NBA: Jayson Tatum's career-high 53 carries Celtics to OT thriller

Jayson Tatum scored 35 of his career-high 53 points in the second half as the Boston Celtics erased a 17-point deficit to outlast the visiting Minnesota Timberwolves 145-136 in overtime Friday night.

Tatum shot 16-of-25 from the field, had six 3-pointers and added 10 rebounds as the Celtics won for the fourth time in five games. Jaylen Brown scored 26 points and Marcus Smart 24 points and eight assists.

Karl-Anthony Towns had 30 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists to lead the league-worst Timberwolves, who rallied from down 11 with 2:51 left in regulation to force overtime. 

D'Angelo Russell scored 26 with eight assists and Anthony Edwards had 24 points.

Boston led 122-111 before 3-pointers from Towns and Russell helped Minnesota get within three. 

The visitors knotted the score at 124 on another Russell trey that banked in with 9.7 seconds remaining, and Tatum missed a chance at a game-winner at the buzzer.

Brown and Kemba Walker drained back-to-back threes to put the Celtics up 132-127 in the extra period. 

Walker hit again from deep, and three free throws from Tatum had Boston ahead 138-132. Minnesota got no closer than five the rest of the way.

The Timberwolves began the third quarter on a 13-5 run for their largest lead of the game at 79-62. 

Trailing 87-74, the Celtics got within two following a 16-5 stretch, during which Tatum scored 13 straight points. The Celtics entered the fourth down 97-92.

Boston grabbed its first lead since 7:35 of the first when Walker hit a pair of free throws for a 101-100 margin with 8:21 to go. 

Payton Pritchard and Tatum followed with threes, and the Celtics stretched their advantage to seven.

The Timberwolves led 66-57 after a disastrous first half for the Celtics. Boston turned the ball over 12 times, and Minnesota took advantage, shooting 26-of-47 (55.3 percent) from the field.

The Timberwolves were up 26-22 with 2:09 remaining in the first before ending the quarter on a 13-3 run. 

The Celtics didn't get back within single digits until Tatum hit a 3-pointer with 7:58 left in the half to trim the margin to 49-40.

-reuters

Queen of Twitter: Dionne Warwick uses her voice on social media

NEW YORK (Reuters) - American singer Dionne Warwick, who has reigned as a diva for over six decades, is now using her voice as the ‘Queen of Twitter,’ spreading joy and poking fun in viral tweets to a new audience.

The pop legend, 80, regularly tweets her thoughts on life, career and fellow musicians, sometimes prompting responses that lead to heartwarming exchanges.

“If you are very obviously a rapper why did you put it in your stage name?” Warwick asked Chance the Rapper in a tweet. “I cannot stop thinking about this.”

“I will be whatever you wanna call me Ms Warwick,” Chance responded.

The five-time Grammy Award winner was surprised Chance even knew who she was.

It all started when Warwick saw her nieces and nephews having fun on Twitter and wanted to join in. Once she got the hang of it, Warwick decided how she would use her new platform.

“I’m going to do it when I have an urge to say something or feel that I need to say something and/or ask a question, somebody is going to answer it,” she recalled telling her niece who showed her the ropes.

Warwick, who is often referred to now as the ‘Queen of Twitter,’ relishes bringing positive energy to social media.

“That’s one of the things I’m enjoying more than anything else in the world, that everybody’s laughing with me, you know, and that I think is something that has been missing,” she said.

Warwick is also trailblazing with virtual concerts. Her first was held live from home on Easter Sunday.

“I had a little bit of anxiety, based on the fact that I had not sung in a complete year, and vocal cords are muscles and muscles had to be exercised, and I don’t do that,” she said.

“I wanted to do a disclaimer, you know, there might be a couple of squeaks, croaks,” she said with a laugh.

She will perform a second show on May 9, which is Mother’s Day in the United States.

This year Warwick was nominated for the first time to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a late recognition after nearly 60 hit songs including “Don’t Make Me Over,” “Walk on By,” and “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” and selling over 100 million records since the early 1960s.

Reporting by Alicia Powell; Writing by Richard Chang; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien

-reuters

Asia's rising coronavirus cases a worry as vaccine doubts cloud campaigns

SINGAPORE - India, South Korea and Thailand faced mounting coronavirus infections on Thursday, undermining cautious hopes that Asia might be emerging from the worst of the pandemic as worries about safety threatened to delay vaccination drives.

India reported a record 126,789 new cases, the third day this week tallies have surged to more than 100,000, catching by surprise authorities who have blamed crowding and a reluctance to wear masks as shops and offices reopen.

More infectious variants of the virus may have played a role in India's surge, some epidemiologists say, with hundreds of cases found of variants first detected in Britain, South Africa and Brazil.

The alarming numbers have led to New Zealand putting a temporary ban on anyone arriving from India, even for the first time blocking New Zealand citizens from coming home, for about two weeks.

"We are temporarily suspending entry into New Zealand for travellers from India," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a news conference in Auckland.

New Zealand, which has virtually eliminated the virus within its borders, recorded 23 new cases at its border on Thursday, 17 from India.

Two other countries that managed to largely keep the coronavirus under control during the first year of the pandemic were also grappling with new waves, though smaller than India's.

South Korea reported 700 new cases on Thursday, its highest daily figure since early January, and the prime minister warned that new social distancing rules would likely be needed.

Thailand, which has been planning a cautious re-opening of its tourist industry, reported a rise in new daily infections to 405 on Thursday, taking its total number of infections to 30,310, with 95 deaths.

Adding to Thai worries, it has detected 24 cases of a highly contagious virus variant first detected in Britain, its first reported domestic transmission of the variant.

Cases are also rising in parts of Europe but South America is the most worrying region of the world for infections, with cases mounting in nearly every country, the director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday.

SUSPENDING SHOTS

Asia's increasing cases comes as worries are growing over the safety of one of the most prominent vaccines against the virus.

The European Medicines Agency on Wednesday said it found rare cases of blood clots among some adult recipients of AstraZeneca Plc's COVID-19 vaccine, although it said the vaccine's advantages still outweighed the risks.

Both South Korea and the Philippines have suspended use of the vaccine for people under 60 because of possible links to blood clots, while Australia and Taiwan said they would continue to use it.

Worry about the vaccine could delay immunisation drives in Asia, some of which are already dogged by supply problems. Campaigns in most parts of Asia lag those in places like Britain and the United States.

Australia's program to vaccinate its near 26 million people is more than 80 percent behind its original schedule.

Authorities there had pledged to administer at least 4 million first doses by the end of March but could only deliver 670,000. The government blamed supply issues from Europe.

While India's cases mount, vaccine centres in several parts of the country, including hardest-hit Maharashtra state, have been running out of supplies.

China, where the novel coronavirus emerged in late 2019, is driving ahead with its vaccination campaign, administering about 3.68 million doses on Wednesday, taking its total number of doses given to 149.07 million, authorities said.

Japan's vaccinations are far behind those in most major economies, with only one vaccine approved and about 1 million people having received a first dose since February, even as it struggles with new cases.

Infections in Tokyo spiked by 545 cases on Thursday, adding to worries about the Olympics and Paralympics, delayed from last year and now due to start at the end of July.

The government scrambled to calm a social media furore saying it was not looking to prioritise vaccines for its Olympic athletes, dismissing a media report that it was considering doing so.

Japan is not insisting that arriving athletes be vaccinated but there will be frequent tests while they are in Japan. There will be no foreign spectators and a decision on domestic ones has yet to be made.

-reuters

AstraZeneca jab risk-benefit 'still largely positive' - WHO

GENEVA, Switzerland - The risk-benefit balance for the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is "still largely positive", the World Health Organization said Tuesday after fresh claims about links to blood clots.

A top official from the European Medicines Agency -- the EU's drug regulator -- claimed there was a clear connection between the jab and clots, though the EMA itself said it was still reviewing data and no conclusions had yet been reached.

The WHO said there was no evidence that the risk-benefit analysis had shifted on the jab, which is one of only three different COVID-19 vaccines so far to have received the green light from the UN health agency.

"There is no link for the moment between the vaccine and thrombotic events with thrombocytopenia," Rogerio Pinto de Sa Gaspar, the WHO's director for regulation and pre-qualification, told a press conference.

"The appraisal we have for the moment -- and this is under consideration by the experts -- is that the benefit-risk assessment for the vaccine is still largely positive.

Agence France Presse

NBA: Curry to auction 'Bruce Lee shoes' for families of Atlanta shooting victims

Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry will auction a pair of custom game-worn shoes featuring a picture of martial arts icon Bruce Lee to raise money for the families of last month's Atlanta-area shootings victims.

Curry wore the yellow, white and black shoes -- designed with the Bruce Lee Foundation and featuring Lee's famous quote "under the heavens, there is but one family" -- during Sunday's 117-111 defeat by the Atlanta Hawks.

In the last year, there has been increased reports of anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States. Eight people -- six of whom were Asian women -- were killed in a March 16 rampage in Atlanta.

"I think Stephen's gesture is a beautiful example of allyship and solidarity in action," Shannon Lee, the daughter of the martial arts legend and chairperson of the board of directors for the Bruce Lee Foundation, tweeted.

"I am honoured he would choose my father and my family as the symbol for the idea that we are all one family, as my father said, and therefore must all stand for one another."

Speaking before Sunday's game, Curry said he had feelings of "disgust, horror and outright anger" at the violence in the United States.

"After all we have been through this past year, let alone in the history of our country, people still deal with unnecessary tragedy and are afraid for their lives," he told The Undefeated website.

"We have to do better."

The Biden administration announced measures responding to rising anti-Asian violence, including deploying $49.5 million from COVID-19 relief funds for U.S. community programs that help victims. (Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford )

-reuters

Hong Kong bar owners in ‘hunger strike’ over virus closures

HONG KONG — A group of bar, karaoke and mahjong parlor owners have gone on a symbolic hunger strike in Hong Kong over anti-coronavirus measures that have kept them shuttered for most of the last year.

The four-day protest started on the pavement outside the Hong Kong government’s headquarters on Sunday — the one-year anniversary of when authorities first ordered a round of closures to stem infections.

Those taking part are refusing food in shifts, more an act of protest than a full hunger strike.

“People are queueing for beaches… restaurants are full but only we are in pain and barred from opening,” Leung Lap-yan, founding president of the Licensed Bar and Club Association, told reporters.

Hong Kong’s bars — a major early source of infections — have been hit particularly hard by social distancing measures that have been tightened and relaxed depending on infection rates.

Over the last year, they have been fully closed for 230 days, opened with restrictions for 101 days, and allowed to run normally for only 24 days.

The latest closures have been in place since November, meaning bar owners missed out on the usual peak Christmas, New Year and Easter holiday seasons.

Densely populated Hong Kong was one of the first places to be hit by the coronavirus, but strict social distancing and universal mask wearing has helped keep infections to just over 11,000 with 205 deaths.

Those measures have caused economic devastation, however, and prompted accusations that authorities are more willing to relax curbs for politically connected industries.

Restaurants have remained open in recent weeks — with a cap on four people per table — while Hong Kong’s malls and theme parks have been packed.

Gyms have also been allowed to reopen despite being at the centre of a major recent cluster.

The protesting owners said their industries were willing to adopt stringent measures including capacity restrictions and even requiring customers to drink with a straw.

But so far they have not won any government approval to reopen.

Yuen Kwok-yung, one of the city’s top microbiologists, said on Monday that he understood people’s anger.

“But if you want a full restoration of business, you must have 28 consecutive days with zero local cases,” Yuen said.

“Otherwise, once the restrictions are gone, it will come back.”

Agence France-Presse 

Salah can prove loyalty to Liverpool in Real Madrid showdown

Mohamed Salah can silence the critics who question his loyalty to Liverpool by avenging the most painful moment of his career when the Egypt star faces Real Madrid in the Champions League quarterfinals on Tuesday.

Salah sparked howls of indignation among Liverpool fans recently when he refused to rule out the possibility of playing for a Spanish club in the future.

The fact that Salah was speaking to Madrid-based newspaper Marca at the time only increased speculation that he was laying the groundwork for a move to Real Madrid.

“I hope to be able to play for many more years. Why not? No one knows what’s going to happen in the future, so maybe one day, yes. It’s not up to me,” Salah said when asked if he was keen to try Spanish football.

Salah’s flirtatious response was similar to the one he gave to another Spanish outlet in December when questioned about a potential La Liga move.

“I think Madrid and Barcelona are two top clubs,” he told AS.

Whether either Real or Barcelona could afford to buy Salah amid the current financial difficulties caused by the coronavirus pandemic remains to be seen.

But for a club whose supporters pride themselves on their passionate and unflinching loyalty to the Liverpool cause, Salah’s refusal to rule out a switch to Spain was a careless own goal.

It tapped into the long-standing suspicion among a section of Liverpool’s fanbase that Salah, whose contract runs until 2023, is motivated by personal glory rather than team success.

The cynics support their claims by highlighting Salah’s occasional spats with Liverpool forward Sadio Mane when he shoots rather than passing to a better placed teammate.

They also point to Salah’s sulky response to being substituted during the defeat against Chelsea in March, and his reported frustration at being ignored for the Liverpool captaincy in the absence of the injured Jordan Henderson.

Real revenge mission

Of course, Salah could rightly mention that Liverpool might well have failed to win either the Champions League in 2019 or the Premier League last season without his goals and sublime skills.

Even this season, with Liverpool in the midst of a failed title defense marred by seemingly endless injuries, Salah’s haul of 26 goals — including one in Saturday’s 3-0 win at Arsenal — shows what a threat he carries.

With 120 goals in 193 appearances in all competitions since joining from Roma in 2017, Salah is rightly ranked among Liverpool’s all-time greats.

But the 28-year-old’s place in the hearts of Kopites might not be so secure.

Michael Owen and Steve McManaman — both local heroes at Liverpool at the time — were never so fondly regarded after swapping Anfield for Real’s Bernabeu.

Inspiring Liverpool to a revenge victory against Real in a rematch of the 2018 Champions League final won by the Spanish club would go some way to appeasing the doubters.

That bitter 3-1 loss in Kiev remains a personal nadir for Salah, who was in tears on the pitch after being forced to come off with a first half injury following a clash with Sergio Ramos.

Salah had suffered a dislocated shoulder that would hamper him at the World Cup later that year, with some claiming Ramos had deliberately exacerbated the injury with the way he dragged the Egyptian to the turf.

“Let’s just say that I have special motivation to win the tie and go through to the semi-finals,” Salah told Marca about the Real reunion.

Ironically, Real captain Ramos is expected to miss both legs of the quarter-final with a calf injury.

Ramos’s absence is a major boost for Liverpool as they seek to salvage a miserable season by winning a seventh European Cup.

If Salah can play a leading role in making that dream come true, his commitment might not be questioned quite so often.

Agence France-Presse 

CDC updates guidance to cruise ship industry, urges vaccinations

WASHINGTON— The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention on Friday issued new guidance to the cruise ship industry, including the need for COVID-19 vaccinations, a necessary step before passenger voyages can resume.

The new technical instructions, the first update since October, include increasing from weekly to daily reporting frequency of COVID-19 cases and illnesses and implementing routine testing of all crew based on a ship’s COVID-19 status and establishing a plan and timeline for vaccination of crew and port personnel.

"COVID-19 vaccination efforts will be critical in the safe resumption of passenger operations," the CDC said.

CDC said the next phase of the CDC's conditional sail order will include simulated voyages to will allow crew and port personnel to practice new COVID-19 operational procedures with volunteers before sailing with passengers.

"CDC is committed to working with the cruise industry and seaport partners to resume cruising when it is safe to do so, following the phased approach outlined in October's conditional sail order," the agency said.

It did not specify a date for the resumption of cruise operations from US ports despite calls from the industry for planning for a phased resumption by the beginning of July. The CDC said it would issue additional guidance before it allows cruises to resume.

The Cruise Lines International Association, which represents Carnival Corp, Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean Cruises and others had pleaded with CDC to issue new guidance, saying in a March 24 statement the "lack of any action by the CDC has effectively banned all sailings in the largest cruise market in the world." It did not immediately comment on Friday.

The group had said the prior conditional sail order issued in October was "outdated" and "does not reflect the industry’s proven advancements and success operating in other parts of the world, nor the advent of vaccines, and unfairly treats cruises differently. Cruise lines should be treated the same as other travel, tourism, hospitality, and entertainment sectors." 

-reuters

Jurisdiction in Huawei executive's case for US judge to decide: Canada

Canada's attorney general on Thursday fired back at defense accusations of US jurisdictional overreach in Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou's extradition case, saying the issue is ultimately for a trial judge to decide.

Meng's lawyers argued this week that her alleged crimes took place in Hong Kong and had no direct link to the United States.

If Canada sends her to the United States to face trial on bank fraud and conspiracy charges, they further argued, it would be violating international law on legal jurisdictions.

Canadian government lawyer Robert Frater said the jurisdiction matter must be left to Canada's justice minister -- who has the final say on extraditions -- and a US trial judge.

"This is a matter that can really only be properly litigated before a US trial judge," Frater said, adding that the defense arguments' "flaws run so wide and so deep I scarcely know where to begin."

For more than two years, the Chinese businesswoman has been fighting being sent to the United States, which alleges she misled investment bank HSBC by distancing Huawei from its subsidiary Skycom and its activities in Iran that breached US sanctions.

Both Meng and Huawei deny any wrongdoing.

Meng arrest lawful 

The defense also conceded this week that Canada's arrest of Meng was required under its extradition treaty with the United States, but with hindsight, she should now be released.

"Ms. Meng's detention was required by the extradition treaty, so it can't be regarded as unlawful initially," said defense lawyer Gib van Ert. "What we're saying now is the detention is revealed now to be unlawful... (because) it is founded on the unlawfulness of the extradition request itself."

Van Ert said that HSBC's US$2 million in loans after Meng's meeting with HSBC executives at a Hong Kong tea room did not cause any US harm.

"How much impact did these transactions actually have on the US financial system?" asked van Ert. "In my submission, the answer is... very nearly no impact as a percentage.

"Had someone just flown to London and paid cash, we wouldn't be here because there would be no connection to the US at all."

Canada's lawyer countered that countries can prosecute crimes committed internationally if there is any impact on them and that HSBC was put at risk because it continued providing banking services to Huawei and Skycom based on Meng's assurances.

Meng's "lies in the tea room have a consequence: the creation of legal risk that takes place in the United States and gives the requesting state the ability to prosecute," Frater said.

Meng will next appear on April 26. Her extradition hearings are scheduled to end on May 14, barring appeals.

Agence France-Presse

Chrissy Teigen fronts People magazine's 'Beautiful' issue

LOS ANGELES — Former model Chrissy Teigen was revealed as the cover star of People magazine’s “Beautiful” annual issue on Wednesday, sharing that she’d long put her calorie counting days behind her.

Teigen, 35, said her definition of beauty has also changed since she became a mother to children Luna, 4, and Miles, 2.

“It’s really, really nice to be able to come to an age where I can appreciate every little scar and see my body as something that’s done incredible, miraculous things. The difference is these two beautiful, wonderful babies, and these scars are the things I’ve been through,” Teigen told People magazine.

Teigen is married to singer-songwriter John Legend, who in 2019 was named People’s sexiest man alive.

A cook book author, Teigen told People she has had “ups and downs” with dieting over the years but was no longer as strict with herself as she had been when she was a swimsuit model.

“At this point, if it’s going to make me happy and make me feel good, then I indulge in it. I’ve spent way too many years counting calories and scheduling way too many workouts and trying to figure out what ‘wellness’ meant to me,” she said.

Teigen last week she announced she was quitting Twitter, where she had been a prolific poster, saying the social media platform “no longer serves me as positively as it serves me negatively.” She kept her Instagram account.

People magazine in 2018 changed the title of its annual special issue from the “Most Beautiful” to simply “Beautiful.” Other men and women to have made the front cover include Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez, Lupita Nyong’o and Leonardo DiCaprio.

The special double issue hits newsstands on Friday.

Reporting by Jill Serjeant; editing by Jane Wardell

-reuters