Mount Everest death toll reaches 10 for this climbing season

A British climber died on Mount Everest on Saturday, bringing the death toll this season on the world’s highest peak to 10, officials said.

Robin Haynes Fisher, 44, died early on Saturday at 8,700 metres after returning from the summit, said Murari Sharma of Everest Pariwar Treks in Kathmandu.

“He had descended about 150 metres below the summit when he suddenly collapsed. His Sherpa guide tried to rescue him, but he had already died,” said Sharma.

On Friday, 56-year-old Irishman Kevin Hynes died in his tent at 7,000 metres after turning back before reaching the summit, UK-based climbing company 360 Expeditions said in a statement.

That same day, Nepalese guide Dhurba Bista, 33, also died at the base camp after being airlifted from a higher camp following illness, according to his employer, Anil Bhattarai of Himalayan Ecstasy Treks.

Three Indians – two women and one man – died earlier this week during their descent after scaling the peak, as hundreds of climbers pushed for the summit while taking advantage of this week’s weather windows.

Earlier this month, a US climber and an Indian climber also died during their descent from Everest. An Austrian climber died on the Tibetan side of the 8848-metre peak.

Seamus Lawless, another Irish climber who went missing on May 16, is presumed dead on the mountain.

Overcrowding at the top

Many teams had to line up for hours on May 22 to reach the summit, risking frostbite and altitude sickness, as a rush of climbers marked one of the busiest days on the world’s highest mountain.

Sherpa, the managing director of Peak Promotion, said the overcrowding had congested the route from Camp IV to the top.

“There were only short weather windows and everyone was trying to climb at once,” he said.

Hundreds of climbers attempt to climb Mount Everest and other Himalayan peaks during the spring climbing season.

The tragedies come amid the feats of Nepalese Sherpa climber Kami Rita, who broke his own record in quick succession.

He scaled Mount Everest for a 24th time on Tuesday, just a week after breaking his record for the most successful ascents of the world’s highest peak.

The route was pioneered by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953 and remains the most popular snow trail leading to the highest point on the Earth.

Nearly 5,000 climbers have scaled the peak since the pioneering ascent, many multiple times.

Five climbers died on Everest last year.

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Why Justin Amash’s Anti-Trump Solo Act Is Doomed

analysis

In Hollywood, the lonely truthteller makes history. In Washington, history shows that their friends send them packing.

The nation’s Democrats and dwindling legions of never-Trump conservatives have thrilled to the one-man rebellion of Rep. Justin Amash, the Michigan libertarian whose thoughtful, damning tweetstorm on impeachment made him the only Republican to break ranks on the most divisive issue in American politics.

As this one crack appeared in the dam, President Donald Trump’s critics waited for more. Everyone knows the script once the first brave voice speaks out: the lone holdout on a jury, convincing his colleagues that the defendant may not be guilty after all. The union organizer at the factory, rallying her coworkers against greater wrongs. The whistleblower standing alone on the Senate floor, railing until truth prevails and the corrupt are exposed.

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The problem is that the script comes from movies. That was Henry Fonda in the jury room, not a real foreman; that was Sally Field as Norma Rae organizing the cotton mill; and Jimmy Stewart delivering his lines on a studio version of the Senate floor.

When it comes to real politics, the record is grim. History may reward your courage, but the politics of the moment suggests that the heretics end up leading a one-man band into political obscurity.

In 1964, when the Senate handed a blank check to President Lyndon Johnson “to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, in Vietnam”—which LBJ used as the legal basis for the massive escalation in years to come— 98 senators voted for it. Only two senators, Democrats Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska, voted “no” on the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. As the war escalated, and it became clear the engagement was a national catastrophe, history vindicated their position and other senators, like Arkansas’ William Fulbright and Wisconsin’s Gaylord Nelson, wished they had done the same. But it didn’t do much good for Morse and Gruening. Both were defeated for reelection in 1968, and neither held political office again.

Eight years later, even before a band of burglars tried to break into Democratic headquarters at the Watergate, two Republican House members challenged President Richard Nixon in the Republican primary. For California’s Pete McCloskey, the issue was Nixon’s failure to end the war in Vietnam. For Ohio’s John Ashbrook, it was Nixon’s various apostasies from conservative orthodoxy—the turn toward China, arms deals with Moscow, wage and price controls. Not only did Ashbrook and McCloskey lose, but barely anyone remembers Nixon had challengers. Ashbrook withdrew, and McCloskey wound up with one delegate out of 1,348.

Even prominent party leaders run aground when calling for resistance to a president. Al Smith, the 1928 Democratic nominee, turned hard against FDR’s New Deal, ultimately campaigning for Republican nominee Alf Landon in 1936, who lost in a 46-state landslide. In 1940, Roosevelt’s vice president, John Nance Garner, sought the nomination for himself, opposing both FDR’s unprecedented third term and his New Deal policies. Garner got 61 delegates out of 1,093 and retired from public life.

For sheer persistence on the “lonely voice” front, no one can top Jeannette Rankin, who was elected as the first female member of the House of Representatives in 1916. A year later, she was one of 50 House members to vote against the American entry into World War I, and she left the House after one term. Twenty-two years later, in 1940, she went back to the House; and a year later, she became the only member of either house to vote against the declaration of war with Japan. Once again, her first term was her last. (And in this case, history doesn’t smile so kindly on her positions).

Politics is a numbers game, and the record shows that there’s a much safer route for dissidents to survive politically: be part of a decent-sized cohort. By 1968, for example, antiwar Democrats in the Senate—George McGovern, Frank Church, Gaylord Nelson, among others—all won reelection, in part because by then, support for the war in Vietnam had eroded. A more striking example comes from Ronald Reagan’s near-successful campaign in 1976 to depose President Gerald Ford. Despite the conviction of Ford and others that the Reagan primary challenge cost Ford the White House, Reagan faced no hostility from the party base when he ran again in 1980—in large measure because he was much more in sync with the GOP base than Ford was. And while Ted Kennedy did not succeed in unseating President Jimmy Carter in 1980, both his stature in the Senate and the widespread discontent with Carter inside the party left Kennedy as a major voice in American politics for another quarter century.

It’s theoretically possible that some new revelation, or a sudden downturn in the economy, will make Trump vulnerable enough that his party’s House and Senate candidates will find it a political asset to distance themselves from the top of the ticket. But given the willingness of Republicans to defend, and even embrace, the character and conduct of this president, it should not be a surprise to Amash that he finds himself in a party of one. Right now, a primary challenge from ex-Governor William Weld, and a potential campaign by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, look to suffer a similar fate.

Trump’s approval ratings inside his party are now at 90 percent. Those officeholders who have called out the president have found their political careers derailed, one by one: Mark Sanford in South Carolina, Jeff Flake in Arizona, Bob Corker in Tennessee. Trump’s political supporters have purged party officials in several states for suspect loyalty. And the chair of the Republican Party, Ronna McDaniel, no longer goes by the name “Ronna Romney McDaniel” because the president asked her to drop the name of one of his occasional critics.

For all the idealism of Twelve Angry Men and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, there is a different Hollywood example that Amash should pay attention to: High Noon, the 1952 Western. When Marshall Will Kane asks the people of Hadleyville to help him face down the vicious Miller Gang, the citizens respond by cowering inside their homes. Kane, for all his bravery, is left to stand alone.

It’s no mystery why in today’s Republican Party, so many of those who share Amash’s view of Trump are behaving like the citizens of Hadleyville. “One man with courage makes a majority,” an old adage goes, but when it comes to political heretics, that’s not the way to bet.

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Hitchhiker’s Pride: May 25 is Towel Day, and don’t ever forget it

Hoopy froods of the Sub-Etha network: I have many things to say on the importance of towels. Because I fear we’re all starting to forget. Some of you, even now, may not know where your towel is.

May 25 is Towel Day, when science fiction lovers the world over remember the late great Douglas Adams, creator of that wholly remarkable and staggeringly hilarious franchise, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Adams died in 2001, and the date on which the nascent internet decided to celebrate his life — called Towel Day for reasons that will soon become apparent — was chosen because it happens to be two weeks after the date he died, May 11.

By a staggeringly unhelpful coincidence, May 25 was already an important date in the nerd calendar — it’s the release anniversary of the original Star Wars. Not surprisingly, that birthday tends to crowd out the Hitchhiker’s remembrances. Adams was often unlucky with Star Wars; he started writing his story before George Lucas’ epic was released, but it came out after, inviting inevitable comparisons.

This year, as if to tweak Adams fans even more, Star Wars happens to have reached the age of 42 — the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything.

In the mid-2000s, some denizens of the internet came up with the sensible solution uniting the two celebrations into a single day they called Geek Pride. Then in 2011, Star Wars went and colonized another day earlier in the month, because apparently the pun “May the fourth be with you” is endlessly hilarious. (To be fair, Mark Hamill’s dad jokes about the other days of the month actually are.)

That day sucked all the Star Wars celebrating out of the culture, and left Geek Pride in a kind of limbo, one that I propose we replace with full-on Hitchhiker’s Pride.

Douglas Adams with fan Emma Cochraine in 1985, holding a towel that explains the importance of towels.

After all, here we are, basically living in a Douglas Adams prediction. The environmental emergency he tried to alert us to in Last Chance to See has come to pass. America’s clueless, egomaniacal leader makes two-headed Galactic President Zaphod Beeblebrox look like a self-effacing choirboy. And of course everyone carries Hitchhiker’s Guides to all the information of the universe in our pockets; they may not provide a boot-up screen with the words DON’T PANIC! in large friendly letters, but I think we can all agree that the galaxy would be a much better place if they did.

In 2013, Google bowed to fan pressure and produced a Towel Day doodle.

Adams the long-time Apple fan — he and Stephen Fry were supposedly the first two people in the UK to get Macintosh computers — would have adored the world of the iPhone. (When I interviewed Adams shortly before his passing, he was rhapsodizing about the then-recent monochrome Palm VII cellular assistant.) Wikipedia didn’t exist; his jaw would drop to see what a user-generated online encyclopedia — the type he was trying to build — could become. No one would have been more fascinated by, more maddened by, or had more witty things to say on, social media.

And given that the “King Bran” resolution looks very much like Adams’ scene in which the secret ruler of the universe turns out to be a disinterested man in a shack with a cat, I think he would even have liked Game of Thrones.

So what can we do to honor Adams’ creation on the designated day, 2019 edition? Well, towelday.org has a list of fan events the world over. But more importantly, you can help spread the word of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy itself. The lessons of which are in danger of being forgotten.

For a story that anticipated the digital age, Hitchhiker’s has fared surprisingly poorly in it. That’s partly because Adams insisted, in the spirit of someone who believed firmly in parallel universes, in telling the story differently every time.

The 2005 Disney movie is, to be charitable, far from the best; the 1981 BBC TV series was better, but didn’t have anything resembling a special effects budget.

There’s the original 1978 radio series, which to my mind is still the greatest version. It is criminally hard to find in one easy digital download form. Audible has the first season here for $12; all of the episodes can be streamed on a browser here.

There are the five novels; as with George R.R. Martin, only the first three are essential. The fifth is worth it just to discover how Douglas killed off all possible versions of his characters in all possible universes. Now that’s how you wrap up a series.

So share your favorite version with your geek crew, but more importantly still, make sure they’re familiar with concepts such as 42. Memes like that — before we called them memes — are how Hitchhiker’s became a hit in the first place.

Which brings us to the subject of towels. It is frustratingly hard to explain why towels are important, because there’s no obvious choice of bite-sized media in which the Guide explains why. The BBC TV series, above, doesn’t offer the full spiel. The movie version, barely a sentence.

Here’s the best YouTube can offer: Adams reading the audiobook explanation, alongside some charmingly amateur animations.

Suffice to say that “knowing where your towel is” is the best analogy that exists for having your shit together, something we need to do now more than ever. (Personally, I never go anywhere without a handful of pocket-sized compressed versions.)

The towel meme had its origins in a vacation Adams took to Greece, where he shared a house with friends and maddeningly delayed their beach trips because he could never find his towel. And the most heartbreaking fact about his life is that when it ended so prematurely — a heart attack at the age of 49 — Adams was next to an exercise machine, clutching a gym towel. At the end, at least, he knew exactly where it was.

As the climate emergency continues, as the Earth he loved so much continues its alarming drift from “harmless” to “mostly harmless” and beyond, my fellow hoopy froods, we all really need to know where our towels are. Pack yours today, and never let anyone forget how important they are.

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Who’s in the running to replace Theresa May?

The starting gun in the race to replace Theresa May as leader of Britain’s Conservative Party was fired as she resigned on Friday morning.

But, in truth, a few of the frontrunners had gotten a head start, declaring their candidacy weeks before the prime minister stepped down amid Brexit chaos.

The job comes with late nights, few holidays and a working environment that makes Game of Thrones look like The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. May’s replacement will face having to arrange a British withdrawal from the European Union in some kind of orderly manner, or risk crashing out with a “no-deal” Brexit.

The British parliament may have voted against “no-deal” several times, but it remains the legal default for what will happen on October 31. When the EU granted a six-month extension to Article 50 in March, European Council President Donald Tusk told British politicians “please do not waste this time”.

And so, with five months to go to the Brexit deadline, Britain’s governing Conservative party is holding a leadership election. Realistically, one of the new leader’s first jobs is going to be asking the EU for another extension to Article 50.

May’s successor will face the same parliamentary arithmetic that prevented her from governing with a majority, along with a public which is, to put it politely, disenchanted with Brexit, the way Brexit is being delivered, and British political leadership as a whole.

So, who might it be?

From the archive: Boris Johnson attends a NATO summit at the Alliance’s headquarters in Brussels in April 2018 [Yves Herman/Reuters]

The mop-haired larger-than-life former foreign secretary is known in Britain simply as “Boris”, no surname necessary. He has cultivated a reputation as a befuddled and bemused character on TV political comedy quiz shows, but is also fond of showing off his extensive education.

He is rarely far from cracking a joke in Latin, and few are in any doubt as to his intellect and linguistic agility. His experience in government’s top jobs is limited, and he infamously staged a photoshoot for his resignation as foreign secretary, though he did serve two full four-year terms as mayor of London.

His gaffes are frequent, and while usually inconsequential, his misleading comments about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s purpose in visiting Iran saw the British-Iranian mother, jailed by Tehran, hauled before a court where his remarks were used as “proof” she had been engaged in “propaganda against the regime”.

He is a “hard Brexiteer”, having first made his name as a Europe correspondent. Sacked by The Times for making up a quote, he became Brussels columnist for the Conservative-leaning Daily Telegraph, where he became “one of the greatest exponents of fake journalism”, according to former EU external affairs commissioner Chris Patten.

He has also used outright bigotry in his writing, using the words “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” when referring to Africans. He has referred to gay men as “tank-topped bumboys” and insinuated that President Barack Obama had an “ancestral dislike” for Britain due to his being “part-Kenyan”.

At 5/4, he is the bookmakers’ favourite.

Dominic Raab, former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters]

An MP since 2010, Dominic Raab was a principal architect of the withdrawal agreement, yet the day after it was presented to the cabinet, he resigned as Brexit secretary, saying he could not support the deal.

A staunch Brexiteer, he sits further to the right of Boris Johnson and is his main rival for the top job. He is himself not immune to Boris-style gaffes, famously stating (while still Brexit secretary negotiating with the EU) that he had not, until that point “quite realised the full extent” to which Britain was dependent on the Dover-Calais English Channel crossing route. About 17 percent of the UK’s entire trade, worth around $150bn, uses the shipping route.

A black belt in karate, bookmakers are offering 4/1 on him becoming next Tory leader.

Michael Gove was formerly an ally of Boris Johnson [Hannah McKay/Reuters]

Michael Gove, formerly a staunch ally of Boris Johnson, competed in the last Tory leadership election, having stabbed Boris in the back. Gove announced his own candidacy the morning his friend was due to launch his campaign, saying he did not think Johnson was up to the job.

As education secretary, Gove won few friends among teachers, infuriating many with reactionary proposals including arcane grammar standards, and sending copies of the King James Bible to all schools in the country.

He has found praise for his more recent work as environment secretary, banning microbeads in a bid to protect marine life.

A staunch neo-conservative, he is a firm advocate of the privatisation of public services and has called for the National Health Service to be dismantled. He is currently at 10/1 to become next Conservative leader.

Andrea Leadsom has never been far from criticism during her government career [Toby Melville/Reuters]

The former Leader of the House of Commons, Andrea Leadsom came second to Theresa May in the 2016 leadership competition, pulling out to allow May to take power unopposed.

She came under fire during that bid for the top after suggesting being a mother made her a better candidate than Theresa May, who has no children.

A former banker and prominent Brexiteer, she argued that Bank of England governor Mark Carney had destabilised markets with his doom-laden predictions of the potential fall-out of a “no-deal” crash out of the EU.

When Minister of State for Energy, she ended subsidies for onshore wind farms and opposed European targets for renewable energy. Previously, as a junior treasury minister, she was criticised for receiving a donation of nearly $90,000 from a family-owned business, which had been routed through the British Virgin Islands tax haven.

At 10/1, she is tied with Michael Gove as joint third favourite.

Jeremy Hunt has been a strong supporter of Saudi Arabia [Hannah McKay/Reuters]

The most controversial health secretary in recent memory, Jeremy Hunt oversaw the imposition of a new junior doctors’ employment contract after negotiations with unions broke down. Such was the discontent, doctors went on strike – the first such industrial action in 40 years. He also refused to award nurses a one percent pay raise.

Hunt has also faced criticism over his failure to declare part-ownership in a property company. It was revealed he bought a series of luxury apartments thanks to a substantial discount from a property developer who was a major Conservative party donor. A spokesman said at the time it was “an honest administrative mistake”.

As foreign secretary, Hunt has been a frequent supporter of Britain’s friendship with Saudi Arabia, particularly when Riyadh has come into criticism for its actions in the war in Yemen and the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Hunt is in the running at 12/1.

Sajid Javid has frequently been tipped for the top job in British politics [Russell Cheyne/Reuters]

Home Secretary Sajid Javid is a second-generation migrant to Britain, whose parents came from Pakistan. As home secretary, he has presided over a crackdown on immigration, enforcing rules that, had they been in place, would have prevented his father from entering the United Kingdom.

A former banker, reportedly at one point on a $3 million annual salary, he became an MP (annual salary $100,000) in 2010.

He has described himself as a “reluctant Remainer”, being a Eurosceptic on the whole, while believing that Britain is better off as a member of the EU.

Bookmakers have him at 20/1, but he is far from an outsider.

Penny Mordaunt was formerly secretary of state for international development [Simon Dawson/Reuters]

A naval reservist, Penny Mordaunt was appointed the UK’s first ever female defence secretary earlier this month.

She was a high-profile campaigner for leaving the EU, falsely denying that Britain had a veto over Turkey’s potential membership during the campaign. She subsequently backed Andrea Leadsom in the 2016 leadership contest.

Mordaunt spent some time working as head of foreign media for George W Bush’s election campaign. Like Sajid Javid, she is also on at 20/1 at the bookmakers.

Esther McVey resigned from the government over the manner in which Brexit was handled [Hannah McKay/Reuters]

Former GMTV presenter Esther McVey is a backbench MP with previous government experience, having resigned as work and pensions secretary last November in protest at the way Brexit negotiations were being handled.

She was in charge of overseeing the problematic Universal Credit programme but was found to have misled parliament when stating the National Audit Office had recommended the acceleration of the rollout. The NAO had in fact recommended the scheme be paused.

She also sparked anger in March when claiming that impoverished families only used food banks because they “prioritised mobile phones over food”. She is currently 50/1 to be the next Conservative party leader.

Former Home Secretary Amber Rudd is a long-shot for the leadership job [Peter Nicholls/Getty Images]

Amber Rudd took over at Work and Pensions from Esther McVey last November.

She had previously resigned as Home Secretary following the Windrush scandal, which saw dozens of people rounded up, detained and deported, despite having been legally living in Britain for decades.

In the 2016 referendum, Rudd campaigned for Britain to remain in the EU and has since called for a second referendum.

Rudd is another former investment banker, at one point being the director of two companies in the Bahamas. Bookmakers reckon her chances of taking over from Theresa May are 66/1.

Tobias Ellwood received praise for his role in attempting to save the life of PC Keith Palmer [Darren Staples/Reuters]

A junior minister in the Ministry of Defence, and a former captain in the Royal Green Jackets, an infantry regiment of the British Army, Ellwood has been building government experience in one of the most influential departments.

Popular among party grandees, he was not mentioned in the infamous “Tory sex dossier”, which detailed salacious allegations against 36 prominent Conservative figures.

But Ellwood came to public prominence during the 2017 attack on parliament, in which a man drove a car into pedestrians, killing four and injuring more than 50, before jumping out and stabbing a police officer guarding the entrance to parliament.

As alarms rang and MPs were ushered to safety, Ellwood ran to the scene and delivered CPR to the police officer in an attempt to save his life. Photos were shared on social media of the MP covered in the blood of the dying police officer, and headlines called him a “hero”.

He is a definite outsider in the race to be next Conservative leader, with odds of 100/1.

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Bolton says N Korea missile tests violated UN resolutions

United States national security adviser John Bolton called a series of short-range missile tests by North Korea earlier this month a violation of UN Security Council resolutions and said sanctions must be kept in place.

The US, however, is willing to resume talks with North Korea at any time, Bolton said. Washington’s position on the North’s denuclearisation is consistent and a repeated pattern of failures to rid North Korea of nuclear weapons should be stopped, he said.

Bolton was speaking to reporters on Saturday in Tokyo ahead of President Donald Trump’s arrival for a four-day visit to Japan.

Bolton said that North Korea on May 4 and 9 tested short-range ballistic missiles, ending a pause in launches that began in late 2017.

The tests are seen as a way of pressuring Washington to compromise without actually causing the negotiations to collapse.

“UN Security Council resolutions prohibit North Korea from firing any ballistic missiles,” Bolton said. “In terms of violating UN Security Council resolutions, there is no doubt about that.”

His comments came a day after North Korea’s official media said nuclear negotiations with Washington won’t resume unless the US abandons what Pyongyang describes as unilateral disarmament demands.

In a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency, the North Korean spokesman accused the US of deliberately causing February’s collapse of talks between Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un by making unilateral and impossible demands.

The North has also strongly protested the recent US seizure of a North Korean cargo ship that was involved in banned coal exports and demanded its immediate return.

Washington says the talks broke down because North Korean demanded sanctions relief in exchange for partially surrendering its nuclear capabilities.

Bolton acknowledged the US has not been “hearing much from North Korea” since the Hanoi summit.

The US special envoy to North Korea, Stephen Biegun, “can’t wait to talk to his North Korean counterpart but they haven’t responded,” he said, adding that Biegun was ready to get on a plane and go “anywhere, any time”.

Trump’s visit will largely highlight close ties with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is also willing to hold a summit with Kim without preconditions.

Bolton said he supports a possible Abe-Kim summit as an additional push toward resolving North Korea’s missile and nuclear threats.

The two leaders are to discuss North Korea as well as trade, security, and tensions with Iran.

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Mike D’Antoni Negotiating New Rockets Contract, Wants to Coach 2-3 More Years

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA - MAY 08: Head coach Mike D'Antoni of the Houston Rockets reacts on the side of the court during their game against the Golden State Warriors during Game Five of the Western Conference Semifinals of the 2019 NBA Playoffs at ORACLE Arena on May 08, 2019 in Oakland, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Houston Rockets head coach Mike D’Antoni said Friday he’s in talks with the organization about a contract extension that could take him to the end of his career.

D’Antoni, who has one year left on his current deal, provided the update to Mark Berman of Fox 26 Sports in Houston.

“We’ve been in contract discussions, and we still are about the extension,” he said. “I think I can go two or three more years at the level I want to be at and everything will play out in the near future.”

D’Antoni has guided the Rockets to a 173-73 record across three seasons since being named head coach in June 2016. They have also won at least one playoff series each year but haven’t been able to make it out of a Western Conference dominated by the Golden State Warriors.

Houston was eliminated by the Dubs in this year’s conference semifinals in six games in a rematch of last year’s Western Conference Finals, which Golden State won in seven.

“Ran up against a really good team, that’s got that championship caliber,” D’Antoni told Berman. “They made the big plays at the right time. We didn’t. Disappointing for everybody, but at the same time proud of what the guys got accomplished. Time to retool a little bit this summer and figure out how to climb the mountain again.”

The Rockets enter the offseason with their entire starting lineup—Chris Paul, Eric Gordon, James Harden, P.J. Tucker and Clint Capela—under contract for next season.

Houston could look to add a defensive-minded wing to enter the starting lineup, allowing Gordon, the 2017 Sixth Man of the Year, to return to the bench while also upgrading its defense. It will also need to re-sign or add some bench players, but the core of the team should remain intact.

In contrast, the Warriors are staring down a summer of uncertainty with Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and DeMarcus Cousins headlining their group of free agents.

While Golden State will probably find a way to keep Thompson alongside Stephen Curry and Draymond Green and remain a top title threat, it’s possible the Dubs won’t be quite as unstoppable next year. That could open the door for the Rockets.

“For three years we’ve averaged 58 wins. I think that was the team record before we got here, and we’ve averaged that for three years. We’re in a very good spot,” D’Antoni told Berman. “We’ll tweak it and try to get that little half-step better, and I think we can do it.”

Based on that success, an extension for D’Antoni wouldn’t come as a surprise as he attempts to focus on leading the team to its first NBA championship since its back-to-back titles in 1994 and 1995.

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Judge partially blocks Trump border wall plan

Border wall construction — A federal judge blocked Pentagon funds for the construction of a wall in parts of Texas and Arizona. | Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images

legal

The preliminary injunction halts a $1 billion transfer of Pentagon counterdrug funding toward barrier construction.

A federal judge has partially blocked President Donald Trump’s plan to fund construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The preliminary injunction issued Friday immediately halts a $1 billion transfer of Pentagon counterdrug funding to cover expansions and enhancement of border barriers.

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The court order also appears to jeopardize another $1.5 billion of the $8.1 billion the administration planned to use for border construction.

However, Oakland, Calif.-based U.S. District Court Judge Haywood Gilliam’s order only limits construction in specific border areas in Texas and Arizona and does not prevent the administration from tapping other funding sources to advance those projects.

Gilliam said the administration’s plan to transfer counterdrug funding to finance the border-wall construction appeared to be unconstitutional because the legal authority the administration was relying on applied only to “unforeseen” needs.

“Defendants’ argument that the need for the requested border barrier construction funding was ‘unforeseen’ cannot logically be squared with the Administration’s multiple requests for funding for exactly that purpose dating back to at least early 2018,” the Obama nominee wrote.

Gilliam noted that in the wake of the protracted partial government shutdown earlier this year Congress appropriated only $1.375 billion for border-wall construction, limited to the Rio Grande Valley sector in Texas.

“The position that when Congress declines the Executive’s request to appropriate funds, the Executive nonetheless may simply find a way to spend those funds ‘without Congress’ does not square with fundamental separation of powers principles dating back to the earliest days of our Republic,” the judge wrote.

Gilliam also said the administration’s claims of urgency were belied by its sluggishness in using appropriated border-wall-construction funds in the fiscal year that ended last September. Officials have said about $1.6 billion set aside for such projects was used to construct only 1.7 miles of fencing that year, which the judge said “tends to undermine Defendants’ claim that irreparable harm will result if the funds at issue … are not deployed immediately.”

While Trump declared a national emergency in February to try to free up additional funding for wall construction, the stream of money the judge blocked Friday was not contingent on the emergency declaration.

The injunction from Gilliam came in a lawsuit brought by the Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition. The judge said the order rendered moot part of a similar request in a parallel lawsuit filed by 20 states. He denied, for now, the states’ motion to block another aspect of Trump’s plan.

The judge’s order limiting use of the counterdrug funds applies to two sectors: El Paso, Texas, and Yuma, Arizona. The administration had planned to start using the moneys there as soon as Saturday, the judge said.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the judge’s rulings.

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MLB Trade Rumors: Phillies Scouting Pitchers Madison Bumgarner, Zack Greinke

San Francisco Giants' Madison Bumgarner pitches against the Arizona Diamondbacks during the fourth inning of a baseball game, Saturday, May 18, 2019, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ralph Freso)

Ralph Freso/Associated Press

The Philadelphia Phillies have reportedly scouted San Francisco Giants ace Madison Bumgarner and Arizona Diamondbacks star Zack Greinke in anticipation of the 2019 MLB trade deadline July 31.

According to USA Today‘s Bob Nightengale (h/t Phillies Nation’s Tim Kelly), Philadelphia scouted Greinke on Tuesday and Bumgarner last weekend.

After being limited to a total of 38 starts the last two years due to injuries, Bumgarner has gone 3-4 with a 4.10 ERA and a 1.191 WHIP through his first 11 outings of 2019. He has shown signs of improvement as the season has progressed, going 2-0 with a 3.86 ERA in five May starts.

He is coming off a six-inning, two-run effort against the Atlanta Braves on Thursday. After his previous start over the weekend, Bumgarner, per Nightengale, said, “I feel like I threw the ball as well as I ever have.”

That’s saying something considering Bumgarner’s career accolades include four All-Star selections, three World Series rings, a World Series MVP award and an NLCS MVP award.

Bumgarner figures to be the top player on the trade market this summer as he is scheduled to be a free agent at the end of the season and the Giants (21-28) are currently in last place in the National League West.

Meanwhile, Greinke is having another strong season. The 35-year-old right-hander is 6-2 with a 2.89 ERA and a 0.865 WHIP in 11 starts, holding opponents to a .206 average.

Not only that, but the 2013 Silver Slugger recipient is hitting .320 with two home runs, two doubles, one triple and four RBI this season.

Unlike Bumgarner, though, any team that has interest in acquiring Greinke would likely have to be willing to add some salary to its payroll. The 2009 American League Cy Young award winner is making $31.5 million this season and is owed $32 million in each of the next two seasons, per Spotrac.

Of course, the Phillies have said they are willing to spend “stupid” money to win. They showed little hesitancy in opening up the checkbook during the winter, signing Andrew McCutchen to a three-year, $50 million deal and Bryce Harper to a record-setting 13-year, $330 million megacontract.

Philadelphia’s rotation ranks 14th in the majors with a 4.12 ERA through 50 games, according to ESPN.com. That has been good enough to help the team lead the NL East at 29-21.

While the Phillies have been among the best teams in baseball this season, they may look to make moves ahead of the deadline to further bolster their roster in hopes of winning their first World Series title since 2008.

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Trump puts DOJ on crash course with intelligence agencies

President Donald Trump granted Attorney General William Barr broad authority to declassify information related to 2016. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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National security veterans fear a declassification order could trigger resignations and threaten the CIA’s ability to conduct its core business — managing secret intelligence and sources.

President Donald Trump’s declassification order Thursday night has set up a showdown between his own Justice Department and the intelligence community that could trigger resignations and threaten the CIA’s ability to conduct its core business — managing secret intelligence and sources.

Trump’s order directed intelligence agencies to fully comply with Attorney General William Barr’s look at “surveillance activities” during the 2016 election — a probe that Trump’s allies see as a necessary check on government overreach but that critics lambaste as an attempt to create the impression of scandal. Numerous former intelligence officials called the move “unprecedented,” saying it grants the attorney general sweeping powers over the nation’s secrets, subverts the intelligence community and raises troubling legal questions.

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“There’s nothing CIA or NSA, for example, guards more jealously than sources and methods,” said Larry Pfeiffer, a 32-year intelligence veteran who served as the chief of staff to CIA Director Michael Hayden. “It is not hyperbole to say that lives are at stake.”

“I doubt any of the [CIA directors] or [directors of national intelligence] that I worked with would have sat by silently if their president contemplated or made such a decision,” added Pfeiffer, who also served as senior director of the White House Situation Room.

It’s the latest chapter in Trump’s rocky relationship with his own intelligence community. During the election, Trump cast doubt on Russia’s role in hacking Hillary Clinton’s campaign. As president, Trump has publicly disagreed with his own intelligence agencies on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, the threat posed by the Islamic State, the situation in Afghanistan and whether the Saudi crown prince ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The two sides have usually papered over their differences, but national security veterans said this time might be different.

“I could see something of a showdown happening here, where the CIA says, ‘We’re not comfortable with the declassification of this material and we won’t provide it without the assurance that you won’t declassify it,’” said a former senior Justice Department official who served under both Trump and President Barack Obama, and requested anonymity to discuss the directive more freely. “They feel that these are their sources, their connections.”

If that happened, Trump’s order leaves it unclear who would prevail.

Trump on Friday defended his decision as a pro-transparency move that will give the public insight into nefarious government activity. And he praised Barr as the ideal person to judge what should be released.

Barr is “a great gentleman and a highly respected man, so everything that they need is declassified and they’ll able to see how the hoax or witch hunt started and why it started,” Trump told reporters before leaving for a trip to Japan. “It was an attempted coup, an attempted takedown of the president of the United States.”

Later on Friday, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats issued a carefully worded statement, confirming that his agencies will turn over “all of the appropriate information” for the DOJ review. But, Coats added, “I am confident that the Attorney General will work with the [intelligence community] in accordance with the long-established standards to protect highly-sensitive classified information that, if publicly released, would put our national security at risk.”

Numerous national security veterans did not share Coats‘ confidence. They said Trump’s order has challenged those “long-established standards” and raised questions about how the government’s legal power structure might shift in the months and years ahead.

Under the National Security Act, a post-World War II overhaul of the country’s military and intelligence structure, intelligence agencies are legally required to protect the unauthorized declassification of their secretive sources and information-gathering tactics. But Trump’s directive seemingly gave the attorney general the power to determine what should be declassified, potentially upending decades of precedent.

“The president’s memo effectively revises the executive order on classification and gives the AG the authority — previously assigned to the head of the agency that originated the information — to declassify information related to the election inquiry,” said Steven Aftergood, a classification expert who directs the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy.

While the order includes a caveat that the directive should not impair “the authority granted by law” to agency heads on classification, it also notes that Barr has to consult these agency heads only “to the extent he deems it practicable” about declassification decisions.

And if intelligence chiefs and Barr disagree on what to reveal, Trump retains final say.

“Does an agency head or the DNI have any recourse? Sure — a direct appeal to the president … or threatening to resign over a bad decision,” Pfeiffer said. “Neither is good governance.”

April Doss, who served as the head of intelligence law at the NSA from 2003 to 2016, said she hoped Barr would consult with the intelligence community heads and heed their advice. “But under this memo he is not required to,” she noted.

And that has created a once-unthinkable situation for intelligence professionals — they could lose control of what remains a secret.

“I can’t remember a time when a non-IC officer was given declassification authority over intelligence information,” said Michael Morell, the former acting director of the CIA under Obama.

The result, Morell added, is a loss of faith in the U.S. intelligence system. “It is yet another step that will raise questions among our allies and partners about whether to share sensitive intelligence with us,” he said.

Particularly curious to many intelligence veterans and experts is the fact that Barr asked for this new authority from the president, as well as the breadth of the directive. The memo targets not only the FBI — which Trump has repeatedly accused of hatching a “deep state” plot to overthrow him — but also the CIA, which is fiercely protective of its sources and methods. In particular, Barr is seeking more information about the foreign sources the FBI used in 2016, according to a New York Times report.

The result is a shifting perception of the attorney general’s role.

Since Watergate era, the DOJ chief has been seen as the legal check on intelligence agency overreach, said David Kris, a former Obama-era head of DOJ’s national security division who also held a high-ranking DOJ position during the George W. Bush administration.

“Now,” he added, “many observers have the opposite fear; that the AG, rather than the IC, is the real danger, the real threat to apolitical intelligence under law. Whether or not that fear is entirely valid, it is deeply concerning because it threatens the foundations of intelligence oversight that has protected us for more than 40 years.”

Steve Hall, a former CIA chief of Russian operations, said Trump’s actions are likely to have a chilling effect on the government’s ability to recruit both agents and informants.

The revelation that longtime Cambridge University professor Stefan Halper, for example, was used as an FBI informant in 2016, and the microscopic focus placed on former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele — another longtime FBI source — has made the intelligence community, and its sources, extremely wary.

“Put yourself in the position of considering working for CIA at this moment,” Hall said. “You’d probably want to wait until this all blows over.”

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Mario Cristobal, Oregon Finalizing Contract Extension After 9-Win Season

SANTA CLARA, CA - DECEMBER 31: Head coach Mario Cristobal of the Oregon Ducks looks on against the Michigan State Spartans during the second half of the Redbox Bowl at Levi's Stadium on December 31, 2018 in Santa Clara, California. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

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Mario Cristobal is finalizing a one-year extension with Oregon that will keep the head football coach in Eugene through the 2023 season.

Per James Crepea of the Oregonian, Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens said the extension is “almost done.”

The 2018 Ducks went 9-4 and defeated Michigan State in the Redbox Bowl during Cristobal’s first season in charge. The nine-win mark was the team’s best since 2015.

Cristobal, 48, previously led Florida International University from 2007-12. He took a team that went winless in 2006 to a 7-6 record and bowl victory in 2010.

A 3-9 season prompted his dismissal in 2012, but Cristobal landed on his feet with an associate head coaching gig under Nick Saban at Alabama, where he won the 2015 national championship.

He moved to Oregon as the team’s co-offensive coordinator under Willie Taggart and was named the interim head coach after his boss left for Florida State before the Ducks’ 2017 bowl game.

Eventually, Cristobal was given the official head-coaching gig and finished off an impressive first season that included a win over eventual Pac-12 champion Washington.

Oregon opens the 2019 season at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas against the Auburn Tigers on Aug. 31. The future looks bright for Oregon: Paul Myerberg of USA Today placed the Ducks at No. 9 in an early preseason poll, citing the team’s 10 returning starters including top NFL draft prospect Justin Herbert at quarterback.

Matt Prehm of 247Sports also reported that Cristobal recruited 11 top-100 prospects from Dec. 2017 to the present date, which is the same number the Ducks brought in from 2012-16.

On the surface, the Cristobal extension looks like a smart move for the Ducks, who could be headed back glory days akin to those seen under former head coach Chip Kelly.

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