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As NBA’s security chief, Baltimore native Leon Newsome will guard the pingpong balls that determine Victor Wembanyama’s home

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:58 GMT

The 19-year-old Frenchman has whetted NBA appetites like no prospect since LeBron James.As such, the draft lottery that determines a professional destination for Victor Wembanyama, a 7-foot-2 wonder who sinks step-back 3s as readily as he swats opponents’ shots, will be among the most scrutinized in league history.When ESPN’s broadcast of the lottery commences Tuesday evening, on one side of the picture, you’ll see an Ernst & Young accountant handling the envelope that will tell the world where Wembanyama is headed. On the other, you’ll see a taller, sturdier man with a sharp suit and a stern countenance.That’s Leon Newsome, the NBA’s chief security officer.Before he guarded these sacred pingpong balls, Newsome was the second-ranking officer in the U.S. Secret Service, a special agent who had been responsible for protecting Vice President Joe Biden and first lady Laura Bush. Before that, he was a hotly recruited football standout who spurned a...

Celtics can’t take Heat lightly

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:58 GMT

Sunday afternoon as Jayson Tatum shut down the doubters — and I’m one of them — a thought crept across the minds of many Celtics fans.Beat LA.Naturally it’s a little bit premature. Not only do the Lakers have to get through the Western Conference’s best team in the Denver Nuggets, but the Celtics better not be looking ahead either. Wednesday night’s NBA Eastern Conference final foe, the Miami Heat, could spoil this party.There’s no question the Celtics are better than Miami. Yes, “Playoff” Jimmy Butler is amazing, he’s averaging 31.1 in the playoffs. Bam Adebayo is a force. And Erik Spoelstra is far and away the best coach remaining in these playoffs.But Victor Oladipo was lost for the season with a playoff knee injury. And last year’s best sixth man/eccentric sharpshooter Tyler Herro, who averaged more than 20 ppg this season, broke his right hand 19 minutes into the playoffs and is extremely unlikely to be ready at any point in...

Russia launches ‘exceptional’ air attack on Kyiv as Europe, China look to exert influence

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:58 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian air defenses thwarted an intense Russian air attack on Kyiv early Tuesday, shooting down all 18 missiles aimed at the capital, as European leaders sought new ways to punish Russia for the war and a Chinese envoy sought traction for Beijing’s peace proposal.Loud explosions boomed over Kyiv as the nighttime attack combined Russian missiles launched from the air, sea and land in an apparent attempt to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses. No casualties were reported as Western-supplied weapons helped fend off the assault.Russia’s latest attack on Kyiv was “exceptional in its density — the maximum number of attacking missiles in the shortest period of time,” said Serhii Popko, the head of the Kyiv military administration. Valentyna Myronets, a 64-year-old Kyiv resident, said she felt “pain, fear, nervousness, restlessness” amid the assaults. “God, we are waiting for victory and when all this is over,” she said.The British ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda S...

Trudeau in South Korea to talk global and energy security, youth mobility program

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:58 GMT

SEOUL, Korea, Republic Of — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrived in Seoul on Tuesday for his first official visit to South Korea as both countries try to build closer economic and cultural ties and work together on global security concerns.“I don’t think there was a time when Korea and Canada were so close as now, and I don’t think we’ve had any period where our two leaders have met so frequently,” Lim Woongsoon, South Korea’s ambassador to Canada, said last week in an interview in Ottawa.The visit by Trudeau, who is expected to remain in the country until Thursday before he heads to the G7 leaders’ summit in Hiroshima, Japan, follows South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s trip to Ottawa last fall.Since then, both countries have released their Indo-Pacific strategies. They provide a road map for strengthening military and economic relationships in the region to counterbalance the influence of China.Tina Park, a lecturer at the Univers...

Returning to the Arab fold, Syria’s president invited to UAE-hosted COP28 climate

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:58 GMT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Syria’s embattled President Bashar Assad received an invitation to attend the upcoming COP28 climate talks in Dubai later this year, even as the yearslong war in his country over his rule grinds on. Assad’s invite, late Monday, to the climate talks comes as the Syrian president already is scheduled to attend the Arab League summit this Friday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, years after being frozen out of regional politics. A brutal crackdown by Assad’s government on demonstrators in a 2011 Arab Spring uprising challenging his rule descended into a civil war and consequently became a regional conflict.The war has killed half a million people and displaced half of its population. Assad’s invitation came in a letter from Emirati leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Syria’s state-run SANA news agency reported. The agency published images of Assad reading the letter alongside an Emirati diplomat in Damascus. The UAE simila...

Germany: 5 sentenced to prison for 100-million-euro jewelry heist

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:58 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — A German court on Tuesday convicted five men over the theft of 18th-century jewels worth more than 100 million euros from a Dresden museum in 2019. They were sentenced to prison sentences of between four years and four months and six years and three months, German news agency dpa reported. One defendant was acquitted.The Dresden state court ruled that the five men — aged 24 to 29 — were responsible for the break-in at the eastern German city’s Green Vault Museum on Nov. 25, 2019, and the theft of 21 pieces of jewelry containing more than 4,300 diamonds, with a total insured value of at least 113.8 million euros ($129 million). Officials said at the time that the items taken included a large diamond brooch and a diamond epaulette. They were convicted of particularly aggravated arson in combination with dangerous bodily injury, theft with weapons, damage to property and intentional arson.The men laid a fire just before the break-in to cut the power supply to street light...

Biden to mark Jewish American Heritage Month with Broadway stars, speak out on antisemitism

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:58 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will mark Jewish American Heritage Month on Tuesday by highlighting his administration’s efforts to combat rising antisemitism when he speaks at a White House reception that will feature performances from the stars of the Broadway revival of “Parade.” While Biden plans to use his comments to celebrate the contributions of Jewish Americans, he also will reflect on how his decision to run for the White House in 2020 was shaped by a 2017 neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia, according to a White House official who previewed the president’s speech on condition of anonymity. The president, who just weeks ago announced he would run for reelection, spoke frequently during the 2020 campaign about the “Unite the Right” rally led by white nationalists bearing torches. Clashes between that group and a large gathering of counterprotesters led to the death of counterprotester Heather Heyer when a white nationalist drove his car into the cr...

CEO pay again in focus as the heads of failed banks appear before Senate panel

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:58 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The recent failures of a trio of midsize banks has once again raised questions about whether senior executives in the U.S. are being rewarded more for short-term gains — like rising stock prices — than for ensuring their companies’ long-term health. Executives at Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic Bank were paid millions of dollars over their tenures up until their banks failed, the bulk of the compensation coming in the form company stock. That stock is now largely worthless but the CEOs still pocketed millions from the planned sales of their shares before the banks’ collapse. The heads of the two of the three failed banks will appear Tuesday in front of the Senate Banking Committee to respond to questions about why their banks went under and what regulators could have done to avoid the calamities. Executive compensation is almost certainly to come up as well, most likely raised by senators including Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who wro...

South Korean court orders agency to compensate adoptee over his mishandled adoption to US

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:58 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean court on Tuesday ordered the country’s biggest adoption agency to pay 100 million won ($74,700) in damages to a 48-year-old man for mishandling his adoption as a child to the United States, where he faced legal troubles after surviving an abusive childhood before being deported in 2016.However, the Seoul Central District Court dismissed Adam Crapser’s accusations against the South Korean government, which he saw as responsible for creating an aggressive, profit-driven adoption industry that carelessly removed thousands of children from their families during a child export frenzy in the 1970s and ’80s.The civil case, tried for over four years, was the first in which a South Korean adoptee sued the country’s government and a domestic adoption agency over fraudulent paperwork and screening failures.Holt Children’s Service, which handled Crapser’s adoption to American parents in 1979, and South Korea’s Justice Ministry, which represen...

Biden administration announces nearly $11 billion for renewable energy in rural communities

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:58 GMT

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a nearly $11 billion investment on Tuesday to help bring affordable clean energy to rural communities throughout the country.Rural electric cooperatives, renewable energy companies and electric utilities will be able to apply for funding through two programs, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said during a media briefing on Monday.Vilsack said it was the largest single federal investment in rural electrification since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Act in 1936 as part of the New Deal.“This is an exciting opportunity for the Rural Utility Service to work collaboratively with our great partners, the Rural Electric cooperatives, in order to advance a clean energy future for rural America,” Vilsack said. “So this is an exciting and an historic day, and it continues an ongoing effort to ensure that rural America is a full participant in this clean energy economy.”The Empowering Rural America...