By Dana O’Neil, CNN

East Lansing, Michigan (CNN) — Seconds after getting crossed up by Jase Richardson during an October 2024 practice, Jeremy Fears, Jr. responded by dishing a hard foul to the then-freshman Michigan State guard.

Watching at the half-court line, Tom Izzo lost his marbles. Spewing invectives at Fears, he pointed to the exits and told his starting point guard to get out. Fears tried to plead his case, but his teammates intervened and Jaden Akins and Carson Cooper told Fears to let it go and just leave.

Fears reluctantly walked off the court and practice went on without him. Maybe an hour later, as practice drew to a close, the gym side door opened and Fears walked in. He quietly took a seat in a folding chair and waited. After Izzo excused his players and chatted with a few visitors, he walked over and took a seat next to Fears. The two talked for more than 10 minutes, taking turns gesturing pointedly.

Eventually Izzo slung his arm across Fears’ shoulders and pulled him into the crook of his shoulder. Izzo talked. Fears listened.

A year and change after that practice eviction, there have been plenty more arms-slung-around-the-shoulders conversations between Fears and Izzo. This season Fears has shown both the maturity of the player who came back to discuss his actions with his head coach, and the foolishness of the hothead who responded with the hard foul.

As Michigan State prepares for its 28th consecutive NCAA Tournament run, which version of Fears shows up might very well decide how far the Spartans go.

The redshirt sophomore is the nation’s best playmaker and inarguably the motor that revs the Spartans’ engine. He has doubled his point production from a year ago and leads the country in assists per game. He has posted 11 double-doubles, 13 times dishing out 10 dimes or more, never once failing to deliver at least five. A first team All-Big Ten selection, he’s also one of five finalists for the Bob Cousy Award, presented to the nation’s best point guard and on the final ballot for the Wooden Award, given to the nation’s best player.

Yet he has undercut some of his hard-earned goodwill with a near Pavlovian instinct to go full Grayson Allen. Michigan head coach Dusty May called Fears out for “dangerous” plays after the first meeting between the two rivals. “Appeared?” May snorted when asked if May tripped Yaxel Lendeborg. “Wasn’t an illusion, right?”

With everyone’s eyeballs now trained on him, Fears one game later was whistled for a technical for tripping Minnesota’s Langston Hughes. Four days after that, Illinois coach Brad Underwood asked officials to review another play involving Fears and in the regular-season finale, the guard was whistled after kicking Michigan’s Elliot Cadeau in the groin.

They are, to be clear, a small snapshot of plays from a collection of thousands. Fears has made far more smart decisions than foolish ones, but as March Madness takes center stage, he lugs with him the glare of his own unwelcome spotlight.

“I know everything has to be almost perfect now, so the narrative isn’t what people think,’’ Fears told CNN Sports. “I also know I was hurting my team. I’m giving up free points and I’m not on the court. So that’s on me. That’s all on me.’’

He has not, however, had to navigate it by himself.

There might not be a harder job in all of college basketball than being Izzo’s point guard. It requires thick skin and the memory of a goldfish.

“Oh. No question,’’ Izzo told CNN Sports when asked whether it’s difficult to be his point guard. “The advantage is you get the ball in your hands. You get to run a team and be part of a great tradition – Magic Johnson, Steve Smith, Cassius Winston, Mateen Cleaves, Denzel Valentine. The bad part is, I’m going to be on your ass about everything. The one truth is whatever happens, it’s always my fault. And next, i

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Peak heating for most areas occurs Thursday. Highs rise into the 80s and 90s for the beaches and upper 90s with a smattering of triple digits inland. This is our 4th day of sweltering heat, check on those at risk for heat illnesses. Overnight lows are providing minimal relief and tonight will be the warmest so far. Lows drop into the 60s for most areas.

We ease by a degree or so Friday. Some low clouds and fog could develop in the morning, this would reduce temperatures greatly. Clearing occurs fast and heat alerts remain through 8pm. Stay safe and avoid peak heating hours. Marine waters are calm and warming into the 60 degree threshold. Winds are light and offshore.

The most likely time for clouds and fog to develop would be Saturday and Sunday morning. This will likely drop our temperatures 5-10 degrees. These clouds will be a welcome addition for most. Slow clearing expected and highs into the 70s and 80s are ahead. We hold above average next week, but not nearly as hot as the current heatwave. Expect low to mid 80s by the middle of next week.

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Por Gonzalo Jiménez, CNN en Español

Sony Pictures y la empresa china Pop Mart confirmaron el miércoles que producirán una película sobre Labubu —el duende travieso que se popularizó como juguete convirtiéndose en un fenómeno global de ventas— que contará con la dirección de Paul King, el realizador de las cintas “Wonka” y “Paddington”.

La película, según un reporte de Screendaily, se encuentra en las primeras etapas de desarrollo y será una mezcla en acción real e imágenes creadas en computadora, en el estilo de lo que Disney hizo en la nueva versión de “Lilo & Stitch”, en 2025.

La cinta sobre Labubu expandirá la historia del personaje, que forma parte del universo de muñecos llamado The Monsters de la minorista china Pop Mart, con sede en Beijing. Kasing Lung, el ilustrador de Hong Kong que creó el personaje de Labubu, será productor ejecutivo del film.

En 2024, Pop Mart generó ingresos en Estados Unidos de 3.000 millones de yuanes (US$ 410 millones) de los 13.040 millones de yuanes (US$ 1.800 millones) que generó en todo el mundo.

Además de dirigir la película, King coescribirá el guion junto con Steven Levenson (“Dear Evan Hansen”) y se desempeñará como productor junto a Michael Schaefer y Wenxin She.

King es un director británico nominado en varias oportunidades a los premios BAFTA en Reino Unido por sus películas “Paddington” (2015), “Paddington 2” (2018) y “Wonka” (2024).

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By Laura Paddison, CNN

(CNN) — As humans burn fossil fuels and pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, we are heating up the planet. But there is another alarming impact of this climate pollution: it may be changing the chemistry of our blood.

When respiratory physiologist Alex Larcombe was approached by a colleague a few years ago suggesting he look at the impacts of increasing carbon dioxide levels on the human body, he was skeptical. “I thought: ‘This sounds weird’,” said Larcombe, who is head of respiratory environmental health at The Kids Research Institute Australia.

But he decided to start digging anyway, and what he found is deeply concerning.

Larcombe and his colleague Philip Bierwith, emeritus research associate at Australian National University, analyzed more than two decades of US health data and discovered shifts in people’s blood chemistry that appear to mirror the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

The scientists used the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which collected a slew of health information from roughly 7,000 Americans every two years between 1999 and 2020. It’s “the most comprehensive (dataset) by far in terms of blood chemistry,” Larcombe said.

They were looking for markers in the blood that are intricately linked with how much carbon dioxide people breathe in.

Humans evolved in an atmosphere where carbon dioxide remained fairly steady, at around 300 parts per million, or ppm. But burning fossil fuels has caused levels soar to more than 420 ppm today — higher than any point in human history.

As atmospheric carbon dioxide increases, humans have no option but to breathe in more of it, which increases blood acidity. The body has ways to buffer this, including the kidneys producing and retaining more bicarbonate, which plays a key role in controlling blood acidity.

Average blood bicarbonate levels have increased by 7% since 1999, closely tracking the rise of in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the same period, according to the study, published last month in the journal Air Quality, Atmosphere and Health.

If these trends continue, bicarbonate in human blood could “reach unhealthy levels” within the next 50 years, the study concluded.

The scientists also looked at levels of calcium and phosphorus. One of the ways the body deals with blood being a little acidic is for bones to absorb some of the excess carbon dioxide and lock it away as calcium carbonate and calcium phosphate. The kidneys can also become less efficient at holding onto calcium.

Over time, circulating levels of both can drift downward, which is what the research found. Blood calcium levels decreased by 2% and phosphorus levels by around 7% over the same period.

If these drops continue, calcium and phosphorus levels could fall below healthy levels by the end of the century. These are “permanent and growing changes in human blood chemistry,” the study notes.

While the evidence suggests a link between rising carbon dioxide and shifts in blood chemistry, the authors caution more work is needed to confirm it.

The study did not take into account other potential influencing factors including people’s diets, medications, kidney function, rates of obesity or the amount of time people spend indoors, where CO2 levels tend to be higher.

“We can’t say for certain that these changes that we’re seeing are 100% due to climate change,” Larcombe said. But if the findings hold up, he added, it’s more evidence that we need to view rising carbon