Los Angeles Kings fire coach Jim Hiller, name DJ Smith as interim

TheLos Angeles Kingshave fired head coach Jim Hiller,the team announcedon Sunday, March 1. In an effort to salvage their playoff hopes inAnze Kopitar's final season, the Kings will look elsewhere for leadership.

"I want to thank Jim Hiller for his dedication, professionalism, and the commitment he showed to our players and our team every day," Kings general manager Ken Holland said in a statement. "He is a respected coach and person, and we appreciate the work he's done behind our bench."

Holland named DJ Smith interim head coach through the remainder of the season. Smith, who is in his second full season as associate coach, was previously the head coach of theOttawa Senatorsfrom 2019-2023. He was also an assistant coach alongside Hiller in Toronto from 2015-2019.

Kings player development coach Matt Greene will serve as an assistant coach under Smith.

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"At this point in the season, we believe a change in leadership is necessary to give our group the best opportunity to reach its potential and compete at the level we expect," Holland said. "These decisions are never made lightly, but our responsibility is to position this team for success now and moving forward."

The Kings (24-21-14) currently sit three points out of a playoff spot. They lost their last three games going into the Olympic break and their first two games coming out of it, culminating in an 8-1 loss at home to theEdmonton Oilersthat led fans at Crypto.com Arena to break out into "Fire Hiller" chants.

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Hiller took over for Todd McClellan in February 2024 as an interim and led the Kings to a 21-12-1 finish to the season that ended in a first-round playoff loss to the Oilers in six games. He was named permanent head coach that May.

In his first full season, Hiller coached the Kings to 48 wins and 105 points, a franchise best. They met the Oilers again in the first round and held a 2-0 lead after the first two games at Crypto.com Arena, but fizzled out and lost the series in six games. It was the Kings' fourth consecutive first-round loss to the Oilers, who advanced to their second straight Stanley Cup Final.

Hiller came under fire for his decision-making during that series, but team president Luc Robitaille and Holland stuck by him.

In December, Holland again voiced his support for Hiller amid the team's struggles.

"I expect him to be here the rest of the season," he told reporters.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Los Angeles Kings fire coach Jim Hiller, hire DJ Smith as interim

byAlpha World

in Celebrities, Lifestyle, Politics, ShowBiz, Sports

March 01, 2026

Los Angeles Kings fire coach Jim Hiller, name DJ Smith as interim

TheLos Angeles Kingshave fired head coach Jim Hiller,the team announcedon Sunday, March 1. In an effort to salvage their ...

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US lawmakers see no Trump plan for Iran following strikes

By Doina Chiacu

Smoke rises following an explosion, after Israel and the U.S. launched strikes on Iran, in Tehran

March 1 (Reuters) - The United States has yet to spell out a "day-after" strategy for Iran following joint U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed much of the country's leadership, lawmakers from both major political parties said on Sunday.

U.S. President Donald Trump has called for a change in Iran's government, which has entered a period of uncertainty following the death of Supreme Leader ‌Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Saturday's attack. The strategy Trump has publicly outlined so far hinges largely on the hope that the Iranian people will rise up and determine their own future after decades ‌of repression.

Republicans expressed optimism about the attacks, while Democrats were skeptical they would lead to a favorable outcome, but lawmakers on both sides were uncertain about the immediate future. Trump told the Daily Mail later on Sunday that the military operation could continue for four weeks.

WHAT ​COMES NEXT?

Lawmakers appearing on Sunday morning talk shows all opposed deploying U.S. ground forces to Iran.

"There's no simple answer for what's going to come next," Senator Tom Cotton, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee from Arkansas, said on CBS News' "Face the Nation."

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a staunch Trump ally and defense hawk, echoed the U.S. president's call for the Iranian people to decide who should lead their government.

"You know, this idea, 'You break it, you own it,' I don't buy that one bit," Graham said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program. "This is not Iraq. This is not Germany. This is not Japan. We're going to free the people up from a terrorist regime."

Khamenei's death set ‌off a process under which a three-person council will run the country until ⁠a separate clerical body selects a new supreme leader.

Asked if the U.S. had identified a leader of the Iranian opposition that Iran's people could rally behind, Cotton said: "The opposition is 90 million Iranians who have suffered under the brutal Islamic Republic Revolutionary regime for the last 47 years."

Senator Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, said he could not see ⁠how regime change in Iran could happen with the current operation.

"There's no example I know of in modern history where regime change has happened solely through air strikes," Coons said on CNN's "State of the Union" program.

Before Saturday's air strikes, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency assessed that hardline figures from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could replace Khamenei if he were killed, two sources briefed on the intelligence said.

Trump on Sunday said that 48 leading figures in Iran's government had been killed so ​far. ​Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, pointed to the earlier CIA assessment.

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"So, we are not going to get a democracy. We ​are going to get an even worse Iranian leadership," Murphy told the CBS program. "It's ‌no secret that this administration has no plan for the chaos that is unfolding right now in the Middle East."

'WAR OF CHOICE'

The U.S. and Israeli strikes, as well as Iranian retaliation, have sent shockwaves through multiple sectors, such as shipping, air travel and oil, amid warnings of rising energy costs and disruption to business in the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway.

Three U.S. service members have been killed and another five were seriously wounded, in the first U.S. casualties of the unfolding operations against Iran, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

Trump justified the attack in part by pointing to the threat of an Iranian nuclear program that he had until recently claimed had been "obliterated" by U.S. air strikes last June.

While Trump's fellow Republicans largely fell in line behind the president, several Democratic lawmakers said the attack was illegal because only Congress has the right to declare war under the Constitution.

Senator Mark ‌Warner, the Democratic vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee from Virginia, who was among the eight lawmakers briefed last week ​before the strikes, said the administration did not provide evidence of an imminent threat. Instead, Warner said, Trump started a "war of choice."

"I ​saw no intelligence that Iran was on the verge of launching any kind of pre-emptive strike ​against the United States," Warner said on CNN's "State of the Union."

Warner and U.S. Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, expressed concern that it could drag the United States into another ‌long and messy conflict in the Middle East.

Khanna, who is helping lead an ​attempt in the House of Representatives to block further military ​action without congressional approval, said it was unclear how Iran would be governed following Khamenei's death.

"Khamenei was a brutal dictator, but Americans are not safer today," Khanna said. "The question is: 'Is the country going to descend in civil war? Are billions of our dollars going to be spent there? Are American troops going to be at risk?'"

Lawmakers said they wanted to avoid a prolonged and costly conflict reminiscent of ​the Iraq War, which dragged on for years and claimed thousands of U.S. ‌lives.

Senator Rick Scott, a Republican from Florida, said he hopes U.S. involvement in Iran can be completed within a month.

"It all depends on... whoever the new leader is in Iran," Scott ​told Fox's "Sunday Morning Futures" show. "We're going to finish this, and if we don't, we'll be doing this in five years, in 10 years."

(Reporting by P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago, Doina Chiacu in ​Washington, Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut and Doyinsola Oladipo in New York; Editing by Sergio Non and Bill Berkrot)

byAlpha World

in Celebrities, Lifestyle, Politics, ShowBiz, Sports

March 01, 2026

US lawmakers see no Trump plan for Iran following strikes

By Doina Chiacu Smoke rises following an explosion, after Israel and the U.S. launched strikes on Iran, in ...

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Cardinals double down on manager Oliver Marmol with new two‑year deal

TheSt. Louis Cardinalsand Oliver Marmol have agreed to a two-year contract extension, the club announced Sunday, March 1, affording the manager a measure of security as the club plunges deeper into a rebuild.

Marmol, 39, is entering his fifth season as Cardinals manager, a stint that began with a 2022 NL Central title and appearance in the wild-card series, yet took a downturn with win totals ranging from 71 to 83 wins and no playoff berths in the three subsequent seasons.

Yet as the club prepared to move on from longtime baseball operations president John Mozeliak, Marmol kept a steady hand and endured through the transition to new baseball chief Chaim Bloom. And the extension would certainly quell whispers that two-time World Series champion Yadier Molina might be a manager-in-waiting.

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Molina was hired in January as a special assistant to Bloom, tasked with working with the Cardinals' catchers, and is the manager for Puerto Rico's World Baseball Classic squad.

Marmol's extension runs through the 2028 season and includes a club option for 2029.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Cardinals extend Oliver Marmol with new two‑year deal

byAlpha World

in Celebrities, Lifestyle, Politics, ShowBiz, Sports

March 01, 2026

Cardinals double down on manager Oliver Marmol with new two‑year deal

TheSt. Louis Cardinalsand Oliver Marmol have agreed to a two-year contract extension, the club announced Sunday, March 1,...

Read More