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Unrivaled, the new 3-on-3 women's basketball league launching this winter, signed LSU star guard Flau'jae Johnson to a name, image and likeness deal. Johnson is the second college player to ink an agreement with Unrivaled, following UConn's Paige Bueckers. They won't be participating in the upcoming inaugural season, but Johnson and Bueckers will have equity stakes in the league. Unrivaled dropped a video on social media Thursday showing Johnson -- who also has a burgeoning rap career -- performing a song while wearing a shirt that reads, "The Future is Unrivaled." The deal will see Johnson create additional promotional content for the league. Johnson, 21, was a freshman on the LSU team that won the 2023 national championship. Now in her junior year, Johnson is averaging career highs of 22.2 points, 6.0 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game through 10 games for the No. 5 Tigers (10-0). She ranks eighth in Division I in scoring. Johnson has career averages of 14.1 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game in 82 career appearances (80 starts) for LSU. --Field Level Media
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Four journalists and a police officer were killed Tuesday after armed gangs opened fire on them inside an old military hospital in Haiti’s capital. The attack also left at least six other people, several of them journalists and one police officer, with gunshot wounds. The injured were being treated at La Paix Hospital after a specialized unit of the Haiti National Police went inside the facility that is part of the Hospital of the State University of Haiti, better known as the General Hospital, to rescue the wounded. Police officers told waiting journalists that they had left four bodies on the ground; at least two of them were online journalists. The tragedy unfolded while the press was awaiting the arrival of the minister of health to cover the reopening of the General Hospital, which had been closed for months because of gang attacks. As reporters waited inside, they could hear gunfire out in the streets, where two armored police vehicles were patrolling. Inside, final arrangements were being made for the minister’s visit. That’s when several armed men stormed the area outside and opened fire. In a video shared online, long volleys of gunfire could be heard as bullets flew through the green iron gates of the General Hospital. Other photos and videos shared online by some of the reporters trapped inside showed journalists lying on the floor covered in blood, with gunshots wounds to the head, chest and mouths. In one video, a journalist showed where a bullet had pierced his tongue. “We haven’t found a nurse or anyone to give us first aid, anything,” a journalist who was not injured said as she pleaded for help. “Those who are the most vulnerable, we want to get them out of here.” But getting out of the area proved difficult as police exchanged gunfire with gang members. “The whole area is under siege,” Guy Delva, head of the press freedom group SOS journalists, said before police moved in to rescue the trapped reporters. “Bandits are shooting all around. If the journalists go out into the street, they will be killed and no one is helping them. The situation is very worrisome. They are stranded.” Delva blamed the Haitian government for the incident, saying the attack is part of a larger problem in which journalists are being targeted by the police as well as gangs. Reporters have reported being harassed by police while on assignment. Earlier this year Haitian authorities issued a list of journalists they were seeking to arrest, claiming they were working with gangs. Last month the country’s telecommunications authority, CONATEL, shut down a popular program, Boukante la Pawol, hosted by Guerrier Henri, on Port-au-Prince’s Radio Mega after Henri allowed gang leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier to speak. Delva said the move infringed on press freedoms and was a throwback to the days Haiti was ruled by dictators. “Journalists have been working with a lot of fear,” he said. “They realize that the government doesn’t care. They not only try to block them but they openly show they won’t intervene to help them.” The General Hospital, the country’s largest public medical facility, had been closed since March when a united front of powerful gang leaders led attacks on police stations as well as the main airport, seaport and prison with the hope of toppling the government. Since then, the violence has continued to escalate, with hospitals across Port-au-Prince shutting down. In July Haitian authorities claimed that they had taken control of the General Hospital. But days later, the country’s prime minister was forced to run for cover, along with police officers, when armed gangs opened fire as he was giving a tour of the facility to visiting CNN journalists. The Christmas Eve attack added to an avalanche of bad news for Haiti. As the attack was happening in Port-au-Prince, authorities in the northwest region confirmed the deaths of at least seven people from torrential rains that continued to hit the city of Port-de-Paix on Tuesday. Officials said that 10 others had been injured, while at least 100 houses had been destroyed and 500 others seriously damaged. About 11,000 houses were flooded and 20 vehicles were swept away. A bridge, constructed less than six months ago, also collapsed. On Monday, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, issued a statement about Haiti’s escalating crisis. Her statements as president of the U.N. Security Council came on the same day the U.N. political office in Haiti issued a report on a recent gang massacre in the Wharf Jérémie neighborhood in the capital. The report said at least 207 people, most of them elderly, were targeted by a gang leader earlier this month after he accused them of using witchcraft to make his son sick. The security council, Thomas-Greenfield said, is deeply concerned over the deteriorating situation in Haiti. ©2024 Miami Herald. Visit at miamiherald.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.Christmas: Remi Tinubu presents 1,000 bags of rice to Christian communities in YobeNew data shows that the vast majority of Americans felt this year's general election was administered well, a stark contrast to perceptions in 2020 and a reflection of how Republican voters specifically have come around on election security in a year when their preferred presidential candidate won. Almost 9 in 10 U.S. voters felt the November election was run very well or somewhat well, according to data out Wednesday from the Pew Research Center , which surveyed people's opinions starting a week after voting ended. That number is more than 30 percentage points higher than it was at a similar point in 2020. The increase in voting confidence was driven exclusively by Republican voters. In November 2020, as then-President Donald Trump and his campaign advisers were spreading lies about voting and election workers, just a fifth of people who said they voted for Trump also said they felt the election was administered well. This year, 93% of people who voted for Trump approved of how the election was run. "It goes back to who had the microphone in 2020 and 2021," said Carly Koppes, a Republican county clerk in Weld County, Co. "When we have the candidate and the top people that are respected within the two parties not engaging and not amplifying [election lies], that's where we see the difference." This year, Trump spread baseless election cheating claims up until Election Day , but those stopped when the results became clear. Election workers like Koppes are quick to note the two presidential elections were actually very similar from an administration perspective. The 2020 election featured slightly more mail voting, as many states expanded access options in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and concerns about the safety of in-person voting, but neither election featured any widespread issues. The biggest change at the administrative level, Koppes said, was that election officials were more proactive this time around in communicating with the public and the media on security measures they had in place. "We just were able to really move from a defensive spot that we were kind of in, in 2020 and 2021, and then really started to be able to move into a more offensive spot," Koppes said. Speaking at his state's recent election certification, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, noted how different the perceptions of the two presidential races were, despite no major practical changes. "Given the fact that Arizona has essentially the same elections folks, running under the same elections rules, with the same elections systems, and we seem to have done a pretty doggone good job this time around ... I think the age of election denialism is, for all intents and purposes, dead," he said. The Pew research showed signs of skepticism under the surface, however. A narrow majority of Trump voters said they were not confident that ineligible voters were prevented from casting ballots this election, for instance. Still, Trump voters had even more confidence in this year's elections process than people who voted for Vice President Harris. That's not abnormal historically, as there has traditionally been what's known as a "winner's effect" in which voters whose candidate won have more confidence in the process. But considering Trump spent all year denigrating the nation's election security, the swing in confidence is notable. "The GOP numbers are almost irrational exuberance," Paul Gronke, an election administration expert at Reed College, wrote in an email. "The longer record of confidence has shown some winners / losers effect, but nothing like was evident in 2020. ... We simply never witnessed until 2020 a candidate and political organization so widely spreading mistrust. It took the 'loser['s] regret' effect and supercharged it." The near-universal confidence in this year's elections has also led to a quieter certification period than many voting officials were preparing for. But Koppes, in Colorado, noted that there has still been some conspiracy theorizing about the election among the fringe-left, and that for some on the right, election denial has become a career . So lies about voting almost certainly haven't disappeared completely. "It's just until the next election," Koppes said. "These are the new snake oil salesmen. They're going to take any opportunity, for any tiny mistake or big mistake that happens, and continue pounding this drum for as long as they continue to be able to line their pockets." Copyright 2024 NPR
Fixture change confirmed for Freshford's Leinster JHC clash with Avondale