From dumpster to dream home! 🐶 Oscar, once abandoned in Houston, is off to his forever family in Washington.

The women’s Final Four is full of star players, top seeds and historic programs.

Kennedy Smith stepped into the void left by injured star JuJu Watkins, scoring 19 points to help Southern California hold off Kansas State 67-61 in the Sweet 16 of the women’s NCAA Tournament.

The last perfect women’s NCAA Tournament has been busted.

There’s a lot less chaos in Spokane for this year’s NCAA Tournament with fewer teams, games and fans in town.

Aneesah Morrow had 30 points and 19 rebounds, Kailyn Gilbert had a critical block that set up Mikaylah Williams' a go-ahead layup with 1:07 remaining, and No. 3 seed LSU rallied past second-seeded N.

Students are struggling to stay engaged in class at a time of poor mental health, shortened attention spans, reduced attendance and worsening grades.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington has sued the city of Spokane, alleging its anti-homeless laws violate the state constitution.

A northern Idaho prosecutor won’t bring hate crime charges against an 18-year-old accused of shouting a racist slur at members of the Utah women’s basketball team while the team was in Idaho to attend the NCAA Tournament.

Police investigating racist incidents directed toward the Utah women’s basketball team when they were near their Idaho hotel while in town for the NCAA Tournament say they’ve found an audio recording in which the use of a racial slur was clearly audible.

The first three days of the NCAA Tournament attracted record ratings, only to see the momentum stifled due to Sunday’s games being blowouts.

Utah coach Lynne Roberts says her team experienced a series of “racial hate crimes” after arriving at its first women's NCAA Tournament hotel in Idaho last week.

For this weekend, the University of Idaho marching band is calling itself the “Van-Dogs Marching Band.”.

Tyon Grant-Foster scored 22 points, and Grand Canyon earned its first NCAA Tournament victory as the 12th-seeded Antelopes knocked off No. 5 seed Saint Mary’s 75-66.

Jaedon LeDee dominated inside on the way to 32 points, Lamont Butler added 15 and No. 5 seed San Diego State held off 12th-seeded UAB 69-65 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Another year without a perfect NCAA Tournament bracket.

Cam Shelton banked in a go-ahead runner with 13 seconds left and Loyola Marymount snapped No. 6 Gonzaga’s 75-game home winning streak with a 68-67 victory.

Antoine Davis of Detroit Mercy set the NCAA record for career 3-pointers on Saturday, hitting a career-best 11 3s and scoring a season-high 41 points in an 87-75 win over Robert Morris.

Migrants and asylum seekers fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries have increasingly found that protections in the United States are available to those with money or the savvy to find someone to vouch for them financially.

Drew Timme scored 23 points and grabbed nine rebounds, Andrew Nembhard added 21 points, and top-ranked Gonzaga beat Santa Clara 81-69 to clinch its 10th straight West Coast Conference regular-season title.

Gonzaga has reclaimed the No. 1 ranking in The Associated Press men’s college basketball poll.

Drew Timme scored 23 points, Chet Holmgren added 22 and top-ranked Gonzaga beat San Francisco 78-62 in a makeup game after their Jan. 6 contest was postponed by COVID-19 issues.

The rise of exempt tournaments the past few years has turned the week of Thanksgiving into a reason to give thanks for some college hoops.

Gonzaga and UCLA continue their hold on the top two spots in The Associated Press Top 25 college basketball poll, setting the stage for their highly anticipated showdown this week.

Gonzaga, UCLA and Kansas hold the top three spots in first regular-season AP Top 25.

Julian Strawther had 17 points and 10 rebounds as top-ranked Gonzaga beat Dixie State 97-63 in their season opener without coach Mark Few on the sideline.

Gonzaga won 86-69. Gonzaga won its ninth consecutive West Coast Conference regular-season title after going 14-0 and is the lone remaining undefeated team in Division I. Win those two and Gonzaga will become the fifth team in the last 45 years to head into the NCAA Tournament undefeated. AdThe win over the Mountaineers gave Baylor its first Big 12 regular-season title and moved it back into the No. The Razorbacks entered the AP Top 25 on Feb. 15 and have made a quick climb, reaching No.

1 Gonzaga remained the only unbeaten in the country with a 86-69 win over Loyola Marymount on Saturday night. The Bulldogs (24-0, 15-0 WCC) won their 51st straight home game to set a school record and finished off a perfect regular season. Gonzaga has won 28 straight games dating to last season and is the first team to finish the regular season unbeaten since Kentucky in 2014-15. Eli Scott had 20 points and 11 rebounds to lead Loyola Marymount (12-8, 7-5), and Mattias Markusson added 19 points and 10 rebounds. AdGonzaga: The Bulldogs won their 21st straight game by double-digits as the No.

Minnesota Wild center Nick Bonino (13) skates down the ice against San Jose Sharks defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic (44) during the second period of an NHL hockey game in San Jose, Calif., Monday, Feb. 22, 2021. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)The Latest on the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on sports around the world:___San Jose’s game against Vegas scheduled for Thursday night has been postponed after a Sharks player entered the NHL’s COVID protocol. It’s the 36th NHL game this season to be postponed for virus-related issues and 40th counting the Texas snowstorm that affected Dallas. ___The NHL is down to a season-low eight players on the COVID-19 list after play on Tuesday night, five of them on the Philadelphia Flyers. That’s a marked improvement in the 11 days since the league had a season-high 59 players on the list.

14 Texas 84-82 on Saturday to move up three spots in this week’s poll. JAYHAWKS CLIMBKansas is climbing after seeing its record run in the AP Top 25 end two weeks ago. 17 in this week’s poll. Kansas returned to the poll last week after dropping out on Feb. 8, ending a stretch of 231 consecutive weeks in the AP Top 25. 15 Virginia dropped eight spots after losses to Duke and Florida State last week.

Gonzaga forward Drew Timme celebrates after scoring a basket during the first half of the team's NCAA college basketball game against Pacific in Spokane, Wash., Saturday, Jan. 23, 2021. (AP Photo/Young Kwak)Gonzaga, Baylor and Villanova remained atop The Associated Press men's college basketball poll Monday, while ninth-ranked Alabama climbed to its highest ranking in 14 years. Villanova remained third followed by Michigan, with the Wolverines cracking the top five for a second straight season under Juwan Howard after being unranked earlier in the year. 18 Tennessee took the week's biggest tumble, falling 12 spots after losses to Florida and Missouri. ___More AP college basketball: http://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball and http://www.twitter.com/AP_Top25___Follow Aaron Beard on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/aaronbeardap

The top-ranked Zags and second-ranked Bears remained 1-2 in Monday's latest Top 25 as they have all season. 25 Florida State had the week's biggest tumble, falling seven spots after losing at Clemson and then having its game against No. 6 Kansas fell three spots after the Texas loss, bringing the total of teams that fell from last week's rankings to 11. CONFERENCE WATCHThe Big Ten continues to have the biggest haul of ranked teams, though the Big 12 has a strong showing in the poll's top tier. But the Big 12 has three of the top six teams in Baylor, Texas and Kansas, and five teams overall.

Gonzaga has played one close game, a five-point win over West Virginia, and is winning by nearly 18 points per game. The Hawkeyes dropped a spot in this week's AP Top 25 after losing by 11 to Gonzaga. 19 Michigan, which moved up six spots in this week's poll, faces Nebraska. RANKED VS. RANKED: Two games on Wednesday feature ranked teams facing each other. 13 Creighton (6-2), which dropped four spots in this week's poll after losing to Marquette.

SPOKANE, Wash. – A Spokane, Washington grocery store employee seen confronting a customer for refusing to wear a mask is no longer the company, according to the store’s manager. In the video of the confrontation inside the Yoke’s store, the unmasked man says he has a medical condition that prevents him from wearing a mask. The employee asks the unmasked man what medical condition he has, but the man refuses to say. The video shows someone grabbing the unmasked man’s phone and throwing it to the ground. The employee is thrown to the ground at one point, and moments later throws an object at the man who refused to wear a mask, hitting him in the head.

FILE - In this May 7, 2020, file photo, Washington State Department of Agriculture entomologist Chris Looney displays a dead Asian giant hornet, a sample brought in from Japan for research in Blaine, Wash. Washington state agriculture workers have trapped their first Asian giant hornet. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, Pool, File)SPOKANE, Wash. – Agricultural officials in Washington state said Friday they are trying to find and destroy a nest of Asian giant hornets — also known as murder hornets — amid concerns they could kill honey bees crucial for pollinating raspberry and blueberry crops. Evidence of six of the hornets were found over the last week near the town of Blaine in Whatcom County, the Washington state Department of Agriculture told reporters. The Asian giant hornet — the world’s largest at 2 inches (5 centimeters) — can decimate entire hives of honeybees and deliver painful stings to humans. There is also evidence that the giant hornets are also attacking native wasps and hornets, Spichiger said.

Federal prosecutors on Tuesday afternoon announced the settlement involving the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, a Manhattan Project-era facility near Richland, Washington, that is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site. Plutonium produced at Hanford was used in the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, that effectively ended World War II. Under Tuesday's settlement, Bechtel and AECOM also entered into a three-year independent corporate monitor agreement. The four whistleblowers will receive $13.7 million of the $57.7 million settlement amount, the government said. About $26 million of the settlement will be paid to the Department of Energy as restitution for the overbilling.

SPOKANE, Wash. The U.S. government announced Friday that four huge dams on the Snake River in Washington state will not be removed to help endangered salmon migrate to the ocean. The federal failure to remove the dams despite clear supporting science is a disaster for our endangered salmon and orcas, said Sophia Ressler of the Center for Biological Diversity. The Pacific Northwest population of orcas also called killer whales was placed on the endangered species list in 2005. Snake River sockeye were the first species in the Columbia River Basin listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1991. On the way to the ocean, juvenile salmon can get chewed up in the dams turbines.

SPOKANE, Wash. The forested mountains in and around North Cascades National Park in north central Washington state have long been considered prime habitat for threatened grizzly bears, so environmental groups are upset the Trump administration scrapped plans to reintroduce the apex predators there. Grizzly bears only occupy less than 5% of their historic range, and the North Cascades presents prime habitat for grizzly bears,'' said Andrea Zaccardi, an attorney with the group. "Their recovery there is critical to the overall recovery of grizzly bears in the U.S.The center contends the North Cascades could support more than 700 grizzly bears over 9,000 square miles of habitat. Federal grizzly bear recovery plans are mandated by the Endangered Species Act and require grizzly recovery in the North Cascades, Gunnell said. Now the largest concentration of grizzlies, numbering less than 1,800, are around Montana's Glacier National Park and around Yellowstone National Park.

SPOKANE, Wash. Searchers recovered the bodies of six of the eight people killed when two airplanes collided over a scenic mountain lake in Idaho, the Kootenai County Sheriffs Office said Tuesday. Specialized divers were searching the bottom of Lake Coeur d'Alene for the remaining two victims, sheriff's Lt. Ryan Higgins said. One of the aircraft in the Sunday collision was a float plane operated by Brooks Seaplane of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, which conducts charter flights for tourists over the lake, the sheriff's office said. The second airplane was a Cessna 206 that was carrying two people and was registered in Lewiston, Idaho, the sheriff's office said. After all the bodies are recovered, the wreckage will eventually be lifted out of the lake.