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Howard Schnellenberger is being remembered for reviving football at Miami and Louisville and starting the program at Florida Atlantic during a coaching career that spanned a half century. Schnellenberger died Saturday in South Florida. He had a career record below .500, but when it came to building, he was a winner. He led the Miami Hurricanes to the first of their five national championships in 1983, and coached Louisville to a Fiesta Bowl win over Alabama to cap the 1990 season. And as an assistant at Alabama, he recruited Joe Namath. Howard Schnellenberger was 87.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to stop operating two mass vaccination sites in California next month, just days before the state makes everyone 16 and older eligible for a shot. The two sites in Oakland and Los Angeles opened in February for eight-week pilot programs that will conclude April 11. The sites will give out the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the final two weeks to ensure people don't need to schedule a second appointment elsewhere. State and county officials say they would have liked the program to continue but it was just a small part of the overall vaccine infrastructure.

The Biden administration is not requiring FBI fingerprint background checks of caregivers at its rapidly expanding network of emergency sites to hold thousands of immigrant teenagers. That alarms child welfare experts who say the waiver compromises safety. The FBI fingerprint checks use criminal databases not accessible to the public and can overcome someone changing their name or using a false identity. U.S. Health and Human Services issued a statement Friday saying that direct care staff and volunteers at the new sites “must pass public record criminal background checks.” Public records checks generally take less time but are reliant on the subject providing correct information. 

It’s not that Juwan Howard doesn’t love his old friend and mentor, Leonard Hamilton. It’s just that there’s a lot on the line this week. The Sweet 16 game Sunday between Michigan and Florida State also sets up a coaching confrontation between student and mentor. Howard and Hamilton struck up a strong friendship in 2000, when Howard was wrapping up his time with the Washington Wizards and Hamilton was coaching there. When Howard got the job coaching his alma mater, who are top-seeded and into the second weekend for the fourth straight tournament, one of his first visits was to Hamilton. Good choice. “Coach Ham,” as Howard calls him, is building something big at Florida State, which has reached this point for the third straight tournament and is seeded fourth. 

All around the country, states are rushing to approve laws addressing a supposed problem that, in reality, doesn’t actually exist. Has there even been a case where a transgender athlete stole a college scholarship or gained an unfair competitive advantage? Nope. Seriously, if all these states are so concerned about women’s athletics, there are no shortage of inequities they could turn their attention to, Like the NCAA basketball tournaments. Instead, states like Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee focus on transgender athletes, demonizing them as a spurious group plotting to bring down women’s sports. What a bunch of nonsense.

Brazil currently accounts for one-quarter of the entire world’s daily COVID-19 deaths, far more than any other single nation, and health experts are warning the nation is on the verge of even greater calamity. There is growing recognition among experts, mayors and governors that shutdowns are no longer avoidable. Restrictions on activity they implemented last year were half-hearted and consistently sabotaged by President Jair Bolsonaro. He remains unconvinced of any need for clampdown, which leaves local leaders pursuing a patchwork of measures to prevent the death toll from spiraling. It may be too late, with a more contagious variant rampaging across Brazil. 

ISTANBUL (AP) — Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Istanbul on Saturday for anti-government protests, demanding amid a heavy police presence the reversal of recent decisions by Turkey's president that affect students, women and the LGBT community. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan…

The confusing maze of websites, phone numbers and more required to sign up for an COVID-19 immunization in the United States is presenting a challenge for people who are visually impaired or hard of hearing. Providers are using multiple different systems that can vary by state and even cities. The blind and deaf says that often forces them to rely from others to help them get in line. In Oregon, Carla McQuillan can't see and couldn't use screen reader to make an appointment. Dante Little says he helped 20 disabled people in Alabama who couldn't otherwise get shots.

Big Tech’s outsized influence over so many aspects of everyday life has become one of the biggest battlefronts in state legislatures. Scores of so-called “techlash” bills are being debated in dozens of statehouses, where lawmakers of both major parties are proposing rules related to antitrust, consumer privacy, taxes on digital ad sales, app store fees and speech on social media. The statehouse debates are taking on greater importance because congressional action is stalled. Tech giants such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google aren't content to play defense and are working to kill legislation or write their own more favorable bills.

Housing attorneys say people living in hotels and motels are facing a heightened risk of homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Job losses have made it harder for millions of Americans to make rent. But hotel guests are excluded from a federal moratorium on evictions for people facing financial hardship during the coronavirus outbreak. Long-term hotel and motel residents in California, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey and Virginia have reported being kicked out or threatened with eviction over the past year. In some cases, staff have cut off utilities. Hotel owners say they have also taken a hit during the pandemic and need paying customers to cover expenses.

In addition to their nationwide efforts to restrict voting access, Republican lawmakers in some key states are seeking greater control over the local mechanics of elections, from voter registration to certifying results. It's part of a broader GOP campaign to limit access to the ballot and challenge outcomes. The legislation includes partisan takeovers of election boards and threats to fine county election officials. Georgia has one of the more consequential bills, which was signed into law Thursday. Among other things, it would give state lawmakers greater authority to oversee how elections work.

As the nation continues to reckon with racism, historical sites like Colonial Williamsburg are working to be more racially inclusive. Many of the actor-interpreters of color who play out historical scenes there say they appreciate the efforts. But it’s a weighty experience to portray enslaved people or others who lived through the racism of the past. The work of getting into character has these costumed interpreters exploring painful parts of history. And once they step back into the real world they still are confronted with current-day racism. These interpreters of history say they feel more empowered to call for change. 

For decades, the job of a vice president was to try to stay relevant, to avoid being viewed, in the words of one occupant of the post, as “standby equipment.” But in recent administrations, the seconds-in-command have increasingly been deputized with special policy assignments that add some weight — and political risk — to the job. That’s likely to be the case for Vice President Kamala Harris, who this week was named the new point person on immigration. The job comes as President Joe Biden is rolling back four years of stringent policies enacted by his predecessor and contending with intensifying Republican criticism over the increased flow of migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border. 

Five thousand music lovers are set to attend a rock concert in Barcelona after passing a COVID-19 screening, to test its effectiveness in preventing outbreaks at large cultural events. The show on Saturday has the permission of Spanish health authorities. Concertgoers will undergo a antigen test hours before the concert. Those who test negative will be able to attend the indoor concert and mix freely, although face masks will be mandatory. The concert is an expanded version of a case study in December based on a concert for 500 people that organizers said showed no sign of contagion. 

Authorities suggested for weeks in court hearings and papers that members of the Oath Keepers militia group planned their attack on the Capitol in advance in an effort to block the peaceful transition of power. But prosecutors have since said it’s not clear whether the group was targeting the Capitol before Jan. 6, giving defense attorneys an opening to try to sow doubt in the government’s case. Authorities are still combing through a sea of evidence in what they say is likely the most complex investigation ever prosecuted by the Justice Department. More than 300 people are facing federal charges and more are expected. 

Spring has arrived, and many older adults who have been vaccinated are emerging from a hibernation imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. They are relishing the little things like shopping and going to the gym, along with the big things like visiting relatives. Older adults who suffered the most during the pandemic are beginning to move forward with getting their lives on track. Seventy-nine-year-old Florida resident Ken Hughes says there's an “extra level of confidence” among those who have been vaccinated. And many are now able to see grandchildren. Bill Griffin of Maine got to hug his 3-year-old granddaughter for the first time in a year. 

NEW DELHI (AP) — Two Indian states with sizeable Muslim populations began voting in local elections Saturday in a test of strength for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Hindu nationalist agenda is being challenged by months of farmer protests and…

One of New York City's largest coronavirus vaccination centers is also serving as a home to a series of mini concerts. The music is part of a series of concerts that come from a collaboration between the nonprofit group Sing for Hope and violinist Victoria Paterson. The musicians who perform at the Javits Convention Center are paid to play. For many of them, paying gigs are rare with the city's live entertainment scene still largely shut down because of the pandemic. And for those potentially nervous about getting inoculated, the music helps put them at ease.

Police in the English city of Bristol have arrested 10 people during a third night of protest against a new policing law. Hundreds of demonstrators against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill staged a sit-down protest outside a police station in the southwest England city on Friday night. Some scuffled with officers in helmets and shields who tried to break up the protest. The Avon and Somerset Police force said Saturday that eggs, bottles and bricks were thrown at officers and a police horse was daubed with paint. The contentious bill, which is currently going through Parliament, gives police stronger powers to restrict protests

A raft of new pandemic restrictions is taking effect in Poland to slow the spread of infection. The new restrictions take effect Saturday and are to last for the two weeks surrounding Easter. But some Poles are already flouting the existing rules. On Friday police raided a bar in Warsaw that was operating in defiance of the regulations. In the runup to Easter, churches are also among locations that are flouting the rules. On Friday, there were more than 35,000 new infections reported in Poland in one day, a record in the country of 38 million people.

They locate survivors in collapsed buildings, track down fugitives, foil drugs and explosives smugglers and help control rowdy crowds. All in exchange for food and lodging — and an occasional pat on the head. But when retirement time comes, state care ends for the dogs and horses that serve in Poland’s Police, Border Guard and Fire Service. The government is now proposing new legislation that would give these animals an official status and paid retirement to help cover the often costly care bills their new owners face. The new law would affect some 1,200 dogs and more than 60 horses currently in service.