test

England won all eight of their qualifying games, scoring 22 goals and conceding none to finish comfortably clear at the top of Group K.

However, their group opponents were Albania, Andorra, Latvia and Serbia – four sides ranked outside the top 20 in the world.

Indeed their toughest test in terms of ranking last year was a friendly against Senegal, who were 19th in the world at the time. England lost 3-1.

It may have been a non-competitive match, but the Three Lions’ performance in that game was concerning.

“No discernible plan. No identity. No improvement – arguably even a regression – since Sir Gareth Southgate stepped down after defeat by Spain in the Euro 2024 final in Berlin,” wrote BBC Sport’s chief football writer Phil McNulty after the game.

“[Tuchel] may offer up mitigating circumstances as he made 10 changes from the World Cup qualifying win against Andorra, plus this was a friendly at the end of a long season. But it was still a sobering, alarming evening as Senegal outclassed England.”

While that result and performance may have been a blip, England needed to face higher-ranked opponents to test them before heading to the World Cup – and they should get that against Uruguay and then Japan, who are 19th in the world.

SACRAMENTO — The UCLA women’s basketball team hasn’t lost a game in 120 days. In that time, the Bruins have outscored opponents by a total of 806 points and just one other school — UConn — has gone without a loss during the same stretch.

Yet somehow, the No. 1 seed in the Sacramento 2 region of the NCAA tournament hasn’t captured the same momentum and praise as the other three top seeds who have muscled their way into the Sweet 16.

UCLA (33-1) will play No. 4 Minnesota (24-8) at 4:30 p.m. PDT Friday in Sacramento. The game will air on ESPN. Entering the matchup, is UCLA’s less dominant NCAA tournament run a cause for concern? Or is a win a win when it comes to March?

“Each game is going to present different adversity points,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “And I think that we don’t look at it as getting back to something. We look at it as everything is a learning opportunity. ‘What does that teach us? How does that make us better? What kinds of things do we need to tighten up?’”

UCLA forwards Angela Dugalic and Gabriela Jaquez double team California Baptist guard Filipa Barros during the first round of the NCAA tournament at Pauley Pavilion on March 21.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

As the No. 2 overall seed in the tournament, UCLA is on a projected collision course with the top overall seed, undefeated UConn, on the other side of the bracket.

But the Bruins, who have lost just once this year, also might have to hit another gear to get to to beat formidable teams still in the tournament field.

UCLA punched its ticket to the NCAA tournament with a Big Ten title game win over Iowa by 51 points. Since then, the Bruins haven’t achieved that kind of dominance even against lesser opponents.

Iowa, which flamed out to No. 10 seed Virginia in the second round last week, could have simply been less prepared than other NCAA tournament teams. But the Bruins do acknowledge they also have room to improve.

“I think we’re a really steady team, and obviously we’re gonna do whatever we can to win, and it changes every game, because of different teams,” said graduate forward Angela Dugalic. “But at the same time, I do feel like I have more to give, and that’s not a bad thing.”

UCLA defeated No. 16 seed California Baptist 96-43 before an 87-68 win against No. 8 seed Oklahoma State, leading the Cowgirls wire-to-wire but getitng outscored in the second half. The Bruins led the Lancers by just 10 points at the half of the first-round contest.

A 19-point win is a dominant showing for any team, but with the rest of the No. 1 seeds winning by at least 40 points, has UCLA shown that it is at the same level?

“I don’t really look at it that way from those two games,” Close said. “I just think everything is measuring ourselves against the championship standards that we’ve set, and those are process standards. And so if we fall short in an area, it’s how we get back to what we know how to do and what’s under our control.”

UCLA guard Kiki Rice points across the court while talking with coach Cori Close during an NCAA tournament game against California Baptist on March 21 at Pauley Pavilion.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

UCLA has the second-largest spread among the No. 1 seeds entering the Sweet 16 round, with oddsmakers favoring the Bruins to beat Minnesota by 18.5 points. UConn leads all teams as a 27.5-point favorite to beat No. 4 seed North Carolina. The Bruins haven’t won a game by fewer than 10 points since a 69-66 overtime victory over Ohio State on Feb. 8.

Minnesota has the ninth-best NET of remaining teams, which is better than the other teams matched up against No. 1 seeds (North Carolina is 19th, Oklahoma is 13th and Kentucky is 16th).

During UCLA’s 76-58 win over Minnesota in January, Kiki Rice scored a season-high 25 points. Since then, the Gophers have gone 12-4 while winning games by an average just under nine points while UCLA has gone 17-0 with an average margin of victory of 26.9.

“No team is perfect ever,” UCLA guard Gianna Kneepkens said. “So I think [we’re] just making sure that we know what to do, and we know what it takes to be our best. So just making sure we can do that 40 minutes every game is going to be the thing we take away [from the first and second rounds.]”

Since UCLA beat Minnesota, the Gophers took down No. 5 seed Ole Miss, a team that many picked as a tournament sleeper and shot 46.2% from the field during the season.

“They’ve gotten better, but so have we and once the postseason comes, the best teams, the most successful teams, they find ways to just continue to get better,” Rice said. “To stay true to that process, but to take it up to a next level. Because at this time of the year, it’s do or die, and you gotta compete really hard.”

UCLA’s 28.6 average margin of victory is fifth in the country behind the tournament’s other No. 1 seeds and No. 2 seed LSU, a team the Bruins might face Sunday in the Elite Eight.

LSU, the highest-scoring team in the nation, faces No. 3 Duke on Friday night. If UCLA and LSU win, it would set up the third consecutive season they have met in the NCAA tournament. UCLA won the matchup last season 72-65 to get to the Final Four, while the Tigers upset the Bruins in the 2024 Sweet 16 en route to a national title.

The Bruins dominated Duke back in November, earning an 89-59 win immediately after their sole loss of the season to Texas. Gabriela Jaquez took over that game with 23 points.

But March tests are far more challenging that anything the Bruins have faced to date. The veteran UCLA team is confident it can keep evolving as it chases a national title.

“I think [improving] just requires us to take things to a different place and be more aggressive and dictate in all aspects,” Dugalic said. “That’s the beauty of it, we can get there.”

World Boxing said that an appeal process initiated by the Chinese Taipei Boxing Association (CTBA) on behalf of Lin, and conducted in line with its mandatory sex testing, had been completed.

The test is used to detect a specific gene which World Boxing said “reveals the presence of the Y chromosome that is an indicator of male biological sex”.

World Boxing’s policy includes an appeal process so boxers that screen positive for the SRY gene can lodge an appeal and provide supporting evidence.

The body said following an initial test in 2025, the CTBA began the appeal process and submitted a series of medical documents.

“The World Boxing Medical Committee considered and evaluated the medical documentation presented and determined that the boxer was deemed to be female and eligible to compete in the female category,” it said.

Tom Dielen, secretary general of World Boxing, added: “We recognise that this has been a difficult period for the boxer and the CTBA, and appreciate the way they have approached the appeal process and their acknowledgement of World Boxing’s requirement to ensure that its eligibility policy, which is designed to deliver safety and sporting integrity, has been correctly implemented and followed.”

The CTBA said in a statement: “This is a tremendous relief for Lin Yu-ting.

“We are pleased that World Boxing’s independent medical experts thoroughly reviewed all evidence and confirmed that she has been female since birth, meeting the requirements, with no competitive advantage, and ensuring her rightful place in the women’s category.

“We recognise World Boxing’s responsibility to uphold safety and fairness in competition, and we appreciate the professional and rigorous manner in which this matter was handled.”

Algeria’s Khelif said earlier this year she would also be willing to take World Boxing’s new sex test, if it would allow her to defend her title at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

The CTBA added: “Lin Yu-ting’s return marks a significant moment for both her career and the broader sporting community, reinforcing the principles of fairness, transparency and athlete welfare in international boxing.”

Lin has now been registered to take part in the upcoming Asian Boxing Championships, which take place in Mongolia from 29 March to 10 April.

SEOUL, March 12 (UPI) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected a munitions factory that produces light arms, state-run media reported Thursday, where he test-fired newly developed pistols alongside his daughter Ju Ae.

Kim visited the factory on Wednesday accompanied by officials from the ruling Workers’ Party, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. The report did not specify the location of the facility.

During the visit, Kim stopped at the factory’s shooting range to test-fire a pistol that he said was “superior in its structural performance, rate of hits, concentration fire and combat utility,” KCNA reported.

Kim “expressed satisfaction over the development of a really excellent pistol,” the report said.

The handgun was approved for production at a meeting of the party’s Central Military Commission last month, according to KCNA. The factory operates under North Korea’s Second Economy Commission, which oversees the country’s weapons production and defense industry.

While Ju Ae was not mentioned in the KCNA report, photographs released by state media showed her accompanying her father during the inspection. The pair wore matching leather jackets and fired pistols at the factory’s indoor range alongside senior officials.

Ju Ae, believed to have been born around 2013, has appeared alongside her father at public events with increasing frequency, including missile launches, military demonstrations and major political gatherings.

On Wednesday, she was also seen beside Kim as he oversaw the test-firing of strategic cruise missiles from a naval destroyer via a video feed.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said last month that Ju Ae appears close to being designated as Kim’s successor.

The factory visit comes in the wake of last month’s Workers’ Party congress, where Kim outlined defense priorities for the next five years. While Pyongyang continues to prioritize the expansion of its nuclear arsenal, the North Korean leader has also emphasized strengthening conventional weapons production.

During the congress, Kim presented newly developed sniper rifles to senior officials and military commanders, with state media releasing images of Ju Ae inspecting and firing one of the weapons.

During Wednesday’s visit, Kim stressed the importance of factories producing pistols and other light arms to strengthen “the combat efficiency of the army, public security forces and militia forces,” KCNA said.

He also announced plans to convene a meeting of the party’s Central Military Commission next month to review plans for modernizing munitions factories and allocating funds to upgrade three key defense production facilities.

The inspection comes as the United States and South Korea conduct their annual Freedom Shield joint military exercise, which Pyongyang routinely condemns as a rehearsal for invasion. Earlier this week, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of the North Korean leader, warned the drills could bring “unimaginably terrible consequences.”

Cruise missiles were seen launching into the sky as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw tests from a new naval destroyer aimed at assessing the warship’s capabilities.

Ellyse Perry scored 76 to become the leading runscorer for Australia in women’s Tests, going past Karen Rolton’s mark of 1,002. Perry now has 1,006 runs.

Australia resumed on 96-3, trailing by 102, with Sutherland and Perry’s stand of 133 putting the hosts into a strong position before the latter was dismissed lbw by Deepti Sharma.

Wicketkeeper Beth Mooney ground out 19 off 53 balls to help Australia move into the lead and provide support to Sutherland, who played superbly on an increasingly challenging surface.

She was unbeaten on 93 at tea and quickly moved to her landmark century before holing out off Deepti.

Alana King and Lucy Hamilton put on 34 together to give Australia a significant lead and a weary India then wilted under the lights in the final session.

The visitors slipped to 10-2 and Sutherland then claimed the key wickets of Jemimah Rodrigues and captain Harmanpreet Kaur to leave India 64-4.

Left-arm fast bowler Hamilton, on her Test debut, removed Deepti and Richa Ghosh in the space of three balls to have India reeling on 82-6 and in danger of losing the match inside two days.

However, Pratika Rawal’s defiant 43 not out and Sneh Rana’s unbeaten 14 ensured the Test will go to a third day.

Australia dismissed India for 198 on day one of the day-night Test in Perth as Alyssa Healy begun her final match as captain of the hosts.

Australia closed on 96-3 in reply, trailing by 102 runs, with Healy – who will retire from all formats after this series – falling for 13 at the Waca.

All-rounder Annabel Sutherland starred with the ball, taking 4-46, while left-arm fast bowler Lucy Hamilton impressed on her Test debut by claiming 3-31.

After losing the toss, India slipped to 107-5 but Jemimah Rodrigues compiled a defiant 52 to prevent her side being skittled.

In reply, Australia openers Georgia Voll (two) and Phoebe Litchfield (nine) both made single-figure scores to leave the hosts 31-2, bringing Healy to the crease.

She started to rebuild alongside Ellyse Perry before picking out Rodrigues at point off Sayali Satghare as the Aussies fell to 58-3.

However, Perry remains unbeaten on 43 and Sutherland is 20 not out as Australia will look to build a first-innings lead on day two of the four-day game.

F1’s technical changes pose challenges for drivers and engineers alike while raising concerns about the quality of racing.

Formula One’s new era ⁠starts at this weekend’s season-opening ⁠Australian Grand Prix, where teams will leap into the unknown and grapple with sweeping technical changes under race conditions for the first time.

F1 has simultaneously overhauled chassis and power unit regulations for the first time ⁠in decades, posing a challenge for drivers and engineers while raising concerns about the quality of racing.

With near-parity between electrical and combustion engines and cars running on 100 percent advanced sustainable fuel, drivers gained some insight into the changes during winter testing. But all ⁠are in the dark about how the reset will play out when going wheel-to-wheel on race day.

“I’m certainly more comfortable now than I was a couple of months ago with how to drive these cars and how to try and get the most out of them,” McLaren’s Oscar Piastri told reporters on Wednesday.

“But I think there’s still the saying of ‘You don’t know what you don’t know.’”

Australian Piastri said McLaren ‌thought they had the cars worked out two months ago, only to find they had “a whole bunch of stuff” they did not understand during winter testing.

With more power generated by electricity than last year’s engines, there is more emphasis on drivers needing to be tactical with energy deployment and regeneration.

The old drag reduction system has been replaced by a new overtake mode, giving extra power for overtaking.

Four-time world champion Max Verstappen described the changes as “like Formula E on steroids” and “anti-racing”.

Formula One Chief Executive Stefano Domenicali defended them and assured fans there will still be plenty of thrills.

The changes may have different effects at ⁠different circuits, leaving all teams to learn on the fly, week by week.

Piastri said Sunday’s race ⁠at Albert Park, a suburb of Melbourne, would probably showcase the more “unnatural” parts of driving.

“You know, a lot more lift and coast, a lot more kind of just driving to maximise the power unit,” he said.

“You’ve got power units that are reducing in power down the straights at different points. And there’s a lot of unknowns, ⁠a lot of challenges in there.”

The new regulations raised hopes of a more open championship and the prospect of a disruptor team emerging to force change at the top. But preseason testing in ⁠Bahrain hinted at a familiar top four, with Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull and ⁠McLaren all performing well.

Audi team principal Jonathan Wheatley said the gap between the “best and the rest” might only widen.

“I think it’s going to be a very different year in terms of the competitiveness in the sport,” he told the Reuters news agency. “We’re already seeing the gap between the fastest teams and the slowest teams but larger than it’s been ‌in the last few years.”

Whatever the pecking order, F1 race tracks will be more crowded with the addition of the new Cadillac team although there may be more breathing room at Albert Park, given Aston Martin’s preseason troubles.

Despite the technical guidance of Adrian ‌Newey, ‌who joined from Red Bull, the Honda-powered team completed few laps during winter testing and have reliability problems.

The AMR26 cars will be in Australia – something of a relief for F1 management – but may only race for a few laps before retiring.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Monday urged the Supreme Court to limit the reach of the 2nd Amendment and deny gun rights to “habitual” users of drugs, including marijuana.

But most of the justices sounded skeptical. They questioned whether marijuana users are so dangerous they should not have firearms.

They noted too that President Trump signed a recent executive order to reclassify marijuana as lesser controlled substance.

“Why is this a test case?,” asked Justice Neil M. Gorsuch.

Federal laws on “controlled substances” and the 2nd Amendment created a conflict between gun rights and illegal drugs, but Gorsuch said marijuana users are not seen as a particular danger to the public.

“This is an odd case to have chosen” to resolve this legal dispute, he said.

Most of the justices said they were wary of ruling broadly to decide the legal status of other addictive drugs.

At issue was a provision of the Gun Control Act of 1968, which forbids gun possession by any person who “is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance.”

The Justice Department says about 300 people per year are charged with a crime under this provision. They include Hunter Biden, the former president’s son, who was charged and convicted of lying about his drug addiction when he applied for a handgun permit.

The case brought together civil libertarians and gun rights advocates, who said millions of Americans could face criminal charges if the government’s view is upheld.

Deputy Solicitor Gen. Sarah Harris, representing the administration, said the court should uphold the law to deny guns to habitual users of unlawful drugs.

“Congress decided it is dangerous to mix firearms with controlled substances,” she said.

But Erin Murphy, a Washington attorney, said gun owners have not been notice that having a handgun at home could lead to a criminal prosecution if they sometimes use marijuana.

She said the court should hand down a “narrow” decision that spares her client.

Ali Hemani, a Texas man, was investigated by the FBI in 2020 for his family’s suspected ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated terrorist group.

When the FBI obtained a warrant to search his home, agents found a Glock pistol and 60 grams of marijuana as well as 4.7 grams of cocaine in his mother’s room. Hemani said he used marijuana about every other day.

He was charged with illegal gun possession because he was an unlawful drug user.

But citing the 2nd Amendment, a federal judge and the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the charges on the grounds that he was not under the influence of drugs at the time of his arrest.

Appealing, the Trump administration said the Supreme Court should uphold the 1968 law and deny guns to those who are “habitual users” of illegal drugs.

Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said this prosecution “falls well within Congress’s authority to temporarily disarm categories of dangerous persons — here, habitual drug users.”

From the nation’s founding, “habitual drunkards” could be prohibited from having guns and that historic principle supports denying guns to habitual drug users.

The American Civil Liberties Union defended Hemani said the government’s view threatens to broadly extend the reach of the criminal law.

“Like tens of millions of Americans, Ali Hemani owned a handgun for self-defense, keeping it safely secured at home. Like many of those same Americans, he also consumed marijuana a few days a week,” they said in their brief.

“According to the government, those two facts alone sufficed to make him an ‘unlawful user’ of a controlled substance who could face criminal penalties.”

As he watched the Boston Celtics play from the stands of TD Garden, one noise kept catching Adel Djellouli’s ear.

“This squeaking sound when players are sliding on the floor is omnipresent,” he said. “It’s always there, right?”

Squeaky shoes are part of the symphony of a basketball game, when rubber soles rasp against the hardwood floors as players jab step, cut and pivot and defenders move their feet to stay in front of their assignment.

Returning home from the game, Djellouli wondered how that sound was produced. And as a materials scientist at Harvard University, he had a way to find out.

Djellouli and colleagues slid a sneaker against a smooth glass plate over and over. They recorded the squeaks with a microphone and filmed the whole thing with a high-speed camera to see what was happening under the shoe.

In a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, they described what they found. As the shoe works hard to keep its grip, tiny sections of the sole change shape as they momentarily lose then regain contact with the floor thousands of times per second — at a frequency that matches the pitch of the loud squeak we hear.

“That squeaking is basically your shoe rippling, or creating wrinkles that travel super fast. They repeat at a high frequency, and this is why you get that squeaky noise,” Djellouli said.

The grip patterns on the soles may also play a role. When researchers slid blocks of flat, featureless rubber against the glass, they saw a series of chaotic, disorganized ripples but didn’t hear squeaks.

The ridge-like designs on the bottom of your shoes may organize the bursts to produce a clear, high-pitched sound.

Other researchers have studied these kinds of bursts before, but this sneaker study examines friction happening at much faster speeds. And for the first time, it links the speedy pulses with the squeaking sound they produce.

These insights don’t just serve to satisfy the curiosity of a basketball fan. They could also help answer important practical questions. “Friction is one of the oldest and most intricate problems in physics,” wrote physicist Bart Weber in an editorial accompanying the new research. Yet, despite its practical importance, he wrote, “it is difficult to predict and control.”

Understanding friction better could help scientists better understand how the Earth’s tectonic plates slide and grind during earthquakes, for example, or to save energy by reducing friction and wear.

It could also help eliminate moments off the court when squeaky shoes can be a little awkward or embarrassing, such as in a quiet office hallway.

This research doesn’t offer a fix, though the internet has plenty of advice that may be risky, including rubbing soap or a dryer sheet on the soles. But some of the insights from the study could help to design squeak-free shoes in the future.

For example, one additional experiment found that changing the thickness of the rubber could make the squeak sound lower or higher in pitch. In the future, could we fine-tune our shoes to squeak in a pitch so high we can’t even hear it?

“We can now start designing for it,” said Weber, who is with the Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography and the University of Amsterdam, in an interview. “We can start making interfaces that either do it if we want to hear this sound, or don’t do it if we don’t want to hear it.”

Ramakrishnan writes for the Associated Press.