Jameis Winston threw a 2-yard touchdown pass to Kelvin Benjamin with 13 seconds left and No. 1 Florida State beat No. 2 Auburn 34-31 to win the last BCS national championship game on Monday night.

Winston struggled much of the night but was near perfect when the Seminoles (14-0) needed it most, going 6 for 7 for 77 yards on the game-winning 80-yard drive. A pass interference penalty on Auburn’s Chris Davis gave Florida State a first-and-goal at the 2 and on the next play Winston hit his big receiver for the touchdown.

“I said this from Day 1 in spring ball. These kids are special,” coach Jimbo Fisher said. “This group never faltered. They wanted to be elite. They wanted to go to the top and there’s so much character in this group.”

Read it all from AP.

In the field of higher education, reality is outrunning parody. A recent feature on the satire website the Onion proclaimed, “30-Year-Old Has Earned $11 More Than He Would Have Without College Education.” Allowing for tuition, interest on student loans, and four years of foregone income while in school, the fictional student “Patrick Moorhouse” wasn’t much better off. His years of stress and study, the article japed, “have been more or less a financial wash.”

“Patrick” shouldn’t feel too bad. Many college graduates would be happy to be $11 ahead instead of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, behind. The credit-driven higher education bubble of the past several decades has left legions of students deep in debt without improving their job prospects. To make college a good value again, today’s parents and students need to be skeptical, frugal and demanding. There is no single solution to what ails higher education in the U.S., but changes are beginning to emerge, from outsourcing to online education, and they could transform the system.

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Shaw’s 9-yard touchdown catch from receiver Bruce Ellington was one of five scores in his final game. He contributed to every touchdown in No. 8 South Carolina’s 34-24 win over No. 19 Wisconsin before a crowd of 56,629 at Florida Citrus Bowl in Orlando.

It was the Gamecocks’ (11-2) third straight bowl victory over a Big Ten opponent, and their third straight 11-win season. For the Badgers (9-4), it was their fourth straight bowl loss.

It was also the storybook ending to Shaw’s career – passing, receiving and rushing for a touchdown on his way to being named the Capital One Bowl MVP. Shaw completed 22-of-25 passes for 312 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. He iced the game with a 1-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter.

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But there’s a problem. [Charles] Lindblom’s common-sense insight has a giant exception: crises. Change, forced by outside events, then happens by “leaps and bounds.” The recent financial crisis caused Congress and two presidents to embrace measures (the rescue of big banks, General Motors and Chrysler) that were unthinkable a few months earlier. In the 1960s, civil rights demonstrations pushed Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that, in outlawing most public racial discrimination, wasn’t “incremental.” History offers other examples, including the Civil War, the New Deal and both World Wars. Small changes won’t suffice when big changes are required.

On the budget, muddling through comes with a crucial assumption. It is that continuous deficits won’t provoke a crisis that compels political leaders to take harsh steps that they would otherwise not take. This optimism may be justified. For decades, “experts” have warned of the dire consequences of unchecked deficits. Yet no great crisis has occurred. But this conviction also could be complacency. Government debt is in territory that, except for wartime debt, is unprecedented. We don’t know the consequences. Someday, we may no longer have the luxury of muddling through.

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“If the Lord told me I could redo two years of my life–if I could take a mulligan–I would choose the two years after Bible College. Hands down. I joke about it, but it really was the worst time. There was so much pride in my life….”

Go here, then to the table of contents, then to page 58 to read the rest.

A third [friend of Erin Wurzel]…posted her holiday table setting in Paris, complete with burning candles, rolled napkins with napkin rings, an open Champagne bottle, a huge centerpiece of fall flowers and the illuminated Eiffel Tower framed in a casement window.

“I let out an ”˜Oh, my God!,’ like a little kid who wants something they cannot have,” said Ms. Wurzel, a program analyst in Philadelphia who uses the Instagram handle likewantneed. “You’re searching through your feed and a picture will hit you, like that Paris shot. It’s just so perfect. You just think, ”˜I want that, I want that life.’ ”

It’s called Instagram envy, and Ms. Wurzel had it bad.

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May 11, 1942: Five months into World War II, a young Coast Guardsman from Iowa was shown in a photo feature exhibiting the “typical actions and reactions of the thousands of service men from small towns who, since the war began, have made their maiden journey to the ”˜big city.’”

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“We found out today that Isaac took his life,” says the email sent by Darling Murray, a coordinator at Summit Church in Orlando. “We are obviously deeply deeply devastated and saddened beyond words by this news. The tears keep coming and coming as we mourn. We are praying for his family and this congregation as we walk through this together.”

Officials of Northland, a Church Distributed, said they are still awaiting the police report on Isaac Hunter’s death, but the church confirmed his death in a statement posted on the Northland website.

“By now you may have heard that Pastor Joel and Becky’s son Isaac Hunter died today. All of us are grieving for the Hunter family, and we will deeply miss Isaac. Words cannot express the sorrow we’re feeling,” said the statement by Vernon Rainwater, a Northland pastor. “We love this family and are so grateful for the impact they have had on each of our lives. I have loved Isaac since he was a child, and I know this … Isaac loved Jesus. And we are assured of his continuing relationship with Christ now in heaven.”

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…one change, over time, could reverse the problems that have built up over the past few decades: We should mandate military service for all Americans, men and women alike, when they turn 18. The idea is radical, unlikely and impractical ”” but it just might work.

There is no better explanation for what has gone wrong in Washington in recent years than the tabulation done every two years of how many members of Congress served in the military.

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No. 10 South Carolina beat No. 6 Clemson, 31-17, before a crowd of 84,174 at Williams-Brice Stadium. The Gamecocks forced six turnovers, including three from Boyd in the fourth quarter. After Boyd’s fumble, he threw two interceptions.

USC (10-2) won its fifth straight game over Clemson for the first time in the rivalry’s 111-game history. It’s the furthest one team has extended a streak since 1940, when Clemson (10-2) won its seventh straight.

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A 76-year-old woman who was knocked to the ground by a stranger yesterday is thought to be the latest victim in a dangerous ‘knock out’ game in New York.

Yvonne Small was walking through Brooklyn at about 11.30am when an unidentified person punched her in the back of the head.

Ms Small, who was knocked to the ground in the unprovoked attack, is believed to the the tenth victim in a sick craze.

Read it all from the Daily Mail.

Of course, this is a case where the religious practices of the business are conflicting with the government’s directives about the sort of health care its employees are obligated to expect. We’ve been through the arguments surrounding it before, so I’m not keen on repeating all of that. I’ll simply point to this excellent paper that lays out the legal case for Hobby Lobby’s defense and open the floor, er, comments for anyone who reads it and disagrees to make the case.

But this case will be a real conflict for young evangelicals, for whom the distribution of birth control sometimes seems like a shibboleth that borders on a right. For many of them, I suspect the wariness toward Hobby Lobby and the conservative case on this question has more to do with commitments to contraception personally and as a social good than any understanding of religious liberty or corporate religious beliefs.

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While automakers and dealers lament that younger buyers have neither money nor brand loyalty when it comes to buying a car, a host of services are looking to the crowd to help them save for what could be the biggest purchase they will make for several years.

Geared toward first-time buyers, these services, like BoostUp, a Detroit-based company that Ms. Frandsen and Mr. Burris used, are trying to turn car-buying into a social experience.

Toyota and Google, for example, are announcing on Wednesday the Toyota Collaborator, a social car shopping tool where potential Corolla buyers can discuss decisions with friends and family in real time using Google Hangouts.

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First, a lot is meant to happen before you are 35. It used to be that parents were a few years into their duties at least. No longer. Family formation is being delayed ”“ sadly, often for too long. High housing costs and weak wages mean young people may not feel able to have the family lives that they would want.

Second, a world of ever-escalating house prices will embed inequality….

These problems are too serious for (usually older) people to wave away. Nor are they easy to solve at a stroke. Part of the problem is that global competition and automation have removed a lot of decent starting jobs. But there are ways to help. We could subsidise employment and education for the young a bit more. Tax and planning law could be reformed to create incentives to build new housing. None of the obvious pro-young ideas is simple, but none is even on the agenda. Politics tends to pander to the old.

Read it all (if necessary, another link may be found there).

The Empowered21 Next Gen Youth Leaders Network (NGYN21) hosted a summit comprised of youth leaders from around the globe. The youth leaders discussed topics such as Spirit-empowered living in the 21st century, the impact of the Holy Spirit on discipleship and developing young Spirit-empowered disciples in the ministry.

“We seem to think there is a different method used in other countries,” said Christ for All Nations President Daniel Kolenda. “The gospel works with humanity and all cultures. We were created to receive it. Just preach its simplicity and let the Holy Spirit do the drawing. God is going to give our generation a message that is so old, they think it is new. The hub is the gospel of salvation; the other spokes will align.”

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Are you kidding me? Wow.

More and more atheist groups are replacing antagonism with civility, motivated by human reason to do charitable work rather than spite against all things religious, said Greg Epstein, humanist chaplain at Harvard University and author of “Good without God.”

“We’re really not that interested in tearing people down anymore. We’re trying to tear down bad beliefs, but not the people who believe them,” he said. “What’s going to emerge from this is a more powerful and influential secular humanist community. There really are millions and millions of us. It was easier to dismiss us when they pigeon-holed us as anti-religious. We’re not. We’re millions of good people, working to build a better society for everyone.”

Declining membership and the graduations of Atheist Agenda leaders last semester precipitated the change, Schmidt said. Former leaders did not return repeated requests for comment. But former members, now active with the Secular Student Alliance, said the old guard encountered resistance last semester to its over-the-top methods.

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Anyone who has listened to much Bruce Springsteen has surely noticed the singer’s fondness for biblical allusions in his lyrics. Now Rutgers University is making a study of them.

The college in New Brunswick, N.J., will be offering a freshman seminar examining the theology of Springsteen, according to a Q&A on the Rutgers Today PR site with Azzan Yadin-Israel, the course professor. The class will cover Springsteen’s entire discography, from 1973’s “Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.” to last year’s “Wrecking Ball.”

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You’ve heard us say that we like Jesus but not the church, and it’s not because we’re trying to be difficult. It’s because the Jesus we read about enters into the pain of humanity where so often the church people seem to want to float above it.

In the end, it’s not really about what churches say or don’t say. What millennials want is to be seen. Understood. Loved. It’s what everyone wants, really. And for this generation of journeyers? Choosing honesty over cliché is a really great place to start.

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Elite business-school graduates are increasingly heading to work in technology over finance as the lingering aftereffects of the financial crisis””along with Wall Street’s long hours and scaled-back pay””sends newly minted M.B.A.s elsewhere.

At Harvard Business School, 18% of job-seeking students landed tech-sector spots this year, up from 12% in 2012. A similar shift is under way at the business schools at Yale University and Cornell University, where the share of graduates going into tech more than doubled over the past two years.

Meanwhile, just 27% of Harvard Business School graduates took jobs in finance this year, down from 35% last year. That figure dropped to 16% from 27% at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

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Insurers say the early buyers of health coverage on the nation’s troubled new websites are older than expected so far, raising early concerns about the economics of the insurance marketplaces.

If the trend continues, an older, more expensive set of customers could drive up prices for everyone, the insurers say, by forcing them to spread their costs around. “We need a broad range of people to make this work, and we’re not seeing that right now,” said Heather Thiltgen of Medical Mutual of Ohio, the state’s largest insurer by individual customers. “We’re seeing the population skewing older.”

The early numbers, described to The Wall Street Journal by insurance executives, agents, state officials and actuaries, are still small””partly a consequence of the continuing technical problems plaguing the federally run exchanges, experts say. HealthCare.gov, the federally run marketplace serving 36 states, is suffering serious technical problems that have prevented many people from signing up.

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With mainline religious congregations dwindling across America, a scattering of churches is trying to attract new members by creating a different sort of Christian community. They are gathering around craft beer.

Some church groups are brewing it themselves, while others are bring the Holy Mysteries to a taproom. The result is not sloshed congregants; rather, it’s an exploratory approach to do church differently.

Leah Stanfield stands at a microphone across the room from the beer taps and reads this evening’s gospel message.

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In the late 1990s, I heard sociologist David Popenoe make a brilliant observation out of a few obvious facts. He noted that there was an increasingly long period of time in human development between when people mature sexually and when they marry. This growing period of time would, he observed, provide the average American young person with a lot of practice at being non-monogamous (or, at best, serious experience with serial monogamy). He suggested that this would undermine success in marriage.

If the average person can have sex and even make a baby by age 14, and the average person marries at age 27, we’re talking a 13-year period with a lot of independence and (for many) relatively few responsibilities. That’s Vegas.

So does what happens in Vegas stay in Vegas? Most of the time, no. What happens in romantic and sexual relationships before one settles down can negatively impact the options one will have moving forward in life. But many people do not believe that, as it runs counter to the tide of messages, media, and culture that support the Vegas Syndrome.

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Jadeveon Clowney hobbled down the hill leading from the visitors’ locker room here, headphones around his neck, a pizza box in his left hand, a smile on his face. At the bottom of the hill was his family. And beyond them, a few dozen South Carolina fans were waiting behind metal fences, calling his name.

The Gamecocks had just beaten then-No. 5 Missouri in double overtime Saturday, and Clowney had not necessarily dominated the game as a defensive end, but his star was still as bright as could be.

“I don’t have nothing to prove,” Clowney said as he approached his family and fans. “They keep doubting ”” we’re going to keep winning. Let them keep doubting us. That’s all I can say. It’s a team sport.

“For all what people think about me ”” I just want to win with my team.”

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BOB FAW, correspondent: This is “coming out day” at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. At this Jesuit institution, three dozen students celebrate homosexual and lesbian lifestyles even though the Catholic Church considers them immoral. Thomas Lloyd is president of Georgetown’s Gay Pride.

THOMAS LLOYD (Student, Georgetown University): By recognizing pride, Georgetown has become more true to its Jesuit values. Commitments to social justice are some of the most important and historically grounded parts of Catholic doctrine.

FAW: But what is sanctioned at one Catholic university is anathema at another: Florida’s Ave Maria University.

JIM TOWEY (President, Ave Maria University): This is a university that’s founded on biblical truth, on scripture, and on the sacramental richness of the Catholic Church….

Read or watch and listen to it all.

Ai Aoyama is a sex and relationship counsellor who works out of her narrow three-story home on a Tokyo back street. Aoyama, 52, is trying to cure what Japan’s media calls sekkusu shinai shokogun, or “celibacy syndrome”. Japan’s under-40s appear to be losing interest in conventional relationships. Millions aren’t even dating, and increasing numbers can’t be bothered with sex.

Japan’s under-40s won’t go forth and multiply out of duty, as postwar generations did. The country is undergoing major social transition after 20 years of economic stagnation. It is also battling against the effects on its already nuclear-destruction-scarred psyche of 2011’s earthquake, tsunami and radioactive meltdown. There is no going back. “Both men and women say to me they don’t see the point of love. They don’t believe it can lead anywhere,” says Aoyama. “Relationships have become too hard.”

Japan’s punishing corporate world makes it almost impossible for women to combine a career and family, while children are unaffordable unless both parents work. Cohabiting or unmarried parenthood is still unusual, dogged by bureaucratic disapproval.

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TALK about taking control of your own romantic destiny! Amid the quagmire of crazy bride stories we’ve heard this week has emerged a pearler about a woman who got married to, well, herself.

Mary-Anne was apparently so upset at turning 30 without a ring she threw herself a big fake wedding at a five-star venue with about 100 guests.

The Melbourne woman’s wedding planner Sarah McCawley from weddingwish.com.au says it was one of the most memorable weddings she has ever organised.

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Clearly this payout trend is unsustainable, but what politician dare touch it?

Social Security is not that difficult a problem in theory (at least in comparison to Medicare), except for the politics of it all. Numerous things could be done to put the system in the green.

Possible Ways to Make Social Security Actuarially Sound

Raise retirement age
Raise or eliminate the cap on payroll taxes
Cut benefits
Collect Social Security on personal income
Implement a Tiered Cap structure
Means Testing

Democrats would oppose 1 and 3. Republicans might oppose all but 3. So, how does this mess end if politicians won’t touch it?

Read it all and make sure to take a careful look at the charts.

The one-way communication from pulpit to pew is not how Millennials experience faith. By nature of digital connectedness, Millennial life is interactive. For many of them, faith is interactive as well””whether their churches are ready for it or not. It’s an ongoing conversation, and it’s all happening on their computers, tablets and smart phones. What’s more, many of them bring their devices with them to church. Now with the ability to fact-check at their fingertips, Millennials aren’t taking the teaching of faith leaders for granted. In fact, 14% of Millennials say they search to verify something a faith leader has said. A striking 38% of practicing Christian Millennials say the same.

Beyond the congregation, technology is also changing how Millennials learn about and discuss their faith. This generation is accustomed to foraging in multiple digital places at any given time””from texting to Twitter to Instagram, from news feeds to blogs and more. This digital deluge naturally includes matters of faith and spirituality. For example, more than four out of 10 practicing Christian Millennials say they participate in online conversations about faith, and the same number say they blog or post comments on blogs about spiritual matters.

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Stan Druckenmiller makes an unlikely class warrior. He’s a member of the 1%””make that the 0.001%””one of the most successful money managers of all time, and 60 years old to boot. But lately he has been touring college campuses promoting a message of income redistribution you don’t hear out of Washington. It’s how federal entitlements like Medicare and Social Security are letting Mr. Druckenmiller’s generation rip off all those doting Barack Obama voters in Generation X, Y and Z.

“I have been shocked at the reception. I had planned to only visit Bowdoin, ” his alma mater in Maine, he says. But he has since been invited to multiple campuses, and even the kids at Stanford and Berkeley have welcomed his theme of generational theft. Harlem Children’s Zone President Geoffrey Canada and former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh have joined him at stops along the tour.

Mr. Druckenmiller describes the reaction of students: “The biggest question I got was, ‘How do we start a movement?’ And my answer was ‘I’m a 60-year-old washed-up money manager. I don’t know how to start a movement. That’s your job. But we did it in Vietnam without Twitter and without Facebook and without any social media. That’s your job.’ But the enthusiasm””they get it.”

Read it all.