Lifestyle
Bracketology a settled national pastime as the 2025 NCAA Tournament arrives

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — When Bryce Yoder needs a study break this time of year, the college student flips on a TV and attends his favorite March Madness class — bracket science.
The 19-year-old sports management major at Indiana University-Indianapolis studies hard to learn the secrets of picking winners in the nearly dozen NCAA Tournament bracket pools he hopes to enter before Thursday’s first-round games. It takes time, patience and some lucky bounces to get those picks right.
Yoder is hardly alone. Millions of Americans — from hard-core sports junkies to casual fans and school alumni to those with no rooting interest — engage in this annual national pastime by filling out a tourney bracket and seeing how they fare. Winning is possible, though few hold out much hope of a perfect bracket: The NCAA says the odds of that are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 if you wing it and a still-absurd 1 in 120.2 billion if you know a bit about hoops.
For players like Yoder, it’s more about proving he’s the best.
“The satisfaction of being right,” he said in explaining why he fills out so many brackets. “Really, it’s about having the best bracket possible, whether that’s with my friends and family or just the leaderboard over a random bunch of people that I’ve never met. I’m just so competitive.”
From online gambling to office pools to family contests, brackets are big business and a big distraction. A study released in 2023 by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a work outplacement firm, estimated $17.3 billion is lost in productivity during the three-week tourney. A Finance Buzz survey back then also found 36% of employees tune into the games during work hours, and nearly 25% use paid time off or sick days.
Even elective surgery companies now advertise that customers can have mid-March procedures so they can recover — and watch basketball — at the same time.
In the beginning
It seems almost unfathomable today, but brackets meant virtually nothing for about the first 50 years of the NCAA tourney, which dates to 1939 and this year is holding its 86th edition.
During the ‘70s, though, the changes began in earnest.
The NCAA tourney expanded from 25 to 32 teams in 1975, the first year leagues could send two teams. Seeding started in 1978, and the field grew to 40 in 1979 and to 48 in 1980 when organizers dropped the restriction on how many league teams could play.
But the real revolution really with the 1979 title game between Michigan State and Indiana State.
Indiana State’s Larry Bird, left, lies on his back to toss the ball during a scramble with Earvin “Magic” Johnson, right, during NCAA Championship game in Salt Lake City, Utah, March 26, 1979. (AP Photo)
That Magic Johnson-Larry Bird matchup drew a 24.1 television rating, still the tourney record, and it gave everyone a glimpse into what college basketball’s biggest event could become at the same time an 8-year-old boy named Charlie Creme looked into his future.
“I cut the (men’s) bracket out of the newspaper in 1979 and had it on the pantry door in my family’s kitchen,” said Creme, now ESPN’s women’s basketball bracketologist. “I was filling it out, making actual predictions and I couldn’t wait till a game ended and I could run up to the pantry door and advance the next team in the tournament. Within a couple years, I was making my own brackets with big pieces of oak tag (paper) and a pencil and a ruler.”
Soon, he’d have company as the tourney grew.
America’s first all-sports network, ESPN, broadcast the 16 first-round games, 12 on tape delay, in 1980. CBS wrested the broadcast rights away from NBC in 1982 with a three-year deal for $16 million annually and the promise of expanded coverage including the first televised selection show.
Suddenly, brackets mattered and broadcasters such as Dick Vitale stoked long debates over which teams belonged, which did not and who would win games. Live, daily telecasts on ESPN spurred interest, too, heading into 1985, the first 64-team field and introduced a future NCAA executive to fill out the bracket.
“The first one I remember filling out was 1985,” said Dan Gavitt, the son of Big East co-founder Dave Gavitt and now the NCAA senior vice president for basketball. “I had four Big East teams in the Final Four and I was right on three of them. Boston College got beat by Memphis in in the regional finals.”
Gavitt, like Creme, was hooked and brackets became fashionable.
Could it happen again on the women’s side? Perhaps.
After seeing ticket sales, television ratings and coverage of the sport soar in the last few years with more to come thanks to stars such as Paige Bueckers, Hannah Hidalgo and JuJu Watkins, Creme thinks women’s brackets are on a similar trajectory.
“We might be seeing 1985-95,” Creme said. “Star players in the men’s game back then, stuck around longer. Right now we’re in that period where Caitlin Clark played four years in college and as the rules stand now, JuJu Watkins has to play four years and Paige could if she wanted — she’s not going to — but could stick around another year. That’s where the men’s game was in that period.”
Upset city, baby
In its infancy, the bracket phenomenon was geared to teenagers and college students like Yoder who watched multiple games.
Soon, office pools and games among family members with entry fees and prize money became popular, too. In some cases, all you did was pluck a name out of a hat.
Back then, the NCAA frowned on such practices, labeling it gambling. Today, the NCAA runs its own online bracket game as part of its “fan engagement.”
Still, the prize pool only fueled interest. So did the 1980s national championship games that became must-see TV — and the upset factor.
FILE – In this April 1, 1985, file photo, Villanova’s Ed Pinckney (54) yells out as he is surrounded by teammates after defeating Georgetown 66-64 in the NCAA college basketball Final Four championship game, in Lexington, Ky. (AP Photo/Gary Landers, File)
From surprising title runs by North Carolina State in 1983 and Villanova in 1985 to Princeton’s near-upset of Georgetown in 1989, it seemed every team was in the mix and nobody would pick all the winners.
“There will never be a perfect bracket,” ESPN men’s basketball bracketologist Joe Lunardi said. “That’s just not going to happen. When Warren Buffet offered $10 million for perfect bracket, he knew he wasn’t going to pay that out.”
Those daunting odds haven’t stopped anyone from filling out brackets.
“If I feel really strongly about a game, I’ll probably pick the same outcome more times than not,” Yoder said, referring to how he handles multiple brackets. “But I try to throw some silly type of stuff that wouldn’t necessarily have a good chance of happening, like upsets, because that’s just naturally going to happen.”
The tools
In this May 27, 2010 file photo, President Barack Obama looks over the bracket with Duke University basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, where he honored the team. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Figuring out how to pick teams and games has evolved the years.
Selection committee members use tangible measures such as wins and losses, strength of schedule and NET rankings to round out the 68-team field. Other measures include quad victories, which vary in how they’re compiled and applied. In an era of analytics, sites such as kenpom.com have become regular components for hard-core and casual fans.
The NCAA certainly is paying attention.
Gavitt said he filled out brackets in the early years of the NET just to see how reliable the rankings were to results And when the topic of expansion is broached, NCAA officials look to see how the potential new bracket would fit on a single printed page.
The question, of course, is how far can this go and whether artificial intelligence can become the next big thing when it comes to picking winners.
“If AI did it, then the analysis would not be as much fun or as interesting,” Creme said. “I don’t know that the NCAA would ever go that far. I kind of hope not because I like the human element. If it’s eliminated, if we know the AI formula, then it’s sort of over.”
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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness
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Lifestyle
Greenland celebrates its National Day to mark the summer solstice

NUUK, Greenland (AP) — Greenlanders celebrated National Day, the Arctic island’s biggest summer festival, on Saturday to mark the solstice with songs, cannon salutes and dances under 24 hours of sunlight.
Revelers across the semi-autonomous Danish territory, which is also coveted by U.S. President Donald Trump, honored the longest day of the year north of the equator, where the solstice marks the start of astronomical summer, with a march through their hometowns waving flags and participating in a seal hunting competition.
The national holiday was declared in 1985, following a referendum on home rule six years earlier, with the inaugural raising of the red-and-white Greenlandic flag. As the sun came out, locals gathered for the day of festivities, visiting friends and families, eating and dancing together.
Greenland’s roughly 56,000 inhabitants look forward to the midnight sun each year from May 25 to July 25, before the long, dark winter reappears.
The strategic, mineral-rich island has made headlines after Trump declared it his mission to make it part of the U.S., saying it’s crucial for American security in the high north.
Trump has not ruled out military force to seize Greenland despite strong rebukes from Denmark, a NATO ally, and Greenland itself. Danish and Greenlandic leaders say the island is not for sale and have condemned reports of the U.S. stepping up intelligence gathering there.
On Saturday, Greenlanders tried to leave politics behind to enjoy the seemingly endless summer sunshine.
Locals in traditional clothing made of pearl collars and seal hides started the day by marching toward the Colonial Harbour with Greenland’s national flags.
Johannes Ostermann, 20, said he loved the holiday because “you get to go out in the city and you get to meet the people you haven’t met in a while, and you know they’re going to be there because it’s a big day for Greenland and we enjoy each other’s company.”
“Everyone says congratulations to each other, everyone’s saying hi, everyone’s being very very nice because it is a very nice day for us all,” he added.
At 9 a.m., a cannon salute marked the beginning of the annual seal hunting competition, with participants in boats rushing into the sea.
It took about an hour for the first hunter to come back with the seal. The animal was cut open for an inspection. The organizer said the meat will be distributed to nursing homes, and all other parts will be used to make clothing.
Pilo Samuelsen, one of the winners of the competition, enjoyed his victory and the fact that the holiday brings together the community and keeps their culture alive.
“The seal hunt competition is a nice tradition,” Samuelsen said. “It’s a day of unity and the celebration.”
Sofie Abelsen, 33, said she hoped her people would continue their celebrations because “modernization and globalization is a danger to all Indigenous people and Indigenous countries.”
“So I hope they will continue the traditions … so they don’t disappear,” she added.
Lifestyle
Stonehenge solstice sunrise draws druids, pagans and revelers

LONDON (AP) — As the sun rose Saturday on the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, a crowd erupted in cheers at Stonehenge where the ancient monument in southern England has clocked the summer solstice over thousands of years.
The orange ball crested the northeast horizon behind the Heel Stone, the entrance to the stone circle, and shone its beam of light into the center of one of the world’s most famous prehistoric monuments. The solstice is one of the few occasions each year when visitors are allowed to walk among the stones, which are otherwise fenced off.
The crowd gathered before dawn at the World Heritage Site to mark the start of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, beating the heat during the U.K.’s first amber heat-health alert issued since September 2023. Temperatures later topped 33 degrees Celsius (91.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in Surrey, 80 miles (128 kilometers) east of Stonehenge, the hottest temperature recorded in the U.K. so far this year.
About 25,000 sun devotees and other revelers, including druids, pagans, hippies, locals and tourists, showed up, according to English Heritage which operates the site. More than 400,000 others around the world watched a livestream.
“This morning was a joyous and peaceful occasion with the most beautiful sunrise,” said Richard Dewdney, head of operations at Stonehenge. “It is fantastic to see Stonehenge continuing to enchant and connect people.”
Stonehenge was built in stages 5,000 years ago on the flat lands of Salisbury Plain approximately 75 miles (120 kilometers) southwest of London. The unique stone circle was erected in the late Neolithic period about 2,500 B.C.
Some of the so-called bluestones are known to have come from the Preseli Hills in southwest Wales, nearly 150 miles (240 kilometers) away, and the altar stone was recently discovered to have come from northern Scotland, some 460 miles (740 kilometers) away.
The site’s meaning has been vigorously debated. Theories range from it being a coronation place for Danish kings, a druid temple, a cult center for healing, or an astronomical computer for predicting eclipses and solar events.
The most generally accepted interpretation is that it was a temple aligned with movements of the sun — lining up perfectly with the summer and winter solstices.
Lifestyle
Dolce & Gabbana embrace wrinkled romance for spring-summer 2026

MILAN (AP) — Dolce & Gabbana beckoned the warm weather with crumpled, take-me-anywhere comfort in their menswear collection for spring-summer 2026, previewed during Milan Fashion Week on Saturday.
The show opened and closed with a relaxed pajama silhouette — deliberately rumpled and effortless — in a clash of stripes, with both shorts and long trousers.
The Beethoven soundtrack belied designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana’s more deliberate intent, underscoring the designers’ structured approach to soft tailoring.
A broad shoulder double-breasted suit jacket and tie worn with pink pinstriped PJ pants encapsulated the classic summer dilemma: work vs. pleasure.
Raw knitwear, or furry overcoats, added texture. Boxers peeked out of waistbands, and big shirt cuffs out of jacket sleeves, challenging formal and casual codes.
Nothing was cleaner on the runway than a crisp striped pajama top in sky-blue and white stripes tucked into white leather Bermuda shorts — good for work and for play.
The designers’ finale featured pajama suits, shorts and pants, with beaded floral patterned embroidery for an evening seaside shimmer, worn with fuzzy sliders. Twin cameo brooches gave an antique accent.
The crowd outside got to share in the fun when the finale models took the looks onto the streets, taking a full lap outside the designers’ Metropol theater. Front-row guests included actors Zane Phillips, Theo James, Lucien Laviscount and Michele Morrone.
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