Two members of Steubenville’s celebrated high school football team were found guilty Sunday of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl, and Ohio’s attorney general warned the case isn’t over, saying he is investigating whether coaches, parents and other students broke the law, too.

The issue of school start dates goes beyond every kid’s desire for more summer fun; there is in fact a very real economic component to the decision. We recently looked at the implications of moving the school start date earlier in August, focusing on losses from reduced tourism.

While the rest of the country stresses its NCAA tournament plans on Selection Monday, the Lady Bears plan to sit back and enjoy themselves.

Sure, there are a few teams in the field that have a good idea where they’ll go. Notre Dame, UConn and Stanford can reasonably expect No. 1 seeds and subregional tournaments closer to home. Dozens more teams know they’ll be in the field, awaiting seeds and confirmation they beat the bubble.

Texas has no teams in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1977.

When the 68-team field was announced Sunday, the Lone Star State was completely shut out. There were no Longhorns, Baylor Bears, Texas A&M Aggies, Red Raiders or Owls.

By Greg DeVries Sports Editor Thursday’s 74-72 loss to No. 14 Oklahoma State puts Baylor in an awkward place. The…

The Baylor Bears lost to the No. 14 Oklahoma State Cowboys on Thursday night 74-72 in the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City’s Sprint Center.

With 25 seconds to play in the second half, the Bears were trailing 72-68. Junior guard Gary Franklin buried a 3-pointer and was fouled on the shot attempt. Franklin calmly sank the free throw to tie the game 72-72 with just 19 seconds remaining.

Zombies seem to be everywhere these days.

In the popular TV series “The Walking Dead,” humans struggle to escape from a pack of zombies hungry for flesh. Prank alerts have warned of a zombie apocalypse on radio stations in a handful of states. And across the country, zombie wannabes in tattered clothes occasionally fill local parks, gurgling moans of the undead.

You never know what might happen when a lawmaker brings a gun to a knife fight.

But Second Amendment rights advocates are about to find out.

Kansas State and Kansas tied for the regular-season Big 12 title.

That doesn’t mean they feel very good about themselves entering the league tournament.

Argentine Jorge Bergoglio was elected pope Wednesday and chose the papal name Francis, becoming first pontiff from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium.

A stunned-looking Bergoglio shyly waved to the crowd of tens of thousands of people who gathered in St. Peter’s Square, marveling that the cardinals had had to look to “the end of the earth” to find a bishop of Rome.

An arrest in Arizona 50 years ago that led to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision is the subject of an exhibit that includes the handwritten confession famously thrown out by the nation’s highest court.

The warning from police that suspects have the right to remain silent sprang, in part, from the arrest of Ernesto Miranda in Phoenix on March 13, 1963.

Wanted: moderate Democrats. Contact the mostly liberal House Democratic leadership if interested.

Democrats hope to take back the House of Representatives in 2014 by mirroring their last successful effort to flip the chamber in 2006.

George Prescott Bush filed the official paperwork Tuesday to run for Texas land commissioner next year, hoping to use a little-known but powerful post to continue his family’s political dynasty in one of the country’s most-conservative states.

Texas senators started a debate Tuesday that will likely last for weeks as lawmakers try to decide how many standardized tests students must take to graduate from high school.

After the disastrous introduction of a new testing regimen last year, the Legislature is anxious to overhaul what parents, teachers, students and business leaders all consider a flawed system. Texas law currently requires some high school students to take 15 exams to graduate, though the state education commissioner has waved a requirement that exam results count toward 15 percent of the final grades in core courses.

Colorado lawmakers took a historic vote to approve civil unions for gay couples Tuesday, delivering on a campaign promise from Democrats who have capitalized on the changing political landscape of a state where voters banned same-sex marriage not long ago.

Black smoke poured from the Sistine Chapel chimney on Tuesday, signaling that cardinals had failed on their first vote of the papal conclave to choose a new leader for the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics and their troubled church.

The Baylor men’s tennis team showed a valiant effort against the top-ranked Virginia Cavaliers Monday, but ultimately lost 6-1. The Bears (10-3) lost five of their six singles matches, and all losses were three-set thrillers.

“I thought we came out today and really came out swinging,” head coach Matt Knoll said. “We made a match out of it. Unfortunately we weren’t good enough to get a ‘W’, but we’re getting better.”

The No 1. Lady Bears played with a chip on their shoulder in the Big 12 Tournament Championship game after a sloppy game against Oklahoma State on Sunday. Baylor responded in dominating fashion as they went on to win the Big 12 Championship for the third consecutive year after defeating No. 23 Iowa State 75-47.

Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles on Sunday launched what many consider a doomed candidacy to replace Hugo Chavez with a no-holds-barred attack against a government he accused of coldly betraying Venezuelans’ trust.

Chavez’s political heirs have toyed with Venezuelans’ hopes, lying to them about his deteriorating health by suggesting he could recover and even producing decrees he supposedly signed, said Capriles, whom Chavez defeated by a 12-point margin in October.

A judge struck down New York City’s pioneering ban on big sugary drinks Monday just hours before it was supposed to take effect, handing a defeat to health-minded Mayor Michael Bloomberg and creating confusion for restaurants that had already ordered smaller cups and changed their menus.

A modest but widely felt earthquake rolled through a wide swath of Southern California late Monday morning but there were no immediate reports of damage.

The 9:55 a.m. quake had an estimated magnitude of 4.7, said Nick Scheckel, seismic analyst at the California Institute of Technology’s seismological laboratory in Pasadena. He said a number of aftershocks were occurring.

Harvard University administrators secretly searched the emails of 16 deans last fall, looking for a leak to reporters about a case of cheating, two newspapers reported.

The email accounts belonged to deans on the Administrative Board, a committee addressing the cheating, The Boston Globe and The New York Times reported, citing school officials. The deans were not warned about the email access and only one was told of the search afterward.

If the day comes when you stand for the Texas National Anthem before a ballgame, you can thank several former Soviet satellite republics, your Texas twang and a bunch of good old boys (and a couple of women) who have been working to rewrite American history for 20 years.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday accused the Taliban and the U.S. of working in concert to convince Afghans that violence will worsen if most foreign troops leave — an allegation the top American commander in Afghanistan rejected as “categorically false.”

It’s late, the rain is falling and the boss expects that report on his desk the next day.

But a growling stomach demands attention.

Tiffani McReynolds turned in the best race of her career in the 60-meter hurdles, but it still wasn’t quite enough to claim a national championship.

Nevertheless, second place isn’t too bad.

She was one of the better kept secrets of Sweden’s royal household: a commoner and divorcee whose relationship with Prince Bertil was seen as a threat to the Bernadotte dynasty.

In a touching royal romance, Welsh-born Princess Lilian and her Bertil kept their love unofficial for decades and were both in their 60s when they finally received the king’s blessing to get married.

The Baylor men’s tennis team lost to the No. 2 UCLA Bruins Sunday, ending its eight-match win streak. The final match count was 6-1.

“They beat us up pretty good,” head coach Matt Knoll said. “We’ve got a lot to learn. There are a lot of opportunities to grow from this and that’s the key. If we take it as learners and make improvements, than it’s been a fantastic day. It’s still March, we got a long way to go and this is a great chance for us to see where we stand.”