
Arizona hires former WNBA player Michelle Marciniak as women's basketball GM
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Arizona women's basketball has hired former WNBA player and Tennessee star Michelle Marciniak as general manager.
Marciniak will handle program operations, staffing, roster management, global recruiting and NIL development for the program that recently hired Becky Burke as head coach.
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'I'm truly honored to step into the GM role at Arizona,' Marciniak said in a statement Thursday. 'This opportunity brings together everything I care deeply about — the business of basketball, leadership, and building something meaningful alongside others. I've been shaped by a championship mindset, and I'm committed to contributing in a way that honors the incredible foundation already in place.
Marciniak played under Hall of Fame coach Pat Summitt from 1993-96, earning consecutive trips to the Final Four and a national championship in 1996, when she was named most outstanding player. She played six seasons in the WNBA and ABL before landing a job as an assistant at South Carolina, where she helped recruit Burke.
Marciniak co-founded performance bedding company SHEEX, spending 17 years as the company's CEO. She becomes one of a handful of GMs in women's college basketball and the second hired this year, joining Cal's Meghin Williams.
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28 minutes ago
Trump and Musk's relationship flames out just as intensely and publicly as it started
WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump and Elon Musk's alliance took off like one of SpaceX's rockets. It was supercharged and soared high. And then it blew up. The spectacular flameout Thursday peaked as Trump threatened to cut Musk's government contracts and Musk claimed that Trump's administration hasn't released all the records related to sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein because Trump is mentioned in them. The tech entrepreneur even shared a post on social media calling for Trump's impeachment and skewered the president's signature tariffs, predicting a recession this year. The messy blow-up between the president of the United States and the world's richest man played out on their respective social media platforms after Trump was asked during a White House meeting with Germany's new leader about Musk's criticism of his spending bill. Trump had largely remained silent as Musk stewed over the last few days on his social media platform X, condemning the president's so-called 'Big Beautiful Bill.' But Trump clapped back Thursday in the Oval Office, saying he was 'very disappointed in Musk.' Musk responded on social media in real time. Trump, who was supposed to be spending Thursday discussing an end to the Russia-Ukraine war with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, ratcheted up the stakes when he turned to his own social media network, Truth Social, and threatened to use the U.S. government to hurt Musk's bottom line by going after contracts held by his internet company Starlink and rocket company SpaceX. 'The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,' Trump wrote on his social media network. 'Go ahead, make my day," Musk quickly replied on X. Hours later, Musk announced SpaceX would begin decommissioning the spacecraft it used to carry astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station for NASA. Musk also said, without offering evidence of how he might know the information, that Trump was 'in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!' The deepening rift unfurled much like their relationship started — rapidly, intensely and very publicly. And it quickly hit Musk financially. After Trump started criticizing Musk, shares of his electric vehicle company Tesla plunged more than 14%, knocking about $150 billion off Tesla's market valuation. Musk lost about $20 billion on his personal holding of Tesla. Politicians and their donor patrons rarely see eye to eye. 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Once Trump was elected, the tech billionaire stood behind him as he took the oath of office, flew on Air Force One for weekend stays at Mar-a-Lago, slept in the Lincoln Bedroom and joined Cabinet meetings wearing a MAGA hat — sometimes more than one. Three months ago, Trump purchased a red Tesla from Musk as a public show of support for his business as it faced blowback. Musk bid farewell to Trump last week in a somewhat somber news conference in the Oval Office, where he sported a black eye that he said came from his young son but that seemed to be a metaphor for his messy time in government service. Trump, who rarely misses an opportunity to zing his critics on appearance, brought it up Thursday. 'I said, 'Do you want a little makeup? We'll get you a little makeup.' Which is interesting,' Trump said. The Republican president's comments came as Musk has griped for days on social media about Trump's spending bill, warning that it will increase the federal deficit. Musk has called the bill a 'disgusting abomination.' 'He hasn't said bad about me personally, but I'm sure that will be next,' Trump said Thursday in the Oval Office, presaging the rest of his day. 'But I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elon a lot.' Observers had long wondered if the friendship between the two brash billionaires known for lobbing insults online would combust in dramatic fashion. It did, in less than a year. White House aides were closely following the drama playing out on dueling platforms Thursday with bemusement, sharing the latest twists and turns from the feud between their boss and former co-worker, as well as the social media reaction and memes. Officials in the extremely online administration privately expressed the belief that like the other digital scuffles that have defined Trump's political career, this would also work out in his favor. Trump said Thursday in the Oval Office that he and Musk had had a great relationship but mused: "I don't know if we will anymore." He said some people who leave his administration 'miss it so badly' and 'actually become hostile.' 'It's sort of Trump derangement syndrome, I guess they call it,' he said. He brushed aside the billionaire's efforts to get him elected last year, including a $1 million-a-day voter sweepstakes in Pennsylvania. The surge of cash Musk showed he was willing to spend seemed to set him up as a highly coveted ally for Republicans going forward, but his split with Trump, the party's leader, raises questions about whether they or any others will see such a campaign windfall in the future. Trump said Musk 'only developed a problem' with the bill because it rolls back tax credits for electric vehicles. 'False,' Musk fired back on his social media platform as the president continued speaking. 'This bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!' In another post, he said Trump could keep the spending cuts but 'ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill.' Besides Musk being 'disturbed' by the electric vehicle tax credits, Trump said another point of contention was Musk's promotion of Jared Isaacman to run NASA. Trump withdrew Isaacman's nomination over the weekend and on Thursday called him 'totally a Democrat.' Musk continued slinging his responses on social media. He shared some posts Trump made over a decade ago criticizing Republicans for their spending, musings made when he, too, was just a billionaire lobbing his thoughts on social media. 'Where is the man who wrote these words?' Musk wrote. 'Was he replaced by a body double!?' On the White House grounds Thursday afternoon, Trump's red Tesla still sat in a parking lot. ___


San Francisco Chronicle
28 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Arise Sir David!: Beckham to be awarded a knighthood by King Charles, according to media reports
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Fox Sports
35 minutes ago
- Fox Sports
UFC title contender Sean O'Malley quit weed, social media and hair dye. Can it make him a champion?
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O'Malley, with his flashy knockouts and flashier style that made him pop as a character in a sport currently devoid of over-the-top personality, was unbeaten in seven straight fights and held the UFC bantamweight championship when he fought Dvalishvili last September. Dvalishvili, a 34-year-old from the country of Georgia, won the belt in a convincing — though not aesthetically pleasing — unanimous decision over O'Malley. Dvalishvili (18-4) successfully defended the championship in January against Umar Nurmagomedov and is a slight betting favorite to win at the Prudential Center over O'Malley, per BetMGM Sportsbook. 'I'm ready for the best version of Sean O'Malley,' Dvalishvili said. He seems poised to get it if O'Malley truly has squashed his distractions in his personal life. 'I never felt like I was in a bad place, or sad place or dark place,' O'Malley said. 'I always felt pretty good. I always felt like I could feel better. Whether it helps the performance or not, I feel better. That's all that matters.' O'Malley and his wife recently welcomed their second child, a boy named Matteo, another defining moment where the fighter realized he had become almost addicted to his 'Suga" persona. His life is now 'slowed down' without the constant need to check his phone or the paranoia he said he felt from regular marijuana use. 'I'd catch myself driving, surfing Instagram, and it was like, what the (heck) am I doing?' he said. 'I'd be playing with my daughter, surfing X, and it's like, what am I doing here? I feel like just limiting those distractions definitely made me more present with the family. With training. With friends. In general.' He also found some solace in that fact that he's pretty good in UFC at rematches. O'Malley has two losses since his 2017 debut; to Marlon Vera in 2020 and he rebounded to beat him in March 2024 in 135-pound title fight, and to Dvalishvili. O'Malley fought Dvalishvili the first time with a torn labrum in his hip and needed surgery after the fight. 'He didn't get the best version of me,' O'Malley said. As for the clean hairstyle for this fight, well, that's more about convenience than purposely tamping down the 'Suga' character. 'I just didn't want to sit down for it,' he said. 'I love the pink hair. It's fun. But it's a process. I thought bringing back the OG hair would be pretty cool.' And if he wins, let the party begin? 'I've got to jet home at 3 a.m.,' he said. 'There's no after party this time. I'm going straight home.' Olympic medalist Harrison goes for UFC title Kayla Harrison says she keeps her Olympic gold medals in a sock draw. That's a bit too small of a holding spot for the UFC championship belt. Harrison will take it around her waist if she can knock off 135-pound champion Julianna Pena in the other signature bout of UFC 316. No U.S. judoka — man or woman — had ever won an Olympic gold medal before Harrison beat Britain's Gemma Gibbons to win the women's 78-kilogram division at the 2012 London Olympics. She won gold again four years later at the Rio de Janeiro Games and made her MMA debut in 2018. The 34-year-old Harrison was a two-time $1 million prize champion in the Professional Fighters League lightweight championship division before she moved on to UFC last year. She won her first two UFC bouts and her record — 18-1 in MMA overall — coupled with her fame made her an instant contender for a title shot. 'There's going to be a new face of women's MMA very soon,' Harrison said. Peña, who won the championship when she upset Raquel Pennington last October, enters the fight as the betting underdog and has two losses in her last five fights. She dismissed the critics and the oddsmakers — UFC Hall of Famer Khabib Nurmagomedov once took a shot at Peña after she stunned Amanda Nunes — who gave her little chance to keep the championship and insisted she was ready to defeat another potential anchor of the women's division. 'I moved on the next greatest thing since sliced bread and it was Kayla,' she said. Pyfer says no to Mexico and yes to New Jersey Joe Pyfer is thrilled he's fighting closer to his South Jersey home — and only about two hours from where he was raised in suburban Philadelphia — than even thinking about taking another fight in Mexico. The UFC middleweight was scheduled to fight in March in Mexico City against Kelvin Gastelum until Pyfer was hit with a violent illness that he blamed on food and was forced to drop out. The fight was rescheduled for Saturday night. 'It's just 14 out of the 15 meals I cooked, I didn't cook on the last day and I got super sick and I was sick for weeks,' Pfyfer said. 'So yeah, I got a lot of hate because you know I'm sitting there borderline crying upset and gutted that I didn't get to perform. I make the weight I felt great and then all of a sudden I get hit with this vicious (illness) throw up like, it's just like the sweats. I lost 14 pounds in seven hours and I slept one hour.' Pyfer grew up in a house he described as mentally and physically abusive until he was essentially rescued by one of his Penncrest High School teachers and a wrestling coach, Will Harmon. It was Harmon who encouraged Pyfer to join the wrestling team and showed his student kindness and a path toward a professional career that sparked interest in UFC. Harmon has been a staple at Pyfer's fights and Pyfer still returns to the school for pep rallies or other activities to 'get the kids hyped up.' 'He's always going to be somebody very special in my life,' Pyfer said. 'He's the guy that gave me the opportunity to pursue this career and be where I am now. So without him, none of this is possible, to be honest.' ___ AP sports: recommended