LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Unbeaten two-time defending national champion Tufts University continues to be the pacesetter atop the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Division III Top 25 softball rankings.

Tufts (38-0) extended its victory streak to 40 games, dating back to the final two games of the NCAA Championship Series last May, and holds the No. 1 spot for the 11th week this season and 14th consecutive week. The Jumbos have now won 71 of their last 72 and have received every first-place vote going back to last April. They have been ranked first in 15 of the last 18 polls and 20 of the last 24.

The next three teams remain unchanged for the third straight week, with Texas-Tyler (37-1), East Texas Baptist (31-2) and Luther (35-3). Trine (33-2) joins them in the top five, replacing Virginia Wesleyan (29-6), which dropped five spots to 10th after two losses as the top seed in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference tournament.

Last year’s Division III runner-up Salisbury (30-6) won four straight to move up two places to sixth, while Emory (31-7) gained two spots to seventh and Wisconsin-Whitewater (32-6) surged five places to No. 8.

Rowan (34-4) finally stopped its steady climb up the rankings, but remains in the top 10 at No. 9, and won its first New Jersey Athletic Conference tournament contest on Tuesday behind Beth Ann Hyland’s one-hit gem.

Washington (33-11) University had the biggest fall this week, eight places to a tie with Hope (27-7) for 20th, while Alfred (31-3) kept up its winning ways for the second-best gain (four spots) to 18th.

Overall, 12 teams in rankings have win streaks of 12 or more games.

No. 23 Fontbonne (27-9) and No. 25 Wisconsin-Eau Claire (25-16) join Ramapo (25-11-1) and William Paterson (27-9-1) in the receiving votes category as the newcomers this week.

Birmingham-Southern, Simpson and Wisconsin-La Crosse, meanwhile, are the three teams that dropped out this week.

The NFCA Division III Top 25 Poll is selected by eight NCAA Division III head coaches representing the eight NCAA regions. Current records are listed, with first-place votes in parentheses.

For the complete poll, click HERE

TORONTO — Ontario’s financial watchdog says the province’s deficit will rise to $12.3 billion this fiscal year, half a billion more than he predicted before the spring election.

Financial Accountability Officer Peter Weltman says policy decisions such as cancelling the cap-and-trade program and reversing several tax increases, combined with a weaker economic forecast, contributed to the change.

In his fall economic and budget outlook, Weltman says that without further policy changes, the deficit is expected to exceed $16 billion by 2022-23.

He says that while the government’s fall economic statement did not include a budget forecast beyond this year, balancing the books in one mandate would require “significant changes” to policy that could have wide-ranging impacts on Ontario households and businesses.

The FAO’s spring report, issued just weeks before the provincial election, said the province’s deficit would jump to $11.8 billion in 2018 as a result of higher spending in the budget presented by the then-governing Liberals, as well as weak revenue gains.

The Liberals had projected a deficit of $6.7 billion, a figure that was also called into question by Ontario’s auditor general.

The Tories have since accepted the auditor general’s accounting but said a commission of inquiry and financial review convened to examine government spending found the province’s deficit will grow to $15 billion this year.

They said this fall that various savings measures had brought that number down to $14.5 billion.

The FAO says its projections do not include any election promises that the government has yet to act on or announce.

Earlier On HuffPost:

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If you’re planning a wedding right now, here’s a quick and easy tip to reduce stress, strengthen your friendships and keep your wedding on track: don’t ask your guests to give you $1,500 in cash. Seems reasonable, right?

Not for everyone, apparently.

An anonymous bride who was initially identified as “Canadian Susan” didn’t follow this sage advice, and called off her wedding after her guests refused the bizarre and unreasonable request. As a result, her over-the-top, post-wedding-planning Facebook rant — in which she calls her friends “the C***S who have ruined my marriage and life” — has gone viral.

A follow-up post by someone claiming to be her cousin says Susan is actually American. Keep in mind this was posted in a private Facebook group, where content is user-submitted and unverified. And, of course anyone can make anything up on the internet.

Also consider that what you’re about to read, fact or fiction, is truly a wild ride into the very real phenomenon that weddings make people do nutty things.

The post starts off with the writer, “Susan,” expressing sadness that her upcoming wedding has been cancelled. She then talks about her plan to delete Facebook and backpack in South America, “exploring my soul and ridding myself of toxic energy brought on by my friends and family.”

She and her now-ex-fiancé had saved up $15,000 for their wedding, she said. “Since our love was like a fairy tale, we wanted an extravagant blow-out wedding,” she wrote. With some help from a local psychic — red flag alert — they decided on a destination wedding to Aruba. Total cost: $60,000. For those of you keeping track, that leaves $45,000 unaccounted for.

Story continues after video:

“How could we have OUR dream wedding that WE dreamed of without proper funding?” she asks. Good question — perhaps the answer is YOU can’t. (This creative capitalization is surprisingly fun! I can see why Susan likes it SO much.)

She did what etiquette would agree no one should ever do: she asked her guests to foot the bill for the extravagant destination wedding she couldn’t afford. “We’d sacrificed so much and only asked each guest for $1,500,” she wrote. That’s right, only $1,500.

It’s unclear whether these are American or Canadian dollars, since we don’t know for sure where Susan lives. Regardless, that’s a ton of money.

Somehow, the maid of honour (which is spelled the American way, for what that’s worth) offered $5,000, and the groom’s family offered $3,000. And then “only” eight people answered yes to the RSVP with a $1,500 cheque.

Susan, of course, is horrified by that. But the fact that eight people were actually willing to go along with her request, rather than zero, is actually astonishing. If they were trying to cover $45,000, that meant 30 wedding guests got the request for $1,500. Eight out of 30 ain’t bad!

For reasons that aren’t specified and that are probably completely unfair, given just how kind and reasonable she’s shown herself to be up to this point, some of the people who pledged money, including the groom’s family and the maid of honour, began to rescind their offers. A GoFundMe account raised only $250.

Then her loved ones did the truly unthinkable: they told her that she was being unreasonable and asking for too much. Her fiancé suggested a cheap Vegas wedding, a suggestion she did not take kindly to. (“Am I some Hooch piece of f**king trash, a hooker?”) They broke up.

The post quickly went viral over the weekend, and was retweeted by Chrissy Teigen.

Someone who identified herself as Susan’s cousin added some background info: Susan has long been entitled but has never before been this obnoxious, she says. She grew up on a farm and in recent years has gotten deeply into the Kardashians, social media, and designer labels.

“When I try to analyze her and her entitled behaviour, I believe deep down she’s very insecure about her status and how she stacks up to others,” the cousin wrote. She also doubts Susan is actually going to go to South America — she’s never been outside of the U.S., apparently — and says she suspects Susan may have been drinking when the post was published. It was only up for about 15 minutes before it was deleted, she says.

Like anything else in life, this is a teachable moment. Don’t air your grievances on Facebook. (Especially after possibly throwing back a bottle of whiskey.)

Don’t put so much emphasis on one day of your life that you lose touch with reality. And please, for the love of whatever deity you believe in, do not ask your wedding guests for $1,500 cash.

OTTAWA — Canada Post on Tuesday revealed deeper losses it’s booking because of a massive pay-equity order this year, while the federal government insisted back-to-work legislation that sent striking postal workers back to their jobs is constitutional.

In releasing its third-quarter financial results, Canada Post highlighted how it was bleeding red ink even before its unionized workforce started rotating strikes last month.

The losses, it said, were a direct result of a historic pay-equity ruling announced in September, which awarded suburban and rural postal employees a 25-per-cent pay hike.

“Canada Post recorded a loss before tax of $94 million for the third quarter of 2018, mainly due to the costs of implementing the final pay-equity ruling,” the corporation said.

The arbitrator’s decision was a hangover from the last round of contract negotiations between CUPW and Canada Post.

The agency said it expected pay equity would cost it $550 million by the end of the year, including a charge of $130 million that was put on its books in the final quarter of 2017.

Combined with the costs associated with the rotating walkouts that began Oct. 22 and came to a forced end on Tuesday, Canada Post said it expected to end 2018 with a loss, and that pay equity would result in ongoing annual costs of about $140 million.

While CUPW members celebrated the pay-equity award, a key issue in its ongoing labour dispute with Canada Post has been the treatment of those same rural and suburban mail carriers, known as RSMCs. They’re more likely to be female, and historically have been paid less, than their urban counterparts.

Watch: Hajdu says “positive labour relations” are a priority in recently passed back-to-work legislation.

The union vowed Tuesday to continue fighting for equality for RSMCs, warning of potential court action over the government’s back-to-work legislation, Bill C-89.

It will ultimately be up to the courts to decide whether the legislation is constitutional, Labour Minister Patty Hajdu said on her way into a morning meeting with her cabinet colleagues, should it be legally challenged by CUPW.

“We’re confident that this was the appropriate time to move forward with this legislation,” Hajdu said. “There was a significant, growing economic harm to the country, small businesses were struggling, rural and remote communities were struggling. There really wasn’t a way forward for the two parties. They were at a complete impasse.”

The bill received royal assent on Monday after senators approved it by a vote of 53-25, with four abstentions.

CUPW said it is exploring all options to fight the legislation.

“After 37 days of rotating strikes, unconstitutional legislation has removed the right to strike for postal workers,” it said in a statement. “Legal strike action ends at noon today, but the struggle is not over.”

The union also told its members to return to their regularly scheduled shifts at noon Tuesday but warned it would soon call on its allies and members for a campaign that includes “mobilizations, demonstrations and non-violent civil disobedience.”

“All options remain on the table to achieve negotiated collective agreements that address health and safety, inequitable treatment, fair wages and working conditions, and the democratic right to free collective bargaining,” it said.

In 2016, CUPW won a legal challenge of back-to-work legislation in Ontario Superior Court.

However, Hajdu insisted Tuesday that the previous bill, introduced by the former Conservative government, was very different from the one passed by her government.

Specifically, she said the Liberal government’s bill did not dictate how a number of bargaining issues should be settled.

She also said it appoints a mediator-arbitrator to be chosen either through the consensus of the two parties or in an independent way through advice given to her.

Earlier Tuesday, a group representing Canadian businesses praised the federal government for legislating postal employees back to work, saying it will help clear hefty backlogs of mail ahead of the busy holiday season.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business said it was pleased Ottawa listened to business owners, and described the postal strike as “an emergency for many small firms and for Canadian consumers.”

Federation president Dan Kelly said 71 per cent of members it surveyed supported back-to-work legislation and two-thirds of small businesses reported they had been negatively affected by the strike.

“Back-to-work legislation is never an easy choice, but it will help salvage the holiday season for small firms and consumers,” he said in the statement.

Canada Post said Tuesday that it could not live up to its normal delivery standards through the remainder of the year, and going into January 2019, as a result of backlogs of mail and parcel deliveries at its main sorting plants in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.

Earlier on HuffPost:

Gwyneth Paltrow — who has touted, among other things, the health benefits of shooting coffee up our butts, inserting jade eggs into our vaginas, and partaking in a sacred snake ceremony for better sex, all via her lifestyle brand Goop — has bowed to the pressure of relaying actual facts.

Paltrow revealed she will be hiring a full-time fact checker in September, calling the move a “necessary growing pain” in a New York Times interview published Wednesday.

Many of the claims made by the actress-turned-lifestyle-guru’s brand have been debunked by health experts, but Canadian-born OB-GYN Jen Gunter may be leading the pack with her 30 fact-filled but sassy blog posts dedicated to “bad goop advice” (some of which have generated more than 800,000 pages views, according to the New York Times).

Gunter, who was born and raised in Winnipeg and now practices medicine in San Francisco, has made headlines with her critiques and memorable Goop one-liners such as “keep the coffee out of your rectum and in your cup” and “tampons are not vaginal death sticks.”

That’s why, when Paltrow said she was hiring a fact checker, the internet nominated Gunter. But while Gunter previously gave in to peer pressure and “volunteered as tribute” to attend Paltrow’s lifestyle summit “In Goop Health” earlier this year, she passed on her fans’ offer this time, noting she’s been fact checking without pay for years.

“Thank you to everyone who suggested Goop hire me as a fact checker. They would only ask if their page clicks go down and they need to generate controversy. Also, they owe me too much back pay,” Gunter wrote in a tweet Wednesday.

In a subsequent tweet, she noted that her upcoming book, The Vagina Bible, will be all anyone needs to fact check any Goop claim about “the vulva, vagina and any products for the lower genital tract.”

Criticisms or ‘cultural firestorms’?

Goop’s website — which has also promoted mugwort vaginal steaming, said underwire bras could cause breast cancer, and sells a “Chill Child Kid Calming Mist” containing a “blend of sonically tuned gem elixirs” to spray into your “wild child’s aura to restore peace” — has been widely criticized for relaying incorrect and even harmful health information to its millions of visitors.

But Paltrow calls those moments “cultural firestorms” and has welcomed the attention and inevitable traffic to Goop’s website, recently telling Harvard students that she can “monetize those eyeballs,” according to the New York Times.

“It’s a cultural firestorm when it’s about a woman’s vagina,” Paltrow said to the classroom, according to the Times.

“The room was silent. She then cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, ‘VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA!’ as if she were yodeling,” the article noted.

Goop, there it is.

Internet nominates another Canadian fact checker

Canadians appear to be a favoured choice for Paltrow’s fact-checking gig.

On Wednesday, renowned University of Alberta law professor Timothy Caulfield got a few nods from the internet, as well. Caulfield is the author of Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything?: When Celebrity Culture and Science Clash.

“I think given that she is sort of explicitly saying that she is an expert or holding herself out as an expert, it’s fair to hold her to some kind of standard, and I think the standard should be science,” Caulfield said in a 2015 interview with Canadian Press.

There is no official word on who will actually be the new Goop fact checker.

Netflix and Dreamworks Animation have debuted the trailer for Season 8 of Voltron: Legendary Defender – the final outing for the Paladins and their allies as they attempt to defeat the Galra Empire once and for all.

The action-packed new teaser features a look back at Keith, Lance, Hunk, Pidge, Shiro, and Alura’s journey up to this point, along with plenty of explosive battle scenes from Season 8, as well as an intriguing split-second shot where Haggar seems to be channeling her former appearance as Honerva.

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The stakes couldn’t be higher in the final season – as Alura says in the teaser, “This is our only chance to save all of existence,” so no pressure.

The final season of Voltron: Legendary Defender debuts globally on Netflix on Dec. 14.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Two-time defending national champion Tufts University stays put as the unanimous choice atop the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Division III Top 25 softball rankings.

They have received all eight first-place votes in the first four polls this season and last seven polls overall going back to last April. Tufts has been ranked No. 1 in eight of the last 11 polls and 13 of the last 17.

The Jumbos went 5-1 in the NCAA Championship at Texas-Tyler’s Suddenlink Field last season as part of a 13-1 postseason run en route to a 47-4 mark and their second straight Division III title. Tufts is set to open its season with a pair of games on March 14 at the National Training Center in Clermont, Fla.

Division III runner-up Salisbury (3-1), fifth-place finisher East Texas Baptist (6-0) and third-place finisher Wisconsin-Whitewater — which opens March 20 at the NTC Spring Games in Clermont, Fla. — continue to be locked securely in the second through fourth spots. Salisbury spent three weeks at No. 1 last season and has been the clear second choice in the poll since dealing Tufts its first postseason loss since 2012 in the first game of the best-of-3 NCAA Championship Series last May.

The Sea Gulls’ lone losses in Tyler came in the final two games to Tufts, including a 6-0 loss in 14 innings in the second game of the Championship Series that was scoreless for the first 13. Salisbury started this season with three straight wins before losing the second game of Tuesday’s twinbill with No. 11 Virginia Wesleyan (4-2) on a pair of errors in the bottom of the sixth that plated two runs and broke a 1-1 tie.

The Sea Gulls and new No. 5 Texas-Tyler (13-0) are the only teams other then Tufts to be ranked No. 1 in the past 20 rankings, going back to April 24, 2013, when No. 15 Montclair State held the top spot.

East Texas Baptist (6-0) doubled its win total over the past week following a 20-day weather hiatus with a three-game sweep at Mary Hardin-Baylor. Texas-Tyler, meanwhile, added to its stellar start with a three-game sweep at Howard Payne to move up from the seventh spot.

No. 6 Illinois Wesleyan (6-0), No. 7 Trine (11-1) and No. 10 Christopher Newport (3-2) all remained in the top 10, joined this week by No. 8 Emory (11-1) and No. 9 Luther (8-0), which moved up from 16th and 18th, respectively.

Averett (12-0-1), Fontbonne (4-0) and Louisiana College (9-1) join the poll for the first time this season, while Western Connecticut State (set to start season on March 14) returns after a one-week hiatus. Alfred, Coe, Messiah and Texas Lutheran all dropped out.

The NFCA Division III Top 25 Poll is selected by eight NCAA Division III head coaches representing the eight NCAA regions.

For the complete poll, click here

For the first time ever, Pride Toronto will allow festival-goers to openly carry alcohol beyond patios and beer gardens. That means attendees can purchase drinks from participating bars and carry them on designated areas along Church Street and Wellesley Street.

But before you start running through the streets celebrating, there’s a catch.

Not only will people have to purchase a wristband for the “Drink & Carry” program, but they must agree to a bag and ID check from security or festival crew members at any time.

Following the announcement earlier this month, many people have taken to social media to criticize the randomized checks, claiming it targets LGBTQ people, specifically trans people and people of colour, in what is supposed to be a “community space.”

Queer activist Arün Smith has been particularly vocal about his concerns with Pride Toronto’s new policy.

Explaining the problem to Xtra, Smith said, “When we get further into the areas of identification, we’re now getting into the areas of dead names for trans [people], we’re now getting into bodily interrogation, we’re now getting into the prospect that trans people will be required to declare not simply the presentation of their gender but also the nature of their body, which should be deeply concerning.”

The other issue with the checks is that the LGBTQ community has had a rough relationship with Toronto police for decades. That’s one of the reasons why in 2016, Black Lives Matter protestors halted the Pride Parade and called for police to be banned from the festivities.

“This isn’t a dispute between community members, it’s a discussion about including a very violent government body in the parade,” LeRoi Newbold, a BLMTO spokesperson, told The Toronto Star at the time.

Recently, the relationship between LGBTQ people and Toronto police faltered again when the latter dismissed rumours of a possible serial killer in the Gay Village, and then arrested alleged killer Bruce McArthur.

But it’s not just the LGBTQ community who is concerned about the new drinks policy. Criminal lawyer Christopher Hicks, who has a background in Ontario’s alcohol policy and liquor licensing, told Vice News that the policy’s terms and conditions were eyebrow-raising.

“They can ask for ID but I think any other intrusions like searches are very questionable,” he told the site. “A liquor license does not require people to be searched. I think any search without cause is a problem.”

Ontario liquor laws were altered in 2011 to allow people at festivals to walk around with their drinks, CBC News reports. However, Pride Toronto is the first festival to actually put the laws into action.

“We’re calling it drinks-to-go,” Pride Toronto executive director Olivia Nuamah told CBC. “It’s on the law books, it’s not like it can’t be done. It’s just no one has tried it so we thought, why not.”

Festival director Collin Joseph also noted to Vice that the introduction of the “Drink & Carry” program was to address spacing issues.

HuffPost Canada has reached out to Nuamah for further comment.

Despite the negative reaction to the new drinks-on-the-go policy, partnering bars and restaurants appear to be all for it.

“It’s going to allow the flow of business to go more smoothly,” Jamie Swanton, manager of operations at O’Grady’s On Church, told CBC News. “People don’t have to wait in lineups anymore. They can buy a drink really quickly and head back out onto the street.”

Pride is a free event that runs from June 22 to 24. Those who are not buying into the “Drink & Carry” program can still walk through its designated areas and enter any establishment.