The 2025 NFL playoffs continue this week with the 2025 Divisional Round NFL schedule, featuring two games on Saturday and two games on Sunday. Top AFC seed Kansas City hosts No. 4 seed Houston at 4:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, followed by top NFC seed Detroit vs. Washington at 8 p.m. ET. The Chiefs are 8.5-point favorites in the Divisional Round NFL odds, up one from the opener, while the Lions are 9.5-point favorites with an over under of 55.5. Texans running back Joe Mixon is questionable with an ankle injury, but will reportedly play. Which Divisional Round NFL spreads should you include in your Divisional Round NFL bets?

The No. 2 seed Eagles are 6-point favorites against the Rams on Sunday (3 p.m. ET) with an over-under of 43.5, while the weekend concludes with an AFC showdown between the No. 2 seed Bills (+1, 51.5) and No. 3 seed Ravens on CBS and Paramount+. Bills quarterback Josh Allen and Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson have been the top two MVP candidates this season. Before locking in any Divisional Round NFL picks or NFL prop bets, be sure to check out the Divisional Round NFL best bets and predictions from SportsLine’s red-hot Vegas experts. 

SportsLine has more than 40 hand-picked Vegas experts who excel in multiple spots. The NFL, however, is a strength for the site as SportsLine currently has five total experts who are on NFL runs that have returned $1,700 or more for $100 players and one who has returned more than $2,600. Anybody following has seen huge returns. 

Now, with the Divisional Round NFL schedule quickly approaching, SportsLine’s top NFL experts are already locking in their picks. Go to SportsLine to see them all now.

Top Divisional Round NFL expert picks from Jason La Canfora

La Canfora has been covering the NFL since 2004 and spent 10 years as CBS’s NFL Insider for “THE NFL TODAY” and across all platforms. He continues to cover the NFL as an analyst and insider for The Washington Post and gather information from a plethora of sources throughout the game. La Canfora is 9-7 (+493) in his last 16 NFL ML picks and has already locked in picks for multiple games throughout the weekend. 

One bet that La Canfora has already placed is the Lions (-9.5, 55.5) to cover against the Commanders on Saturday. The Lions have been a dominant team throughout the season, and the Commanders have a rookie quarterback going on the road in a massive playoff game. La Canfora has also locked in a pair of anytime touchdown scorer bets for that game. See all of La Canfora’s picks here.

Top Divisional Round expert NFL picks from Matt Severance 

Severance is a well-connected writer and high-volume handicapper who has worked in the industry since 2005. After joining SportsLine, Severance quickly established himself as a top expert in multiple sports. He went 121-93-2 (plus $589) during the 2023 NFL season, and he is 36-12 (+1738) in his last 48 NFL ML picks. 

He has already placed his bet for the Lions (-9.5, 55.5) vs. Commanders on Saturday. Detroit closed the regular season on a three-game winning streak, clinching the No. 1 seed in the NFC with a 31-9 win over Minnesota in Week 18. Washington is riding a six-game hot streak after beating Tampa Bay in the wild-card round. Severance placed an early bet on a team total for this showdown. See the rest of Severance’s picks here.

Top Divisional Round NFL expert picks from R.J. White

White is a Fantasy and gambling editor for CBS Sports, consistently crushing against-the-spread picks by going 643-543-34 on his ATS betting picks from 2017-23, which returned more than $4,600 to $100 players. He also went 101-84-4 (+1366) on all NFL spread picks last season. Additionally, White is 18-8 (+987) in his last 26 NFL picks. 

He has locked in his bet for the Eagles vs. Rams (+6, 43.5) on Sunday. Philadelphia maintained its momentum with a 22-10 win over Green Bay last week, as running back Saquon Barkley had 119 rushing yards on 25 carries. Los Angeles is coming off an impressive performance of its own, cruising to a 27-9 win over Minnesota as a 2-point underdog. White thinks one stat from last week is being overlooked, creating value on one side of this spread. See the rest of White’s picks here.

Top Divisional Round NFL expert picks from Mike Tierney

Tierney has covered the NFL for decades and reported from seven Super Bowls. He is 154-124-9 in the NFL the past two seasons, returning $1,586 to $100 players (every bet one unit). Tierney enters the Divisional Round on a 59-36-3 run in his last 98 NFL ATS bets (+1917). 

The veteran sportswriter has already placed his bet on the Bills vs. Ravens (-1, 51.5) showdown on Sunday. This game has all the makings of a classic, as Allen and Jackson are both looking to win a Super Bowl to cap off MVP-caliber seasons. Buffalo is coming off a 31-7 win over Denver, while Baltimore cruised to a 28-14 win over Pittsburgh. Tierney thinks injuries are going to play a pivotal role in the result of this game. You can find all of Tierney’s picks here.

How to make Divisional Round NFL against the spread picks

SportsLine’s team of experts also includes Larry Hartstein, whose NFL best bets column has hit at a strong 62% clip since its inception in 2022. He has been red-hot with NFL prop bets, going 146-102 (+2108) in his last 248 picks at SportsLine. This week, Hartstein is targeting a first-half prop bet, targeting a team that has come out “strong” against “elite” teams. Anyone who backs this prop could hit it big. You can find out who his NFL picks are this weekend here. 

If you are looking for NFL picks, NFL props, or NFL best bets for the Divisional Round, SportsLine has you covered with its proven team of experts. Visit SportsLine now to see who which teams you should back in the Divisional Round, all from a staff that includes five experts who are on NFL runs that have returned $1,700 or more for $100 players.

A woman carries a child as she shops at a New Year bazaar set up for the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year, in Beijing on Jan. 13.

Andy Wong/AP

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Andy Wong/AP

TAIPEI, Taiwan — China’s population fell last year for the third straight year, its government said Friday, pointing to further demographic challenges for the world’s second most populous nation, which is now facing both an aging population and an emerging shortage of working age people.

China’s population stood at 1.408 billion at the end of 2024, a decline of 1.39 million from the previous year.

The figures announced by the government in Beijing follow trends worldwide, but especially in East Asia, where Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and other nations have seen their birth rates plummet. China three years ago joined Japan and most of Eastern Europe among other nations whose population is falling.

The reasons are in many cases similar: Rising costs of living are causing young people to put off or rule out marriage and child birth while pursuing higher education and careers. While people are living longer, that’s not enough to keep up with rate of new births.

Countries such as China that allow very little immigration are especially at risk.

China has long been among the world’s most populous nations, enduring invasions, floods and other natural disasters to sustain a population that thrived on rice in the south and wheat in the north. Following the end of World War II and the Communist Party’s rise to power in 1949, large families re-emerged and the population doubled in just three decades, even after tens of millions died in the Great Leap Forward that sought to revolutionize agriculture and industry and the Cultural Revolution that followed a few years later.

After the end of the Cultural Revolution and leader Mao Zedong’s death, Communist bureaucrats began to worry the country’s population was outstripping its ability to feed itself and began implementing a draconian “one child policy.” Though it was never law, women had to apply for permission to have a child and violators could face forced late-term abortions and birth control procedures, massive fines and the prospect of their child being deprived an identification number, effectively making them non-citizens.

Rural China, where the preference for male offspring was especially strong and two children were still ostensibly allowed, became the focus of government efforts, with women forced to present evidence they were menstruating and buildings emblazoned with slogans such as “have fewer children, have better children.”

The government sought to stamp out selective abortion of female children, but with abortions legal and readily available, those operating illicit sonogram machines enjoyed a thriving business.

That has been the biggest factor in China’s lopsided sex ratio, with as many as millions more boys born for every 100 girls, raising the possibility of social instability among China’s army of bachelors. Friday’s report gave the sex imbalance as 104.34 men to every 100 women, though independent groups give the imbalance as considerably higher.

More disturbing for the government was the drastically falling birthrate, with China’s total population dropping for the first time in decades in 2023 and China being narrowly overtaken by India as the world’s most populous nation in the same year. A rapidly aging population, declining workforce, lack of consumer markets and migration abroad are putting the system under severe pressure.

While spending on the military and flashy infrastructure projects continues to rise, China’s already frail social security system is teetering, with increasing numbers of Chinese refusing to pay into the underfunded pension system.

Already, more than one-fifth of the population is aged 60 or over, with the official figure given as 310.3 million or 22% of the total population. By 2035, this number is forecast to exceed 30%, sparking discussion of changes to the official retirement age, which one of the lowest in the world. With fewer students, some vacant schools and kindergartens are meanwhile being transformed into care facilities for older people.

Such developments are giving some credence to the aphorism that China, now the world’s second largest economy but facing major headwinds, will “grow old before it grows rich.”

Government inducements including cash payouts for having up to three children and financial help with housing costs have had only temporary effects.

Meanwhile, China continued its transition to an urban society, with 10 million more people moving to cities for an urbanization rate of 67%, up almost a percentage point from the previous year.

Islamabad, Pakistan
AP
 — 

A Pakistani court on Friday sentenced the country’s already-imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife to 14 and seven years in jail after finding them guilty of corruption, officials and his lawyer said.

The couple are accused of accepting a gift of land from a real estate tycoon in exchange for laundered money when Khan was in power.

Prosecutors say the businessman, Malik Riaz, was then allowed by Khan to pay fines that were imposed on him in another case from the same laundered money of 190 million British pounds ($240 million) that was returned to Pakistan by British authorities in 2022 to deposit to the national exchequer.

Khan has denied wrongdoing and insisted since his arrest in 2023 that all the charges against him are a plot by rivals to keep him from returning to office.

Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in parliament in April 2022, had previously been convicted on charges of corruption, revealing official secrets and violating marriage laws in three separate verdicts and sentenced to 10, 14 and seven years respectively. Under Pakistani law, he is to serve the terms concurrently — meaning, the length of the longest of the sentences.

This is a developing story.

CNN
 — 

People living near a power plant in Central California were ordered to evacuate their homes Thursday night after a fire broke out at the facility, officials said.

Fire crews were battling the blaze at the Moss Landing Power Plant, which serves as a battery storage site, a spokesperson for the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office told CNN.

The incident is not connected to the wildfires in the Los Angeles area, and efforts to contain the blaze are ongoing, the spokesperson confirmed.

The fire erupted at the facility around 3 p.m., and evacuation orders were issued around 6:30 p.m. due to concerns over hazardous materials and potential chemical releases, the sheriff’s office spokesperson said without detailing which materials were causing concern. More than 2,000 people were told to evacuate, the spokesperson said.

The sheriff’s office deployed drones to assess the severity of the situation and monitor air quality, Monterey County Spokesperson Nicholas Pasculli told CNN. Emergency services, including sheriff’s deputies and medical teams, were fully mobilized, Pasculli added.

The fire is active with no suppression efforts underway, and firefighters believe the best course of action is to allow it to burn, the sheriff’s office spokesperson said. Drone footage revealed approximately 40% of the building housing lithium-ion batteries on the property has been consumed by flames, the spokesperson said.

CNN reached out to the North County Fire Protection District of Monterey for details.

CNN reached out to Vistra Energy for comment.

The company confirmed to CNN affiliate KSBW its personnel called for assistance from the North Monterey County Fire District after a fire was detected in the 300-MW Phase I energy storage facility. All site personnel were safely evacuated, Vistra told KSBW. “The cause of the fire has not yet been determined, but an investigation will begin once the fire is extinguished,” the company said.

The Moss Landing Power Plant, about 77 miles south of San Francisco, is owned by Texas-based Vistra Energy and houses tens of thousands of lithium batteries. While the US Department of Energy states these batteries play a crucial role in storing electricity generated from renewable sources like solar power, the US Fire Administration warns firefighters should be cautious of potential chemical exposure during firefighting operations as lithium-ion batteries contain volatile electrolytes, and when exposed to high temperatures or physical damage can release flammable gases.

All North Monterey County Unified School District schools and offices will be closed on Friday due to the ongoing fire at the battery plant, according to a statement. The district serves more than 4,500 K-12 students, and covers a 70 square-mile area that includes neighborhoods in Castroville, Prunedale, Moss Landing, Aromas and parts of Salinas, its website says.

Santa Cruz County Public Health officials advised residents to stay indoors, keep windows and doors closed, turn off ventilation systems and limit outdoor exposure. Santa Cruz is north of Monterey.

To assist evacuees, the Castroville Rec Center has been designated a temporary evacuation point, according to the sheriff’s office.

The National Weather Service Bay Area shared satellite images of the fire on X, highlighting visible heat signatures from the blaze.

Officials have not determined when the evacuation order will be lifted.

The area is adjacent to major ecosystems, including the Moss Landing Wildlife Area, Elkhorn Slough State Marine Reserve and Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve.

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‘Desperate’ strategy