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Picking the Bracket: Houston wins, 40 years after ’83 loss

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:42 GMT

If you’re like most of the country, you probably didn’t count on a No. 8 seed reaching the national title game last year — or a No. 15 seed making it to the Elite Eight.Thank you North Carolina and Saint Peter’s, who made sure there’s nowhere for our brackets to go but up in 2023.This season, of course, picking the March Madness bracket comes with its own set of potential pitfalls. How do you account for injuries at Houston and UCLA? Can defending champ Kansas make another run after losing handily in the Big 12 Tournament final? Is this the year you can trust the Big Ten?Here’s one way to go with the bracket:SOUTH REGIONFirst Four: Texas A&M Corpus Christi over Southeast Missouri State.First round winners: Alabama, West Virginia, San Diego State, Virginia, Creighton, Baylor, Utah State and Arizona.Maryland was terrific at home this season and not very good on the road. At a neutral site, the Terrapins get a tough first-round matchup against a West Virgini...

Williams lifts Thunder past Spurs and into West’s 10th seed

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:42 GMT

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Jalen Williams scored 21 points and had 10 assists, and Oklahoma City used a balanced effort on offense without Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to beat the San Antonio Spurs 102-90 on Sunday night as they compete for a berth in the Western Conference play-in tournament.“It’s good to win when Shai doesn’t play as well,” Williams said. “Just kind of lets us know that we are doing the right things and playing hard in that way. I think we’re doing a good job kind of staying together. I think that’s been our biggest thing through the ups and downs.”Ousmane Dieng had a career-high 17 points and Josh Giddey added 15 for the Thunder, who won their second in a row and fifth in six games. Oklahoma City tied Utah and New Orleans for 10th place in the West at 33-35.Coming off a 110-96 victory in New Orleans on Saturday, Oklahoma City rested Gilgeous-Alexander for injury management. Gilgeous-Alexander, an All-Star who has missed 11 games this season, recently returned from an abdomina...

Las mujeres ahora pueden nadar en topless en las piscinas de Berlín, un reflejo de la tradición alemana de la desnudez

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:42 GMT

(CNN) — Las mujeres en Berlín ahora pueden nadar en topless en las piscinas públicas de la ciudad si así lo desean, al igual que los hombres.Además de ser aclamada como un paso adelante para la igualdad de género en la capital alemana, la medida presentada esta semana es sintomática del amor de Alemania por Freikoerperkultur — literalmente traducido como “cultura del cuerpo libre” — que tiene sus raíces a fines del siglo XIX.Las autoridades de Berlín tomaron medidas después de que una nadadora dijera que se le impidió asistir a una de las piscinas de la ciudad sin cubrirse el pecho en diciembre de 2022. La mujer presentó una denuncia ante la oficina del defensor del pueblo de la ciudad en el Departamento de Justicia, Diversidad y Antidiscriminación del Senado.Por qué amo ir a las playas nudistasLas autoridades acordaron que la mujer había sido víctima de discriminación y esta semana dijeron que todos los visitantes de las piscinas de Berlín, incluidas l...

State to crack down on late car registrations

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:42 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) -- Time is up for Colorado drivers who are on the road without proper car registrations.A new law, the Colorado Registration Fairness Act, was passed in 2022 and took effect on Jan. 1. Drivers who are new to Colorado have 90 days to register. All drivers, including those with temporary tags, must renew their registration by the specified date or pay back taxes and fees.George Hersman is excited to be living in Colorado after moving from California. He said he was unaware of the new law but will make sure to register his car before the deadline. 3 men shot in Aurora after alleged dispute over possibly stolen car “No one really wants to be spending that money but if you have to do it you have to do it,” he said.Not everyone is heeding the law though. The Problem Solvers found one plate that hadn’t been renewed since 2021 and two cars that didn’t even have a plate, all in the same parking lot.FOX31 also discovered cars with expired plates from Missouri, Wisconsin and Ca...

GOP leader’s LGBTQ social media activity called hypocrisy

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:42 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee’s Republican lieutenant governor has apologized after revelations that he interacted on social media to nearly nude photos of a young gay model as well as other posts by the man and other LGBTQ personalities, even as the lawmaker has led a Senate that has passed bills targeting the LGBTQ community.With Lt. Gov. Randy McNally as its speaker, Tennessee’s Senate has advanced and passed bans this year on gender-affirming care for transgender youth and restrictions on where certain drag shows can take place.The 79-year-old told WTVF-TV on Thursday that he’s “really, really sorry if I’ve embarrassed my family, embarrassed my friends, embarrassed any of the members of the legislature with the posts.”“It was not my intent to (embarrass them), and not my intent to hurt them,” said McNally, who added that he befriended the man on Facebook, then on Instagram, but that they have not met in person.The Tennessee Holler, a progressive w...

Macron’s Africa reset struggles to persuade

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:42 GMT

Paul Taylor is a contributing editor at POLITICO.PARIS — The bigger the humiliation, the more grandiloquent the relaunch. After a year that saw French forces conducting counterinsurgency operations against jihadist rebels hounded out of Mali and Burkina Faso by military coups, anti-colonialist street protests, and Russian disinformation and mercenaries, President Emmanuel Macron announced a fundamental overhaul of France’s Africa strategy. “Humility,” “partnership” and “investment” are now the keywords in a reset that Macron outlined in a speech he delivered before embarking on his 18th trip to Africa in just eight years. Many Africans were understandably skeptical as the French president took his new doctrine on a tour of Gabon, Angola, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) — an eclectic mix of former French, Belgian and Portuguese colonies that have big economic potential, and are being heavily courted by Russia and China as well as Eu...

EU needs to understand the realities in the West Bank

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:42 GMT

Eve Geddie is the director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office, which leads Amnesty’s work toward the EU and Council of Europe.Earlier this month, a delegation of European diplomats visited Huwara and Za’tara, two Palestinian towns in the Nablus Governorate, where Israeli settlers launched brutal attacks.The violence around Huwara has been notable for its scale and intensity, with hundreds of Israeli settlers participating. But for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, these state-backed assaults have long been a routine part of life. The near-total lack of accountability for the perpetrators, the well-documented participation of Israeli soldiers in some of the violence, and the very fact that settlements continue to expand in defiance of international law are all manifestations of a system of apartheid, which Israeli authorities impose on Palestinians.Following their visit, the European diplomats condemned the attacks on Palestinians in Huwara, as well a...

Viktor Orbán’s battle for EU funds reveals existential clash

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:42 GMT

It’s not just about the money. Since Brussels turned the EU funding tap down to a trickle, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has begun putting through wide-ranging reforms to reopen the faucet for billions of euros earmarked for Hungary.Some officials say money from Europe is the only real tool to enforce democratic norms — but whether such reforms are possible under the current government remains an open question.The Hungarian prime minister loves to talk big, presenting himself on the international stage as a leading voice in conservative Christian politics.But at home, his power rests on a far more basic concept: patronage.Want a contract to build a road? A project for your village? A license for a radio station? A job for your struggling grandkid? For many Hungarians, the answer to these questions leads, directly or indirectly, to the ruling Fidesz party. Orbán has won loyalty from a host of businesspeople, small-town politicians, television personalities and even ...

Rishi Sunak talks tough on China — but defense plan may not satisfy hawks

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:42 GMT

SAN DIEGO — He’s happy to describe China as a major challenge to the world order, but Rishi Sunak will stop short of formally designating Beijing a “threat” when the U.K. unveils its updated defense strategy on Monday. As he flew to meet his U.S. and Australian counterparts in San Diego, California, to sign a major submarine deal, a move prompted by concern over China’s growing assertiveness on the world stage, the British prime minister was eager to talk up the “epoch-defining challenge” posed by what he characterized as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “authoritarian” regime.But Britain’s Integrated Review (IR), which sets out the government’s defense priorities and will be unveiled Monday afternoon by Foreign Secretary James Cleverly in the House of Commons, will not go as far as China hawks wanted. Those hawks, including Sunak’s immediate predecessor, Liz Truss, have pushed for Beijing to be officially labeled a “threat.” Asked why he was stopping short, the prime minister ...

France pushes protectionism in Ukraine defense plan

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:42 GMT

As Russia’s war in Ukraine puts a heavy strain on EU arms, there’s infighting in Brussels over how best to reload.The latest skirmish is focused around a procurement fund intended to ramp up production of arms in Europe.POLITICO has learned that key committees in the European Parliament — namely, the committees for industry, the internal market, and the subcommittee on security and defense — have clashed over the fund, formally known as European Defense Industry Reinforcement Through Common Procurement Act (EDIRPA). It holds €500 million for now, with the possibility to grow.A French-led group in the Parliament is vying to keep the joint defense purchase pot within the borders of the European Union — which opponents are deriding as a power grab for France.Currently, a compromise text seen by POLITICO leaves the door open to spending outside the EU. It says non-EU companies may be involved “provided that this does not contravene … the security and defense interests o...