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Jokic just shy of triple-double, Porter scores 27 to lead Nuggets over Bulls 123-101

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:20:08 GMT

DENVER (AP) — Nikola Jokic had 28 points, 16 rebounds and nine assists, Michael Porter Jr. scored a season-best 27 and the Denver Nuggets overcame the loss of point guard Jamal Murray to beat the Chicago Bulls 123-101 on Saturday night.Aaron Gordon had 15 points and 12 rebounds for defending NBA champion Denver, which has won all four of its home games.Murray played the first 8:40 before leaving with right hamstring tightness. He finished with two points and two rebounds. Reggie Jackson, getting extended minutes in place of Murray, scored 16 off the bench, tying his season high.Nikola Vucevic had 19 points, DeMar DeRozan scored 17 and Jalen Carter added 16 for Chicago, which has dropped two straight.The Bulls won the previous meeting in Denver, 117-96 on March 8, and took a two-point lead at halftime of this one. The Nuggets opened the third quarter on a 21-4 run to go ahead 72-57 and led by 18 before Chicago cut it to 86-76 early in the fourth.Denver extended the lead to 16, but th...

‘Take it or leave it’: Acrimony flares amid tenuous agreement on climate aid

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:20:08 GMT

Negotiators struck a fragile agreement Saturday over the outlines of an international fund for climate-ravaged countries after hours of acrimonious haggling foreshadowed likely divisions at the global climate talks later this month.The agreement, stitched tenuously together long after sunset in Abu Dhabi, included a provision demanded by the U.S. that says payments into the fund would be voluntary — leaving the Biden administration with the option of not contributing.The troubled talks over climate aid came weeks before nearly 200 nations will meet in Dubai for a global climate conference beginning Nov. 30 and highlighted the mistrust that developing countries have with the U.S. and other wealthy nations following years of unmet financial promises.The weekend debate left almost everyone dissatisfied, including the U.S.“This is a take it or leave it text,” said Outi Honkatukia, a Finnish negotiator who co-chairs the committee of 24 countries that’s responsible for designing the clima...

Jayson Tatum scores 10,000th career point as Celtics hold off Nets to stay undefeated

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:20:08 GMT

NEW YORK — On a milestone night for Jayson Tatum, there was one play that stood out to him from the Celtics’ latest victory on Saturday night over the Nets that exemplified the mindset this group has this season.And it didn’t even involve him.As the Celtics nursed an eight-point lead with less than five minutes to go, the feisty Nets refused to quit. They got out in transition after a Jaylen Brown miss. Down the left sideline, in front of the Celtics bench, Spencer Dinwiddie tried to find Cam Thomas. But Al Horford – all 37 years of him – hustled back. He got his left hand in front of Thomas and stole the ball. He regained possession for the Celtics, and they got fouled in transition the other way.During the stoppage, Tatum made sure to find Horford to deliver a loud high five.“That might not show up on the highlight tape,” Tatum said. “But that’s just like a snowball effect, and it’s contagious.”The Celtics’ 124-114 victory in Brooklyn certainly was not perfect. It wasn’t easy or c...

Afghan farmers lose income of more than $1 billion after the Taliban banned poppy cultivation

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:20:08 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Afghan farmers have lost income of more than $1 billion from opium sales after the Taliban outlawed poppy cultivation, according to a report from the U.N. drugs agency published Sunday. Afghanistan was the world’s biggest opium producer and a major source for heroin in Europe and Asia when the Taliban seized power in August 2021. They pledged to wipe out the country’s drug cultivation industry and imposed a formal ban in April 2022, dealing a heavy blow to hundreds of thousands of farmers and day laborers who relied on proceeds from the crop to survive. Opium cultivation crashed by 95% after the ban, the report from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said.Until 2023, the value of Afghanistan’s opiate exports frequently outstripped the value of its legal exports. U.N. officials said the strong contraction of the opium economy is expected to have far-reaching consequences for the country as opiate exports before the ban accounted for between 9-14% of the national GDP....

Warplanes strike Gaza refugee camp as Israel rejects US push for a pause in fighting

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:20:08 GMT

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli warplanes struck a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip early Sunday, killing at least 33 people and wounding dozens, health officials said. The strike came as Israel said it would press on with its offensive to crush the territory’s Hamas rulers, despite U.S. appeals for a pause to get aid to desperate civilians.The soaring death toll in Gaza has sparked growing international anger, with tens of thousands from Washington to Berlin taking to the streets Saturday to demand an immediate cease-fire.Israel has rejected the idea of halting its offensive, even for brief humanitarian pauses proposed by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his current tour of the region. Instead, it said that the besieged enclave’s Hamas rulers were “encountering the full force” of its troops.“Anyone in Gaza City is risking their life,” Israel’s Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said.Large columns of smoke rose as Israel’s military said it had encircled Gaza Ci...

Live updates | Israeli warplanes hit refugee camp in Gaza Strip, killing at least 33 people

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:20:08 GMT

Israeli airstrikes hit a refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip early Sunday, killing at least 33 people, health officials said. The strikes came a day after the U.S. urged Israel to take a humanitarian pause from its bombardment of Gaza, where Palestinians reported multiple fatalities on Saturday.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made another push Saturday to help civilians and met with Arab foreign ministers in Jordan. That was after his talks in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who insisted there could be no temporary cease-fire until all hostages held by Hamas are released. President Joe Biden suggested Saturday that progress was being made on the humanitarian pause.The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war reached 9,448, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, more than 140 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids.More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, most of them in the Oct. 7 Ha...

Californians bet farming agave for spirits holds key to weathering drought and groundwater limits

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:20:08 GMT

MURRIETA, Calif. (AP) — Leo Ortega started growing spiky blue agave plants on the arid hillsides around his Southern California home because his wife liked the way they looked.A decade later, his property is now dotted with thousands of what he and others hope is a promising new crop for the state following years of punishing drought and a push to scale back on groundwater pumping. The 49-year-old mechanical engineer is one of a growing number of Californians planting agave to be harvested and used to make spirits, much like the way tequila and mezcal are made in Mexico. The trend is fueled by the need to find hardy crops that don’t need much water and a booming appetite for premium alcoholic beverages since the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s attracted entrepreneurs such as Ortega, as well as some California farmers. They’re seeking to shift to more water-efficient crops and irrigation methods to avoid fallowing their fields with looming limits on how much groundwater they can ...

Victims of abusive Native American boarding schools to share experiences in Montana

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:20:08 GMT

BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) — Victims of government-backed Native American boarding schools are expected to share their experiences Sunday as U.S. officials make a final stop in Montana on their yearlong tour to confront the institutions that regularly abused students to assimilate them into white society.Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, has prioritized examining the trauma caused by the schools. She was scheduled to visit Montana State University in Bozeman to wrap up her “Road to Healing” tour. For over 150 years, Indigenous children were taken from their communities and forced into the boarding schools. Religious and private institutions ran many of the schools and received federal funding as partners in government programs to “civilize” Indigenous students.The U.S. enacted laws and policies in 1819 to support the schools and some continued to operate through the 1960s. An investigative report released last year by the Interior Department identifie...

Gunmen kill 5 people in an apparent dispute over fuel theft in central Mexico, police say

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:20:08 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Gunmen on motorcycles shot five men to death Saturday on the outskirts of the Mexican city of Puebla in an apparent dispute over stolen fuel, authorities said. The Puebla police department said the five victims appeared to have been guarding two gas tanker trucks when the attack occurred. The department said the attack was “presumably for fuel theft.” It said two of the victims had been arrested in October for alleged involvement in the explosion of a gas tanker truck, though it gave no specifics on their role in that incident.Puebla is just east of Mexico City and has long been plagued by gangs that drill illegal taps into government pipelines to steal fuel.Shootouts between the gangs and authorities are not uncommon.The Associated Press

Jamal Murray’s hamstring tightness is kind of injury that “can stick around for a while,” Michael Malone says.

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:20:08 GMT

Collin Gillespie didn’t have any texts from family waiting for him after he scored his first career NBA points.“Honestly, my parents are probably asleep,” Gillespie said after playing almost 12 minutes in Denver’s 123-101 win over the Bulls on Saturday night. “They probably have no idea this happened. They’re back on the east coast. It’s midnight there.”Jamal Murray (27) of the Denver Nuggets brings the ball down the court against the Chicago Bulls in the first quarter at Ball Arena on October 15, 2023 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)Instead of sending his parents something about the occasion, Gillespie said he was expecting to wake up to a text  Sunday morning.“I’m just gonna let them figure it out,” he said. “They were probably like, ‘Oh, he’s not gonna play.’ Hey, they learned their lesson.”Gillespie’s five points and two assists were a heart-warming ...