The strike on the high-rise came nearly an hour after the military ordered people to evacuate the 12-story building, which also housed Al-Jazeera, other offices and residential apartments. The strike brought down the entire structure, which collapsed in a gigantic cloud of dust.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — An Israeli airstrike targeted and destroyed a high-rise building in Gaza City that housed offices of The Associated Press and other media outlets hours after another Israeli air raid on a densely populated refugee camp killed at least 10 Palestinians from an extended family, mostly children, on Saturday.

The strike on the high-rise came nearly an hour after the military ordered people to evacuate the 12-story building, which also housed Al-Jazeera, other offices and residential apartments. The strike brought down the entire structure, which collapsed in a gigantic cloud of dust. There was no immediate explanation for why it was attacked.

The earlier Israeli airstrike on the Gaza City refugee camp was the deadliest single strike of the current conflict between Israel and the militant group Hamas. Both sides are pressing for an advantage as cease-fire efforts gather strength.

The latest outburst of violence started in Jerusalem and spread across the region over the past week, with Jewish-Arab clashes and rioting in mixed cities of Israel. There were also widespread Palestinian protests Friday in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces shot and killed 11 people.

The spiraling violence has raised fears of a new Palestinian “intifada,” or uprising, when peace talks have not taken place in years. Palestinians on Saturday were marking Nakba (Catastrophe) Day, when they commemorate the estimated 700,000 people who were expelled from or fled their homes in what was now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation. That raised the possibility of even more unrest.

U.S. diplomat Hady Amr arrived Friday as part of Washington’s efforts to de-escalate the conflict, and the U.N. Security Council was set to meet Sunday. But Israel turned down an Egyptian proposal for a one-year truce that Hamas rulers had accepted, an Egyptian official said Friday on condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations.

Since Monday night, Hamas has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, which has pounded the Gaza Strip with strikes. In Gaza, at least 139 people have been killed, including 39 children and 22 women; in Israel, eight people have been killed, including the death Saturday of a man killed by a rocket that hit in Ramat Gan, a suburb of Tel Aviv.

The strike on the building housing media offices came in the afternoon, after the owner received a call from the Israeli military warning that the building would be hit. AP’s staff and others in the building evacuated immediately, and were reported safe.

Al-Jazeera, the news network funded by Qatar’s government, broadcast the airstrikes live as the building collapsed.

“This channel will not be silenced. Al-Jazeera will not be silenced,” an on-air anchorwoman from Al-Jazeera English said, her voice thick with emotion. “We can guarantee you that right now.”

The bombardment earlier Saturday struck a three-story house in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp, killing eight children and two women from an extended family.

Mohammed Hadidi told reporters his wife and five children had gone to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday with relatives. She and three of the children, aged 6 to 14, were killed, while an 11-year-old is missing. Only his 5-month-old son Omar is known to have survived.

Children’s toys and a Monopoly board game could be seen among the rubble, as well as plates of uneaten food from the holiday gathering.

“There was no warning,” said Jamal Al-Naji, a neighbor living in the same building. “You filmed people eating and then you bombed them?” he said, addressing Israel. “Why are you confronting us? Go and confront the strong people!”

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Hamas said it fired a salvo of rockets at southern Israel in response to the airstrike.

A furious Israeli barrage early Friday killed a family of six in their house and sent thousands fleeing to U.N.-run shelters. The military said the operation involved 160 warplanes dropping some 80 tons of explosives over the course of 40 minutes and succeeded in destroying a vast tunnel network used by Hamas.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said the military aims to minimize collateral damage in striking military targets. But measures it takes in other strikes, such as warning shots to get civilians to leave, were not “feasible this time.”

Israeli media said the military believed dozens of militants were killed inside the tunnels. The Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant groups have confirmed 20 deaths in their ranks, but the military said the real number is far higher.

Gaza’s infrastructure, already in widespread disrepair because of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed after Hamas seized power in 2007, showed signs of breaking down further, compounding residents’ misery. The territory’s sole power plant is at risk of running out of fuel in the coming days.

The U.N. said Gazans are already enduring daily power cuts of 8-12 hours and at least 230,000 have limited access to tap water. The impoverished and densely populated territory is home to 2 million Palestinians, most of them the descendants of refugees from what is now Israel.

The conflict has reverberated widely. Israeli cities with mixed Arab and Jewish populations have seen nightly violence, with mobs from each community fighting in the streets and trashing each other’s property.

Late on Friday, someone threw a firebomb at an Arab family’s home in the Ajami neighborhood of Tel Aviv, striking two children. A 12-year-old boy was in moderate condition with burns on his upper body and a 10-year-old girl was treated for a head injury, according to the Magen David Adom rescue service.

In the occupied West Bank, on the outskirts of Ramallah, Nablus and other towns and cities, hundreds of Palestinians protested the Gaza campaign and Israeli actions in Jerusalem. Waving Palestinian flags, they trucked in tires that they set up in burning barricades and hurled stones at Israeli soldiers. At least 10 protesters were shot and killed by soldiers. An 11th Palestinian was killed when he tried to stab a soldier at a military position.

In east Jerusalem, online video showed young Jewish nationalists firing pistols as they traded volleys of stones with Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah, which became a flashpoint for tensions over attempts by settlers to forcibly evict a number of Palestinian families from their homes.

On Israel’s northern border, troops opened fire when a group of Lebanese and Palestinian protesters on the other side cut through the border fence and briefly crossed. One Lebanese was killed. Three rockets were fired toward Israel from neighboring Syria without causing any casualties or damage. It was not immediately known who fired them.

The tensions began in east Jerusalem earlier this month, with Palestinian protests against the Sheikh Jarrah evictions and Israeli police measures at Al-Aqsa Mosque, a frequent flashpoint located on a mount in the Old City revered by Muslims and Jews.

Hamas fired rockets toward Jerusalem late Monday, in an apparent attempt to present itself as the champion of the protesters.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Hamas will “pay a very heavy price” for its rocket attacks as Israel has massed troops at the frontier. U.S. President Joe Biden has expressed support for Israel while saying he hopes to bring the violence under control.

Hamas has fired some 2,000 rockets toward Israel since Monday, according to the Israeli military. Most have been intercepted by anti-missile defenses, but they have brought life to a standstill in southern Israeli cities, caused disruptions at airports and have set off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

___

Krauss reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed.

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In Detroit for the first game of a three-game series, the Chicago Cubs turned to Jake Arrieta, who was making his first start since April 30. Prior to giving up back-to-back solo home runs in the sixth inning, the 35-year-old had faced the minimum. Arrieta was helped out by a couple of double-play balls and […]

Chicago Cubs: Winners and losers in team’s 4-2 win over Tigers – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & More

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Michael Jordan will reportedly appear in the upcoming “Space Jam 2” film this Summer according to Don Cheadle.

The post Will Michael Jordan appear in Space Jam 2 this Summer? first appeared on CHI CITY SPORTS l Chicago Sports Blog – News – Forum – Fans – Rumors.Read More

Doug ‘The Sheriff’ Fitz, a cop turned handicapper, offers his selections for free on website he created

LAS VEGAS — From protecting and serving for more than 30 years to providing a free handicapping service in the heart of the sports-betting business, Doug “The Sheriff” Fitz has carved a unique career arc.

From cop to ’capper.

“It’s rewarding,” he says, “when it’s working.”

Fitz drew his weapon countless times, in Cleveland and North Las Vegas, but he never fired it. “Lucky,” he told me three years ago. “Been shot at, too, but never hit. Just lucky.”

When the game selections are middling, he takes solace in the gratis nature of his SystemPlays service. Follow or fade him, or monitor for entertainment purposes, it’s all the same to Fitz.

Not charging for picks eases his conscience and undoubtedly reduces social-media jabs certain to follow a string of sour results.

“I just don’t need to deal with that,” says Fitz. “I’ve dealt with crap, being a cop . . . I saw the bad side, the negative side, of people for 30 years, and that’s all I saw.”

VALIDATION

Fitz, who recently turned 70, has witnessed magnificence, too. That includes Jim Brown. Born and raised in Cleveland, Fitz attended many Browns games in his youth since his father always had season tickets.

“Best running back ever,” Fitz said recently.

Fitz became a police officer and served in Cleveland for 10 years, transferring to rough-edged North Las Vegas in 1985.

Late pal Tom introduced him to the world of pointspreads, totals and moneylines, with which Fitz experimented further at Sam’s Town, on the Vegas periphery.

His continued interest spurred him to develop a SystemPlays website in 2001. And when he retired in 2006, the hobby became a passion project. His efforts would intrigue Matt Youmans at the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Youmans wrote about his exploits and invited Fitz onto his local sports-betting radio show, leading to his regular inclusion in the paper’s pick-’em panels of pros and experts.

Fitz won the RJ’s NFL Challenge in 2011 — his second foray in the competition — and 2015 (with five runner-ups), its College Bowl Challenge in 2017 and its College March Madness Challenge in 2019.

Handicappers Paul Stone, Dana Lane and Micah Roberts, betting scribe Dave Tuley and Westgate SuperBook chief Jay Kornegay have been some of Fitz’s pick-’em opponents.

“I was up against some very well-known people,” he says. “Basically nobody had heard of me. So, yeah, that was validation to a great extent.”

At 10-6-1, he finished a notch behind March Madness Challenge champ Kelly Stewart (12-5) two months ago. ESPN recently hired Stewart, a WagerTalk mainstay, for her gambling prowess.

Youmans deigned ‘‘The Sheriff’’ moniker on the direct and deliberate Fitz, a man of few words and an ardent Ohio State fan. Youmans surmises that he might see himself as a “tough Woody Hayes type.”

But he saw Fitz more in the mold of John Wayne’s commanding and unflappable small-town sheriff John T. Chance in the 1959 Western flick “Rio Bravo.”

“His analytics-based approach to handicapping has been validated by contest wins and documented winning records in various sports, especially football,” says Youmans. “What I like is he’s mostly an underdog player; if you’re going to win in the long run, you better know how to pick the dogs.”

Youmans, now a senior broadcaster and writer on the Vegas Stats & Information Network (VSiN), has had Fitz on VSiN shows he helms. He calls Fitz an “honest and humble” handicapper who does his own hard work.

“In a business with a few too many carnival barkers, he’s the opposite,” says Youmans. “He doesn’t jump on Twitter to brag about a big win or a hot streak.”

WEATHERING STORMS

Chief among Fitz’s reservoir of resources is Bet Labs, a Boston-based service that offers a wealth of database information. In total, he spends more than $100 a month to keep his information fresh, his insights timely, his statistics sharp.

In recent MLB plays, Fitz went 8-11. That included an 0-5 skid, followed by a 6-2 run. He was on a 6-7 NHL stretch through early this week.

In 2020, his overall bottom line was down nearly 25 units. So far in 2021, it has dropped six units. Much of that can be attributed to the NBA, whose plays in the 2020-21 season have cost Fitz nearly 26 units.

The NHL (up 12.37 units) and MLB (ahead 2.50 units) have been profitable, as was college hoops (8.06-unit profit) and the NFL (3.45-unit profit). College football finished four units in the red.

Remove that NBA anchor from his arsenal and SystemPlays is above sea level.

With a pandemic-depleted sports menu a year ago, Fitz dabbled in European soccer but jettisoned it due to poor results. He retains the NBA in his portfolio because he believes playoff profits are imminent.

“You have to stick with it,” he says. “If a system, historically, is consistent, sometimes you have to weather the losing streaks. You have to experiment, and it takes time. Ultimately, you have to stay with what got you here.”

He avoids write-ups because they would reveal his ingredients and methods to those on the other side of the counter, which could affect the odds — which he has already seen happen.

He declines to elaborate. Like the grizzled peacekeeper of a small Old West town, The Sheriff remains mum. He gives away nothing that might affect a future edge, and success.

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Herbers and D.C. United’s Julian Gressel have a podcast that looks at soccer from the perspective of two active players.

There was something Fire attacker Fabian Herbers had to talk about.

He didn’t see the appeal of ice-cream nachos.

On a recent episode of ‘‘Zee Soccer Podcast,’’ the show Herbers hosts with D.C. United midfielder — and fellow native German — Julian Gressel, Herbers challenged Fire fans to send him photos of the delicacy that became a staple at SeatGeek Stadium and migrated to Soldier Field. Supporters obliged him, and somebody from the Fire must’ve heard the episode because Herbers was given a full helping of the sweet treat during the game last Saturday.

‘‘I was trying them, and they were actually pretty decent,’’ Herbers said on the podcast.

Though acquiring a taste for a dessert beloved by fans has been one benefit of the podcast, Herbers and Gressel are doing it for other reasons.

Counting the introductory episode, Herbers and Gressel have done 13 shows that are available on the most popular podcast platforms. The idea came about last year, when Gressel texted Herbers about starting a podcast. Herbers, an eager consumer of podcasts, was hesitant at first because English isn’t his first language, but he warmed to the idea.

Though there are numerous soccer podcasts featuring journalists, former players and other types of commentators, Herbers and Gressel figured theirs could add something different. They also use a ‘‘German approach,’’ which Herbers said is more direct and honest and adds more insight.

‘‘We thought it would be a very interesting perspective coming from players,’’ Herbers said.

Herbers welcomes feedback, suggestions and encouragement from fans and appreciates the pictures and reviews of the ice-cream nachos. With the help of a friend of Gressel’s, who produces the show and posts it, the two have used their microphone to interview players, including former Fire forward CJ Sapong.

There also have been takes on the recent Columbus Crew rebrand, the heated offseason labor negotiations and navigating life as soccer players. Herbers even broke the news of his preseason injury in one episode, announcing he suffered a sprained medial collateral ligament in his right knee.

While Herbers and Gressel are honest and share the German perspective of the sport, neither wants to bash other players.

‘‘You don’t want to step on anybody’s feet,’’ Herbers said. ‘‘You don’t want to expose negative news about other people or the club, so we’re trying to find a balance there, obviously. It’s there to express yourself.’’

And though it’s a hobby he called a ‘‘fun journey’’ so far, Herbers said he sees the podcast the way top-level elite athletes look at any project that takes up even 30 minutes per week: He’s eager to keep getting better.

‘‘If you compare Episode 1 with Episode 12 that recently came out, you’ll already see a huge improvement in those three months that we’ve been doing it,’’ he said. ‘‘I feel like it can only get better, and hopefully we’ll gain a lot more listeners that way because I think it’s a cool thing we have going.’’

NOTES: The Fire announced Friday they are reinstating Sector Latino as a recognized supporter group. In 2018, the group’s supporters privileges were permanently revoked due to what the team said were repeated violations of the league’s fan code of conduct, a decision that caused a schism with the fan base.

* Defender Andre Reynolds II was loaned to USL club Memphis 901 for the remainder of the season. A homegrown signing, Reynolds has made two MLS appearances in three seasons with the Fire.

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The new Sky phenom spent 13 years with the Sparks in L.A., but her superstardom had its roots in Naperville.

In high school, Candace Parker couldn’t wait for Christmas to be over because that meant it was time to play in the Dundee-Crown holiday tournament.

If you got to the gym early enough, you could watch it transition from a quiet high school on a tree-lined suburban street in Carpentersville to a sporting venue straight from a movie. Think of ‘‘Hoosiers.’’

Anyone who has been around the Chicago-area prep basketball scene knows the setting. It’s a winter night so cold it steals your breath. Fluffy snowflakes are sticking to your eyelashes. Your car is parked far away from the gym doors.

Once you get in — if you get in — you’re standing along the wall.

Too often, those settings were standard for boys games. But on those nights, during her four years as a Redhawk, those cars lined the street to watch young women suit up and ball out. Those fans packed the bleachers and stood for hours along the walls of basketball gyms on cold winter nights to get a glimpse of Parker, the teenage phenom.

“It’s really weird to see pictures from our freshman and sophomore year to junior and senior and see how our following increased,” Parker said.

Anne Ryan/AP

Parker created a buzz around women’s basketball that followed her from the snowy streets of the Chicago area, to the southern sun of Tennessee and the SEC, to the famed hills of Los Angeles and overseas.

As she returns to Chicago, Parker brings with her an excitement for Sky basketball that even Elena Delle Donne and Sylvia Fowles couldn’t establish. Not because they aren’t two of the greatest to play in the WNBA, but because they aren’t Parker, and this city wasn’t home.

Parker said she didn’t notice her impact on the game until she saw kids wearing her first signature shoe in China and others donning her jersey on courts she drove past in the States.

By then, she was well into her professional career in the WNBA, but most knew she’d change the game almost immediately. As an eighth-grader, she was pulling off hesitation moves followed by finger-roll layups on grown men at Edwards Health and Fitness Center.

Some say the way to separate a good player from a great one is to determine which ushered in change. By that measure, Parker is a great player.

From the moment she decided to commit herself to basketball over soccer (as her parents Larry and Sara describe it, her first love), her dad started working with her to be more than a big player stuck on the block.

Parker was over 6 feet tall as a freshman but had the ballhandling skills of a true point guard. Before it was expected for bigs to be developed beyond the paint, to control the possession, to knock down three-point shots, she was doing it.

Growing up, she idolized Allen Iverson and wanted to play like Tina Thompson and Cynthia Cooper. It was their versatility she admired.

Parker wasn’t trying to be different — she was trying not to be one-dimensional. Plus, the only way she was going to compete with her two older brothers, Anthony and Marcus, was if she learned how to handle the ball.

Nothing came easy in the Parker house. The family shared dinners every night, but those dinners came with a healthy dose of humorous teasing. Arriving after a bad game meant the family would go looking for that sibling’s jump shot in the cabinet before taking a seat at the table.

Marcus, on one occasion, took things as far as using a pseudonym to start a debate on a high school preps message board over whether his little sister was really worth the hype. Later he revealed this to his mom, who was shocked but not surprised.

As hard as the Parkers teased, they supported each other with even more ferocity.

Marcus was the first one back in the gym with Candace after she tore her ACL before her senior year at Naperville Central. Days after that late-night session that at one point left her on the floor with Marcus trying not to act worried, she returned to the court to play in the Dundee-Crown tournament.

It was the same tournament in which she made history by dunking as a 15-year-old sophomore.

“She called us from the house the next day and said, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s all these people at the door, and people keep calling,’ ” her mother, Sara, recalls. “She asked us ‘What is this about?’ and we said, ‘Well, Candace, it’s probably because you dunked. Nobody has done that before.’ ”

Drafted first overall in the 2008 WNBA Draft, Parker became the second player to dunk in a WNBA game her rookie season. Her teammate Lisa Leslie was the first.

She is the only player in the league’s history to win rookie of the year and MVP in the same season.

After her rookie year, Parker gave birth to her daughter, Lailaa, in May ahead of the 2009 season. She returned to the WNBA six weeks after delivery.

That following January, Parker traveled to Russia for her overseas commitments with Sara and her nearly 8-month-old daughter. Sara traveled to every game with Lailaa that season. At halftime, Parker would nurse her daughter. Sara said Parker had some of her best games on the least amount of sleep.

She’s a five-time All-Star, two-time Olympic gold medalist, two-time league MVP, a WNBA champion, Finals MVP, WNBA defensive player of the year, EuroLeague champion and five-time Russian national league champion.

Making history is what Parker has done, but it’s not what she set out to do.

Before Parker got to Tennessee, late Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt and then-assistant Holly Warlick told her they expected that she’d be a power forward. At 6-5, with her passing skills, court vision, three-point shot and abilities to post up, Summitt and Warlick saw her potential to disrupt defenders and reinvent the position.

Parker adamantly told them she wanted to stay at the three. Worried about losing her as a recruit, they gave in, “ ‘OK, you’re a three,’ we told her,” Warlick said.

Parker ended up playing all five positions at Tennessee, which at that point was not being done by players with her height. It’s still hard to find now. Back then, the women’s game almost exclusively featured two post players inside. Summitt wanted Parker to face up, play away from the basket and shoot the three. She also wanted to use her inside.

Warlick said they finally convinced her to play the four and the five based on who was defending her. If she had another big on her, she’d take them out of the paint, face up and penetrate on them. Going up against a guard that could keep up with her handles, Parker would put her back to the basket and post up.

Wade Payne/AP

ESPN’s top 25 players for the 2021 WNBA season has Parker ranked fourth, behind Breanna Stewart (Seattle Storm), A’ja Wilson (Las Vegas Aces) and Delle Donne (Washington Mystics). They all have one thing in common: they play a lot like Parker.

It’s not just her style of play that sets Parker apart, it’s her understanding of the game as well. It’s like having another coach on the floor. During one game, Warlick remembers the coaches looking at each other contemplating if they should call a timeout when they heard the whistle blow and the ref say, “Timeout, Tennessee.”

Parker had called a timeout, and Warlick said it was a needed one.

She developed her advanced understanding of the game growing up in a house with coaches. Both of her parents played basketball, Larry at Iowa and Sara for Iowa’s intramural program. They both coached Parker’s AAU team as well.

The best education, Warlick said, came during some of Parker’s injuries when she was forced to sit and watch the game. Parker didn’t waste those moments just watching, she studied. Every time she came back, she was a better player.

It wouldn’t be fair to Parker to casually brush off the lows of injury as learning moments. They were tough, but Parker always has proven tougher.

In Tennessee’s 2008 Elite Eight game against Texas A&M, Parker dislocated her left shoulder twice and still scored 26 points. Ahead of the Final Four game against LSU, her shoulder dislocated again, this time in her sleep.

Marcus said for doctors to get Parker’s shoulder back in, they had to put her under anesthesia. She finished with a double-double scoring 13 points and pulling down 15 rebounds despite playing with one arm.

“You could see when they would pass her the ball if it was in a specific place, she would wince in pain,” Marcus said.

Parker helped Tennessee to its eighth NCAA women’s basketball title (and her second) one day later by beating Stanford 64-48. The following day, on April 9, Parker was selected by the Sparks. Sylvia Fowles, who helped lead LSU to the Final Four against Tennessee, was picked second by the Sky.

If you’re wondering about what could have been and the possibility of a Sky trade for the No. 1 pick that would have brought her home 13 years ago instead of three months ago, stop.

“I’ll be honest, I didn’t want Chicago out of college,” Parker says now.

At 22, she was ready to be an adult and grow her game away from the comfort of childhood friends and family.

Parker needed Los Angeles and the WNBA, entering its 11th season when she was drafted, needed her there, too.

As a rookie on a team with Leslie in the LA market, the buzz that followed her from Tennessee was amplified. Teammates recall hearing about the rookie who would go No. 1 overall. Some described her as the Michael Jordan of the WNBA. DeLisha Milton-Jones called her a movement.

Reed Saxon/AP

Milton-Jones, who had requested a trade from the Sparks two years before, was playing for the Mystics in 2007 when she got a call from then-Sparks coach and former Lakers guard Michael Cooper. He told her there was a rookie sensation about to come in and he was putting the band back together.

That year, the Sparks went 20-14, finished third in the Western Conference and lost 2-1 in the best-of-three Western Conference Finals against the San Antonio Silver Stars.

The final minute of Game 3 was a dagger to the heart. The Sparks led 72-69 until Becky Hammon tied the game on a three-pointer with a minute left. Hammon cemented the win with four free throws.

The Silver Stars were swept by the Detroit Shock in the Finals, and Parker is still upset about it to this day.

“One-thousand percent, I’m pissed,” Parker said. “I do think it was a good experience though. Should we have won? Yes. But there’s always those would of, could of, should ofs.”

Looking back, Parker can see that season gave her something that winning a championship her rookie season couldn’t. As a rookie, Parker thought she had all the time in the world to climb the mountain.

When the 2016 season rolled around, Parker understood the importance of capitalizing on the moment and exactly how hard it is to get to the WNBA Finals. The energy and passion was there for that Sparks team, but Parker knew it takes everything going right plus a little luck to become a champion.

Teammate Alana Beard describes their on-court relationship as intense because their expectations for each other were so high. In practice, games and in communicating with teammates, Beard always wanted Parker’s best.

Equally, Parker’s level of excellence allowed Beard to see and go beyond what she thought she was capable of. There was no settling when those two shared the court.

Parker and her teammates had the championship vision and the talent but they needed a little luck. Some would say it came in the form of a snub.

When Parker was left off of the 2016 USA Olympic team by UConn coach Geno Auriemma, the collective basketball world was shocked. More important to note though is the shock expressed by teammates and coaches across the league.

“I will never understand that,” Beard said.

It was the motivation she needed to lead the Sparks to the WNBA Finals against the Minnesota Lynx. From 2011 to 2017, the Lynx won four championships and made six finals appearances.

Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said she gets exhausted just thinking about the battles her team shared with the Sparks. There was no love lost between the teams. Reeve described it as a healthy dislike, so much so that it affected free agency.

“No way in hell is a Spark going to come play for the Minnesota Lynx during that time and vice versa,” Reeve said.

When LA won it in 2016, it was like the younger sibling finally figuring out how to beat the older one. Beard’s buzzer-beater against the Lynx in Game 1 got the series started. Nneka Ogwumike’s putback with three seconds left plus Parker’s 28-point, 12-rebound Finals MVP performance in Game 5 on the Lynx’s court sealed it.

Basketball is a team sport, but when critics rank the greatest players of all time, whether or not they won a championship is one of the critical components that decides where a player lands on that list.

In the league’s historic 20th season Parker’s legacy as one of the greatest to ever play the game was solidified with the Sparks’ first title in 14 years.

Parker didn’t know for sure that she played her final game with the Sparks following the 2020 season when she was named Defensive Player of the Year.

Last season was a defining one off the court as well, where Parker has been equally as influential throughout her career. The league’s 144 players in the bubble led the sports landscape in the fight against systemic racism and police brutality by creating actionable change in communities across the country from Bradenton, Florida. Most notably might be their endorsement of Georgia Senator, Raphael Warnock who defeated incumbent and former Atlanta Dream owner, Kelly Loeffler in Georgia’s Senate runoff in January.

In 2020 Parker voiced the Sparks’ “Change Has No Offseason” social justice campaign. She wrote a letter for TIME for the 100 year anniversary of Women’s Suffrage, making the critical acknowledgment that it would be another 45 years until Black women were able to legally vote. Parker also joined forces with TNT colleague, Dwyane Wade, along with Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul in their Social Change Fund which launched last July.

“It’s not my equality. It’s not your equality. It’s our equality,” Parker shared on Instagram last August.

Entering free agency, Parker was contemplating the idea of leaving Los Angeles, but it was hard to grapple with. She has lived in LA almost as long as she lived in Naperville. Lailaa goes to school there. She said it always will be home.

Ultimately, she made the decision for herself, but it took some coaxing from the Sky.

When the Sky front office sat down and discussed free agency, their main objective was to sign Parker. At that point, Sky owner Michael Alter said it was a fantasy but knew better than to make any assumptions.

Sky coach and general manager James Wade flew to Atlanta from France to meet with Parker for dinner while she was in town working as an NBA analyst for TNT. It’s another role she plays that highlights her ability to change the WNBA. Every time she sits alongside Shaquille O’Neal, Dwyane Wade and others on that esteemed panel, she’s bringing more fans to the league.

James Wade described them as having a great talk. He told her what the Sky could offer her, and they discussed the championship potential the team had if she were to play alongside the veteran backcourt duo of Courtney Vandersloot and Allie Quigley.

After leaving dinner their conversations remained fluid, but Wade knew he had to temper his expectations.

“With a player of her stature, you don’t know until you know,” Wade said.

One thing that was important to Parker was knowing players like Vandersloot and Quigley wanted her in Chicago. But it wasn’t just VanderQuigs who was eager to welcome Parker home. All the players on the Sky had dreams of what they could accomplish if Parker returned.

Budding star Diamond DeShields grew up aspiring to be like Parker. Azura Stevens made a doll of Parker for a middle-school project. Lexie Brown was in Tampa, Florida, to see Parker and Tennessee capture the NCAA title against Stanford in 2008.

When Parker signed a two-year contract with the Sky on Feb. 1, their idol became their teammate, and the dreams of what they could accomplish together became attainable goals.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

There’s no question about the Sky’s instant relevance in Chicago’s saturated sports landscape with Parker on the team. The only way teams remain relevant in this city is by winning championships.

Chicago sports fans don’t expect much. The Cubs went 108 years before winning their third World Series in 2016. The Bulls’ second threepeat was more than 23 years ago. The Bears’ lone Super Bowl championship came after the 1985 season. The Red Stars have yet to win an NWSL title in the league’s nine-year existence. The White Sox haven’t won since 2005, and the Blackhawks won their last Stanley Cup in 2015.

Fans in this city are loyal to titles and Parker has the potential to lead the Sky to their first in the organization’s history.

As far as Parker’s legacy goes, she said she’s not one to disrupt what still is being written. She is conscious of the fact she has more games behind her than ahead of her.

While she hasn’t made any indication of when she’ll hang it up, playing in Chicago 46 miles from the gym she made history in at 15 certainly has the potential for a storybook ending.

It’ll take everything going right, plus a little luck.

“When my career is all said and done, then we’ll be able to reflect on it,” Parker said. “While I’m still in it, I hope I continue to change the way the game is played.”

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When he left Afghanistan, Maj. Thomas Schueman left behind a young Afghan he says probably saved his life and those of many others. Now, he’s trying to help that man escape the Taliban.

In satellite images, a jade-colored river snakes across a barren landscape, then gives life to fields of poppies, corn and pomegranates.

There’s another map of the Sangin district in Afghanistan’s Helmand River Valley — one that a U.S. Marine said in 2010 looked as if someone had “sneezed blood” all over it. Marked with red dots, the map showed all of the places where Taliban forces had opened fire.

Marine Maj. Thomas Schueman, a Chicago native and graduate of Marist High School, was there during the hell of it, a seven-month stretch in which 25 Marines died and more than 200 were wounded during a campaign to flush out Taliban fighters. Schueman earned a Purple Heart when he and other troops were ambushed in a field on Nov. 9, 2010.

“My squad leader stepped on an improvised explosive device, and he lost his leg,” says Schueman, who remains on active duty but now teaches English literature at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. “I was blown up. And then my platoon sergeant was blown up in that same blast on that day. It was one of a couple of times I was blown up on that deployment.”

When Schueman left Afghanistan, he left behind a young Afghan he says probably saved his life and those of many other U.S. Marines while working as an interpreter for them in Helmand Province.

Schueman says the Taliban have made it known that the interpreter — he doesn’t want to use his real name out of fear for his life, so he calls him Zach — is a traitor and that, if they find him, they will kill him.

So he’s trying to get him out and bring him to the United States.

“This man — and many like him — literally put their lives on the line,” he says. “We owe him the opportunity to come to this country and to have some hope, some freedom to build a better life for him and his family.”

Five years after Schueman helped Zach apply for a visa designed for Afghans under threat because they helped U.S. forces, he says the application is still in limbo.

He says that, after working with the Marines, Zach worked as an interpreter for an American contractor, working with the Army, but can’t find any record of the company. He says Zach needs a letter from that company to get the visa.

And Schueman fears time could be running out. He says he recently got a Facebook message from the interpreter that read, in part: “Sir, you may better know the situation is the worst in Afghanistan than ever. I would be lucky if I get a chance to travel to the US to save myself and my family.”

A State Department spokeswoman, citing visa confidentiality, says she can’t talk about Zach’s case but, “Speaking generally, the Biden administration is committed to supporting those who have helped U.S. military and other government personnel perform their duties, often at great personal risk to themselves and their families.

“We at the Department of State take seriously our role in managing the Special Immigrant Visa program, and we are engaged at the highest levels to ensure we are serving SIV applicants as promptly as possible,” the spokeswoman says.

Adam Bates, an attorney with the Washington-based International Refugee Assistance Project, says the holdup is that there’s a backlog of 18,000 such visa applications.

“Even at the most optimistic processing rates, the current backlog would take more than four years to get through,” Bates says, adding, “The idea of leaving someone behind on some technicality is unconscionable.”

Schueman’s mother Grace Picard has written to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, trying to draw attention to Zach’s case.

“There’s been enough death and enough pain,” says Picard, a retired Chicago cop. “Let’s do the right thing and bring this guy and his children and his wife out of there.”

Schueman, who grew up in Mount Greenwood, was one of thousands of Marines who poured into Sangin in 2010. They took over from British forces in a place that one English newspaper called a “deathtrap.”

Provided

Strategically important because it connects one Afghan province to another, Sangin’s also home to a thriving opium trade. Schueman, who arrived there in October 2010, says he’d never seen anything like it.

“No plumbing, no running water,” he says. “People had wells. There’s generally no electricity.”

His first day in Afghanistan, he came under fire.

“I took 94 Marines on my very first patrol,” he says. “I didn’t even have half my platoon outside of the base yet, and we already had found an IED and were being shot at by multiple machine guns.”

One of Schueman’s best buddies, Lt. William Donnelly, was shot and killed on Thanksgiving Day 2010. Schueman and his Marines needed all the help they could get. That’s when Zach, a 19-year-old interpreter with a hatred for the Taliban and a daring streak, came in.

The Marines intercepted Taliban radio communications, and Zach would listen in. On one occasion, he heard enough to gather where enemy fighters were hiding. Schueman told him he’d dispatch some Marines as quickly as possible but that it would be slow going because an engineer with a mine detector would need to lead the way.

Schueman says he trusted Zach enough that he was given a rifle at one point to hold when another Marine stepped on an IED and had a leg blown off.

“He became one of my Marines, basically,” Schueman says.

Talking with a reporter via WhatsApp, Zach says: “We did a lot of things, crazy things — like fight with the Taliban, capture them and kick them in the ass.”

Zach is 31 now, married with four children. He lives with his parents and his five brothers in a house in an Afghan province that’s partly under Taliban control. He says he especially fears for the safety of his family now that Biden has announced plans to withdraw all remaining American troops from the country by Sept. 11.

He says the Taliban has his cellphone number, that he last heard from them in February 2020 and was told: “You are an infidel because you work with the Americans.”

Asked what he knows about America, he says, “I know there is no Taliban, no terrorists.”

Also, he says, he has relatives living in Texas and California.

Carlos Gonzales served under Schueman in Afghanistan and now lives in Rio Rico, Ariz. He says he’d do anything to help Zach.

“He was a brother, and I’d really love to have him back over here in the States,” Gonzales says, where he’d be welcome in Arizona.

He says there’s an empty lot next to his home where Zach could build a house.

“Hopefully he can come down to my house and have a barbecue and let our kids play together,” he says. “That would be amazing.”

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The Fighting Irish long snapper, a New Trier grad, is a contender for Patrick Mannelly Award

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Michael Vinson, it seems, collects nicknames as easily as he does raves from his coaches.

Back in his New Trier days, the long snapper was known as “Vinny” or “The Godfather.” Since arriving at Notre Dame, Vinson has come to be known simply as “Milk.”

The meaning behind that is twofold.

“One, he is kind of pasty white — got to be honest,” said Nolan Owen, his personal long-snapping instructor for the last six years. “And two, he has a massive obsession over milk. He loves drinking milk.”

That’s one way Vinson has been able to build up his 6-2, 226-pound frame to the point where he has become an indispensable part of the Fighting Irish special-teams units. Brought in as a preferred walk-on in 2018, Vinson surprised plenty within the program by willing his way to become the worthy successor to John Shannon.

“Michael is one of the hardest-working football players I’ve ever been around in my entire career,” said Brian Polian, Notre Dame’s assistant head coach and special-teams coordinator. “We invited Michael into the program as a freshman because we felt he had potential to be the backup. He could get us out of a game if we had to.”

And then Vinson, day by day, brick by brick, built his stature to the point where he pushed his way past a slew of competitors.

“Over the course of two years, he worked so diligently and so hard — off to the side, on his own,” Polian said, “and he worked so hard at trying to get stronger and to be athletic enough to function on the coverage units.”

By last year’s Rose Bowl, Polian noted, Vinson was “down there trying to cover a punt” against Heisman Trophy winner DeVonta Smith of Alabama.

“I can’t express how proud I am that we brought a scholarship freshman in, and Michael beat him out, fair and square,” Polian said. “That’s all we can promise is that, ‘Hey, Michael, you’ll get the chance to compete.’ Sure enough, he won the job and he won it cleanly.”

A rising redshirt junior, Vinson enters next fall as one of the early favorites to win the Patrick Mannelly Award as the nation’s top collegiate long snapper. If he succeeds, he would join Shannon, the ex-Loyola standout who won the inaugural honor in 2019.

With Vinson, it goes beyond the lightning-quick snaps and the impeccable accuracy. It even goes beyond the blocking and coverage ability that make him a legitimate NFL prospect, according to Owen, the former NIU long snapper whose instructional academy recently celebrated its 10th anniversary.

“He’s a leader,” Owen said. “That’s the best way to explain it.”

From the moment Vinson started coming around as a New Trier sophomore, Owen could see the way his other snappers gravitated to him. Group sessions always seemed to go better with Vinson in the mix.

“He works extremely hard and he doesn’t complain,” Owen said. “He’s not just a grinder but he’s the fun guy. He’s a guy that laughs and jokes around while he’s grinding. He pushed everybody and got everybody to enjoy what they were doing.”

Three days a week for up to five total hours of specialized training, Vinson never seemed to have a bad session when he walked into the Nolan’s Long Snapping facility in St. Charles.

“It’s amazing,” Owen said. “I think he loves the sport more than I do. That kid, he really, really loves it. If I could have him back again for every session with our high schoolers, I would. He is that much of a leader.”

It should surprise no one if Vinson, even as a specialist, is voted a team captain at Notre Dame next fall.

“His teammates adore him,” Polian said. “He’s a joy to be around. He loves Notre Dame. His family loves Notre Dame. He makes the mood in any room he walks into brighter.”

Got Milk? The Irish are sure glad they do.

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In satellite images, a jade-colored river snakes across a barren landscape, then gives life to fields of poppies, corn and pomegranates.

There’s another map of the Sangin district in Afghanistan’s Helmand River Valley — one that a U.S. Marine back said in 2010 looked as if someone had “sneezed blood” all over it. Marked with red dots, the map showed all of the places where Taliban forces had opened fire.

Marine Maj. Thomas Schueman, a Chicago native and graduate of Marist High School, was there during the hell of it, a seven-month stretch in which 25 Marines died and more than 200 were wounded during a campaign to flush out Taliban fighters. Schueman earned a Purple Heart when he and other troops were ambushed in a field on Nov. 9, 2010.

“My squad leader stepped on an improvised explosive device, and he lost his leg,” says Schueman, who remains on active duty but now teaches English literature at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. “I was blown up. And then my platoon sergeant was blown up in that same blast on that day. It was one of a couple of times I was blown up on that deployment.”

When Schueman left Afghanistan, he left behind a young Afghan he says probably saved his life and those of many other U.S. Marines while working as an interpreter for them in Helmand Province.

Schueman says the Taliban have made it known that the interpreter — he doesn’t want to use his real name out of fear for his life, so he calls him Zach — is a traitor and that, if they find him, they will kill him.

So he’s trying to get him out and bring him to the United States.

“This man — and many like him — literally put their lives on the line,” he says. “We owe him the opportunity to come to this country and to have some hope, some freedom to build a better life for him and his family.”

Five years after Schueman helped Zach apply for a visa designed for Afghans under threat because they helped U.S. forces, he says the application is still in limbo.

He says that, after working with the Marines, Zach worked as an interpreter for an American contractor, working with the Army, but can’t find any record of the company. He says Zach needs a letter from that company to get the visa.

And Schueman fears time could be running out. He says he recently got a Facebook message from the interpreter that read, in part: “Sir, you may better know the situation is the worst in Afghanistan than ever. I would be lucky if I get a chance to travel to the US to save myself and my family.”

A State Department spokeswoman, citing visa confidentiality, says she can’t talk about Zach’s case but, “Speaking generally, the Biden administration is committed to supporting those who have helped U.S. military and other government personnel perform their duties, often at great personal risk to themselves and their families.

“We at the Department of State take seriously our role in managing the Special Immigrant Visa program, and we are engaged at the highest levels to ensure we are serving SIV applicants as promptly as possible,” the spokeswoman says.

Adam Bates, an attorney with the Washington-based International Refugee Assistance Project, says the holdup is that there’s a backlog of 18,000 such visa applications.

“Even at the most optimistic processing rates, the current backlog would take more than four years to get through,” Bates says, adding, “The idea of leaving someone behind on some technicality is unconscionable.”

Schueman’s mother Grace Picard has written to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, trying to draw attention to Zach’s case.

“There’s been enough death and enough pain,” says Picard, a retired Chicago cop. “Let’s do the right thing and bring this guy and his children and his wife out of there.”

Schueman, who grew up in Mount Greenwood, was one of thousands of Marines who poured into Sangin in 2010. They took over from British forces in a place that one English newspaper called a “deathtrap.”

Provided

Strategically important because it connects one Afghan province to another, Sangin’s also home to a thriving opium trade. Schueman, who arrived there in October 2010, says he’d never seen anything like it.

“No plumbing, no running water,” he says. “People had wells. There’s generally no electricity.”

His first day in Afghanistan, he came under fire.

“I took 94 Marines on my very first patrol,” he says. “I didn’t even have half my platoon outside of the base yet, and we already had found an IED and were being shot at by multiple machine guns.”

One of Schueman’s best buddies, Lt. William Donnelly, was shot and killed on Thanksgiving Day 2010. Schueman and his Marines needed all the help they could get. That’s when Zach, a 19-year-old interpreter with a hatred for the Taliban and a daring streak, came in.

The Marines intercepted Taliban radio communications, and Zach would listen in. On one occasion, he heard enough to gather where enemy fighters were hiding. Schueman told him he’d dispatch some Marines as quickly as possible but that it would be slow going because an engineer with a mine detector would need to lead the way.

Schueman says he trusted Zach enough that he was given a rifle at one point to hold when another Marine stepped on an IED and had a leg blown off.

“He became one of my Marines, basically,” Schueman says.

Talking with a reporter via WhatsApp, Zach says: “We did a lot of things, crazy things — like fight with the Taliban, capture them and kick them in the ass.”

Zach is 31 now, married with four children. He lives with his parents and his five brothers in a house in an Afghan province that’s partly under Taliban control. He says he especially fears for the safety of his family now that Biden has announced plans to withdraw all remaining American troops from the country by Sept. 11.

He says the Taliban has his cellphone number, that he last heard from them in February 2020 and was told: “You are an infidel because you work with the Americans.”

Asked what he knows about America, he says, “I know there is no Taliban, no terrorists.”

Also, he says, he has relatives living in Texas and California.

Carlos Gonzales served under Schueman in Afghanistan and now lives in Rio Rico, Ariz. He says he’d do anything to help Zach.

“He was a brother, and I’d really love to have him back over here in the States,” Gonzales says, where he’d be welcome in Arizona.

He says there’s an empty lot next to his home where Zach could build a house.

“Hopefully he can come down to my house and have a barbecue and let our kids play together,” he says. “That would be amazing.”

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The weekend began with a shooting that wounded a 2-year-old girl followed by two multiple victim attacks, one that wounded three on the West Side and another that left one dead and four injured on the South Side.

At least 18 people have been shot citywide since 5 p.m. Friday.

The 2-year-old girl was in the rear seat of a car being driven by a male about 6:55 p.m. in the 2800 block of West 26th Street when another vehicle drove up alongside them and someone inside that vehicle started shooting, Chicago police said.

She was shot in the leg and was taken by the driver to Mount Sinai Hospital in good condition, according to police.

Less than two hours later, three people were hurt in a drive-by shooting in Lawndale on the West Side.

The trio was standing outside about 8:15 p.m. in the 3900 block of West Fillmore Street when a vehicle drove past and someone from inside fired shots, police said.

A 26-year-old was shot in both arms and was taken in serious condition to Mount Sinai Hospital, police said. Another man, also 26, suffered two gunshot wounds to the back and was taken to the same hospital in serious condition. The other, 20, was shot in the arm and hand and was also taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where his condition was fair, police said.

Early Saturday morning, one person was killed and four others wounded in a shooting early Saturday at a party in Gresham on the South Side.

Several people were at a gathering in the 7800 block of South Loomis Boulevard when a gunman opened fire shortly after 3 a.m., according to police.

A 26-year-old man suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center where he was later pronounced dead, police said. The Cook County medical examiner’s office has not yet identified the man.

A 21-year-old was also struck in the head and taken to the same hospital in critical condition, police said. A 25-year-old man suffered a gunshot wound to the shoulder and was taken to the same hospital in fair condition, police said.

Another man, 23, suffered two gunshot wounds to the right arm and was transported to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn in critical condition, police said. A fifth man, 21, was struck in the shoulder and listed in fair condition at the same hospital, according to police.

In another fatal shooting, a male was found shot to death early Saturday at a gas station in West Garfield Park.

The male was found about 4:05 a.m. in the parking lot of a gas station in the 400 block of South Kostner Avenue with a gunshot wound to the chest, police said.

He was transported to Mt. Sinai Hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said. The medical examiner’s office has not yet identified the man.

One man was killed and another injured in a shooting Friday night in Belmont Cragin on the Northwest Side.

About 11:50 p.m., officers heard several shots fired and saw an 18-year-old man running with a rifle in the 6200 block of West Diversey Avenue, Chicago police said.

Officers placed him under arrest and noticed he had two gunshot wounds to the back and one to the arm, police said. He was transported to Illinois Masonic Medical Center in critical condition.

While searching the area, officers also found a 32-year-old man on the ground with a gunshot wound to the head, police said. He was taken to the same hospital where he was later pronounced dead, police said.

The medical examiner’s office has not yet identified the man.

At least 6 more people were wounded in shootings so far this weekend.

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.

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