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Our ridiculously early top-25 rankings for 2023-24: UConn and Purdue on top as UCLA, Arizona and USC make the cut (as does SDSU)

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:44:32 GMT

Connecticut was not featured in this space last year. We didn’t have Florida Atlantic or Miami in our ridiculously early rankings for the 2022-23 season, either.San Diego State? Yes, included the Aztecs, albeit way down the list — in the No. 23 position.But of the top-three teams in our projections last April, one was eliminated in the first round (Kentucky) and two missed the ’23 NCAA Tournament altogether (Michigan and North Carolina). So we have that going for us.Undaunted — and admittedly desperate to forget the previous installment — the Hotline presents our ridiculously early top-25 for next season, with the following (standard) caveat: The order will be reassessed in early June, following transfer decisions and the NBA Draft deadline.Here we go …Also considered: Arizona State, Auburn, Boise State, Indiana, Iowa State, Louisville, Memphis, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Oregon, Penn State, Pitt, Princeton, Providence, St. John’s, TCU, ...

As NY case advances, Trump faces setbacks in other probes

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:44:32 GMT

By Eric Tucker | Associated PressWASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump faces the most urgent legal challenge of his life this week in New York, where he’s set to be arraigned Tuesday on charges arising from hush money payments during his 2016 campaign.But as much as the attention will be on the courthouse in lower Manhattan, investigations from Atlanta to Washington will press forward, underscoring the broad range of peril he confronts as he seeks to reclaim the presidency.The vulnerability Trump faces in Washington alone has become clear over the past month, as judges in a succession of sealed rulings have turned aside the Trump team’s efforts to block grand jury testimony from witnesses — including from his own lawyer and his former vice president — who were or still are close to him and who could conceivably offer direct insight into key events.The rulings directing advisers and aides to testify don’t suggest that the Justice Department is close to bringing...

It’s official: California Sierra snowpack ties all-time record

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:44:32 GMT

California water officials are gathering at Echo Summit south of Lake Tahoe this morning for a high-profile snowpack reading, which is expected to confirm what an army of snow-sensors scattered across the Sierra already show; the statewide snowpack is tied with 1952 as the biggest haul since official records began in 1950.On Monday, the statewide snowpack reached an astonishing 237% of normal compared to historical data for this date. The record-tying snowpack is a stunning turnaround from a year ago, when the official April snowpack measure was one of the lowest readings ever, at just 35% of normal.Technically Monday’s snowpack reading came two days after April 1 — the typical date against which snowpack readings are compared. On April 1, the statewide snowpack measure was at 233% of normal, which was a few percentage points shy of the 1952 record.Regardless of how you measure it though, the massive bounty is great news for the drought, which has ended in most of the Golden State. ...

Morning after pill company increases access, supply

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:44:32 GMT

By Parija Kavilanz | CNNOne maker said it is responding to high demand for the morning-after pill, after the US Supreme Court last year ended a constitutional right to abortion, by speeding up availability of the emergency contraceptive in retail stores and introducing a new two-count pack.Julie launched as a one-step tablet of emergency contraceptive containing Levonorgestrel, the key ingredient in the popular Plan B emergency contraceptive that was approved by FDA in late 1990s without a prescription, at 4,500 Walmart stores nationwide last September.The startup experienced a surge in demand for its $42 tablet at launch amid an overall spike in purchases of emergency contraceptive following the US Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade in on June 24, 2022.The FDA-approved morning-after pill can reduce the chance of pregnancy after unprotected sex or failure of another contraceptive method like a condom, and is ideally taken within 72 hours. The pill, which is legal i...

81-year-old Colorado man accused of killing and dismembering wife and daughter faces multiple charges

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:44:32 GMT

Prosecutors charged an 81-year-old man with murder, tampering with a dead body and false reporting charges Monday after the dismemberment death of his wife and daughter.The 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office prosecutors filed five charges in Arapahoe County District Court against Reginald Maclaren, who was arrested on March 25 by Englewood police, according to a tweet by prosecutors. The charges include two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of tampering with a body and one charge of false reporting.Related ArticlesCrime and Public Safety | Man slain in East Bay sports bar parking-lot shooting Crime and Public Safety | San Francisco homicide: Daytime shooting near Civic Center Crime and Public Safety | Two arrested in slaying of man found burning in rural Bay Area field Crime and Public Safety | Officers kill man sought in arson at NJ motel where 2 killed Crime and Public Safety | East Bay man ch...

Google cutting back on staplers, laptops, services: Report

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:44:32 GMT

(KRON) -- Google will be cutting back on employee services and equipment like laptops and staplers, according to a companywide email cited in reporting by CNBC. The austerity plan is part of a "multi-year" effort to reduce costs laid out in an email from Google's Chief Financial Officer, Ruth Porat, the report said.The report also cites separate documents indicating that Google plans to cut back on things like fitness classes, frequency of replacement laptops for employees, and simple office supplies like staplers and tape. The reported measures to cut costs come on the heels of January layoffs that saw the company cut 12,000 jobs. These 2 Bay Area cities are the healthiest in America Non-engineering employees who require new laptops will be issued Google-made Chromebooks by default, the report also says. This marks a shift from when a range of offerings including Apple MacBooks were made available to employees.In addition to laptops, staplers and tape are also being targeted as a...

Florida Senate passes 6-week abortion ban backed by DeSantis

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:44:32 GMT

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Senate on Monday approved a bill to ban abortions after six weeks, a measure supported by Gov. Ron DeSantis as the Republican prepares to launch his expected presidential candidacy. The proposal must still be approved by the House before it reaches the governor’s desk. Florida currently prohibits abortions after 15 weeks. A six-week ban would more closely align Florida with the abortion restrictions of other Republican-controlled states and give DeSantis a political win on an issue important with GOP primary voters ahead of his potential White House run.The bill would have larger implications for abortion access throughout the South, as the nearby states of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi prohibit the procedure at all stages of pregnancy and Georgia bans it after cardiac activity can be detected, which is around six weeks. “Bodily autonomy should not give a person the permission to kill an innocent human being. We live in a time where th...

MLB game times cut 30 minutes, steals double under new rules

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:44:32 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Baseball’s new rules are working as hoped through the first four days of the season.The average game time has dropped by 30 minutes, stolen bases have doubled and batting average has increased by 16 percentage points compared to last year’s opening weekend.Games averaged 2 hours, 38 minutes through Sunday with the new pitch clock, down from 3:08 for the first four days of the 2022 season and a 3:04 final average.In the first year of restrictions on defensive shifts, the .246 batting average for nine-inning games was up from .230 over the first four days last year, when many games were played in cold and wet weather. Left-handed batting average increased to .232 from .229 in last year’s first four days and right-handed average went up to .254 from .230.“We are extremely pleased with the early returns,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said Monday. “Fan reaction has been positive to the brisker pace with more action. And players have made a great adjustment ...

Nashville police: School shooter planned attack for months

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:44:32 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — As students across Nashville walked out of class on Monday to protest gun violence at the Tennessee Capitol following a school shooting last week, police said the person who killed six people, including three 9-year-old children, had been planning the massacre for months.Police have not established a motive for the shootings at The Covenant School, a small Christian elementary school where the 28-year-old shooter was once a student, according to a Monday news release from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. Both Nashville police and FBI agents continue to review writings left behind by Audrey Hale, both in Hale’s vehicle and home, police said. “It is known that Hale considered the actions of other mass murderers,” police said.The three children who were killed in the shooting were Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney. The three adults were Katherine Koonce, 60, the head of the school, custodian Mike Hill, 61, and 61-year-old sub...

Autopsy finds cause of death for Irvo Otieno was asphyxia

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:44:32 GMT

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Irvo Otieno, a 28-year-old Black man whose death last month at a Virginia mental hospital has led to second-degree murder charges against 10 deputies and hospital employees, died of “positional and mechanical asphyxia with restraints,” a medical examiner’s office said Monday. Arkuie Williams, the administrative deputy in the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, confirmed the findings to The Associated Press after attorneys for Otieno’s family first shared them in a statement. The manner of death was homicide, Williams wrote in an email. Otieno, who struggled with mental illness, died March 6 after he was pinned to the floor while being admitted to Central State Hospital in Dinwiddie County. Video released earlier this month showed sheriff’s deputies and hospital employees restraining a handcuffed and shackled Otieno for about 20 minutes after he was forcibly led into a hospital room. For much of that time, Otieno was prone on the floor, pinned...