Notre Dame women beat Duke to return to Final Four

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) ? Skylar Diggins and the Notre Dame women's team have a whole week to talk about playing Connecticut again.

After a near-flawless performance in the second half lifted the Fighting Irish to an 87-76 victory over Duke on Tuesday night, earning them their third straight trip to the Final Four, Diggins and her teammates wanted to drink it in.

"We're enjoying the moment right now," the senior said with teammates Natalie Achonwa and Kayla McBride seated beside her and nodding their approval. "We'll talk about that later."

Coach Muffet McGraw wasn't biting, either.

"Not tonight," she said with a smile when asked to look ahead to another game against the Huskies.

The Irish had plenty to celebrate at Old Dominion's Constant Center.

Diggins, the flashy left-hander named an All-American for the second year in a row earlier in the day, shook off early foul trouble to score 24 points and the Fighting Irish rallied and rolled past Duke.

They shot 62 percent after halftime and finished the night with 25 assists on 29 baskets.

"That is a pretty amazing number," McGraw said.

The Irish have lost in the past two national championship games but will arrive in New Orleans with a coach hoping to see her flashy point guard cut down the nets, and with Diggins wanting it just as badly for her coach.

"I want to win a championship for coach (Muffet) McGraw bad," said Diggins, one of just two seniors on the roster. "When you have a coach who believes in you so much, I'd do anything for her."

And she clearly doesn't have to do it alone.

Kayla McBride added 18 points, while Jewell Loyd and Natalie Achonwa had 17 each as the Fighting Irish (35-1) won their school-record 30th game in a row, earning a fourth meeting with the Huskies this season.

It's also the third straight time the teams will meet in the national semifinals. The Irish won both of those and have dominated the series lately, winning seven of the past eight meetings. Notre Dame swept UConn in all three meetings this season in thrilling fashion, winning in overtime and by margins of one and two points in the other two games.

The Irish had to rally past Duke to earn the right to get there again.

Trailing by six at the half and looking disjointed without Diggins on the court, Notre Dame got back to playing up-tempo, transitional basketball after the break and took control with a 15-2 run early in the second half.

Diggins started the run with her fourth 3-pointer of the game and followed quickly with a no-look feed to Achonwa for a layup that drew an impressed roar from the crowd. Diggins added a steal and a layup, and McBride finished the burst with another 3-pointer.

Duke trailed by as many as 16 before closing the gap slightly in the desperate final minutes, and saw its season end in a regional final for the fourth straight year.

"It bothers me a little bit that we had to fight so hard at the end. It was like, 'Where's that been?'" Duke coach Joanne P. McCallie said. "You've got to play 40 minutes at this level."

The Blue Devils also hurt their cause with 21 turnovers that led to 23 points for Notre Dame.

In the first half, the game developed better than Duke (33-3) could have hoped.

Diggins was whistled for two fouls in the first 4:10 and went to the bench, and after McBride hit a pair of jumpers, the Fighting Irish looked out of sorts. They extended their lead to 17-13 on a 3-pointer by Kaila Turner and two free throws by Ariel Braker before going more than seven minutes without scoring.

A free throw by Elizabeth Williams ignited a 13-0 run by Duke that took up over six of those minutes. Tricia Liston, who led the Blue Devils with 19 points, scored eight in the burst and Chloe Wells finished it with a 12-foot jumper, giving Duke a 26-17 lead with five minutes to play in the half.

"I think they were outworking us," Diggins said. "I've never seen that from my team. They were getting hustle scrap points. I couldn't wait to get in that locker room. We had to light a fire. We set the tone on defense and got some stops and played our game."

Getting their leader back with the foul trouble behind her helped greatly.

"Sky's the best point guard in the country and she changes the game in everything she does," Achonwa said. "Her being off the court for 20 seconds changes the game."

Diggins returned with about 8 minutes to go in the half and, while playing passively on defense to avoid a third foul, hit three 3-pointers in a span of 2:16, cutting a nine-point deficit to 32-31 with 1:07 left. A basket by Williams and Wells' 3 just before the half gave Duke a 37-31 advantage.

The weekend was a homecoming for Williams, a Virginia Beach native, but Duke's scoring leader missed several shots from in close. She finished 3 for 9 and scored eight points, roughly half her average.

"It's really hard. We felt like we deserved to be here but we didn't play a full game," Williams said.

Haley Peters added 15 points and 10 rebounds for Duke and Richa Jackson scored 12.

___

Follow Hank on twitter at: http://twitter.com/hankkurzjr

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/notre-dame-women-beat-duke-return-final-four-074033691--spt.html

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Drake Matches Gritty '5 AM In Toronto' Lyrics With Homegrown Video

'Doing it for the city this time around,' Drizzy says of the low-key video for the venomous track.
By Rob Markman

Drake in his "5 AM in Toronto" music video
Photo: Universal Music Group

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1704804/drake-5-am-in-toronto-music-video.jhtml

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Garmin to power future Mercedes-Benz infotainment systems

It looks like Garmin has managed to lock down a very solid deal following its automotive group's compelling demo at CES. The company's in-dash GPS software is now set to roll out with future Mercedes-Benz models -- Garmin's navigation system is scheduled to be fully integrated within the next four years, and will begin appearing with select 2014 models. The solution sounds similar to the version we saw on display during CES, and includes a primary panel in the center console, along with a secondary display located behind the steering wheel, tasked with providing key driver stats, along with next turn info, for example.

Mercedes will share more details once specific launch vehicles are announced, but Garmin said to expect features like Advanced Driver Assistance (ADAS), to help out with vehicle positioning, while the car manufacturer will bring tools like a rotary controller and voice commands to the table. What remains to be seen is how TomTom will fit into the mix -- last month, the company announced plans of its own to provide HD Traffic service to certain Mercedes vehicles, though it's unclear if the two GPS giants will be working together on this latest venture.

Update: Garmin reached out to clarify that the company will be providing the GPS software for Mercedes-Benz's own infotainment solution. So it's not all Garmin under the hood.

Filed under: GPS, Transportation

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/yAKkEg9Jz0w/

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Dot Earth Blog: Fresh Thoughts from Authors of a Paper on 11,300 Years of Global Climate Changes

April 1, 12:17 a.m. | Update below |
There?s been vigorous discussion here and elsewhere (e.g., Climate Audit and Skeptical Science) of the methods and findings in ?A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years,? a recent Science paper by Shaun A. Marcott, Jeremy D. Shakun, Peter U. Clark and Alan C. Mix.

One author, Jeremy Shakun (currently at Harvard) weighed in via Skype for Dot Earth. When more questions came in, the group of authors wrote that they would respond more completely to questions about the work and now they have done so, on the RealClimate blog. Here?s a short excerpt and link to the rest:

Q.

What do paleotemperature reconstructions show about the temperature of the last 100 years?

A.

Our global paleotemperature reconstruction includes a so-called ?uptick? in temperatures during the 20th-century. However, in the paper we make the point that this particular feature is of shorter duration than the inherent smoothing in our statistical averaging procedure, and that it is based on only a few available paleo-reconstructions of the type we used. Thus, the 20th century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions. Our primary conclusions are based on a comparison of the longer term paleotemperature changes from our reconstruction with the well-documented temperature changes that have occurred over the last century, as documented by the instrumental record. Although not part of our study, high-resolution paleoclimate data from the past ~130 years have been compiled from various geological archives, and confirm the general features of warming trend over this time interval (Anderson, D.M. et al., 2013, Geophysical Research Letters, v. 40, p. 189-193).

Q.

Is the rate of global temperature rise over the last 100 years faster than at any time during the past 11,300 years?

A.

Our study did not directly address this question because the paleotemperature records used in our study have a temporal resolution of ~120 years on average, which precludes us from examining variations in rates of change occurring within a century. Other factors also contribute to smoothing the proxy temperature signals contained in many of the records we used, such as organisms burrowing through deep-sea mud, and chronological uncertainties in the proxy records that tend to smooth the signals when compositing them into a globally averaged reconstruction. We showed that no temperature variability is preserved in our reconstruction at cycles shorter than 300 years, 50% is preserved at 1000-year time scales, and nearly all is preserved at 2000-year periods and longer. Our Monte-Carlo analysis accounts for these sources of uncertainty to yield a robust (albeit smoothed) global record. Any small ?upticks? or ?downticks? in temperature that last less than several hundred years in our compilation of paleoclimate data are probably not robust, as stated in the paper.

There?s much more at RealClimate, although there?s also room for more questions ? one being how the authors square the caveats they express here with some of the more definitive statements they made about their findings in news accounts.

[April 1, 12:17 a.m. | Insert | Roger A. Pielke, Jr., of the University of Colorado has compared the new output from the authors with the paper and related news releases and coverage (including mine) and finds some very big differences.]

The managers of RealClimate offered their own reaction to the paper and the authors amplification on their methods and conclusions:

Our view is that the results of the paper will stand the test of time, particularly regarding the small global temperature variations in the Holocene. If anything, early Holocene warmth might be overestimated in this study.

For convenience, here?s Shakun?s discussion of the paper when it was published in Science:

Source: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/fresh-thoughts-from-authors-of-a-paper-on-11300-years-of-global-temperature-changes/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Joe Peyronnin: Immigration Reform Evolution

"I think we've got a deal." Those encouraging words about immigration reform legislation came from South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham who appeared on CNN Sunday. "We've got to write the legislation," he said, "but 2013, I hope, will be the year that we pass bipartisan immigration reform."

Senator Graham is a member of the bipartisan "gang of eight" that has been working to reach a deal on immigration reform. Last week, four members of that group, including John McCain of Arizona, traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border to get a closer look at the problem of illegal crossings. While there, Senator McCain tweeted, "Just witnessed a woman successfully climb and 18-ft bollard fence a few yards from us in #Nogales...Border Patrol successfully apprehended her, but incident is another reminder that threats to our border security are real."

In his televised appearances Sunday, Senator Graham emphasized border security while outlining the goals of the immigration agreement. The goals include preventing a "third wave" of undocumented immigrants moving to the U.S., allowing employers to hire guest workers when they can't find American workers, and judging immigration decisions more on merit rather than family.

But later Sunday, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, an aspiring Tea Party presidential candidate, tried to lower expectations about a deal. In a written statement he said, "Reports that the bipartisan group of eight senators have agreed on a legislative proposal are premature." Senator Rubio has the most to lose if conservatives don't like the immigration deal, so he appears to be playing it safe. Gang of eight member Senator Charles Schumer put it this way Sunday, "Now everyone, we've all agreed that we're not going to come to a final agreement until we see draft legislative language and we all agree on that. We've drafted some of it already; the rest will be drafted this week. So I'm very optimistic that we will have an agreement among the eight of us next week."

There are more than 11 million undocumented immigrants illegally in the U.S. Immigration was a major issue during the last presidential election, and all of the Republican candidates took a tough stand on illegals. The party's presidential nominee, former Governor Mitt Romney, coined the term "self deportation" when defining how he would solve the problem. More than 70% of Latinos who voted in last November's election voted for President Barack Obama.

An "autopsy" report released last month by GOP Chairman Reince Priebus called for more positive out reach to Latinos and other minorities. The report urged the party to, "embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform." But it will be hard for the party to overcome Congressional opposition to reform within its own party. And it doesn't help when one of its members, Alaska Representative Don Young, says, "My father had a ranch; we used to have 50-60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes." "Wetbacks" is an insulting racial slur against Latinos for which he apologized after some prodding from his leadership.

Immigration is just one of many issues for Latinos, who now number about 50 million in the U.S. The economy, jobs, education, family and health care are all important. Likely Republican presidential candidates, such as Kentucky's Senator Rand Paul, a Tea Party favorite, are now actively courting them. But their message, for instance on social issues, is not in sync with a majority of Latinos.

In a speech last month to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Senator Paul said, "Prudence, compassion and thrift all point us toward the same goal: bringing these workers out of the shadows and into becoming and being taxpaying members of society." So the stars are aligned for some form of meaningful immigration reform proposal this month.

Also in his speech, Senator Paul also quoted Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez. "In Love in the Time of Cholera, Marquez gives some advice that Republicans might consider, ". . . human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, . . . life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves."

These are words to think about, especially coming from a Nobel Prize winner who was denied a U.S. immigration visa for years because of his outspoken views on U.S. imperialism.

?

Follow Joe Peyronnin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/joepeyronnin

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-peyronnin/immigration-reform-evolut_b_2990493.html

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Nev. crash kills 5 in Calif. family; teen arrested

This photo provided by the Nevada Highway Patrol shows Jean Soriano, 18, who was booked into the Clark County Detention Center after he was treated and released at University Medical Center in Las Vegas. Soriano has been arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in a southern Nevada crash that killed five members of a California family and injured the suspect and three other people. (AP Photo/Nevada Highway Patrol)

This photo provided by the Nevada Highway Patrol shows Jean Soriano, 18, who was booked into the Clark County Detention Center after he was treated and released at University Medical Center in Las Vegas. Soriano has been arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in a southern Nevada crash that killed five members of a California family and injured the suspect and three other people. (AP Photo/Nevada Highway Patrol)

Five members of a Southern California family were killed in southern Nevada when their van was rear-ended by an 18-year-old driver who was later arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, authorities said.

The dead were among seven family members who were in the van, authorities said. The other two ? the 40-year-old female driver and a 15-year-old boy ? were hospitalized in critical condition.

Jean Soriano of California was booked into the Clark County Detention Center after he was treated and released at University Medical Center in Las Vegas, Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Loy Hixson said.

The crash happened at about 3 a.m. Saturday on Interstate 15 near the Utah line. Soriano's sport utility vehicle struck the van from behind, causing both vehicles to spin out of control and roll near Mesquite, some 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, investigators said.

A 23-year-old passenger in Soriano's SUV was treated at the hospital and released.

Authorities believe Soriano was returning from a visit with family in Utah to his home in California at the time of the wreck, Hixson said. They didn't immediately release his hometown or the names or hometowns of the victims.

Beer bottles were found in the SUV, Hixson said, and troopers performed a blood-alcohol test on Soriano at the hospital. The results won't be known for a couple of weeks, he said.

Hixson said only two of the seven people in the van were wearing seatbelts. The five who were not buckled in were ejected, but one survived.

"Unfortunately, so many in the van weren't wearing seatbelts, and some might have survived had they been wearing them," Hixson said. "We see it so many times where people can survive simply by having a seatbelt on."

The van was carrying a couple, their children and some aunts and uncles, he said. Killed were three men in their 40s, a teenage female and an adult female.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-03-31-Five%20Killed-Accident/id-82331392f6c844eab88864170557fe7c

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PFT: Weeden is Browns' starter by default?

Getty Images

As more and more teams picking in the top 10 pick up veteran quarterbacks, it?s impossible to know which teams are consciously getting out of the quarterback market at the top of the draft, and which teams are trying to mask their interest in a player like Geno Smith.

The Bills are believed to still be in the first-round quarterback fray, and it?s possible the Cardinals, Eagles, Raiders and even the Browns have been trying to throw other teams off the scent by lining up their fallback options pre-emptively.

For the Raiders, drafting Smith likely will mean keeping Flynn, since $2 million of his $5.25 million salary for 2013 is fully guaranteed.? It?s possible, then, that the Raiders also would keep Terrelle Pryor, given that he?ll earn only $595,000 in base salary for the coming season.

Still, even with the third overall pick going to a quarterback, the entire depth chart would take up considerably less cap room than Carson Palmer?s $13 million base salary would have consumed.? It?s possible, then, that the Raiders will enter the season with Flynn, Pryor, and a first-round rookie.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/04/01/brandon-weeden-looks-like-browns-starter-by-default/related

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