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Knicks roll over Cavaliers, win first-round series in five games and advance in playoffs for first time in a decade

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:36 GMT

CLEVELAND – In the end, it was domination. A lopsided series.The Knicks had the better point guard. The better center. The better depth. The better coach. The greater determination. The much better rebounding.They wiped the floor with the Cavaliers in the first round, closing out the series Wednesday with a 106-95 breeze in Game 5 despite Julius Randle missing the second half with a sprained ankle.The Knicks, who started the round as underdogs as the fifth seed, captured the franchise’s first postseason series in a decade. It also represented just the second series win since 2000, when Thibodeau was an assistant coach under Jeff Van Gundy and yelled instructions with a much fuller head of hair. Next up is the winner of the Heat and Bucks, with at least three days off before Game 1.And since the eighth-seeded Heat are currently up 3-1 against the No. 1 Bucks, the Knicks can see a realistic path to the conference finals through South Beach.Their five games against Clevelan...

Shut out again by the Astros, the Rays are streaking the wrong way

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:36 GMT

The Rays are on a new streak, but certainly, not one they wanted. After they had their unbeaten streak at home snapped on Tuesday, the Rays fell 1-0 to the Astros on Wednesday night in front of a crowd of 14,168 at Tropicana Field.They have been shut out in two straight games and are on their first “losing streak” of the season. The Rays, who dropped to 20-5, also lost their first series of the year at Tropicana Field and did not hit a home run for the third straight game. They have been shut out for 19 straight innings by the defending World Series champions.It was the first time the Rays have been shutout in back-to-back games since Sept. 19-20 last year, when the Astros also shut them down.For the second straight night, Tampa Bay ran into a dominating pitcher. Manuel Margot managed two hits off Astros right-hander Hunter Brown, who threw seven scoreless innings, scattering two hits and working around two walks while striking out eight.Brown has now throw 50.2 innings ...

Motorcyclist killed in crash with tow truck

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:36 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- A motorcyclist was killed in a collision with a tow truck Wednesday on Interstate 805 in the Chula Vista area, authorities said.The crash occurred around 6 a.m. on I-805 northbound, located south of Telegraph Canyon Road, in the High Occupancy Vehicle lane, Juan Escobar with the California Highway Patrol said in a news release.According to CHP, a man in his 30s was riding a 2001 Kawasaki motorcycle when he slammed into the back of a white tow truck that was stopped in the center divider, CHP said. Are tinted windows legal in California? The rider was taken to the hospital with major injuries, where he was later pronounced dead, Escobar confirmed. The driver of the tow truck was not hurt.The collision prompted a temporary closure of the HOV lane and number one lane of I-805 northbound.It has not been determined if driving under the influence was a factor in the crash.

As India grows, so do demands for some to prove citizenship

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:36 GMT

MURKATA, India (AP) — Krishna Biswas is scared. Unable to prove his Indian citizenship, he is at risk of being sent to a detention center, far away from his modest hut built of bamboo wood that looks down on fields lush with corn.Biswas says he was born in India’s northeastern Assam state. So was his father, almost 65 years ago. But the government says that to prove he is an Indian, he should furnish documents that date back to 1971.For the 37-year-old vegetable seller, that means searching for a decades-old property deed or a birth certificate with an ancestor’s name on it.Biswas has none, and he is not alone. There are nearly 2 million people like him — over 5% of Assam’s population — staring at a future where they could be stripped of their citizenship if they are unable to prove they are Indian.Questions over who is an Indian have long lingered over Assam, which many believe is overrun with immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh. At a time when India is about to overtake C...

Camera surfaces 15 years after journalist killed in Myanmar

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:36 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — A video camera that had been missing for more than 15 years after it was dropped by a Japanese journalist who was fatally shot during a street protest in Myanmar was handed over Wednesday to his sister at a ceremony in Bangkok.Kenji Nagai was recording the demonstration on Sept. 27, 2007, in downtown Yangon -– part of a peaceful anti-military uprising known as the Saffron Revolution -– when soldiers arrived, dispersing the crowd with gunfire. The 50-year-old journalist, who was working for Japan’s APF News, a small video and photo agency, was hit and mortally wounded. He was one of about 10 people killed that day.Nagai’s sister Noriko Ogawa received the small Sony Handycam from Aye Chan Naing, head of the Democratic Voice of Burma, a Myanmar media organization which was involved in its recovery.“Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” she said. “This is a great surprise and joy for me, as I hadn’t even had any information about the camera until now.”The handover of th...

Tucker Carlson emerges on Twitter, doesn’t mention Fox News

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:36 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Tucker Carlson emerged Wednesday, two days after Fox News fired him, with a two-minute, campaign-style monologue that didn’t address why he suddenly became unemployed.He posted a two-minute video on Twitter shortly after 8 p.m. Eastern, the time his Fox show used to begin, that talked about a lack of honest political debate in the media.Carlson said one of the things he noticed, “when you step away from the noise for a few days,” is how nice some people are, and how hilarious some are.“The other thing you notice when you take a little time off is how unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are,” he said. “They’re completely irrelevant. They mean nothing. In five years we won’t even remember we heard them. Trust me, as somebody who participated.”He said debates on big topics like war, civil liberties, emerging science, demographic change and corporate power are not permitted by corporate media or political parties.“Where can you...

UN draft urges Afghan rulers to reverse bans on women, girls

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:36 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A U.N. resolution that calls on Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to swiftly reverse their increasingly harsh restrictions on women and girls and condemns their ban on Afghan women working for the United Nations is set to be voted on Thursday by the Security Council.The draft resolution, obtained late Wednesday by The Associated Press, expresses “deep concern at the increasing erosion of respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of women and girls in Afghanistan by the Taliban” and reaffirms their “indispensable role” in Afghan society. It calls on the Taliban to swiftly restore their access to education, employment, freedom of movement and equal participation in public life.The resolution, drafted by the United Arab Emirates and Japan, is scheduled to be voted on by the 15-member council on Thursday afternoon. Diplomats said it is almost certain to be approved, though Russia and China might abstain. The Taliban seized power in August 2021 as U.S. and NA...

Judge puts Missouri rule limiting transgender care on hold

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:36 GMT

CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri judge on Wednesday temporarily halted enforcement of a first-of-its-kind rule that restricts access to gender-affirming health care for transgender kids and adults, just hours before it was set to take effect.The rule enstated by Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey places requirements on both minors and adults before they would be allowed to receive gender-affirming treatments, such as puberty blockers or hormones. It was set to take effect Thursday, but transgender Missourians and health care providers sued to stop it from being enforced. St. Louis County Circuit Judge Ellen Ribaudo said Wednesday that she would like more time to review the matter before deciding whether to issue a temporary restraining order. She delayed implementation of the rule until 5 p.m. Monday, saying she anticipates she will issue a ruling before then.Bailey has touted the rule as a way to shield minors from what he describes as experimental medical treatments, though p...

Excitement builds for Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ at CinemaCon

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:36 GMT

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Universal started out its CinemaCon presentation with the big one: New footage from Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.”“I know of no more dramatic tale, with higher stakes, twists and turns, paradoxes,” Nolan told a room full of theater owners Wednesday in Las Vegas. “In learning about that story, I wanted to be in that room and see what that must have been like.”“Oppenheimer,” due in cinemas on July 21, is about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant, charismatic physicist who, along with his peers at Los Alamos, developed the atomic bomb and changed the world. Cillian Murphy, a frequent Nolan collaborator going back to “Batman Begins,” plays the title role in a starry cast that includes Matt Damon, Emily Blunt and many more. “Like it or not, he is the most important person who ever lived. He made the world we live in for better or worse. His story has to be seen to be believed,” Nolan said. “His story is both dream and nightmare.”Nolan shot the movie on l...

Danny Masterson lawyer challenges new details in rape story

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:36 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An attorney for Danny Masterson challenged his former longtime girlfriend during cross-examination Wednesday on why her trial testimony alleging the actor raped her in 2001 included several new details that were missing from the accounts she gave authorities at the beginning of the investigation. “Is your testimony today that you can now remember things in 2023 that you didn’t remember in 2017?” Masterson’s lawyer Shawn Holley asked the model and actor who is the first witness to take the stand in the Los Angeles courtroom at Masterson’s trial on three rape charges. The woman responded that her memory had not improved, but that she “opened up more than I have before” a day earlier when she described an attack from Masterson, then her boyfriend of five years, in their Hollywood-area home.She testified Tuesday that she woke to find Masterson on top of her and raping her, that she shouted for him to stop, that he put his full weight on her and pinned her ...