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Grading the Week: Good on CU Buffs for finally calling Pac-12’s big bluff

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 08:00:24 GMT

The bum who runs the Grading The Week staff meetings now says he’s met George Kliavkoff a couple times. Nice guy. Great teeth.But to paraphrase a GTW movie favorite, “Jaws,” the embattled Pac-12 commissioner is now the mayor of Shark City. There’s blood all over the water now. And the teams in his league don’t want to be the ones lining up to become somebody else’s hot lunch.There’s a little bit of the fictional Larry Vaughn in the real Kliavkoff, whose public statements about his conference, and its future, seem to be drifting further and further from reality. And by finally throwing up its hands and joining the Big 12, of all places, a league it ran away from 13 years ago, the CU Buffs just swam up and bit Gorgeous George square on the backside.George Kliavkoff — FHe trusted the Big Ten. Bad idea. He stood pat when the southern half of the Big 12 was looking for a lifeline in 2021. Also bad. He let the Big 12 jump him in the line last fall to grab the money from ESPN and FOX. Hell...

Deion Sanders, Big 12 switch have CU Buffs fans, administrators singing from same hymnal again. Loudly. “They’ve jumped on board like never before.”

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 08:00:24 GMT

BOULDER — Faculty zigged. The fans zagged. At times, getting the pieces of the CU Buffs football ecosystem together on the same page felt like herding cats in a hailstorm.“I think people have wanted to get it back so bad, and this is the biggest ray of hope that they’ve had,” CU radio analyst and former coach Gary Barnett told The Post. “And they just look at what (has been) done — every season ticket’s gone, there was 5 inches of snow and 47,000 people at the spring game.“They’ve jumped on board like never before. That’s an indication of just how hungry everybody is to have a major change here. And I think for the most part, everybody’s feeling the same way about the Big 12 (move).”For the first time since Mel Tucker was hired in December 2018, the many subsets within Buffs Nation — fans, boosters, alums, students, administrators — appear to be pulling on the same rope. All while pulling in the same direction.Joining the Big 12? So far, it’s been a unifying, publi...

Opinion: Don’t let Saudi Arabia sportswash its many failures

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 08:00:24 GMT

The 151st British Open golf tournament is the sport’s fourth and final major event of the year, which ended last Sunday at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England.It was a jolly good show for those who respect the game.But thanks to the actions taken by Saudi Arabia’s LIV Golf Series as it seeks to buy its way into the game, there are angry golfers from the PGA and LIV, Professional Golf Association Tour officials and others seething underneath like a Yellowstone Park fumarole.All this started when American golfers sued the PGA Tour, calling it a monopoly. The Saudi Arabia government — which has a $700 billion Public Investment Fund to back its golf ambitions — joined the lawsuit against the PGA, which is a $1.5 billion business, according to Forbes magazine. This explains why the PGA is caving into the Saudi demands – they can’t afford the litigation fees.It’s “sportswashing” at its worst, designed to buy respectability rather than earn it. Sportswashing is th...

Mathews: The life of a California aunt whose existence was a family secret

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 08:00:24 GMT

Is there a family trait more common than keeping secrets?Family secrets have hidden costs. When we leave a place or person behind, we don’t know what becomes of them. We can even miss the entire life of a loved one.That’s one lesson of a compelling California story told by David Mas Masumoto, the Central Valley writer and farmer, in his recent memoir Secret Harvest.At the book’s center is Shizuko Sugimoto, aunt of Masumoto’s mother.But he didn’t know she even existed until about a decade ago, when a Fresno funeral home called to ask if Sugimoto, who appeared near death, was related. Eventually though, he pieced together some elements of the life of a Californian whose very existence had been a family secret.Sugimoto was born in Fowler in 1919, daughter of a family of farmworkers of Japanese heritage. At age 5, she contracted meningitis, which attacked her brain and left her with an intellectual disability. She would never again complete a full sentence or thought.She was 23 in 1942,...

Opinion: Why are so many college presidents resigning? Follow the money

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 08:00:24 GMT

It’s hardly news by now that college presidencies are not what they used to be. The change is the result of factors as diverse as the institutions they lead. Yet despite the differences, certain similarities emerge among all college presidents.First and foremost is their need to keep money flowing into their institutions’ coffers. As long as they do, they’ll hold onto their jobs. A series of recent resignations confirms that the truth is almost always found by following the money trail.When an independent review of his research found that it fell below the standards of scientific rigor, Marc Tessier-Lavigne promptly announced that he would resign as president of Stanford University, a post he has held since 2016.Even his defenders mostly don’t question the work done by a panel that reviewed more than 50,000 documents, leading to an 89-page report. It was thorough and unbiased. But what is hard to swallow is the reason that Tessier-Lavigne gave for his decision.He said the report cal...

Opinion: Republican racism has finally weaponized Kamala Harris

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 08:00:24 GMT

Republicans are doing their damnedest to make Vice President Kamala Harris a liability for President Joe Biden’s reelection, not without plenty of help from her over time.But as they keep doing stupid stuff underscoring their racial insensitivity — the latest being Florida’s and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ claim of a silver lining to slavery — Republicans have handed Harris an apt role: The Democrats’ weapon for calling them on their callousness, and for shoring up the Democratic base while she’s at it.Harris — the first woman, Black American and person of South Asian descent to be vice president — has had a pretty good week, turning the Republicans’ charge that Democrats are trying to politically indoctrinate America’s youth back onto the Republican Party itself. And she’s put the lie to the claim that the left is forcing a guilt trip on white children simply by fully teaching them about the nation’s sins as well as its triumphs.It helps...

Ilestedt scores twice as Sweden beats Italy 5-0 to reach knockout rounds at Women’s World Cup

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 08:00:24 GMT

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — After leaving it to the last minute against South Africa, Sweden left nothing to chance Saturday in a 5-0 win over Italy which sealed its place in the knockout rounds of the Women’s World Cup.Sweden relied on Amanda Ilestedt’s 90th-minute winner to salvage a 2-1 win from a sub-par performance in its opener against South Africa.Ilestedt was Sweden’s first scorer Saturday, this time in the 39th, and her glancing header from a corner sparked a flood of four Swedish goals in 11 minutes on either side of halftime. Her second goal came in the 50th and was a mirror image of the first.Rebecka Blomqvist finished it off in stoppage time with Sweden’s fifth goal.“We are good at set pieces,” said Ilestedt, who is now the tournament’s leading scorer with three goals. “We have good shooters and we know we are good headers so it feels good the balls are coming where they should.”The Swedish attack again looked hesitant in the first 20 mi...

DC’s 911 call center reports ‘call handled properly’ to find crashed car in Anacostia River

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 08:00:24 GMT

D.C. rescue officials pull out a car out of the Anacostia River after it plunged off the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge. (WTOP/Kyle Cooper) D.C. rescue officials pull out a car out of the Anacostia River after it plunged off the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge. (WTOP/Kyle Cooper) The D.C. Office of Unified Communications said that a 911 call to report a car that had driven into the Anacostia River was “coded properly,” despite D.C. emergency services not finding the drowned car until more than an hour after the incident was reported.Metropolitan Police responded to a car plunging into the Anacostia River below the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Southeast D.C. on the evening of April 20, 2...

Ticketmaster said to face possible new legal threat in US

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 08:00:24 GMT

The Justice Department could file an antitrust lawsuit against concert promoter Live Nation Entertainment and its subsidiary Ticketmaster by the end of the year, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.The DOJ is aiming to file a lawsuit as soon as this fall that claims the entertainment giant is abusing its power over the live music industry, the people said. A case would add to the embattled company’s myriad policy and legal battles, and if successful, could potentially lead to a breakup of the company, POLITICO previously reported.The timing of any lawsuit is fluid, and no final decision has been made, meaning the department could ultimately decide not to bring a case, cautioned the people who were granted anonymity to discuss a confidential matter. But a potential case against Ticketmaster has been part of recent discussions about upcoming litigation plans in the department’s antitrust division, two of the people said.The decision on whether to sue Ticketmast...

EU suspends Niger financial support, security cooperation after coup

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 08:00:24 GMT

The EU suspended security cooperation and financial support for Niger and declared that it will not recognize the leaders of a “putsch” that ousted the democratically elected president.Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, called for President Mohamed Bazoum’s “unconditional” release from detention.“This unacceptable attack on the integrity of Niger’s republican institutions will not remain without consequences for the partnership and cooperation,” Borrell said, confirming an “immediate cessation of budget support” and the suspension of “cooperation actions in the security field.”The EU “does not recognize and will not recognize the authorities resulting from the putsch in Niger,” Borrell said. Borrell’s statement came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed “unflagging support” for Bazoum and warned that “hundreds of millions of dollars” of U.S. security and economic assistance to Niger was at risk if “democratic governance” was not restor...