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WASHINGTON (AP) — No matter how encouraging Andy Slavitt's news is at the government’s coronavirus briefings, he can always count on next-up Dr. Rochelle Walensky to deliver a downbeat. After the tumultuous briefings of the Trump era — when top…

Adia Barnes will part of a couple of firsts in the women's NCAA Final Four. She has taken her alma mater Arizona there for the first time in program history. With Barnes and South Carolina's Dawn Staley, this will be first Final Four with two teams coached by Black women. Arizona plays its first national semifinal game against 11-time national champion UConn. The Huskies are making their 13th consecutive Final Four appearance and record 21st overall. The Gamecocks, the 2017 national champions, play No. 1 overall seed Stanford in the other semifinal game Friday night in the Alamodome in San Antonio.

Zia Cooke scored 16 points and South Carolina used its stifling defense to advance to the Final Four for the third time, shutting down Texas for a 62-34 victory. Top-seeded South Carolina blocked 14 shots, nine by Laeticia Amihere, and held No. 6 Texas to 23% shooting. The Longhorns were outscored 10-0 in the fourth quarter. Destanni Henderson and Victaria Saxton each scored 12 for the Gamecocks, and Amihere also had 10 points and eight rebounds.

Aryna Sabalenka clearly labored in the final set of her match. Frances Tiafoe seemed to barely have the energy needed to reach the post-match handshake. Conditions were tough at the Miami Open. The top seeds, however, were up to the challenge. World No. 1 Ash Barty of Australia won the final nine points to finish off the seventh-seeded Sabalenka in a three-set women’s quarterfinal Tuesday, while men’s top-seeded Daniil Medvedev of Russia reached the quarters with a straight-set win over Tiafoe. Sebastian Korda of the U.S. made the quarterfinals.

Prosecutors say two former Texas sheriff deputies have been indicted on manslaughter charges in the March 2019 death of a 40-year-old Black man named Javier Ambler. The announcement Tuesday comes two years after Ambler's death was filmed by the police reality TV series “Live PD." The former postal worker was shocked repeatedly with a stun gun after being pulled over in suburban Austin for allegedly failing to dim his headlights to oncoming traffic. Former Williamson County Sheriff’s Deputies James Johnson and Zachary Camden are both charged with second-degree manslaughter. Bail was set at $150,000. 

Gonzaga got on a roll and put on a show, moving to 30-0 on the season and cruising into the Final Four with an 85-66 victory against Southern California. Drew Timme scored 23 points to help the top-seeded and top-ranked Bulldogs become the third team to bring an undefeated record into the Final Four since the bracket expanded to 64 teams in 1985. The last team to go undefeated was Indiana in 1976. On Saturday in the national semifinals, the Bulldogs will face the winner of a later Elite Eight matchup between UCLA and Michigan.

It’s the 3-point era in the NBA. The massive-salary era. The LeBron James era. It’s also the triple-double era. If it seems like triple-doubles are happening more often than ever, that’s because they are — by a huge margin. On average, the NBA has seen someone put up at least 10 of this, 10 of that and 10 of those in one out of every seven games this season. That rate is up 47% over last season, plus represents a staggering 700% increase over how often they happened just nine years ago. And they happen with such regularity now that they barely seem like a big deal anymore.

Bristol Motor Speedway hosted NASCAR’s first Cup Series race since 1970 and by most measures it was a success. There were plenty of concerns in the buildup to the anticipated event, but it ran without a problem on Monday. Speedway Motorsports has already said the 2022 race at Bristol will again be on dirt. 

Official Bert Smith collapsed on the floor early in the Elite Eight game between Gonzaga and Southern California and had to be taken off the court on a stretcher. Smith had just set up on the baseline as the Trojans were moving onto offense when he collapsed and hit his head on the floor. He stayed down for about five minutes, and then was able to stand up and move to a nearby stretcher. He was alert and sitting up with his arms crossed as he was taken off the court. In a statement, NCAA spokesman David Worlock said Smith is stable and won’t be transported to a hospital.

Two members of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” reality television show have appeared in court after being arrested on federal fraud charges related to a telemarketing scheme. Authorities announced that Jennifer Shah and Stuart Smith were arrested Tuesday in Utah on charges unsealed in New York City. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said Shah portrays herself as a wealthy and successful businessperson on television while Smith is cast as her first assistant. But Strauss says their “so-called business opportunities” they pushed on their victims were actually fraud schemes motivated by greed. Shah’s attorney Sam Meziani declined comment as he exited the court with Shah, who remained silent.

A faith-based conservative group has filed a lawsuit challenging Virginia's new state guidelines on the treatment of transgender students in public schools. The lawsuit alleges that the policies violate parental child-rearing rights and students’ rights to freely exercise their religion. It was filed Tuesday by The Family Foundation of Virginia and a parent from Hanover County. It asks the court to send the model policies back to the state Department of Education to revise them. The suit alleges that the department failed to adequately respond during a public comment period to complaints that the policies violate the constitutional rights of students, teachers and parents. 

President Joe Biden’s pleas for states to stick with mask mandates to slow the spread of the coronavirus are being largely ignored. Several Republican governors are staying on track to drop the requirement in their states. On Monday, Biden and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this is no time to relax safety measures. In a call on Tuesday with governors, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky buttressed that message by citing national COVID-19 trends. She said the seven-day average of 61,000 new COVID-19 cases per day is up 13%, and the seven-day average of deaths is up 6%.

Chicago White Sox outfielder Eloy Jiménez was having surgery Tuesday to repair a ruptured left pectoral tendon, and general manager Rick Hahn says the slugger still is expected to miss five to six months. Hahn says the timeline hasn’t changed, though he left the door open for Jiménez to return sooner. Jiménez was hurt last week in a spring training game against Oakland when he tried to make a leaping grab at the wall on a home run ball. The injury led to more questions about whether he is better suited for designated hitter than left field, where he has gotten hurt a couple times since his big league debut in 2019.

Texas A&M junior Sam Bennett makes his PGA Tour debut this week at the Valero Texas Open. He only wishes his father could be there to watch. Mark Bennett was diagnosed with Alzheimer's about seven years and now cannot put together a sentence. Bennett says the last time his father could speak to him, he told him, “Don't wait to do something.” His father wrote it out, and that handwritten note became a tattoo on Bennett's left arm. He looks at it before hitting every shot. Bennett earned his spot in the Texas Open by winning the Cabo Collegiate.

President Joe Biden’s dog Major on Monday was involved in his second biting incident this month. The White House says the dog "nipped someone while on a walk,” adding that the dog “is still adjusting to his new surroundings.” The first lady's office says the person was seen by the White House Medical Unit “out of an abundance of caution” and “returned to work without injury." The german shepherd and his sibling, Champ, returned to the White House just last week after causing a minor injury to an employee of the U.S. Secret Service. 

Officer Eric Talley has been remembered as a man of faith who put others first, long before he was credited with saving lives in a shooting at a Colorado supermarket. Over 1,000 people gathered to honor Talley at a memorial service near Boulder on Tuesday. Speakers remembered the 51-year-old father of seven for helping someone with a flooded basement and collecting memorabilia for a boy with cancer who wanted “police stuff” for Christmas. His police chief said Talley’s personnel file was filled with thank you letters from people he had helped during his decade with the department. Besides Talley, nine others were killed in the March 22 shooting in Boulder. 

Kentucky lawmakers have passed a partial-ban on no-knock warrants, more than a year after the death of Breonna Taylor during a police raid on the Black woman's home. The legislation approved Tuesday heads to Gov. Andy Beshear. Taylor was an emergency medical technician who was shot at her Louisville apartment after being roused from sleep by police during a drug raid. A no-knock warrant was approved as part of the narcotics investigation, but no drugs were found at her home. A grand jury later indicted one officer on wanton endangerment charges in September for shooting into a neighbor’s apartment. But no officers were charged in her death. 

An NCAA survey of Division I basketball conferences shows 82% of scheduled men’s and women’s games were played despite many stops and starts because of the pandemic. The Missouri Valley played all 90 of its men's games. It was the only league to play all of them. The Big 12 led women's conferences with 89 of 90 games played. The conferences playing the fewest games was the Colonial on the men's side and the Southern on the women's. 

Virginia Beach police say they've turned over their investigation of an officer-involved shooting of a Black, former college football player to state police. The decision to hand over the investigation into the death of 25-year-old Donovon W. Lynch comes amid increasing public scrutiny of three separate weekend shootings in Virginia Beach. Police say two people including Lynch were killed in the shootings along a popular oceanfront strip and that eight other people were wounded. Among those calling for a thorough and transparent investigation into Lynch's death is Grammy-winning musician Pharrell Williams. He says the victim is his cousin. Police say the officer who shot Lynch is Black.