SMU has plenty to play for when it closes the regular season against California on Saturday afternoon in Dallas. The Mustangs (10-1, 7-0 Atlantic Coast Conference), who checked in at No. 9 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings on Tuesday, would like to send their seniors off the right way. They would also like to complete a perfect regular season before appearing in the ACC title game in their first year in the conference. Most importantly, they want to continue to strengthen their playoff case. "You've got the College Football Playoff, so every game matters. That's what's so cool about it now. The regular season is important," SMU coach Rhett Lashlee said. "We'd like to finish well in everything we do, particularly on Saturday, to finish off the regular season, continue our momentum into the following week. Hopefully, continue to show the committee and others that we're worthy of continuing to play this year." The Mustangs are a worthy playoff team to date. Kevin Jennings has established himself as one of the top quarterbacks in the country, throwing for 2,521 yards with 17 touchdowns and seven interceptions. He also has rushed for 315 yards and four TDs. Brashard Smith has been another standout, rushing for 1,089 yards and 13 TDs. Defensively, the Mustangs rank tied for 14th in the country with 20 takeaways. "Obviously they've had a phenomenal season," Cal coach Justin Wilcox said of SMU. "As soon as you turn the tape on, it doesn't take very long to see why their record is what it is. They're very, very good really in every phase of the game - extremely explosive and quick and fast. They've got a dominant D-line. We've got a lot of challenges in front of us and our guys are excited for that." Cal (6-5, 2-5) is coming off an emotional win, defeating rival Stanford 24-21 on Saturday to secure a bowl berth. The Golden Bears will appear in consecutive bowls for the first time since 2018-19 and are now looking to clinch their first winning season since 2019. SMU is not overlooking Cal, as all five of the Golden Bears' losses have come by one score. "You'd be hard-pressed to find a better 6-5 team in America," Lashlee said. "I think you can conservatively say they very, very easily could be 9-2." Cal is led by quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who has thrown for 3,004 yards with 16 touchdowns and six interceptions. Tight end Jack Endries leads the team with 555 yards receiving, while wide receiver Nyziah Hunter has caught a team-leading five touchdowns. Defensively, Cal has the ACC's top scoring defense (20.7 points per game) and is tied with Clemson for the ACC's best turnover margin (plus-13). Defensive back Nohl Williams is the star of the group -- he leads the country with seven interceptions. Even though oddsmakers are heavily favoring SMU, Cal is going into the game with a simple mindset. "Our task at hand is to make the best bowl game right now," Mendoza said. "And the way to do that is to go into Dallas, give it our best and ruin SMU's season." Saturday will mark the first conference meeting between these ACC newcomers, and just the second meeting between the programs all time. SMU won a 13-6 game back in 1957. --Field Level MediaDENVER (AP) — Amid renewed interest in the killing of JonBenet Ramsey triggered in part by a new Netflix documentary, police in Boulder, Colorado, refuted assertions this week that there is viable evidence and leads about the 1996 killing of the 6-year-old girl that they are not pursuing. JonBenet Ramsey, who competed in beauty pageants, was found dead in the basement of her family’s home in the college town of Boulder the day after Christmas in 1996. Her body was found several hours after her mother called 911 to say her daughter was missing and a ransom note had been left behind. The details of the crime and video footage of JonBenet competing in pageants propelled the case into one of the highest-profile mysteries in the United States. The police comments came as part of their annual update on the investigation, a month before the 28th anniversary of JonBenet’s killing. Police said they released it a little earlier due to the increased attention on the case, apparently referring to the three-part Netflix series “Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey.” In a video statement, Boulder Police Chief Steve Redfearn said the department welcomes news coverage and documentaries about the killing of JonBenet, who would have been 34 this year, as a way to generate possible new leads. He said the department is committed to solving the case but needs to be careful about what it shares about the investigation to protect a possible future prosecution. “What I can tell you though, is we have thoroughly investigated multiple people as suspects throughout the years and we continue to be open-minded about what occurred as we investigate the tips that come into detectives," he said. The Netflix documentary focuses on the mistakes made by police and the “media circus” surrounding the case. JonBenet was bludgeoned and strangled. Her death was ruled a homicide, but nobody was ever prosecuted. Police were widely criticized for mishandling the early investigation into her death amid speculation that her family was responsible. However, a prosecutor cleared her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, and brother Burke in 2008 based on new DNA evidence from JonBenet's clothing that pointed to the involvement of an “unexplained third party” in her slaying. The announcement by former district attorney Mary Lacy came two years after Patsy Ramsey died of cancer. Lacy called the Ramseys “victims of this crime.” John Ramsey has continued to speak out for the case to be solved. In 2022, he supported an online petition asking Colorado’s governor to intervene in the investigation by putting an outside agency in charge of DNA testing in the case. In the Netflix documentary, he said he has been advocating for several items that have not been prepared for DNA testing to be tested and for other items to be retested. He said the results should be put through a genealogy database. In recent years, investigators have identified suspects in unsolved cases by comparing DNA profiles from crime scenes and to DNA testing results shared online by people researching their family trees. In 2021, police said in their annual update that DNA hadn’t been ruled out to help solve the case, and in 2022 noted that some evidence could be “consumed” if DNA testing is done on it. Last year, police said they convened a panel of outside experts to review the investigation to give recommendations and determine if updated technologies or forensic testing might produce new leads. In the latest update, Redfearn said that review had ended but that police continue to work through and evaluate a “lengthy list of recommendations” from the panel. Amy Beth Hanson contributed to this report from Helena, Montana.None
One of the 39 people pardoned by President Joe Biden’s administration is a Utah woman who has turned her life around after struggling with substance abuse. Stevoni Doyle of Santaquin is a wife, mother and grandmother who also fosters animals and volunteers. "I'm a therapist with Wasatch Behavioral Health, with the jail transition program,” said Doyle. "If you would have asked me 20 years ago if I would be here today, I never would have imagined that,” said Doyle. She has come a long way. "In 2000, I was introduced to meth, and I instantly become addicted,” explained Doyle. “It was the one thing that I felt like just completed me. Within a year, I lost custody of my 4 kids to DCFS and I had racked up a bunch of charges." Doyle served time at the Utah State Prison and then at a federal prison in Arizona. There, she decided to make some changes. "I started to take accountability for my actions and realized that I didn’t want to live this lifestyle," she said. RELATED STORY | Biden commutes 1,500 sentences in largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history Doyle started helping people who were struggling with substance abuse and even went back to school to study social work. "I never thought I would graduate college, let alone get a master’s degree,” Doyle said. On Wednesday, she got a special phone call and was pardoned by President Biden. "I was like, no way, I can’t believe this is happening.” She said. "I won’t have to explain myself all the time. Even though I don’t have a problem sharing it, it’s part of my story, it’s part of who I am, it’s still nice to not have to do that." RELATED STORY | January 6 defendant tells Scripps News he may not accept a potential pardon from Trump This story was originally published by Mythili Gubbi at Scripps News Salt Lake City .CFB roundup: Michigan upsets No. 2 Ohio State in Columbus
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Uganda: Major survey brings new light to carnivore conservationThe Los Angeles Chargers secondary has been hit with multiple injuries all season. Nearly every starter has missed time due to injury. The latest are injuries to cornerbacks Eli Apple , Cam Hart , and safety Alohi Gilman. Chargers Move Apple To IR, Sign Maye On Wednesday afternoon, the team announced they were moving Apple to injured reserve, while the LA Times’ Thuc Nhi Nguyen reported that both Hart and Gilman did not practice with the team. Hart missed the team’s game against the Baltimore Ravens due to a concussion/ankle. Gilman was injured in that game. In an attempt to put a band-aid, the temas claimed former Miami Dolphins safety Marcus Maye off waivers. Maye was a second-round pick in the 2017 draft where he was picked by the New York Jets. He played with the Jets for five seasons before signing with the New Orleans Saints. After two years with the Saints, he signed with the Dolphins, where he has been for the last two seasons. Maye has been featured heavily over the last four games. In limited playing time this season, Maye has combined for 30 tackles, including a tackle for loss and he has forced a fumble. The Chargers also have safeties Tony Jefferson, Emany Johnson, and Kendall Williamson, as well as, cornerbacks, Dicaprio Bootle and Shaun Wade on their practice squad. This article first appeared on LAFB Network and was syndicated with permission.
SoFi stock soars to 52-week high, hits $16.09 amid robust growthMOON TOWNSHIP, Pa. (AP) — Zach Tanner threw two touchdown passes to Shawn Charles and Robert Morris ended the season with a 31-13 win over Stonehill on Saturday. Tanner and Charles hooked up for an 86-yard score on the second snap for the Colonials (7-5, 4-2 Northeast Conference) and then went for 51 yards to make it 21-0 after one quarter. Tanner was 13 of 20 for 268 yards with two interceptions. Charles caught four passes for 149 yards. DJ Moyer capped a 69-yard drive in the first quarter with a 1-yard plunge. Danny Hurley kicked two field goals to help get the Skyhawks (1-10, 0-6) within eight points but a field goal and a Turner Schmidt fumble recovery for a score wrapped up the game for Robert Morris. ___ AP college football: and . Sign up for the AP’s college football newsletter: The Associated PressMOON TOWNSHIP, Pa. (AP) — Zach Tanner threw two touchdown passes to Shawn Charles and Robert Morris ended the season with a 31-13 win over Stonehill on Saturday. Tanner and Charles hooked up for an 86-yard score on the second snap for the Colonials (7-5, 4-2 Northeast Conference) and then went for 51 yards to make it 21-0 after one quarter. Tanner was 13 of 20 for 268 yards with two interceptions. Charles caught four passes for 149 yards. DJ Moyer capped a 69-yard drive in the first quarter with a 1-yard plunge. Danny Hurley kicked two field goals to help get the Skyhawks (1-10, 0-6) within eight points but a field goal and a Turner Schmidt fumble recovery for a score wrapped up the game for Robert Morris. ___ AP college football: and . Sign up for the AP’s college football newsletter: The Associated PressA rich picture has emerged of the three men who left a message hidden inside the walls of a Scottish lighthouse 132 years ago, thanks to the work of genealogists. Earlier this month BBC Scotland News revealed a bottle containing the note had been Written with quill and ink and dated 4 September 1892, it revealed the names of the three workers who installed a new type of light in the 100ft (30m) tower. Now experts from genealogy firm Findmypast have pored over censuses and newspaper archives to uncover the story of the workers who left the intriguing time capsule. Queen Victoria was on the throne and Gladstone was leading a Liberal government but the genealogists' research reveals details of the ordinary working men who travelled from Edinburgh to leave their mark on the remote lighthouse. The first name on the concealed letter was that of John Westwood, a 28-year-old millwright - a tradesman who works with machinery - from Edinburgh. He had travelled from the capital to the lighthouse at the most northerly point of the Rhins of Galloway to carry out the project for James Milne & Son. As a millwright, he was following in the footsteps of his father, David Westwood. He ran his own millwright business, with John's eldest two brothers, David, a millwright, and Alexander, a mechanical draughtsman. Born in St Andrews, Fife, in 1864, John was the youngest of eight siblings. His two eldest sisters, Mary and Margaret, worked as domestic servants when John and his other three siblings were still at school. When John reached 16 he too became a millwright. By 1891, John had moved to Edinburgh and was living as a lodger with a widowed pianoforte maker, Richard Honeyman, 70, and his daughter, Helen, 45. A year later he was sent on the Corsewall Lighthouse project. He married Margaret Gow, the 26-year-old daughter of a contractor from Blairgowrie, in 1896. They went on to have three children - John, Jane and Neil. And John Sr lived a long life. He died aged 93 in March 1958 at Edinburgh City Hospital. James Brodie was 48 when the trio of workers concealed the bottle. He was a James Milne & Sons engineer who had also travelled from Edinburgh. Born in Renfrewshire in 1844, he was the eldest of James and Margaret's five children. Census records show that he was an apprentice engineer when he was 17, and he lived with his parents on George Street in Greenock. His father was a shawl weaver and his mother was a cotton winder. In 1868 he married Annie F Scott in Paisley. By the time he wrote the secret note they had seven children under the age of 14 and were living on Tannahill Place, Paisley. David Scott was 32 when he left the note in the lighthouse and worked as a labourer for James Milne & Sons. He was born in 1860, the son of Jane and William Scott, a grain loftman in Edinburgh. When he wrote the lighthouse note he was still living with his housekeeper mother, his sister Jane Mackay, a millworker, and her two sons David and William at 40 Fox Street in Edinburgh. Ten years later, 41-year-old David was still single and boarding with the Munro family (James, Jane and their infant son John) at 41 Leith Walk, Edinburgh. He had become more specialised in his trade and was now working as a lead and metal worker. All three men worked for James Milne & Son, a business that was founded "prior to 1750" as brassfounders. In 1821 they fitted the author Sir Walter Scott's Melrose home, Abbotsford, with an oil-gas plant and by 1837 they were making gas meters. Around 1885, they moved from their premises in Edinburgh's High Street to the larger Milton House Works, in Abbeyhill. Their Glasgow branch opened two years later, where they displayed gasoliers, pumps, light-fittings and the Wenham Patent Gas Lamp. By the late 1890s, they were making "lamps for lighthouses" and specialised in aluminium. The bottle containing the note was found by Ross Russell, a Northern Lighthouse Board mechanical engineer, during an inspection. He spotted it after removing panels in a cupboard but it was well out of arm's reach. The team retrieved it using a contraption made from a rope and a broom handle. He said he was blown away to find out about the men who had written the note. "I've touched the note and the bottle but never in my wildest dreams would I have thought we would find out all this about their lives," he said. "It's just incredible." Jen Baldwin, a research specialist at Findmypast, said: "These rare mementoes offer such a wonderful window into the past. "From just a name, date and location, we've been able to trace some of their stories back in time and build up a rich picture of their lives and the world around them. "This one lighthouse project might appear at first glance simple and remote, but these workers were part of a revolution in technology and engineering during the late 1800s and were enabling ships to safely navigate through a busy sea passage - part of a wider network of trade and travel routes across a global empire." Historian Eric Melvin said: "The Carsewell Lighthouse story of the hidden message in a bottle is absolutely fascinating. "To discover an original contemporary source is always exciting but to find one deliberately hidden away is intriguing. "Did the three engineers plan this together? What motivated them? Did they tell anyone about the hidden bottle and did they leave any clues? "Great credit is due to those who have researched their family stories."
Broadcom is predicting a massive expansion in demand for chips that power AI — and the market, for now, is buying it all the way. The company’s valuation hit $1 trillion on Friday as its shares surged 21% after CEO Hock Tan said AI could present a $60 billion to $90 billion revenue opportunity in 2027, more than four times the current size of the market. Broadcom also forecast first-quarter revenue above estimates on Thursday. Several analysts said it was tough to estimate the market’s growth and Broadcom’s potential share, with TD Cowen noting the prediction is “difficult to prove/disprove, but is huge.” Big Tech’s push to diversify beyond Nvidia’s pricey and supply-constrained AI processors has been a windfall for Broadcom, which makes custom chips for major cloud companies. Investors have also favored chipmakers that are already benefiting from the massive data centers being built by the likes of Microsoft and Meta amid worries about the payoff from AI investments for the wider tech industry. Broadcom CEO Tan said on Thursday the company has won two major hyperscaler customers, after it brought in $12.2 billion in AI revenue for fiscal 2024. That represented a major chunk of his estimated total serviceable market of $15 billion to $20 billion. Of the total 2027 opportunity, Broadcom could capture as much as $50 billion in AI sales based on the 70% market share Broadcom estimated it had in 2024, TD Cowen analysts said. But they warned modeling the company’s share was difficult because the serviceable market could include processors sold by the likes of Nvidia. Rosenblatt Securities analyst Hans Mosesmann estimated a much lower market share for Broadcom in 2027 at between 20% and 50%. Investors, meanwhile, scooped up the stock that trades at a lower multiple than rivals. Broadcom has a 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio of 29.8, compared with 31.03 for Nvidia, the first chip firm to hit $1 trillion in market value, according to data compiled by LSEG. “As AI shifts from training models to inference, more and more chip companies will gain an edge on Nvidia. Broadcom is the canary in the coalmine,” said Thomas Hayes, chairman and managing member at Great Hill Capital. Shares of Nvidia and rival AI chipmaker AMD fell about 3%, while Broadcom’s smaller competitor Marvell rose close to 9%. Contract chipmaker TSMC rose 4%. Broadcom’s shares are up more than 60% this year, while Nvidia’s stock has more than doubled, as of last close. The gains eclipse those in major cloud companies, with Microsoft up about 11% this year and Alphabet — seen by analysts as Broadcom’s biggest custom chip customer — rising 40%. “They (Broadcom) went out of their way to give investors a reason to dream,” Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said. “The AI story seems to really be coming into its own, perhaps Hock might think about shopping for a leather jacket,” Rasgon said, referring to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s signature style .
NEW YORK (AP) — Bob Menendez asked a judge Wednesday to set aside guilty verdicts that forced his resignation from the U.S. Senate and grant a new bribery trial. Lawyers for the New Jersey Democrat said in papers filed in Manhattan federal court that a recent revelation by prosecutors that improper evidence was put on a computer used by jurors during deliberations means that a new trial is “unavoidable.” The 70-year-old Menendez was convicted in July of 16 charges , including bribery, in part based on an allegation that he accepted bribes in exchange for approving military aid to Egypt. He awaits a Jan. 29 sentencing. Menendez resigned from the Senate in August. At trial, prosecutors said Menendez accepted gold and cash from three New Jersey businessmen in return for favors. Earlier this month, prosecutors revealed in a letter to Judge Sidney H. Stein that they had discovered that some factual information that the judge had ruled should be excluded from several trial exhibits was instead inadvertently loaded onto a computer used by jurors to reach their verdict. In their letter, prosecutors said incorrect versions of nine government exhibits were missing some redactions ordered by Stein to ensure that the exhibits did not violate the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause, which protects speech relating to information shared by legislators. Prosecutors argued in their letter that no action was necessary in light of the error for several reasons, including that defense lawyers did not object after they inspected documents on that laptop before it was given to jurors. They also said there was a “reasonable likelihood” that no jurors saw the erroneously redacted versions of the exhibits and that the documents could not have prejudiced the defendants anyway because they were of “secondary relevance and cumulative with abundant properly admitted evidence.” Lawyers for Menendez, though, said in their submission Wednesday that the exhibits contained the “only evidence in the record” tying Menendez to military aid to Egypt, “an otherwise-missing fact at the very center of the central charge against him.” “In light of this serious breach, a new trial is unavoidable, despite all the hard work and resources that went into the first one,” they wrote. The lawyers criticized the government's attempt to shift blame for the error onto them by saying they viewed the laptop's contents and approved it. “That is both factually and legally outrageous,” they wrote. “The defense had only a few hours to review a laptop that contained nearly 3,000 exhibits; it had the right to expect that the government had not mislabeled non-introduced and constitutionally barred exhibits as admitted ones. If this were treated as a waiver, that would give parties the incentive to intentionally try to pull a fast one.” Larry Neumeister, The Associated PressTyreek Hill openly blames fantasy football for disrupting his family life