Thursday, March 15, 2012

Lundqvist, Rangers beat Panthers 3-0

SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Henrik Lundqvist made 40 saves for his third shutout of the season, and rookie Derek Stepan scored his sixth goal in the New York Rangers' 3-0 victory over the Florida Panthers on Friday night.

Ryan Callahan and Brandon Prust also scored, and Marc Staal had two assists.

Scott Clemmensen stopped 16 shots for Florida. The Panthers have lost three in a row for the first time this season.

Trailing 3-0, Florida pulled its goalie with more than 3 minutes left.

The Panthers failed to score on five power-play opportunities, and have failed to score in 33 straight chances.

Lundqvist, who gave up 17 goals while losing four of his last five …

9 in 10 high schoolers short on fruits, veggies

Health officials say only 13 percent of U.S. high school students get at least three servings of vegetables a day and just 32 percent get two servings of fruit.

Together, less than 10 percent of high schoolers were eating the combined recommended daily minimum of fruits and vegetables.

Some states _ including Arkansas and North Carolina _ were significantly below that average. But some New England states, including Vermont, were notably better.

The Morality Of Madonna

There she was, glamorized to the point of giving me morningsickness.

Her face was on the front pages of scores of Americannewspapers, symbolizing everything alleged to be despised by theself-styled keepers of America's manners and morals.

She is Madonna! She is four months pregnant! She may be fourdecades from marriage! But she is "deliriously happy."Yes, happy - even though her with-child status has provoked JayLeno and every comic on earth to engage in mean speculation as to whothe father is."The Denver Broncos?" Leno asks, "or the Los Angeles Dodgers?"I'm not laughing. It infuriates me to see newspaper editors andtelevision show producers, who have spent …

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

High court throws out Texas electoral maps

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court handed Texas Republicans a partial victory Friday, tossing a court-drawn electoral redistricting plan that favored minorities and Democrats but leaving the future of the state's political maps - and possibly control of the U.S. House - in the hands of two federal courts with its April primaries looming.

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ordered a three-judge court in San Antonio to craft a new map that pays more deference to one originally drawn up by Texas' GOP-led Legislature. The immediate effect was to scrap the interim map the San Antonio court drafted that would have favored Democrats to pick up four new congressional seats Texas …

AP Source: Utah State fires football coach

A person close to the team says Utah State football coach Brent Guy has been fired with one game remaining in his fourth season.

Utah State, 2-9 this season after a loss to Louisiana Tech, is 8-38 since Guy took over as coach in 2005.

The person asked not to …

War destroys myth of Israeli invincibility

As the guns fell silent, the tanks went back over the border andrefugees began to return to their homes in Lebanon Monday, the U.N.-brokered cease-fire looked as if it was a success. What is more (andmore surprising), the terms of the cease-fire are reasonably fair --i.e., not unfavorable to Israel.

Barry Rubin, the biographer of Yasser Arafat and a skepticalobserver of U.N. behavior in the Middle East, gave a detailedexamination of the cease-fire terms in his column: Let me list someof the terms he sees as either favorable to Israel or at least betterthan expected:

The recent war and resulting deaths are blamed on Hezbollah forattacking Israel.

The …

Wise Guy

BRUCE BAWER ON GUY DAVENPORT (1927-2005)

It is hard to believe that Guy Davenport is dead, for few writers in our time have seemed so abundantly alive. For decades a professor of English at the University of Kentucky, he leaves behind an oeuvre that is one long lesson in the history of civilization, and to read any of it-story, essay, or translation-is to be enthralled by his unflagging intellectual energy and engagement. Even the writings of Davenport's last years (he died in January at the age of seventy-seven) read like the work of an idealistic young teacher, determined to awaken students to the joys of thought, literature, and art.

Yet they are also the work of a sage. …