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Pac-12 expansion: Does SMU create media value? “I think it probably helps,” sports media analyst says

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:15:01 GMT

The Pac-12 began evaluating candidates for expansion long before USC and UCLA announced their intentions to leave the conference.The process commenced in the summer of 2021, after Texas and Oklahoma agreed to join the SEC and the Big 12 lurched toward the brink of extinction.Pac-12 presidents ultimately passed on extending membership invitations and concluded none of the available schools (in the Big 12 or elsewhere) met the competitive, financial and institutional criteria.Now here we are, 21 months later, and the Pac-12’s geographic footprint features a crater in Southern California as the conference negotiates a new media rights contract and considers expansion.The candidate list includes SMU. It is not known whether the conference sized up the Mustangs in the summer of ’21, but the calculation deployed back then is essentially the same one being applied now.Does SMU fit academically? Could its football program eventually clear the competitive bar? And does the school...

Body of popular radio host Jeffrey “JV” Vandergrift found

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:15:01 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO — Authorities identified a body found late Wednesday at Pier 39 as popular Bay Area radio host Jeffrey “JV” Vandergrift, 55, who went missing from his San Francisco home on Feb. 23.Authorities did not specify a preliminary cause of death or issue a ruling on the nature of the death.Vandergrift, a longtime morning show host at Wild 94.9, co-founded and co-hosted the popular Doghouse show during the early 1990s. The show soared in popularity, mostly due to on-air antics, stunts, pranks and raunchy humor. After the Doghouse moved to New York and eventually disbanded, Vandergrift returned to Wild 94.9 to host “The JV Show.” After his return to the Bay Area, Vandergrift reunited with his co-host on the Doghouse, Elvis “Dan” Lay, for an AM talk show and recurring podcast.The radio host had revealed last year that he had been diagnosed with Lyme disease in 2021 that had caused him considerable suffering.Six days after his disappearance, his wife put out a st...

UC Irvine investigating water polo player for inappropriately touching opposing players

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:15:01 GMT

UC Irvine is investigating allegations that water polo player Nina Flynn, an honorable mention All-American in 2022, inappropriately touched opposing players’ intimate body parts during a match last month.Flynn, a redshirt sophomore, was suspended by UCI’s Title IX office on Feb. 23 after the university received allegations that Flynn touched the intimate body parts of two Loyola Marymount players during a Feb. 16 match, according to Flynn’s attorney.While Flynn’s suspension was lifted on March 10, the UCI Title IX office is proceeding with a formal investigation of Flynn and the alleged incident, according to Alison P. Saros, Flynn’s attorney, and a university official.“Nina maintains she is not responsible in any way for the allegations and that after with (the) Title IX (office) and film analysis and other evidence presented the suspension was lifted and she was allowed to return to the pool while the investigation continues,” Saros said.UCI and LMU officials declined to comment,...

Nebraska trans bill advances despite filibuster threat

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:15:01 GMT

By Margery A. Beck | Associated PressLINCOLN, Neb. — The Nebraska Legislature voted Thursday to advance a contentious bill that would ban gender-affirming care for minors, despite threats from some lawmakers that they would filibuster the rest of the session.The vote came on the third day of debate, in which lawmakers angrily accused one another of hypocrisy and a lack of collegiality early on. By Thursday, the chamber had turned somber as some lawmakers opposed to the bill broke down in tears and pleaded with their Republican colleagues to reconsider their support for the bill.Members of the LGBTQ community who had gathered in the Capitol to protest the bill showed their displeasure with the outcome, booing and cursing lawmakers who voted to advance it as they left the legislative floor.“I am a ball of rage,” said Wrenn Jacobson, 29, of Lincoln, after the vote. “I’ve had to go back to therapy when this bill was introduced. I know so many people — so many kid...

Michigan Republican Party slammed for comparing gun safety proposals to the Holocaust

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:15:01 GMT

By JOEY CAPPELLETTI | Associated PressLANSING — The Michigan Republican Party has received backlash from political leaders on both sides of the aisle for posts on social media Wednesday that compared the Holocaust to gun safety measures being considered in the state.The posts, shared on the state party’s official Facebook and Twitter accounts, inaccurately claim that Democrats leading the Legislature are trying to disarm Michigan gun owners. A photo accompanying the message appears to match an image stored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, showing rings confiscated from Jewish prisoners in a Nazi concentration camp.“Comparing gun safety measures to the mass extermination of 6 million people is hateful and ignorant, and it comes from party leaders who are out of ideas and catering to the fringe of the fringe,” Democratic U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who is Jewish, wrote on Twitter in response.The gun safety package was introduced by Democrats in response to two school mass...

East Bay waterfront city takes step to upgrade public boat launch and park

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:15:01 GMT

Pittsburg is moving forward with a plan to upgrade its public boat launch and nearby Central Harbor Park — provided it gets grant money.Having already received one state grant to design the project, the City Council unanimously agreed to apply for a $3.65 million state grant to complete the project.The project was prompted by residents’ complaints about degrading park and boat launch restrooms and safety concerns, according to Dhaynae Romero, a city administrative analyst who is working on the project.In February 2021, the city was awarded $172,155 for planning the revitalization of the waterfront Central Park Harbor Park and boat launch facilities upgrade project.The money came from the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta Conservancy, a state agency that advances environmental protection and the well-being of Delta residents.The agency’s Climate, Access and Restoration Program funds multi-benefit projects in the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta and Suisun Marsh that protect and conserve...

Livermore man arrested for stealing thousands in Little League Baseball gear

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:15:01 GMT

(KRON) -- With the spring season comes the Little League Baseball season. But a burglary at the Granada Little League fields set the team in Livermore off to a rocky start.On Wednesday, March 15, Livermore police officers responded to a burglary at the field on Murdell Lane where league organizers reported about $3,500 worth of stolen gear from the umpire storage shed. Body of radio host JV found in San Francisco Bay by Pier 39 The next day, March 16, a Livermore Police School Resource Officer took a report from a student about a stolen electric bike that the student said they left in a bike storage on campus valued at $2,400.The recovered Little League gear from a burglary in Livermore. (Photo: Livermore Police Department)The recovered Little League gear from a burglary in Livermore. (Photo: Livermore Police Department)The recovered Little League gear from a burglary in Livermore. (Photo: Livermore Police Department)The recovered electric bike from a burglary in Livermore. (Photo...

Track stymies Russian path to Olympics due to war in Ukraine

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:15:01 GMT

Track and field leaders signaled Thursday that it will be nearly impossible for Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete at the Paris Olympics next year if the war in Ukraine continues.The World Athletics Council kept its ban on Russian athletes in international events in place “for the foreseeable future.” It’s a move that goes directly against the International Olympic Committee’s efforts to find a way for Russian athletes to compete as neutrals in upcoming events.World Athletics will form a working group to determine under what conditions Russians might return to international competition, but for now, there is no apparent pathway.The move came on the same day that World Athletics finally lifted a seven-year suspension of Russia’s track federation for a doping scandal that dates back a decade.Though the federation is back in good standing so long as it adheres to nearly three dozen “special conditions,” that move did nothing to change the reality that Ru...

New Starbucks CEO plans to work in stores monthly

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:15:01 GMT

Starbucks’ new CEO Laxman Narasimhan says he plans to work a half-day shift once a month in one of the company’s stores in an effort to stay close to the company’s culture and customers. Narasimhan, who took the reins as CEO earlier this week, said in a letter to Starbucks’ employees Thursday that he also expects the company’s leadership team to be connected and engaged in stores. “While our performance is strong, our health needs to be stronger,” Narasimhan wrote in the letter. “We must care for the artists and the theater in the front of our stores, and the factory in the back.”The CEO’s plan to work in stores is new for Seattle-based Starbucks, but not unprecedented among big companies. DoorDash CEO Tony Xu and his executive team make DoorDash deliveries once a month, for example.Narasimhan, 55, issued the letter prior to the company’s annual meeting, which was held virtually. The former PepsiCo executive has spent the last six months immersing himself in Starbucks, earning his b...

Autism now more common among Black, Hispanic kids in US

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:15:01 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — For the first time, autism is being diagnosed more frequently in Black and Hispanic children than in white kids in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.Among all U.S. 8-year-olds, 1 in 36 had autism in 2020, the CDC estimated. That’s up from 1 in 44 two years earlier. But the rate rose faster for children of color than for white kids. The new estimates suggest that about 3% of Black, Hispanic and Asian or Pacific Islander children have an autism diagnosis, compared with about 2% of white kids.That’s a contrast to the past, when autism was most commonly diagnosed in white kids — usually in middle- or upper-income families with the means to go to autism specialists. As recently as 2010, white kids were deemed 30% more likely to be diagnosed with autism than Black children and 50% more likely than Hispanic children.Experts attributed the change to improved screening and autism services for all kids, and to increased awarenes...