Conor McGregor, Nate Diaz trade verbal shots before UFC 196 showdown

UFC 196: Nate Diaz Vows to Bring Ninja "Sh*t" Against Conor McGregor

TORRANCE, Calif. Conor McGregor has turned fight promotion into an art during his ferocious rise to the top of the UFC. In Nate Diaz, McGregor has an opponent with an abrasive personality to match his and the brawling tendencies to turn their UFC 196 showdown into something worth talking about.

When the UFC put two of its most prodigious trash-talkers on a podium Wednesday to discuss their hastily arranged bout, the resulting display of verbal fireworks didn"t disappoint the hundreds of fans who waited in a line stretching around a gym in suburban Los Angeles.

"With his soft body and his lack of preparation, he will not be able to handle the ferocity," McGregor said. "By the end of the first (round), I feel he will be put away. There"s a respect there between us, but it"s business in there, and he will be KO"d inside the first round."

WATCH: McGregor-Diaz"s UFC 196 press conference

Even with less than two weeks to promote their March 5 bout in Las Vegas, McGregor"s promotional sparring with Diaz might make the new main event bigger than McGregor"s original matchup with lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos, who pulled out Tuesday with a foot injury.

"(Not getting to fight for) the belt stung for a little bit, the fact I wouldn"t," McGregor said. "But really it doesn"t matter what weight divisions or what belt is on the line, because I should create my own belt, because I am my own belt. It"s the McGregor belt."

While Dos Anjos has few fans outside his native Brazil, Diaz is a popular veteran from a California fighting family. Diaz also embraces the antagonistic nature of promoting a fight with the boastful McGregor (192), who has joined Ronda Rousey as one of the UFC"s biggest stars.

"I"m just going to kill or be killed," Diaz said. "That"s what I"m coming with."

RELATED: Why McGregor didn"t choose Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone as opponent

Even Diaz (18-10) seemed a bit overwhelmed by McGregor"s verbal gymnastics in their first joint appearance, mostly keeping his comments short after infuriating the champ by repeatedly asserting McGregor is using steroids.

"How does it feel to be a millionaire now? It"s nice, right?" McGregor asked Diaz. "Congratulations. You"re rich now."

McGregor then asserted Diaz is an unskilled brawler and made fun of the bout"s 170-pound weight limit requested by Diaz. McGregor won the 145-pound belt in December, and he has been training for a 155-pound fight with Dos Anjos.

"The only weight I care about is the weight of them checks, and my checks are always super heavyweight," McGregor said.

UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor, left, and lightweight contender Nate Diaz are held apart by Dave Sholler, UFC vice president of public relations, after a news conference at UFC Gym on Feb. 24, 2016, in Torrance, Calif. (Kevork Djansezian, Getty Images)

McGregor is the UFC"s featherweight champion, and the loquacious Irishman had hoped to win the lightweight belt simultaneously at the MGM Grand Garden Arena before Dos Anjos pulled out, predictably drawing the champion"s scorn.

"Did you see (the injury)? It"s a bruise!" McGregor said. "Ice! Ibuprofen! If I jumped under an X-ray (with that injury), the doctor would slap me and say, "What are you doing, kid? Get out of here!""

McGregor also took time to rip the other candidates for the fight, criticizing former champion Frankie Edgar and former lightweight champion Jose Aldo, who was knocked out in 13 seconds by McGregor in December.

"At least Nate was engaging in the conversation," McGregor said, even while criticizing Diaz for asking for a higher weight limit. "Everybody else went flat-out running."

Diaz and his older brother, Nick, a former Strikeforce welterweight champion, have earned several high-profile fights in recent years for their combination of fighting skills and outlaw personae.

The Stockton-based brothers have become archetypal in MMA circles for their pugnacious style, unapologetic marijuana use and aggressively anti-social style: For instance, the brothers often make obscene gestures across the octagon at their opponents before rounds.

While getting in plenty of shots on Diaz, McGregor also acknowledged respect for Diaz and his brother, using creative language to approve of their willingness to take almost any fight.

"I honestly like Nick"s little brother," McGregor said. "He"s like a little ... gangster from the "hood, but at the same time he coaches kids" jiu-jitsu on a Sunday morning and goes on bike rides with the elderly. He makes gang signs with the right hand and animal balloons with the left hand."

Source: http://www.denverpost.com/boxing/ci_29561554/conor-mcgregor-nate-diaz-trade-verbal-shots-before

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Earthquake near Wasco felt across Bakersfield

Japan earthquake & Tsunami 2011 - Shocking video - missing 18000 people

NOTE: The earthquake that struck Kern County on Tuesday afternoon has been changed from a 4.8 magnitude to a 4.9.

The original story, published Tuesday afternoon and updated throughout Tuesday evening, is below.

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BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK/KBFX) - The U.S. Geological Survey says a 4.8 magnitude earthquake felt across Bakersfield was a centered 4 miles southwest of Wasco.

The quake struck shortly after 4 p.m. Tuesday and was about 13 miles deep. It was centered 23 miles northwest of Bakersfield.

Several smaller aftershocks, including 2.6 and 2.5 magnitude quakes, were reported by the USGS.

MORE: Kern County weather forecast

Tessa Lovro with the Red Cross said no injuries have been reported to her.

The Bakersfield Police Department, Bakersfield Fire Department, Kern County Fire Department and Kern County Sheriff"s Office all say they don"t have reports of damage.

The BFD reminded the public to "drop, cover and hold on" in the event of a quake.

Gregg Wilkerson works as a geologist for the Bureau of Land Management. He said smaller earthquakes are normal adjustments that occur because of plate activity.

"It"s an early warning," Wilkerson said. "We could have another big earthquake anytime so small ones are good and they release the stress and we don"t have the damage we"d have from a big one."

Wilkerson also said the earthquake of this magnitude was unusual for the Central Valley because it isn"t on a highly active seismic area, like the San Andreas Fault or East California Shear Zone.

A couple Eyewitness News viewers said via Facebook that they had minor drywall damage.

Did you feel it? Tell us on Facebook.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said they had no reports of outages.

MORE: PG&E earthquake safety and preparedness tips

The Associated Press reports that people felt the quake in several surrounding counties, including Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles.

Source: http://bakersfieldnow.com/news/local/earthquake-felt-in-bakersfield-centered-near-wasco

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Shaking along coast Tuesday wasn"t an earthquake, seismologists say

Earthquake in Nepal 2015, CCTV footage
Shaking along coast Tuesday wasn"t an earthquake, seismologists say | News, Weather, Sports, Breaking News | KOMO

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By KOMO Staff1456349495000

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WESTPORT, Wash. -- Social media started percolating Tuesday afternoon with a number of reports along the central Washington coast of mild shaking, and wondering if they just had experienced an earthquake.

However, none of the sensors at the Pacific Northwest Seismology Network triggered an earthquake alert -- usually those alerts happen within moments of a quake.

So, was it a quake?

A letter from PNSN seismologists to the Grays Harbor Emergency Management said that two seismographs on either side of Ocean Shores about 10 miles apart did pick up some mild shaking, but it was not a classic quake signature.

Instead, there was a 20-second delay between when the two seismographs started squiggling. The speed of sound is about 10 times slower than the speed of quake energy spreading through the ground, and the 20-second delay suggests it was a sound event, said state seismologist John Vidale. An earthquake would have shown up nearly simultaneously on the graphs.

Bottom line: The seismologists" hypothesis was that it was caused by airplanes -- possibly sonic booms, maybe from offshore military exercises.

Source: http://komonews.com/news/local/shaking-along-coast-tuesday-wasnt-an-earthquake-seismologists-say

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Jackson-area school closings for Wednesday, Feb. 24

Power outage causes school closings

UPDATE:Some Jackson-area schools dismissing early; already canceling classes for Thursday, Feb. 25

JACKSON, MI The anticipation of worsening weather is causing some Jackson-area schools to close on Wednesday, Feb. 24.

Here"s a list of the school cancellations so far. We"ll update this list as additional school closings are reported, so check back to this story.

Also, feel free to list cancellations you know about in the comments section below.

And stay tuned to MLive/Jacksonfor weather and cancellation updates throughout the day.

Concord Community Schools

Hillsdale Academy

Hillsdale Community Schools

Hillsdale Intermediate School District

Hillsdale Preparatory School

Jonesville Community Schools -- high school ski trip also canceled

Litchfield Community Schools

North Adams-Jerome Public Schools

Paragon Charter Academy --middle school information night canceled

PICC & PICC Rewards

Pioneers Homeschool Co-op -- earlydismissal at 1:30 p.m.

Pittsford Area Schools

Shop Rat Foundation

SkillsUSA Automotive Competition for high school students Thursday, Feb. 25, at Jackson College -- canceled andrescheduled for March 9.

Will Carleton Academy

Source: http://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2016/02/jackson-area_school_closings_f_14.html

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Connie Britton on Faye Resnick, the FNL Reunion

Simpson Murder Cause of Confrontation on "RHoBH"

On FXs The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, Connie Britton plays the late Nicole Brown Simpsons best friend, Faye Resnick, and Tuesday nights episode revisited her most notorious claim to fame: that salacious moment in history when Resnick released a tell-all book about her friend during the 1995 murder trial and appeared on Larry King temporarily halting the trial of the century. Britton, who stars in ABCs Nashville, took a break from shooting a concert scene to talk to Vulture about how she prepared to play a bad girl and being out of the loop on the Friday Night Lights reunion.

The People v. O.J. Simpson is serious business, but you were such a hoot as Faye Resnick. Please tell me we are going to see more of her in the series.That"s the end of Faye, yeah. When we were shooting it, some of the writers would come up and be like, "We need more Faye, we need more Faye," but the truth of the matter is we have to stay focused on what the story is, and once the Larry King interview happened, Faye did not really figure that prominently in the case anymore. Unfortunately, that was all we get.

Tell me a little bit about how you prepared for Faye. We"ve seen her on Real Housewives recently, and there"s certainly a lot of footage from back then. How did you get into the mind-set?I did a lot of research. It"s a little nerve-racking playing a character that is still living and in the public eye, so I really wanted to be as accurate as I could. I watched as much video as I could get my hands on, particularly video of that time video and photographs. Obviously, there were things that are more recent, but I wanted to stay as close to that period as I could, because I think as we all evolve, sure, she"s a different person now. I really want to have that version of Faye in my mind, and I read the book that she wrote about Nicole. It was a very incendiary book that caused all this trouble, which was awesome. I felt so decadent that I had the excuse to read that book.

She is kind of a bad girl, not the typical role for you. Did you enjoy that?I really did. You"re right. I constantly have to apologize for my pathetic social-media presence; I don"t pay that much attention, but even I was aware there was a little bit of Oh, Connie plays these good characters. People were judge-y, judge-y, judge-y. And I sort of felt like, first of all, as an actor I want to play as many variations on women as I can. And beyond that, she"s such a rich character. She"s a very interesting person. To me I never judge a character, ever, in the same way that I don"t think of some of the characters that I"ve been playing more recently as good women or characters. So I didn"t think of Faye as not being that. But I do see her as different, and I see her coming from a different point of view and a different life experience. That made it really fun and challenging for me. Also, to have her as a guideline was really a good challenge because there"s a lot of freedom when a character"s pure fiction. You can really dream up anything you want when you"re playing a character like that. But this is the opposite, where it was really about specificity, and I love specificity as an actor, so that part was really a joy for me.

Do you think Tami Taylor would ever give a Brentwood Hello?[Laughs.] You know what? You never know. She might. Tami had her wild days. We touched on that a little bit.

That"s true. Her ex-boyfriend showed up.That"s right. She had her days.

Are you a Real Housewives fan? There"s a whole new generation that knows Faye differently, from Beverly Hills.I know! I don"t really watch TV, but I have to admit: I have watched Real Housewives. I"ve sort of gone through periods not really since I had my son, so it"s been a while but I"ve gone through periods of Real Housewives watching. Particularly, I really was into Real Housewives of New York, which I thought was just fantastic.

Was there anything you learned about her that helped you connect to the character and shape how you wanted to play her?With Faye, I"m never gonna question whether what somebody says is true or not true, but she does talk about having a very difficult childhood, suffering abuse, things like that, and that was part of the reason why she was very impassioned about the domestic-abuse aspect of what happened to Nicole. I think that is something that is very real, and people deal with that life experience and that perspective differently, and it alters them and impacts them. So, for me that was very important information, and I tried to start from there.

Were you interested in this project because you wanted to work with [executive producer Ryan Murphy] again, or was it the topic?Yeah, mostly it was working with Ryan again. I really love working with him, and I particularly love working with him when he"s on to a new idea, because his mind sparks. And when he sparks to a new idea it"s a very exciting thing to be around. I had heard that he was doing this and I reached out to him and was like, I wanna do that with you! Is there a part for me in it at all?

One of our bloggers had suggested you should play Nicole Brown Simpson.That"s what started the whole thing for me. Isn"t that amazing? It was in Vulture and my friend read it and sent it to me. She"s like, Connie, look at this. That"s totally how I found out that Ryan was doing this project. So then I reached out to Ryan and said, Hey! What"s up with this? and that"s how it all started.

Did he immediately think of Faye?Not to be too blunt about it, but he was basically like: Well, Nicole"s dead. So that would not be the thing, but let me figure it out. And he pretty quickly came back to me about Faye. And he was like, There aren"t a lot of women parts in this movie, but this would be really great.

It"s almost a comic relief in a very heavy show.In a way, at the time it wasn"t necessarily comic, but it definitely was, in the midst of something that was a really dark and difficult case, to have everything come screeching to a halt because of this scandalous and flamboyant moment. That"s what it was at that time. I"m glad it comes across that way, even for those few moments that Faye is in this incarnation of the story.

Lets switch gears to Nashville for a moment. What can you tell us about Rayna and Deacon"s wedding?Rayna and Deacon"s wedding is going to be beautiful, and it is actually going to happen, but surprise, surprise there will be a lot of drama surrounding it. There you go. You heard it from me first.

And there"s going to be a Friday Night Lights reunion in Austin?I just read about that. They never even reached out to me about it. I read about it, and I"m like, I"m there. First of all, I need an excuse to get to Austin, but I also always look for an excuse to get together with the guys, and some of them I"ve seen more recently, but a few I haven"t seen in a long time, so I think it"ll be really fun. I hope I can be there for that.

Okay, this ones for the internet: How"s your hair today?[Laughs.] I"m so glad that you asked because, no, actually, my hair is so glad that you asked because we"re performing today, we"re performing at the Ryman Theater. Rayna is performing a big number. So my hair is particularly snappy today.

Source: http://www.vulture.com/2016/02/connie-britton-faye-resnick-fnl-reunion.html?mid%3Dgooglenews

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National Weather Service surveying Louisiana storm damage

We Are the National Weather Service

The National Weather Service deployed five teams Wednesday (Feb. 24) across the New Orleans region to survey damage from Tuesday"s storms. The violent weather was marked by tornadoes, wind gusts in excess of 120 mph, heavy rain and continuous lightning.

The teams are inspecting damage in Kenner, LaPlace, Belle Rose, Paincourtville, Pierre Part, Prairieville and these parishes: St. Charles, St. Tammany, Livingston, and St. Helena. A team also will be sent to Pearl River County, Miss.

Source: http://www.nola.com/weather/index.ssf/2016/02/national_weather_service_deplo.html

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Young Platinum Poses as Bob Ezrin, Responds to Kanye West"s Twitter Rant

Don"t Ever Critique Kanye West, Just Ask Music Producer Bob Ezrin

Please, Yeez! After Kanye West went on another Twitter rant late Tuesday, February 23, artistYoung Platinumtook to his verified Twitter page and posed as rock producer Bob Ezrin.

The situation started when Ezrin, 66, issued some scathing commentary about West"s new album, The Life of Pablo, in Bob Lefsetz"s newsletter. "Kanye"s greatest achievements have been in the form of excessive behavior, egomaniacal tantrums and tasteless grandstanding," Ezrin blasted to his readers. "Maybe I lament for a world where being truly, world-shakingly excellent at anything at least in the field of popular music if not elsewhere is no longer absolutely necessary . . . You can be a star today just by creating a public life that people pay attention to. Thats it."

PHOTOS: Celebrity Feuds: The Biggest Ever!

And word got back to Yeezy. "Has anybody ever heard of Bob Ezrin? What the f--k does he know about rap..." West tweeted of the producer, who"s worked with Phish, Pink Floyd, Kiss and Lou Reed. "Please dont speak on me bro ever again! Your kids are ashamed of their dad..." West, 38, later acknowledged his mistake for bringing up Ezrin"s family, but added: "Could you imagine if you were Bob Ezrins kids... Im so sorry for them... I will send them free Yeezys to make up for the embarrassment that you have caused your family!"

Naturally, Ezrin"s Wikipedia page and Google searches immediately blew up but Young Platinum had some responses of his own. The artist took to his verified Twitter account under the guise of Ezrin and updated his birthdate, profile picture and bio to dupe fans. He then blasted a series of tweets pretending to be Ezrin.

Ezrin and West John Sciulli/WireImage; Chelsea Lauren/WireImage PHOTOS: Celebs Fight Back on Twitter! PHOTOS: Kanye West"s Most Outrageous Moments

Young Platinum also brought West"s outspoken ex-girlfriend Amber Rose into the mix.

Rose arrives at the 16th Annual Critics Choice Movie Awards in 2011 Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Meanwhile, multiple sources tell Us Weekly in the new issue that West"s wife, Kim Kardashian, is not pleased with her husband"s recent Twitter rants and wants him to seek professional help. "She and Kanye are having big problems that are escalating," one source tells Us. "Kim has demanded that Kanye get therapy."

For more on Kimye"s relationship, pick up the new issue of Us Weekly, on stands now.

UPDATE: An earlier version of this story said it was Bob Ezrin"s Twitter account, but a rep for Twitter confirmed to Us Weekly that the rock producer is not on the social media platform. Young Platinum was simply posing as Ezrin.

Want stories like these delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter!

Source: http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/young-platinum-poses-as-bob-ezrin-responds-to-kanye-wests-twitter-rant-w165164

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