Louis Nix, missing Notre Dame, NFL player, is found dead: report - Fox News

Louis Nix, a former NFL defensive lineman who was a college standout at Notre Dame has been found dead after going missing earlier this week.

Nix's mother confirmed the death of her 29-year-old son to Ben Becker, a reporter with FOX 30 in Jacksonville, Fla.

The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office also confirmed that Nix had been found but did not immediately comment on his condition, the Florida Times-Union of Jacksonville reported

 Nix, a third-round pick by the NFL's Houston Texans in 2014, reportedly went missing in Florida, FOX 30's Becker reported previously, saying Nix’s mother hadn’t heard from her son in a few days.

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"Last communication of anyone seeing him was Tuesday," Nix’s mother told the outlet. "Can’t call him because voice mail is full and people he talks to daily have not heard from him. Not like him."

Nix’s mother believed her son was in danger. Earlier Saturday, Becker tweeted out that the mother had no new information on her son's whereabouts.

A three-year starter for the Fighting Irish, Nix was shot in December while putting air in the tires of his car. Nix said at the time that the bullet hit his sternum and entered his lung, which was then removed during surgery.

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After his short stint with the Texans, Nix was eventually claimed by the New York Giants and then joined the practice squads of the then-Washington Redskins and Jacksonville Jaguars back in 2016. Nix had a handful of knee surgeries, which ultimately put an end to his NFL career.

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Dana White skips post-fight presser as Ciryl Gane's hype train slows - Yahoo Sports

LAS VEGAS — Nothing that was being said about Ciryl Gane before he fought Jairzinho Rozenstruik on Saturday at Apex — he’s big, powerful, incredibly athletic and one of the potential stars in the heavyweight division — changed after they spent 25 minutes in the cage together.

This, though, was one of those rare shutout victories in which he wasn’t particularly happy. Gane defeated the fourth-ranked Ronzenstruik by winning 50-45 on all three cards, but it was a desultory affair that would have had a packed arena filled with boos by the middle of the first round.

UFC president Dana White wasn’t thrilled and skipped the post-fight news conference. Contacted by Yahoo Sports, White said the bout “wasn’t what I expected.”

“Everybody’s talking about Gane being this big contender, but look what Francis Ngannou did to Rozenstruik,” White said. “This was his coming out party and his chance to show the world who he is. He won, but let’s leave it at that. He won.”

Ngannou handed Rozenstruik his only previous defeat, stopping him in 21 seconds at UFC 249 last year. Ngannou raced out of his corner throwing haymakers until he connected.

Gane and Rozenstruik showed immense respect for each other and were reticent to throw their hands. Thus, a fight that on paper looked like it could be a wild slugfest was reduced to a snoozefest.

“Heavyweights are hit or miss,” White said. “I thought it was going to be a much better fight than it was. I think Jon Jones said it best in his tweet, though. These guys need to get a lot busier.

These boys better get used to pushing the pace, all this standing around ain’t gonna fly when daddy comes home. #ufcvegas20

— BONY (@JonnyBones) February 28, 2021

“With the heavyweights, you can have an incredible fight like you did [between Derrick Lewis and Curtis Blaydes] last week, when they get out there and start banging and put on an incredible, incredible show. Sometimes, you get this.”

He didn’t mean it as a compliment, and he was being kind.

No, to be fair to Gane, even the heavyweights that White praised, Ngannou and Lewis, have been in less than thrilling fights. The bout between them at UFC 226 on July 7, 2018, was one of the division’s worst fights ever, and boos rained down upon them from the packed crowd at T-Mobile Arena. Yet, Ngannou rebounded to earn a title shot against champion Stipe Miocic next month at UFC 260, and Lewis knocked out Blaydes last week to move up to No. 2 in the division.

So this is only one fight in what figures to be a long career, but the hype train on Gane will no doubt slow down considerably for the time being.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - FEBRUARY 27: Ciryl Gane of France battles Jairzinho Rozenstruik of Suriname in a heavyweight bout during the UFC Fight Night event at UFC APEX on February 27, 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC)

All the blame can’t be placed on Gane, though, who is now 8-0. For as little as Gane did, Rozenstruik did even less. Fernand Lopez, who formerly coached Ngannou and now coaches Gane, said it was unfair to put all of the blame on his guy.

He said, correctly, that Gane was making the fight and applying pressure throughout, and that Rozenstruik did little.

“What I would say to Dana is that you need two people to make a good fight,” Lopez said. “If there is one guy in there holding on and not trying to fight, it’s not the same thing as you saw [from Gane] tonight. Certainly, the kid has to improve, but there’s no way you can say, ‘Oh, you saw what Francis did and so he should have, too.’ No.

“Look, I’m not impressed with someone who comes out and rushes, swinging, and just catches someone. Compare that to a clinic where he is making the fight and breaking him down and doing all of this.”

Gane said he thought he did well though he said he wasn’t totally happy with his performance. He said he understood White’s criticism, and said he was trying throughout to get a finish.

But he wasn’t about to take the blame for the dud the fight turned out to be.

“Dana is the boss and he wants a show with a big KO and I didn’t finish the fight,” Gane said. “I expected more. But I was the one who was making the pressure in that fight.”

Rozenstruik showed in a win over Alistair Overeem that he can carry his power into the late stages of the bout. But even in the fifth when he had to know he was down badly on the cards, he never opened up.

He might have felt Gane’s power and decided it wasn’t worth the risk.

Whatever it was, it was a night that was disappointing to all. The fight on paper looked like it’d be a wild slugfest, but the reality was well less than that.

“You get that once in a while, unfortunately,” White said. “We’ve had way more of the other kind, but it happens.”

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No. 17 Kansas knocks off No. 2 Baylor, 71-58, to end Big 12 play with big win - KUsports

When the 2020-21 men’s basketball schedule was finalized, Saturday’s home showdown with Baylor was a game that every Kansas fan circled immediately.

At the time, most thought the game could determine the Big 12 champion and be in the running for game of the year in college basketball.

It wasn’t quite that, but for No. 17 Kansas, the 71-58 win over the second-ranked and previously unbeaten Bears might have been even more meaningful. Because it came as the result of elite defense and all-out effort.

“That was a connected team out there tonight,” Kansas coach Bill Self said after the victory. “We weren’t good tonight defensively; we were terrific.”

Energy had a lot to do with that. And it came from a number of places.

Self said that senior guard Marcus Garrett could have played all 40 minutes without even thinking about it because of how locked in he was on getting another crack at Baylor. And Garrett himself, who was the only Jayhawk to deliver a senior speech after KU’s 38th consecutive win on senior night, said he and his teammates talked about the energy in the building as they warmed up and dressed in the locker room.

“They were ready for today’s game,” Garrett said of the 2,500 fans who Self said made it feel like the place had reached its capacity of 16,300.

The Jayhawks were ready, too. And Self knew it from the jump.

“I think we were going to be turned up tonight if there were no fans there,” Self said. “We were ready to play Baylor.”

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Kansas basketball v. Baylor

View a gallery of images from Saturday's game between the Jayhawks and Bears at Allen Fieldhouse.

That showed during a blazing start that featured the Jayhawks (18-8 overall, 12-6 Big 12) jumping out to a 13-6 lead in the game’s first five or so minutes.

KU dictated play on both ends and set the tone for what would turn out to be a pretty miserable shooting night for the visitors. Baylor finished 23-of-66 overall (34.8%) and made just six of 26 3-pointers.

Had the Jayhawks made more, this one might have been a double-digit runaway much earlier. Instead, Kansas hit just three of 16 3-point shots of its own, which ensured that the game would be the grind-it-out battle that many expected most of the way.

“To think we can shoot the ball that poorly and still beat a team of that caliber by 13 speaks volumes about how we guarded and rebounded,” Self said.

Jalen Wilson finished with 14 rebounds. Garrett added seven. And the Jayhawks out-rebounded Baylor 48-28 as a team.

That led to fewer second-chance points for the Bears (18-1, 10-1), who, with the exception of a couple of mini-runs in both halves, never really found any kind of rhythm against the Jayhawks.

BU leading scorer Jared Butler fouled out and finished with just five points on 2-of-9 shooting, most of that the result of the way Garrett hounded him all night.

Stepping into Butler’s place as the game’s marquee scorer was Kansas junior David McCormack, who finished with 20 points on 8-of-10 shooting and showed from the opening possession that he was ready and willing to be a steadying influence for the Kansas offense in its biggest game of the season.

“He gave us an option when nothing was there offensively,” Garrett said of McCormack inside. “We could just throw it to him and he got us a bucket.”

Asked how he was able to find such success against one of the nation’s top defensive teams, McCormack again pointed to his mental approach.

“When you catch the ball, take a breath, see what's going on around you and then proceed to do what you need to do,” he said. “Everything becomes easier when you just kind of relax and let the game come to you.”

McCormack did plenty of that. And so did senior reserve Mitch Lightfoot when the KU starter sat because of foul trouble. Self said after the game that the Jayhawks all “played their tails off” and that everybody contributed to the massive win.

Lightfoot’s contributions came during a crucial stretch when McCormack went to the bench with four fouls and 6:33 to play. He scored twice in the post, blocked a shot and fought for rebounds with anyone who wanted to tangle.

Reserve guards Dajuan Harris and Bryce Thompson also came up big in big moments. Thompson hit KU’s lone 3-pointer of the first half to help the Jayhawks establish an early lead. And Harris’ 3-pointer from the wing put Kansas ahead 50-42 after Baylor had trimmed a 10-point Kansas lead to just three in around two minutes.

The punctuation mark to Saturday’s signature victory came on one of Baylor’s final possessions. After watching the Bears misfire from all over the floor all night long, McCormack made sure to leave no doubts about a hard driving floater shot by BU’s MaCio Teague in the final 90 seconds.

As Teague got to the paint, McCormack came from the weakside and volleyball-spiked the shot into the third row behind Teague. The block set off a celebration in the Allen Fieldhouse stands and inspired McCormack to flex and roar in the paint before slapping the hands of his teammates as hard as he slapped the ball.

“I was like, ‘This is the moment that I need to send it to the third row,” McCormack recalled. “The exclamation point was the stare down to tell him to get out of here. I mean, nothing was coming easy even at the end of the game.”

Saturday’s win continues a late-season resurgence for the Jayhawks, who now have won six of seven, including three over ranked teams.

“There was a lot of doubts, a lot of naysayers saying whatever they would like and we had our ebbs and flows,” McCormack said. “But now we're on the rise and we’re going to continue to rise going into March.”

The victory likely locks up a spot in the top three of the Big 12 standings and may even put Kansas in the conversation for a top three seed in the NCAA Tournament.

All of that will be determined in due time, though. On Saturday, the only thing that mattered was that the Jayhawks played the way they wanted to play and got the type of outcome they’ve been looking for all season long as a result.

“I think it’s a huge win for us,” Self said. “It’s not going to get you a ring on your finger or anything like that, but it’s a big win.”

KU will close out the regular season at 7 p.m. Thursday against UTEP at Allen Fieldhouse.

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More Protesters Are Killed in Myanmar as Crackdown Escalates - The New York Times

At least three people died after the police opened fire in the southern city of Dawei, and a fourth was killed in Yangon.

At least four people were shot and killed during protests in Myanmar on Sunday, as the military began what appeared to be its toughest crackdown yet on the daily demonstrations against its month-old coup.

As large protests took place across the country, the security forces seemed to be taking a more aggressive approach, resorting more quickly to gunfire and moving in to arrest groups of demonstrators before their marches could begin.

In the southern city of Dawei, the police opened fire on a crowd of hundreds, witnesses said. At least three people were killed and more than 50 wounded, said Dr. Tun Min, who was treating the injured at a hospital. A second doctor, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, confirmed those numbers.

In Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, a 23-year-old man named Hein Htut Aung was shot and killed at a protest. His death was confirmed by Nadi Ayar Hospital, where he was taken after the shooting.

The deaths on Sunday brought the number of people shot and killed in the protests to at least seven since the Feb. 1 coup, which ousted the civilian government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s most popular politician.

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No. 17 Kansas Hands Jared Butler, No. 2 Baylor 1st Loss in Big 12 Upset - Bleacher Report

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No. 2 Baylor is undefeated no more after No. 17 Kansas stunned one of the favorites to reach the Final Four, 71-58, at Allen Fieldhouse on Saturday.

It's a signature win for a KU team that has struggled to show it can hang with top programs this season, and it could end up moving the Jayhawks (18-8, 12-6 Big 12) back into the Associated Press Top 10 with two weeks until Selection Sunday. 

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DOWN GOES NO. 2 BAYLOR! 👀 No. 17 Kansas hand Baylor its first loss of the season in Lawrence, 71-58 https://t.co/k2K3TxAgbf

Led by David McCormack and Marcus Garrett, Kansas held Baylor's backcourt of Jared Butler and Davion Mitchell to just 18 points as KU's home-court advantage proved too much for the Bears to overcome. BU (18-1, 10-1 Big 12) now has just one win in 16 attempts at Allen Fieldhouse. Only a month ago, the Jayhawks were reeling after losing five of nine games in the Big 12. A five-game winning streak at the start of February helped turn that around.

Now a win over arguably the best team in the country has the Jayhawks peaking as the calendar turns to March while the Bears look to iron out any lingering mistakes before attempting their own run through the NCAA tournament.

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💪🔵 @KUHoops vs Baylor did not disappoint Catch all the action from the Jayhawks big win over No. 2 Baylor ⬇️ https://t.co/gUB2YuaWey

   

Notable Performers

David McCormack, F, Kansas Jayhawks: 20 points, 3 rebounds, 3 blocks

Marcus Garrett, G, Kansas Jayhawks: 14 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists 

MaCio Teague, G, Baylor Bears: 18 points, 8 rebounds

Davion Mitchell, G, Baylor Bears: 13 points, 3 assists

McCormack, Rebounding Power Jayhawks

McCormack began the season as the most replaceable starter in the Jayhawks' lineup. As the calendar turns to March, he's now unquestionably their most important player. 

Jon Rothstein @JonRothstein

David McCormack is a different player than January and Kansas is a different team than January. Jayhawks over Baylor at the Phog. There will be no undefeated season in Waco.

No proof was necessary beyond his Saturday performance as KU knocked off one of the few remaining unbeatens in college basketball. The forward who posted just six points in a loss at Baylor when the two teams met in mid-January scored Kansas' first eight points of the game on four-of-four shooting. McCormack wouldn't miss a field goal until there were 16 minutes left in regulation and Kansas up six.

With the Bears dependent on their guards to hit their outside shots to open up a path to rim, McCormack helped erase a number of Baylor drives throughout play. It wasn't just that the best three-point shooting team in the country (43.2 percent) went six-for-26 behind the arc on Saturday. It's that the Bears hardly grabbed their own misses.

Kansas out-rebounded Baylor an astounding 48-28 margin, which led to 17 second-chance points for the Jayhawks. More than 30 of those rebounds came on Baylor misses. 

Matt Tait @mctait

Self: "I think they're just now finding their stride and just scratching the surface of what we need to become." #KUbball

The best chance the Bears had to take back the lead came late in the second half when McCormack—who'd played through foul trouble for most of the night—picked up his fourth personal with six minutes remaining. Head coach Bill Self had little choice but to sub-out his defensive anchor with KU leading, 56-51. 

The Bears just weren't able to take advantage. Kansas went on a 12-3 run with McCormack on the sideline that was halted only by the under-four minute media timeout, which allowed Self to put McCormack back on the floor. 

For a starter who struggled to score more than 10 points per game over the first half of the season, McCormack has made himself indispensable on both ends of the floor. The Bears got to witness the transformation first hand and it cost them their perfect season. 

   

Bears No Longer Perfect

It turns out the Bears will not be the first team since the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers to go undefeated en route a national championship. That doesn't mean Baylor won't still be able to cut down the nets in April, there's just a bit more work to be done before then.

What happened to head coach Scott Drew and Co. is exactly what they can't allow to take place moving forward.

Butler didn't score his first points until 10 minutes into the second half, then fouled out. Mitchell couldn't create his own shot. Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua didn't record a single rebound. If this looked like a Baylor team that hadn't played in weeks, that might be because it is. 

Due to the pandemic, Baylor had a number of games rescheduled that kept them off the floor from Feb 2. to Feb. 23. A home game against a last-place Iowa State team last week may have helped the Bears tune up for Kansas, but it's clear this was not the Bears at their best. 

Jeff Borzello @jeffborzello

Scott Drew: "We were the No. 1 shooting team in the country and we'll get back to that. But even Superman has Kryptonite. And I guess COVID protocols is ours."

Jeff Borzello @jeffborzello

Scott Drew: "We had three weeks where we got worse, they had three weeks where they got better, so we gotta catch up."

Perhaps with the pressure of an undefeated record no longer on their shoulders, and with a loss that exposed plenty of flaws, the Bears can return to dominating their opponents. That just wasn't the case on Saturday. 

Instead it looked more like a typical matchup between Bill Self and Scott Drew: two talented teams fighting for a lead in the first half only for Kansas to run away with the game over the final 20 minutes. 

Either way, the Jayhawks made the Bears pay. With three games over the next 10 days, Baylor doesn't have much time to dwell on the why. It just has to figure out how to get back to playing at the Final Four-level it maintained until Saturday.  

  

What's Next

Baylor faces a quick turnaround with a matchup against No. 10 West Virginia in Morgantown on Tuesday at 5 p.m. ET, followed by a home game against Oklahoma State two days later in Waco. The Jayhawks, meanwhile, added a nonconference game against UTEP on Thursday at 8 p.m. ET after the Big 12 reconfigured its schedule due to the pandemic. 

     

 

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47 Hong Kong opposition figures charged under national security law - CNN

If found guilty of "conspiracy to commit subversion" they could face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Those charged were among 53 people -- many prominent former lawmakers, activists and district councilors -- who were arrested last month for organizing, planning and participating in a primary election for the city's democratic opposition last July.

That event was designed to identify the strongest pro-democracy candidates to field in legislative council elections planned for last September, when the opposition camp hoped to win an historic majority.

However, those elections were eventually postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, but not before multiple democracy candidates were disqualified -- and warnings made that those participating in the primary could be in breach of the then weeks-old security law.

The 39 men and eight women charged Sunday, aged between 23 and 64, are being detained and will appear at West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts on Monday. Under their original bail agreements, they weren't required to check in with police until early April. But earlier this week, the group was asked to report to police on Sunday.

The charges on Sunday mark a sweeping escalation in the application of the national security law, under which previously only a handful of people had been charged and taken to court.

The law criminalizes secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign powers, and cases under the legislation can be handled by a dedicated branch of the Hong Kong police and national security courts.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam and others had previously promised the law would be limited in effect, and only target a small number of fringe activists.

The charges come less than a week after the Hong Kong government moved to introduce new requirements for public officials, including that they swear loyalty oaths and embrace Beijing's rule over the city.

Anyone who fails to take the oath -- or is deemed to have done so in an insincere fashion -- would be immediately disqualified from office and banned from running in elections for the next five years, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Erick Tsang said.

It came after Hong Kong's sole delegate to China's top legislative body said that only "staunch patriots" should be allowed to hold positions of authority in Hong Kong.

Why punish a primary election?

Primary elections are a normal function in democracies around the world. At the time of the Hong Kong vote, the United States Democratic primary, which Biden won, was still ongoing. The Hong Kong pro-democracy activists have held such votes in the past, in an attempt to match the organization and discipline of the rival pro-Beijing camp and avoid splintering support.

Hong Kong's Secretary of Security, however, has accused those who organized the July primaries of seeking to "paralyze the Hong Kong government" by winning a majority in the legislature to veto government bills.

Voting against the budget and forcing the chief executive to resign would have been legal prior to the national security law, similar to a "vote of no confidence" that prompts a general election in many democracies. The city's constitution also contains provisions to deal with such an event, enabling the chief executive to call new legislative elections, and to pass a preliminary budget to enable the government to continue to function.

When dozens of former lawmakers and opposition activists were arrested in January, Anthony Blinken, now the US Secretary of State, said "the sweeping arrests of pro-democracy demonstrators are an assault on those bravely advocating for universal rights."

"The Biden-Harris administration will stand with the people of Hong Kong and against Beijing's crackdown on democracy," Blinken added.

UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab warned in January that the British government "will not look the other way when the rights and the autonomy of the people of Hong Kong are trashed."

"When China first imposed the national security legislation, they said it was to bring some stability to Hong Kong. What is clear from these actions is that actually it is designed to crush political dissent," Raab told CNN during an interview in London.

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Shots, tear gas as police in Myanmar intensify use of force - The Associated Press

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Security forces in Myanmar made mass arrests and appeared to use lethal force on Sunday as they intensified their efforts to break up protests a month after the military staged a coup.

There were reports of gunfire as police in Yangon, the biggest city, fired tear gas and water cannons while trying to clear the streets of demonstrators demanding that the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi be restored to power. Photos of shell casings from live ammunition used in assault rifles were posted on social media, adding to evidence that live rounds were fired.

A violent crackdown also occurred in Dawei, a much smaller city in southeastern Myanmar, where local media reported at least three people were killed during a protest march. The fatalities could not immediately be independently confirmed. Confirming reports of protesters’ deaths has been difficult amid the chaos and general lack of official news.

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The Feb. 1 army takeover reversed years of slow progress toward democracy after five decades of military rule. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party would have been installed for a second five-year term in office, but the army blocked Parliament from convening and detained her and President Win Myint, as well as other top members of her government.

Sunday’s violence erupted in early morning when medical students were marching in Yangon’s streets near the Hledan Center intersection, which has become the gathering point for protesters who then fan out to other parts of the city.

Videos and photos showed protesters running away as police charged at them, and residents setting up makeshift roadblocks to slow their advance. Nearby, residents were pleading with police to release those they picked up from the street and shoved into police trucks to be taken away. Dozens or more were believed to have been detained.

There was no immediate word on Yangon casualties. Sounds of gunfire could be heard in the streets and there were what appeared to be smoke grenades thrown into the crowds.

Demonstrators later Sunday regrouped and were said to be planning to march to the local police station to demand the release of the medical students.

In Dawei, video from the online media company Dakkhina Insight showed a young man receiving urgent medical attention in the street for what appeared to be a wound in his upper chest. Medics held an oxygen mask to his face while calling out for an ambulance.

Security forces on Saturday began employing rougher tactics, taking preemptive actions to break up protests and making scores, if not hundreds of arrests. Greater numbers of soldiers have also joined police. Many of those detained were taken to Insein Prison in Yangon’s northern outskirts, historically notorious for holding political prisoners.

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According to the independent Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, as of Saturday, 854 people had been arrested, charged or sentenced at one point in relation to the coup, and 771 were being detained or sought for arrest. The group said that while it had documented 75 new arrests , it understood that hundreds of other people were also picked up Saturday in Yangon and elsewhere.

MRTV, a Myanmar state-run television channel, broadcast an announcement Saturday night from the Foreign Ministry that the country’s ambassador to the United Nations has been fired because he had abused his power and misbehaved by failing to follow the instructions of the government and “betraying” it.

Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun had declared in an emotional speech Friday at the U.N. General Assembly in New York that he represented Suu Kyi’s “civilian government elected by the people” and supported the struggle against military rule.

He urged all countries to issue public statements strongly condemning the coup, and to refuse to recognize the military regime. He also called for stronger international measures to stop violence by security forces against peaceful demonstrators.

The junta said it took power because last year’s polls were marred by massive irregularities. The election commission before the military seized power coup had refuted the allegation of widespread fraud. The junta dismissed the old commission’s members and appointed new ones, who on Friday annulled the election results.

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