UConn Is First Overall Seed In NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament
At the American Athletic Conference tournament semifinals earlier this month in Uncasville, Conn., Cincinnati’s Andeija Puckett, left, looks to pass to Sam Rodgers, right, under pressure from Connecticut’s Kia Nurse. Connecticut is the first overall seed in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament that begins on Saturday.
Jessica Hill/AP
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Jessica Hill/AP
The slots in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament bracket have been filled and Connecticut is the first overall seed.
At 32-0, they are the only team to enter the NCAA tournament unbeaten.
The Huskies are aiming for their 12th national championship. Last season, UConn was the overwhelming favorite but lost to Mississippi State in the Final Four.
This year’s other No. 1 seeds are Notre Dame, Louisville and Mississippi State.
Here’s a printable bracket for the women’s tournament.
There were five teams trying to get into the bracket’s top spots and in the end Baylor lost out.
The Associated Press reports the Bears, who lost just one game all season (31-1), instead get a No. 2 seed in Lexington, a region that includes top-seeded Louisville, Tennessee and Stanford.
“‘We felt there was a razor-thin margin between Baylor and Notre Dame,’ said NCAA women’s basketball committee chair Rhonda Bennett. ‘Notre Dame did have the top strength of schedule in the country and they did have the best strength of schedule in the country and they had nine more top-50 wins than Baylor and those were the reason that the committee put Notre Dame on that one line and Baylor on that two line.’
Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said she doesn’t see it as that big a deal.
‘We’ve won a national championship as a two seed, we’ve won it as a one seed,’ she said. ‘And really what does it matter? Because the one has to play the two. Mississippi State was a two last year and they played for the national championship. We were a two seed in 2005 and we played and won the national championship.'”
The first round of the women’s tournament begins on Saturday. UConn faces St. Francis University of Loretto, Pa.
The men’s NCAA basketball bracket was announced on Sunday.
Today in Movie Culture: Gunship's 'Ready Player One' Music Video, Fan-Made 'Shazam!' Trailer and More
Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:
Music Video of the Day:
There are so many classic geek culture references in this animated music video for Gunship’s retro-sounding “Ar3mis & Parzival” from the Ready Player One soundtrack (via /Film):
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Fan-Made Trailer of the Day:
While we wait for Shazam! to finish production and give us a real trailer, here’s a well done fan-made teaser for the DC superhero movie by Stryder HD:
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Fan Art of the Day:
Speaking of Shazam!, star Zachary Levi shared this fan art by Janry Bautista of Levy’s Tangled character, Flynn Rider, as the superhero (via Heroic Hollywood):
Movie Parody of the Day:
Guest host Sterling K. Brown stars in this Saturday Night Live parody of the Djalia scenes from Black Panther:
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Vintage Image of the Day:
Aaron Eckhart, who turns 50 today, receives direction from Christopher Nolan on the set of The Dark Knight in 2007:
Filmmaker in Focus:
For Fandor, Haroon Adalat showcases A Wrinkle in Time director Ava Duvernay and her many achievements:
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Plot Song of the Day:
Star Wars gets a new Bad Lip Reading in the form of a Death Star-focused plot song called “It’s Not a Moon”:
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Mashup of the Day:
Speaking of Star Wars, Dimitreze combined footage from the end of The Force Awakens and the same sequence from The Last Jedi to create a longer version of the meeting of Rey and Luke:
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Cosplay of the Day:
In anticipation of the reboot hitting theaters this week, here’s some excellent Tomb Raider cosplay:
So @TombRaiderMovie releases this week! Who’s excited? #TombRaider#Cosplaypic.twitter.com/9slG6flDT0
— Samantha (@SamHModel) March 12, 2018
Classic Trailer of the Day:
Today is the 25th anniversary of the release of CB4. Watch the original trailer for the classic rap music satire below.
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President Trump Blocks Broadcom's Takeover Of Qualcomm, Citing National Security
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
In an unusual step, President Trump has signed an executive order blocking Broadcom’s $117 billion bid to buy Qualcomm. The order released Monday cited “credible evidence” that led Trump to believe the Singapore-based Broadcom, in purchasing America’s largest mobile chipmaker, “might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.”
“The proposed takeover of Qualcomm by the Purchaser is prohibited,” the president said in his order, “and any substantially equivalent merger, acquisition, or takeover, whether effected directly or indirectly, is also prohibited.”
Trump said his decision was informed by a recommendation from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency panel that — in its own words — investigates “transactions that could result in control of a U.S. business by a foreign person.” The group evaluates these deals according to their possible effects on national security.
The CFIUS had already openly suggested its concerns with the massive tech merger. Aimen Mir, a top Treasury Department official serving on CFIUS, sent a letter earlier this month voicing those concerns to attorneys representing both companies.
As NPR’s Alina Selyukh reports, those concerns center especially on “the future of mobile connections,” where Qualcomm has been an industry leader.
“Countries around the world have been racing to develop technology for the new generation of wireless called 5G,” she explains. “It will power all the devices that are starting to connect to the Internet — like smart home speakers and even cars.”
Though Broadcom is based in Singapore, the principal worry rests with China. If Qualcomm’s “technological leadership” diminishes, Mir said in his March 5 letter, Chinese tech companies stand to gain in the race to develop 5G.
“Reduction in Qualcomm’s long-term technological competitiveness and influence in standard setting would significantly impact U.S. national security,” Mir wrote. “This is in large part because a weakening of Qualcomm’s position would leave an opening for China to expand its influence on the 5G standard-setting process.”
He also noted that Department of Defense programs rely on access to Qualcomm products.
This weekend, before Trump’s order, Mir wrote the same lawyers again, this time to note that the CFIUS investigation “has so far confirmed the national security concerns” identified in his earlier letter.
Broadcom, for its part, had argued earlier Monday — before the president’s order — that the national security fears were unwarranted because it plans to redomicile to the U.S. by early April.
“Broadcom, which is in all important respects a U.S. company, has been repeatedly approved by CFIUS in its previous acquisitions of U.S. companies,” the company said in its statement, “and has always engaged productively with CFIUS to ensure U.S. national security is protected.”
Trump disagreed with this line of reasoning, however. And he said he has directed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, to send a copy of his order blocking the merger to Qualcomm and Broadcom.
Fertility Clinic Says Failure May Have Damaged Thousands Of Eggs And Embryos
After a cryogenic tank like the one in this file photo lost a great deal of liquid nitrogen, a fertility clinic began the process of determining the damage to stored embryos and eggs.
Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images
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A San Francisco fertility clinic says that a problem with the liquid nitrogen in one of its storage tanks may have damaged thousands of frozen eggs and embryos, triggering calls and letters to more than 400 concerned patients of the Pacific Fertility Center.
The nitrogen level in one tank fell very low, according to Dr. Carl Herbert, the fertility clinic’s president. Herbert told ABC News that an “emergency filling” immediately took place, and that the tank’s contents were then transferred to a fully functioning tank.
The problem struck on March 4 — the same day that a similar cryogenic tank failure was reported in Cleveland, where the University Hospital Fertility Clinic is investigating “an unexpected temperature fluctuation” that jeopardized its tissue storage bank, where liquid nitrogen preserves eggs and embryos. That incident reportedly affected some 700 patients.
In San Francisco, Dr. Herbert said the clinic is working to determine the effects of the tank failure. Herbert said a “substantial number” of the clinic’s patients had stored embryos for around 8-10 years, according to ABC.
“The good news is, we have viable embryos — we’ve proven that from that tank,” Herbert said. “So my hopes are that for my patients, they’ll be OK. But because there’s an unknown, it’s extremely stressful.”
The clinic’s price for freezing eggs starts at $8,345, and in-vitro fertilization is $11,595, according to its website. The annual cost for tissue storage is $600.
Emotions have run high during calls with affected patients, Herbert told The Washington Post.
“Anger is a big part of the phone call,” Herbert said. “Our goal is to provide all the patients we see with some kind of a family. . . . We need to think: If this tissue doesn’t work, what are the next steps, and have you not feel defeated.”
The Pacific Fertility Center is located in San Francisco’s North Beach region; in the past, it has said that its patients include families of employees at Facebook and other tech companies, many of which pay the costs of fertility treatments as part of their health coverage.
After the Cleveland incident, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine released a statement saying that the cryogenic failure and “potential loss of eggs and embryos at University Hospitals Fertility Center in Cleveland is a tragedy.”
A family that lost embryos in the Cleveland hospital’s nitrogen tank failure has filed a class-action lawsuit, the AP reports.
