Korva Coleman

There's nothing like encouragement to help you succeed. Or maybe you can just create it for yourself. Baylor's Brittney Griner had both Tuesday night as her top-seeded team blew past Florida State 85-47. She had a double double: 33 points and 22 rebounds, as Encourager-In-Chief and former President George W. Bush looked on with former first lady Laura Bush in Waco, Texas. But that wasn't all.

Colorado officials say a gun used in a shootout between Texas sheriff's deputies and a paroled felon Thursday is the same weapon used to kill the head of the Colorado's Department of Corrections two days earlier.

Good morning.

Our early headlines:

-- 'Monumental' Gay-Marriage Cases Could Set Law For Centuries

-- In Afghanistan: Kerry Wraps Up Trip; Police, U.K. Targeted In Attacks.

Here's the gist of what the most famous groundhog in the world told us on Feb. 2:

Punxsutawney Phil, the King of the Groundhogs,

Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of Prognosticators,

Weather Prophet without Peer,

was awakened from his burrow at 7:28 am

with a tap of the President's cane....

And so ye faithful,

there is no shadow to see

An early Spring for you and me.

What can you find underneath a British railroad or parking lot? These days it could be skeletons, and probably a lot of them. Last month, researchers announced the bones of a man discovered underneath a British parking lot were actually King Richard III. Today, a British rail project says some of its staff stumbled upon skeletons of people who may have died of the Black Death nearly 700 years ago, during an outbreak of bubonic plague.

Reports from Mali indicate few, if any radio broadcasts went out today in Bamako, the capital of Mali. Newspapers didn't publish morning editions either - journalists are angry over last week's arrest of Boukary Daou, the publisher of The Republican newspaper.

Update at 6:53 p.m. ET Rescuers End Search:

Hillsborough County Administrator Mike Merrill says efforts to find Jeffrey Bush, who disappeared in a sinkhole, have been discontinued. He says that the conditions at Bush's home have become too dangerous for rescue workers.

"At this point it's really not possible to recover the body," Merrill said at a news conference on Saturday.

He says workers will begin efforts to demolish the home on Sunday.

Our Original Post Continues:

After all the hoopla and news of people buying tools to catch Burmese pythons invading Florida, the state's monthlong hunt for them is over. Hunters caught 68 pythons. That's right, 68, according to The Associated Press, even though 1,600 people signed up with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission to search for them.

The top of this post was updated on Feb. 17 at 6:04 a.m.

At least 81 people are dead and another 180 are wounded after an explosive device went off in a crowded marketplace in Quetta, Pakistan. Photos from the scene show heavy smoke rising over buildings.

They thought they'd managed this problem a few years ago. But Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee got a disturbing call Friday from Energy Secretary Steven Chu: Nuclear waste is leaking out of a tank in one of the most contaminated nuclear waste sites in the U.S.