The bone-rattling trip to the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere used to require a steady hand, a powerful jet and the precision of an airman ready to dodge enemy fire. The dangers were immense. You could black out. Gravitational force could pull blood from your eyes, rendering you sightless. Or you could merely end up in a flat spin and plummet to Earth without ever getting a good view of what lay beyond it. It was just the sort of challenge that a chiseled 29-year-old aspiring astronaut named Ed Dwight was after. Sign Up For the Morning Briefing Newsletter In 1962, he piloted an F-104 Starfighter, essentially a chrome javelin, with wings so small as to seem gestural, designed to go very fast and very high, ideally in a straight line. A massive engine took up one end; the other was occupied by the pilot. As he thundered toward the sun, air roared against the fuselage and Dwight felt the familiar lurch of passing through the sound barrier. On cue at 80,000 feet, as the bruised edge of the atmosphere drew closer, Dwight cut the fuel to the engine. He became a mere leaf, floating along the thinnest layers of Earth's air. In front of him spread the curvature of the planet, with the black sea of space overhead. "The first time you do this it's like, Oh my God, what the hell? Look at this," recalled Dwight, now 85. "You can actually see this beautiful blue layer that the Earth is encased in. It's absolutely stunning." Dwight only made a handful of flights like this, but all told he spent 9,000 hours in the air. A former altar boy turned airman, he was among the pilots training to become astronauts at the Aerospace Research Pilot School, helmed by Chuck Yeager at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Dwight had the drive, the experience and the solid family back story of all his peers. Unlike every other pilot in the program, he was black. Two grand stories that America tells itself about the 1960s are the civil rights movement and the space race. They are mostly rendered as separate narratives, happening at the same time but on different courses. In the 5-foot-4 figure of Ed Dwight, they came together for a transitory moment. The Kennedy administration, a supporter of civil rights, became Dwight's champion. The black press, eager to mark milestones by lionizing barrier breakers, splashed his face across front pages. Dwight personified American progress at a time when the country was eager to prove that while Russia had beaten us into orbit, the United States was the true superpower. It was a high-stakes contest of Cold War optics. But the top of the California sky was the closest Dwight would ever get to space. He went from being a prospective astronaut to working on a series of obscure assignments, dealing a major blow to America's early attempts to integrate the ranks of its space pioneers. Eight years after Dwight piloted that plane, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped out onto the lunar surface, leaving a plaque that read: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon, July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind." But what if a black person had landed on the moon with them, uttered the words "one small step for man" and set that plaque in place? What kind of leap for mankind would that have been? To Charles Bolden, a former astronaut who became the first African-American administrator of NASA in 2009, there is no doubt. "To see an Ed Dwight walking across the platform getting into an Apollo capsule would have been mind-boggling in those days," he said. "It would've had an incredible impact." It took two decades after Dwight became an astronaut trainee before a black American would go to space. Ed Dwight's path had started years earlier. In 1959, while Dwight was a bomber pilot at Travis Air Force Base in California, a young Navy psychologist named Robert Voas was busy losing his car in the Pentagon's vast parking lot. Voas had joined NASA with the special task of figuring out who the first Americans in space would be   the Mercury Seven as they would later be known. "We were sort of awed by the feeling that you were involved in the selection program for someone like either Columbus or Lindbergh," he recalled in 2002, for a NASA oral history project. "They were going to come to not only represent the program, but often that they'd possibly be American heroes." Before beginning his search, Voas drafted a memo to his supervisor asking whether to focus solely on technical qualifications or to take "public relations" into account. "Were we concerned at all about having a mix of ethnicity?" Voas said. "Were we concerned about whether both men and women should be included?" Voas said he was told that "the whole emphasis should be on who could most reliably and effectively fly this vehicle," but his questions about representation and diversity would dog the newly formed space program for decades. The idea that early astronauts must first be test pilots, like the hotshots at Edwards, was not a foregone conclusion. Voas imagined a nationwide competition that could include deep-sea divers, arctic explorers or racecar drivers. The most important characteristics for the first classes of astronauts headed into the unknown would be the ability to respond coolly if something went wrong and levelheadedness in the face of hostile environments. Riding a rocket had little in common with flying a plane, aside from being airborne. "The basic thing you have to understand," Dwight explained recently, "is everything that happens on that spaceship, from the time you crawl into that seat to the time it touches down, is controlled from the ground. There's no one thing that makes a good astronaut. I don't know any person with determination and will that can't go to space." Even Yeager, the aerospace training program's future commandant, insisted in 1959, "I've been a pilot all my life, and there won't be any flying to do in Project Mercury." But President Dwight D. Eisenhower vetoed the idea of an open call. A career army man himself, the president decreed the astronauts would come from military backgrounds. That way, they would have not only the desired discipline, outlook and comportment, but also a proven ability to cope in psychologically challenging situations   and the security clearances necessary for a program with significant classified aspects. With the United States deep into the Cold War, candidates would be the high-profile proxies in a global game of influence. According to NASA's chief historian, Bill Barry, this one decision set a course that the space race would follow for years to come. "Once you do that," he explained, "you bake in all of the stuff that's already there. For example, that there are no African-Americans who are test pilots. There are no women who are test pilots." As Tom Wolfe described them in "The Right Stuff," the first astronauts were "seven patriotic God-fearing small-town Protestant family men with excellent backing on the home front." These would be America's celestial heroes. They had camera-ready wives and families, and projected the camaraderie of an elite corps. Not surprisingly, those first space soldiers were all white. On April 12, 1961, the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. The next month, in an address to a joint session of Congress, President John F. Kennedy announced his intention to put Americans on the moon, declaring it necessary "if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny." By that time, the broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow had become the director of the United States Information Agency, in charge of fighting the Cold War on the "hearts and minds" front. Watching the handsome Gagarin barnstorm Brazil, Japan, Liberia and other countries   and the screaming crowds that turned out for him   Murrow had an epiphany. In September, he wrote to the administrator of NASA with what was essentially a bid for international diplomacy: "Why don't we put the first non-white man in space? If your boys were to enroll and train a qualified Negro and then fly him in whatever vehicle is available, we could retell our whole space effort to the whole non-white world, which is most of it." With waves of countries emerging from colonial rule, the United States could not maintain credibility with Ghana, India, Indonesia or Nigeria, for instance, if much of America was still segregated. "The map's being divided into who's pro-Soviet and who's pro-U.S.A., and our astronauts are good-will ambassadors," said the historian Douglas Brinkley, who wrote "American Moonshot," which was published this year. "We're touting them around to show people the greatness of the American experiment. You put a person of color in space and it'll show how noble our democracy is." In summer 1962, Murrow put his proposal for a black astronaut directly to the president, who passed it along in a memo to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, chairman of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, with the "hope that something might be done." Johnson's aide George Reedy dug into the pros and cons. "There can be no doubt of the tremendous value to the United States of having a Negro as an astronaut in a space flight," Reedy wrote in a confidential memo. However, he added, the administration should "dispose of the concept that NASA can just reach out and grab a Negro and make an astronaut candidate out of him." Doing so risked any number of public relations disasters. The man might flunk out, making it look as though he had been set up for failure. He might die   a significant risk   leading to the accusation that African-Americans were being treated as expendable. The worst-case scenario, Reedy wrote, would be if the public caught on to an "artificial selection," which would undermine the whole endeavor. And there was a big problem. As Reedy summarized NASA's position, no African-American applicants had even come close to moving through the agency's selection process. Kennedy's executive order in 1961 encouraging the government to take "affirmative action" to promote equal employment opportunities was too recent to have affected the pool of available black pilots. A solution was, Reedy explained, "beyond the scope of NASA activities and is basically a problem for the whole nation." Even so, the Navy and Air Force were directed by the White House to scour their ranks for any candidates. The secretary of the Air Force, Eugene M. Zuckert, was by now used to 7 p.m. phone calls asking for "a list of Negro officers by name, above the rank of second lieutenant," for 6:30 the next morning, he said in an oral history in 1969. The Air Force came back with a surprising answer: A young black pilot was ready to start training at Edwards. In Ed Dwight , the White House had found more than Murrow could have hoped for: a charismatic flier with a cum laude aeronautics degree from Arizona State University, and the required flight time and performance ratings. As a child, Dwight learned Latin and served as an altar boy at his local Catholic parish. He worked a paper route and delivered food from his parents' restaurant in Kansas City, Kan. Sometimes he earned nickels cleaning private planes at the nearby airport after their white owners returned from hunting trips in Wyoming. "From the time I was a little itty-bitty kid, I was going to the airport every day," he remembered. "I began to study all the airplanes, and I'd draw all the airplanes. This was my private fantasy." Today, at 85, Dwight recalled his early dreams of flying as a full-body memory, stretching up from his toes to the soft pads of his fingers to illustrate the angles of flight and descent. In running shoes and a tracksuit, he darts around his sculpture studio, where he has crafted likenesses of jazz greats like Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong. He is especially spirited when talking about his childhood. Dwight and his older sister integrated the local Catholic high school, though not before a blacks-only shower was built and Dwight was lectured on not looking at white girls. He went out for the football team and boxed. It seemed the only thing that the diminutive teenager did not excel at was basketball, but he still played. "He just charmed everybody," recalled Dwight's youngest sister, Liz Chow. "Everybody loved Ed Dwight. He had a kind of a bubbly effervescent type of personality. He walked into a room and it just lit up. I often wondered whether or not there was someone above him, maybe a guardian angel, steering him, because everything he attempted to do he succeeded at." What he wanted to do was fly. "But this was a white man's world," Dwight recalled of his formative years in the early 1950s. "Kansas was segregated at the time. And I never thought for a minute that I would really fly an airplane. This was crazy." But then one day on the front page of a newspaper he saw "an African-American pilot from Kansas City, my hometown, that had been shot down in Korea," he explained, adding, "He was standing on a wing of a jet, and he was a prisoner of war, and I was like, Oh my God, they're letting black folks fly jets." So Dwight enlisted in the Air Force in 1953. He rose through the ranks, from cadet to second and then first lieutenant. He leaped into procedural vacuums, streamlining operations and preparing manuals. When instructors were absent, he ran instrument training classes. He administered examinations to his fellow pilots and flew extensively in his off-duty hours. He completed correspondence courses in electronic engineering and calculus. In one evaluation, a lieutenant colonel wrote that Dwight's "aggressiveness, coupled with his unlimited ability, place him in the outstanding category for a young officer." Another superior wrote, "I would not hesitate to nominate Lt. Dwight to represent me or the Air Force in dealings with the public." On top of all that, he looked like a movie star. He also had the superhuman confidence of a true fighter jock. Dwight wrote in his 2009 self-published memoir, "Soaring on the Wings of a Dream": "Fighter pilots are universally Type-A personalities, independent, aggressive, daring, risk-oriented, total control freaks, and the real good ones are usually arrogant asses. Exercising absolute control over a complex, multimillion-dollar, high-speed machine that requires the ultimate in training, superior intellectual input, and psychomotor reaction requires such a personality. You did not get 'into' a fighter, you strapped it onto your ass and it became an extension of your physical body." Arriving at the astronaut training program at Edwards, Dwight felt as if he had been personally anointed. President Kennedy had even called his parents to congratulate them, Dwight said. They were heady times. Many weeks, Dwight would leave his wife and two children behind on Thursday night and take off from Edwards for another leg of a nationwide speaking tour, delivering remarks at Lions Clubs and in elementary schools, where he encouraged black children to study what today we call STEM subjects. The message was clear: I am proof of the promise of civil rights. If a black man can train to be an astronaut, we can do anything. "Negro Astronaut Aiming for Moon," The New York Times proclaimed. "Kansas Native in Line as First Sepia Astronaut," The Indianapolis Recorder announced . The United States Information Agency sent photos of Dwight to newspapers: Dwight racing to his jet, explaining a computer program, contemplating spaceship models with Yeager. Dwight was featured on magazine covers, accepted national awards from the Urban League and was photographed with Charlton Heston. By Dwight's measure, he was receiving 1,500 fan letters a day. "I had a private secretary," Dwight told Ebony magazine in 1984. "I was sending out 5,000 press photographs a month, and I made 176 speeches the first year." "He was as popular in the African-American press as John Glenn was in the white press," said Richard Paul, who with Steven Moss wrote the 2015 book "We Could Not Fail: The First African Americans in the Space Program." "He really is everywhere   NASA doesn't put the brakes on it because it's great publicity," Moss added. "To be an astronaut in 1962, there was nothing bigger than that. Even if you were three steps away. A mathematician who becomes a mayor is an amazing thing. A technician who becomes the first black elected City Council person in Florida is a big deal. But it's not an astronaut in 1962." It did not matter that Dwight was still a certificate away from even applying to NASA; he was a celebrity. His budding fame did not matter to Yeager, though. A colonel when he and Dwight met, Yeager had been a legend in the military since World War II. He was born in Myra, W.Va., a tiny town on the Mud River, deep in Appalachia. He joined the Army Air Corps in 1941, at age 18, and started as a flight mechanic. By the end of the war, in which he once downed five enemy planes in a single day, he was a 22-year-old captain with a battery of medals on his chest, a hero. Yeager went out to the California desert in 1947, when the base, then called Muroc, was barely more than a dry lake bed and a smattering of improvised barracks. There, that same year, among the fabled pilots of the early jet-testing programs, he broke the sound barrier and became the "fastest man alive." By 1962, the year he became the school commandant, Yeager was the quintessential military flier, and as much a part of Edwards as the airstrip. From Day 1, Dwight said, Yeager wanted him gone. Yeager had little patience for White House input on military matters, as he explained in his 1985 autobiography, "Yeager." Dwight said he immediately felt he was not welcome, that he was not of the group. "He told those guys on the first day, 'We can get him out of here in six months. We can break him,'" Dwight remembered a classmate telling him. As Tom Wolfe described in "The Right Stuff": "Every week, it seemed like, a detachment of Civil Rights Division lawyers would turn up from Washington, from the Justice Department, which was headed by the president's brother, Bobby. The lawyers squinted in the desert sunlight and asked a great many questions about the progress and treatment of Ed Dwight and took notes." "There were days when ARPS seemed like the Ed Dwight case with a few classrooms and some military hardware appended," Wolfe added, referring to the Aerospace Research Pilot School. After a weekend of press events, Dwight would fly back to base, where his classmates had been hitting the books to prepare for the week ahead. In addition to speeches, he faced the all-too-typical travails of a black serviceman of his generation. When the test pilot students traveled for training, waiters refused to serve him. Cars left without him, and hotel rooms were mysteriously not booked. The combination of public appearances and private indignities was weighing on Dwight. "The disadvantage I had was all the other guys in this program didn't have that distraction," Dwight said. "I've got to get up the next day and have an exam and deliver the goods and let them know that I'm equal to the other guys who didn't have to go make 10 speeches that weekend." But the only thing waiting for Dwight on Monday was Yeager. "Every week, right on the dot," Dwight recalled, "he'd call me into his office and say, 'Are you ready to quit? This is too much for you and you're going to kill yourself, boy.' Calling me a boy and I'm an officer in the Air Force." Yeager denies Dwight's account of his treatment: He said he did not tell anybody that he would get Dwight out of the program, did not have weekly meetings with him and did not call him "boy." But he was no champion of Dwight and did question his ability. "Isn't it great that Ed Dwight found his true calling and became an accomplished sculptor?" Yeager said in an email. Dwight, though, felt his treatment was so unfair that he later took bias charges to higher-ups. Yeager was incensed. In his autobiography, he wrote: "The Air Force counselor, their chief lawyer, flew to Edwards from the Pentagon to personally take charge of the case. Man, I was hot. I told that lawyer: 'You do have a case of discrimination here. The White House discriminated by forcing us to take an unqualified guy. And we would have discriminated by passing him because he was black.'" Dwight garnered scrutiny from some fellow students, recalled Robert Tanguy, a classmate of Dwight's who retired as a major general. "That was always something that they were wondering about," he said. "Is Ed down here because he's black?" But Tanguy, who flew with Dwight during their training, found nothing unusual about his qualifications. "I thought Ed was a very normal pilot for the program," Tanguy said. "He was qualified for it. He was an awfully good selection if somebody selected him, because he was a level-headed guy." Woody Fountain, who started at Edwards Air Force Base as an engineer around the same time Dwight arrived, played squash with Dwight and saw him at weekend cocktail parties. "We all wanted to relax since there were so few of us black folks out there," Fountain said. "Ed was right there in the middle of the parties, having a good time. An absolutely funny guy to be around." Fountain added, "I was never cognizant of what he was going through." Amid the stress of his speaking obligations and his training, Dwight was also having trouble in his marriage. At the urging of the Air Force, he had brokered an agreement with his wife, Sue Lillian, from whom he was estranged by this time. She joined him and their two children at Edwards, but their relationship grew even more tense, particularly under the scrutiny of the news media. Life on the base was an alienating experience, and the usual pilots-and-wives camaraderie at the officers club or backyard barbecues was not a real outlet for the Dwights. He found solace in almost daily calls with his mother. "She took an inordinate amount of time telling me how incredible I was, how I could do anything in the universe I wanted to do and that I was loved," Dwight recalled. Dwight also turned to his powerful friends. "I spent hours in the Pentagon, running around there doing lobbying and talking to anybody who would talk to me," he said. Yeager and other superior officers noticed, with rancor. Dwight was unfazed. He had a friend in the president, and he was going to be an astronaut. "I wanted to be on the cover of Life magazine," Dwight said. "And people were fighting when the issue came out. They were beating each other up to get the magazine." He added, "The news guys couldn't put enough Life magazines on the shelf to supply all these people. That was my deal. I would think about walking down Broadway, and every newsstand, man, and every magazine on it, there'd be no magazines but me." Yeager ultimately graduated him. Despite initial concerns about Dwight's flying ability, and the question of whether astronauts even needed to be pilots, the 30-year-old was now eligible for space. As the commandant wrote, "Dwight hung on and squeezed through. He got his diploma qualifying him to be the nation's first black astronaut." Now it was up to NASA. In October 1963 , the agency held a news conference in Houston to announce the astronauts selected for the next class. The 14 chosen men, including the future moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, filed onstage, all crew cuts, dark suits and smart ties. Dwight was not there. He had been one of the pilots recommended by the Air Force, but, out of the 271 total applicants, he was not among the chosen. A reporter asked Deke Slayton, the director of NASA's astronaut office, "Was there a Negro boy in the last 30 or so that you brought here for consideration?" Slayton leaned into his microphone and answered flatly, "No, there was not." And with that, the space-bound men filed offstage to pose for publicity photos. Despite that disappointment, Dwight was confident that someone was still watching over his career and held out hope for the next class selection, scheduled for 1965. "Washington was able to solve all the problems that were popping up," he said. "Until November 22, 1963." On that day, Dwight and his classmates were at a Boeing plant near Seattle for a mission simulation. Dwight was waiting for his turn in the simulator, about to put on his spacesuit, when the news arrived that the training exercise was canceled. President Kennedy had been shot. "My heart fell down into my ankles," Dwight recalled. The pilots trooped into the executive dining room to discuss the news. Dwight, who as a young man had been inspired by Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage," ate quietly by himself. The hand on Dwight's shoulder also seemed to have vanished. He could feel his dream slipping away. He tried to reinvigorate old Washington contacts. "I was in this trap of no man's land," he said. "The team and all the support system I had seemed to have left me hanging out there." Within weeks, Dwight's career at Edwards ended. By January 1964, he was stationed at Wright-Patterson in Ohio. The hot shot so used to circumventing the Air Force hierarchy was now relegated to running experiments on transport planes. "It's this hopeless feeling," said Charles Bolden, who trained as a pilot in the late 1960s before rising through the ranks to become a general and the first African-American to lead NASA. "You know what the process is and you know what the chain of responsibility and command is and you don't see any way out of it." Like Dwight, Bolden also navigated Washington politics, going straight to President Johnson's office when his career was stonewalled by a bloc of Southern congressmen. "Everything sort of followed the same pattern that all of us have seen who have been among the earlier people to come into any of these programs," Bolden added. The next year, Ebony magazine published an article that looked into the case of the forgotten black astronaut. The piece was followed by articles in The New York Times and elsewhere, and the news media caught up with Dwight on the tarmac of the naval air station at China Lake, about an hour's drive north of Edwards. The pilot, in his flight suit and folding cap, was ushered to the microphone. He stood alone, blinking at a scrum of reporters. A row of white officers dressed in khaki uniforms and aviators watched from the back of the group. "Why aren't you an astronaut now?" one of the journalists asked. "Well, I couldn't begin to tell you," Dwight responded. "I have no comment for that question. But other than that, I won't make any overt statements at this time outlining any overt racial pressures at any time during my training at Edwards." "Do you feel that what's happened to you is a setback for civil rights opportunities in this country?" another reporter asked. Dwight scanned the cameras, and the row of officers behind them, and answered, "I would rather not comment on that." He left it there. NASA has never given a full explanation for why Dwight did not make the cut. The agency did not then, and does not today, disclose the exact criteria for final astronaut selections. Slayton explained the process in his 1994 memoir, "Deke!" (which was published the year after he died): "I had already developed a point system that we used in making the final evaluations on astronaut candidates. There were three parts: academic, pilot performance, and character/motivation, 10 points for each part, with 30 being the highest possible score. Some of it was cut-and-dried: You got points for a certain amount of flying time and for education. Some of it, by design, was subjective." Bill Barry, NASA's chief historian, explained: "They're looking for a collection of things that they were never forthcoming about how they're weighted. I suspect that there may not have been any formula for that. They were looking for a package of people who were extremely good at flying, who were highly adaptable, smart." He added, "By that point, they're also looking at, 'Is this person going to be a good spokesman for the agency?' but also they wanted to have people who would do what they were told." In the years since, the agency's priorities have evolved. NASA spokesman Robert Jacobs said: "The specifics of Ed's story and why he never flew in space are hard to address nearly 60 years after-the-fact, but we can say that it took decades for the astronaut corps and other areas of the agency to truly be reflective of America's diversity. Following the Apollo-era, we saw more of an emphasis on science, medicine, engineering, and other disciplines in the astronaut selection process, and that opened new doors. The 1978 astronaut class and the space shuttle era brought in the diversity we didn't see in the space program of the 1960s. Today, we have an astronaut corps that better represents our diverse cultures." In 1966, Dwight resigned his commission in the Air Force, after 13 years. The next year, Robert Lawrence, the second black man tapped to be an astronaut, died when his Starfighter crashed at Edwards. By the time Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, Dwight was living in Denver, working at IBM. Unlike every other person in the United States at the time, he says he does not remember where he was when the Eagle landed. It was not until 1983 , 14 years after Armstrong's "one small step," that the United States would send an African-American into space. Today, of the 572 people who have flown into space   356 of them Americans   just 14 were African-Americans. After leaving the Air Force, Dwight opened a restaurant, started a flight company, went back to school to earn a master of fine arts degree and eventually started a foundry. Today, the man who was on the path to being an astronaut is best known as a distinguished artist, whose specialty is sculpting icons of black history in bronze. Dwight has also turned an airplane hangar on the edge of Denver into his sculpture studio, where he has worked for three decades. Every morning he parks his Lexus with the vanity plate "SCULPTR" outside. The vast space that once sheltered jets now houses a congregation of Dwight's sculptures and models: Michelle and Barack Obama, Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong. He has populated city parks and downtowns with more than 120 monuments, the cost of which can run into the millions of dollars. His sculptures sell to private buyers for as much as $100,000, Dwight said, but astronauts get a discount. In the years since he joined NASA, Bolden has become close with Dwight. "He became sort of a role model and a mentor for me," said Bolden, who got to know Dwight while training in the early 1980s. "Ed understands the trials and tribulations of trying and not making it and being able to go on after that. For a young person who is there but struggling, he plays a critical role in helping you decide not to leave." When Bolden was confirmed for the top NASA job before the Senate in 2009, he pointed out a "very special person" at the hearing. "While not actually becoming an astronaut, he was a trailblazer in the attempt to break the color barrier in America's astronaut program," he told the committee. "We don't know what Ed's place would have been in space history because we were never given an opportunity," Bolden said recently. The historian Steven Moss said that had it gone differently, Dwight "would have had his own altar in the civic religion of American space travel." Instead, Dwight is both a person who nearly made history and a person dedicated to preserving it. These days he is busy in his studio, contemplating an even longer history. Plans to build a monument are underway on the windswept coast of Virginia at Fort Monroe, and Dwight is being considered for the commission. There, 400 years ago, a ship arrived carrying 20 enslaved Angolans, who were sold to Virginia settlers in exchange for food. It was the start of our chapter of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, in which 12.5 million people were shipped to the New World, with 10.7 million of them surviving the journey. It was the beginning of the African-American story, Dwight said. "I want that one bad for any number of reasons," he said. "The spot where their feet actually touched down, this is the most historic piece of earth in America." It is because of that first that all the other firsts are necessary.


Mike Zimmer hinted this offseason that the Vikings could be interested in a kicking coach after all the trouble the team has had at that position through the years. One person who offered his services was 23-year NFL veteran John Carney who made two Pro Bowls. "I did offer my services on a part-time basis," Carney said via the Pioneer Press . "I do run a business in California, so I couldn't do a full-time deal … It would be difficult to close (the Carney Training Facility) down for five months." Carney hinted that the Vikings are likely looking for a full-time coach, so Carney won't be the guy. This makes it seem like that Vikings are more than likely to hire a kicking coach if they are looking for a full-time coach. The Vikings will bring back kicker Dan Bailey in 2019. In 14 games with the club last season, Bailey was 21-for-28. The Vikings signed Bailey after released fifth-round pick Daniel Carlson after just two games. MORE: Lions OTA notebook: First impressions from the first open day 7 reasons the Warriors are winning another title no matter who they play in the Finals Magic Johnson confirms rumor that Lakers want to sign Kyrie Irving 5 reasons Saints should be favorites to sign Gerald McCoy NBA Free Agency 2019: The top players


Less than 24 hours after they were eliminated from the postseason, the Trail Blazers have agreed to terms on a multiyear contract extension for head coach Terry Stotts, tweets Casey Holdahl of Blazers.com. Head of basketball operations Neil Olshey said that the two sides finalized an agreement "20 minutes ago," Holdahl adds ( via Twitter ). Stotts, who previously coached the Hawks and Bucks, took over the Blazers' head coaching job in 2012, which makes him the fourth longest-tenured coach in the NBA. After finishing 33-49 in his first season on Portland's bench, Stotts has led the club to six consecutive playoff berths, for an overall regular-season record of 325-249 (.566). The 2018-19 season represented the first time that Stotts had guided the Blazers past the second round of the postseason. In their five previous playoff trips, the Blazers were eliminated in the first round three times and advanced to the second round twice. Stotts' contract with the Blazers had been set to expire after the 2019-20 season, so it comes as no surprise that the club would quickly extend his deal rather than asking him to enter next season as a lame duck. As we detailed earlier today , Stotts hadn't been thrilled by the fact that Portland chose not to extend him a year ago after his Blazers were swept by New Orleans in the first round.


Alabama's dominance ranks among the most impressive dynasties in college football history. It has also made the Southeastern Conference a bit stale recently as the league's 14 teams gather for their annual media days this week in Hoover, Alabama. This year, though, a group of talented and experienced quarterbacks could lead to a little more drama in the SEC   maybe. Georgia's Jake Fromm, LSU's Joe Burrow, Florida's Feleipe Franks and Texas A&M's Kellen Mond are major reasons those teams feel they have a realistic chance of knocking Alabama off its title perch. Still, the Tide will once again be regarded as a heavy favorite to win their fifth league title in six seasons. Coach Nick Saban   now in his 13th season in Tuscaloosa   returns several of his best players, including last year's Heisman Trophy runner-up Tua Tagovailoa, who threw for 3,966 yards, 43 touchdowns and six interceptions. Alabama blew through last year's regular-season conference schedule by winning all eight games by at least three touchdowns. That success was largely forgotten after Clemson thumped Alabama 44-16 in the national championship game , which will surely motivate the Tide going into 2019. Georgia is the most obvious candidate to displace the Tide. Last year's Eastern Division champion   which lost 35-28 to Alabama in the SEC title game last season   returns the 6-foot-2 Fromm, who has thrown for more than 5,300 yards over the past two years. Even some of the league's dark horse candidates have experience at quarterback. South Carolina returns four-year starter Jake Bentley and Tennessee has seasoned junior Jarrett Guarantano. Other schools are relying on transfers: Missouri brought in Clemson's Kelly Bryant , Arkansas added SMU's Ben Hicks and Mississippi State picked up Penn State backup Tommy Stevens . ___ Here are other things to watch when the league's programs gather in Hoover this week: FAMILIAR FACES In a rare show of stability, the SEC didn't have any head coaching changes during the offseason for the first time since 2006. Saban is the league's longest-tenured coach at 13 seasons. The next two in seniority are Auburn's Gus Malzahn and Kentucky's Mark Stoops, who are in year seven. YEAR 2 FOR MULLEN, FISHER Two of the SEC's high-profile coaching hires from a year ago worked out very well. Jimbo Fisher led Texas A&M to a 9-4 season while Dan Mullen jumped to Florida from Mississippi State and led the Gators to 10 wins. Now Fisher and Mullen will be expected to compete for their respective division titles in year two. ALABAMA'S LOADED Alabama returns an extremely talented team, even by its lofty standards. Tagovailoa gets a lot of the publicity because he's the quarterback, but it's not a one-man show. Among the standouts: Running back Najee Harris, receivers Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs, offensive linemen Jedrick Willis and Alex Leatherwood, defensive end Raekwon Davis and linebackers Dylan Moses and Anfernee Jennings. KENTUCKY'S REBUILD Kentucky showed patience while allowing Stoops to slowly build the program and it paid off with a 10-win season in 2018. Now the Wildcats will have to rebuild without some of their best players from a year ago, including running back Benny Snell, who ran for 1,449 yards and 16 touchdowns. OLE MISS ELIGIBLE FOR POSTSEASON After a two-year postseason ban because of NCAA rules violations, the Rebels are once again eligible to play in a bowl game. Third-year coach Matt Luke hired two veteran coordinators during the offseason   Rich Rodriguez on offense and Mike MacIntyre on defense   to help rebuild the roster. The two have more than 30 years combined of head coaching experience. ___ More AP college football: https://apnews.com/Collegefootball and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25 .


Former Broncos, Giants and Buccaneers defensive end Robert Ayers announced his retirement from the NFL on Tuesday. Ayers last played in 2017, appearing in 12 games with Tampa Bay. "That's all folks, so thankful," Ayers wrote on Twitter . "Was a helluva run NFL but the time has come. On to the next chapter of life." The Tennessee product was drafted by the Broncos with the No. 18 pick in the 2009 NFL draft. Ayers spent five seasons in Denver before joining the Giants in 2014. Ayers recorded a career-high nine sacks with New York in 2015. He played for the Giants in 2014 and 2015, then finished his career with the Buccanneers in 2016 and 2017. Ayers retires with 34.5 career sacks and 270 tackles.


Rick Pitino is leaving Panathinaikos, the team he coached to a Greek League championship this season, he told ESPN on Friday. The Hall of Famer said he turned down an offer to return as the franchise's president and head coach in order to pursue a job in the NBA, either in coaching or in a player personnel or advisory role. Pitino, 66, was fired after a long run at Louisville following an FBI probe into college basketball recruiting. He coached the Cardinals from 2001 until the end of the 2016-17 season, taking the program through three conference changes (Conference USA, Big East and ACC) while posting a 416-143 record. Pitino, who also coached at Hawaii, Boston University, Providence and Kentucky, has 770 career college victories over 1,041 games, winning an NCAA title in 1996 with Kentucky and 2013 with Louisville. Back in October, Pitino first expressed his interest in returning to the NBA. "I just want to be a part of an organization," he told ESPN. "I want to develop young players. I want to be part of a team. I miss it terribly. I'm using this time to really study the NBA. If something opens up with a young basketball team, I'd have deep interest in it. "I think the league is going to get younger and player development will become even more important to every organization. That's my forte. I believe I can help an organization find a pathway to success." Pitino has not worked in the NBA for almost two decades. He compiled a 192-220 record as head coach of the New York Knicks (1987-89) and Boston Celtics (1997-2001). With the Celtics, Pitino also was handed personnel control and the title of team president. He said he wouldn't insist on a front-office role this time around. "I'm not looking for any of that at this stage of my life," Pitino told ESPN in October. "I want to develop teams and develop players and build a winner. I value analytics. I want to fit into an organization. At this stage, that's all I'm interested in." --Field Level Media Related slideshow: Top picks in the NBA Draft (Provided by imagn)


Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Sunday lashed back at Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) after he suggested she accept an open invitation from a Holocaust remembrance group to tour Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps during summer recess. "@AOC I went to Auschwitz & Birkenau with Eddie Mausberg & Jonny Daniels with In the Depths," King wrote on Saturday. "I went with a deep understanding of the Shoah and had a profound personal experience. Please accept their offer." The New York Democrat, known for her Twitter ripostes, responded on Sunday: "The last time you went on this trip it was reported that you also met w/ fringe Austrian neo-Nazi groups to talk shop." "I'm going to have to decline your invite," she tweeted. "But thank you for revealing to all how transparently the far-right manipulates these moments for political gain." Before declining the invitation, Ocasio-Cortez also took jabs at the Iowa Republican over his defense of the terms "white supremacist" and "white nationalist" during a New York Times interview. "Mr. King, the Republican Party literally stripped you of your Congressional committee assignments because you were too racist even for them," she wrote on Twitter. "My Jewish constituents have made clear to me that they proudly stand w/ caged children who are starved, denied sleep & sanitation"   a reference to migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. The squabble follows Ocasio-Cortez's comments in a video last week in which she compared Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers to "concentration camps." "The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border, and that is exactly what they are   they are concentration camps," Ocasio-Cortez said in the Instagram video, sparking an online debate. The term "concentration camp" predates the Holocaust by decades and became widely used during the Boer War in South Africa, when British troops rounded up and interned tens of thousands of people. Similar tactics were used by U.S. forces fighting against Filipino soldiers to defeat the independence movement in the Philippines. King isn't the first Republican to criticize Ocasio-Cortez over her border remarks. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) took to Twitter last week to rail against them, saying she was "happy to help educate" her Democratic colleague. "Please @AOC do us all a favor and spend just a few minutes learning some actual history. 6 million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust," Cheney wrote. "You demean their memory and disgrace yourself with comments like this." On Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez fired back at Cheney, as well. "Hey @Liz_Cheney, you're the GOP Conference Chair   perhaps you should come collect your colleague before more members of your caucus start saying the quiet parts loud," she tweeted, referring to King.


Canada captain Christine Sinclair is likely to be playing at her fifth and final Women's World Cup in 2019, but the 35-year-old could well make it truly special by making history as she is within touching distance of the world record for international goals. As things stand, with the World Cup just around the corner, Sinclair has 181 goals for Canada and needs just four more to break USA legend Abby Wambach's existing record. Three will tie it. Born in Burnaby, British Columbia, Sinclair has seemingly been destined for this moment since making her international debut at the age of just 16 back in 2000. Still a high school student at the time, her first venture with the national team was at that year's Algarve Cup in Portugal, where she scored three times. By the end of that year, Sinclair had already scored 15 international goals in 18 appearances having only just turned 17. Sinclair has scored goals at 12 major tournaments in her international career to date, including all four previous World Cups, the Olympic games in 2008 and 2012, and multiple CONCACAF Gold Cups. In fact, she's never failed to score at least once at every major tournament she's been to. Although limited to just a single goal when Canada hosted the Women's World Cup in 2015, as well as in 2011, Sinclair scored three times at the 2003 tournament. She also netted three times at the most recent Olympics in 2016, and was top scorer in the 2012 Olympics as Canada secured bronze after scoring six times, including a semi final hat-trick against the United States. Already in 2019, Sinclair has been in good form at club and international level. She has scored four goals for Canada so far this year, including winners in 1-0 victories over World Cup nations Norway, England and Scotland, as well as three goals in three games for Portland Thorns. To have the best chance of breaking Wambach's record at this World Cup, Sinclair will need Canada to perform well in a tough group with the Netherlands, New Zealand and Cameroon. But the Canadians have been in good form this year and are unbeaten since a 2-0 defeat against the United States last October, a run of nine games and counting. Perhaps surprisingly, Canada have only twice been beyond the World Cup group stages, in 2003 and 2015. However, their recent Olympic record is far better, yielding consecutive bronze medals in 2012 and 2016. That combined with good form and fifth place in the FIFA rankings points to a strong World Cup in which they could even be considered a potential dark horse. But will Sinclair take the opportunity and have rewritten football history come July? For eight other veteran superstars likely to be at their last World Cup in 2019, click here.


CNN's Nick Paton Walsh interviewed a father who lost two of his children in the ISIS-claimed Sri Lanka terror attacks on Easter Sunday that killed more than 300 people and wounded hundreds.


Republicans are targeting former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan as they seek to bring more attention to what they say was an unfair investigation of President Trump launched in the Obama administration. The effort to spotlight the intelligence officials comes as Democratic calls to impeach President Trump rise in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller's first public remarks about his investigation. The White House says the real controversy is the investigation of Trump that preceded Mueller's probe, an argument Democrats contend is just a conspiracy theory peddled in order to distract from his presidential woes. Trump and GOP lawmakers are seeking to pin blame on Comey and Brennan over the use of the so-called "Steele" dossier in the surveillance warrant application that ultimately allowed the FBI to wiretap a member of the Trump campaign in 2016. The dossier, a shadowy document that makes a series of salacious allegations about Trump, has long been a flashpoint for Republicans. Some Republicans allege that FBI investigators relied too heavily on it to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Some of the allegations in the dossier have been verified, while others were proven false or remain unsubstantiated. Right-leaning news outlets claim that Brennan and Comey have offered conflicting messages as to who supported including details from the dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele's research in the FISA warrant application. Trump on Thursday highlighted a Fox News segment on the matter, tweeting: "'Comey and Brennan are turning on each other.' @kilmeade " Fox News, citing anonymous sources and non-public emails, reported in May that a Comey email claimed Brennan wanted to include the dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) analysis. The story was amped up by right-wing news sites as a feud between the two intelligence officials. Democrats have claimed this is a standard page out of the GOP-playbook for such closed-off inquiries -- leak allegations anonymously about classified or non-public documents or communications, and then push those talking points on television. Officials have maintained that the dossier was not included in the analysis, which was released in 2017. The FBI, not the CIA, deals with counterintelligence investigations and thus the applications for FISA warrants. Brennan has said that the FBI had a responsibility to see if they could verify some of the claims in the document. "It did not play any role whatsoever in the Intelligence Community Assessment that was done that was presented to then-President Obama and then-President-elect Trump," Brennan said on NBC's "Meet the Press" last year. "I do think it was up to the FBI to see if they could verify any of it." Comey - who oversaw the launch of the counterintelligence probe - has publicly stated that he felt the need to brief Trump, then-president-elect, on the dossier. Comey brought up the document during a one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower with the soon-to-be president in January 2017, after Brennan and other top intelligence officials briefed him on the ICA. There is little evidence to suggest Comey and Brennan, both Trump critics, are at odds over the dossier. Republicans who claim Comey and top brass at the FBI were biased against Trump have long called for a second special counsel to be tapped to investigate whether the FBI conducted proper surveillance. Attorney General William Barr has tapped John Durham, a respected U.S. attorney in Connecticut, to review the origins of the FBI's investigation into Russian interference. The president has worked to clear any hurdles for Barr's inquiry, ordering intelligence agencies in May to cooperate and giving the attorney general complete power to declassify information related to the investigation. That fueled further criticism from Democrats, who blasted the president's declassification order as a further sign Trump will pursue a political agenda at the expense of his own intelligence community. "Selectively declassifying sources and methods in order to serve a political agenda will make it harder for the intelligence community to do their jobs protecting this country from those who wish to do us harm," Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) said at the time. Stories about Comey and Brennan have repeatedly surfaced on Fox News. Former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), a former chairman Oversight and Government Reform turned Fox News contributor, advised GOP members that letters between Comey and Brennan are the key to unlocking who made the dossier decision. "Whoever is investigating this, tell them to look for emails between Brennan and Comey in December of 2016," Gowdy said in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity in mid-May. Republican lawmakers took Gowdy's cue. "Comey and Brennan have made a lot of statements, some under oath, about the origins of the Trump Russia investigation, the timing and role of the Steele dossier and reasons for surveillance of Trump campaign officials. As I've been saying for awhile now, some of that is inconsistent with the contents of classified documents and the sworn testimony of other witnesses," Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), a member of the Judiciary Committee, told The Hill. "And more recently, some of what Brennan and Comey have been saying is now inconsistent with one another. As Attorney General Barr said this morning, it just doesn't jive. Someone isn't telling the truth," he continued.


'That little girl was me': Harris upstages Biden, Sanders in Democratic debate


MADISON, Wis. (AP)   Republicans proposed last-minute changes to the state budget on Tuesday to appease skeptical conservatives just hours ahead of the state Assembly vote, saying their plan is fiscally responsible and should be signed into law by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. The changes include slightly reducing a property tax increase, giving towns more money for roads, allowing Tesla to sell cars directly to customers in Wisconsin and spending more to increase salaries for prosecutors and hire more across the state. Evers, and fellow Democrats who don't have the votes to stop or change the plan, have said that it falls short of what is needed to expand health care access, fix the state's roads and fully fund education. Evers was reviewing the latest changes but had no immediate comment on his veto plans, said spokeswoman Melissa Baldauff. The Assembly was to approve the two-year spending plan Tuesday evening, with the Senate following on Wednesday. It would then go to Evers, who has broad power to make changes through partial vetoes. He's also threatened to take the unprecedented step of vetoing the entire budget forcing lawmakers to start over. The current budget runs through Sunday, but state government would not shut down if there is a stalemate. Instead, current spending levels would continue until the next two-year budget is enacted, however long that takes. One of the changes Republicans planned to make was to replace the phrases "may not" and "shall not" with "cannot" throughout the budget, making it more difficult for Evers to reverse the intent of Republicans with a partial veto. Evers has the power to strike individual words from the budget, which both Republican and Democratic governors have done in the past to undo the will of the Legislature. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, speaking to reporters before debate, said Republicans wanted to "veto proof" the budget as much as possible to thwart Evers from dramatically changing the spending plan. Republican Rep. John Nygren, co-chair of the budget-writing committee, made the case during budget debate for Evers to sign the budget. "We are in an era of divided government," Nygren said. "Neither side will get 100% of what they want and yet this budget is good for all Wisconsinites." Democratic Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, speaking before they saw the changes Republicans proposed, said he was waiting to see the final form of the budget before saying what action he thinks Evers should take. "You don't have to veto the entire budget but you can still do significant sections of it," Hintz said. "Maybe that's the best way." Democrats continued to push for items Republicans rejected. Those included expanding Medicaid to cover 82,000 more poor people and leverage $1.6 billion in federal spending for health care; raising gas taxes as a part of a long-term funding solution for roads; and increasing K-12 school aid by $1.4 billion, including $600 million for special education. Republicans rejected Medicaid expansion, but are still directing about $588 million in new spending for health care needs. They are raising aid to K-12 schools by $500 million and opting for vehicle registration and titling fee increases to pay for roads, rather than a gas tax hike. Republicans also reduce income taxes by about $450 million. That would cut income taxes on average by $75 per person in 2019 and by $136 in 2020. Evers proposed a higher income tax cut paid for by nearly ending a manufacturing tax credit program that Republicans protected. The last-minute Republican amendment would reduce a property tax increase on the typical, median-valued home owner by $5 over the next two years. That would make the combined increase on the owner of a roughly $174,000 home $99 over two years, instead of $104, as the budget proposed by both Evers and the budget committee called for. One item to be added to the budget would allow for electric-car manufacturer Tesla to be able to sell its vehicles directly to customers in Wisconsin. Republican Sen. Chris Kapenga has been pushing for the law change for two years. Supporters argue that allowing Tesla to open dealerships in the state would give customers more choices and help foster competition in the free market. But opponents say it could put other car manufacturers, who are prohibited from operating their own dealerships, at a disadvantage. ___ Associated Press writer Todd Richmond contributed to this story. ___ Follow Scott Bauer on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sbauerAP


The Pixel 4 is still several months away, but we already have reasons to be excited about Google's next flagship phone series. The phone is expected to finally have an exciting design that's modern, though it'll hardly be a completely original one. The phone is widely expected to feature a hole-punch display design like the Galaxy S10 phones, and we've already seen a bunch of renders of the supposed Pixel 4 design , based on previous leaks. A brand new leak now seems to confirm those renders, as an accessory maker is already listing for preorder a Pixel 4 screen cover that would fit a phone with a hole-punch display. However, it's not all good news. Not everyone likes Samsung's Infinity-O screens, just as not everyone likes notches at the top of their phones. But there's no denying that a hole-punch screen will make the Pixel 4 look a lot better than the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, which featured thick bezels around their screens. Accessory vendor Skinomi posted this screen protector on its website, identifying it as a screen protector for the Pixel 4. For $8.95, you'll get a two-pack of screen protectors that will be delivered on November 20th, according to the page: The screen protector's design suggests the phone will have a hole-punch camera on the right side, as well as top and bottom front-facing speakers. The speakers don't cut into the phone's display, however. The front camera has two lenses, which is exactly what we'd expect from Google after the Pixel 3. Google's decision to place two cameras on the front of the Pixel 3 and just one of the back was somewhat puzzling, considering what the competitors were doing. This year, however, Google is expected to embrace the multi-lens camera trend and put a dual-lens shooter on the back of the phone. Now, if Skinomi's screen protector design is accurate and the front camera is indeed placed in the top right corner, then the Pixel 4's rear dual camera can't remain in the same corner as it is on the Pixel 3. Some renders have envisioned it this way, but phones aren't thick enough so that both the front and rear cameras can be placed on the same corner. If this screen protector accurately represents the Pixel 4's design, then the rear camera would have to be placed either centrally like Samsung did with its Galaxy S10 phones, or on the right side. That said, there's no way to confirm Skinomi's design, even though Google has a poor history of keeping unreleased Pixel phones a secret. There's always a chance that the Skinomi design is wrong, and the Pixel 4's hole-punch camera is placed in the center or the left corner. A few weeks ago, we wondered whether Google had used a Pixel 4 prototype during a Google Assistant demonstration at I/O 2019. Google said those features would be available only later this year on the new Pixel hardware, so it must have used new equipment to showcase them   here's how that device looked like: Why did Google conceal the design of the device like that if it's not the Pixel 4? Is that a dual-lens camera in the top left corner? We'll have those answers soon enough since Google can't keep anything about its Pixel phones a secret.


The Bradley Center is no more. The first big part of the demolition was back in January when the roof was imploded. Now, nearly five months later the iconic arena is no more. Crews tore down the last remaining piece. The Bucks are still considering what will go in the Bradley Center site. Pieces of it were already sold throughout Milwaukee and the Midwest. The Bradley Center first opened in October 1988, with an exhibition hockey game between the Chicago Blackhawks and Edmonton Oilers. It served as the home arena for the Bucks and Marquette for nearly 30 years. READ MORE: "Bye bye" Bradley Center: Demolition crews tear down last piece CHECK OUT WISN: Get the top Milwaukee news weather and sports. With the day's biggest stories and ones you may have missed, our Wisconsin news team has you covered.


There might not be a better coach at sniffing out an opponents' weakness   or finding a potential advantage   than Bill Belichick. And there might not be a football broadcaster better at sniffing out a turning point, a theme or a mismatch than NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth. That's why it was a pleasure to have NBC airing this highly anticipated matchup between New England's precision offense and Seattle's punishing defense. Collinsworth also proved once again in Sunday's Super Bowl telecast he is not one to pull punches. Immediately after rookie New England cornerback Malcolm Butler's game-saving interception, Collinsworth went strong after the Seattle coaching staff responsible for the play call. "I can't believe the (play) call," Collinsworth said in his distinctive Florida drawl. "You have Marshawn Lynch. You have a guy who's been borderline unstoppable. ... If I lose this Super Bowl because Marshawn Lynch can't get into the end zone, so be it. So be it. I can't believe the call." Collinsworth possesses a rare combination of traits; he's the smartest guy in the room, but he's also the guy you want to share a bowl of guacamole with while you watch the big game. The former all-pro receiver was all over the matchups that mattered most: Tom Brady and the Patriots' receivers against Seattle's Legion of Boom secondary. He dissected the mismatch of Seattle linebacker K.J. Wright trying to cover New England tight end Rob Gronkowski, calling it "an easy read" for Brady and something that "won't work" for the Seahawks. Not long after that, with Seattle running out of time at the end of the first half, Collinsworth mentioned 6-5 wide receiver Chris Matthews, who didn't catch a pass during the regular season, as a potential red zone target. Next play, Russell Wilson hit Matthews for a touchdown pass. . Collinsworth has worked six years with play-by-play star Al Michaels, and Michaels' gift with words helps make the pair the NFL's best broadcast team. Michaels, famous for the classic Miracle on Ice hockey call   "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"   introduced Sunday's game with a less-than-classic but certainly fitting comment. "The footballs," Michaels said, "the footballs have been weighed and measured." Deflategate: Bob Costas' sit-down interview with Brady, taped earlier in the week and aired in the pregame show, didn't seem to break any ground or shed any light on the Deflategate controversy. But Collinsworth took something more from it. Turns out he and Michaels sat down with Brady a day after Costas' taped interview with the quarterback and Collinsworth said he asked Brady point blank about his role in the scandal. "Look me in the eye," Collinsworth said he told Brady, "and tell me, 'Did you have anything to do with footballs being deflated?' He said, 'Absolutely not.'" But hearing Brady answer Costas with mostly dodges and non-denials got Collinsworth worked up. "I honestly after hearing that have more doubts now" about Brady's role in the controversy, Collinsworth said. "I think the league is opening up a can of worms, and I think they're about to find some worms." Michaels said if Brady is implicated in the NFL's findings, "he'll have about as complicated a legacy as any name player in NFL history." From the top: The NFL got some high-level unsolicited advice from President Obama regarding changes it might make in the aftermath of the Deflategate. In a brief live interview   from the White House kitchen, no less   with Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie   Obama said he had no idea that teams were allowed to provide their own footballs. Obama said he assumes the NFL's investigation will result in some recommendations about "how officials are in charge of the footballs." Obama took a quick spin as NFL analyst by saying the key to the game would be the health of the Seahawks' secondary. Best pre-game shot: Just before kickoff, Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch reached into a plastic container for a few of his beloved Skittles. (This is what you get when you have extra cameras for the Super Bowl.) Air time: Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh got a lot of air time during the pre-game show, and was a welcome addition to the NBC regulars. Harbaugh clarified that he wasn't upset at the Patriots for the deceptive formation they used in their playoff matchup. He was upset that the officials didn't clearly signal which players were eligible receivers. And when it came time to make a pick, Harbaugh went with his AFC brethren. Touching tribute: Long before kickoff, even before NBC's pre-game coverage, ESPN's Suzy Kolber created a dramatic moment with her emotional memories of former colleague Stuart Scott, who died of cancer Jan. 4. As Kolber shared her personal connection with Scott   Kolber held Scott's daughter on the day she was born, and Scott held Kolber's daughter on the day of her birth   she broke down and cried. "We are happy we had him in our lives," she said. Pregame tidbits: Obama's White House staff is making beer. "I'm the first President since George Washington to make booze in the White House," Obama told Guthrie. ... When Gronkowski was growing up with four large brothers, the grocery bill was $500-$600 a week. According to his dad, when it came to brotherly brawling, the rules were: "No hitting in the face. Nothing below the waist. Anything else goes." ... Seattle QB Russell Wilson, at a high school dance, asked his Spanish teacher to dance. And he grows his hair long on top so he can argue that he's 5-11.


We say goodbye to our long-term Honda Pilot Elite. After six busy months at Motor1.com 's office in Miami, our long-term Honda Pilot is leaving us. During its tenure, the Pilot racked up thousands of miles running around Florida for work and play. All of that time behind the wheel gave our editorial staff an opportunity to develop thoughts on how good the Pilot works as a family vehicle. At $49,065, the Honda Pilot Elite we've been testing since late 2018 is pricey but offers a bevy of features that make it a well-rounded family vehicle. With hallmarks such as a panoramic glass roof, heated and ventilated front seats, and a wireless phone charging pad, the Pilot offers a lot of high-end kit. Yet, it still faces exceptionally tough competition from a stacked segment. After six months behind the wheel, the Motor1.com editors are ready to share our favorite (and least favorite) things about the 2019 Honda Pilot Elite. We'll Miss Our Longterm Pilot: Long-Term 2019 Honda Pilot Elite: Towing The Toys 2019 Chevrolet Traverse vs. 2019 Honda Pilot Comparison: 3-Row Duel Greg Fink, Senior Editor Favorite Thing: The Second Row Least Favorite Thing: The Transmission After approximately six months of use, the long-term Honda Pilot is leaving us. In that time, the blue box proved a willing video production vehicle, a comfortable people mover, and an able travel companion. The latter function associate editor and video producer Clint Simone and I put to the test on day one, when we picked up the full-size crossover at Honda's Lincoln, Alabama manufacturing plant and quickly drove east, and then south, toward Motor1.com 's Miami, Florida headquarters. The nearly 1,000-mile journey was generally painless thanks to our top-of-the-line Pilot Elite's standard in-dash navigation system, heated and cooled seats, and HondaSensing safety suite that includes kit such as adaptive cruise control and lane centering (both of which were a little too jerky in their reactions   but, nonetheless, still appreciated   for my tastes). Clint and I swapped turns behind the wheel throughout our journey, and in due time we found ourselves sitting in one of the Pilot's second-row bucket seats when relegated to passenger duty. With a big piece of glass overhead, a separate rear climate zone, and a dedicated rear-seat entertainment system, the middle row of the Pilot is arguably the best place to while away miles. The driver's seat is less enticing, as the Pilot's slow-to-react nine-speed automatic transmission (limited to Touring and Elite trims) lacks the urgency needed to whip the V6 engine's 280 horsepower into shape and get the 4,319-pound, all-wheel-drive crossover moving with appropriate gusto at highway speeds. That said, the Pilot's nicely damped, if slightly stiff, suspension and light but well-weighted steering give this Honda enough verve to mask its heft through turns. If the Pilot has an obvious vice, it's the troublesome 8.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system. Though I am a big fan of its iPhone-style app layout, the darn thing just doesn't consistently respond to commands. Some days it would accept touch inputs without issues, breezing between menus. Other days the screen would freeze and downright refuse to switch menus. My solution was to use Apple Carplay the majority of the time. And while that is a fine backup solution, Honda's native software should work more consistently. But even with its technology hiccups, the Pilot is a very enjoyable family vehicle that is absolutely worthy of your consideration. That said, the segment just got much more crowded thanks to the arrival of two very impressive entries: the Kia Telluride and Hyundai Palisade. The Pilot has its work cut out for it, but after six months of quality time with it, we think it's up for the challenge. John Neff, Global Editor-in-Chief Favorite Thing: All-Around Goodness Least Favorite Thing: Hard To Keep Clean Not being a permanent resident of Florida, I spent far fewer hours behind the wheel of our long-term Pilot than Clint, Greg, and Jeff. I did, though, take Tracy for a cross-state trip from Miami to Naples, Florida, where I pressed the Pilot into service as a chauffeur vehicle for a family wedding. First, the trip from Miami to Naples   about a two-hour drive across the terminally boring drive on Alligator Alley   was hitch-free with the Pilot. It's a supremely comfortable cruiser with light steering that's easy to modulate over long hauls with just your fingertips, and the driver's seat was comfy and cozy. What I didn't like was Honda's lane-centering technology that, when activated, simply bounced the Pilot off one side of my lane to the other. After 15 minutes of this, I felt like the ball in Pong. Once Tracy and I arrived in Naples, we were immediately tasked with ferrying aunts, uncles, and in-laws around the snowbird town. Every passenger was complimentary toward the Pilot, even those having to sit in the third row. They especially liked having their own climate controls and window shades in the second row to beat back the Florida heat. Fingerprints... ...fingerprints everywhere. Ultimately, what I've learned to like most about the Pilot is its all-around goodness. It's comfortable, easy to drive, swallows so much stuff, and operates worry-free. It's one of those vehicles where when you hear someone bought one, you think, "Yeah, they'll be happy with it." I will echo Jeff's sentiment that the worst thing about the Pilot is that it's hard to keep clean. The Piano Black trim was a bad choice by Honda because of the fingerprint issue. Also, in a place like Florida, the Pilot's carpet was probably carrying around an extra five pounds of sand. Why doesn't the Pilot get the same onboard vacuum cleaner that's offered in the Odyssey? That would help keep a beach from forming in the second row. Other than that, the Pilot's only problem is that it isn't new anymore. As Clint mentioned, there are a pair of excellent new three-row SUVs now available from Kia and Hyundai, and the Toyota Highlander and Ford Explorer, the segment's sales juggernauts, were just entirely redesigned. Sure, the Pilot did get a minor refresh for 2019, but the competition's never been stronger. 2019 Honda Pilot Elite Engine 3.5-Liter V6 Output 280 Horsepower / 295 Pound-Feet Transmission 9-Speed Automatic Drive Type All-Wheel Drive Fuel Economy 19 City / 27 Highway / 22 Combined Weight 4,319 Pounds Seating Capacity 7 Cargo Volume 18.0 / 46.0 Cubic Feet Base Price $31,450 As-Tested Price $49,065


Here's the most recent top news you may have missed in Sacramento. Sacramento bar under investigation after woman claims she was drugged A Sacramento woman said she was drugged at a popular downtown bar. Now, Sacramento police and the California Alcohol Beverage Control are investigating. Read the full story on KCRA 3 . Comic book shops in Sacramento County are breaking the law if they sell comics to minors As San Diego Comic-Con kicks off, your friendly, neighborhood comic book dealer could be charged with a misdemeanor if they sell comic books to someone under 18. Read the full story on ABC10 . Sacramento mayor aims to make shelters a right for every homeless person in California Mayor Darrell Steinberg wants to make it a right for every homeless person in the state to have shelter. Read the full story on CBS13 CBS Sacramento . Forget Postmates and Grub Hub, Sacramento is testing food delivery robots CBS13 got an exclusive look at the robots that could eliminate the need for delivery drivers (and tipping) one day. Read the full story on CBS Sacramento . This story was created automatically using data about news stories on social media from CrowdTangle , then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback.


New Delhi -- With at least 11 people losing their lives, this has been the deadliest climbing season on Mount Everest since 2015. But Nepal's government is not yet even considering tightening up the rules for climbers -- including how many are permitted to take on the world's highest mountain at a time. A senior Nepali official denied news reports that rule changes are already being considered. "We are currently finding the actual cause of the deaths, and whether or not changes to the rules will be made will be discussed later," Mira Acharya, director of Nepal's Department of Tourism, told CBS News on Thursday. Two Americans were among the 11 climbers who have died on Everest this season. Chris John Kulish, 62, an attorney from Colorado, collapsed suddenly while descending from the summit on May 27 and couldn't be revived by his Sherpa guides. Earlier, on May 22, Donald Cash, 55, was the first American to die on Everest this season. He died of high sickness after reaching the summit. Photographs showing a human traffic jam leading to the world's highest peak amid the spate of deaths have prompted several veteran climbers to criticize Nepali's government over the high number of climbers permitted this year. This climbing season say Nepal issue 381 permits -- the highest number ever -- which has contributed to the chaos on the mountain on days when the weather is optimal for climbing. The Nepali government does not assess the health condition of climbers, nor does it evaluate their mountaineering skills; anyone who pays the $11,000 cost is eligible for a permit to climb the Mount Everest in Nepal. Additional costs of equipment and other expenses make it an estimated $45,000 venture per climber. "That's a huge amount of money for a relatively poor country like Nepal," Col. Ranveer Singh Jamwal, an Indian Army officer who has scaled Everest three times, told CBS News. "It's not in their economic interest to limit the permits, nor should it be their responsibility to scan the health of climbers." But Jim Davidson, a veteran high-altitude climber who has twice reached the peak, told "CBS This Morning" on Wednesday that Nepal should restrict the number of permits. "It's hard to set an exact number, but if you keep letting more people come, it's going to get worse every year," he said. There is growing concern over unfit and inexperienced climbers signing up to tread the dangerous, slippery, narrow path at over 28,000 feet. Their mistakes and lack of conditioning can put the lives of other climbers at risk, said Jamwal. "One Oxygen cylinder weighs 3 to 4 kilograms (about 6-9 pounds), some climbers carry only two cylinders with them, not enough to survive for about 14 to 16 hours," he said. "We're up in the 'death zone' at 26,000 feet, so even on bottled oxygen, you're slowly dying," veteran climber Davidson told "CBS This Morning" on Wednesday. "You can feel your energy draining out of your legs and out of your core, and you get disassociated in your mind. It gets very difficult to be up there, just to exist." "I remember an Indian climber at the Everest base who did not even know how to wear the crampons," recalled Jamwal. "Some climbers want overnight fame and rewards." At least 18 climbers were killed in 2015 when a massive avalanche hit Everest's base camp. This year's high death toll, however, cannot be blamed on bad weather.


Kawhi Leonard filed a federal lawsuit against Nike on Monday, claiming he designed the logo that appeared on his Nike apparel and the company copyrighted the logo without his consent, Matthew Kish of the PDX Biz Journal reports. In a separate development that could foretell his summer plans, Leonard apparently bought property in his current NBA city, according to Michael Landsberg of TSN (hat tip to Dan Feldman of NBC Sports ). Landsberg said in a radio interview that "What we've heard is that he's purchased a property in Toronto," and that "we've heard this now from two different sources." That could be an indication that Leonard, who will opt out and become a free agent this summer, plans to stick with the Raptors. We have more news from the Atlantic Division: The Raptors will hold their fourth pre-draft workout on Tuesday, according to Blake Murphy of The Athletic ( Twitter link ). The list includes guards Jalen Adams (UConn) Australian William McDowell -White, Kyle Allman (Cal State Fullerton) and Jared Harper (Auburn) and forwards Dedric Lawson (Kansas) and Dean Wade (Kansas State). Nets guard D'Angelo Russell expects that he'll have to be patient in free agency, Brian Lewis of the New York Post reports. Unless Russell signs an extension this month, he'll be a restricted free agent. "It's more of just the waiting game as far as chess moves have to be made," Russell told Lewis. "There's a lot of big fish out there that have to find their destinations so I think I'll [fall in line after that]. There are a lot of fish out there that need to find destinations. So whenever that time comes then I have decisions to make on my own, I think I'll be well ready for it." Knicks assistant coach Howard Eisley is expected to join Michigan's staff under former Heat assistant Juwan Howard, Brendan Quinn of The Athletic tweets .


Three members of the Chargers were named to Pro Football Focus' 2018 All-Clutch Team on Friday. PFF narrowed data to games in the fourth quarter that were within seven points and found the players with at least 100 snaps in those situations. Those with the best grades at each position during those snaps made the team. There is often debate over which players perform best when the pressure is at its highest, i.e. which players in the NFL are the most "clutch." These debates often rely on anecdotal evidence, such as one memorably great play in a key moment, but the play-by-play grading at PFF allows us to look at the bigger picture and take the totality of a player's performance in "clutch time" into consideration. The trio that earned the honors were wide receiver Keenan Allen, offensive tackle Russell Okung and cornerback Desmond King. All players were worthy of being named among other players as they proved to be worthy when the team needed them most. Allen, one of the league's most prolific slot receivers, was a threat to opposing secondaries with a savvy route running ability. He was nearly impossible to stop, and it showed when Los Angeles was in need of keeping the chains moving to keep the offensive possession alive. Okung was one of Los Angeles' more consistent offensive lineman last season. Even though the team had its struggles at keeping quarterback Philip Rivers clean, Okung still managed to keep Rivers from being under duress late in the game, finishing with a 78.4 grade. King has solidified himself as one of the NFL's top slot corners. In 2018, he amassed three interceptions, one of which was returned for a touchdown against the Seahawks to seal the deal. He finished with 10 passes defensed and some of those occurred when the game was on the line. MORE: NBA fans had so many memes for Steph Curry's exchange with Drake Giants get a chuckle: Odell Beckham already in hot water in Cleveland Could Raiders rookie DE Maxx Crosby start over Arden Key in 2019? Four potential Clint Capela trade destinations Why Pats are one of the best teams at managing salary cap


What a difference a week makes. Five days after multiple drivers were critical of the Cup Series rules package and its impact on competition at Dover International Speedway , the strongest negative comments after Saturday's Kansas race were about blocking. The Digital Ally 400 saw a frenzy of action in its final stage as four drivers swapped the lead over the last 43 laps, with Brad Keselowski leading the final 11 laps. The race also experienced 41 green flag passes for the lead, a track record, and 3,448 overall passes, more than twice the number in last year's race. Those passes included multiple instances of three-wide and even four-wide racing at times on restarts. With the race held under the lights and in 50-degree weather, Keselowski said he expected racing to be side-by-side. The Team Penske driver said this year's rule package has flipped the script on what to expect from night races. "I think I told somebody today that it used to be we wanted daytime races because it fit the rules," Keselowski said after his win. "Now it's the opposite. Nighttime is the new daytime for NASCAR as far as the racing being better … because it gives you the grip to be able to take advantage of what this car or rules setup is designed for. "With it being cool temperatures and being a night race, I think that's exactly what we saw, and that's part of why the cars were double file a lot of times in a race where normally they wouldn't be." Erik Jones , who finished third, said Saturday's race "was the closest iteration that NASCAR is … shooting for. We were very close to wide open and there was definitely some pack racing moments after the restarts and stuff like that. Both of those things combined lent to that." Steve O'Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer, believes the rules package's "body of work" on the intermediate tracks like Kansas "kind of speaks for itself." O'Donnell made his comments Monday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio's "The Morning Drive." "When you look at apples to apples of Vegas and that race and Texas and Kansas, I think we've certainly proven that the data that we came into this rules package with at the intermediate tracks has proven out," O'Donnell said. O'Donnell said data from the race weekend matched up with what NASCAR had seen in CFD ( Computational Fluid Dynamics) data and testing. "When we started practice we were spot on, on- and off-throttle time matched up with what we thought as well," O'Donnell said. "Then you look at past races and surprisingly the Kansas spring race last year played out almost exactly like this year. We had a competition caution on Lap 30 here. You got a caution on roughly Lap 30 in the spring last year. Same thing with green flag pit stops. The data when you compare it from this year to last year is kind of apples to apples, which is good for us. It showed some definite progress." Follow @DanielMcFadin


Asheville High grads from the late 1990's may spot a familiar face in "When They See Us." Asheville's own Chris Chalk plays the grown-up version of Yusef Salaam, one of five teenagers wrongly convicted of the 1989 rape of a jogger in New York City's Central Park, in the Netflix miniseries. Below is a GIF showing Chalk and his co-star Ethan Herisse, who plays Salaam as a young man. Yusef Salaam. pic.twitter.com/9kV7cIiS7l   When They See Us (@WhenTheySeeUs) May 30, 2019 Chalk graduated from Asheville High in 1996   that year's edition of "Paw Prints" yearbook lists him as a member of the Drama Club. He was also active in school leadership and served as student body president, according to Chalk. He's a proud UNC Greensboro alum and visits campus regularly to interact with theater students. Those of us who don't recognize Chalk from our Cougar days may remember him as Clemens in Oscar-winning "12 Years a Slave" or Lucius Fox on "Gotham." Chalk also shared the stage with Denzel Washington and Viola Davis in the Tony Award-winning Broadway play "Fences." Other major acting credits include "Homeland," "Detroit," and "The Good Wife, and according to imdb, Chalk's trying his luck on the other side of the camera as well   "Farewell," a feature film Chalk wrote, produced, and directed, is currently in post-production (not to be confused with "The Farewell," starring Awkwafina). This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville actor Chris Chalk stars in "When they See Us"


Maryland legislative leaders on Friday called on Gov. Larry Hogan to release $1.6 million in funding set aside for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra   even as they criticized orchestra management for failing to disclose earlier the depth of the organization's financial problems. A day after the symphony abruptly canceled its summer concert series and said it would move to cut musicians' pay and vacation time, leaders in the legislature said they wanted answers from both orchestra management and the governor. "The BSO is important not only to the city, but to the region," said House of Delegates Speaker Adrienne Jones, a Baltimore County Democrat. "I would hope the governor would release the funds." The Maryland General Assembly this year passed a bill sponsored by Del. Maggie McIntosh , a Baltimore Democrat, that would award the orchestra an additional $3.2 million in state funding for the next two fiscal years amid its fiscal difficulties. Orchestra officials were hoping they could use the money to secure a bank loan to pay the musicians over the next few months. But Hogan, the state's Republican governor, has been reluctant to release the first year of the money, citing a looming state fiscal deficit. The money for the BSO is part of nearly $300 million in funds the Democratic-controlled legislature "fenced off" this session for its priorities, including $127 million for school construction. Hogan has discretion to either spend that money on the initiatives selected by the legislature or keep it in state coffers. Other fenced off items include: $3.5 million to test rape kits; $1 million for Baltimore's YouthWorks program, and $7 million for technology updates at the Baltimore Police Department. While deciding what to do with the "fenced off" funds, the Hogan administration is considering projections that the state will face a $961 million deficit in the next fiscal year. Administration officials argue the restricted money could be needed if the economic forecast does not improve. Mike Ricci, a spokesman for Hogan, noted the BSO is the largest single recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council grants program. Between fiscal years 2016 and 2019, the orchestra received $8.7 million in state funding. Ricci also said state officials are in discussions with the BSO to provide a $1 million bridge loan to the organization. "Governor Hogan is a great supporter of the BSO, which receives more grant money from the state than any arts organization," Ricci said. "In addition, we provided a bonus grant to the BSO last year, we are currently in active discussions about a bridge loan, and we are reviewing the funding that was fenced off by the legislature." House Republican leaders wrote a letter Friday to Hogan, arguing he should withhold the funding until the BSO gets its fiscal house in order. "While we all appreciated the history and importance of the BSO, and want to see it thrive, the state cannot throw taxpayer money at the problem," said House Minority Leader Del. Nic Kipke of Anne Arundel County. "There is clearly a serious problem within the BSO and that needs to be addressed before any more funding is provided by the state." The Republicans noted that the state has spent $100 million for the construction and renovation of the Strathmore performing arts center in Montgomery County, whose primary tenant is the BSO. "That the BSO could still lose millions of dollars even while being supplemented by taxpayer dollars leads us to believe we must now tread carefully when considering investing additional taxpayer dollars," said House Minority Whip Del. Kathy Szeliga of Baltimore County. Sen. Antonio Hayes, a Democrat who is chairman of the Baltimore's Senate delegation, said he believed if Hogan could come through with money, he could help the orchestra immensely. "The governor could be a real hero if he acted fast and they reversed the decision to cancel the summer season," Hayes said. "I would hope the governor would be in line with the legislature. It's a chance for him to save this important cultural opportunity for the city of Baltimore and the region." Del. Cheryl Glenn, a Democrat who is chairwoman of Baltimore's House delegation, said she was disappointed to learn that Hogan was considering not releasing the money. "People constantly say they support Baltimore city, but then you look at the actions taken and it doesn't match up," Glenn said. But Glenn said she was also concerned that the BSO didn't tell lawmakers just how bad their fiscal situation was. "If you're in danger of not being able to make payroll, we need to know that," Glenn said. "You can't come to us for money and not be forthright with us. That's just not acceptable." The BSO has struggled financially for years   losing more than $16 million over the past decade   but musicians had fought to keep it a year-round orchestra, arguing that to do less would demote the ensemble from "a world-class symphony into a part-time regional orchestra." The Baltimore Sun obtained financial documents showing the orchestra's fiscal health is in dire straits. Even factoring in additional state funding, the orchestra is projected to barely make payroll in July and August, according to cash forecasts for a 52-week season. The BSO's CEO Peter Kjome said in an interview Friday the orchestra's deficit is due to a number of factors. He said increased ticket sales, charitable donations and government grants or a larger endowment could help bolster revenues. But he argued expenses   such as nine weeks of paid vacation time for musicians   also needed to shrink. "In hindsight, we feel we could have shared more information over the years about the financial problems we've had," Kjome said. "We wanted to present a summer season, as we typically do, but summer season has not proven to be financially viable." Kjome added that even if Hogan releases the money, it alone will not solve the BSO's fiscal problems. The organization needs to grow its endowment by about $40 million to be sustainable, he argued. Part of the legislature's bill this year created a task force to come up with recommendations to bolster the BSO's long-term fiscal health. BSO musicians released a statement Friday strongly criticizing management, while calling on Hogan to release the funding. "It is a hallmark of truly great cities to have institutions that enrich the cultural landscape and keep the arts alive and flourishing for generations to come," the musicians wrote. "A vital orchestra is just as essential to a thriving metropolitan area as museums, aquariums, theaters and stadiums." The musicians wrote that the cuts proposed by management   which need to be negotiated with the musicians   would result in 20 percent lower play for the performers. "Now, we will be unemployed while the management that caused this debacle will go on collecting their paychecks," they wrote. "The BSO's president and CEO Peter Kjome and Board Chair Barbara Bozzuto have done all of this after stating publicly that they would not lock out the musicians. We find this disingenuous, unconscionable and irresponsible. We urge Governor Hogan to release the funds allocated in [McIntosh's bill] with a provision that the BSO cannot lock out or impose cuts on the musicians and that senior management will not be paid if the musicians are not paid." Because of the organization's financial woes, Bozzuto said the board felt forced to proceed with a plan to cut operations to 40 weeks per year. "We board members have the fiduciary responsibility to manage our funds wisely and prudently," she said. "This is the last of our actions we're taking to be solvent and fiscally responsible." She added that "orchestras around the country are facing this same problem." "The board feels very, very strongly we have an outstanding orchestra. We in no way want to stymie their creativity," Bozzuto said. "We are hoping for a way forward together." luke.broadwater@baltsun.com twitter.com/lukebroadwater


With Game 7 against the Toronto Raptors on the horizon, the Philadelphia 76ers will be fighting for their playoff lives when they make their final visit of the season to Toronto. If the team should advance, though, there's reason to be concerned about Joel Embiid , and not because of his health. During the fourth quarter of Thursday night's Game 6, Embiid was whistled for a flagrant foul against Marc Gasol, leaving him just one flagrant foul point away from the accumulation of four flagrant foul points. Why's that important? Because upon accumulating four flagrant foul points, a player will be suspended for his team's subsequent game. In other words, if the Sixers advance past the Raptors and Embiid is whistled for a flagrant foul against the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference Finals, he would be suspended for the following game. The NBA allows appeals of flagrant and technical fouls, which is why there was at least some hope that the league would rescind the foul called against Marc Gasol, but according to ESPN's Tim Bontemps , that will not be the case. Joel Embiid's flagrant foul from last night's game will not be rescinded, league sources told ESPN. Embiid now has 3 flagrant foul points during the playoffs. He will earn an automatic 1-game suspension if he picks up a flagrant-1, & a 2-game suspension if he gets a flagrant 2. - Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) May 10, 2019 Bontemps also points out an important fact: Embiid would be suspended for two games should be pick up a flagrant-2 foul. That would be an incredible loss considering the fact that a flagrant-2 comes with a mandatory ejection. Of course, this only becomes relevant if the Sixers manage to defeat the Raptors in Game 7, and that, obviously, is no slam dunk. MORE: The full story from the guy who got Danica Patrick a drink at the Bucks-Celtics game NBA Free Agency 2019: The top players 3 Raiders players who could have breakout seasons in 2019 Richard Sherman: 'The secondary wasn't the issue last year' Rumor: LeBron made a visit to Kawhi Leonard during Raptors-Sixers series


The iconic Z has been around since 1969! In the year 1969, a lot of things were happening around the world - moon landings, music festivals, and many notable markers in American pop culture. Also occurring that year was the official unveiling of the Datsun Z at the New York Auto Show. Datsun was a brand that went straight to racing in its early days to prove its merits as a sports car. The moniker made its rounds on SCCA circuits, putting up a fight, and gaining the respect of automotive enthusiasts. "The Japanese manufacturers were starting to make inroads, but they were still very minor players. Until the Z came out. When the Z came out, the whole Japanese market exploded," said Greg Smith, owner of Motorsports Industries in Orange, California. Fifty years later, Nissan is honoring the legacy of the first Datsun 240Z with an Anniversary Edition 2020 370Z. This car will have a special paint scheme that mimics the Pete Brock BRE race team livery. On the outside and inside, special logos define the special edition as well - the BRE white and red color combo will be a limited run of only 50 models, with a silver and black option being made more available. With the sports car market getting smaller, especially the Japanese sports compact market, Nissan is staying loyal to the Z line, even through there was a big gap in the late 90s and early 2000s. In current times, the earlier cars of the Z line are highly sought after collectibles. "Five years ago, you could buy what we'd call a 'rust bucket' for under $1,000. And now, those $1,000 cars are gone. And there have been vehicles that changed hands in the $40,000 to $50,000 range," said Greg Smith of Motorsport Industries. Source: ABC7 News Read More... A Visionary Future Owner Can Bring This 1970 Pontiac Trans Am Back Prototype 1996 Pontiac Trans Am WS6 Is A Rare Treat