UR MAG

ShowBiz Celebs Lifestyle

Hot

Monday, February 23, 2026

Zimbabwe wins toss and opts to bowl against West Indies in Super 8s at the T20 World Cup

February 23, 2026
Zimbabwe wins toss and opts to bowl against West Indies in Super 8s at the T20 World Cup

Mumbai, India (AP) — Sikandar Raza called correctly at the coin toss as Zimbabwe opted to bowl against the West Indies in their Group 1 Super 8 clash at cricket'sTwenty20 World Cup.

Associated Press

South Africa and India are the other two sides in Group 1 — theProteas beat the defending championsby 76 runs in Ahmedabad on Sunday.

It is a chance for both sides competing today to put additional pressure on the co-hosts.

Zimbabwe had topped Group B in the league stage — it showed stunning T20 form in beating Australia and Sri Lanka in the first round.

It is Zimbabwe's first qualification to the T20 World Cup's second round. Meanwhile, West Indies had topped Group C.

Both sides have made one change — for Zimbabwe, left-arm medium pacer Richard Ngarava comes in for spinner Wellington Masakadza.

West Indies brought in medium-pace allrounder Romario Shephered in place of Roston Chase.

Advertisement

The pitch at the iconic Wankhede Stadium should aid batters in general. However, it has slowed down in the second innings over the course of the tournament, so the side chasing could face difficulty unless there is ample evening dew.

Zimbabwe: Brian Bennett, Tadiwanashe Marumani, Ryan Burl, Sikandar Raza (captain), Tashinga Musekiwa, Tony Munyonga, Dion Myers, Brad Evans, Graeme Cremer, Richard Ngarava, Blessing Muzarabani

West Indies: Brandon King, Shai Hope (captain), Shimron Hetmyer, Rovman Powell, Sherfane Rutherford, Jason Holder, Romario Shepherd, Matthew Forde, Akeal Hosein, Gudakesh Motie, Shamar Joseph

AP cricket:https://apnews.com/hub/cricket

Read More

UCLA rolls past Wisconsin 80-60, celebrates first outright Big Ten title with 21st win in a row

February 23, 2026
UCLA rolls past Wisconsin 80-60, celebrates first outright Big Ten title with 21st win in a row

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lauren Betts had 19 points, 14 rebounds and five assists, and No. 2 UCLA defeated Wisconsin 80-60 for its 21st consecutive victory on Sunday, when the Bruins celebrated the program's first outright Big Ten championship.

Associated Press UCLA guard Kiki Rice (1) drives the ball against Wisconsin guard Laci Steele during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/William Liang) UCLA center Lauren Betts (51) shoots a free throw during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Wisconsin, Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/William Liang) Wisconsin guard Jovana Spasovski (11) reacts during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against UCLA, Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/William Liang) UCLA forward Gabriela Jaquez, center, Wisconsin forward Gift Uchenna (15) and guard Jovana Spasovski, right, vie for the ball during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/William Liang)

Wisconsin UCLA Basketball

The Bruins (27-1, 17-0) are close to completing the first undefeated league season since 2014-15, when Maryland went 18-0. They finished 14-0 at home and have one road game remaining.

Wearing white title caps, the Bruins gathered at center court in a group hug and posed with the trophy.

UCLA had already clinched the title by the time it took the court, thanks to No. 13 Iowa's 62-44 victory over sixth-ranked Michigan earlier in the day. Both Michigan and Iowa are tied for second with three losses each.

Gabriela Jaquez had 17 points and seven rebounds for the Bruins, who had five players in double figures.

Dorja Zaja scored 16 points and Lily Krahn added 13 for the Badgers (13-15, 5-12). They lost their eighth in a row and fell to 2-9 on the road.

Wisconsin struck for two quick baskets to open the third and get within seven. Destiny Howell scored and Ronnie Porter hit a 3-pointer.

Advertisement

But the Bruins took over, outscoring Wisconsin 24-15 to take a 65-49 lead into the fourth.

The Bruins led by 14 points on Jaquez's 3-pointer early in the second quarter. The Badgers twice cut their deficit to eight points before trailing 41-29 at halftime.

On Senior Day, the Bruins honored Betts, Kiki Rice, Jaquez, Charlisse Leger-Walker, Gianna Kneepkens and Angela Dugalic with flowers before the game. Rice and Jaquez have spent their entire four-year careers at UCLA; the others transferred to Westwood.

Up next

Wisconsin: Hosts No. 13 Iowa on March 1 to end regular season.

UCLA: Visits crosstown rival USC in regular-season finale on March 1.

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP women's college basketball:https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-pollandhttps://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball

Read More

Former WNBA All-Star Kara Braxton dies, league announces

February 23, 2026
Former WNBA All-Star Kara Braxton dies, league announces

Kara Braxton, a former WNBA All-Star who played 10 years in the league, has died, the league announced on social media. The cause of death was not given. She was 43.

USA TODAY Sports Wilbur Wood, baseball, 1941-2026 Phil Goyette, hockey, 1933-206 Eddie McCreadie, soccer, 1940-2026 Dave Giusti, baseball, 1939-2026 <p style=Martin Chivers, soccer, 1945-2026

" style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> Billy Truax, football, 1943-2026 Jawann Oldham, basketball, 1957-2026 Robert Pulford, hockey, 1936-2026

Sports figures we lost in 2026

"It is with profound sadness that we mourn the passing of 2x WNBA Champion Kara Braxton. A 10-season veteran, Kara played with the Detroit Shock, Tulsa Shock, Phoenix Mercury, and New York Liberty. Our thoughts are with her family, friends, and former teammates at this time," the WNBA shared on X.

Braxton was drafted No. 7 overall in the 2005 WNBA Draft by the Detroit Shock. She was named to the WNBA All-Rookie team after averaging 6.9 points and 3.0 rebounds. A 6-foot-6 power forward, she would go on to win championships in 2006 and '08 with Detroit.

She played in Tulsa, when the Shock relocated, and also spent time with the Phoenix Mercury and New York Liberty. Braxton also played overseas in Poland, Turkey, China and Italy through the 2017-18 season.

Advertisement

Born in Jackson, Michigan, on Feb. 18, 1983, Braxton attended high school there her freshman year before transferring to Westview High School in Portland, Oregon. She was named Oregon Gatorade Player of the Year as a senior. She played college basketball at Georgia for two-and-a-half seasons before being dismissed from the team by then-coach Andy Landers for undisclosed reasons.

Braxton worked for Nike in Oregon after her retirement from professional basketball before moving to the Atlanta area. Her son, Jelani Thurman, was on the 2024 Ohio State national championship football team. He played tight end.

Braxton is survived by her husband, Jarvis Jackson, and her two sons, Thurman and Jream Jackson.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Former WNBA All-Star Kara Braxton dies at 43, league announces

Read More

4 years into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a look at the war by the numbers

February 23, 2026
4 years into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a look at the war by the numbers

Russia's invasion of Ukrainefour years ago launched Europe's biggest conflict since World War II, causingimmense suffering for civiliansand harrowing ordeals for soldiers while rewriting thepost-Cold War security order.

Associated Press FILE - A woman cries during the funeral ceremony of Ihor Kusochek, a Ukrainian soldier of the Azov brigade in Bobrovytsia, Chernihiv region, Ukraine, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File) FILE - A man recovers items from a shop that caught fire in a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Friday, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File) FILE - Ukrainian servicemen walk through a charred forest along the front line, a few kilometers from Andriivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov, File) FILE - Emergency tents are set up in a residential neighborhood where people can warm up following Russia's regular air attacks against the country's energy infrastructure that leave residents without power, water and heating in the dead of winter, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Vladyslav Musiienko, File) FILE - A man plants sunflowers in his garden between a damaged Russian tank and its turret in the village of Velyka Dymerka, Kyiv region, Ukraine, Wednesday, May 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)

Russia Ukraine War Anniversary

Thefighting enters its fifth yearon Tuesday, and it shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.

The U.S. hasbrokered talkswith delegations from Moscow and Kyiv as part of the Trump administration's yearlongpush for peace. But reconcilingkey differences, such as the future of Russian-occupied Ukrainian land and postwar security for Ukraine, has thwarted progress.

Meanwhile, thousands of each countries' troops havedied on the battlefield, and Ukrainian civilians have been battered byRussian aerial strikesthat have brought years of power outages and water cuts.

Here's a look at the conflict, by the numbers, since the full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.

1.8 million

The upper end of the estimated number of soldierskilled, wounded or missingon both sides, according to a report last month by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.

It estimated that Russia suffered 1.2 million casualties, including up to 325,000 troop deaths, between February 2022 and December 2025 — what it said was the largest number of troop deaths for any major power in any conflict since World War II.

Russia has not released figures on battlefield deaths since January 2023, when it said more than 80 soldiers were killed in a Ukrainian strike, bringing the total military deaths Moscow has confirmed to just over 6,000.

CSIS estimated that Ukraine has seen 500,000 to 600,000 military casualties, including up to 140,000 deaths.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this month that 55,000 Ukrainian troops have died in the war. Many are missing, he said.

Neither Moscow nor Kyiv gives timely data on military losses. Independent verification is not possible.

14,999

The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission's count for civilian deaths in Ukraine since Russia's all-out invasion, though it says that is likely an underestimate. More than 40,600 civilians were injured over the same period, it said in a December report.

The war has killed at least 763 children, according to the U.N.

Last year was the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine since 2022. The conflict killed 2,514 civilians and injured 12,142 in the country in 2025 — a 31% increase in civilian casualties over 2024, it said.

Advertisement

19.4%

The percentage of Ukrainian land occupied by Russia, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

Over the past year, Russia has gained just 0.79% of Ukraine's territory in the grinding war of attrition, the Washington-based think tank said in calculations provided earlier this month to The Associated Press, underscoring the little progress Moscow's forces have made despite huge costs in troops and armor.

Before Russia's all-out invasion, it controlled nearly 7% of Ukraine, including Crimea and parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east, as Moscow-backed separatists fought the Ukrainian army, according to Ukrainian officials and Western analysts.

The percentage drop in foreign military aid to Kyiv last year compared with the annual average between 2022 and 2024, according to Germany's Kiel Institute, which tracks assistance to Kyiv.

U.S. President Donald Trump stopped sending American weapons paid for by the U.S. to Ukraine after he took office just over a year ago. European countries, striving to make up the difference, increased their military aid last year by 67% compared with the 2022-2024 period, the institute said in a report this month.

Foreign humanitarian and financial aid to Ukraine fell by 5% last year in comparison with the average in the previous three years, it said.

5.9 million

The number of Ukrainian civilians who have left their country.

Some 5.3 million of those people have found refuge in Europe, according to a report this month from the U.N. office in Ukraine.

Additionally, around 3.7 million Ukrainians forced out of their homes have moved elsewhere within the country, the U.N. said in December.

Ukraine's prewar population was more than 40 million.

2,851

The number of Russian attacks that affected the provision of medical care in Ukraine, according to the World Health Organization. The figure covers the period from the full-scale invasion through Feb. 11.

The attacks include 2,347 strikes on health care facilities, as well as ones that damaged vehicles and the storage of medical supplies.

Follow AP's coverage of the war in Ukraine athttps://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Read More

Who was ‘El Mencho,’ the feared cartel leader killed in a military operation?

February 23, 2026
Who was 'El Mencho,' the feared cartel leader killed in a military operation?

Nemesio"El Mencho"Oseguera Cervantes was a feared Mexican drug lord and the leader of a ruthless cartel accused of masterminding efforts to push fentanyl into the United States.

CNN Nemesio Oseguera-Cervantes - DEA

Once a police officer, Oseguera went on to become one of the world's most wanted fugitives, with the United States alone offering a $15 million bounty for information leading to his arrest.

Oseguera, who formed and led the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), was an elusive figure who had been considered Mexico's most powerful cartel boss since Sinaloa kingpin Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán was arrested last decade.

Born in July 1966 in the western state of Michoacán, Oseguera later moved to the US and was deeply involved in drug trafficking from the 1990s, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). In 1994, he was convicted in California for conspiracy to distribute heroin and served three years in a US prison.

A man riding a bicycle takes a photo of a burned truck, allegedly set on fire by organised crime groups on a highway near Acatlan de Juarez, Jalisco state, Mexico, on February 22, 2026. - Ulises Ruiz/AFP/Getty Images

After he returned to Mexico, he worked as a police officer in the western state of Jalisco but soon resumed his criminal activities, building his influence in the shadowy world of narcotics and rising to become the head of one of the country's most powerful and ruthless criminal empires.

Wanted by authorities in Mexico and the US, Oseguera or "El Mencho" kept a low profile – so much so that only a handful of photographs of him exist.

His death on Sundayin a Mexican military operation in Tapalpa, in the western coastal state of Jalisco, has triggered widespread unrest across parts of the country.

On the most-wanted list

Oseguera had a long career in brutality before forming CJNG. For a time, he served as chief of hitmen, or key enforcer, for the Milenio Cartel, before overseeing security and operational violence for the famed Sinaloa Cartel, whose former leader Guzmán is serving a life sentence in a US prison.

According to the DEA, CJNG emerged in the 2010s from the remnants of the Milenio Cartel, which splintered amid a power vacuum after its leader Óscar Nava Valencia was captured in 2009.

Oseguera built the group with Abigael González Valencia, leader of Los Cuinis – a family-based cartel operating in Michoacán, which served as the financial and logistical arm of CJNG and oversaw its "diverse network of money laundering operations," according to the DEA.

But it was only through marriage to Abigael's sister, Rosalinda González Valencia, that Oseguera gained real influence in the new entity.

"In reality, El Mencho reached the cartel's leadership through a strategy of diplomacy via marriage," public security analyst David Saucedo told CNN en Español. "He was indeed the chief of hitmen for 'Nacho' Coronel (a Sinaloa Cartel leader), but he lacked the lineage that Rosalinda, his wife, possessed," Saucedo added.

The burgeoning cartel quickly grew its sphere of influence to claim a significant presence across Mexico and became a key player in the global drug trade.

Advertisement

It is a brutally violent operation responsible for assassination attempts on Mexican government officials and homicides against rival trafficking groups and Mexican law enforcement officers, according to the US State Department.

The cartel demonstrated its firepower in May 2015, when it responded to a security operation with simultaneous roadblocks across several municipalities and shot down a military helicopter. Three soldiers were killed in the clashes.

The following year, the gang was credited with abrazen kidnapping of Guzman's sonfrom a trendy restaurant in Puerto Vallarta. He was released a week later.

It wasn't long before the DEA added El Mencho to its most wanted list.

Nemesio Oseguera-Cervantes - DEA

Sweeping drug network

CJNG is heavily involved in the production and trafficking of methamphetamine and fentanyl, with links to suppliers of chemical precursors in China, and controls several seaports for importing chemicals, according to US authorities.

The cartel is "a key supplier of illicit fentanyl" to the US, reaping "billions of dollars in profit," as well being one of the main suppliers of cocaine, according to the DEA.

National Guard members and Mexican police stand guard at the Fiscalia General de la Republica in Mexico City, where the investigation into the death of drug lord "El Mencho" is underway. - picture alliance/dpa/Getty Images

The group has contacts in over 40 countries, including the Americas, as well as in Australia, China and Southeast Asia, according to the US State Department.

Mexico had been under pressure from US President Donald Trump to do more to limit the flow of drugs to the US.

The US designated CJNG as a terrorist organization in February 2025, and Oseguera had already been indicted multiple times in the United States, including being charged in 2022 with conspiracy to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine, cocaine and fentanyl for importation into the United States.

The death of "El Mencho" on Sunday has created turmoil across the country. But it won't necessarily cripple the JNGC's multi-billion drug trade.

The DEA says the gang is structured like a franchise business, and according to Eduardo Guerrero, director of Mexican consulting group Lantia Intelligence, it is composed of around 90 organizations.

"This fragmentation has meant that you'll need a more complex, more sophisticated strategy to weaken and dismember them," Guerrero told CNN earlier this year.

The Mexican military and police, backed by US intelligence and equipment have tried taking out kingpins before. But others emerged to take their place, and tons of drugs continued to flow over the US border.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account atCNN.com

Read More