NBA: Porzingis accused of rape in New York

Dallas Mavericks center Kristaps Porzingis has been accused of raping a New York neighbor on Feb. 7, 2018, hours after suffering a serious knee injury while playing for the Knicks, the New York Post reported Saturday.

The alleged victim contacted police this week with details of the alleged rape, according to the Post.

The Post said that the accuser was considered "believable" despite waiting more than 13 months to report the incident. She told police that she and Porzingis discussed $68,000 in hush money.

Porzingis' attorney, Roland G. Riopelle, issued the following statement to ESPN on Saturday:

"We are aware of the complaint that was made against Mr. Porzingis on Friday and unequivocally deny the allegations. We made a formal referral to federal law enforcement on December 20th, 2018, based on the accuser's extortionate demands. We also alerted the National Basketball Association months ago and they are aware of the ongoing investigation of the accuser by federal law enforcement.

"We cannot comment further on an ongoing federal investigation. Please refer any questions to the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the National Basketball Association."

The 23-year-old Porzingis was traded to the Mavericks on Jan. 31. Owner Mark Cuban is aware of the accusation as the Mavericks were informed about it on a conference call to finalize the trade, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.

"We have been instructed by federal authorities not to comment," Cuban told The Post in an email. The Post said Cuban copied the email to NBA officials and Porzingis' representatives.

According to the Post, the woman lived in the same building as Porzingis and said he showed up at her unit around 2 a.m. She accepted an invitation to Porzingis' suite.

She told police that after entering, the 7-foot-3 Porzingis held her down and raped her, according to the Post.

The woman said she waited more than a year to report the rape because of the money Porzingis promised in exchange for her silence.

The $68,000 was supposed to pay for her brother's college tuition, but Porzingis reneged on the deal, the woman reportedly told police.

Porzingis tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee earlier that night in a loss to the Milwaukee Bucks. He never played for the Knicks again due to the injury and the recent trade.

The Knicks were reportedly contacted by the New York Post about the allegation.

"This is Kristaps' personal matter and not related to the Knicks," a team spokesman said.

Porzingis averaged 17.8 points and 7.1 rebounds in 186 games over three seasons with the Knicks.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Russia's UN envoy Churkin dies suddenly in New York

MOSCOW - Russia's combative ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, died suddenly in New York on Monday after being taken ill at work, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The ministry gave no details on the circumstances of his death but offered condolences to his relatives and said the diplomat had died one day before his 65th birthday.

It declined to comment on reports that Churkin had been taken to a hospital shortly before his death.

A U.S. government official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the case, said that Churkin had died of an apparent heart attack.

A federal law enforcement official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said that there appeared to be nothing unusual about the ambassador's death.

The New York Post quoted unnamed sources as saying Churkin had been rushed to a Manhattan hospital from the Russian embassy after falling ill with a cardiac condition.

President Vladimir Putin was deeply upset by the news and had greatly valued Churkin's professionalism and diplomatic talent, Russian news agencies quoted the Kremlin as saying.

Tass news agency quoted Churkin's deputy, Pyotr Ilyichev, as saying: "The loss sustained by Russia is grave and irreplaceable.

"Ambassador Churkin remained at his work post until the last minute. He devoted his whole life to defending the interests of Russia and was to be found on the very front lines and in the most stressful posts."

Churkin was a pugnacious defender of Russian policy, notably its intensive bombing of the Syrian city of Aleppo last year to crush rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad.

MOTHER TERESA
When then-U.S. envoy to the United Nations, Samantha Power, accused Syria, Russia and Iran last year of bearing responsibility for atrocities there, Churkin said she was forgetting the United States' own track record in the Middle East.

"The weirdest speech to me was the one by the U.S. representative who built her statement as if she is Mother Teresa herself. Please, remember which country you represent. Please, remember the track record of your country," he said.

Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general's office, on Monday said: "He has been such a regular presence here that I am actually quite stunned. Our thoughts go to his family, to his friends and to his government."

Shortly after news of the ambassador's death broke, a moment of silence was held at an informal session of the U.N. General Assembly. Later, the General Assembly's president, Fiji Ambassador to the United Nations Peter Thomson, offered the world body's "heartfelt condolences" and praised the late ambassador's "stern resolution" before leading another silent tribute.

Churkin's diplomatic counterparts weighed in with their own encomiums.

"In my short time at the United Nations, Ambassador Vitaly Churkin showed himself to be a gracious colleague," the U.S. ambassador to the world body, Nikki Haley, said in a statement.

"We did not always see things the same way, but he unquestionably advocated his country's positions with great skill."

British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft described Churkin on Twitter as "a diplomatic giant & wonderful character."

Condolences poured in from his U.S. counterparts in the Obama administration. His occasional foe, former U.S. ambassador Power, described Churkin as a "diplomatic maestro and deeply caring man who did all he could to bridge US-RUS differences."

Churkin first came to prominence as foreign ministry spokesman for the Soviet Union from 1990 until the collapse of the superpower the following year. Despite the pressure of events, he appeared to revel in the attention of the Western correspondents who mobbed him at briefings, and was happy to respond to them at length in fluent English.

He went on to serve as deputy Russian foreign minister and ambassador to Belgium and then to Canada, eventually moving to the United Nations in 2006.

In his last interview, given to the state-funded Russia Today earlier this month, Churkin argued that the United Nations was ever more essential for resolving conflicts around the world.

"I think the U.N. continues to be an indispensable mechanism," he said. "Without the U.N., we would be acting all on our own."

(Reporting by Jack Stubbs and Ned Parker, Mark Hosenball; writing by Mark Trevelyan; editing by Gareth Jones and Jonathan Oatis)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

NBA: Derrick Rose fined $200,000 over no-show, according to report

The New York Knicks fined Derrick Rose about $200,000 for his mysterious no-show, the US media reported on Thursday.

Rose created a sensation on Monday when he failed to appear for the Knicks' 110-96 defeat to the New Orleans Pelicans.

The New York Post said in a report Thursday that Rose had been fined $193,848 — 1/110th of his $21.3 million salary — mirroring the formula used by the NBA for a one-game suspension.

"The team fined him a pretty hefty amount — the amount of the fine for missing a game," Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek was quoted as saying.

Rose angered the Knicks management after disappearing without notifying team officials or explaining his absence.

He also ignored calls from team officials attempting to locate him.

He later explained that he had travelled to visit family in Chicago, saying he needed "space."

Rose returned to the team Tuesday and apologized to his teammates, coaches, president Phil Jackson and general manager Steve Mills.

"When I was in the room, I felt like they understood where I was coming from," Rose said of Knicks management.

Rose told reporters prior to the Knicks' 104-89 win over his former team, the Chicago Bulls, on Thursday that he didn't regret making his unscheduled trip.

"Family over everything," he said.

And Rose, who will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season, hopes the Knicks will still want to re-sign him.

"I hope one incident didn't change their minds. Who knows? This is a business and if it was to happen I'm still going to play the way I normally know how to play no matter where I'm at."

Rose, who scored 25 points in his first game back with the Knicks on Wednesday — a nail-biting loss to Philadelphia — scored 17 against the Bulls on Thursday and said he'd been welcomed back warmly by the team, the fine notwithstanding.

"Right when I came back, I felt nothing but love," Rose said. "I apologized to them and like I said, it eases everything when they understand."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

NY Post runs naked pics of Trump's wife... again

NEW YORK - The New York Post on Monday ran a front-page picture of potential first lady Melania Trump naked, prompting criticism on social media and charges of misogyny.

It was the second day in a row that the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid ran a front page nude image of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's wife from her years as a young model.

"Menage a Trump," ran the headline, touting the paper's "exclusive photos."

The picture shows a nude Melania being hugged by another nude woman as she lies in bed.

On Sunday, the Post ran a front-page picture of a nude Melania, with stars covering her breasts, under the title "The Ogle Office."

The Republican's presidential campaign appeared to shrug off the pictures.

Trump adviser Jason Miller told CNN on Sunday that there was "nothing to be embarrassed about with the pictures -- she's a beautiful woman."

Both sets of photos were taken in 1995 when the 46-year-old Slovenian-born Melania was 25 and working as a model, before she met Trump.

The pictures were published the following year in Max, a now-defunct French magazine.

The New York Post endorsed Trump for president in mid-April, describing him at the time as "a potential superstar of vast promise, but making rookie mistakes."

The reaction to the pictures on Twitter was mixed.

"Shame on you #NewYorkPost for slut-shaming Melania Trump. The US needs no more neanderthal input to this already disgraceful election," read one tweet.

"I am appalled and outraged" by the cover photo, read another tweet, adding: "Misogyny is misogyny."

Several other tweets decried the "attempts to shame" Melania.

Some wondered how conservative evangelical Christians would react, while others wondered if Murdoch, who also holds conservative views, had turned against Trump.

Melania met Trump in 1998, and became the real estate tycoon's third wife in 2005.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Murdoch admits 'cover-up' at News of the World

LONDON -- Rupert Murdoch admitted Wednesday there was a "cover-up" over phone hacking at Britain's News of the World tabloid but tried to shift the blame away from himself and senior executives at his media empire.

The tycoon told an official inquiry in Britain he had "failed" by not ordering an internal investigation sooner, but insisted that staff at the now-defunct paper kept top bosses at US-based News Corp. in the dark.

"There's no question in my mind that, maybe even the editor but certainly beyond that, someone took charge of a cover-up which we were victim to and I regret that," he said in his second day of evidence to the Leveson Inquiry.

"I think the senior executives were all... misinformed and all shielded from anything that was going on there and I do blame one or two people for that whom I shouldn't name because for all I know they may be arrested yet."

The News of the World's royal editor and a private investigator were jailed in 2007 for phone hacking but the industrial scale of the practice at the paper did not emerge until a new police probe was launched in January 2011.

Pressed by the senior judge leading the inquiry, Brian Leveson, about why he did not take further action over allegations against one of his biggest-selling newspapers, Murdoch added: "I also have to say that I failed."

The scandal fully erupted in July last year when it emerged the News of the World had hacked the mobile phone voicemail messages of Milly Dowler, a murdered British schoolgirl, sparking public outrage.

Murdoch shut the Sunday tabloid when advertisers boycotted it and Prime Minister David Cameron set up the Leveson Inquiry to probe the ethics of the press and its relations with politicians and police.

Asked on Thursday where the cover-up originated, the 81-year-old tycoon said it was "from within the News of the World."

"There were one or two very strong characters there who I think had been there many, many, many years and were friends of the journalists," he said.

"The person I'm thinking of was a friend of the journalists, a drinking pal and a clever lawyer... this person forbade people to go and report to Mrs Brooks or to James."

Former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks resigned as chief executive of Murdoch's British newspaper wing when the hacking scandal erupted in July last year, while Murdoch's son James was chairman.

Murdoch further denied that he had ever discussed News Corp.'s bid for full control of British satellite broadcaster BSkyB with British culture minister Jeremy Hunt.

Hunt's special adviser, Adam Smith, resigned on Wednesday over claims that he leaked details to a News Corp. lobbyist about the government's view of its takeover attempt.

Murdoch abandoned the BSkyB bid when the hacking scandal blew up.

In the first day of his long-awaited testimony on Wednesday, the Australian-born Murdoch denied that he had exerted a decades-long stranglehold over British politics, saying: "I've never asked a prime minister for anything."

He also denied discussing the controversial BSkyB deal with Cameron.

Murdoch still owns The Sun -- Britain's biggest-selling newspaper -- The Times and Sunday Times in Britain and the Wall Street Journal and New York Post in the United States.

News Corp. has paid out millions of pounds in compensation to hacking victims and more than 40 people have been arrested over hacking and alleged bribery of public officials by staff at the News of the World and The Sun.

source: interaksyon.com