ATLANTA — Colorado freshman quarterback Julian Lewis delivered when it mattered most, finding tight end Charlie Williams for a 20-yard touchdown with 42 seconds left in the fourth quarter to give the Buffaloes a dramatic 14-13 victory over Georgia Tech on Thursday night in the season opener.

Georgia Tech appeared poised to steal the win in the final seconds after quarterback Alberto Mendoza connected with receiver Dalen Penson for a 42-yard gain, moving the Yellow Jackets into field goal range. But Colorado’s Boo Carter broke through to block Aidan Birr’s 45-yard attempt, sending the Buffaloes pouring onto the field in celebration.

Colorado coach Deion Sanders said the Buffaloes never stopped believing, even after trailing throughout the entire second half.

“If you’d know how many linemen grabbed me and said ‘I told y’all we got this, I told you we got this coach,’” Sanders said. “I mean you have no idea how many times I was shaken by a lineman and told that we got this, and I never doubted it.”

Lewis endured a difficult night for much of the game, but the Colorado quarterback steadied himself late. Before the winning touchdown drive, he helped the Buffaloes drain 9:07 off the clock with a 17-play, 61-yard march that ended when 6-foot-9 Georgia Tech tight end Kevin Roche Jr. blocked a field goal attempt.

Georgia Tech responded with a field goal scoring drive to take a 13-7 lead, but with newfound confidence, Lewis led a clutch two-minute drill for the win.

“I talked to him at halftime in front of the whole team… I told (Lewis) ‘Let’s go. Be that man. We believe in you. Let’s go.’ You know, I challenged him in front of the whole team,” Sanders said. “He took advantage of the moment.”

After a first half with six completions for 41 yards, Lewis finished the night 14-of-27 for 124 yards and a touchdown. Running back Micah Welch put the Buffaloes on the board with a 5-yard rushing touchdown in the second quarter, giving Colorado a short-lived 7-0 lead.

Georgia Tech responded 14 seconds later as Rahkeem Smith returned a kick 100 yards for a touchdown and tied the game. It was Smith’s first touch as a Yellow Jacket and the program’s first kick returned for a touchdown since Jahmyr Gibbs against Boston College in 2021.

Mendoza finished the night 17-of-23 for 237 yards and dodged an injury scare that onlookers feared could affect his second half availability.

His debut featured promising moments, like scrambling away from traffic in the second quarter and throwing a 22-yard dart to Jordan Allen on the move. Mendoza capped off Georgia Tech’s final drive with his longest completion of the night, a 42-yarder, to put the Yellow Jackets in field goal range.

He was sacked three times for a loss of 22 yards.

Colorado’s last time starting the season 1-0 was in 2023 in Sanders’ debut with a 45-42 win against TCU, and it, too, was a thriller.

The Buffaloes were the last to find the end zone in a barnburner, with Shedeur Sanders leading a 6-play, 82-yard drive late in the fourth.

Takeaway

Colorado: After seven seasons without a 1,000 yard rusher, Colorado has two strong prospects with Welch and Damian Henderson II splitting snaps in the backfield. Welch finished the night with 58 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries. Henderson had 12 carries for 65 yards.

Georgia Tech: Atlanta’s 74% humidity didn’t impact fan attendance, with 51,913 fans packed in Bobby Dodd Stadium’s third consecutive sell-out. The humidity helped contribute to ball control issues for Georgia Tech who fumbled three times in the first half, losing one.

CHICAGO (WLS) — For many domestic violence survivors, the abuse does not stop the moment they leave an abusive partner. Some are pressured or threatened into opening credit cards, taking out loans or assuming debt in their own names, leaving them to face years of financial strain long after the relationship ends. A new Illinois law aims to strengthen legal protections for survivors by ensuring they are not held responsible for debt they were manipulated or coerced into taking on.

“Financial abuse is very real,” Republican Illinois State Representative Nicole La Ha told the ABC7 I-Team.

La Ha said survivors of domestic abuse should not be left carrying the financial consequences of another person’s control or violence. In response, she said she sponsored bipartisan legislation in February that was recently signed into law by Governor J.B. Pritzker.

“It creates a pathway or a defense when it comes to debt that was incurred due to domestic violence,” said La Ha.

The new law creates an affirmative defense for domestic violence survivors. That means if a survivor is sued or pursued by a collection agency over debt they were forced to incur, they may be legally excused from repayment and avoid liability for that coerced debt.

“We need to make sure we have resources for them, and we need to make sure that the law helps them, that we are protecting victims, and that we’re giving them tools in the courtrooms to be able to put their abusers away,” La Ha told the I-Team.

“It’s going to keep survivors from getting mired in debt when they’re trying to leave,” said Amanda Pyron, President and CEO of The Network.

A study by the Center for Survivor Agency and Justice shows more than half of survivors experienced coerced debt during their abusive relationship.

“It’s so difficult for a survivor of coercive control to even self-identify because you know in our society the pictures of domestic violence are often physical abuse. Survivors of coercive control often feel like they’re not victims enough to go to law enforcement,” said Pyron.

Advocacy groups, such as The Network, offer financial support, help locate legal representation and guide survivors on how to accurately submit the necessary paperwork to prove coerced debt to the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.

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Iran’s ruling establishment appears more willing to sustain confrontation with the United States and Gulf neighbors than move toward peace, using external tensions to distract a frustrated public at home, according to one expert.

The warning comes as U.S. forces have carried out airstrikes against Iran in recent days, after a short-lived pause in fighting gave way to renewed tensions around the Strait of Hormuz.

Dr. Majid Sadeghpour, a human rights activist and political director of the Organization of Iranian-American Communities, told News Media that Tehran is less worried about foreign military pressure than it is about growing unrest among Iranians.

Sadeghpour said U.S. officials had presented Tehran with assurances that could have opened a path toward peace for Iran.

“You get America to give you a guarantee that it wouldn’t seek regime change. Nevertheless, they still attacked ships afterward,” Sadeghpour said. “They still attacked our bases in Jordan and Bahrain. So that speaks to the fact that the real threat to the regime is not the bombs from outside, but rather the population uprising.”

“For a regime that’s militarized and requires friction, its survival now depends on that friction,” he added.

Iran has experienced major uprisings in recent years driven by economic collapse, high inflation, and deep discontent with the regime’s strict religious interpretation of Islam. In addition, the Iranian government has suppressed anti-government riots and protests with deadly force and arbitrary arrests and detention, according to human rights observers.

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The war with the U.S. helps the regime, Sadeghpour said, by refocusing the Iranian public’s attention elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Iran has continued to target commercial ships in the strait in violation of an agreement not to do so, Vice President JD Vance said Thursday.

“The Iranians are doing what the Iranians do,” Vance said. “I think that they’re losing their capabilities by the day. I think they’re realizing… that their control over the Strait of Hormuz is effectively gone, and it’s a diminishing asset.”

In order to effect regime change, the U.S. should focus its efforts on the Iranian population, said Sadeghpour, because Iranian leaders will likely drag out the conflict with the U.S. for as long as they can.

“The regime is thinking about the day, the hour after the exhausted population gets calm, and will immediately look around, ‘how am I going to get rid of this regime? And who’s going to help me do that?’ And so that is what the regime is afraid of,” he said.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he isn’t focused on bringing Tehran to the bargaining table, saying he “couldn’t care less” if Iran signs a “worthless” agreement.

“They are just playing out the inevitable,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?”

Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom has intensified his clash with the WNBA, filing a federal lawsuit after he was removed from a game last month.

Kanter, who previously played center for teams including the New York Knicks and Oklahoma City Thunder, said Thursday that he is taking legal action against the Chicago Sky, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority and the City of Chicago.

In the lawsuit, filed in Illinois, Kanter claims the three defendants wrongfully ejected him from the Sky’s August 23 matchup with the Indiana Fever at Wintrust Arena.

The case comes as Kanter has placed himself at the center of the WNBA’s growing debate over transgender athlete participation, including by attempting to use the league’s eligibility rules to enter next year’s draft.

The dispute escalated during the Sky’s game against the Fever, featuring Sophie Cunningham and Caitlin Clark, when Kanter, seated courtside, became involved in a tense confrontation with Chicago Sky guard Natasha Cloud.

He claims the trio of defendants mistreated him that night and he did nothing wrong before they ‘combined and conspired to eject’ him from the arena.

That night, Kanter chose to wear a provocative T-shirt that included a definition of the word woman. ‘Woman. Noun,’ it read. ‘Adult human female.’ The words woman and female were highlighted in red. He insists that did not violate the WNBA’s Fan Code of Conduct. 

While he admits to standing up and raising his arms during the game, Kanter claims that was just to celebrate a Cunningham three-pointer. He has previously alleged that Cloud told him: ‘She’s not going to sleep with you.’ 

In the lawsuit, Kanter claims Cloud ‘without provocation, initiated a vulgar, profanity-laced verbal tirade’ at him.

It also alleges Cloud ‘charged nearly half the length of the court toward where Plaintiff Freedom was sitting courtside’ before she ‘cursed and yelled at Plaintiff saying that Ms. Cunningham was not going to sleep with Plaintiff Freedom.’

‘Plaintiff Freedom believes that Cloud’s attack was motivated and triggered by the message on Plaintiff’s shirt and Plaintiff’s widely publicized viewpoint on protecting the integrity of women only sports,’ it continued.

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Kanter is suing all three bodies and is demanding a permanent injunction lifting the ban on him that was imposed by Sky owner Michael Alter.

‘The Chicago Sky; MPEA, through Wintrust Arena Security; and the City of Chicago, by its Police Department, worked together to eject Plaintiff in retaliation for protected expression, and continue to work together to enforce the ongoing, unconstitutional ban of Plaintiff from Wintrust Arena, which is public property owned by MPEA,’ the lawsuit stated.

In a post on X announcing his lawsuit, Kanter wrote: ‘SEE YOU IN COURT!!! Just filed a federal complaint. I’m taking legal action over my ejection from the @ChicagoSky game while peacefully exercising my First Amendment rights.

‘My T-shirt did what the whole @WNBA apparently couldn’t: define a woman. No threats. No violence. Just biology. And somehow, that required a security escort. You don’t have to agree with my speech but you don’t get to silence me for it. 

‘I will not be intimidated. I will not be silenced. I will continue to stand for women and defend free speech.’

Kanter’s efforts to play in the WNBA were dealt a blow last month when league bosses ruled him ineligible for the 2027 draft. 

A league source said it is ‘not going to give oxygen to efforts designed to mock the league or use this topic to demean and marginalize others,’ calling it a ‘publicity stunt’, per Front Office Sports.

Last week, Cloud shared her thoughts on the explosive courtside clash with Kanter.

‘I won’t be talking about anything that happened with an irrelevant person,’ she told reporters. ‘What I will focus on is what actually affects women and children.’   

‘I will talk about real issues that face women, and it’s not our trans human beings,’ she continued. ‘It’s not our drag queens. It’s not our gay community. There is a certain demographic of people that you can generally search.

‘It’s a simple Google search of what is the greatest threat to women and children in 2026 in the United States of America, and it’s not going to be trans people.’

President Trump came to Maria Bartiromo’s defense, calling the longtime Fox News host a “true warrior” and saying her many supporters “will not be happy” following her abrupt departure from the cable network.

Bartiromo’s sudden exit, after 12 years at Fox News and Fox Business, was announced without explanation, a move that appeared to catch the president off guard Thursday night.

“I can’t believe Maria Bartiromo is no longer going to have her great show(s) on FoxNews/Business,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

He pointed to her success across “three different shows,” describing them as “always number one,” before adding: “Maria is a total professional, and a true warrior.”

Trump also predicted a backlash from Bartiromo’s audience, writing that her “fans, of which there are many, will not be happy.”

Bartiromo’s ouster was announced in a statement by Fox News Media hours after the final episode of “Mornings with Maria,” her weekday Fox Business Network show, aired Thursday morning.

“Effective today, Maria Bartiromo is no longer with Fox News Media,” the company said in a statement. “We thank Maria for her work over the last 12-and-a-half years and wish her all the best on her next chapter.”

The unexpected announcement fueled speculation that Bartiromo could be replacing Karoline Leavitt as Trump’s press secretary.

However, Vice President JD Vance said he did not believe Bartiromo, 58, was headed to the White House after her departure.

“I love Maria. I think she’s an amazing person, amazing talent,” Vance told reporters. “Whatever she does, look, she’s gonna do great, and I wish her all the best.”

Bartiromo has not spoken out publicly about her exit from Fox News.

As of Thursday night, her X account still advertised her former shows on the cable news network.

Fox News and Fox Business are subsidiaries of Fox Corp — sister company to The Post’s corporate parent News Corp.