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HENDERSON, Nevada. (KEYT) - UCSB opened up an early nine point lead in the third quarter but they could not hold off UC Riverside and lost 58-53 in the first round of the Big West Championships.

It's the third straight year that UCSB has failed to win a game in this tournament.

The Gauchos had three turnovers in the final two and a half minutes of this game.

UCSB was led in scoring by Olivia Bradley who had 23 points.

Riverside got a game-high 26 points from Hannah Wickstrom.

The Gauchos end the season 20-10.

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The post Gauchos ‘one-and-done’ for the third straight year at Big West Championships appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By John Liu, CNN

Hong Kong (CNN) — In an era marked by US overseas military actions and trade turbulence, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is counting on a plan to shield his country from the storm: driving innovation to transform China into the world’s leading tech superpower.

Over the next five years, China seeks to upgrade its already powerful industrial sector, strengthen tech “self-sufficiency” and incubate sectors that will help accelerate the country’s tech supremacy, from artificial intelligence and robotics to aerospace and quantum computing.

“For the first time, China wants to lead in a number of technologies. Previously, the focus was always catching up with the West,” said Dan Wang, China director at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.

Details of Xi’s gambit for the future were approved on Thursday by China’s rubber-stamp legislature in Beijing as the week-long annual assembly drew to a close. The policy document, known as the Five-Year Plan, has been hashed out behind closed doors by Xi’s inner circle for months and serves as a North Star for the country’s development into the next half-decade.

“Strive to achieve new breakthroughs in advancing original innovation, tackling key core technologies, and seizing the strategic high ground in science and technology,” Xi told local officials in a meeting discussing the new plan last week.

As China’s economy contends with deep-rooted structural challenges, including a persistent real estate crisis and low consumer confidence, Xi is zeroing in on bolstering its tech sector, betting proactively on emerging technologies to power the country’s growth in the decades ahead. Last week, China set its lowest-ever economic growth target since it began adopting such figures.

“In the face of tumultuous international dynamics and a range of risks and challenges,” the policy document reads, “we must concentrate on doing our own work well… consolidate and expand our strengths, remove bottlenecks and constraints, and shore up weaknesses.”

Although Xi is expected to host US President Donald Trump in Beijing later this month to discuss extending a trade truce and narrowing their differences, experts said relations between the world’s two biggest economies will continue to center on competition in the next five years.

“Collaboration will drop in every aspect from academia to industries. Both sides want to reduce reliance on the other side and thus decoupling is mutual,” Wang of Eurasia Group said, warning that bilateral tensions could flare up again after a period of calm brought by the trade truce.

In an uncertain world, China is positioning itself as a “stabilizing anchor for the global economy,” said Henry Huiyao Wang, president of the Beijing-based research group Center for China and Globalization.

“The China the US is dealing with today is a highly organized country, one that is still driven by strong vitality and growth momentum, and moving forward with clear strategic resolve through successive five-year plans,” said the analyst, who previously served as an adviser to China’s cabinet, the State Council.

The long game

China’s state-led model is helping the country rapidly narrow the gap in research and development spending with the US.

Beijing has committed to a 10% increase in annual budget for science and technology – in line with the pace of growth over the past two years. The plan also set a goal of expanding annual research and development investment by at least 7%.

“C

Por CNN

Una línea de turbonadas con fuertes lluvias y frecuentes relámpagos avanza por el sureste la madrugada del jueves.

Como consecuencia, se mantienen los avisos por tornado en Alabama y Georgia, donde podrían formarse rápidamente a lo largo de la línea fronteriza mutua. Los vientos destructivos en línea recta siguen siendo la principal amenaza de este sistema.

El Centro de Predicción de Tormentas ha emitido una nueva alerta de tornado para partes del sureste de Alabama, el norte de Florida y el centro-oeste de Georgia hasta las 8:00 a.m., hora de Miami.

Esta área incluye Montgomery, Alabama; Pensacola y Panama City, Florida; y Columbus y Macon, Georgia. Partes del área metropolitana del sur de Atlanta también están en riesgo.

Es posible que se produzcan tornados aislados, ráfagas de viento dañinas de hasta 112 km/h y granizo grande disperso a medida que una poderosa línea de tormentas eléctricas se mueve hacia el este a través de la región esta mañana.

Casi 150.000 clientes se quedaron sin electricidad desde Texas hasta el Atlántico Medio el miércoles después de que severas tormentas eléctricas azotaran la región temprano en la noche.

Los cortes se concentraban en el sur, con casi 50.000 clientes sin electricidad en Louisiana y más de 45.500 en Misisipi, según PowerOutage.com. También se reportan cortes más pequeños, pero igualmente importantes, en Ohio, Maryland, Washington y Texas.

Lake Village, un pequeño pueblo en el noroeste de Indiana, fue uno de los lugares del Medio Oeste más afectados por el tornado.

Mientras los residentes evaluaban los daños causados ​​por la poderosa tormenta el miércoles, muchos se sintieron afortunados de seguir con vida.

Un sobreviviente, Steven Travis, declaró a WBBM, afiliada de CNN, que estaba en casa cuando la tormenta azotó su calle. Desde adentro, vio cómo el techo de su habitación se desprendía y se derrumbaba.

“Me metí en el armario y al salir había escombros por todas partes”, contó. “O sea, el lugar estaba destrozado”.

Travis manifestó que estaba agradecido de haber sobrevivido. No sufrió heridas y pudo dormir en casa de su hija el martes por la noche.

Otros, sin embargo, no tuvieron tanta suerte.

Una mujer que visitó una de las casas derrumbadas en el pueblo el miércoles señaló que su hermana y su cuñado, de unos 80 años, murieron a causa de la tormenta. Un familiar los encontró en el patio trasero de la casa, añadió.

“Esto es devastador”, declaró Christine Kwintera a WLS, afiliada de CNN, y compartió que la pareja había vivido en su casa durante décadas y disfrutaba de una vida tranquila después de la jubilación.

“Eran personas maravillosas, maravillosas”, afirmó la vecina Theresa Figueroa al medio. “Me quedé sin palabras… Ese era su hogar definitivo”.

El Servicio Meteorológico Nacional confirmó una clasificación preliminar de EF3 para el tornado que azotó Aroma Park, Illinois. Los vientos máximos asociados con el tornado fueron de 240 km/h.

La información preliminar sugiere que este tornado comenzó al suroeste de Kankakee, Illinois, y terminó al noreste de Roselawn, Indiana, según el Servicio Meteorológico Nacional.

Por su parte, otro tornado que azotó el martes por la noche y provocó una rara emergencia en Knox, Indiana, recibió una calificación preliminar EF-2.

Los estudios de daños en el condado de Starke revelaron vientos estimados de 185 a 193 km/h, lo suficientemente fuertes como para causar daños estructurales significativos y derribar numerosos árboles a lo largo de la trayectoria del tornado.

La clasificación podría cambiar a med

By Will Ripley, Wayne Chang, CNN

Taipei, Taiwan (CNN) — Taiwan’s military has grown used to the daily task of tracking Chinese warplanes flying near the island. Some days there are a handful. On others, many more. But they are a near-constant presence.

So when the aircraft suddenly stopped coming for nearly two weeks, the silence was both striking and deeply puzzling.

That spell was broken on Thursday with five People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft operating around the Taiwan Strait over the previous 24 hours, according to Taiwan’s military, with several flying near the median line that divides the waterway.

Analysts say it was the longest pause in Chinese air activity since Taiwan began publicly releasing daily military data.

“This is frankly unlike anything we’ve seen in recent history in terms of PLA activity around Taiwan,” Ben Lewis, founder of PLATracker, an open data platform that tracks Chinese military movements around Taiwan, Japan and the South China Sea, told CNN.

“Since Taiwan’s defense ministry began releasing this data in 2020 the trend has been up, up, up,” Lewis said. “And now this lull, which maybe has ended today, maybe not, represents a very significant change in the pattern.”

Beginning February 27, Taiwan recorded 13 consecutive days without Chinese warplanes flying near the island.

One brief exception came on March 6 when two aircraft were detected in the far southwestern corner of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, but analysts say the broader pattern still represented a striking break from recent years of steadily increasing Chinese military activity.

The sudden quiet puzzled analysts and raised a range of possible explanations.

One theory is that Beijing may be trying to avoid escalating tensions ahead of a planned meeting later this month between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump, where trade, technology and Taiwan are expected to feature prominently.

“If I was in Vegas, I would put it on the Trump visit,” Lewis said.

Others have pointed to the war involving Iran and the potential impact on global energy markets, though analysts say that connection is less certain.

Some observers also note that China’s annual parliamentary meetings, known as the “Two Sessions,” are concluding this week, a period when military activity has occasionally slowed in the past.

Taiwan’s defense minister Wellington Koo urged caution about drawing conclusions from the lull, noting that Chinese naval activity around Taiwan has continued throughout the period.

“There are a lot of theories out there,” Koo told reporters on Wednesday. “But we still see Chinese naval vessels operating around Taiwan on a daily basis, and these efforts to turn the Taiwan Strait into China’s internal waters have not stopped.”

Indeed, Taiwan continued to track several Chinese warships operating around the island throughout the period, even as the skies above remained unusually quiet.

Lewis said the limited number of aircraft detected Thursday may not signal a full return to normal activity.

The flights came the same day a US Navy P-8 surveillance aircraft transited the Taiwan Strait, in what the 7th Fleet says is a demonstration of Washington’s “commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” and the Chinese planes may have been deployed simply to monitor the American aircraft.

Even then, the response appeared muted compared with past incidents when US ships or aircraft passed through the waterway.

“Relative to previous incidents when the US Navy transited the Taiwan Strait, the number of Chinese aircraft deployed today was actually quite low,” Lewis said.

That uncertainty leaves analysts watching closely to see what happens next.