Washington State

A list of the Southland's top high school senior football players and where they are headed: Darren Andrews; La Puente Bishop Amat HS; WR; 5-10; 175; UCLA Brandon Arnold; Encino Crespi HS; DB, 6-1; 190; Oregon State Jack Austin; Chino Hills HS; WR; 6-3; 205; California Reginald Bell; Los Angeles Dorsey HS; QB; 6-2; 180; Tulane Marcus Baugh; Riverside North HS; TE; 6-4; 255; Ohio State Nick Begg; Santa Margarita HS; DE;...

When we were classmates at Ingraham High School in Seattle, Jay Inslee was quarterback of the football team and a key player on the state champion basketball squad. I was a fledgling cartoonist and editorial writer on the student newspaper. On Wednesday afternoon, as I watched Inslee shoot hoops with his buddies under the new backboard he had just put up on his garage, it struck me that some things have not changed. It was still basketballs for him, cartoons for me. But, in truth, the change is rather dramatic.

USC will play a traffic-jam-inducing Thursday night game against Arizona at the Coliseum, UCLA a traffic-snarled Friday night game at the Rose Bowl against Washington. UCLA plays back-breaking road games at Stanford and Oregon on consecutive October weekends, and USC skips Oregon and Washington. Those scenarios and others were revealed Thursday when the Pac-12 Conference released its 2013 football schedule. USC will play 13 regular-season games because its Aug. 29 opener is at Hawaii.

USC's 2013 football schedule includes two Thursday night games, one Friday night game and the absence of Oregon and Washington. The Pac-12 Conference released the schedule Thursday. USC will play 13 regular-season games because the Aug. 29 opener is at Hawaii. NCAA rules allow teams to play 13 games, rather than the maximum 12, if one is in Hawaii. The Trojans, coming off a 7-6 season, will play seven home games, including nonconference games against Boston College and Utah State.

For days, hundreds of rescuers spanned across nine square miles on a rugged mountain east of Seattle, trudging through dense vegetation while calling Kurt Ruppert's name -- all with the hope of finding the 29-year-old sky diver alive. No response came. Authorities now say Ruppert is presumed dead -- maybe a victim of the sharp cold nights, or some kind of problem during the 6,500-foot fall from the helicopter he jumped out of on Thursday. Ruppert was wearing a special winged suit at the time that allows sky divers to glide long distances before deploying a parachute.

Authorities in Washington state narrowed their search Saturday for a skydiver who disappeared after jumping from a helicopter above the Cascade Mountains and are hoping to find the 29-year old alive after two days in the rugged terrain. Sgt. Cindi West of the King County Sheriff's Office said authorities used cellphone signals and the helicopter's flight pattern to focus on a quarter-square-mile area on Mt Si east of Seattle. The skydiver's cellphone is no longer working, she said.

Oregon State men's basketball Coach Craig Robinson says he has a gut feeling about the Pac-12 Conference. "We're all doing a better job than we did last year," Robinson said. "But we won't be able to tell until we get to the end of the season and see how many teams we're getting into the NCAA tournament. " That bar is set low. Last year, the Pac-12 got only two teams into the tournament - Colorado and California - and neither advanced past the third round. Cal lost to South Florida in a play-in game.

SAN DIEGO - There have been rumors down here that the Chargers might be interested in UCLA's Jim Mora as a replacement for Coach Norv Turner. If the Holiday Bowl was an audition, Mora could not have done more to prove himself the ideal choice to be the next Chargers' head coach. Like the Chargers do so often, the Bruins played flat and let their fans down, losing 49-26. TIMELINE: College football 2012-13 bowl schedule And in doing so, Mora also found a way to further irritate the faithful with the kind of play-calling that often leaves Turner looking so befuddled on the sideline.

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review Proposition 8, California's same-sex marriage ban. On Sunday, gay and lesbian couples lined up to get married as Washington state's new law approving same-sex unions went into effect. And today, many religious conservatives are asking whether the USA is going the way of ancient Rome. The Supreme Court will be deciding whether to uphold the appeals court ruling that struck down Proposition 8. In addition, the justices will be deliberating on the constitutionality of provisions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that deny legal benefits to same-sex couples who are married.

Some had waited decades for this. So early Sunday, the first day they could legally wed, same-sex couples in Washington state held marriage ceremonies immediately after midnight and made plans to get hitched en masse. At the King County Courthouse, Sarah and Emily Cofer got married in casual clothes at 12:01 a.m., with their 9-month-old daughter in attendance.  At the same time, the Seattle Times reported, another ceremony  took place between Mary Davidson and Monica Rozgay at the Seattle Yacht Club.