevant a team that is going to be in the mix for the longer term." From the looks of what Clemson accomplished on Signing Day 2015, the Tigers won't be out of the mix anytime soon. | 1 | 7,113 | sports |
Traffic at nearly 30 West Coast ports is on the verge of "complete gridlock" and shipping officials have threatened to stop paying dockworkers if a contract deal is not reached soon. Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) and the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) have been working to negotiate new contracts since May. Nearly 20,000 dockworkers at 29 ports are impacted. PMA says ILWU has conducted slowdowns, walk-offs and other actions at key ports, aggravating congested conditions and disrupting cargo movement in a bid to influence the talks. Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, McKenna said the organization is not considering a technical "lockout," but warned that the system would bring itself to a stop if production stays at current levels. He said productivity had dropped between 30 percent and 50 percent in recent months, crippling whole strings of vessels, in some cases. It's like "they're getting paid to grind us into the ground," McKenna said. In addition, workers would see their wages rise about 3 percent annually and the maximum ILWU pension would rise to $88,800 per year as part of the proposed five-year contract. PMA laid out the details of its latest contract offer to ILWU, which included $174,000 in annual compensation and full healthcare coverage. McKenna said the organization was "barging well beyond our comfort zone," calling the offer the best it could come up with. The union has long been concerned with issues of jurisdiction and automation. Workers want guarantees about future work, which the contract proposal doesn't appear to address, industry observers say. McKenna said automation has not been "front and center in these negotiations at all." However, he added that there were still six major issues to left to overcome, including issues involving the arbitration process, turnover agreement and pensions. A representative for ILWU did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment. | 3 | 7,114 | finance |
Love, Rosie's Sam Claflin and Lily Collins star as two friends who might just be meant for each other in the romantic film, which is based on a novel by the same writer who penned P.S. I Love You. The duo recently stopped by our LA studios to talk about whether or not they believe in romantic fate, their tequila-drenched dance scene, and even Fifty Shades of Grey. Love, Rosie is in select theaters and on VOD this Friday. | 8 | 7,115 | video |
Jessica Alba, Kerry Washington and Molly Sims enjoy an A-list moms' night out on today's Celebs Gone Social, hosted by Wonderwall Editor Jessica Wedemeyer. | 6 | 7,116 | entertainment |
The nation's top CB recruit talks about committing to USC and bringing a title back to USC. | 1 | 7,117 | sports |
With violent moves and bloodshed everywhere, Jim Cramer thinks this market is like watching the movie " Scarface ." So, for the moment he would rather talk about the wild swings of the market and what caused them instead of Greek bonds, and what's not behind them. "I say we have to understand the violence, if not embrace it, to see if we can profit from both the damage and the extreme moves to the upside that might not yet be finished," said the "Mad Money" host. There were just too many market casualties to count today. But the bloodiest of them all was Chipotle (CMG) , when it dropped 7 percent in one day. Most investors wanted out of the stock before same-store sales plummeted any further and consider the stock too difficult to own. Cramer thinks that judgment was wrong and that the quarter got a bad rap because of the decision not to take pork from a supplier who treated the pigs inhumanely. This shortsighted view of Chipotle's guidance does not take the company into long-term consideration. "Stocks that are down this big in one day tend to go down big again the next. You buy on day three. That's been the right move every time for Chipotle. I think it will be so again," said the "Mad Money" host. One stock that was not annihilated on Wednesday, was Disney (DIS) . Cramer considers it to be the greatest American growth story of all time. And until Bob Iger took over as the CEO 10 years ago, Disney was a much different story. It would have a good movie once in a while, followed by a weak movie, strong theme park attendance and not so strong numbers. Iger has now transformed the company from being a $15 stock, into a $101 stock in a matter of just six years. He also added tens of billions in market capitalization on top of that. How did this CEO manage to transform Disney so quickly? One word consistency. In fact, Cramer thinks the consistency is so strong that it acts more like a packaged goods company than anything else. Ultimately, the consistency reduced risk for the company. "Remember, between now and next year when China's them park opens, this will be the stock that everyone wants to own," said Cramer. What the heck happened to Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO) ? The maker of popular video games such as "Grand Theft Auto" has been a long-time favorite for Cramer, yet somehow after reporting a fabulous quarter the stock fell off a cliff on Wednesday. On Tuesday night, Take-Two reported a 25 cent earnings beat from a $1.52 basis, crushed revenue estimates and upped guidance for the year. Unfortunately investors still took the stock to the woodshed, claiming there was not much visibility into its game release schedule. But it seemed that the lack of "Grand Theft Auto" or the lack thereof in the release schedule, is all that Wall Street cared about. Could the stock market's flounder, be an opportunity for investors? To find out, Cramer sat down with Take-Two Interactive Software's chairman and CEO Strauss Zelnick. "When the question is raised that we keep increasing the comps because the results are so good, it's really hard to argue with that. That's a problem I'd like to have," said Zelnick One thing that consumers are buying a lot of this year, are the big ticket items. This attributes to the success of Brunswick Corporation (BC) , the world's number one maker of recreational boats. Including the fishing boat like Jim Cramer's 17 food Boston Whaler, to boat engines, fitness machines and even pool tables. Basically toys for the wealthy. Brunswick reported last week, and delivered a 6 cent earnings beat from a 27 cent basis and increased its guidance for the year. Can the stock sail higher? Cramer sat down with Brunswick Corporation CEO Dusty McCoy to find out. The CEO explained that while the number of new boat units have dropped there are certain models that are sold out and have increased in sales, indicating a change of consumer interests. "Before the recession we were selling around new 310,000 units. The recession hit us and we sold 135,000 units. Now we are back to new 170,000 units...What's changing are that people are looking at boating differently and they want a boat that fits new and different lifestyles ," said McCoy. In the Lightning Round, Cramer gave his take on a few caller favorite stocks: Ambarella (AMBA) : "You've got a gun to your head, my friend. We're in a crazy market here, you don't want to put a gun to your head! Don't buy." Stratasys Ltd (SSYS) : "No, we are staying away from that one. We don't like the 3-D space, other than when HP spins off. That stock is not done going down in my opinion." | 3 | 7,118 | finance |
The Scream franchise was an instant cult classic, credited with reviving the modern horror slasher genre in film. The movies were a clever satire, completely aware of horror-film clichés and inserting them into the plot. Spoof or not, the original Scream film remains the highest-grossing slasher film in the U.S. | 8 | 7,119 | video |
Campus Insiders' Doug Chapman, Pete Fiutak, and Ray Crawford recap the highs and lows of National Signing Day including why the SEC is still king of college football, why the battle between USC and UCLA is going to a whole new level, and why a newly hired-head coach has reason to relax and celebrate. | 1 | 7,120 | sports |
Louisville football coach Bobby Petrino defended his decision Wednesday to offer a scholarship and accept a letter of intent from former standout TCU defensive end DeVonte' Fields, who was dismissed from that school and football program after allegations of domestic violence. Fields, now a five-star prospect at Trinity Valley Community College in Texas, officially signed with the Cardinals on national signing day, providing the team with a potential star but requiring Petrino to answer questions about Fields' background and character. Petrino said Louisville recruited Fields all season at Trinity Valley following his summer dismissal from TCU, where he'd been voted the Big 12 Preseason Defensive Player of the Year. Petrino said the Cards did their due diligence in vetting Fields "a long process," he said gathering opinions and information from Fields' current and former coaches, including TCU's Gary Patterson, his mother and attorneys. "I believe in second chances and sometimes third chances," Petrino said, adding that he's been touched by former players who have gone on to succeed after he gave them new opportunities. "Every one of them is on an individual basis guys on our own team, guys we go out and recruit. You do your research, and you try to make sure that if you have an opportunity to give a young man a second chance, I believe that you should do it." Fields was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault after an incident in July in which his ex-girlfriend's right cheek was found by police to be swollen and with a small cut under her eye, according to a Fort Worth Star-Telegram report from the time. According to the Star-Telegram, citing a police report, Fields' ex-girlfriend also claimed that Fields had punched in a window from the outside while she was inside a house talking to their mutual friend. She later recanted another initial allegation that Fields appeared to be holding a gun. "I think we have a really good understanding of what went on, what happened," Petrino said. "From talking with the attorneys and really knowing that, we felt comfortable that, No. 1, there was absolutely no gun there, and it's a misdemeanor charge." Petrino said he couldn't discuss details of Fields' case further until it's resolved, "and we feel good about how the outcome is going to come." Petrino said Fields has a good attitude about his future at Louisville and "understands what our expectations are and the standard he's going to be held to when he's here on campus, and he embraces that." Petrino said Patterson had told him Fields "is a really good kid" and that "he loved the kid." "Obviously he had an issue there, and unfortunately he couldn't stay in school." Fields' talent on the field is unquestioned, and he figures to move right into the outside linebacker/edge rusher role vacated by star senior Lorenzo Mauldin. He had 6 ½ sacks in 12 games at Trinity Valley and is ranked the No. 2 junior-college prospect in the country by Scout.com. At TCU in 2012, he had 10 sacks among 18 1/2 total tackles for loss in being named the Big 12 Defensive Freshman of the Year. "We expect him to come in and play right now," Petrino said, adding that Fields was drawn to defensive coordinator Todd Grantham's system that had allowed Mauldin and other former end rushers to thrive and get one-and-one matchups. Grantham said he had no reservation about recruiting Fields, who has two years of eligibility left, and believes he understands that he has been granted a big opportunity to continue his education and athletic career. "He's a tremendous player that has a chance to be very special," Grantham said. "There's no doubt in my mind that he understands the standards we have for him." Steve Jones writes for The Louisville Courier-Journal. | 1 | 7,121 | sports |
Main election body concerned that country may not be ready for election to go ahead this month. With only days to go until Nigeria's presidential election, political parties are in a final race to secure votes. But that has been overshadowed by tensions and violent rivalries between parties and their supporters. The main election body is concerned that the country might not be ready for the election to go ahead on February 14. Al Jazeera's Ahmed Idris reports from the capital, Abuja. | 5 | 7,122 | news |
LA JOLLA, Calif. Reporters and camera crews still camp out for Tiger Woods the questions are just different. They've gone from "what's right?" to "what's wrong?" If it wasn't Woods, no one would box out for turf space for a guy coming off a round of 82 that dropped him to No. 56 in the Official World Golf Ranking, one spot behind Tommy Fleetwood. This is, at least in mind and body, the same Woods who has spent 683 total weeks at No.1. What's missing is the old spirit. The most telling testament of his struggles might be emanating from Las Vegas, where oddsmakers have listed Woods as a 50-to-1 longshot to win this week's Farmers Insurance Open. That's incredible considering Woods has won seven Farmers Opens at Torrey Pines and, in 2008, the U.S. Open on this course. Golf Channel analysts were ready to bring Woods down after he opened with a two-over 73 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, never fathoming his next-day 11-over. That's when the Gong Show really started. The latest round of grilling came after Wednesday's fog-shortened pro-am at Torrey Pines. Woods stuck to his formulaic script of suggesting just how close his new swing changes are to taking hold. "I'm caught right between (swing) patterns," Woods said. "I'm caught dead right in between." The troubleshooters in the media came close to prying from Woods the possibility that, at age 39, he might not be as devoted. Proof: Monday, instead of obsessing over his midlife golf crisis, Woods flew to Colorado to watch girlfriend Lindsey Vonn finish third in super-giant slalom at the World Ski Championships. Woods is also going downhill fast, but that's bad in golf. Is it possible the passion has waned? "I would say I practice less now," he said. He attributed concessions to injuries and the desire to spend more precious time with his joint-custody children. That doesn't mean Woods isn't trying. After missing the cut last week, he flew straight home to Florida and spent the weekend, he said, "chipping in my backyard." Anyone who saw Woods chip last week knows he should have made it a long weekend. There are, believe it or not, other story lines in advance of the Farmers, a 72-hole, two-course, majestic seaside tour stop north of San Diego. This year's event marks the return of Dustin Johnson, an eight-time tour winner, who took a six-month leave to deal with personal issues. Johnson has not played since missing the cut at last July's Canadian Open. He has denied, in interviews granted to selected media outlets, a published report that he had a cocaine problem. Johnson said his issues were alcohol related. He recently celebrated the birth of a child with Paulina Gretzky, the daughter of hockey legend Wayne Gretzky. Who's got next? Several top young stars Brooks Koepka, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas seem poised to lead the next generation into the post-Woods era. Spieth has climbed to No. 9 in the world rankings. The long-hitting Koepka, who attended Florida State before toiling in golf outposts such as Kazakhstan and Turkey, broke through with his first win last week in Phoenix. Many think Thomas, the 145-pound dynamo from Kentucky, may be the next man up. Lost in the gnashing over Woods is the fact Phil Mickelson isn't knocking many shots stiff. Last week, Woods and Mickelson missed the cut in the same tournament for only the second time. Mickelson and Woods have combined for 10 wins at the Farmers. Woods won two years ago; Mickelson hasn't won here since 2001. "I know where my game is," Mickelson said. "I don't feel the scores are reflecting it, but we'll see this week." Most of the oxygen, though, is being sucked up by Tiger Talk. Woods starts play Thursday morning on the North Course, with his game tilting south. The golf world, which for so long feared Woods, also knows it needs him. Woods grew the game exponentially and put increased purse money into everyone's pockets. "I think everyone is curious," Rickie Fowler, paired with Woods on Thursday, said of his playing partner's game. Fowler then posted this bulletin on the state of Tiger's game: "He's human." What? It didn't seem that way through the years Woods wore an impenetrable shield on his way to 79 tour wins and 14 major championships. Tour veteran Pat Perez said he never imagined a Tiger Woods with the yips. "I thought he would have 25 majors by now and he would be thinking about retirement." Perez remembers when Woods was the best and "there was nothing you could do about it. He was just there. But it's just it's just different." Woods seems the only person not in a panic. He thinks his 82 was an aberration, not an omen. "I just need reps," he said. "I just need to keep doing it and doing it and doing it and eventually it will start becoming more natural." Maybe he knows something. If he doesn't, then the Farmers Insurance Open, a tournament Woods has dominated, becomes the latest eyebrow raise. Tiger at 21 was the start of something big. Nearing 40, this could be the start of something different. | 1 | 7,123 | sports |
February has been designated as Black History Month by every US president since 1976, and we're commemorating this year with 15 inspiring, motivational quotes from influential black figures like Angela Davis, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as iconic entertainers like Beyoncé Knowles and Oprah Winfrey. These thoughtful celebrity quotes are the perfect words to soak up now and pin later! Share away and don't forget to follow our Pinterest board for more uplifting words from your favorite stars. | 4 | 7,124 | lifestyle |
By Steve DelVecchio New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman earned the right to celebrate nonstop after the way he performed in Super Bowl XLIX. The only mistake he made was partying with a young lady named Sabrina. Edelman apparently hooked up with a girl named Sabrina after they partied together on Tuesday night. We know this because she bragged about it using the "moments" feature on Tinder, and the photo she shared went viral. ( You can see the photo here ) People are not happy with Sabrina. One Boston club promoter told TMZ that he is rallying local club owners to ban her from the area's nightlife scene. TMZ later got in touch with Sabrina , and she admitted she feels "terrible" about the whole situation. "I made a mistake. I feel really bad about it," she said. "He passed out and I was bored I guess. I was drunk … and I made a mistake and I feel terrible about it. "Some of the players were texting me that they were really disappointed. I obviously made a mistake and I can't take it back." While she expressed regret, Sabrina didn't seem concerned about promoters and club owners banning her from their establishments. "I've definitely gotten my fair share of clubbing in Boston and I have friends who work there who say I'm still welcome," she said. "I don't know if I'll go out anytime soon but that's my choice." If that sounds like a girl who is confident enough to sleep with an NFL player and then brag about it on Tinder, well… The important thing is Sabrina's dumb Tinder post didn't stop Edelman from tearing it up at the Super Bowl victory parade on Wednesday. | 1 | 7,125 | sports |
Bruce Feldman thinks UCLA was a big winner on signing day - from Snoop's son to a QB who many liken to Troy Aikman. | 1 | 7,126 | sports |
Feeling sad or lethargic now that the days are shorter and the temperatures have dropped? Sleeping more often than you want? You may be suffering from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), which is not some pop-psych mumbo-jumbo, but rather a very real type of depression that normally occurs in winter months as a response to the brutal changes in the natural day-night cycle. And it's widespread: SAD is estimated to affect 10 million Americans, according to Psychology Today . Symptoms include thoughts of suicide, irritability, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, feelings of hopelessness, weight gain and more. It's brought on when the reduced levels of sunlight mess with your internal clock, and your serotonin (the chemical that affects mood) and melatonin (the chemical that plays a role in your sleep patterns) levels get thrown out of whack. Some naysayers scoff at the idea of the condition (partly because of its super-meta acronym), but experts insist that it's not to be taken lightly. "People with SAD can get severely depressed," says explains Norman E. Rosenthal, M.D., a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine and author of the authoritative book, Winter Blues . "Sufferers may lose relationships because they're not engaged enough with family and friends or get bad performance reviews at work because they're unable to execute their work." During a recent study , researchers found that people with low vitamin D levels were at greater risk for developing SAD. The condition is more common in women than men, and is more prevalent in northern latitudes, due to limited winter daylight hours. However, Rosenthal explains, SAD can affect people living in, say, a shady part of Hawaii. And it can even flare up in some people during the summer. Although there is no known cure for SAD, there are three key treatments that Rosenthal and other experts suggest: "Decrease stress and increase exercise," he says. Phototherapy (a fancy word for, you guessed it, light therapy) has also been proven to be effective. "Go outdoors and take a walk on a bright winter day; the mornings are the best time for this," he adds. • • • Also on Details.com: Let There Be Light: A New Wave of Stylish, Energy-Efficient Pendant Lamps You're Not Getting Enough Light and It's Ruining Your Health 7 Physical Effects of Sleep Deprivation | 7 | 7,127 | health |
Vending machines are being placed in dispensaries in Washington to help with the high volume of sales and long lines. | 8 | 7,128 | video |
This won't quiet the baying wolves. Miami Hurricanes football fans steadfastly predisposed to complaint will see Wednesday's National Signing Day results as another reason to doubt coach Al Golden, while stalwart fans determined to keep the faith are presented their latest challenge. First let us say, and underline for emphasis, that nobody knows anything for sure when it comes to your or any college football team's dice roll that a bunch of 17-year-olds might duplicate their high-school stardom at the next level. That's a gamble that can take a couple or even three years to fairly and accurately judge, which is why even other inexact sciences look down on the bizarre phenomenon of any school's recruiting class spawning instant grades and rankings. ("It's just guesswork that isn't to be trusted," said Astrology). This is part of why the annual media orgy of excess that National Signing Day has become is so silly, along with the absurdity of ESPNU nationally televising some kid signing a letter of intent. And we wonder why top athletes assume entitlement? We wonder why the order of "student-athlete" gets turned around? In any case the dadgum class rankings are all we have and we are forced to trust them, because we are talking about a bunch of far-flung players who you likely have never heard of and almost certainly have never watched play. So these rankings, like the Bible, are held as gospel by many, and they offer a somber counterpoint to the rote optimism espoused by Golden on Wednesday about his 20-player class of 2015. "An exciting day for us," said Golden in a 23-minute media session on campus. "We're happy with this class and the needs that we met." Less happily, big daddy ESPN ranked UM's class No. 24 in the nation, Rivals.com and 247Sports.com both have it 26th, and Scout.com has it 33rd. Those are the big four of NSD guesswork, and they seem to agree Miami's bounty is underwhelming. Only one other time in the past 10 years has a Canes class been ranked lower than 17th by ESPN; that was in 2011 when it did not crack the Top 25. Have the rankings earned your trust, though? Nah. ESPN ranked UM's recruiting class No. 1 in the entire nation in 2008, with the group fronted by Jacory Harris and Sean Spence. Yet that group ultimately couldn't even save coach Randy Shannon's job. In the 2010-11 seasons, when that top-rated class should have been blossoming and leading the way to greatness, the Canes were a combined 13-12. The lesson is that ballyhooed five-star recruits can fizzle and under-radar two-star recruits might surprise you and what happens once they step on campus the coaching they get is usually more important than whether they arrived as a blue chip or a lump of coal. What's most telling about the latest incoming class to me isn't that the three-star guys outnumber the four-star guys. It is the location of where the guys are coming from. Howard Schnellenberger used to say three-quarters of UM's recruiting class ideally should be kids from Miami-Dade, Broward or Palm Beach counties. Jimmy Johnson once told me he'd be perfectly fine if you told him he could only recruit South Florida nowhere else in the country but could have every local player he coveted. The Hurricanes owned the backyard, once. That is what has changed, and Wednesday continued the trend of many top local players making a U-turn away from The U. UM is in a fight now to keep the backyard kids it wants, like a presidential candidate struggling to carry his own home state, and not always winning. The latest indications: Fewer than half of Miami's 2015 recruits (seven of 20) are South Florida players. And UM landed only two of the Top 25-rated Dade/Broward prospects: Booker T. Washington running back Mark Walton (No. 4) and Killian safety Jaquan Johnson (No. 11). The ones that got away including American Heritage cornerback Tarvarus McFadden (to FSU), Booker T. receiver Antonio Caldwell (to the Gators) and Heritage quarterback Torrance Gibson (to Ohio State) are some of the main reasons UM is ranked so low. Golden mentioned making inroads upstate, especially in Jacksonville, but the program must redouble efforts to shore its Dade/Broward base. Guys once committed to UM who changed their mind before signing day also were a huge problem for Golden this year, one he called "a little bit challenging, a little bit frustrating." There were 14 de-commitments in all, an astounding number Golden owed to "a variety of reasons," and a defection that left Miami scrambling at times. Plainly, even though the NCAA investigation-cloud is past, a funk of mediocrity including a 6-7 season just past has robbed the program of much of the swagger that once was a major selling point, especially locally. The latest recruits were toddlers about 3 years old when UM won the most recent of its five national championships. A head coach under fire with many fans doesn't help in the recruiting process, either. I actually like what the Canes got a lot more than the self-appointed national experts who have made a lucrative cottage industry of analyzing high-school kids the way Mel Kiper Jr. does NFL-bound collegians. I see two behemoth, highly regarded offensive linemen in California's Bar Milo, a 6-6, 285-pounder who was Brad Kaaya's teammate, and Bradenton's Tyree St. Louis, who is 6-5 and 315. Keeping St. Louis was big, literally and figuratively, and UM beefed up an area of need with six OL signings in all. I see other consensus four-star recruits including Killian's Johnson, Booker T.'s Walton and New Jersey tight end Jerome Washington. (Miami also added a transfer from Florida, Gerald Willis, a former five-star recruit who'll be eligible in 2016. The Gators soured on Willis due to what Golden called "a lot of immaturity," but what a talent if Miami can screw his head on right.) The class is a bit out of balance, with no quarterback signee and only one running back and wide receiver, but those were weak positions in South Florida this year, and UM is stocked OK at each. It is all of those de-commitments, though, the ones that got away, that dragged Miami's ranking down in general estimation. The program got a lot of players it wanted, but settled for a lot of others. It leaves Al Golden without a highly-ranked recruiting class and as usual without much benefit of doubt. ABOUT THE WRITER Greg Cote is a columnist for the Miami Herald. | 1 | 7,129 | sports |
The White House is poised to send a formal request to Congress asking for a new authorization to use military force against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The request, expected within the next week, would come days after ISIS released a video showing a caged Jordanian pilot being burned alive a further display of the group's brutality that one Republican lawmaker described Wednesday as a "game-changer." Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said he would be "disappointed" if President Obama did not make the request very soon. "I do think it's forthcoming," Corker said in a short interview with The Hill. "I would be very surprised disappointed actually if it's not here by the end of next week. And maybe sooner." Sending an authorization for use of military force (AUMF) to Congress would open a complicated debate for the White House on war policy. Obama has repeatedly said he will not send combat troops to Iraq to fight ISIS, even as he has increased the number of U.S. military advisers in the country. But the White House also does not want the military's hands tied in Iraq, and is likely to oppose any language ruling out the use of ground troops. Democrats say any AUMF should contain a time limit for the authorization and also ban the use of U.S. ground troops in combat in Iraq and Syria. Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) said he'd "have trouble supporting" any AUMF that included the option of boots on the ground, and that most House Democrats feel the same way. "I would bet it's a significant majority [of Democrats] would not vote for it," Yarmuth said Wednesday. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) is another critic, saying he's "very troubled" by the notion of new boots on the ground in the Middle East. "I'm as outraged as anybody by the atrocities by ISIS this latest murder is just unconscionable," he added. "But we need to make sure that whatever response we come up with is one that is effective, and I'm not convinced that another all-out war is the way to go." Many Republicans would oppose restrictions and want an AUMF that aligns with a muscular U.S. response to ISIS. Congressional calls for stronger action against ISIS have typically followed the group's execution of Western hostages. Since July, the group has beheaded three Americans, two Britons and two people from Japan. The group is holding an American woman hostage. The administration has not released information on the humanitarian aid worker as part of an effort to protect her. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday there has been progress on developing AUMF language "that could earn bipartisan support." "I would anticipate we would have more news on an AUMF relatively soon," he added. Republicans on Wednesday said they were eager to debate the White House's strategy against ISIS. They've grown increasingly frustrated with the administration for not sending the AUMF request, and have pointed out that Obama promised to do so at a White House meeting with Capitol Hill leaders on Jan. 13. "When we met with the president in the White House, he said it would be coming soon. His actions speak much more strongly than his words," Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), a member of GOP leadership who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, said Wednesday. Other lawmakers said the killing of the Jordanian pilot would galvanize support for a deal. "It clarifies what was clear before, which is there's going to be overwhelming congressional support for this," said Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.), the Democrat most loudly advocating for a new AUMF. "The president is going to find a strong, strong supermajority of members of both houses in both parties who want to do this." "I'll have to see what the president says, but certainly what happened in Jordan and what happened in Japan … has shown that we're dealing with one of the most heinous groups that we've seen, and we need to take action for the protection of humanity," said Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.). "I'm open to it," he added, referring to the troops-on-the-ground option. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) told Fox News's "America's Newsroom" the killing of the pilot must be a "game-changer" for Obama. "Not the degrading of ISIS, not the containing of ISIS, but the destroying and crushing of ISIS has got to be the first and foremost goal," he said. The Obama administration has used an AUMF approved just after 9/11 as the legal basis for action against ISIS, even as the president has called for it to be replaced. Obama has authorized the deployment of 3,100 advisers to Iraq, and could order as many as 1,000 more to the Middle East to train moderate Syrian rebels. A U.S.-led coalition has also conducted 2,264 strikes in Iraq and Syria, killing more than 6,000 ISIS fighters. An AUMF would give Congress the opportunity to explicitly approve those efforts, as well as allow lawmakers to debate whether restrictions should be placed on the use of force. Senate Armed Services Committee members are also calling on the administration to expedite delayed U.S. shipments of military equipment to Jordan a request that came directly from King Abdullah II, who was visiting the Capitol when the news of the pilot's death broke. Republicans have criticized the president's strategy against ISIS as weak, and some have called for the deployment of as many as 20,000 U.S. troops to Iraq and Syria. Jordan and other countries impacted by ISIS "will look to us for leadership but we haven't seen the kind of leadership we need," said Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), an Intelligence Committee member who had planned to sit down with the Jordanian king Wednesday before his meeting was nixed. "Maybe this will be a precipitating event over at the White House," he said. Mike Lillis contributed to this story. | 5 | 7,130 | news |
Bruce Feldman and Joel Klatt pick their freshman to watch this fall. | 1 | 7,131 | sports |
Many think they wouldn't be able to live without their car, but several new technology-enabled transportation services have popped up to make life easier for those who don't own one, or simply don't wish to drive. But which cities offer the widest variety of these types of services? The answer lies in a new report conducted by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) focusing on 11 transportation technologies in 70 U.S. cities. The tools highlighted in this report include ridesourcing, car sharing, ridesharing, taxi hailing, static and real-time transit information, multi-modal apps, and virtual transit ticketing. These technologies - most of which have been around for less than a decade - have made it possible for people to not be so dependent on their cars, and although these tools have been expanding at an increasing rate, public agencies have been slow to integrate them into their planning. For example, the report found that of those 70 cities, only 19 of them (with a combined population of nearly 28 million people) have access to eight or more of these services. Carsharing services like Zipcar seem to be the most widely available, with these services accessible in 69 of 70 cities surveyed. Static transit data, including simple schedules and route maps that are available to the public on internet-connected devices, comes in second since it's around in 66 cities. Ride-sourcing services like Lyft, Uber, and Sidecar are the third most widely available, as the report found people can reach these services in 59 of the 70 cities outlined. Real-time transit data, as opposed to static data, can be used in 56 cities.Services that aren't as widely available include virtual ticketing (6 cities), and ridesharing, which can only be utilized in five cities in the U.S. Taking this into consideration, the U.S. PIRG ranked U.S. cities by how many tech-related transportation choices there are. Austin, Texas took the crown with 11 services available and 18 service providers. San Francisco, Calif. came in right behind it, with 10 services available and 23 service providers. Washington, D.C. came in the third spot, also with 10 services, but only with 20 service providers compared to San Francisco. Other top cities include Boston, Mass.; Los Angeles, Calif.; New York City, N.Y.; and Portland, Ore. It makes sense that population-dense cities appear at the top of the list, while those with fewer people appear at the bottom of the list. Cities that only have four or fewer services include Little Rock, Ark.; Birmingham, Ala.; Riverside, Calif.; while those with only one service include Billings, Mont.; Charleston W. Va.; Cheyenne, Wyo.; and Fargo, N.D. Where does your city rank? Check out the full report here. Source: U.S. PIRG | 9 | 7,132 | autos |
As President Obama enters what he's calling the fourth quarter of his presidency, his original teammates are nearly all gone. The latest to walk off the field: Dan Pfeiffer, the senior adviser to Obama long trusted by the president to shape his communications strategy and market his policies. This happens to every two-term president: the day when he looks around and realizes that almost all those who were at his side when he started his bid for the office have moved on. Of the 16 senior White House staffers earning the top pay of $172,200 in 2009, only senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, a family friend of the Obamas back in Chicago before he came to Washington, remains in the building. As director of Central Intelligence, John Brennan has moved from the White House but is in frequent contact with the president. Another old hand is Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, one of the few remaining survivors from Obama's Senate staff. But Pfeiffer joins a much larger group of senior staffers and friends weary of the 16-hour days, bureaucratic battles and constant tension that go with such high-stakes positions. While classified as staffers, they were often more than that in reality. They, after all, had, in many cases, schooled Obama on how to be a senator, guided him through two presidential campaigns and spent untold hours on airplanes talking about their lives and families. Most of those from the early days -- once-familiar names of Gibbs, Axelrod, Rouse, Emanuel, Messina, Plouffe, Favreau and Dunn -- are gone, replaced by appointees who truly are more staff than friends. Some of the new staffers worked for other candidates in 2008, such as Communications Director Jen Palmieri, who also will soon exit the White House, according to the Wall Street Journal, which said she will join the Hillary Clinton campaign. The departures of Pfeiffer and Palmieri as just "the natural order of things that people move on," said David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist in 2008 and a senior White House adviser in the first term. He said they confirm what he was told when he first joined the White House staff. "The presidency is a marathon, but for the staff it is a relay race," he told National Journal. "When you are the president, you are still there, but the baton is being passed from staffer to staffer." Many of the old hands remain in sporadic touch with the White House. But, especially since the 2012 campaign, that is too infrequent to replace the day-to-day, hour-by-hour contact when their offices were just down the hall from the Oval. Axelrod said Pfeiffer's departure will be felt personally by the president but shouldn't change how the White House operates or communicates. "I'm confident that there will be folks cycled in, some old and some new, who will already have or will develop relationships with the president. Dan is leaving at a good time. I think they are doing as well now as any time I can remember in his presidency." Having honed their communications strategy for the eight years since they launched their first campaign, the lessons of Pfeiffer will not be lost just because he is gone, said Axelrod. Staffers will continue to operate on Pfeiffer's belief, as outlined by Axelrod, "There is no permanent bully pulpit. You have to sort of assemble it each time piece by piece." "Dan was there from the very beginning," said Ben LaBolt, a veteran of Obama's staffs in the Senate, at the White House and in both campaigns. "He was at the president's side on the road, on the plane as he traveled to those initial campaign events." Such campaigns, he said, "are intense, emotionally draining experiences in which strong bonds are formed." Those bonds are even stronger because Obama appreciated that any staffers joining him in 2007 were bucking conventional wisdom. "There was a risk that people took in going to work for the Obama campaign in early 2007. Some people had called Sen. Clinton the presumptive nominee," LaBolt said. "It was unclear before the first fundraising numbers were in whether there would be... support. And there will always be a certain bond among the folks who took a risk and dove into that pool." Pfeiffer isn't the only person Obama will miss. One longtime Obama intimate, who asked not to be named, said the resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder is particularly impactful because he was a friend before he was an adviser. He said that Obama's administration is entering a phase that befalls all second-termers. "I suspect Holder will remain a friend. No doubt, though, that the circle of close advisers is smaller now. Probably every president experiences that," he said. "Everyone else wants to get on with their lives, but the POTUS is there for the full eight." It is, he added, a "challenging" phase. A White House official, speaking on background, hailed Pfeiffer as "the longest serving staffer from the 2008 campaign and last current White House official from the 2008 senior campaign circle." According to this official, Pfeiffer "told the president he was going to leave the day after State of the Union Address on Air Force One en route to Boise" after "thinking about (it) for a long time." He said Pfeiffer "is now comfortable moving on" because he sees the White House in a "position of strength." Pfeiffer was one of the staffers who set up the 2007 campaign headquarters and seemed to thrive on the long hours of the campaign and the first term in the White House. When other staffers were heading off to vacations in August 2009, Pfeiffer boasted to reporters that he had not had a vacation in two years and didn't think he needed one. He volunteered to stay on the job in that vacation month. In his statement, the president cited that loyalty and willingness to work. "Dan has been beside me on every step of this incredible journey, starting with those earliest days of the campaign in 2007. And through it all, he's been smart, steady, tireless and true to the values we started with," said Obama. "Like everyone else in the White House, I've benefited from his political savvy and his advocacy for working people." His legacy at the White House includes his command of non-traditional platforms to get out the president's message. Under his guidance, Obama has been the first president to use YouTube, Facebook, Google, Twitter and other social media platforms to push his programs. That advocacy has at times put Pfeiffer at odds with more traditional White House reporters who have felt ignored. It also has had a decidedly mixed success rate, with criticism of the White House's ability to sustain a message. That has been particularly true on the Affordable Care Act, which the White House has only fitfully and sporadically sold while Republicans have maintained a consistent and often-brutal assault. Even with millions of Americans newly enjoying health insurance, the needle has never moved to show growing popularity for the act. At the White House, they hail Pfeiffer as an innovator who early on understood changes in media. "To me, the big thing that changed during the Obama presidency is the number of sources and platforms where people are getting their information every day," said LaBolt. "And Dan was somebody who really understood that transition and really understood how to reach and persuade those folks." The White House said Pfeiffer will wrap up a comprehensive review of the White House communications operation before he departs. As part of this, the statement said, he has been meeting with Silicon Valley experts "to develop recommendations for how we best communicate to audiences in the digital age." "He's a good man and a good friend and I'm going to miss having him just down the hall from me," said Obama in a statement released by the White House. | 5 | 7,133 | news |
Kris Jenner "cried a lot" after Bruce Jenner told her he is transitioning into a woman. The 59-year-old reality TV star, who split from the former Olympian in late 2013 after 22 years of marriage, was initially blindsided by his decision, but now supports him "100 percent." A source close to the 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians' star said: "Kris had the most difficult time of anyone in the family. She has had a lot to process. She has cried a lot about this, because it's an emotional thing for her." But the talent manager has gotten used to the idea after spending the last few weeks "looking back at their entire marriage" and thinks "a lot of things are suddenly making sense." The insider told PEOPLE magazine: "She's come back around. She has gotten used to the idea. She was most upset because it was the great unknown, but she has really been reading up on things now, so she'll know what to expect. It's really a hard adjustment and a shock, but Kris 100 percent supports [Bruce]. The whole family does." Bruce, 65, has given all of his children, including daughters Kendall, 19, and Kylie, 17, with Kris, time to adjust to the idea slowly and has been making gradual changes to his appearance over the past year, including undergoing surgery to reduce the size of his Adam's apple. The source explained: "No one in the family feels betrayed or deceived by Bruce. It's not like he woke up one day and was like, 'Surprise!' He moved through his own feelings and his own changes at his own pace." Bruce - who is said to be the happiest he's ever been - will discuss his life-changing decision with ABC news reporter Diane Sawyer in an interview set to air in May. | 6 | 7,134 | entertainment |
TCU didn't need to use its 12-1 season and Peach Bowl championship in recruiting this year. Its reputation had done the trick long before. "This class, over half of them chose TCU when we were coming off the 4-8 season," coach Gary Patterson said Wednesday in announcing the school's 21-member class, headlined by four-star receivers Jaelan Austin of South Grand Prairie and Jarrison Stewart of Mesquite Horn. "And they didn't waver," Patterson said. "I think 12 to 14 of them chose TCU when TCU wasn't 12-1. To me, that's really important. It shows that they picked the school, the university, for the right reasons, and they all fit a need. It's really exciting. It's a very smart group, as far as football smarts." Patterson said the momentum from last season's No. 3 finish in the national rankings is showing up in the 2016 class. But the 4-8 season from 2013 was not held against the Horned Frogs. "Not by the ones that count," Patterson said. "For the simple reason they knew what we did before." Austin is ranked by Scout.com as the No. 6 receiver in the state and No. 52 in the country. Stewart is No. 8 and No. 54. They and cornerback DeShawn Raymond of Metairie, La., and linebacker Semaj Thomas of Fort Worth Southwest are the Horned Frogs' four 4-star recruits. That gives the school 23 such recruits in the last seven classes, compared with five over the previous eight years. "We need linebacker help from this group, we need safety help from this group," he said. "I think all the wide receivers would like to play, and we needed depth from this group at wide receiver." The impact of the Horned Frogs' new spread offense, and a second year of recruiting for co-offensive coordinators Doug Meacham and Sonny Cumbie, is most clear in the recruitment of the receivers, Patterson said. Stewart is one example of a player who had multiple offers and chose TCU. "The offense is why," Patterson said. "The offense is the draw. We didn't want these guys to leave the state, leave the area. We did a good job of keeping them at home." Arlington Bowie speedster Tony James, Yoakum's Tre'Vontae Hights and Monroe (La.) Neville's KaVontae Turpin played quarterback or running back in high school, but will become receivers or H-backs at TCU. "Turpin is a really good player we feel like can be a returner, kind of like a B.J. Catalon, one more dynamic in some ways," Patterson said. Defensively, the Horned Frogs tried to focus on fast and intelligent players to fill holes at linebacker and safety. He said players like the four-star corner Raymond and safeties Julius Lewis of Mansfield, Niko Small of Arlington Bowie and Montrel Wilson of Keller Fossil Ridge caught his eye because of that. "A guy I'm really high on, Niko Small, had an unbelievable SAT - really smart. It came down to us and Stanford," Patterson said. Of safety Arico Evans from Dallas Hillcrest, Patterson said, "He's very physical for his size, if you watch his highlights. He's also very smart, which is what our free safety position is - smart, physical and can play man coverage." On the defensive line, TCU picked up a pass-rushing defensive end from Euless Trinity, Tipa Galea'i, and an end from Round Rock, Breylin Mitchell. On the offensive line, the Horned Frogs added center Jozie Milton of Clinton, La., guard Cordel Iwuagwu of Houston Westfield, and two tackles, Sam Awolope of Fort Bend Marshall and David Bolisomi of Denton Ryan. Patterson said it would be a good idea to redshirt two or three of the linemen. Two players got away from the Horned Frogs. Dallas South Oak Cliff receiver J.F. Thomas backed out of his commitment and signed with Texas Tech, and Gladewater defensive tackle Daylon Mack went with Texas A&M. But focusing on the players who did sign Wednesday, and the three who are already on campus - linebackers Mike Freeze and Alec Dunham and the cornerback Raymond - Patterson characterized the group as smart and willing to work. "You still go after those guys who are willing to come to TCU when you were 4-8," he said. Spring game Patterson said he is considering a spring game, although he would hold out quarterback Trevone Boykin, who is trying to strengthen the left wrist that bothered him at times last year. Patterson said Boykin will compete fully in the spring practices. The game would give backups Bram Kohlhausen and Foster Sawyer a chance to compete. The Horned Frogs did not sign a quarterback in recruiting. Injury updates Patterson said defensive end Mike Tuaua and offensive tackle Hala Vaitai will sit out the spring practices with shoulder injuries. Spring training begins Feb. 28. Running back Shaun Nixon, who missed last season with a knee injury, is almost to full health and working in the off-season program. Also, linebacker Ty Summers is back to full health, Patterson said. Carlos Mendez, 817-390-7760 Twitter: @calexmendez | 1 | 7,135 | sports |
NEW YORK (AP) NBC "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams has admitted he spread a false story about being on a helicopter that came under enemy fire while he was reporting in Iraq in 2003. Williams said on "Nightly News" on Wednesday he was in a helicopter following other aircraft, one of which was hit by ground fire. His helicopter was not hit. He said on air, "I want to apologize." Williams spread the false story most recently last Friday, when he reported on a reunion with one of the military veterans his NBC News team came into contact with that day. | 6 | 7,136 | entertainment |
Campus Insiders' Doug Chapman joins Ray Crawford and Pete Fiutak to discuss which programs exceeded expectations (are you listening, Tennessee?) and fell short of expectations (we're talking to you, Michigan!). | 1 | 7,137 | sports |
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Villanova started with the kind of sloppy basketball that made it somehow the worst basketball team to call the Wells Fargo Center home this season. Once the Wildcats straightened themselves out, they took over. Ryan Arcidiacono scored 18 points and Darrun Hilliard had 12 to lead No. 7 Villanova to a 70-52 win over Marquette on Wednesday night. Daniel Ochefu grabbed nine rebounds and Josh Hart scored 11 points in the latest romp for Villanova (20-2, 7-2 Big East). The Wildcats shook off a mistake-prone start to roll past the Golden Eagles (10-12, 2-8) and send them to their sixth straight loss. ''We've been good enough to win,'' Villanova coach Jay Wright said, ''but I really think we're a work in progress.'' The Wildcats needed time to work out some offensive kinks. They found their groove from 3-point range: Arcidiacono hit four of Villanova's 11 3-pointers and Hart and Phil Booth each added two. Villanova led by as many as 24 points in its final tuneup before a rematch with No. 24 Georgetown. The Hoyas thumped the Wildcats by 20 on Jan. 19. ''With this team, we've all been through it before,'' Arcidiacono said. ''We're not afraid of anything.'' The Wildcats blew the game open in the second half against the slumping Golden Eagles. Dylan Ennis was all alone on a fast break and his one-handed slam made it 50-26. Arcidiacono's third 3-pointer made it 54-32 and the Wildcats stormed toward their seventh win in eight games. ''This Villanova team reminds me a lot of the Villanova team that went to the Final Four,'' in 2009, Marquette coach Steve Wojciechowski said. Marquette's Matt Carlino scored nine points and sat out a few minutes after a hard fall on his head in the second half. Carlino, the Big East leader in 3-pointers, was 3 of 6 and held below his 14.8 scoring average. He is Marquette's only player averaging double-digit scoring, and he had little help against the Wildcats. Marquette failed to match the balanced performance it had in overtime losses at the end of last month to the nationally ranked Hoyas and Butler. The Wildcats started off playing the kind of basketball normally reserved for the NBA home team at the Wells Fargo Center, the Philadelphia 76ers. They committed five turnovers on their first seven possessions, missed 9 of 11 shots and let Marquette take a brief lead. The Golden Eagles went 11 straight possessions without a basket over a nearly seven-minute span and the Wildcats rolled off a 10-0 run to take control. The sloppy first 10 minutes were replaced by only one turnover in the final 10. ''I thought that really affected our spirit, missing those,'' Wojciechowski said. ''We don't have the depth and experience of guys who've been in it. It appears, based on tonight, our psyche is fragile right now.'' Booth and Hilliard hit consecutive 3-pointers for a 22-12 lead. Arcidiacono hit one 3 for a 16-point lead and another that put the Wildcats up 18 before they settled for a 36-19 lead at halftime. The short burst at the end masked an overall weak half of shooting for each team: Villanova was only 11 of 34 (32 percent) and Marquette just 7 of 30 (23 percent). ''I didn't think it was that bad,'' Hilliard said. ''We were getting stops. I wasn't worried about offense, just the defensive end.'' TIP-INS Marquette: Marquette has lost four straight against the Wildcats. ... The Golden Eagles have lost five straight for the first time since a seven-game streak in 1990-91. ... Marquette had lost its Big East games by an average of 5.7 points. Villanova: The Wildcats are 42-33 at the Wells Fargo Center and 28-29 against Big East teams. ... The Wildcats held a 44-38 rebounding edge. BALANCED SCORING: The Wildcats shot only 37 percent from the floor but had five players in double digits. Hart and Booth each hit their mark off the bench. Jajuan Johnson scored 10 points and was the only player in double digits for the Golden Eagles. The Golden Eagles made only two fewer field goals than Villanova (23-21). UP NEXT: Marquette plays Saturday at Seton Hall. Villanova hosts Georgetown on Saturday. | 1 | 7,138 | sports |
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has snapped new images of Pluto the first taken by the probe during its six-month approach to the dwarf planet. New Horizons captured the new photos which show Pluto and its largest moon, Charon with its telescopic camera on Jan. 25 and Jan. 27, when the probe was about 126 million miles (203 million kilometers) from the Pluto system. The images, and many others like it taken over the next few months, will help New Horizons stay on target for a highly anticipated close flyby of Pluto on July 14. NASA released the photos today (Feb. 4), on the birthday of American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930. (Tombaugh died in 1997 at age 90.) [ Photos from NASA's New Horizons Pluto Probe ] "This is our birthday tribute to Professor Tombaugh and the Tombaugh family, in honor of his discovery and life achievements, which truly became a harbinger of 21st century planetary astronomy," New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said in a statement . "These images of Pluto, clearly brighter and closer than those New Horizons took last July from twice as far away, represent our first steps at turning the pinpoint of light Clyde saw in the telescopes at Lowell Observatory 85 years ago into a planet before the eyes of the world this summer," Stern added. "My dad would be thrilled with New Horizons," said Annette Tombaugh, Clyde's daughter. "To actually see the planet that he had discovered, and find out more about it to get to see the moons of Pluto he would have been astounded. I'm sure it would have meant so much to him if he were still alive today." The $700 million New Horizons mission launched in January 2006, with the aim of giving scientists their first-ever good looks at Pluto, which remains mysterious today because it is relatively small and lies so far away from Earth. (On average, Pluto orbits about 39 times farther from the sun than Earth does.) New Horizons is equipped with seven different science instruments to study Pluto and its five known moons. Mission team members aim to map the surface composition and temperature of Pluto and Charon, and characterize the geology of both worlds; study Pluto's atmosphere; and search for rings and additional moons in the system, among other goals. Last month, New Horizons began the "encounter phase" of its mission, which will be highlighted by the July 14 close flyby. On that date, the probe will zoom within just 8,500 miles (13,600 km) of the dwarf planet's surface. But New Horizons will be eyeing Pluto intently in the lead-up to the closest approach as well. Sometime in May, the probe should start returning the highest-resolution photos of the dwarf planet ever taken. These images will be even sharper than those captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, mission team members have said. And New Horizons' work may not be done after the Pluto encounter. Stern and his colleagues want to send the probe on a flyby of another object in the Kuiper Belt , the ring of icy bodies beyond Neptune. If NASA approves and funds this extended mission, the second flyby would occur in 2019. Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+ . Follow us @Spacedotcom , Facebook or Google+ . Originally published on Space.com. Photos of Pluto and Its Moons Onward To Pluto - New Horizons' Epic Journey Animated Dwarf Planet Pluto: Facts About the Icy Former Planet | 5 | 7,139 | news |
Bobbi Kristina Brown's ex-boyfriend says he is doing everything he can "to cooperate with authorities." Max Lomas, who was arrested on 14 January for possession of a firearm, illegal Xanax and other drugs, including marijuana, with intent to distribute, "is absolutely devastated" that the 21-year-old aspiring singer is "fighting for her life" after he found her "unresponsive" in a bathtub at her home near Atlanta, Georgia last Saturday on 31 January, and insists he had nothing to do with the tragedy. The 24 year old's lawyer, Philip A. Holloway, issued a statement to UsMagazine.com, saying: "Contrary to what's been reported, my client, Max Lomas, was the person who first discovered Bobbi Kristina and called 911. My client wants nothing more than to see a full recovery. He and Krissi have been friends for many, many years, and he is absolutely devastated and prays for her immediate recovery." It's been reported that his arrest in the middle of January might somehow be related; there is nothing further from the truth." Police have launched an investigation into the circumstances in which Bobbi Kristina was found after they allegedly discovered drugs during a second search of her property. A source previously revealed that her 'husband' Nick Gordon, who also tried to revive her before paramedics arrived at the scene, moved out of their home on 23 January following an explosive argument, and police are investigating whether another person might have been in her house before he and Max discovered her face down in the bath. | 6 | 7,140 | entertainment |
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) -- It was a little too easy for No. 10 Notre Dame at the start of the game. It turned into a tough one at the very end. Jerian Grant and Steve Vasturia scored 17 points apiece, and Notre Dame held off Boston College for a 71-63 victory on Wednesday night. The Fighting Irish (21-3, 9-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) had a 25-point lead with five minutes left in the first half. But Dimitri Batten's half-court shot got Boston College within 16 at the break, and the Eagles nearly completed an impressive comeback in the second half. ''It got to 25 so fast, you worry about concentration and focus a little bit,'' Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said. ''Then the guy throws in a half-court shot at halftime and I'm thinking ... but I never expect a league game to be easy.'' Olivier Hanlan, who led Boston College with 28 points, hit four consecutive 3-pointers to cut Notre Dame's lead to 67-61 with 1:47 left. But the Eagles' rally fizzled from there. Zach Auguste added 16 points for the Irish, who bounced back from a disappointing loss to Pittsburgh on Saturday. Pat Connaughton scored 10 of Notre Dame's first 16 points and finished with 11. Boston College (9-12, 1-8) has dropped eight of its last nine games against Notre Dame. Aaron Brown added 13 points for the Eagles. Grant said the Irish just stopped hitting their shots in the second half. ''We got a little bit out of our rhythm and forced some shots instead of moving the ball like we usually do,'' he said. The Irish got off to a fast start while the Eagles struggled to score. Auguste converted a layup to lift Notre Dame to a 34-9 lead. After giving up 76 points against the Panthers on Saturday, the third-highest total for a Notre Dame opponent this season, the Irish came out focused on defense and forced seven turnovers in the opening 10 minutes. Boston College was coming off a 16-point loss to Clemson and didn't look any better early against the Irish. ''We have to have everyone on our team come to play and we had some key guys not play hard or well tonight,'' Boston College coach Jim Christian said. Hanlan said the Eagles were too sloppy on defense early in the game. ''They had so many easy looks in the first half and Notre Dame, being the team they are, you can't get caught doing that against a team like that,'' he said. TIP-INS Boston College: The Eagles dropped to 0-8 when they trail at halftime. ... Boston College dropped to 1-10 when outshot by its opponent. Notre Dame shot 50 percent to become the fourth team this season to shoot 50 percent or better against the Eagles. Notre Dame: The Irish have won eight straight at home against Boston College. ... Notre Dame plays three games in six days and then is off for a week. ... The Irish are off to their best start since opening the 1978-79 season 22-3. SCHOOL REUNION Auguste and Hanlan were best friends at New Hampton School in New Hampshire. ''He has improved so much this year,'' Hanlan said. UP NEXT Boston College hosts No. 12 North Carolina on Saturday. Notre Dame is at No. 4 Duke on Saturday. | 1 | 7,141 | sports |
Three top Republicans are pushing an alternative to ObamaCare that would scrap the law's mandates while keeping the tax credits that help low-income people buy private insurance coverage. An outline of the plan was made public late Wednesday by Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.). The plan released the same week that the House cast its first vote to repeal ObamaCare of 2015 will compete with several other replacement options as the GOP tries to coalesce around a response to a looming Supreme Court decision that could dismantle the law. Under the senators' plan, individuals would no longer be required to buy healthcare coverage and employers would no longer be required to offer it. People who already have government insurance through Medicaid would be given tax credits to buy private plans, and upper-income families would no longer qualify for financial help. "Under our plan, every American will be able to access a health plan, but no American is forced to have health insurance they do not want," according to the members' nine-page document, which mirrors proposals that were already offered by Hatch, Upton and Burr in early 2014. It would give back much of the healthcare regulatory power to states while also setting certain federal baselines, such as capping healthcare taxes for employees. It would also keep two of the most popular provisions of ObamaCare the protections for people with preexisting conditions and the rule that allows young adults to say on their parent's plans until age 26. "We agree we can't return to the status quo of the pre-ObamaCare world, so we equip patients with tools that will drive down costs while also ensuring those with pre-existing conditions and the young are protected," Hatch wrote in a statement. Still, the plan is short on details about how it would help the rest of the 10 million people who have purchased ObamaCare plans make the transition away from the government program. Pressure has also been building for the GOP to devise a strategy now that the party controls both chambers of Congress. The Republican leaders announced their plan the same week that the House voted to repeal ObamaCare and charge committee chairmen with crafting an alternative plan. Three Republican lawmakers bucked the party during the vote, opting to keep ObamaCare. "I need to see how we're gonna fix this and not just be someone who votes for the 56th time to repeal this," Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-Maine) told CQ Roll Call after the vote. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has pushed back against criticism that the Republican Party lacks a plan to replace ObamaCare, vowing one will be coming. "There will be an alternative, and you will get to see it," Boehner told Fox News's Bret Baier last week. He added that leaders of the three House committees that oversee healthcare policy are currently "working together to craft, what we believe, what would be a better approach with regard to healthcare for the American people." | 5 | 7,142 | news |
ACC Digital Network host Tom Werme caught up with 247 Sports National Recruiting Director JC Shurburtt to break down Brian Kelly's 2015 recruiting class. Shurburtt highlights the impact players in the class and who might be a sleeper in the program's future. | 1 | 7,143 | sports |
BOLTON, England -- Brendan Rodgers has compared Philippe Coutinho to Luis Suarez after the Brazilian's late stunner saw Liverpool reach the FA Cup fifth round. Late goals from Raheem Sterling and Coutinho canceled out Eidur Gudjohnsen's earlier opener for Bolton, which had Neil Danns sent off when it led 1-0. And Rodgers lavished praise on Coutinho after the game, predicting the former Inter man to match Suarez's "world-class" talent in the years to come. "You just pay money to watch that kid," he told reporters. "Watch how he plays football. He can be a great role model for young British players who, for many years, may have been discarded because they didn't have the stature. He'll become world-class in the next few years. "With Luis Suarez, he was at a level when he played in this team, and he grew with the model before getting into that world-class bracket. "I can see Coutinho following in a similar sort of line. He may not be as prolific but he's on his way to that level. He's a wonderful player." It was a nervy end for Liverpool, which was staring at an embarrassing exit, until an exquisite pass from Can after 86 minutes set up Sterling for the equalizer - and Rodgers singled out the summer signing. He added: "He's a kid that's going to go on and be a big player for this team and Germany. He can defend, pass, he's quick, he's powerful. A lot of these young players are standing up to be counted now." Liverpool now travels to Crystal Palace on Feb. 14 for a place in the FA Cup quarterfinals, with Rodgers noting the 3-1 Premier League loss at Selhurst Park in November. "[Going back] is a great thing," he said. "We didn't play anywhere near our level and that the lowest point of the season in terms of performance. We go back there very soon with a different frame of mind and level of performance. Alan has lifted the club since he's gone there but we go with big confidence." | 1 | 7,144 | sports |
Verizon Communications is close to selling wireline assets worth $10 billion to regional telephone operator Frontier Communications Corp, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. The largest U.S. carrier by subscribers, Verizon has been investing heavily in growing its wireless business while reducing spend on its broadband Internet and telephone services. Verizon has been exploring steps to speed up its debt repayment in recent months. The companies did a similar deal in 2009, when Verizon sold 4.8 million rural phone lines to Frontier for $8.6 billion in stock and cash, to do away with that business and focus on wireless and broadband services. A Verizon spokesman declined to comment while a representative for Frontier could not be reached. Verizon purchased 181 licenses worth $10.4 billion in a government sale of wireless airwaves for mobile data that closed last week. That came on top of $130 billion it spent in 2013 to buy from Vodafone the 45 percent in its wireless unit that it did not already own. The wireline assets being sold to Frontier are the latest in a series of non-core assets Verizon has sold in recent months. It is also looking to sell $5 billion in wireless towers, Reuters previously reported. Verizon Chief Executive Lowell McAdam said on a January call with investors that "there are certain assets on the wireline side that we think would be better off in somebody else's hands so we can focus our energy in a little bit more narrow geography." The Wall Street Journal first reported that Verizon is close to selling the wireline assets to Frontier on Wednesday. (Reporting by Liana B. Baker in New York and Malathi Nayak in San Francisco; Editing by Christian Plumb) | 3 | 7,145 | finance |
Lakers coach Byron Scott coached Jason Kidd in New Jersey. When asked about coaching Kidd, Scott was pretty clear about his feelings for the Bucks coach. | 1 | 7,146 | sports |
Two men from Ireland are claiming they snuck into the Super Bowl and were able to enjoy free seats that were being sold for $25,000. Patrick Jones (@Patrick_E_Jones) explains. | 1 | 7,147 | sports |
Sara Myers isn't suicidal, but she wants to choose when to die. Four years ago, doctors diagnosed Myers, 60, with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, which typically kills those who have it in three to five years. "Each day I become more and more dependent on the assistance of others," Myers told reporters gathered around a conference table at a midtown Manhattan law office Wednesday. Largely paralyzed, she cannot feed herself, and she expects to soon lose the ability to speak and breathe without a machine. What she wants, Myers said, is "a peaceful and dignified death, at the time and place of my choosing." Myers is one in a group of patients and doctors challenging the New York penal code's so-called "Assisted Suicide Statute" in a lawsuit filed Wednesday against New York state. The nine plaintiffs argue that a doctor who provides life-ending medication to a terminally ill, mentally competent patient should not face manslaughter charges, as the penal code currently mandates. Lawyers at the firm Debevoise & Plimpton LLP and advocates with the groups Disability Rights Legal Center and End of Life Choices New York (EOLCNY), which is listed as a plaintiff, announced Wednesday morning that they had filed the suit in New York State Supreme Court. "No dying person should have to endure more suffering than he or she is willing to endure," EOLCNY Executive Director David Leven said at the press conference. Under the existing statute, said lawyer Kathryn L. Tucker, patients "find themselves trapped in a dying process that they find unbearable." Another plaintiff, New York City resident Steve Goldenberg, 55, has been living with AIDS for two decades and is now dying from complications. "I have fought the debilitating disease with all my strength," he said. "I'm not ready to die yet...but I do see the day coming when I will no longer have the strength to fight my numerous ailments." When that time comes, Goldenberg says, he wants the choice to be in control of his death. The defendants in the case are New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and district attorneys in Westchester, Monroe, Saratoga, Bronx and New York counties, where the plaintiffs reside or practice. End-of-life advocates and other health professionals prefer the term "aid in dying" to "assisted suicide" because, they argue, terminally ill patients do not necessarily want to die and are not suicidal. Should the state supreme court decide in favor of the plaintiffs, New York could become the sixth state where doctors can prescribe medication to qualifying patients in order to induce death, joining Oregon, Washington, Montana, Vermont and New Mexico. It may not stay this way, however. In New Mexico last week, lawyers began the appeals process to overturn a 2014 decision there to legalize a doctor's right to help patients in this way. Oregon was the first state to legalize the practice, in 1994. Some 700 people there have chosen to end their lives with a doctor's help. The 2011 documentary How to Die in Oregon chronicles a patient in the state as she goes through the process of deciding to end her life. At the federal level, a 1997 Supreme Court case, in which Dr. Timothy Quill was the lead plaintiff and Tucker was counsel, left the decision up to the states. Quill is now a plaintiff in the New York case. The "Assisted Suicide Statute" officially New York Penal Law 120.30 and 125.15 states that intentionally causing or aiding someone to "attempt" suicide or "commit" suicide is a crime. The plaintiffs in this case are challenging that law on the grounds that the term suicide should not apply to a doctor aiding in a terminally ill patient's death and that such equating denies the patient's right to equal protection and privacy. Tucker argues that lawmakers never intended for the statute to include doctors treating patients as they do today, when treatments sometimes prolong the dying process. "I hope the court will say, 'We're not going to stretch the statute to apply to something that's not mentioned,'" Tucker told Newsweek following the press conference. The plaintiffs also argue that the right to administer "aid in dying" would be exercised only sparingly. At the press conference, Leven, the EOLCNY executive director, said that when adjusted for New York's population, data from Oregon suggest that some 200 to 300 New Yorkers per year would likely choose to end their lives with the help of a doctor. On the legislative side, last month New York State Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal introduced the Death With Dignity Act, which has been referred to the Health Committee. "Each state has a somewhat different constitution," Tucker told Newsweek , adding, "I hope [the jury] will look to the New Mexico and Montana decisions. We will certainly be citing them and talking about them." "Aid in dying" advocates have previously challenged state and federal laws. In 2005, disabled protesters gathered outside the U.S. Supreme Court during one such case. REUTERS Tucker served as lead counsel for the patients and physicians in the 1997 U.S. Supreme Court case and participated in the New Mexico and Oregon cases that resulted in changes to statutes there. She also helped develop aid in dying campaigns in Washington and Vermont, where permission for doctors came through legislation, not court cases. According to the group Compassion and Choices the New York chapter of which became EOLCNY the debate over aid in dying dates back to 1967, when end-of-life advocates tried to introduce legislation in Florida but were unsuccessful. The issue returned to the headlines last November, after a terminally ill woman named Brittany Maynard had to move from California to Oregon in order to end her life. She had become an activist for end-of-life choices. One frequent critic of the end-of-life choice movement, University of Chicago medicine and ethics professor Daniel Sulmasy, says the new case is unsurprising given the previous campaigns, many of which have "the same cast of characters" recycling arguments. "This has been a political strategy on the part of Compassion and Choices since the U.S. Supreme Court decided there was no federal constitutional right to assisted suicide," Sulmasy says. "The basis for it I think, from my view, is very weak." Sulmasy and other critics often point to a line in the Hippocratic Oath that states , "I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect." According to the complaint that lawyers filed Wednesday, Myers, the plaintiff, "feels trapped in a torture chamber of her own deteriorating body" and is "functionally paralyzed." While reading her statement from her motorized wheelchair, Myers alternated between making lighthearted comments and holding back tears. "I hate this," she said, becoming choked up while speaking about loved ones. A moment later she joked, "I should have taken a Xanax." Myers later told Newsweek that she hasn't thought of where, given the opportunity, she wants to be when ending her life. But she said she had "a handful of people" in mind whom she would like to be present. Goldenberg, who spoke with physical difficulty and, according to the court complaint, takes more than 24 medications and sleeps about19 hours per day, told Newsweek he wants his sister, partner and dog with him in his final moments. | 5 | 7,148 | news |
Within the warped wardrobe of the Wachowskis latest sci-fi extravaganza, "Jupiter Ascending," there are some fantastical feasts of intergalactic ridiculousness. Channing Tatum as a combination elf and speed skater. Space dinosaurs in leather jackets. A robed Eddie Redmayne as the universe's overload, who so gravely whispers his lines that you fear he is, for the length of the movie, being castrated just off camera. That, at least, would explain his sporadic shrieking. Redmayne, who may be on the cusp of an Oscar for his more earthbound performance as Stephen Hawking, is the best and worst thing in a movie that rides the campy line of simultaneously great and terrible with intermittent success. For more than a decade now, writer-directors Lana and Andy Wachowski have capitalized on their "Matrix" fame to conjure up mystical blockbusters of grandiose, garish style ("Cloud Atlas"), luring moviegoers who like bananas with their popcorn. Did I mention the space dinosaurs in leather jackets? "Jupiter Ascending" begins with the birth of a girl, Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), to Russian immigrants while midway across the Atlantic. Looking back from later on, she narrates that she was born an illegal alien, betwixt worlds. As the film stretches out into the cosmos, it fills its adventure with mutants and "splices" who have genes of mixed species. Tatum's Caine Wise is one such fusion. He's an elite soldier whose (literal) wings were clipped for a mysterious past incident. Made with part wolf blood, he has pointed ears and a blond goatee, neither of which makes him particularly easy to take seriously as a hero. Oh, and he has jet-propelled boots that he skates through the sky with: an extraterrestrial Apolo Ohno. Jupiter lives as a cleaning lady with her humble family in Chicago, a regular existence shattered when spindly aliens show up and try to kill her. Caine comes to the rescue, an unfortunately repetitive occurrence in "Jupiter Ascending," in which Kunis' character is always in need of being swooped out of danger by her hulking werewolf man. And after a lengthy chase above the Chicago skyline, she's introduced to a wider universe ruled by the Abrasax dynasty and teaming with sci-fi tropes. The full picture of the plot of "Jupiter Ascending" takes a long time to clear up, as it flashes between different worlds, space ships fly this way and that, and various bounty hunters (Sean Bean is one) cloud the allegiances. Character and story get washed out in the relentlessly ornate 3-D imagery, a blend of grandiose space-scapes and gaudy metallic machinery. Though why isn't quite evident, Jupiter turns out to be a galactic queen (the Wachowskis love their messiahs) fiercely sought by the ruling royalty. The Abrasax family (not to be confused with Santana's "Abraxas," even though they share something of its flamboyant album cover) are led by a trio of handsome Brits: Balem (Redmayne), Kalique (Tuppence Middleton) and Titus (Douglas Booth), who, we learn, use planets like Earth to harvest human DNA to create youth-preserving gels. Somewhere here is a capitalism critique. Though she has more space opera swirling around her than any actor could possible hold together, Kunis does an admirable job even if never given much of a chance to be the prime mover in her fairy tale. Tatum, as game as they come, is understandably undone by his get-up; pointed ears and flying boots will do that. But no one fares as poorly as Redmayne, who quivers with such hushed ferocity that he wins the most giggles in a blatantly silly movie. "Jupiter Ascending" unfolds as a mostly entertaining mess, a cosmic soup of baroque grandeur that the Wachowskis swim happily through, even if few others will. They seem increasingly adrift in their own sci-fi seas, a quixotic plight that would be more admirable if the waters weren't so familiar. "Jupiter Ascending," a Warner Bros. release, is rated PG-13 for "some violence, sequences of sci-fi action, some suggestive content and partial nudity." Running time: 127 minutes. Two stars out of four. ___ MPAA definition of PG-13: Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. ___ Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP | 6 | 7,149 | entertainment |
Twitter has inked a deal that will put tweets inside of Google search results, according to a report. Citing sources, Bloomberg says the two companies just worked out a business deal that gives the search giant full access to Twitter's firehose of tweets. That's as opposed to Google needing to crawl Twitter, something that should make tweets more immediately accessible outside of Twitter, benefitting both companies. Twitter declined to comment, and Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. Developing… | 5 | 7,150 | news |
Kyle Lowry took the money and ran. And he kept running, kept shooting, kept improving. The Toronto Raptors point guard is having the best NBA season of his career, again. He has carried the second-best team in the Eastern Conference on his broad shoulders and stout 6-foot frame. And with a boost from Justin Bieber, he will be starting in next weekend's NBA All-Star Game, the only first-timer voted in by fans this year. Lowry took the rare path to stardom, drifting in and out of starting lineups for the Memphis Grizzlies, Houston Rockets and Raptors in his first seven seasons. Things started to click last season, so Toronto gave him a four-year, $48 million contract to keep their successful core in place. But instead of sitting back with a nearly doubled salary, Lowry went to the gym for fine-tuning and a little thievery. "Every year, it's always something different," he said. "I'm always refining, adjusting. You can always fix your jump shot to make it even better. "I take bits and pieces from everybody. Last summer, I watched (Golden State Warriors point guard) Steph Curry, the way he shoots the ball. I want to be able to one day get I won't be as great a shooter as he is, but why not get up there? Why not be that type of shooter, where you can't leave me at all? "I'm a student of the game. I'm not ashamed of saying I'll steal things from everybody, I'll take tidbits from everybody. That's one thing about it: I just love the game and just watching it. ... I've got two TVs in my house just to watch basketball. I sit there and watch the games. I love watching the games." Lowry is averaging career highs of 19.0 points and 4.8 rebounds along with 7.3 assists and 1.6 steals a game for the Raptors, who were 33-16 entering Wednesday's game against the Brooklyn Nets. His 25.9 usage rate, measuring the percentage of his team's possessions in which a player is involved, also is a career high. So he's an All-Star, a deserving one after being snubbed last season. Lowry got a late boost from Bieber, the Canadian pop star who urged his 60 million-plus Twitter followers to vote (but forgot to include the proper #NBABallot tag in his tweet). That pushed him past Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade in the final days of the balloting. "It's still shocking," Lowry said. "It's still pretty cool. I'm still kind of getting used to me being in that position." Lowry put himself in that position through dramatic improvement. He's always been a remarkable athlete, his speed and power offering a difficult to defend combination. But this season brought a new level out of Lowry, particularly when shooting guard DeMar DeRozan, the Raptors' All-Star last season, went down for 21 games. Lowry averaged 21.8 points and 8.7 assists during that stretch, as the team went 12-9 to stay among the East's top teams. "He's become a lot more efficient offensively," said Washington Wizards guard Garrett Temple, who met Lowry at a high school All-Star camp a decade ago. "When you saw DeMar go out, people kind of wrote off the Toronto Raptors for at least as long as he was going to be out. Kyle showed that he could basically carry a team and put them on his back. The biggest thing is he's getting in the lane more." DeRozan is back now, and the Raptors had a six-game winning streak before losing Monday to the Milwaukee Bucks. Lowry's chemistry and friendship with DeRozan was key in his free agency, when he was courted by the Rockets and Miami Heat, most prominently. Lowry ended up returning to Toronto, where a "We The North" movement has increased the team and sport's popularity. He credited his teammates along with mentors such as retired All-Star Chauncey Billups. But the improvement was a process, whether he was stealing from Curry and the Los Angeles Clippers' Chris Paul (going to the right on pull-up jumpers) or developing his low-post game. The recognition followed, though it's not the kind he wants most. "No, I still got to work. I still got more work to put in. I still got more to do," Lowry said. "I want to get to the Finals. I want to win a championship. That's my goal for my career." FIRST-TIMERS Along with Lowry, four others will make NBA All-Star Game debuts Feb. 15 in New York. SG Jimmy Butler Chicago Bulls C DeMarcus Cousins Sacramento Kings PG Jeff Teague Atlanta Hawks SG Klay Thompson Golden State Warriors | 1 | 7,151 | sports |
VCU moved to 8-1 in the Atlantic 10 on Wednesday with a 72-60 win on the road over George Mason. The highlight for the Rams was a monster jam from Mo Alie-Cox. | 1 | 7,152 | sports |
(Bloomberg) -- RadioShack Corp. is closing in on an agreement with creditors and other parties that would put the retailer in bankruptcy as soon as Wednesday night or Thursday morning, people with knowledge of the discussions said. As part of the deal being completed, RadioShack would sell leases on as many as 2,000 stores to Sprint Corp. and Standard General, its largest shareholder, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. The rest of the electronics chain's more than 4,000 U.S. locations are expected to be closed, the people said. The filing could be delayed as the parties hammer out final details. The bankruptcy would cap an almost-century-long history of selling gadgets and gizmos to America. RadioShack traces its roots to 1921, when it began as a mail-order retailer for amateur ham-radio operators and maritime communications officers in Boston. It eventually built a niche as a place for hard-to- find electronics and other technology. In more recent years, though, competition from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. picked off customers. The bankruptcy deal doesn't preclude other bidders from taking over some of the store leases. Amazon.com has held discussions about acquiring RadioShack locations as part of a push into traditional retail, people familiar with the matter said this week. Bankruptcy Loan Merianne Roth, a spokeswoman for Fort Worth, Texas-based RadioShack, declined to comment. Under the terms being completed with creditors, a group of hedge funds and other lenders that were part of $535 million of rescue financing in October have agreed to lend the company more money to operate in bankruptcy, the people said. The latest funding will refinance the balance of the group's loan, while giving RadioShack less than $50 million of new money, they said. The bankruptcy lenders include hedge-fund firms BlueCrest Capital Management, DW Partners LP, Mudrick Capital Management and Saba Capital Management, the people said. Representatives of the firms either declined to comment or didn't immediately respond to telephone and e-mail messages. Standard General arranged the emergency financing last year to help the retailer survive through the holiday shopping season. RadioShack has struggled with an industrywide slump in demand for consumer electronics. To make matters worse, it has been heavily reliant on selling mobile phones, a saturated market with low margins. Turnaround Plan A plan to shutter 1,100 underperforming stores last year failed when lenders including Salus Capital Partners blocked the move, allowing RadioShack to close no more than a couple hundred. That left the company on course for a cash crunch in 2015, Moody's Investors Service warned last July. Salus later accused the retailer of breaching the terms of a $250 million loan from it and Cerberus Capital Management LP by accepting the October bailout. RadioShack has denied any breach. For Sprint, buying RadioShack stores would potentially align with Chief Executive Officer Marcelo Claure's turnaround plan that hinges on reversing the loss of customers and avoiding a drop to fourth place among U.S. wireless carriers. Sprint has too few of its own branded outposts and has relied on third-party retailers to drive customer sign-ups and sell phones. | 3 | 7,153 | finance |
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is taking personal responsibility for his platform's chronic problems with harassment and abuse, telling employees that he is embarrassed for the company's failures and would soon be taking stronger action to eliminate trolls. He said problems with trolls are driving away the company's users. "We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years," Costolo wrote in an internal memo obtained by The Verge . "It's no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day." "It's nobody's fault but mine." Costolo's comments came in response to a question on an internal forum about a recent story by Lindy West, a frequent target of harassment on Twitter. Among other things, West's tormentors created a Twitter account for her then recently-deceased father and made cruel comments about her on the service; West recently shared her story on This American Life and the Guardian . On Twitter's forums, an employee asked whether anything could be done; On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Adrian Cole wrote: A must read in its own right about cyberbullying. One section suggests Twitter can djusto more. "I'm aware that Twitter is well within its rights to let its platform be used as a vehicle for sexist and racist harassment. But, as a private company just like a comedian mulling over a rape joke, or a troll looking for a target for his anger it could choose not to. As a collective of human beings, it could choose to be better." In response, Costolo made a frank acknowledgement of Twitter's slowness to adopt tools to combat trolls. On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 8:35 PM, Dick Costolo wrote: We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years. It's no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day. I'm frankly ashamed of how poorly we've dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It's absurd. There's no excuse for it. I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front. It's nobody else's fault but mine, and it's embarrassing. We're going to start kicking these people off right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them. Everybody on the leadership team knows this is vital. @dickc Costolo later sent a follow-up message reiterating that he was taking responsibility for Twitter's slowness in addressing the problem. On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 12:45 PM, Dick Costolo wrote: Let me be very very clear about my response here. I take PERSONAL responsibility for our failure to deal with this as a company. I thought i did that in my note, so let me reiterate what I said, which is that I take personal responsibility for this. I specifically said "It's nobody's fault but mine" We HAVE to be able to tell each other the truth, and the truth that everybody in the world knows is that we have not effectively dealt with this problem even remotely to the degree we should have by now, and that's on me and nobody else. So now we're going to fix it, and I'm going to take full responsibility for making sure that the people working night and day on this have the resources they need to address the issue, that there are clear lines of responsibility and accountability, and that we don't equivocate in our decisions and choices. Dick Amid widespread criticism, Twitter released some tools to improve its notoriously arduous process for reporting abuse in December. In November, Twitter partnered with an advocacy group to investigate harassment against women. But every day, Twitter users still face threats of physical violence, sexual abuse, and stalking all forms of harassment that disproportionately affect women online, according to data from The Pew Center. Twitter users face death threats every day Just last week, feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian documented the harassment she received on Twitter from January 20th to the 26th. You'll have to scroll for awhile before you hit the end of tweets containing gendered insults, victim blaming, incitement to suicide, sexual violence, rape and death threats. Sarkessian was a top target for Gamergate predators because of her criticism of the way women are portrayed in video games, and her post shows that the vile intimidation campaign against her continues unabated. Gamergate is only the latest and loudest example of harassment. Robin Williams' daughter, Zelda Williams , left the service last August because of the disturbing images and attacks she received after her father's suicide. Advocates have offered numerous suggestions for fixing the problem, including improving responsiveness to reports and better blocking tools. Twitter's fourth quarter earnings call is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. They'll have plenty of new initiatives to discuss, including their new tie-up with Google, which was revealed today. But given Costolo's acknowledgement that trolls are costing Twitter users, expect him to get some questions about his plans for dealing with abuse now as well. Twitter declined to comment on the memo. If you have more information about the memo or Twitter's upcoming initiatives, please email [email protected]. | 3 | 7,154 | finance |
Rob Gronkowski was spotted enjoying the Pats Super Bowl victory, chugging a beer during the Patriots victory parade. | 1 | 7,155 | sports |
SAN DIEGO One player not concerned about Tiger Woods and his golf game is his longest rival Phil Mickelson. Woods is coming off the worst score of his PGA Tour career 82 last week in the Phoenix Open. He missed the cut by 12 shots, and it was the first time in his career that he missed the cut in two straight tour events, though they were played six months apart. Most disconcerting was how badly his short game looked. With analysis on overdrive, the immediate chatter has shifted from whether Woods will match the Jack Nicklaus record of 18 majors (Woods has 14) to whether he can win three more regular PGA Tour events and match the record 82 won by Sam Snead. "I think that Tiger's going to have the last laugh," Mickelson said Wednesday. "I think that his short game, historically, is one of the best of all time. I think his golf game is probably the best of all time." Mickelson said the short-game woes are understandable because of how little Woods has played. The Phoenix Open was only his second tournament in six months after taking a break to fully heal from back surgery and to regain his strength. During his time off, Woods began working with a new swing consultant, Chris Como. "I think the short game, when you haven't played, it's the first thing to feel uncomfortable and the quickest thing to get back," Mickelson said after his pro-am round at the Farmers Insurance Open. "I don't think he's going to have any problems, I really don't. I think we all myself included have had stretches where we feel a little uncomfortable. We don't hit it solid, and usually it's just a small tweak, because it's such a short swing that it's not a hard thing to fix. "I just don't see that lasting more than a week or two." Mickelson also missed the cut at the Phoenix Open after a 76 in the second round. He tied for 24th in the Humana Challenge. He has gone 31 tournaments without a win dating to the British Open at Muirfield in 2013 for his fifth career major. Mickelson and Woods have been rivals for some two decades, though it is one-sided. Because of Woods and Mickelson not at his best when Woods was out with injury Mickelson has never been No. 1 in the world, won a PGA Tour money title or been voted player of the year. He has 42 victories, putting him at No. 9 on the PGA Tour career list and still 37 wins short of Woods. Mickelson said he has gone through spells of bad chipping and it comes back. Once the technical issues are solved, he said the confidence returns. "It's not like it's a big concern," Mickelson said. "As long as he's healthy and as long as he can swing the club the way he's swinging it, with the speed he's swinging at, I think his game will come back pretty quickly." | 1 | 7,156 | sports |
White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri is planning to leave the White House later this spring, and is expected to take a role in Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. The announcement of her departure comes on the same day that Dan Pfeiffer, a senior adviser to the president who previously held the communications director job, announced he would leave the administration by mid-March. Palmieri, who served in the press shop for former President Bill Clinton, has close ties to White House counselor John Podesta, who is expected to leave his role within weeks to take a leadership position in Clinton's presidential campaign. She's well liked by the media and is a veteran of Democratic politics, having worked for John Edwards' presidential campaign and the press secretary of the Democratic National Committee. A White House official acknowledged the dual departures were "significant," but said there was "value in bringing in new, energized staff with fresh ideas and new perspectives." The official cast the departures as an opportunity for President Obama and his chief of staff, Denis McDonough, to build a new communications infrastructure "specifically designed to work on the president's goals for the next 18 months in a rapidly-changing media environment." "Instead of filling jobs as one-offs, this timing presents an opportunity to build a cohesive team that is expressly designed to achieve and implement the president's priorities for the fourth quarter of his presidency," the official said. Still, the departures seem to underscore the extent to which focus, even inside the West Wing, is shifting to Hillary Clinton's fledgling campaign. There has been significant speculation about the timing of an announcement, and who will help run the campaign of the former Secretary of State. In addition to Podesta and Palmieri, Obama campaign pollster Joel Benenson and campaign media adviser Jim Margolis are expected to be involved in the leadership structure of her campaign. Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Short used the moves to cast Clinton as a continuation of the Obama presidency. "It's getting clearer with each Obama official leaving for Hillary Clinton's campaign that the sole purpose of her candidacy is to continue his failed policies under another name," Short said. "Voters overwhelmingly don't want a third term for President Obama's liberal agenda, but that's what Hillary Clinton intends to give them." | 5 | 7,157 | news |
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. Purdue coach Matt Painter has his Boilermakers rekindling welcome memories. They're playing lockdown defense. They're beating opponents to loose balls. And, yes, they're even beating ranked teams with regularity. Rapheal Davis scored 20 points Wednesday, and a stout defense rescued Purdue from its own free-throw shooting woes to barely hold on for a 60-58 upset over No. 20 Ohio State. "I think we have really grown up," Davis said. "Beating three Top 25 teams is really good, but we can get better in a lot of areas." Purdue (15-8, 7-3 Big Ten) hasn't celebrated a stretch like this in years. A four-game winning streak has the Boilermakers off to their best conference start since going 9-1 in 2007-08. They beat the Buckeyes for the first time in nearly four years, snapping a six-game skid. Purdue has won three straight over ranked opponents for the first time since January-February 2010. All three of those wins have come with the Boilermakers unranked, a feat they last achieved during a January-February stretch in 1979. Not surprisingly, the Mackey Arena crowd roared with approval as the buzzer sounded. "It was a big game for us," Painter said. "Ohio State has had our number." The Buckeyes (17-6, 6-4) also had their chances, including a 40-foot desperation heave from D'Angelo Russell at the buzzer. But the shot never came close, typifying a strange night for the Big Ten's second-highest scoring team. Russell finished with 20 points, seven rebounds and five assists. The only other Buckeye in double figures was Amir Williams with 10 points. Ohio State did play short-handed after school officials announced Marc Loving had been suspended indefinitely. Coach Thad Matta didn't elaborate on the reason for the suspension, explaining only that Loving, who leads the Big Ten in 3-point shooting percentage at 53 percent, would have to earn his way back onto the team. Yet the Buckeyes nearly pulled off an incredible comeback. After trailing 36-28 early in the second half, they charged back to take two brief leads, at 41-40 and 44-42. When Purdue answered with 10 straight points to make it 52-44, the Buckeyes' took advantage of Purdue's free-throw struggles to close the gap. Russell's 3 with 31.2 seconds left made it 58-56. After Jon Octeus made 1 of 2 free throws, Russell made both of his to cut the deficit to 59-58 with 6.4 seconds to go. Kendall Stephens then made 1 of 2 from the line and the Boilermakers' defense buckled down and held on just like Painter's teams used to do in the 1990s when he also played as a Boilermakers guard. "I told them that we don't have to get a 3 if he could drive it all the way," Matta said after Ohio State's three-game winning streak ended. "(Bryson Scott) played good defense on him." TIP-INS Buckeyes: Without Loving, the Buckeyes were not themselves. They had no 3s in the first half, finished 4 of 15 from beyond the arc, and wound up with their second-lowest point total all season. Boilermakers: One week after becoming the only Purdue player other than Joe Barry Carroll to block eight shots in a game, A.J. Hammons was back at it against the Buckeyes. He finished with 11 points, seven rebounds and seven blocks. Octeus added 14 points for the Boilermakers. UP NEXT Buckeyes: visit Rutgers on Sunday. Boilermakers: travel to Minnesota on Saturday. WOODEN TRIBUTE Purdue honored one of its best-known ex-players, John Wooden, with a video tribute at halftime. Painter and several other former Boilermakers players including Troy Lewis, Robbie Hummel and Brian Cardinal, all talked about what Wooden meant to the university. TOUGH ROAD The Buckeyes are now in the midst of perhaps their toughest stretch of the season. They'll play three of the next four on the road, with trips to Rutgers, Michigan State and Michigan. | 1 | 7,158 | sports |
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The defections of pitcher Vladimir Gutierrez and shortstop Dainer Moreira during the Caribbean Series represent only the latest symptom of what ails Cuban baseball. The illness is serious and multipronged: A talent drain that has diminished the quality of play; a financial crisis that forces players to compete with antiquated equipment in dilapidated stadiums; and sagging morale among players and fans, who no longer see the Cuban squad routinely dominate international competitions, especially when facing pros. Cuba was bounced out of the 2013 World Baseball Classic in the first round, and its entry has gone 1-5 so far in its two trips to the Caribbean Series after a 53-year absence. Cuba staved off elimination with a 3-2 win over Puerto Rico in in 10 innings Wednesday night. It is now 1-2 in the five-team tournament. With exiles such as Jose Abreu, Yasiel Puig, Aroldis Chapman and Yoenis Cespedes now plying their trade in the USA, Cuba finds itself lagging behind other baseball-loving Latin countries. Ironically, the cure for Cuban baseball might be found in what so far has been a source of its ailment: Major League Baseball. President Obama's December announcement that the U.S. would normalize relations with Cuba already has resulted in the relaxation of rules for defectors to be allowed to sign with major league teams. Now all they're required to present is a signed affidavit stating they have established residency in a third country, instead of having to go through the lengthy process of getting a specific license from the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. Hotshot prospect Yoan Moncada, 19, is the first known beneficiary of the new rules, getting the OK on Tuesday to sign with any club. Of more long-range significance, though, is the possibility Cuba and MLB might enter into an agreement to regulate the entry of Cuban players into U.S pro baseball, and by extension, their exit from the island's top league, the Serie Nacional. Fixing the defects Starting last year, Cuba has been sending some of its top players to the Japanese league four stars last season, perhaps as many as 12 this year while taking a cut of their earnings, estimated as high as 75%. Peter Bjarkman, an expert on Cuban baseball who has written several books on the subject, said a similar deal with MLB would ease but not fully solve the league's problem. "I think the only real big fix is going to come when something happens in a more normalized relationship (with the U.S.) and they set up some kind of posting system,'' Bjarkman said. "That will stabilize baseball in Cuba and allow them to continue their league down there, while at the same time gaining some financial resources. What's not going to happen is the common wisdom that they're simply going to open up this huge market to MLB.'' Japanese stars like Yu Darvish, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Masahiro Tanaka have transferred to major league teams through the posting system, which allows their teams to put them up for bid now capped at $20 million for the right to negotiate with the players. The Japanese teams keep the posting fee if the player strikes a deal with an MLB club. It's not clear how soon baseball could work out an agreement with the Cuban government the embargo still hovers as a large impediment but the topic has already been discussed in the top offices of MLB and the players association, and it figures to be addressed in the next collective bargaining agreement. "It would would put an end to player defections and they would be able to sign contracts normally from Cuba like any other Latin athletes that go play in a foreign country,'' said Frederich Cepeda, for years one of the leading sluggers in the Serie Nacional. A deal between MLB and Cuba would likely include a requirement that players serve a certain number of years in the island's league before they can be posted, discouraging those who are ineligible from leaving. The growing number of defections from stars and lesser players alike close to 350 by one estimate has so impacted the Cuban league that in recent years officials have sought to enhance the level of competition, and fan interest, by eliminating the bottom half of the 16 teams after the season's first half. The best players from those clubs are distributed to second-half competitors through a dispersal draft. Meanwhile, the top performers are increasingly emboldened to chase their dream of playing in the majors and draw salaries they couldn't fathom at home by the success of players they used to face on a regular basis. Cepeda has kept in touch with former national squad teammates like Abreu and shortstop Alexei Ramirez, both of the Chicago White Sox. "When it comes to the baseball part, they've told me in some ways it's easier because they have a better setup for playing and better equipment,'' Cepeda said. "They've also told me the strike zone is smaller, although, of course, the pitchers are better and throw harder. I think the way we're taught to play in Cuba, we can do well anywhere.'' Big league dreams Yulieski Gourriel, like Cepeda one of the Cuban standouts allowed to play in Japan last season, has expressed his eagerness during the Caribbean Series to try his lot in the majors. Same goes for younger brother Lourdes, 21, an infielder regarded as an outstanding prospect. "Of course I would like to play in the best baseball in the world. As long as we get permission, we'd be more than willing,'' said Yulieski Gourriel, whom some scouts consider the most likely current Cuban player to make an immediate impact in the majors. "Any athlete, especially baseball players, would like to play wherever the best competition is, and that's MLB.'' Gourriel declined to address Tuesday's defections, which rocked a Cuban squad that was already reeling. Gutierrez, 19, and Moreira, 30, returned with the team to the hotel after Tuesday's 6-1 loss to the Dominican Republic, then left at night and didn't come back. They are believed to have worked together with the help of a Cuban exile living in Puerto Rico. Gutierrez, a right-hander who had not pitched in the Caribbean Series, earned rookie of the year honors for Pinar del Rio last season. Scouts regard him as a major league prospect, while Moreira is seen as more of a longshot. Manager Alfonso Urquiola said the Cuban team has gone through similar losses before and would solider on, but the circumstances of the departures irked him. "It bothers you because it's a betrayal. How are you going to abandon your club in the middle of a competition?'' Urquiola said. "Maybe if they had done it afterward. We see it as a betrayal of the team. I never expected it.'' Barring a Cuban deal with MLB, perhaps he should expect more. | 1 | 7,159 | sports |
The United Steelworkers union (USW) said a new contract offer was made by lead oil company negotiator Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L) on Wednesday night as a strike by U.S. refinery workers ended its fourth day, a union spokeswoman said. "The USW has received an offer and will respond after consideration of the offer tomorrow," said the USW's Lynne Hancock. "I don't know what time they will consider it. Contents of the offer will not be revealed." About 4,000 workers at nine plants, including seven refineries accounting for 10 percent of U.S. refining capacity, continue to walk picket lines in California, Kentucky and Texas. (Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) | 3 | 7,160 | finance |
Impatience and science mix like water and oil. | 8 | 7,161 | video |
If you follow the cooking instructions scribed across the box or bag of quinoa , then chances are you're doing it wrong. Though nutty, toothsome, and all-around lovely when steamed properly, cooked quinoa can often fall short, resulting in a mushy, mealy, or even unpalatably bitter mess. Avoid these problems with a few easy steps. Bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil. Meanwhile, thoroughly rinse the quinoa. Most quinoa sold is "prerinsed" but could use some extra help to ensure that all of the naturally occurring, bitter, soapy-tasting coating present on all unprocessed quinoa is washed away. Add the uncooked quinoa to a fine mesh strainer, and rinse it under cool water until all the kernels are dampened. Add the rinsed quinoa to the boiling water and cook for 6-8 minutes, or until the quinoa is just barely al dente. Strain it using a fine-mesh strainer. Add an inch of water to the quinoa pot, set the fine-mesh strainer (with the cooked quinoa still in it) inside the pot; make sure the quinoa doesn't touch the water. Cover with a dish towel and the pot's lid, turn the heat up to high, and steam for 3-5 minutes, or until the quinoa is tender and no longer waterlogged. Turn the quinoa out into a bowl, fluff it up with a fork, and use as desired in any recipe . | 0 | 7,162 | foodanddrink |
SAN DIEGO As a heavy layer of fog hung persistently over Torrey Pines and delayed Wednesday's pro-am, Tiger Woods worked on escaping the haze his short game has placed him in. Chatting with fellow pros Billy Horschel and Pat Perez just after dawn, Woods was dissecting the problems related to his alarming chipping woes as the two were in his ear. Angles, shoulder placement, arm rotation and club setup were among the issues the trio bantered about for more than 90 minutes as Woods sent one chip after another into the mist. The sight of Woods accepting guidance was extraordinary, for the winner of 79 PGA Tour titles and 14 majors was once by miles the best short-game player in the world. Now when he gets around a green he looks like he took up the game last month, as the chunks, blades and stubs were central to him shooting 82 at last week's Waste Management Phoenix Open to miss the cut by 12. Coupled with his chipping miseries last December in the Hero World Challenge, some began chiseling R.I.P. into the headstone of Woods' career. He is too technical and too confused with his approach, the critics scream. His confidence is shot and he's got the chipping yips, they say. And he's psychologically wounded by his farcical short game at TPC Scottsdale. "This is the first time that we have seen Tiger totally lacking in confidence," said ESPN analyst Paul Azinger, who won 12 times on the Tour, including the 1993 PGA, and was one of the best short-game players during his day. "And we're talking about the most confident golfer we've seen for 20 years." Fear, it seems, has turned Woods, 39, into an ordinary player. Work in progress Without question Woods is concerned, but he's far from calling it quits. He admitted last week that his chipping woes had gotten into his head, but he said his problems stem more from his new swing than with what is happening between his ears. He's getting stuck between patterns from his old swing with coach Sean Foley and patterns from his new swing with consultant Chris Como. "When I have to hit shots, I've got to shape shots, I'm caught right dead in between," said Woods, who has fallen to No. 56 in the world. "They are so polar opposites, the movement patterns, that when I do half of one or half of the other, it's pretty bad. " ... It certainly is a process, and Chris and I are working our tails off to try to get this. It's tough. I want to get this. I want to be ready come Augusta and the rest of the majors, but we still got some work to do." Woods is 50-1 to win this week's Farmers Insurance Open, astonishing odds seeing he's won the tournament a record seven times and the 2008 U.S. Open here. Como and Fred Couples, who dropped by for a visit and not to give a lesson, walked all nine holes with Woods as Wednesday's pro-am was cut in half due to the fog delay. Woods hit far more chip shots including 25 on the second hole alone than he usually hits during an 18-hole pro-am round. He was even chipping in fairways as he waited for his amateur partners to hit shots. But Azinger said Woods is more than capable of getting out of this. "I still am one of the few guys who think he can challenge and beat Jack's record," Azinger said, alluding to Woods' chase of Jack Nicklaus' record 18 majors. "I'm not writing him off. I'm not an idiot. His problems are easy fixes. It may take time, and a good conversation with Tiger Woods would do all the good in the world, so he's not done. And he doesn't have the yips. Sticking the leading edge into the ground is not the yips. "I just think he's having trust issues. He's gotten himself a little confused. … But Torrey Pines offers himself a great opportunity to get confidence." 'Painful to watch' Greg Norman, a superb player around the greens during his career, also said Woods' problems originate more from his mental game than with his technique when holding the clubs. "I can see technically what he is doing wrong," said Norman, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame and future lead golf analyst for Fox. "But at the same time, I think this is more of a deep seeded mental problem for Tiger. In all the years I have been involved in golf, I have never seen anyone who was so good in one particular area of the game and Tiger was an excellent short-game player just fall off the cliff as fast as he has. "Physically I really don't get it. Mentally, I get it. When you start losing the mental application and mental approach it's devastating. He was an extremely calm individual under pressure and now he still looks calm but he's nowhere near the same player he was with the short game. It is perplexing. " … Does he have the capability to change it around? Yes." That's also how Jordan Spieth sees it. Sitting in Section 132, Row 11, Seat 2, Spieth attended his first Super Bowl on Sunday and left wired and in awe. Forty-eight hours earlier, he witnessed another kind of history as he walked every step of the way with Woods for the first two rounds in Phoenix. That, too, shook him. "It was painful to watch," said Spieth, the 21-year-old who is ranked No. 9 in the world. "But like I was thinking last week, the guy's played two times in six months, he's changing his swing, he was sick for a long time during the break and wasn't able to do anything, and he was rehabbing, too. So he just needs reps. " ... Give him a month and he'll be back to where he's consistent and he's playing holes and he's shooting good scores. At the same time, to get back to winning majors, it takes an unimaginable number of reps. I don't know how long that will take Tiger. It could be like riding a bike for him versus every other player in the world needing a career." For now, Woods will continue to grind away. He smiled when he said he had received no unsolicited advice for his chipping problems "My phone's been off the last couple of days." He said when he doesn't get stuck between patterns, he's just fine. "My good is really good," he said. "Unfortunately, my bad is really bad." Woods said it's going to be tough this week at Torrey Pines, for the rough rimming both the North and South Courses is thick and heavy. And the greens, he said, are already on the quick side. But much of his concentration will be on his short game. "My impact points are different now. So I've got to find a consistent bottom, but the bottoms are different now," he said. "So, that's part of it. I just need reps ... and eventually it will start becoming more natural. As of right now, it's not, but when I do it and I look on video, it's incredible how good it is. "But when I do it wrong, you see I'm caught right dead in between." Phil Mickelson, his main rival and a marvel around the greens, said Woods won't be caught in the middle much longer. "I think the short game is, when you haven't played, the first thing to feel uncomfortable and the quickest thing to get back," Mickelson said. "I don't think he's going to have any problems, I really don't. I think we all, myself included, have had stretches where we feel a little uncomfortable, we don't hit it solid, and usually it's just a small tweak. Because it's such a short swing that it's not a hard thing to fix. I just don't see that lasting more than a week or two. " … I think that Tiger's going to have the last laugh." | 1 | 7,163 | sports |
On a day when the new faces of college football made their school choices official, some familiar names finished atop the team recruiting standings. Here's a look at some of the notable events on a day that revealed the drama doesn't necessarily end after a recruit makes a nationally televised announcement. DUEL AT THE TOP: Which school fared the best? It depends on which recruiting service you follow. Southern California topped the Rivals and Scout team recruiting rankings as of 6 p.m., while Alabama led the ESPN and 247Sports standings. USC's rise is noteworthy because this marked the first year it could sign a full class since coming off probation. "It's a Pete Carroll type of class," said Mike Farrell, the national recruiting director for Rivals. "Now they've just got to put it together on the field." It came as no surprise that these two schools led the way, as evidenced by Rivals' annual rankings. Alabama topped the Rivals rankings from 2008-09 and from 2011-14, while Southern California finished first from 2004-06 and in 2010. The only school other than USC or Alabama to top the Rivals rankings since 2004 is Florida in 2007. BIG DAY IN LA: USC wasn't the only Los Angeles-area school with reason to celebrate. UCLA soared up the team standings Wednesday by getting late commitments from some top prospects, including tight end Chris Clark, running back Soso Jamabo, offensive lineman Josh Wariboko, safety Nathan Meadors and wide receiver Cordell Broadus (the son of rapper Snoop Dogg). In the process, UCLA showed its ability to recruit nationally. Clark is from Connecticut, Wariboko from Oklahoma and Jamabo from Texas. "They had some guys that a lot of people predicted might stay closer to home," Farrell said. KEEPING UP THE SUSPENSE: In nationally televised announcements Wednesday morning, defensive end Byron Cowart selected Auburn and linebacker Roquan Smith declared he was going to UCLA. But that didn't stop the drama surrounding the recruitments of these two heralded prospects. Auburn wasn't sure it had Cowart rated by Rivals as the nation's No. 1 recruit until his letter of intent arrived nearly seven hours after his announcement. UCLA still hadn't received Smith's paperwork by 6 p.m. Wednesday, which at least raised the possibility the Georgia prospect might be reconsidering. GATORS RISE FROM DEPTHS: Buried below most Power 5 programs in the team recruiting standings for the last few weeks, Florida closed with a flourish under new coach Jim McElwain. The Gators' flurry of late commitments was headlined by consensus five-star offensive tackle Martez Ivey and defensive end CeCe Jefferson. Ivey is rated as the nation's No. 2 overall prospect in the 247Sports Composite, which takes into account all the major recruiting services. Florida's late surge helped the Gators rise to a Top 25 team ranking in most services. It still isn't a great class by Florida's lofty standards, but it's a whole lot better than what some Gator fans had feared. CREATIVE ANNOUNCEMENTS: The recruits found plenty of interesting ways to make their decisions without resorting to the standard practice of choosing from a group of hats. Iman Marshall, rated as the nation's No. 1 cornerback by the 247Sports Composite, disclosed his choice with the online release of an elaborate video that ended with him putting on a USC hat as he walked toward the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Wide receiver Equanimeous St. Brown spoke in French and German as well as English at the press conference in which he announced he was signing with Notre Dame. Jamabo put his own spin on the "hat game" when he pulled out a pair of caps to indicate what he said were "his top two schools," but both hats were from UCLA. | 1 | 7,164 | sports |
It's the changing spending patterns of small business owners like Thomas Kean that helped prompt Staples Inc (SPLS.O) to buy Office Depot (ODP.O). It also may limit their post-merger growth prospects. Staples announced on Wednesday that it would buy Office Depot for $6.3 billion, combining the top two U.S. retailers of office supplies. The companies said the deal would enable them to better serve customers and make them more competitive on costs.. Kean, the owner of a property broker that employs 10 people in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, said he stopped shopping regularly at the nearby Office Depot years ago and only buys from Staples when they advertise a really good deal. "For normal stuff like paper, pens, folders and ink, I go to Costco and Sam's," Kean said, referring to membership-only bulk seller Costco Wholesale Corp (COST.O) and its rival Sam's Club, a unit Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N). "I think most small business guys do the same thing." Office Depot declined to comment for this story. Staples did not immediately respond to a request for comment. While analysts say the merged firm should be able to keep, or even strengthen, business serving larger firms directly, some warned that stemming the decline in its retail business - which is underpinned by demand from small business owners -- would prove a more difficult task. Kean was one of 15 small business owners and managers interviewed by Reuters in the town of Park Ridge, all within a short drive of a Staples, Office Depot and Office Max, and the outlets of key competitors Costco, Walmart and Sam's Club. Their answers offer a window into how demand for office supplies is shifting to a wider base of retailers perceived in some cases to be offering better quality or prices. While four of those interviewed named Staples or Office Depot as their main destination for office supplies, another four cited Costco and one said she exclusively shopped at Wal-Mart. Five said they use local distributors, partly to support small businesses like their own. Yvonne Roeske, the owner of a furnishings and accessories store, said that while she still purchases some basic items at Office Max, she had switched to Uline for shipping supplies because it is more convenient for her to buy in bulk. Basia Sobus, who runs a toy store, said she used to shop at Office Max but now buys printer paper from Costco, which she found to be of higher quality, and purchases ink through eBay online because she said it saves her time. The U.S. market for office supplies sold in stores has been in a steady decline since 2007 and totaled $11.7 billion last year, according to Euromonitor. Staples' market share fell to 38.2 percent in 2014 from 40.6 in 2013, while Office Depot dropped to 31 percent from 33 percent, the research firm says. Staples' commercial business, which sells supplies and services to larger corporate clients, should become stronger with the addition of Office Depot, said Randy Nicolau, chief executive of Poppin, an office products firm that supplies to Staples and runs a competing website. But Nicolau said Staples was struggling with consumers and small business owners. He sees Amazon.com as a "disruptor" in this market segment as sales of products like staples, pins and paper rapidly shifts to online retailers. Staples has itself been investing actively in its ecommerce operations, and with more than $10 billion in sales it ranked as the third-largest online player in 2013 after Amazon and Apple, according to Internet Retailer. While none of the business owners interviewed said they were using Amazon.com for office supplies, some said they were open to the idea and would generally shop for the best price. "If there is another competitor with better pricing," then I would be open to that, said Mohamed Ouifak, owner of a cafe with four staff members. Ouifak said he currently shops at Office Depot because "that's where you find office supplies." (Reporting by Nathan Layne and Nandita Bose; Editing by Alan Crosby) | 3 | 7,165 | finance |
The 2015 NHL draft crop is so impressive that success and failure will both have their rewards when this season is over. "It's a good year to be bad," St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said. While 16 teams compete in the NHL playoffs, the other 14 will be sizing up what is expected to be a draft that will yield a high number of difference-makers. "The top 10 kids are going to be pretty good at the NHL level," said Dan Marr, the NHL's director of scouting. Next June's draft already has received plenty of attention because the top two centers, Connor McDavid (Erie Otters, Ontario Hockey League) and Jack Eichel (Boston University) are considered generational players. The McDavid/Eichel sweepstakes might be overshadowing a prized second layer of prospects. Among them: smooth 6-3 Boston University defenseman Noah Hanifin; center Dylan Strome, brother of New York Islanders player Ryan Strome; and OHL standout Mitch Marner, a smallish winger with a Patrick Kane-like vibe to him. Former NHL team executive Craig Button, now an analyst for TSN.ca, says he sees McDavid and Eichel by themselves, followed by six highly impressive players. Hanifin is the consensus No. 3 prospect and top defenseman. "He will be in the NHL sooner rather than later," Marr said. Marr said in his conversations with NHL general managers, scouting directors and scouts, there is no dissent on Hanifin's place among the league's top prospects. "He understands the position so well," Marr said. "His composure, his ability to transition from defense to offense, (scouts) are just kind of wowed by the game he is playing as a college freshman." There appears to be no consensus after the top three, but Strome is high on team lists. At 6-3, he's bigger than his brother. "What I call (Dylan) is an industrious center," Button said. "Those kind of centers go early. Dylan Strome might be like (Columbus Blue Jackets center) Ryan Johansen." Dylan is not as dynamic as his brother, but he is good using his size down low. "The thing (the Stromes) have in common is neither of them like anyone to get the better of him," Marr said. Red Line Report's Top 10 draft prospects Marner and Strome are No. 1 and No. 2 in OHL scoring. "Marner is that playmaking, shifty winger, like Patrick Kane and you know he's going to make plays," Button said. "He can dash and dangle, and boy is he a smart creative player." Button has University of Michigan defenseman Zach Werenski right with Hanifin. Werenski will be 17 when drafted in June. "Noah Hanifin is a really good player, but Zach gets lost in the conversation," Button said. "But "What Werenski is doing at Michigan is every bit as good as what Hanifin is doing at BC," he said. Both Hanifin and Werenski played for the U.S. National Team Development Program. "Very similar players in that their skating and agility are both excellent," said USA Hockey national team guru Jim Johannson. "Their puck handling and first pass ability are also very good. I would say Noah is probably a little more consistent as a defender, while Zach has showed more goal-scoring ability." Another defenseman gaining traction is Russian defenseman Ivan Provorov, playing for Brandon (Manitoba) in the Western Hockey League. "He is not going to wow you with any flash," Button said, "but I will use (his coach) Kelly McCrimmon's words, who said, 'He's just a complete defenseman. There's nothing he can't do.'" Button also touts defenseman Oliver Kylington, the youngest player to score a goal in the Swedish Elite League. "He played regularly at Farjestad at age 16," Button said. "He reminds me of (former NHL) defenseman Calle Johansson." If the season ended today, depending on the draft lottery, the Buffalo Sabres, Edmonton Oilers, Carolina Hurricanes, Arizona Coyotes, Blue Jackets, Toronto Maple Leafs, New Jersey Devils and Ottawa Senators would be line to take those players. | 1 | 7,166 | sports |
Done and back at your desk in 60 minutes. Get Fit @ Work: The Perfect Lunch-Hour Workout If you really want your results from the gym to spill over into the boardroom, you may be better off exercising before work than after: "You'd be activating your muscles and the systems that get your body to fight depression," says Keith Barr, M.D., head of the UC Davis Functional Molecular Biology Lab. But if the early a.m. is out of the question, the next best thing is hitting the gym when your colleagues are ordering Chipotle. With this rigorous routine, you'll have ample time to shower, change, and get back to your cube within an hour. Get Fit @ Work: The Perfect Lunch-Hour Workout DIRECTIONS: For each exercise, choose a load that allows you 10 15 reps. Set a timer for eight minutes. Alternate sets of a and b exercises, resting minimally between sets until time is up. On each set, perform two fewer reps than you re capable of (leave a couple in the tank). 21-Minute Lunchtime Workout >>> WARMUP JUMPING JACKS 30 seconds PUSHUP 10 reps HIP BRIDGE (Lie on your back on the floor, bend your knees, and drive through your heels to bridge up with your hips.) 10 reps. Repeat the series for five minutes. The Best Dynamic Warmup for Any Workout >>> LEG PRESS/DUMBBELL ROW 1A LEG PRESS Get into a leg press machine and place your feet on the footplate shoulder-width apart with toes turned out 30 degrees. Lower your legs until your kneesare bent 90 degrees and then press back up. 1B DUMBBELL ROW Hold a dumbbell in your right hand and rest your left knee and hand on a bench. Retract your right shoulder blade and row the weight to your right hip pocket. Five Lunch Break Workouts for Fat Loss >>> DUMBBELL BENCH PRESS/STEPUP 2A DUMBBELL BENCH PRESS Lie back on a bench with a dumbbell in each hand at shoulder level. Press the weights over your chest. 2B STEPUP Hold dumbbells and place one foot on a bench or box so your thigh is parallel with the floor. Step up onto the box, pushing through your heel, but let the trailing leg hang off the box. The Complete Guide to Quick Workouts >>> SEATED OVERHEAD PRESS/BODYSAW 3A SEATED OVERHEAD PRESS Hold dumbbells at shoulder level and brace your core. Press the weights overhead. 3B BODYSAW Place your feet on sliders (or a towel if on a waxed wooden floor). Get into a plank position with your body in a straight line and abs braced. Push your forearms into the floor to slide backward, then draw yourself forward again. The 30-Minute Abs Workout >>> | 7 | 7,167 | health |
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) -- Mike Krzyzewski tore off his jacket, he slapped the floor, he gestured toward the crowd -- anything to spark his emotionally spent Duke players. And then his lone scholarship senior got rolling and saved the fourth-ranked Blue Devils. Quinn Cook scored all 17 of his points in the second half, and Duke beat Georgia Tech 72-66 on Wednesday night to give Krzyzewski his Atlantic Coast Conference-record 423rd league victory. Justise Winslow added 15 points and fellow freshman Jahlil Okafor had 14 for the Blue Devils (19-3, 6-3), who played for the first time since their win over previously unbeaten Virginia. "That's a huge win, and now you've got to do it again," Krzyzewski said. "I didn't think we were emotionally at the level we needed to be, no matter what we did. Not that our kids weren't ready to play, but we could not get that level of emotion." In the second half, Duke never trailed but also never led by more than seven points before finding a way to give their Hall of Fame coach a second milestone in 11 days. Krzyzewski, who earned his 1,000th career victory Jan. 25 at St. John's, surpassed former North Carolina coach Dean Smith as the winningest in ACC play. He improved to 423-169 in his 35th year in the league. Chris Bolden scored 16 points and Marcus Georges-Hunt had 14 for the Yellow Jackets (10-12, 1-9). Eight of their ACC losses have come by single digits. "We've played pretty darned good," coach Brian Gregory said. "We probably deserve a few more wins, and we haven't gotten them. That's what this league is all about right now." This one also wasn't decided until the final minute. Georgia Tech had the ball down 67-63 after Bolden's jumper in the lane with about 1:15 remaining and Okafor's missed jumper at the other end. Matt Jones' steal near the sideline set up Cook's two free throws with 33.5 seconds left. Tyus Jones then stole the ball from Demarco Cox and hit Winslow, who was fouled on the break and hit a free throw to put Duke up 70-63 with 23.7 seconds to play. Tadric Jackson pulled the Yellow Jackets within four with a 3 with 16.8 seconds left, before Cook added two free throws and Winslow blocked Josh Heath's layup with about 5 seconds left. Jones finished with 11 points for the Blue Devils, whose only double figure lead came late in the first half when Winslow's free throw with 5:13 left made it 33-23. Cox had 10 points for Georgia Tech, which was 8 of 11 from 3-point range, but its 14 turnovers turned into 20 Duke points. ------ STAT LINE Okafor had a rough night against a talented Georgia Tech front line. He was just 5 of 12 and missed more shots than he made for just the third time this season, and first time since Nov. 22 against Stanford. COURTSIDE Make it two losses to Duke in less than a week for Ralph Sampson. The former Virginia star and No. 1 draft pick was in the crowd last weekend for the Blue Devils' win over his Cavaliers. He then watched from behind the Georgia Tech bench while his son Robert started at forward for the Yellow Jackets. TIP-INS Georgia Tech: The Yellow Jackets fell to 5-34 at Cameron Indoor Stadium and their only victory here since 1997 came in 2004 -- the year they went on to reach the national title game. Duke: This was Duke's second game after the dismissal of guard Rasheed Sulaimon, and the Blue Devils were left with just eight scholarship players. Six played at least 22 minutes apiece; Marshall Plumlee played eight while Grayson Allen logged just three. UP NEXT Georgia Tech: Hosts Wake Forest on Saturday. Duke: Hosts No. 10 Notre Dame on Saturday. | 1 | 7,168 | sports |
Check out highlights of Villanova's win over Marquette. | 1 | 7,169 | sports |
Rob Gronkowski gets plenty of love for his reputation as a partier, but Johnny Manziel catches flak. Is that fair? | 1 | 7,170 | sports |
NBC News anchor Brian Williams conceded on Wednesday that a story he had told about being under fire while covering the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was false. Williams said he was not aboard a helicopter that was hit by enemy fire and forced down a story he retold as recently as last week during a televised tribute to a retired soldier during a New York Rangers hockey game. On "NBC Nightly News" Wednesday evening, Williams read a 50-second statement apologizing for his characterization of the episode. "After a groundfire incident in the desert during the Iraq war invasion, I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago," he said. "It did not take long to hear from some brave men and women in the air crews who were also in that desert. I want to apologize. I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by [rocket-propelled grenade] fire. I was instead in a following aircraft. . . . This was a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran and, by extension, our brave military men and women, veterans everywhere, those who have served while I did not." The admission is a rare black mark for Williams, a poised, veteran newsman who has anchored NBC's signature newscast since 2004 and has endeared himself to non-news audiences through appearances on "30 Rock," "The Tonight Show" and other entertainment programs. At least in the short term, the false story may damage the anchor's most valuable asset his credibility. NBC has not said whether he will face discipline for perpetuating the false story. Williams's apology came after the Stars and Stripes newspaper contacted crew members of the Chinook helicopter that Williams had said he was aboard when it was hit by two rockets and small-arms fire. They said that Williams was not aboard the aircraft during the incident at the onset of the war in March 2003. They said Williams arrived on another, undamaged helicopter an hour after the crippled Chinook had landed. "I would not have chosen to make this mistake," Williams told the newspaper. "I don't know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another." In the hockey broadcast last week, Williams told viewers, "The story actually started with a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG. Our traveling NBC News team was rescued, surrounded and kept alive by an armor mechanized platoon from the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry." Williams's claim of surviving an air attack bothered several soldiers familiar with air operations at the time, including Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Miller, who was the flight engineer on the helicopter that carried the NBC News crew. "No, we never came under direct enemy fire to the aircraft," he told the newspaper. The soldier's complaints prompted Williams to issue his first apology Wednesday afternoon on the "NBC Nightly News" Facebook page. "I spent much of the weekend thinking I'd gone crazy," Williams wrote. "I feel terrible about making this mistake, especially since I found my OWN WRITING about the incident from back in '08, and I was indeed on the Chinook behind the bird that took the RPG in the tail housing just above the ramp." He added, "Because I have no desire to fictionalize my experience (we all saw it happened the first time) and no need to dramatize events as they actually happened, I think the constant viewing of the video showing us inspecting the impact area and the fog of memory over 12 years made me conflate the two, and I apologize." He continued, "Nobody's trying to steal anyone's valor. Quite the contrary: I was and remain a civilian journalist covering the stories of those who volunteered for duty." The episode dates to a report by Williams on March 26, 2003. During the prime-time "Dateline NBC," he recounted the dangers faced by U.S. helicopters. But in that broadcast, he noted that the helicopter that was hit was not the one he was aboard. Over footage of a damaged Chinook, he said. "That hole was made by a rocket- grenade, or RPG. It punched cleanly through the skin of the ship, but amazingly it didn't detonate. . . . We learned [the helicopter] was shot at by some of those waving civilians." But over the years, the story began to morph into an incident that involved Williams himself. Williams has told the helicopter-under-fire story before. In a 2013 appearance on David Letterman's talk show, he said, "Two of the four helicopters were hit, by ground fire, including the one I was in, RPG and AK-47." A somewhat ambiguous recounting appears in " Operation Iraqi Freedom: The Inside Story," a book written by NBC Enterprises in 2003. That account has Williams in the helicopter and details such as the grenade round grazing a crewman's face. It's unclear in the book which Chinook Williams was riding in, but he comments: "There was some symbolism in all of this. A Vietnam-era RPG going clean through the tail of a Vietnam-era Chinook helicopter." And a caption describes a photo taken inside a helicopter, saying "With NBC anchor Brian Williams . . . aboard, Army Chinook helicopters are forced to make a desert landing after being attacked by Iraqi Fedayeen." Lance Reynolds, the flight engineer on the Chinook that was hit, told Stars and Stripes: "It was something personal for us that was kind of life-changing for me. I know how lucky I was to survive it. It felt like a personal experience that someone else wanted to participate in and didn't deserve to participate in." Reynolds told the newspaper that Williams and the NBC cameramen arrived in a helicopter 30 to 60 minutes after his damaged Chinook made a rolling landing at an Iraqi airfield and skidded off the runway into the desert. Julie Tate and Jennifer Amur contributed to this report. | 5 | 7,171 | news |
NBA commissioner Adam Silver says that the league is considering expanding the NBA All-Star rosters and changing the way players are selected. Good news for NBA fans? #120Talk | 1 | 7,172 | sports |
FREDERICK, Md. (AP) The suspects in a shooting that wounded two students outside a high school basketball game in Maryland were still at large Thursday morning, and police said they haven't ruled out any motives. Police said they're investigating a range of possibilities in the Wednesday night shooting at Frederick High School, including reports from students that it could be gang-related or stem from a rivalry between the two schools playing in the game. Investigators also are looking into reports from students who said they saw four to five males dressed in big coats and hands in their pockets walk into the gymnasium during the game and leave shortly before the gunfire rang out, Frederick Police Capt. Richard Hetherington said. The shooter or shooters are believed to have fled the scene on foot, Heatherington said. The shooting wounded two male students, who have injuries that are believed non-life-threatening, and sent spectators running for cover as frantic parents rushed to the scene to make sure their children were OK. The two wounded students were flown to a hospital in Baltimore. The boys' ages weren't released, and there was no immediate update on how they were doing Thursday. Two junior varsity basketball games were going on at the time of the shooting, Frederick County public schools spokesman Michael Doerrer said. He said there were also students from at least two other high schools on campus. The two students who were shot attend a Frederick County school, but not the one where the shooting happened, Doerrer said. Officers took about 200 people who were at the game into the school cafeteria, secured the building and questioned witnesses, Hetherington said. He said the students were released to their parents in the parking lot of a nearby bowling alley. Just before midnight, a school bus and a police van pulled into the lot and let off about a dozen students, the first group to be released. There was excited chatter as parents hugged their children. Frederick High School junior Sofia McCluskey said she was watching the game and heard a muffled shot. "Someone yelled, 'Yo, they're shooting,'" she said. "And we just ran as fast as we could." She and her friend, Stephanie Sanchez, said they ran to the locker room and were taken to the cafeteria, where they waited and were briefly interviewed by police. Sanchez said it was a frightening experience. "I was, like, shaking the whole time. I still am," she said. Dejuan Jones, a sophomore, said he knew the boys who were shot. "They was at my house a couple of days ago," he said. He said he believed the shooting was gang-related. "Everybody knows, everybody knows," he said. Dana Wiles, 40, said her daughter, a Frederick High school sophomore, sent her a text message around 8:40 p.m. "She said she saw it happen," Wiles said. "She's not coming back to any more basketball games. I'm keeping her home with me." Wiles waited with her son, a senior at another school, near the street entrance to the school driveway. They periodically checked their cellphones for messages. "I just want my kid," she said. Tanika Mayweather, whose 15-year-old son Lawrence was playing in the basketball game, said, "I know he's OK, because he called." She said she's not going to let her son play basketball for the school anymore. "We'll have our basketball games out in the park," she said. Sean Noah, 16, who attends a different high school, was in the building for swimming practice. He said he didn't hear any shots but that he was kept inside for about 45 minutes afterward. Elsa Pereira, 46, a paralegal, said her 10th-grade son was watching the game. "He called me right away," she said. "He's OK." Frederick County Public Schools officials tweeted that all other staff and students were safe and accounted for. Frederick High School, on the city's west side, has about 1,300 students. The school district closed the school and West Frederick Middle School for students on Thursday. The schools are set to reopen Friday. | 5 | 7,173 | news |
Taylor Swift's "1989" regained the top spot in the weekly Billboard 200 album chart, giving the pop star the distinction of being the second woman in history to have two albums hit No. 1 for at least 10 weeks, Billboard said on Wednesday. Swift's milestone puts her behind the late Whitney Houston, who had three albums top the charts for at least 10 weeks, Billboard said. Swift's second album, "Fearless," spent 11 weeks at the top. By tallying 101,000 sales units, including 71,000 albums and 302,000 song downloads, "1989" - the best-selling album of 2014 - marks its tenth non-consecutive week at the top in the 14 weeks since its release, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan for the week ended Feb. 1. Swift also became the seventh act overall to have at least two albums top the charts for so long, joining the likes of the Beatles and Elvis Presley. The reformulated Billboard 200 considers album sales, song downloads and online streaming to compile an album's total sales units. Swift famously does not allow her work to be on streaming services. Jumping back into second place ahead of the Grammys on Sunday is nominee Ed Sheeran's "X," followed by other favorites to win awards on the music industry's biggest night. Meghan Trainor remained at No. 3 with "Title," and Sam Smith's "In the Lonely Hour" rebounded to No. 4 from No. 9. The only new release in the top 10 was R&B singer Ne-Yo's "Non-Fiction," debuting at No. 5. Last week's No. 1, "American Beauty/American Psycho" from rock group Fall Out Boy, dropped 75 percent to 55,000 units, putting it in sixth place. Singer Bruno Mars and producer Mark Ronson's hit "Uptown Funk!" was the top downloaded song for the fifth consecutive week with 365,000 in sales, a 7 percent rise from last week. (Reporting by Mary Milliken; Editing by Eric Kelsey and Christian Plumb) | 6 | 7,174 | entertainment |
U.S. stocks rose, with benchmark indexes erasing losses for the year, as Pfizer Inc. announced a $17 billion deal and energy producers climbed with crude. Treasuries fell, while the euro strengthened as investors assessed negotiations on Greece's bailout. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 1 percent at 4 p.m. in New York, capping a recovery from a 3.1 percent slide in January. The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced six basis points to 1.81 percent. Greek 10-year yields were little changed at 9.69 percent after erasing an earlier surge. The euro strengthened 1.2 percent to $1.1484. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 4.2 percent to settle at $50.48 a barrel. Natural gas futures slid to a 31-month low in New York. Applications for U.S. unemployment benefits hovered around levels that are typically associated with an improving job market, data showed a day before the government releases its monthly labor report. Pfizer agreed to buy Hospira Inc., the biggest provider of injectable drugs and infusion technology. The first direct talks between Greece and Germany since a new anti-bailout government took power in Athens last week yielded no agreement on how to narrow their differences. "Right now it's earnings, Greece and M&A," Krishna Memani, the New York-based chief investment officer at Oppenheimer Funds Inc., said by phone. "It's more about the corporate outlook in the U.S. remaining good and the realization that while the Greek issue is important, it will eventually be resolved." U.S. Movers A Goldman Sachs Group Inc. gauge of the most-shorted stocks in the Russell 3000 Index jumped 2.3 percent today, bringing its rally since the end of January to 5.8 percent. The S&P 500 has advanced 3 percent in that period. Denbury Resources Inc. and Oneok Inc. jumped more than 3.8 percent as oil surged. Pfizer added 2.9 percent, the most since April, while Hospira jumped 35 percent. WTI gained more than 7 percent Thursday before paring the advance. It plunged 8.7 percent Wednesday, the most since November. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Crude Oil Volatility Index, which measures price fluctuations using options of the U.S. Oil Fund, ended Wednesday at the highest since April 2009. "Volatility is here to stay," Rob Haworth, a senior investment strategist in Seattle at U.S. Bank Wealth Management, which oversees about $120 billion of assets, said by phone. "We don't have headlines pushing us to new lows or highs now. The market may be trying to put in a floor but I think there's a little more downside risk." Oil's wide swings have rippled through equity markets. The CBOE Volatility Index fell 7.2 percent to 17.02 after rising 5.8 percent Wednesday. The gauge, known as the VIX, is down 19 percent this week after jumping 26 percent last week. Energy producers in the S&P 500 have moved at least 1.4 percent in either direction each day this week. Fed Watch The increase in equities volatility comes amid signs that the plunge in crude prices and a stronger dollar are eroding corporate profits, while investors speculate on the timing of a rate increase by the Federal Reserve. The Fed is scrutinizing data to determine whether slowing growth in overseas economies is hurting the U.S. A jobs report Friday from the Labor Department is predicted to show nonfarm payrolls rose by 230,000 last month, while the unemployment rate remained at 5.6 percent. U.S. data today showed record imports and a slowdown in shipments to overseas customers pushed the trade deficit to a two-year high in December. A separate report indicated the productivity of U.S. workers dropped in the fourth quarter as employers boosted hours by the most in 16 years. Market Catch-Up "The U.S. market lagged Europe at the beginning of the year, but in the last days there has been a catch-up driven by good figures," said Philippe Gijsels, chief strategy officer at BNP Paribas Fortis in Brussels. "Earnings have been favorable, and the market is now probably anticipating good numbers for tomorrow's non-farm payrolls." The S&P 500 fell 0.4 percent Wednesday, following the biggest two-day rally in almost a month. The benchmark gauge in January posted its worst month in a year amid concern that slowing growth overseas will hurt the U.S. economy. The drop contrasted with a 7.2 percent surge in the Stoxx Europe 600. That was the best start to a year since 1989, as the ECB expanded its stimulus plan to combat deflation. The European gauge lost 0.2 percent today, as investors weighed negotiations between Greece and European leaders. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Thursday he and his Greek counterpart, Yanis Varoufakis, "agreed to disagree" at a meeting in Berlin. Greek Debt The ECB said on Wednesday it will no longer accept junk- rated collateral from Greece, citing doubt over the new government's commitment to previous reform pledges. The decision will force the country's lenders to seek more-expensive emergency funding from their own central bank. "It's really a continuation of posturing on both sides, while the move in and of itself doesn't really get us any closer to a catastrophic problem," Memani said. "It continues to retain pressure on Greeks to have a bit more open attitude and the ECB's intent is to keep this from dragging on. It behooves them to try and resolve this uncertainty relatively quickly." The euro strengthened, recovering most of Wednesday's loss, as Greece reassured investors that its banks will retain funding access. The shared currency rebounded after dropping 1.2 percent Wednesday. The euro climbed 0.7 percent to 1.058 francs and touched 1.0644, the strongest level since Jan. 15. European Equities Greece's ASE Index slid 3.4 percent. Optimism that Greece's new government will soften its anti-austerity stance had sent the Stoxx 600 higher earlier this week, with the ASE posting its biggest three-day rally since 1991. The Stoxx 600 closed 0.1 percent higher for a fourth day of gains as crude's rally overcame a slide among banks in the index. Oil and gas producers jumped 1.6 percent as a group, while lenders slid 0.5 percent. National Bank of Greece SA and Piraeus Bank SA plunging more than 12 percent. UBS Group AG slipped 1.2 percent after people familiar with the matter said the U.S. is investigating whether the bank helped Americans evade taxes. BNP Paribas SA lost 3.7 percent as France's largest bank said new rules and higher taxes will weigh on earnings. Deal activity increased. BT Group Plc added 4.5 percent after agreeing to buy EE Ltd. for 12.5 billion pounds ($19 billion) from owners Orange SA and Deutsche Telekom AG. The yield on Greece's three-year note surged 45 basis points to 16.78 percent. They reached 20.05 percent on Feb. 3, the highest since Greece restructured its debts in 2012. Bonds, Ukraine Treasuries declined for the third time in four days as traders shifted focus from the sparring between Greece's anti- austerity government and European leaders to the strengthening U.S. employment market. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index advanced 0.2 percent for a fourth day of gains. Russia's Micex climbed 2.4 percent and the ruble jumped 2.5 percent as energy producers gained with oil. Ukraine's currency fell while bonds advanced after National Bank of Ukraine loosened its reins on the currency to bolster its hand in winning a bailout from the International Monetary Fund. The yield on July 2017 traded at a four-day high of 52.937 cents on the dollar. The hryvnia weakened 32 percent to a record 24.5 per dollar German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande said they'll travel Thursday to Kiev, where Secretary of State John Kerry is meeting officials, before making their way to Moscow the next day for talks with President Vladimir Putin. The Bloomberg Commodity Index rallied 0.9 percent for its fourth advance in five days as oil gained. Natural gas futures fell 2.3 percent, to settle at $2.60 per million British thermal units, as a government report showed that U.S. stockpiles dropped by less than forecast last week. | 3 | 7,175 | finance |
He was a wolf in sheep's clothing. A Texas man who defensively painted his ex-girlfriend as being the abusive one after she called police on him in fear of her life went on to kill her and himself less than 24 hours later, police said. The bodies off Jose Calderon, 46, and Heather Coglaiti, 33, were recovered inside her Corpus Christi apartment Tuesday morning after what authorities have described as a tumultuous, on-and-off relationship between them over the last two years. What's suspected as a violent murder-suicide followed Coglaiti going to the police on Monday morning to seek Calderon's arrest after she said she found her car's tires slashed, window broken and threatening texts sent to her phone. As she met with officers Calderon called her cellphone and upon hearing of her intensions he agreed to come down to the police station to tell his side of the story, police said. It was then, in a 37-minute interview, that he denied ever threatening her but accused her of being the aggressor instead, as seen in a video obtained by KRIS-TV. "Never do I ever threaten this lady. Never," he told a detective. "She said, 'I'm so scared you're gonna kill me.' "I've never said that out of my mouth ... I don't know why she says this and that," he said. Calderon went on to describe Coglaiti's claims as incredulous and mirroring similar ones made against him in the past. Those allegedly include seven incidents reported last month by Coglaiti, including claims Calderon threatened to kill her, KRIS-TV reported. "We go back and forth. We'll fight like this and she knows I won't punch her but she punches the hell out of me in the face and she'll bite, do whatever," he said. "She likes playing the little mind games too," he added. "She's not quite as innocent as she makes it out to be." After their interview Calderon was sent on his way and about 16 hours later both were found dead. At a news conference Wednesday, authorities suggested that their hands were tied from doing anything more to help. Calderon was only accused of criminal mischief, Capt. Hollis Bowers of the police department's Criminal Investigative Division said. Because the case lacked "a certain level of violence" an emergency protective order was not warranted, he added. Police Chief Floyd Simpson told reporters that the department had done all it could. Like Coglaiti, Calderon leaves behind children from previous relationships. An online fundraiser has since been set up for Coglaiti's surviving children by her sister-in-law, Chasity Wilson. ON A MOBILE DEVICE? WATCH THE VIDEO HERE [email protected] | 5 | 7,176 | news |
Loving spicy food stems from your personality, according to new research from Penn State University. Lead researcher John Hayes previously told NPR people who enjoy action movies, adventure-seeking and exploration, are six times more likely to enjoy the burn of a spicy meal. The sweat and lightheadedness associated with spicy food triggers a kind of euphoria, releasing endorphins in the same way thrills such as rollercoaster rides do. Now, he and co-researcher Nadia Byrnes are building on these results. But instead of personality, Hayes and Byrnes are focusing on gender differences. Apparently, women who are heavy-handed with the sriracha are actually drawn to the sting in their throat. Men, on the other hand, possibly withstand the heat to play into traditional gender roles. The study, published in the journal Food Quality and Preference , suggested "the cultural association of consuming spicy foods with strength and machismo has created a learned social reward for men." Though a separate study published in Physiology & Behavior found a man's high levels of testosterone and general enjoyment of the color red factor into whether or not he eats something spicy. Personality and gender inclinations aside, there are universal benefits to eating spicy food. One study found blocking the body's ability to feel pain is a way to live longer. One way to do this is eat chili peppers because they're rich in capsaicin, a component used as topical pain relief for conditions, like arthritis, and itchy skin. Discovery News cited spicy foods "boost metabolism and positively affect the cardiovascular, respiratory, and gastrointestinal systems," too. DN also cited spicy food consumption, from hot sauce to the touch of heat in sandwiches and burgers, rose from 46 percent in 2009 to 54 percent in 2014. It's not a significant increase, but this means more than half of consumers enjoy eating spicy foods. If we're focusing on hot sauce, sriracha has become the brand to be beat; it's inspired everyone from Subway to Kettle Brand chips and bloody mary's at your local bar to incorporate it in their menu. Manufactured by Huy Fong Foods, this brand provides a unique spicy and garlicky taste. In fact, the sauce packs so much heat that odors wafting from the plant burn the eyes and throats of neighboring residents. This caused the Los Angeles-based plant to temporarily shut down, promptly inspiring consumers to believe there was a shortage. While sriracha will resume its regular shipping schedule within the month, it's good to know we can substitute the feeling we get from a bottle is basically equivalent to a trip to a theme park or movie theater. You know, in the event of an actual shortage. Source: Byrnes N.K. and Hayes J.E. Gender differences in the influence of personality traits on spicy food liking and intake. Food Quality and Preference . 2015. | 7 | 7,177 | health |
Syracuse informed the NCAA of a self-imposed ban on the 2014-15 men's basketball postseason in response to an NCAA investigation, the university announced Wednesday. The ban includes the NCAA tournament and NIT as well as the ACC tournament for the Orange, a fringe team to make the field of 68 this season. "I am very disappointed that our basketball team will miss the opportunity to play in the post-season this year," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said in a statement. "Senior Rakeem Christmas has been an outstanding member of the team for the past four years. However, I supported this decision and I believe the University is doing the right thing by acknowledging that past mistakes occurred. Our players have faced adversity and challenges before. I know they will rise to this challenge by keeping our program strong and continuing to make our University proud." "We are all tremendously disappointed that we are going to miss out on playing in the postseason based on issues that do not involve us." said team captains Rakeem Christmas, Trevor Cooney and Michael Gbinije in a statement Wednesday. "However, we support our school and this won't change how hard we will continue to work in practice and in games." The ban is a response to an NCAA investigation the school said it initiated when it self-reported potential violations within the athletics department in 2007. Syracuse said no current player is involved in the investigation and that the conduct in the case did not occur after 2012. In October, Boeheim and other Syracuse officials attended a hearing in front of the NCAA's Committee of Infractions. | 1 | 7,178 | sports |
A new report from Kantar Worldpanel tracking smartphone sales in the United States indicated that phones running Apple's iOS operating system may have passed those running Android in terms of market share. According to Carolina Milanese, who wrote the report, iOS sales " overtook " Android sales by a tiny 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014. If true, this would be the first quarter in two years in which more devices running iOS than Android sold in the United States. The report says that iOS devices accounted for 47.7 percent of sales in the fourth quarter, while Android devices from various manufacturers accounted for 47.6 percent of sales. It's not a surprise that Apple is surging: The company said that it had sold a staggering 74.5 million iPhones worldwide at an average price of just under $700 earlier this month. Even if the breakdown between iOS and Android is near a dead heat, it's clear that Apple has the momentum. The iPhone is doing well in Europe and parts of Asia too. The report indicated that iOS's percentage share in Europe was up 6.2 percent year over year as Android's share declined by 3.8 percent. In fact, the only European market that saw Android's market share increase was Italy, which the report notes is a "strong pre-pay market." Depending on where you live, you could be forgiven if you believed that iOS already had the majority of U.S. market share. The United States is a key market, and startups and more established companies use market share distribution figures to determine where to devote developer resources. Apps do tend to come out for iOS first. There's one major reason you might not be hearing Apple CEO Tim Cook cite this Kantar Worldpanel study in his next iOS reveal, though: 0.1 percent is a tiny margin, and could easily be negated by the study's margin of error, which Kantar doesn't share. It's much safer to say based on this report that it looks as if Android and iOS are nearly tied in terms of United States market share than to say iOS has taken the lead. Plus, the report doesn't take into account devices sold in previous quarters that may still be in use. If you want to dig deeper into the trends, which include Windows Phone figures as well, Kantar Worldpanel has a nifty interactive map using its data and conclusions. This article was written by Kif Leswing from GigaOm and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. | 5 | 7,179 | news |
Come on food, I need you with me. | 8 | 7,180 | video |
Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer is fired up with all of the Braxton Miller transfer talk. | 1 | 7,181 | sports |
Discussing the best way to play stocks amid the selloff in the energy market, with Michael Cuggino, Permanent Portfolio Funds. | 3 | 7,182 | finance |
Why, back in my day ... One of the latest bans on fun: no sledding. Seriously, towns from Iowa to New Jersey are becoming afraid of the liability. It's safer to erect a sign in the park than to let kids enjoy a snow day. But are we really surprised? So many things these town managers and lawyers did themselves when they were children are now deemed too risky. Like letting kids walk home alone from the bus stop, which is at the end of the driveway. "We are just encouraged to imagine the worst-case scenario," says Lenore Skenazy, author, lecturer and founder of the organization Free Range Kids. "We're living in this society that believes you can get to zero risk." Yet few would argue for a total return to the good ol' days. Revisit the 1970s and judge for yourself. More from Insurance.com: Find cheaper car insurance in 8 easy steps Look, Ma, no seat belt No doubt seat belts save lives, and today 86 percent of American drivers buckle up. But in 1983, a year before New York became the first state to pass a seat belt law, only 14 percent did. Fatality rates were more than twice what they are today - 2.6 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles travelled versus 1.13 today. It wasn't until 1968 that the federal government required automakers to include seat belts, and it was 1993 before California became the first state to allow police to pull drivers over for failure to wear one. Today 33 states allow so-called primary enforcement, and all but the "Live Free or Die" state of New Hampshire have seat-belt laws. As long as children aren't unsecured, a seat-belt citation typically won't add points or affect your auto insurance rates, says Des Toups, managing editor of Insurance.com. More from Insurance.com: Find cheaper car insurance in 8 easy steps Got a light? Before anti-smoking groups sprang up in the late 1970s, non-smokers were lucky just to get their own dining section -- albeit not their own air. Parents thought little of rolling up the windows and lighting up on a family trip. Workers weren't denied the right to take a pull at their desk. A few decades and big secondhand-smoke lawsuits later, the smokers are persona non grata, even in their own homes as condos and apartments prohibit smoking anywhere on site. So do some public parks and beaches. Smoking rates are down - from 37 percent of adults in 1970 to 18 percent in 2012 - and so are insurance costs. Smoke-free workplaces reduce healthcare costs and fire risks, as well as cleanup costs and lost work time. It could be worse. Lighting up in public in 17th century Russia, Turkey, Mongolia and China carried a threat of execution. In other words, smoking bans are nothing new. More from Insurance.com: Find cheaper car insurance in 8 easy ste ps We don't need no stinkin' car insurance Imagine not having to pay an auto-insurance bill. Then imagine if all the other drivers were careening around uninsured. In 1970, only three states required auto liability insurance. Massachusetts pioneered the law, in 1927, and New York followed, but not until 1956. Other states had "financial responsibility" laws, requiring drivers to prove only after an accident that they could pay. Most states didn't pass compulsory auto insurance laws until the 1970s and '80s, with everyone but New Hampshire aboard now. But even with stricter enforcement, an estimated 14 percent of drivers are uninsured, and those rates rise with unemployment. ( See state requirements and what coverage most drivers commonly choose .) More from Insurance.com: Find cheaper car insurance in 8 easy steps A Budweiser in the lap Kids, our dads always stopped for "road pop" on the drive out of town. No waiting to crack open a cold one on a hot day. Trips were measured in six-packs. Mothers Against Drunk Driving had yet to be formed (it arrived in 1980), insurance rates didn't skyrocket after a DUI conviction (insurance hikes are largely responsible now for the $10,000 cost of a first-time DUI ), and drunken driving fatalities were twice as high. In 1982, only 26 states had banned drinking behind the wheel. Then the feds stepped in, passing a 1998 law that yanked 3 percent of a state's transportation funds if it didn't ban open containers anywhere within reach of drivers and passengers. "Money talks," one Houstonian said when Texas finally buckled in 2001, with $80 million at stake. Now all but 11 states comply, and only Mississippi allows people to nurse a drink behind the wheel. In 1982, when the government began tracking, 21,113 people died in alcohol-related traffic accidents. Today, that figure has fallen more than 50 percent. More from Insurance.com: Find cheaper car insurance in 8 easy steps Does that dog carry liability insurance? Leash laws have definitely gotten stricter. Virtually all state and national parks now require them - but requiring some dogs to carry $1 million in liability insurance is definitely a 21st century solution. In Royal Oak, Mich., owners of dogs deemed dangerous must obtain insurance, take obedience classes, erect signs and take other measures or face up to a $500 fine and 90 days in jail. You can bet other municipalities will follow, given perceived liability concerns. Insurance companies have reason to worry. Dog bite claims now account for more than a third of homeowners insurance liability claims, costing nearly $500 million in 2013. And fatal dog attacks are up 82 percent, according to DogBiteLaw.com. In hindsight, leash laws seem so quaint. More from Insurance.com: Find cheaper car insurance in 8 easy steps Children could walk. Outside. Alone. Writing in the New York Times recently, blogger KJ Dell'Antonia quoted a 1979 parenting book recommending milestones for 6-year-olds: "Can he travel alone in the neighborhood (four to eight blocks) to a store, school, playground, or to a friend's home?" That's right. Children of the '70s and '80s - and every decade prior - were not only permitted but were encouraged to navigate the world sans grownups. How things have changed. Although it's far more dangerous in a moving car than a sidewalk, a 10-year-old out alone today prompts do-gooders to call police and social services to investigate the family. One Massachusetts town councilor proposed prohibiting children from even walking to the school bus without parents. Ask your parents how far they walked by themselves - at age 6 - to the bus stop. More from Insurance.com: Find cheaper car insurance in 8 easy steps Kids played . . . without adults. What?! Children of the '70s would be hard-pressed to recall parents ever supervising outdoor play. Parents were at home enjoying their own free time. Nothing universally awful occurred to precipitate today's cultural shift away from unsupervised play, say experts. Crime rates are down. But the number of individual, horrifying incidents we hear about is way, way up. "People don't care about statistics, all they care about is stories," says author Skenazy. Add cell phones and paranoid neighbors, and you get stories like this, collected at the FreeRangeKids.org site: a family investigated by social services because a 13-year-old and her younger siblings were playing by themselves -- in a field next to their house. According to a 2014 survey, a majority of Americans support criminalizing preteens playing outside without adults. "It really has changed childhood," Skenazy says. More from Insurance.com: Find cheaper car insurance in 8 easy steps The kids really were alright Comedian Chelsea Handler writes about a babysitting company she launched in the 1980s when she was 12. Fast forward to 2014: A Hollywood film centers around a working mom who needs to hire an after-school babysitter (Bill Murray, in St. Vincent) for her 12-year-old son. Homes aren't less safe, but news reports indicate that neighbors today are: Some have called police upon suspecting that children under 12 were left home alone, even for a few hours. More from Insurance.com: Find cheaper car insurance in 8 easy steps We embraced dirt "Ugh! I've been kissed by a dog," Lucy cries in a Peanuts comic strip. "Get some disinfectant!" Would this classic be funny today, given our attachment to sanitizer gel? Until 1988, when Purell launched the first commercial gel, anti-microbial soaps were largely the province of hospitals. Now they're a $400 million business in the U.S. alone - nearly $1 billion when you include anti-bacterial soaps. Good that the public-health message about hand-washing is out, although plain soap is adequate. But the saturation of antibacterial agents may be doing more harm than good, contributing to the proliferation of drug-resistant bacteria -- something the World Health Organization calls "a threat to global health security" -- and steep rise in allergies, asthma and other immune disorders. More from Insurance.com: Find cheaper car insurance in 8 easy steps People walked. Alone. At night. According to a 2014 survey, the thing Americans now fear more than anything is taking a walk alone at night. Forget all those worn jokes about people fearing public speaking even more than death. Public speaking has dropped to No. 5, right behind "being the victim of a mass/random shooting." Nationwide, crime rates are well below what they were in the 1970s. But human beings are innately terrible at calculating risk, and they're wired to remember scary stories, something the 24/7 media provides in ample doses. It's no accident that those who were most fearful in the Chapman University survey were people who watched a lot of talk shows and true-crime television shows. More from Insurance.com: Find cheaper car insurance in 8 easy steps | 3 | 7,183 | finance |
For 50 years, landing the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue has been considered a major modeling milestone. After all, that spot helped put Marisa Miller, Tyra Banks, Elle Macpherson, and Kate Upton on the map. (Sometimes, it put them in zero gravity.) For readers who wear above a size 4, though, the mag has always left something to be desired (an ounce of diversity). The 51st edition finally will address that lack, but we can't chalk this up as a win for body inclusivity just yet. Ashley Graham, made famous for her too-steamy-for-TV Lane Bryant ads and a Vogue.com editorial devoted to bustier bra styles, can henceforth be known as the first plus-size model to wear her string bikini in the pages of SI . It's a well-deserved accomplishment for a woman who's not only a total babe in front of the camera, but also a badass business force behind the scenes. She's created her own lingerie collections with Addition Elle and advocated for diversity in fashion as a cofounder of Alda, a collective of IMG models who proudly stand out from the straight-size mold. For the Sports Illustrated issue, Graham serves up so much poolside sex appeal that a business-suit-clad fella collapses into the water. It's cheeky, glamourous, and totally a cover-worthy concept for the magazine's swim issue. But, it's not on the cover, or even in an editorial. It's an ad. The saucy photo is part of a campaign for SwimSuitsForAll, the awesome online retailer known for turning blogger GabiFresh's "fatkini" into a popular plus swimwear line, and the hashtag #CurvesinBikinis into a movement. While the image is still a milestone for the magazine and an empowering moment for plus models everywhere it's still a half-win at best. Check out the SwimSuitsForAll campaign video , and check out the SI issue on February 9 to see the print ad that's giving us just a little hope for change. | 4 | 7,184 | lifestyle |
CNN's Arwa Damon share the story of Hanan, who says she was forced to marry an ISIS Sharia police chief to win save her father's life. | 5 | 7,185 | news |
HARTFORD - Soon enough, the time will come for Geno Auriemma and his UConn program to refocus on its annual goal of winning another national championship. For instance, there is a flight to Memphis on Friday, a game there Saturday, a practice in Storrs on Sunday and Monday's showdown with No. 1 South Carolina at Gampel Pavilion on Monday. However, Tuesday was not the time to obsess, and to be clear, Auriemma's wiring is such that relaxation for him is as problematic as a bunker shot out of the deep sand with an impossible pin placement to approach. Moments after he won his 900th game Tuesday, an effortless 60-point win over Cincinnati at the XL Center, Auriemma was celebrated by his athletic department, program and fan base in a way befitting the historic milestone. Auriemma won 900 faster than any coach in Division I history in just his 1,034th game. He also became the first man to win 900 in women's basketball. And all around him on Tuesday was joy and celebration. "Whenever you reach a certain level of success, you think back on all the people that were there and made it possible," Auriemma said after the game. "Sometimes, when you're going along this path, you get caught up in what you're doing, what you have to do next, and as a result you forget where you come from, how it all started, and who was there along the way. "That's the big thing for me; the chance to reflect on it. There's no 'What does it mean or what does it do for you personally?' I tell my players during the NCAA Tournament that when I wake up in morning, my life won't change that much [no matter what happens]. But having the opportunity to see how it impacted others, that's pretty cool." About 10 minutes before Auriemma said this in the interview room, Cincinnati coach Jamelle Elliott, as beloved a former player and assistant as he's had, told her audience that she sometimes worries that her mentor isn't able to enjoy what he has accomplished. "When I talk to him, most of the time it's not about basketball stuff," Elliott said. "It's just talking about enjoyment. He never enjoys any of this stuff. He never takes a break and just sits back and realizes the accomplishments. I just find myself constantly reminding him of that. "If people didn't [stage celebrations in his honor] he would never acknowledge those types of things. The best part was that I was able to be here and spend this moment with him." As part of the postgame celebration, UConn played a video tribute to Auriemma featuring congratulatory messages from many former players, some iconic, some great, some just soldiers who served him with hard work. Auriemma has said many times, particularly over the past two weeks, that one of his greatest satisfactions comes from seeing how successful so many of his former players have become. "I look across the way and Meghan [Culmo] doing television [on SNY]," Auriemma said. "Debbie [Fiske] is doing radio [for the UConn radio network]. Kara [Wolters] and Sue [Bird} are down in New York [working in SNY's studio]. A lot of good things have happened to some really good people who have come through this program. It makes me feel like I've done a really great job helping them get to where they are. I'm thrilled we have had some impact on that." Auriemma, 60, was asked if he thought it possible for a young coach in this modern world to sustain and succeed long enough win 900 games. After all, he has averaged 30 wins over 30 seasons. "Everyone has their own timetable [in life]," Auriemma said. "If you're a 30-year-old today and just starting out, and willing to hang in there and put up with all the stuff you need to put up with hoping to catch lighting in a bottle like we did, and hire someone like Chris Dailey as your assistant and be able to recruit the players we've recruited, I guess you have a chance. "But the odds of that happening aren't really high. The job I received in 1985 and the one I have now aren't even in the same universe." More On Taurasi Auriemma believes Diana Taurasi's decision to sit out the 2015 WNBA season, on behalf of her Russian team, which will pay her not to play, might not bode well for the WNBA. He said it could begin a trend that might spread to include other top players who make as much as 10 times more money overseas. But Auriemma did manage to spin a joke about Taurasi's future with his USA senior national team, which will soon begin preparing for the 2016 Olympics in Brazil. "From what I understand, Diana is definitely playing next summer [for the Phoenix Mercury]," Auriemma said. "Of course, after taking this summer off she has to play next summer because if she tries out for the Olympic team, I will cut her ass if she's not in great shape. So, she can take one summer off, but she better get her butt in gear next summer." | 1 | 7,186 | sports |
A senior Hamas leader called Wednesday for the formation of Palestinian militant groups loyal to his Gaza-based Islamist movement in refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria for attacks on Israel. Mahmud Zahar told reporters in the Gaza Strip that Lebanese and Syrian branches of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' armed wing, should launch attacks on Israel "to help us liberate Palestine". He also denied "any interference" by Hamas in Egypt, which last month declared the Brigades a terrorist group and accused it of aiding a spate of militant attacks on security personnel in the restive Sinai Peninsula. "Our guns are always trained on the enemy," Zahar said, referring to Israel. Hamas and Israel fought a 50-day war in mid-2014 that killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 73 on the Israeli side, most of them soldiers. | 5 | 7,187 | news |
Life isn't always black and white. But a new study suggests that when it comes to the likelihood of staying faithful to your partner, things may be more cut and dry than you think. The authors suggest that humans belong to one of two groups promiscuous or loyal to one partner and this can be discovered by the length of your fingers. The study , which was published in the journal Biology Letters , was carried out as a joint collaboration between Professor Robin Dunbar's lab at Oxford University and Professor John Manning at Northumbria University. Typically, species are either considered promiscuous or faithful: swans, wolves, penguins, and even critters like cockroaches either mate for life or remain monogamous to one partner for a long period of time. While there's biological motivation for sowing one's seed among plenty of partners, evidence also suggests that staying with one love can be beneficial to both survival and offspring. For the most part, all animals are either faithful or not; interestingly, humans are a mix of both promiscuous and faithful we're something of a "mid-way" species. "This research suggests that there may be two distinct types of individuals within each sex pursuing different mating strategies," Dr. Rafael Wlodarski of Oxford University's Department of Experimental Psychology said in the press release . "We observed what appears to be a cluster of males and a cluster of females who are more inclined to 'stay,' with a separate cluster of males and females being more inclined to 'stray,' when it comes to sexual relationships." The Telling Length Of Fingers In the study, the researchers analyzed a survey from 575 North American and British participants about their desires and opinions on sex with no strings attached, or "non-committal" sex. They also examined photocopies of the right hands of 1,314 British men and women, using them to measure the length of the index and ring fingers. Past research has shown that the lengths of your fingers can tell a lot more about your genetic predisposition, personality, and sexuality than you might imagine. The ratio between the lengths of your index and ring finger, known as the 2D:4D ratio , can be quite telling when it comes to hormone levels and physical qualities. For example, the shorter someone's index finger is in relation to the ring finger, the more testosterone they were exposed to in the womb. Higher levels of testosterone exposure in the womb are typically linked to greater sexual promiscuity as an adult. In studying the participants' hands, the researchers found that people were "bimodal," meaning they were able to fit into two distinct groups: one more likely to be licentious, and the other more loyal; and the length of the person's ring finger helped point to who was more promiscuous. People with longer ring fingers were more likely to seek out higher numbers of sexual partners, and both men and women were bimodal. But the authors warn that it's quite difficult to decide, on an individual level, who will stay or stray: even if you look at their fingers. So just because your ring finger is significantly longer than your index finger doesn't mean you're one to go out on the town; perhaps you're in a loving monogamous relationship. Besides, there are plenty of other factors that goes into a person's sexual life, including environment and past experiences; which in and of itself proves the point that again, nothing is black and white. "It is important to note that these differences are very subtle, and are only visible when we look at large groups of people: we cannot really predict who is going to be more or less faithful," Dunbar said in the press release. "Human behavior is influenced by many factors, such as the environment and life experience, and what happens in the womb might only have a modest effect on something as complex as sexual relationships." Source: Wlodarski R, Manning J, Dunbar R. Stay or stray? Evidence for alternative mating strategy phenotypes in both men and women. Biology Letters . 2015. | 7 | 7,188 | health |
http://www.PopularCruising.com ~ Enjoy our all new Norwegian Breakaway Review and Tour series with shorter videos by topic. This video's focus is on activities and covers the Aqua Park, watersides, Kids Aqua Park, Sports Complex, Ropes Course, Sports Court, Miniature Golf, pools, Vibe Beach Club, Mandara Spa & Salon, Spice H2O, Tradewinds Shops, meeting rooms, card room, library, internet cafe, guest services desk, shore excursions desk, atrium movies and video games, video arcade and youth facilities: Splash Academy, Under 2 Zoo and Entourage. ~ http://www.PopularCruising.com | 2 | 7,189 | travel |
NEW YORK Lawyers for victims of the Sept. 11 attacks say they have new evidence that agents of Saudi Arabia "directly and knowingly" helped the hijackers, including sworn testimony from the so-called 20th hijacker and from three principals of the U.S. government's two primary probes of the attacks. The Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington said in a statement Wednesday that Zacarias Moussaoui's claims come from a "deranged criminal" and that there is no evidence to support them. It said Saudi Arabia had nothing to do with the deadly 2001 attacks. The lawyers filed documents in Manhattan federal court to buttress claims Saudi Arabia supported al-Qaida and its leader at the time, Osama bin Laden, prior to the attacks. They have always said "the Saudi government directly and knowingly assisted the 9/11 hijackers," but now say facts and evidence supporting the assertion "are compelling." They said an "expansive volume" of new evidence including U.S. and foreign intelligence reports, government reports and testimony from al-Qaida members support lawsuits seeking billions of dollars from countries, companies and organizations that aided al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. They said evidence likely to be released soon includes a congressional report detailing evidence of Saudi 9/11 involvement and nearly 80,000 pages of material relating to an FBI probe of Saudis who supported 9/11 hijackers in Florida. They also cited their own research, including last year's Moussaoui interview at the maximum-security prison in Florence, Colorado. Moussaoui repeated some assertions made previously, including that a 1990s plot by al-Qaida to shoot down Air Force One and assassinate President Bill Clinton was assisted by a top Saudi Embassy employee, along with claims there were direct dealings between senior Saudi officials and bin Laden. The lawyers also said their case is boosted by sworn statements by 9/11 Commissioners John Lehman and Bob Kerrey, as well as Bob Graham, co-chairman of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11. Graham says he believes "there was a direct line" between some Sept. 11 terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia while Lehman, a former Navy secretary, explained close historical ties between the kingdom's government clerics and al-Qaida, the lawyers noted. The court filing, coming less than two weeks after the death of Saudi King Abdullah, was made to meet a deadline set by Judge George B. Daniels. In a website statement, the Saudi embassy noted the Sept. 11 attack had been the "most intensely investigated crime in history and the findings show no involvement by the Saudi government or Saudi officials." As for Moussaoui, the statement said: "His words have no credibility. His goal in making these statements only serves to get attention for himself and try to do what he could not do through acts of terrorism to undermine Saudi-U.S. relations." Moussaoui was arrested on immigration charges in August 2001 after employees of a Minnesota flight school became alarmed he wanted to learn to fly a Boeing 747 with no pilot's license. He was in custody on Sept. 11 and pleaded guilty in April 2005 to conspiring with the hijackers to kill Americans. A psychologist testified for the defense at death penalty proceedings that he had paranoid schizophrenia. Jurors spared his life. | 5 | 7,190 | news |
Our Seminoles insider Chad Simmons examines the team's latest recruiting class including who will be next season's impact freshmen. | 1 | 7,191 | sports |
As we spend more time at the office, we search even harder for better ways to achieve the mythical "work-life balance". From taking lunchtime walks to adjusting frustrating commutes to trading old jobs for ones we actually like, we make changes (both big and small) for the sake of our workplace happiness. But what many of us might not realize is that the biggest mood booster could be sitting in the desk chair right next to us. According to Virgin Pulse's new Labor of Love Report, which explores what employees love most about their jobs, one of the most important factors in enjoying a 9-to-5 gig is the company we keep as we do so. Nearly 40 percent of survey respondents named their co-workers as the top reason they love working for their company, with 66 percent saying those positive relationships increased their productivity and 55 percent saying they helped mitigate their on-the-job stress levels. And considering the average American worker spends 47.5 hours in the office each week, some employees may spend more time with their co-workers than with family members or friends outside of the office. "The centrality of social connections to our health and well-being cannot be overstressed," according to Sonja Lyubomirsky, the author of The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want . Employers are beginning to recognize the importance of these connections in the office and are taking steps to reinvent the workplace to help nurture the positive aspects of employees' work experiences, reducing burnout and turnover in the process. Camaraderie at work -- or even just the opportunity for it -- has been found to not just make for a happy employee but a more effective business as a whole. Whether coworkers use their time to air grievances about their bosses, chat about weekend plans or head out to happy hour together, close bonds help dissolve dissatisfaction they may feel otherwise, making them more likely to work productively and remain in their current position for longer. We may log more hours at our desks than we do at home, and leave unused vacation days floating on the calendar, but at least we have our best work buddies who help us do well at our jobs and smile about it simultaneously. | 3 | 7,192 | finance |
'Jurassic World' has a new marketing campaign and this staged 'live' footage is so well done you'll have to keep reminding yourself it isn't real. Gillian Pensavalle (@GillianWithaG) would totally go if the park existed. | 8 | 7,193 | video |
Usually, it's good news to go from Death Row to life in prison. Not so for Suge Knight, the one-time rap mogul who now faces a life sentence for running two men over in Los Angeles. Knight was the force behind Death Row Records, once home to Dr. Dre and the man then known as Snoop Doggy Dogg. But his star has fallen, his rap sheet is impressively long, and now he faces charges of murder, attempted murder, and hit and run. (His nickname pronounced "Shoog," if you're not in the know short for sugar. His given name is Marion.) The circumstances are murky and, inevitably, disputed. Knight was on the set of Straight Outta Compton , an uncreatively named biopic about the hip hop group N.W.A., on the afternoon of January 29 when he got into an argument with two men and was asked to leave. Somehow, the argument reignited at a nearby burger joint a little later (how Knight and the men both came to be there is in dispute). Knight allegedly followed the men to the eatery where the argument flared again before he ran them over in his truck. He says he was acting in self-defense; prosecutors say he intentionally ran them over, then backed over them before driving away. Knight says the man who was killed, Terry Carter, was a friend who was in the wrong place at the wrong moment; sheriffs say Carter's family says otherwise . Whatever happened, Knight fled the scene and surrendered to police early Friday . He seemed jaunty at the time laughing for cameras and leaving his trademark cigar on a tree, saying he'd collect it when he got out . But things got bleaker in between. A judge first set his bail at $2 million , then revoked that, deeming Knight a flight risk . During his arraignment Tuesday, Knight had an apparent panic attack and was taken to the hospital for chest pains. It's easy to see why Knight would be rattled. Conviction on any of the counts would constitute a third strike under California's three-strikes law, meaning he could go to prison for life. In 1997, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for violating parole on a previous assault case. He got out in 2001, but was sent back two years later when he hit a parking-lot attendant. That's just part of an impressive rap sheet . Knight was also, famously, injured in 1996 when someone opened fire on the BMW he was driving, killing Tupac Shakur. (He's also been linked, though never by authorities, to the death of Notorious B.I.G. a year later.) The upshot is that Knight has two strikes against him already . But Knight was also arrested last fall for robbery in Los Angeles. During an altercation between paparazzi, Knight and comedian Katt Williams, he allegedly grabbed a camera. Prosecutors charged him with robbery in that case, and he was out on bail when the incident with the truck happened. If district attorneys can get a single conviction for the robbery, for murder, for attempted murder, or for the hit-and-run Knight is likely to end his life in jail. "They've got him in two separate courthouses on multiple third strikes," says Michael Kraut, a veteran L.A. criminal defense lawyer and former prosecutor. Could Knight still get off? Sure but it won't be easy. First, he could be acquitted in the paparazzi case, or prosecutors could lower it to a lesser charge, say grand theft person. As Kraut notes, the facts don't show a typical robbery, and the judge seemed sympathetic in an earlier hearing . Then Knight would need to beat the charges from the January 29 incident. A jury would have to conclude that Knight genuinely feared for his life, and that a reasonable person would have feared for his life in the same situation. That would make the use of a deadly weapon, in this case a truck, justifiable. Or, the jury could conclude that Knight genuinely feared for his life, but that a reasonable person in the same situation would not have. That could result in a manslaughter conviction instead. But if the jury decides that Knight didn't feel fear and that a reasonable person wouldn't have felt fear, he'd be convicted. "In a perfect world for Suge Knight, he wouldn't know these people," Kraut says: It would make it more credible that he was reasonably afraid. But Knight knew Carter, and as Kraut noted, most reports seem to cast Carter in a positive light. Worse, for Knight, he will have to testify. "He has to take the stand it's the only way to show self-defense," Kraut says. Once he's under oath, the floodgates are opened. "Then he's cross-examined on every single thing he's ever done. It's an impossibility to find someone who's always finding themselves in these situations." His one edge is that he was shot in August , so he could suggest he is reasonably on edge about people trying to harm him. Plus the DA has a trump card: the hit-and-run charges. "I can't prove what's in his mind on murder or attempted murder," Kraut says. "In a hit-and-run, the law says it doesn't matter who is at fault. An individual must stop and render aid if possible, or get to a safe location and call for help." If Knight left the scene and delayed contacting police, or called a lawyer first, he'd have a hard time avoiding the charge. That's one likely reason Knight has pleaded not guilty: He has no incentive to cooperate with prosecutors, since conviction on any charge would be a third strike. Unfortunately for him, since he's up on two separate third-strike charges, prosecutors also have little incentive to drop his charges or work out a plea deal. What's amazing is that Knight hasn't been put away sooner, given his rap sheet and given California's typically tough three-strikes law . Critics have successfully fought for revisions to the law, noting, for example, non-violent offenders who received life terms. Knight, however, has been lucky, and he has likely received top-shelf legal representation, which has allowed him to serve minimal time and avoid prison for some of his offenses. But it will take some very wily lawyering or a lucky procedural break for him to avoid a long stay in the pen now. This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/02/Suge-knight-hit-and-run-nwa-panic-attack-jail/385129/ | 5 | 7,194 | news |
There's a direct line between recruiting success and on-field success. Consider the following: Each of the past 10 national champions from Texas in 2005 through Ohio State a month ago reeled in at least one top-five class during the previous four recruiting cycles, according to Rivals.com. Essentially, to rank among the best, a Football Bowl Subdivision program must recruit among the best. That's good news for Alabama, USC, Florida State and Auburn, among others, those teams that inked consensus top classes on Wednesday's national signing day. It may also be bad news for Baylor, Wisconsin, TCU and Miami (Fla.), which signed classes ranging from good to very good but not great. This signing day, like others before it, had its fair share of winners and losers. Here are a few for 2015: WINNERS Tennessee. The Volunteers went into last season lacking depth and experience along the offensive and defensive lines. Coach Butch Jones and his staff changed that on signing day: Tennessee's haul includes 12 linemen, including five-star prospects in Kahlil McKenzie, Kyle Phillips and Drew Richmond. USC and UCLA. There's clearly enough room for these Los Angeles rivals to simultaneously succeed on the field and on the recruiting trail. USC's class, a consensus top-five group, will help Steve Sarkisian and the Trojans add depth to a roster in dire of need of extra bodies. UCLA didn't sign a big group, but the top-15 class closed with a bang on signing day with RB SoSo Jamabo and TE Chris Clark, among others. Michigan State. For the second year in a row, the Spartans inked a top-25 class and one of the best groups in the Big Ten Conference. That's one way to ensure the program's active run continues. Here's an interesting thought: If Michigan State reached this point with under-the-radar recruits, what can Mark Dantonio and his staff achieve with four-star talent? Auburn. Hiring new defensive coordinator Will Muschamp quickly paid off for Auburn, which inked perhaps the most impressive group of defenders in the Southeastern Conference. The Tigers' class was capped by the signature of defensive lineman Byron Cowart, considered by some the No. 1 prospect regardless of position. Oklahoma. After hitting a low point during the final weeks of the regular season, Oklahoma rebounded with one of the top recruiting classes in the Big 12 Conference. The best of the bunch come in the defensive backfield, where four of the six recruits were marked as four-star prospects. LOSERS Florida and Michigan. Neither power program brought in an elite class, as was expected: Michigan and Florida had new coaching staffs led by Jim Harbaugh and Jim McElwain, respectively and, with less than two months until signing day, little time to catch up with the rest of the pack. That leaves the Gators and Wolverines looking forward to 2016, when both are expected to sign classes that rank among the nation's elite. That the Gators inked a pair of five-star linemen in OT Martez Ivey and DE CeCe Jefferson on signing day is a very positive sign moving forward. Mississippi. After a strong start to this cycle, the Rebels' recruiting efforts limped to the finish line amid a number of painful losses to conference rivals. Tennessee took away Richmond, one of the nation's top offensive tackle prospects. Then Mississippi State the most bitter of rivals went out and nabbed Leo Lewis, who is ranked by several services as the nation's top inside linebacker. Miami (Fla.). It's another class with enough talent to secure Miami's eventual return to Atlantic Coast Conference contention whether or not that's with Al Golden or his successor, should Golden not get the Hurricanes moving forward in 2015. But Miami's signing class still lags far behind Florida State and Clemson in the ACC; the team needs more help to catch up with the league's upper crust. | 1 | 7,195 | sports |
NASHVILLE - After sitting out just more than three weeks with a knee injury, Predators goalie Pekka Rinne will start Thursday's home game against the Anaheim Ducks, coach Peter Laviolette said Wednesday. Rinne on Wednesday participated in his first full team practice since suffering the knee injury on Jan. 13. But he had been skating on his own and participating in some morning skates for more than a week. "It's great to have him out there," Laviolette said. "He looks terrific and he has for a few days. We've pushed this off a bit just to edge on the side of caution. But now he's fully ready, both from a comfort level of being on the ice and in game shape, as well as his injury." Despite missing three weeks, Rinne (29-6-2) still leads the league in wins. His goals against average of 1.96 and save percentage of .931 are near the top of the league as well. "I feel 100 percent," Rinne said. "I feel confident to go back out there. It's exciting. It's no fun to be injured, but I'm really happy to be coming back on the ice." John Glennon writes for The (Nashville) Tennessean | 1 | 7,196 | sports |
Dana Carvey proves his impressionist skills again by performing as John Lennon (from heaven) talking to Paul McCartney about Kanye West's musical talents. Bill Hader provides a great audience. | 8 | 7,197 | video |
Allen Trieu from Scout.com tells our Ray Crawford which program exceeded expectations, which freshman will dominate next season, and which freshman will likely not live up to expectations in 2015. | 1 | 7,198 | sports |
Campus Insiders' Shae Peppler talks to the head coach of the Golden Bears about what to expect from the newest recruiting class in Berkeley. | 1 | 7,199 | sports |
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