HOT POINT

Denny Hamlin is going to race injured in 2026.

Hamlin, 45, told reporters on Wednesday ahead of the Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium that he re-injured his right shoulder but will put off surgery until after the season because of the lengthy recovery timeline. Hamlin had surgery on his right rotator cuff after the 2023 season and dealt with the injury in the latter weeks of that season.

He said that he found out the muscle in his shoulder was re-torn after he fell going through debris at his parents' house. Hamlin's father Dennis died from injuries sustained in the fire on Dec. 28 in Stanley, North Carolina, and his mother, Mary Lou, was seriously injured. Hamlin said Wednesday that his mother's condition was improving.

Dennis Hamlin had been in declining health before the fire. Denny Hamlin had said during the 2025 playoffs that he believed that it was his dad's last opportunity to see him win a championship.

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Hamlin did not get that title despite dominating the final race of the season at Phoenix. He led 208 of the race's 319 laps, but a late caution for William Byron's tire failure set up a green-white-checkered finish and Hamlin's team's four-tire pit stop strategy backfired as Kyle Larson finished ahead of Hamlin for the title.

It was a tumultuous end to 2025 — to put it mildly — for Hamlin. His 23XI Racing team also settled its lawsuit with NASCAR in December over the sanctioning body's charter system. The settlement was a win for 23XI and Front Row Motorsports, the plaintiffs in the suit, as NASCAR relented on its previous stance and granted teams permanent charters.

Hamlin, who is arguably the best NASCAR driver to not win a title, finished fifth in 2023 as he dealt with his shoulder injury. A crash at Homestead effectively ended his hopes for a championship in the 34th race of that season.

This season, the title format will be much different. NASCAR has re-implemented the cumulative 10-race Chase after using a multi-round elimination format since 2014. The winner-take-all title race is gone, as the driver who has the most points at the end of the playoffs will win the title.

Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar has received a temporary restraining order to potentially allow him to play for the Volunteers in 2026.

Aguilar filed a lawsuit against the NCAAin Knox County (Tennessee) Chancery Court on Monday to try to play next season even though he's officially out of eligibility. On Wednesday,Aguilar got a TRO in his favorahead of an injunction hearing Friday.

If Aguilar gets the injunction, he's likely to be on Tennessee's roster in 2026. If he doesn't, his chances of getting that extra season of eligibility are a lot lower.

"This outcome — after the plaintiff withdrew from a federal lawsuit and separately filed a lawsuit in state court with the exact same facts — illustrates the impossible situation created by differing court decisions that serve to undermine rules agreed to by the same NCAA members who later challenge them in court," the NCAA said in a statement after the TRO was granted. "We will continue to defend the NCAA's eligibility rules against repeated attempts to rob high school students of the opportunity to compete in college and experience the life-changing opportunities only college sports can create. The NCA and its member schools are making changes to deliver more benefits to student-athletes, but the patchwork of state laws and inconsistent, conflicting court decisions make partnering with Congress essential to provide stability for all college athletes."

[Get more Vols football news: Tennessee team feed]

The former Appalachian State quarterback officially began his college football career in 2019. He redshirted at a community college in 2019 before his school's 2020 season was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He then played two seasons at a different junior college before he transferred to App State ahead of the 2023 season.

After two seasons with the Mountaineers, he transferred to UCLA for the 2025 season. However, he left the Bruins after just a couple months when former Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava transferred to UCLA. Aguilar ended up at Tennessee in what was essentially the first trade in modern college football history.

Aguilar has cited Diego Pavia as an example in his lawsuit. The former Vanderbilt QB played his final season of college football in 2025 after he successfully argued that his junior college time shouldn't count against his NCAA eligibility. However, Pavia's college career began in 2020, a year after Aguilar's did.

Like Ole Miss QB Trinidad Chambliss, Aguilar filed his lawsuit against the NCAA in state court — ostensibly in an attempt to get a more favorable permanent ruling. Chambliss, who transferred to Ole Miss from Division II Ferris State, is seeking a sixth season of eligibility to play for the Rebels in 2026 after leading Ole Miss to the semifinals of the College Football Playoff in 2025.

Neither Tennessee nor Ole Miss has a solid backup plan at quarterback if the legal maneuvering falls short, either. The chances of each team contending in the SEC hinge largely on their starting quarterbacks returning for the 2026 season given that neither the Vols nor Rebels added an experienced quarterback in the transfer portal.

The championship rings for the Texas softball team have a heartwarming detail.

Ahead of the2026 college softball season, theLonghornsunveiled their Women's College World Series title rings. Texasbeat Texas Tech in three gamesto secure the first title in program history.

Hidden on the underbelly of the ring are the words "20 years in the making" and the final score of Game 3 (10-4). There's also a single black diamond. The diamond is in honor ofpitcher Teagan Kavan's grandmother, Anna Lukehart, who died on May 31, 2025, during the team's WCWS run. Lukehart was 97 years old.

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Kavan's grandmother was an inspiration to her and the reason the pitcher wears number 17.

"She was born on November 17, and so I wear that number in honor of her. She was my biggest fan in everything,"Kavan said. "She knew everybody's name. She knew everyone's nickname. She would ask me all about them, and they all loved her, too. It was super special for them to also get to know her and love on her. It made it even more special during the [Women's College] World Series [that] they were able to rally around me during a tough time when we lost her."

Texas begins its 2026 season on Friday, Feb. 6, against Nebraska in San Antonio at the UTSA Invitational.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Texas college softball championship ring honors pitcher's grandmother

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Authorities in Cyprus said Wednesday a body discovered last month on a beach along the country's southern coastline has been identified as the former chief executive of Russia's largest potash company who had been detained in Belarus in 2013 on charges of harming the Belarusian economy.

Police on a British military base in Cyprus said DNA analysis confirm the body is that of Vladislav Baumgertner, 53, who went missing from his home in the coastal city of Limassol on Jan. 7. Baumgertner's body was found a week later on Avdimou beach.

An investigation into the circumstances as well as the cause of Baumgertner's death is ongoing, according to the British Sovereign Base Areas police. Baumgertner's relatives have been notified. Avdimou lies inside one of two military bases on Cyprus that the U.K. retained after the island gained independence from British colonial rule in 1960. The bases have their own police force and courts.

Baumgertner was the CEO ofUralkali when Belarusian authoritiesplaced him under house arrest in September 2013 after a dispute between his company and its Belarusian trading partner escalated.

He was released two months later and extradited to Russia where prosecutors launched a criminal probe against him on abuse of office charges.

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At the time, analysts had attributed Baumgertner's arrest to retaliation for Uralkali's decision to pull out of a joint venture.

Uralkali and state-owned Belarusian Potash Co. had been exporting the commodity — a key ingredient in fertilizer — through a joint venture that at the time accounted for about a quarter of the world's potash.

Uralkali pulled out of the trading venture after accusing the government in Minsk of allowing the state-owned company to export potash independently.

Uralkali's withdrawal left Belarusian Potash Co. with virtually no qualified staff and raised fears of a price war. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed that Uralkali and Baumgertner's actions harmed his country's economy.

Baumgartner had been living in Cyprus for several years. He had reportedly been staying in an apartment above his place of business in Limassol that thousands of Russian expatriates have made their home.

Since the collapse of the old Soviet Union, Russia has cut a substantially diminished figure on the international stage.

The breakup, back in 1991, of what US President Ronald Reagan once dubbed an "evil empire" left the Kremlin with less territory, less financial muscle and less influence around the globe.

But Russia retained its clout in one crucial area.

Its continued status as a nuclear superpower, on a roughly equal footing with the United States, guaranteed even a weakened Moscow a place at the top table of international diplomacy.

At nuclear summits, the Kremlin's leader could grandly sit across from the incumbent in the White House – just like in the glory days of the Cold War – to decide on matters of international security.

In 2010, then-US President Barack Obama and his briefly empowered Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, did just that, agreeing the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), which was hailed at the time by the White House as "historic." The New START treaty limits both countries to a maximum of 1,550 deployed long-range nuclear warheads on delivery systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and bombers.

But those days, like the New START treaty itself that expires on Thursday, now appear to be over.

The demise of the last arms control deal between the US and Russia – which Washington repeatedly accused Moscow of violating by denying inspections of Russian nuclear facilities – has been brushed off by the Trump administration, with the US president himself shrugging off the terrifying prospect of a world without nuclear limits.

"If it expires, it expires,"Trump quipped in January, while suggesting a "better" deal may eventually be done.

That distinct lack of urgency from Washington stands in stark contrast to the anxiety in Moscow, where there has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the arms reduction issue.

Speaking to journalists in Moscow as the expiry of the New START treaty loomed, Medvedev – no longer president but an outspoken security official on the margins of power – warned of the danger of allowing the deal to lapse. He suggested it would speed up the "Doomsday Clock," the symbolic representation of how close humanity is to destroying the world.

"I don't want to say that this immediately means a catastrophe and a nuclear war will begin, but it should still alarm everyone," Medvedev added.

The Kremlin certainly seems alarmed.

It's proposal to extend the terms of New START has, according to the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, so far been met with silence from the US side, threatening to unleash a new era of insecurity.

"For the first time, the United States and Russia, the two countries that possess the world's largest nuclear arsenals, will be left without a fundamental document that would limit and establish controls over these arsenals," Peskov told journalists on a recent conference call focused on the nuclear issue.

"We believe this is very bad for global and strategic security," he added, pressing on fears likely to be shared around much of the world.

But the Kremlin's expressions of concern may be more self-interested and strategic than they are prepared to admit.

Apart from being deprived of an arms-reduction platform that grandstands one of their last remaining vestiges of Soviet-era power, Moscow is now facing a future of potentially unconstrained US nuclear expansion.

The Trump administration has, for example, already re-floated the idea of nuclear-armed "Trump-class" battleships, a Cold War era policy that was abandoned decades ago.

The old Soviet Union could have matched it. But with an economy and a defense budget that are a fraction of Washington's, Moscow has virtually no hope of keeping up – exacerbating the already vast gap in power and leverage between the old rivals.

Of course, the US has its own reasons for allowing nuclear arms control with Russia to lapse, not least its desire to include China, an emerging nuclear power, in future agreements.

But the expiry of New START marks the end of an era, not just of "superpower" arms control treaties that focused exclusively on Moscow and Washington, but also of one in which the US was willing to accept nuclear limits.

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FORT PIERCE, Fla. — Ryan Routh will be back in federal court Wednesday morning for the first time sincehe was found guiltylast year of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump.

Prosecutors are asking for a life sentence for Routh, who was convicted of trying to kill Trump, then a presidential candidate, at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach in September 2024.

Prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum that Routh "remains totally unrepentant" and that "the heinous nature of this assassination attempt — his selfish, violent decision to prevent the American voters from electing President Trump by killing him first — that warrants severe criminal punishment."

Routh, who represented himself during the trial, has been assigned a court-appointed attorney to help him prepare for his sentencing hearing.

The attorney, Martin Roth, argued in a court document last month that Routh did not "commit an act of terrorism" and asked the judge to issue a "term of 20 years, followed by the required 7 year mandatory sentenced required" for his firearm conviction in relation to the assassination attempt. Routh would "be in custody into his eighties and would not pose any threat to cause harm to the public," Roth said.

Routh will have the opportunity to make one more plea before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon at the sentencing hearing, which is expected to last only over an hour. Each side will be allowed to present arguments, but neither expects to call any live witnesses or present any exhibits.

Routh was arrested in September 2024 after Secret Service agent Robert Fercano spotted him hiding in the shrubbery near the fifth hole of Trump's golf club. According to prosecutors, he was waiting for Trump to get into his line of fire.

Friends and relatives of Routh's have submitted letters of support to the court.

Routh's son Adam wrote that his father "wants to move forward in the right way and continue to be someone who contributes to our family and his community" and added that "we still need him, and he still has people who love and support him."

Nancy Meyers, Routh's sister, asked Cannon to consider placing her brother in a prison facility in North Carolina, saying the family was "devastated" by his actions but "committed to assisting him with his rehabilitative efforts."

Wednesday's hearing will be the first time Routh has been back in court since hetried to stab himself in the neck with his penafter his guilty verdict was read last year. U.S. marshals quickly escorted him out of the courtroom.

During the closing of the two-week trial, Routh delivered a brief and disjointed argument in which he tried to argue that there was no crime because he never fired a shot at Trump. Routh brought up the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on Capitol Hill and began talking about Ukraine, Founding Father Patrick Henry and the "common man," before Cannon put a halt to his argument.

After just over two hours of deliberations, the jury of seven women and five men found Routh guilty on all five counts, which included three federal gun charges and an assault on the Secret Service agent who rousted him from his hiding place.

Routh underwent a medical evaluation before the trial. In its sentencing memorandum, the government wrote that a private psychiatrist retained by Routh's former counsel "ultimately acknowledged that Routh had no basis to claim incompetence, insanity, or diminished capacity, but did propose that Routh suffers from two disorders [Narcissistic Personality Disorder and a Bipolar II diagnosis]."

The government said Routh made no effort to explain how the supposed conditions related to his crimes or how they excused his criminal conduct.

Routh's attorney asked that his client receive mental health treatment while he is in custody after he is sentenced.

By Jack Queen

FORT PIERCE, Florida, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Ryan Routh, a man accused of hiding in the bushes of a Florida golf course with a semi-automatic rifle to try to assassinate Donald Trump less than two months before the 2024 U.S. election that returned him ​to the presidency, is set to be sentenced on Wednesday.

Prosecutors have asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to sentence Routh to life in ‌prison during the hearing in Fort Pierce, Florida. Routh, 59, was convicted by a jury last September of five criminal counts including attempted assassination after serving as his own defense lawyer at trial.

Prosecutors said ‌in a court filing that Routh's crimes "undeniably warrant a life sentence" because he had plotted the assassination for months, was willing to kill anybody who got in the way and has expressed neither regret nor remorse.

Routh has asked the judge, a Trump appointee, to impose a 27-year term.

In a court filing, Routh denied that he intended to kill Trump, and said he was willing to undergo psychological treatment for a personality disorder in prison. Routh suggested that jurors were misled about the facts of ⁠the case by his inability to mount a proper legal ‌defense at trial.

Routh, who at the time of his arrest had resided most recently in Hawaii after previously living in North Carolina, also was convicted of three illegal firearm possession charges and one count of impeding a federal officer during his ‍arrest.

Secret Service agents spotted Routh hiding in bushes a few hundred yards (meters) from where Trump was golfing at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach on September 15, 2024. Routh fled the scene and left behind an assault-style rifle but was later arrested.

SECOND ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

The incident occurred two months after a bullet fired by a gunman grazed Trump's ear ​at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Both incidents came in the run-up to the November 2024 election in which Trump regained the presidency after having ‌been defeated four years earlier by Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump, a Republican, turned the attempted assassinations into a campaign issue, saying the U.S. Justice Department under Biden could not be trusted with investigations.

Prosecutors said Routh arrived in South Florida about a month before the incident, staying at a truck stop and tracking Trump's movements and schedule.

Routh carried six cellphones and used fake names to conceal his identity, according to trial evidence, and prosecutors said he lay in wait in thick bushes for nearly 10 hours on the day of the incident. Investigators on the scene found the assault-style rifle, two bags containing body armor-like metal plates and a ⁠video camera pointed at the golf course.

Routh pleaded not guilty in the case but fired ​his lawyers and opted to represent himself at trial despite lacking any formal legal training.

His meandering ​opening statement touched on topics including the origin of the human species and the settlement of the American West before he was cut off by Cannon, who warned him against making a mockery of the courtroom. Routh's defense strategy focused on what he described ‍as his nonviolent nature, but he offered ⁠little pushback as a parade of law enforcement witnesses detailed the evidence in the case.

Prosecutor John Shipley told jurors that Routh's plot was "carefully crafted and deadly serious," adding that without the Secret Service's intervention "Donald Trump would not be alive."

After the jury read the verdict, Routh appeared to try ⁠to stab himself with a pen several times and had to be restrained by U.S. marshals. His daughter yelled in court that her father had not hurt anyone and that she would ‌get him out of prison.

Trump lauded the verdict in a post on his Truth Social site, writing, "This was an evil man with an ‌evil intention, and they caught him."

(Reporting by Jack Queen in Fort Pierce, Florida)