Thought of the Day
Nothing new is under the sun.
February 23rd 2025
Withers had 16 points, 11 rebounds in North Carolina’s 81-66 win over Virginia
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — Jae’Lyn Withers scored 16 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, Ian Jackson also scored 16 points and North Carolina defeated Virginia 81-66 on Saturday.
Withers was 4 of 6 on 3-pointers in posting his second double-double this season and Jackson added three more 3s. Ven-Allen Lubin scored 14 points, RJ Davis 12 and Drake Powell 11 for the Tar Heels (17-11, 10-6 ACC), who made 9 of 16 from the arc and outrebounded the Cavaliers 35-21.
Isaac McKneely scored 17 points and became the 52nd Cavalier to reach 1,000 career points. Dai Dai Ames added 12 points for Virginia (13-14, 6-10).
Virginia trailed by eight at halftime and didn’t get closer in the second half. A three-point play by Jackson gave the Tar Heels a 20-point lead with six minutes remaining.
Both teams came in having won three of their last four games but it was UNC that took off to a 21-2 lead at the start, hitting 8 of 12 shots and the Cavaliers starting 1 of 10. The Tar Heels helped Virginia get back in the game with flagrant-one and technical fouls that resulted in four free throws within a 14-3 run but UNC still led at the half 46-34.
North Carolina plays at Florida State on Monday. Virginia plays at Wake Forest on Wednesday.
Pope Francis is in critical condition after a long respiratory crisis, requiring oxygen at high flow
By NICOLE WINFIELD and SILVIA STELLACCI Associated Press
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis was in critical condition Saturday after he suffered a prolonged asthmatic respiratory crisis while being treated for pneumonia and a complex lung infection, the Vatican said.
The 88-year-old pope, who remains conscious, received “high flows” of oxygen to help him breathe. He also received blood transfusions after tests showed low counts of platelets, which are needed for clotting, the Vatican said in a late update.
“The Holy Father’s condition continues to be critical, therefore, as explained yesterday (Friday), the pope is not out of danger,” the statement said. It was the first time “critical” had been used in a written statement to describe Francis’ condition since he was hospitalized Feb. 14.
The statement also said that the pontiff “continues to be alert and spent the day in an armchair although in more pain than yesterday.” Doctors declined to offer a prognosis, saying it was “reserved.”
Doctors have said Francis’ condition is touch-and-go, given his age, fragility and pre-existing lung disease.
Doctors warn of the possible onset of sepsis
They have warned that the main threat facing Francis would be the onset of sepsis, a serious infection of the blood that can occur as a complication of pneumonia. As of Friday, there was no evidence of any sepsis, and Francis was responding to the various drugs he is taking, the pope’s medical team said in their first in-depth update on the pope’s condition.
Saturday’s blood tests showed that he had developed a low platelet count, a condition called platelopenia or thrombocytopenia. Platelets are cell-like fragments that circulate in the blood that help form blood clots to stop bleeding or help wounds heal. Low platelet counts can be caused by a number of things, including side effects from medicines or infections, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Francis, who has chronic lung disease and is prone to bronchitis in winter, was admitted to Gemelli hospital on Feb. 14 after a weeklong bout of bronchitis worsened.
Doctors first diagnosed the complex viral, bacterial and fungal respiratory tract infection and then the onset of pneumonia in both lungs. They prescribed “absolute rest” and a combination of cortisone and antibiotics, along with supplemental oxygen when he needs it. Saturday’s update marked the first time the Vatican has referred to Francis suffering an “asthmatic respiratory crisis of prolonged magnitude, which also required the application of oxygen at high flows.”
Dr. Sergio Alfieri, the head of medicine and surgery at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, said Friday the biggest threat facing Francis was that some of the germs that are currently located in his respiratory system pass into the bloodstream, causing sepsis. Sepsis can lead to organ failure and death.
“Sepsis, with his respiratory problems and his age, would be really difficult to get out of,” Alfieri told a news conference Friday at Gemelli. “The English say ‘knock on wood,’ we say ‘touch iron.’ Everyone touch what they want,” he said as he tapped the microphone. “But this is the real risk in these cases: that these germs pass to the bloodstream.”
“He knows he’s in danger,” Alfieri added. “And he told us to convey that.”
Vatican hierarchy tamps down speculation Francis might resign
Meanwhile, the Vatican hierarchy went on the defensive to tamp down rumors and speculation that Francis might decide to resign. There is no provision in canon law for what to do if a pope becomes incapacitated. Francis has said that he has written a letter of resignation that would be invoked if he were medically incapable of making such a decision. The pope remains fully conscious, alert, eating and working.
The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, gave a rare interview to Corriere della Sera to respond to speculation and rumors about a possible resignation. It came after the Vatican issued an unusual and official denial of an Italian media report that said Parolin and the pope’s chief canonist had visited Francis in the hospital in secret. Given the canonical requirements to make a resignation legitimate, the implications of such a meeting were significant, but the Vatican flat-out denied that any such meeting occurred.
Parolin said such speculation seemed “useless” when what really mattered was the health of Francis, his recovery and return to the Vatican.
“On the other hand, I think it is quite normal that in these situations uncontrolled rumors can spread or some misplaced comment is uttered. It is certainly not the first time it has happened,” Parolin was quoted as saying. “However, I don’t think there is any particular movement, and so far I haven’t heard anything like that.”
White House is ‘praying for the pope’
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Saturday that President Donald Trump had been briefed on the pope’s condition and was working on his own statement that will be released later.
“We’re praying for the pope,” Leavitt said.
Leavitt is one of three administration officials who face a lawsuit from The Associated Press on first- and fifth-amendment grounds. The AP says Leavitt and two others are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
Deacons, meanwhile, were gathering at the Vatican for their special Holy Year weekend. Francis got sick at the start of the Vatican’s Holy Year, the once-every-quarter-century celebration of Catholicism. This weekend, Francis was supposed to have celebrated deacons, a ministry in the church that precedes ordination to the priesthood.
In his place, the Holy Year organizer will celebrate Sunday’s Mass, the Vatican said. And for the second consecutive weekend, Francis will skip his traditional Sunday noon blessing, which he could have delivered from Gemelli if he were up to it.
“Look, even though he’s not (physically) here, we know he’s here,” said Luis Arnaldo López Quirindongo, a deacon from Ponce, Puerto Rico, who was at the Vatican on Saturday for the Jubilee celebration. “He’s recovering, but he’s in our hearts and is accompanying us, because our prayers and his go together.”
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
USDA scholarship for students at North Carolina A&T suspended
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal scholarship aimed at boosting students from underserved and rural areas attending historically Black colleges and universities has been put on hold.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture suspended the 1890 Scholars Program, which provided recipients with full tuition and fees for students studying agriculture, food or natural resource sciences at one of 19 universities, known as the 1890 land grant institutions.
It’s not clear exactly when the program was suspended, but some members of Congress first issued statements criticizing the suspension of the program on Thursday. A message seeking more detail was left Saturday with the Department of Agriculture.
“The 1890 Scholars Program has been suspended pending further review,” the department said in a post on the program’s website.
The suspension coincides with a funding freeze President Donald Trump’s administration instituted. Administration officials had said the pause was necessary to review whether spending aligned with Trump’s executive orders on issues like climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
The freeze has been challenged in court, with a temporary hold on the executive action already in place.
The affected universities include Alabama A&M, Florida A&M, North Carolina A&T and Tuskegee University in Alabama, among others.
The scholarship program dates to 1992, but 1890 in the title refers to the Second Morrill Act of 1890, which established historically Black colleges and universities.
Eligibility rules include being a U.S. citizen with a GPA of 3.0 or better, along with acceptance to one of the 19 1890 land grant universities. Eligible students must also study agriculture or related fields and “demonstrate leadership and community service,” according to the department’s site.
In October, the department said it had set aside $19.2 million for the program. In fiscal year 2024, 94 students were awarded scholarships, the department said.
February 22nd 2025
Thought of the Day
Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.
February 21st 2025
Thought of the Day
A bad workman always blames his tools.
North Carolina’s insurance commissioner is out of the hospital after heart surgery
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey was released from the hospital Thursday, a spokesperson said, 10 days after undergoing heart surgery that wasn’t revealed publicly until well after it occurred.
Department spokesperson Jason Tyson said the Republican commissioner, who won a third four-year term in November, underwent the “elective” surgery at Duke Hospital in Durham to “correct a congenital heart defect.”
Causey “is currently recovering and doing well,” Tyson said in a statement provided before the commissioner’s release. “He has been in regular contact with the Department of Insurance almost daily and has been briefed and directed work.”
Causey, 74, told the News & Record of Greensboro in a phone interview Wednesday that only a handful of people at his department were aware of the Feb. 10 surgery. He said it wasn’t disclosed beforehand because “we didn’t want to alarm anybody ahead of time unnecessarily and there was just too many important matters that needed tending to to make any mistakes.”
The newspaper said Causey’s surgery was revealed Tuesday at a Greensboro City Council meeting that he didn’t attend. Causey, who is from the Greensboro area, had been involved in annexation and rezoning hearings about some local land.
Causey said the defect was discovered in late 2023 when he received a body scan during a health screening. Further examination showed Causey had developed an aneurysm, the newspaper reported.
Causey decided to delay the surgery following consultation with a surgeon. Causey ran for reelection in 2024, and continued monitoring showed the aneurysm remained stable, he said.
The insurance commissioner is one of 10 statewide elected executive branch officials that compose the Council of State. Causey ran unsuccessfully for commissioner several times before his initial election in 2016.
Trump loyalist Kash Patel is confirmed as FBI director by the Senate despite deep Democratic doubts
By ERIC TUCKER Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Thursday narrowly voted to confirm Kash Patel as director of the FBI, moving to place him atop the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency despite doubts from Democrats about his qualifications and concerns he will do Donald Trump’s bidding and go after the Republican president’s adversaries.
“I cannot imagine a worse choice,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told colleagues before the 51-49 vote by the GOP-controlled Senate. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were the lone Republican holdouts.
A Trump loyalist who has fiercely criticized the agency, Patel will inherit an FBI gripped by turmoil as the Justice Department over the past month has forced out a group of senior bureau officials and made a highly unusual demand for the names of thousands of agents who participated in investigations related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Patel has spoken of his desire to implement major changes at the FBI, including a reduced footprint at headquarters in Washington and a renewed emphasis on the bureau’s traditional crime-fighting duties rather than the intelligence-gathering and national security work that has come to define its mandate over the past two decades. But he also echoed Trump’s desire for retribution. Patel raised alarm among Democrats for saying before he was nominated that he would “come after” anti-Trump “conspirators” in the federal government and the media.
Republicans angry over what they see as law enforcement bias against conservatives during the Democratic Biden administration, as well as criminal investigations into Trump, have rallied behind Patel as the right person for the job.
“Mr. Patel wants to make the FBI accountable once again -– get back the reputation that the FBI has had historically for law enforcement,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said before Patel was confirmed. “He wants to hold the FBI accountable to Congress, to the president and, most importantly, to the people they serve — the American taxpayer.”
Democrats complained about Patel’s lack of management experience compared with previous FBI directors and they highlighted incendiary past statements that they said called his judgment into question.
“I am absolutely sure of this one thing: this vote will haunt anyone who votes for him. They will rue the day they did it,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat.
He added: “To my Republican colleagues, think about what you will tell your constituents” and family “about why you became voted for this person who will so completely and utterly disgrace this office and do such grave damage to our nation’s justice system.”
About a half-dozen Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee gathered outside FBI headquarters earlier Thursday in a last-ditch plea to derail his confirmation.
“This is someone we cannot trust,” said Sen. Adam Schiff of California. “This is someone who lacks the character to do this job, someone who lacks the integrity to do this job. We know that, our Republican colleagues know that.”
Patel’s eyebrow-raising remarks on hundreds of podcasts and in other interviews over the past four years include referring to law enforcement officials who investigated Trump as “criminal gangsters,” saying some Jan. 6 rioters were “political prisoners” and proposing to shut down the FBI headquarters and turning it into a museum for the so-called deep state.
At his Senate hearing in January, Patel said Democrats were taking some of his comments out of context or misunderstanding the broader point that he was trying to make. Patel has also denied the idea that a list in book he authored of government officials who he said were part of a “deep state” amounted to an “enemies list,” calling that a “total mischaracterization.”
FBI directors are given 10-year terms as a way to insulate them from political influence and keep them from becoming beholden to a particular president or administration. Patel was selected in November to replace Christopher Wray, who was picked by Trump in 2017 and served for more than seven years but who repeatedly angered the president and was seen by him as insufficiently loyal. He resigned before Trump took office.
Since Wray’s resignation, the FBI has been led by interim leaders, who have clashed with the Justice Department over its demands for details about the agents who investigated the Capitol riot — a move seen as a possible prelude to broader firings. Patel denied having any knowledge of discussions about potential firings, but a letter from Durbin last week that cited information that he said had come from insiders suggested that Patel may have been covertly involved in that process.
Trump has said that he expects some of those agents will be fired.
Patel is a former federal defender and Justice Department counterterrorism prosecutor. He attracted Trump’s attention during the president’s first term when, as a staffer on the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee, Patel helped write a memo with pointed criticism of the FBI’s investigation into ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Patel later joined Trump’s administration, both as a counterterrorism official at the National Security Council and as chief of staff to the defense secretary.
Robot umpires are getting their first MLB test during spring training
By RONALD BLUM AP Baseball Writer
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A computerized system that calls balls and strikes is being tested during Major League Baseball spring training exhibition games starting Thursday after four years of experiments in the minor leagues.
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred is an advocate of the Automated Ball-Strike System, which potentially as early as 2026 could be used to aid MLB home plate umpires, but not replace them.
Starting in 2024, MLB focused testing on a challenge system in which the human umpire makes each original call. Data from the spring training test could cause MLB to make alterations to the system for Triple-A games this season.
How does the Automated Ball-Strike System work?
Stadiums are outfitted with cameras that track each pitch and judge whether it crossed home plate within the strike zone. In early testing, umpires wore ear buds and would hear “ball” or “strike,” then relay that to players and fans with traditional hand signals.
The challenge system adds a wrinkle. During spring training, human umps will call every pitch, but each team will have the ability to challenge two calls per game, with no additions for extra innings. A team retains its challenge if successful, similar to the regulations for big league teams with video reviews, which were first used for home run calls in August 2008 and widely expanded to many calls for the 2014 season.
Only a batter, pitcher or catcher may challenge a call, signaling with the tap of a helmet or cap; and assistance from the dugout is not allowed. A challenge must be made within 2 seconds, and the graphic of the pitch and strike zone will be shown on the scoreboard and broadcast feed. The umpire then announces the updated count.
MLB estimates the process averages 17 seconds.
Where will ABS be tested?
MLB has installed the system in 13 spring training ballparks that are home to 19 teams. The Florida stadiums, all in the Florida State League, are the stadiums of Detroit, Minnesota, the New York Mets, New York Yankees, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Toronto, plus the ballpark shared by Miami and St. Louis.
Five test sites in Arizona all are shared: the Diamondbacks/Colorado, Chicago White Sox/Los Angeles Dodgers, Cleveland/Cincinnati, Kansas City/Texas and Seattle/San Diego.
About 60% of spring training games are slated for trial, although teams could play vastly different numbers of games with ABS testing. The Diamondbacks are slated for 29 ABS games, while the Cubs have just seven.
What is the technology?
A Hawk-Eye pose-tracking system of cameras was installed and used to track pitches and whether they are within a strike zone based on the height of each batter, who is measured without shoes before a team’s first test game. MLB estimated the calibration process at less than one minute for each player.
There are eight cameras at most of the spring training ballparks in the test and 12 at the Diamondbacks/Rockies stadium.
While the strike zone actually called by big league umpires tends to be oval in shape, the ABS strike zone is a rectangle, as in the rule book.
Developing a consensus on what a computer strike zone should be has been an issue.
When did MLB first start using ABS?
MLB started experimenting with ball/strike technology at the independent Atlantic League in 2019.
A challenge system was tried in 2021 at eight of nine ballparks that make up the Florida State League. ABS was promoted to five Triple-A parks in 2022 and expanded to all Triple-A stadiums in 2023, the robot alone for the first three games of each series and a human with a challenge system in the final three. That system was in place at the start of 2024, but MLB switched to an all-challenge system last June 25.
How successful were teams with challenges last year?
Overall return rate over the full Triple-A season was 51%, with challenges by the defense winning 54% and by the offense winning 48%. Challenges with the two-challenge limit in place averaged 3.9 per game, including 2.2 by the offense.
The success percentage has been slightly better for video reviews in the major leagues. Teams increased their success rate on video reviews to 53.7% last season, led by the Boston Red Sox at 67.9%.
Just 1.6% of first pitches were challenges, but the figure increased to 3.9% for two-strike pitches, 5.2% for three-ball pitches and 8.2% for full counts.
Challenge percentages were more likely later in the game. While 1.9% of pitches were challenged in the first three innings, 2.5% were challenged from the fourth through the sixth, 2.8% in the seventh and eighth and 3.6% in the ninth.
How has the computer strike zone changed over time?
MLB has changed the shape of the ABS strike zone several times.
It started with a 19-inch width in 2022, then dropped it to 17 inches — matching the width of home plate. Narrowing the strike zone led to an increase in walks and only small changes in strikeout rates.
The top of the striker zone was 51% of a batter’s height in 2022 and 2023, then raised to 53.5% in 2024 after pitchers’ complaints the top had been too low. The bottom of the strike zone has been 27% since 2022 after initially being set at 28%.
A batter’s stance is not taken into account.
ABS makes the ball/strike decision at the midpoint of the plate, 8 1/2 inches from the front and 8 1/2 inches from the back. The contrasts with the rule book zone called by umpires, which says the zone is a cube, and a strike is a pitch that crosses any part.
Strikeout rates increased 0.5% and walk rates rose 1% in full ABS games and 0.8% in challenge games.
How will ABS impact broadcasts?
Concerned the strike zone box on broadcasts could tip whether to challenge and cause fans to yell at players to challenge, MLB plans to experiment with several broadcast alternatives, among them: show the box but not the ball; show the ball but not the box; and to show only corners of the box.
How can players give feedback?
Dugout iPads available to all teams will have an application called ProTABS that allows players to check pitches against their individual strike zone. Information will update after every plate appearance and players can give MLB comment on single pitches and the overall system.
Snowy roads lead to hundreds of Virginia and North Carolina crashes as Arctic air brings record cold
By BEN FINLEY, MAKIYA SEMINERA and SARAH BRUMFIELD Associated Press
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Officials in Virginia and North Carolina asked drivers to avoid travel Thursday as unusually heavy snow led to hundreds of accidents, including crashes on an interstate that involved more than 50 vehicles. Meanwhile, a polar vortex sent temperatures plunging from the Northern Great Plains all the way to Louisiana.
Two separate collisions stopped traffic on Interstate 40 in Orange County, North Carolina, on Wednesday afternoon and the stopped vehicles were struck from behind, including a tractor trailer that hit a passenger vehicle, causing a fatality, according to the North Carolina State Highway Patrol. A total of 53 vehicles were involved in 12 crashes in the area, the highway patrol said. The driver of the tractor trailer was charged with misdemeanor death by motor vehicle and exceeding a safe speed for conditions.
The highway patrol responded to nearly 1,200 collisions statewide on Wednesday, according to Sgt. Christopher Knox. Crashes on Wednesday also closed portions of Interstate 95 and I-85 near Raleigh, North Carolina.
Virginia State Police reported early Thursday that there had been nearly 500 crashes statewide since heavy snow pounded parts of the mid-Atlantic on Wednesday. At least 45 crashes involved injuries but no fatalities.
Emergency workers in Suffolk, Virginia, rescued two people from an SUV that crashed into water on Wednesday afternoon, according to the city’s Department of Fire & Rescue. Photos the department posted on social media showed rescuers stretching a ladder to the vehicle’s roof and helping one person clinging to the roof rails crawl across the ladder to land.
Wednesday’s snowfall in Norfolk, Virginia, ranked as the eighth-highest, one-day snowfall total the coastal city has ever recorded, Weather Prediction Center meteorologist Scott Kleebauer said. Norfolk officially recorded about 10.2 inches (about 26 centimeters) of snow, he said.
High snowfall isn’t unprecedented, he said, but it’s “certainly rare.”
“This is probably one of those one-in-10-years type storm,” Kleebauer said.
Children in the city of 230,000 on the Chesapeake Bay used boogie boards to sled down a small hill, while some adults cleared off cars with leaf blowers. Many roadways were still covered in slush, if not snow, while authorities urged everyone to stay off the roads to give plows time to come through.
Mary Stokes, whose family owns a small environmental consulting firm, said employees weren’t able to go out into the field to conduct mold testing and other types of work to help homeowners and businesses stay compliant with environmental laws.
“We’re obviously not going to make them take a vacation day when they physically can’t come to work,” Stokes said while clearing off her SUV. “But we’re not making any money. It can definitely be a financial hit.”
Jared Brooks, a surgeon at a local hospital, predicted that schools wouldn’t reopen in Norfolk until at least Monday. The temperature wasn’t expected to rise above freezing on Thursday.
“People aren’t used to driving in these kinds of conditions,” Brooks said while shoveling the sidewalk outside of his house. “And they just don’t slow down appropriately. And they get kind of crazy. People just need to stay home and not even try to drive unless they have to.”
Schools were closed or relying on remote learning throughout large parts of Virginia and North Carolina, while several thousand electric customers were without power Thursday morning. About 1,800 flights were canceled or delayed on Thursday across the U.S., including about 250 flights in and out of Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, according to the flight-tracking site FlightAware.com.
Meanwhile, an arctic air mass was bringing widespread, record-breaking cold to the central United States, and forecasters expected some locations in the Plains and Lower Mississippi Valley to experience their coldest temperatures on record this late in the season, according to the Weather Prediction Center. In Detroit, crews are fixing a large water main break that left dozens of people without power and heat amid temperatures well below freezing.
Frigid temperatures broke daily cold records Thursday across 45 weather stations ranging from North Dakota to Louisiana, Kleebauer said. Parts of Texas also broke daily cold records set in 2021 when a deadly winter storm caused the state’s power grid to mostly collapse.
In Nebraska, Grand Island set a new record for Feb. 20 of minus 24 Fahrenheit (minus 31 Celsius), breaking the old record of minus 11 F (minus 24 C) set in 1938, while Hastings set a new record of minus 20 F (minus 29 C), eclipsing the record of minus 12 F (minus 24 C) in 1918. In Missouri, new record lows were set in several cities, including Springfield at minus 12 F, breaking the record of 7 F (minus 14 C) in 1918, and Joplin at minus 9 F (minus 23 C), breaking the record low of 16 F in 1963, 1978 and 2021.
The National Weather Service in Dodge City, Kansas, was forecasting one more day of dangerous cold for western Kansas, with wind child dropping below minus 20 F in some locations Thursday morning. Wichita schools have been closed due to the cold since Tuesday, while many other Kansas schools opened late on Thursday.
But a “big change” is on the horizon, Kleebauer said. Thursday is expected to be the “last truly cold day” across the country as temperatures rise next week, he said.
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Brumfield reported from Cockeysville, Maryland. Seminera reported from Raleigh, North Carolina. Associated Press writers Gary Robertson in Cary, North Carolina, and Steve Karnowski in St. Paul, Minnesota, contributed to this report.