Rep. Tom DeLay will drop out of his re-election race, two Republican congressional sources tell CNN. Visit CNN for the latest.

Florida and UCLA are about to get underway in the national championship game.

UPDATE: UCLA trails 42-25 with 17:30 to go, matching their biggest deficit of the tournament (against Gonzaga). Can the Bruins pull another miracle comeback? Right now, their hopes for a championship — and Mike Tran’s hopes to break several Living Room Times pool records — are in serious trouble.

UPDATE 2: A near perfect game by the Gators, and Florida wins, 73-57!

For the first time all tournament long, Mike Tran gets a game wrong where the winner wasn’t a team that he had predicted to lose in the first round. Unfortunately for him, it was his Bruins, in the title game. Brian Kiolbasa holds onto the all-time Living Room Times men’s pool points record, and Justin Vale holds onto a share of the largest margin of victory in any Times pool. (Full update on the pool a little later.)

UPDATE 3: Okay, the quality of One Shining Moment has really declined over the years. For such a scintillating tournament (well, up until the Final Four), that was a subpar highlight reel. C’mon… not showing Northwestern State’s buzzer-beater is inexcusable! Likewise, why show UCLA’s players running around the court instead of showing the actual dramatic play where they beat Gonzaga? Give us more dramatic plays and fewer slow-motion closeups of players’ faces, please. Also, where was Wichita State? Only one Bradley highlight? Only one really good George Mason highlight? LAME!

Zacarias Moussaoui is eligible for the death penalty, a jury decides in the first U.S. trial about the 9/11 attacks. Visit CNN for the latest.

I’ve been meaning to post this for a few weeks now, but I haven’t gotten around to it. And given that I’m not always up on everything posted on Brendan’s website, this may have already made news here …

In what is sure to be a grim vision of things to come, Major League Soccer’s team formerly known as the New York/New Jersey Metrostars have a major sponsor … And, as such, a new name. That’s right, they are now known as the New York Red Bulls.
I’ll save the editorializing, but give me a break! I see the future of sports ownership, and it ain’t pretty … I’m waiting for Disney to follow suit and name one of their sports franchises after Mickey Mouse. Because that’s going to strike fear into the hearts of opponents.

BTW: the Red Bulls tied DC United 2-2 yesterday in their opener at RFK Stadium in DC.

Great link for fellow trekkies.

I realize by the time most of you get to brendanloy.com in the morning you will have noticed that The New York Times has launched a redesign of their website, which their Letter to our Readers explains. But in case you didn’t now you know

Some additional information from Khoi Vinh, on the The Awesome Redesign I Didn’t Do. Khoi recently joined the NYTimes design team; before that one of his last freelance projects was a redesign of The Onion Which he talked about on his blog. As well as an interview he did with The Weekly Standards. So there you go, perhaps some added value for those that care about such esoteric things. At minimum, it gives you a killer trivia question should the need arise.

Irish Trojan readers with ties to the Buffalo area will be greatly relieved to learn that Tim Horton’s is not an Al Qaeda target.

In addition to the deadly tornadoes near where DrawingDead lives in northwestern Tennessee, a possible tornado caused damage in downtown Indianapolis in the midst of the city’s Final Four festivities. There was wicked weather in Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Illinois, too. CNN has more. Here’s an image of the storm that caused it all, as of 10:45 PM last night:

The Virginian-Pilot looks at the question of whether George Mason can become “Gonzaga of the East.”

Are the conditions ripe for another Ross Perot? InstaPundit thinks so.

This all relates to the immigration issue, about which Mickey Kaus’s take is worth reading.

A trailer for the Simpsons movie is playing with Ice Age 2, in theaters now. But you don’t need to go to the theater; you can watch it here. (Hat tip: Andrew Hiller.)

Given that the Republican Party’s symbol is an elephant, one can’t help but wonder if it was a Freudian slip, a clever double entendre, or simply an unfortunate choice of words, when Barack Obama said of Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman, after Lieberman’s speech at a Democratic fund-raiser was met with a mixed reaction:

“I know that some in the party have differences with Joe. I’m going to go ahead and say it. It’s the elephant in the room. And Joe and I don’t agree on everything. But what I know is, Joe Lieberman’s a man with a good heart, with a keen intellect, who cares about the working families of America. I am absolutely certain that Connecticut’s going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the United States Senate.”

Some are less certain, as the above-linked New York Times article indicates, and Democratic primary challenger Ned Lamont intends to keep it that way. Read the whole thing.

In a related story, check out Bayou Buzz’s April Fools joke. Heh.

At least eight people were killed when a tornado slammed into
northwestern Tennessee's Dyer County, emergency official says. Visit CNN for the latest.