The President’s spokesman said the date for the poll will be announced later without giving further details [File: Muhammad Sadiq/EPA]
Kabul, Afghanistan – Parliamentary election in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province due to be held on Saturday, will be delayed by a week following the assassination of a powerful provincial police commander, according to the electoral body and the president’s spokesman.
President Ashraf Ghani’s spokesman Haroon Chakansuri told Al Jazeera the decision was made following demands from local people in the the province and recommendation from electoral officials.
The suspension of the polls comes following the assassination of Kandahar province’s police chief General Abdul Raziq in an attack claimed by Taliban.
The southern province’s intelligence chief, Abdul Mohmin, was also killed in the attack on Thursday.
Chakansuri said date for the poll will be announced later without giving further details.
Afghans will be voting on Saturday to elect members of parliament in polls delayed repeatedly for the past three years.
The interior ministry said they have put in place measures to ensure voting happens without incidents.
“The election is going according to plan. We have measures and we meet regularly. There will be no problem,” Nasrat Rahimi, deputy spokesman for the interior ministry, told Al Jazeera.
“Over 70,000 security forces are there to maintain security. They are on high alert,” Rahimi said.
In recent months, some reporters who cover the Trump White House have received phone calls from the last person they would expect: Hillary Clinton.
The 2016 Democratic nominee has been rethinking her relationship with the press, among the many things she has been turning over—and over—in her head, acknowledging that her grouchy relationship with journalists was a problem. Now, she’s curious about the reporters covering Trump and has been putting out the occasional feeler.
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After President Donald Trump chastised ABC News’ Cecilia Vega at a news conference in the Rose Garden on Oct. 2—“I know you’re not thinking, you never do,” he snapped at her—Clinton dialed up Vega and left a voicemail.
The under-the-radar overtures have come as Clinton has been re-inserting herself into the Trump story in other, more public ways.
She has systematically outlined her theory of the case against what she calls Trump’s “assault on our democracy” via a new afterword to her campaign memoir, “What Happened.” The chapter has become something of a post-campaign stump speech, which Clinton has rolled out in appearances on the “Rachel Maddow Show” and at the Atlantic Ideas Festival in Washington, D.C.
She has also participated in extended interviews on CNN and CBS, during which that message has been interrupted by questions about the Clintons’ past. Last week, for instance, she said in a television interview that her husband’s affair with a White House intern in the 1990s did not constitute an abuse of power because Monica Lewinsky was “an adult.”
In just one example of the liberal groans that greeted Clinton’s comments, New York Times editorial board member Michelle Cottle blasted the former nominee in an op-ed Thursday, urging her to keep quiet.
There’s also no sign that Clinton intends to give up the spotlight after the midterm elections, when Democrats begin their process of choosing a 2020 nominee and when a pre-existing relationship with the Clintons is widely seen as a vulnerability.
She and former President Bill Clinton recently announced a 13-city arena tour, produced by Live Nation, billed as “An Evening with the Clintons,” which will launch in late November. Tickets to the events are on sale for between $120 and $370, with the proceeds going to the Clintons.
Democrats watching Clinton’s moves are conflicted about what to make of her post-candidate public life. On the one hand, they argue, Clinton’s attacks on Trump, and interviews that inevitably revisit the transgressions of the 1990s, are widely seen as unhelpful to the Democratic Party at this juncture—a selfish pose for someone whose approval rating hasn’t budged above 38 percent since the election, and who remains a ready target for Trump to use to whip up his base.
“Just guessing this isn’t the story Democratic candidates were looking for in the homestretch of the midterms,” David Axelrod, a former top adviser to President Barack Obama, tweeted in response to Clinton’s answer about Lewinsky.
On the other hand, some Democrats say, why should the woman who won the popular vote in 2016—62,523,126 votes, to be precise, the biggest number of votes in history with the exception of President Barack Obama—be silenced at a time of great public discourse? Why is it only Hillary Clinton, not Joe Biden or John Kerry or even Bernie Sanders, for that matter, who is seen as so tarnished by a presidential loss that she must sit silent on the sidelines?
If you compare Clinton’s moves with what Democratic presidential losers have done in the past, you won’t find much that is different.
Kerry campaigned in the midterms in 2006, two years after he lost the presidential election, until a gaffe—he told California college students that if they didn’t study hard they could “get stuck in Iraq”—got him benched for the rest of the season. But in 2012, he was the principal speaker on foreign policy at the 2012 Democratic National Convention.
Vice President Al Gore, after his 2000 presidential loss, famously grew a beard and launched a second career as an environmental activist and Silicon Valley rainmaker. But he was politically active during the 2002 midterms, and was a blistering opponent of President George W. Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq.
For Clinton’s small crew of advisers—her full-time staff includes longtime aide Huma Abedin, senior adviser Nick Merrill, scheduler Lona Valmoro, and Rob Russo, who has been organizing her correspondence for more than a decade—that makes it an even more frustrating reality that the easiest form of prevailing wisdom is that people don’t want her around anymore.
“There’s an element of sexism. There’s frustration that she lost what people perceive as the unloseable election, and an element of Clinton fatigue in this,” said Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, who served as Kerry’s 2004 campaign manager. “One of her problems is she gets asked questions that invite re-litigation. I would stoutly defend her right to be out there, but there’s a good way and a less good way.”
The anti-Clinton narrative is also furthered by her political opponents, who can handily elevate her comments in a way that succeeds in motivating Trump’s base. “I don’t see all these Democratic candidates banging down Hillary Clinton’s door, asking her to lock arms,” Kellyanne Conway said in an interview with “Fox & Friends” earlier this month. “She has to go with her husband to do this 13-city tour, $100 million that I assume they’re not going to donate to some center on women and girls. I don’t see her doing that.”
There’s an element of sexism. There’s frustration that she lost what people perceive as the unloseable election, and an element of Clinton fatigue in this,” said Democratic strategist Bob Shrum.
Conway was responding to a CNN interview in which Clinton said, “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about.”
Conway attacked her for embracing incivility. “I think it’s … unfortunate and graceless but a little bit dangerous and I would ask her to check that,” she said.
***
The strange position Clinton currently occupies is perhaps best illustrated by her relationship with the Andrew Gillum campaign. On election night, Hillary and Bill Clinton both called the Tallahassee mayor, who is seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party and who spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2016, to congratulate him and offer themselves as surrogates for anything he needed in his gubernatorial campaign, a source familiar with the call said. Since then, the Gillum campaign hasn’t invited Bill Clinton to do anything—closed- or open-door. And the campaign experienced some blowback from liberals for announcing that Hillary Clinton would campaign for Gillum.
“Even Hillary voters don’t want to see or hear from her again,” Miami filmmaker Billy Corben tweeted.
Clinton was widely reported to be joining Gillum on the stump. But a spokesman for the Gillum campaign clarified that she was only supporting the candidate through closed-door fundraisers. It was not clear whether the plans had changed.
Most of the incoming requests for Clinton are to raise money, said one former adviser familiar with her plans. She’s been working closely with Gov. Howard Dean, who has partnered with her on her PAC, Onward Together.
“The real future in this party is under 35, and that’s what we’re funding,” Dean said in an interview. “She’s the best fundraiser in the Democratic Party, and she’s pretty far-sighted. We’ve been working together to connect her donor base to all these young groups. What you’re seeing is that we’re facilitating the takeover of the Democratic Party by people who are under 35 years old. This is a big piece of what she is doing politically.”
But despite being the first woman to clinch her party’s presidential nomination, Clinton is seen as a discordant fit to publicly stump for many young, progressive female candidates. She has received some requests to campaign, in places where she is seen as a surrogate who can move suburban women to come out and vote. Earlier this month, for instance, she participated in a roundtable event with J.B. Pritzker, the Democratic candidate for governor in Illinois.
In 2020, however, it remains to be seen who wants to campaign with her, and how much.
“If I was running, I could see certain circumstances in which she could be helpful, from a rally perspective, in certain locations, on a limited basis,” said Michael Avenatti, the lawyer who has shot to fame representing porn star Stormy Daniels and who is considering a presidential bid of his own. He added: “I think there’s still a lot of people that support her, and for that reason she could certainly play a positive role in some capacity in 2020.”
***
If her role in the political landscape is complicated by her husband’s legacy and by a national disinclination to revisit the wounds of the 2016 campaign, Clinton’s role abroad is more clear cut. At Queens University in Belfast Northern Ireland, where she recently received an honorary degree, the school has set up a scholarship program called the Hillary Rodham Clinton Award for Peace and Reconciliation. A university in Wales even renamed its law school in her honor.
Current and former advisers point to her October 9 speech at Oxford University, where she honored the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and was greeted with a standing ovation after her speech on human rights, as an example of some of her most meaty work that doesn’t get the same attention from the press as her attacks on Trump. Some former advisers and friends have advised Clinton to find her post-election role abroad, serving as something like America’s unofficial top diplomat, talking about issues of human rights that have animated her entire career.
But the sense among people who still talk to her is that whether it’s because she wants to cement her legacy, or whether it’s because it’s how she’s conducted her life for the past 30 years, or whether it’s because she feels she was robbed in 2016, or whether there is a sliver of her brain that actually thinks of giving it another go, she just can’t step away from domestic politics.
Trump allies are loving it and even encouraging a narrative that she’s around because she’s running.
“She’s a lion in winter,” said Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist. “Not only is she running, she should run. In the Democratic Party, the question is can anybody throw a punch or take a punch, and one thing we know about Hillary Clinton is she can take a punch.”
“She’s a lion in winter,” said Steve Bannon. “Not only is she running, she should run.”
Bannon added: “I think Trump considers her a real rival, whereas his view of the rest of the field is they’ve got to prove themselves.”
Some of her closest allies make an argument that is not dissimilar to Bannon’s.
“It’s curious why Hillary Clinton’s name isn’t in the mix—either conversationally or in formal polling—as a 2020 candidate,” said Philippe Reines, her longtime gatekeeper in the Senate and at the State Department. “She’s younger than Donald Trump by a year. She’s younger than Joe Biden by four years. Is it that she’s run before? This would be Bernie Sanders’ second time, and Biden’s third time. Is it lack of support? She had 65 million people vote for her.”
Even if half of those people would no longer support Clinton in another election, Reines argued, “there’s no one in the Democratic Party who has anywhere near a base of 32 million people. That’s multiples of what a Sanders or a Warren have.”
Reines said his biggest fear for the Democratic Party is that they realize, only in hindsight, that dismissing Clinton for the errors she made in 2016 was a mistake.
“Chalking the loss up to her being a failed candidate is an oversimplification,” Reines said. “She is smarter than most, tougher than most, she could raise money easier than most, and it was an absolute fight to the death.”
Does Reines plugging Clinton as a viable 2020 candidate mean that she’s running?
“It’s somewhere between highly unlikely and zero,” he said, “but it’s not zero.”
A few years ago two true-crime sensations took over our culture like a fever.
First it was Making a Murderer, whose popularity that not only led Netflix to become the go-to home for true-crime docs, but also launched a thousand Reddit threads of amateur sleuths debating the innocence of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey. Only a year later, our obsession was exacerbated by Serial Season 1, which launched even more voracious internet sleuthing.
But while both of these sensations allowed audiences to delight in the murder-mystery of a real-life victim, their subsequent seasons in 2018 feel more like a moral reckoning.
Serial Season 3 is now no longer just one murder case, but an entire courthouse’s worth of cases, ranging from minor crimes to major ones, explored week by week. Similarly, Making a Murderer Part 2 is a more sobering, measured look at the bureaucracy involved in trying to free two potentially wrongfully convicted men.
But by the very nature of what that looks like — an inarguably more boring story than the original — Making a Murderer Part 2 feels like a meta commentary on the ethics of true-crime phenomenons overall.
Why do we love true crime? Countless podcasts and docs like to claim it’s because we are a people seeking justice in an unjust and corrupt system. But after watching over ten grueling hours of the painstaking lengths that Avery and Dassey’s legal representatives must go to try in their attempts to correct that alleged injustice, you realize something.
That’s a bunch of bullshit.
In Making a Murderer Part 2, the veil drops, but not only on the flaws of our legal system. The veil drops to show our own unkind reflection.
We’re not in it to hear endless re-litigating of exactly when Teresa Halbach’s car was found, or whether several different courts of appeals can agree that Dassey’s confession was coerced. We’re also not, as both the prosecution and the earnest-seeming lawyers of the Innocence Project suggest, doing any of this out of a duty to find justice for Halbach’s gruesome death.
In Making a Murderer Part 2, the veil drops, but not only on the flaws of our legal system. The veil drops to show our own unkind reflection.
Parts of this follow-up feel like the filmmakers wrestling to reconcile with the phenomenon they started. The first episode lists the numerous criticisms the original doc received: namely, that the filmmakers failed to include evidence that made Avery look guilty, and that it failed to be considerate of the victim who lost her life, and of the loved ones who survive her.
Most awkwardly, there’s heavy usage of the breathless news coverage that has followed the case since the Netflix show took off. There are scenes of rallies organized by Avery and Dassey supporters, and interviews with on-the-street sleuths offering their own predictions on their innocence or guilt like they’re talking about the outcome of a big sports game.
‘Making a Murderer: Part 2’ turns the camera inward and back at its own audience
Image: netflix
It is telling that one of the most chilling moments in this documentary happens in the background of a news interview with Ken Kratz, the controversial and disgraced district attorney who acted as prosecution during the original murder trial that found Avery guilty of Halbach’s murder.
He’s at CrimeCon, the reporter says, and as Kratz is delivering his emphatic story on why Avery is a cold, unfeeling psychopath, you see an attendee of CrimeCon in the background taking advantage of the convention’s photo opp. As Kratz disingenuously summons the poor, unfortunate specter of victim Halbach, the woman in the background happily lays herself out on a fake police outline of a dead body — presumably for the ‘gram.
Whether or not the filmmakers intended it, it’s a sickeningly self-reflective moment. Are we her? Are we the ones gleefully giving men like Kratz a platform (who wrote and sold a book on Avery, after resigning his position following a horrifying sexting scandal with a client), while simultaneously delighting and reveling in the deaths of real-world victims?
Objectively, Making a Murderer Part 2 is a less well-told story.
But maybe that’s being too uncharitable to fans of Making a Murderer and true-crime in general (myself included.)
Objectively, Making a Murderer Part 2 is a less well-told story. Unlike Season 3 of Serial, which still finds the human story even in the most litigious courthouse cases, the follow-up to the deeply affecting Making a Murderer often fails to communicate the enormity of its human stakes moment-to-moment, especially for most of the first seven episodes.
The reasons why are not hard to understand. This is not the coherent story of carefully doled out information, taking advantage of this case’s countless twists and turns. The filmmakers clearly had less time and footage to work with, especially when it came to access to the devastating and heartbreaking affect these cases are having on the convicted men’s parents.
The earnest love between Avery and his parents remains a heartbreaking refrain in this follow up
Image: netflix
Overall, there is less of a human tether for audiences to connect with, which would make it easier to care when the legalese becomes a bit much. It relies heavily on title cards that summarize legal failures and successes in this journey to overturning their convictions, rather than allowing audiences to experience it and watch as the action unfolds in real-time.
Perhaps one of the biggest problems with Making a Murderer Part 2 is that it feels obligatory.
We feel obligated to watch it, as people who’ve become obsessed with every minor detail of the case. It feels like the filmmakers felt obligated to show a more “neutral” (though I’m dubious about even that) perspective, and return more cognizant of the ethical criticisms raised by the original documentary.
And you can’t help but sense that Netflix had a vested interest in seeing one of their biggest hits return ASAP, no matter the hit to quality that might entail. Does Part 2 need ten episodes that often run over an hour long? Absolutely not. On the level of pure entertainment, it only really starts grabbing attention in the final few episodes, when Avery’s star attorney (and arguable season protagonist) Kathleen Zellner turns to making the case for who actually killed Halbach instead.
We again return to the original uneasiness of Making a Murderer as a phenomenon.
But now we again return to the original uneasiness of Making a Murderer as an overall phenomenon.
The first season positioned watchers almost as amateur jurors, showing in its first few episodes how susceptible we can be to a prosecution’s compelling narrative toward a guilty verdict, despite very little substantial evidence. But it combated this story – like a defense attorney would – by supplying us with an equally seductive counter-narrative of gross injustice and institutional corruption from the cops.
I don’t know how comfortable I am with saying Making a Murderer Part 2 only really gets good when it turns the tables on blaming another man for Halbach’s murder. Even if the evidence is compelling, isn’t that what started this whole mess in the first place?
It’s sickening to try and judge the entertainment value of a story that deals in the real-life stakes of people’s lives and deaths.
There are far fewer binge-worthy twists in Making a Murderer Part 2. But when you’re talking about the ruined lives of two potentially innocent men, should we need to have that story told in a way that forces us to care, or ignites the mob-mentality kind of justice that characterizes amateur internet sleuthing?
China’s economic growth has slowed down to 6.5 percent in the third quarter – its slowest quarterly growth since 2009 – as a campaign to tackle mounting debt and trade frictions with the US take their toll.
The world’s second-largest economy expanded 6.5 percent in the July-to-September period year-on-year, according to official gross domestic product (GDP) figures released on Friday by China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The rate is down from 6.8 percent and 6.7 percent in the first and second quarters, respectively, but in line with a growth target of roughly 6.5 percent for the year set by China’s economic policymakers.
“Faced with an extremely complex environment abroad and the daunting task of reform and development at home, China’s economic growth remained generally steady,” said NBS spokesman Mao Shengyong.
The reading will likely put pressure on the leadership to provide fresh support as investors grow increasingly concerned about a flood of cash leaving the country, which has seen the yuan and stock markets fall to four-year lows.
China is in the midst of an increasingly bitter trade row with the United States, with both sides exchanging tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods that have fanned fears about the impact on the global economy.
But the standoff comes at a tough time for Beijing, which is battling to tackle a mountain of debt, with credit tightening and infrastructure investment falling.
And while exports to the US have held up so far, the trade frictions have sapped confidence.
Stock index falls
As a result, Shanghai’s composite stock index has fallen by about a third from its January high, while the yuan has slipped about nine percent against the dollar.
In response, three of China’s top financial officials, including the head of the central People’s Bank of China, made a concerted effort on Friday morning to reassure investors and to stem the market sell-off that one of them called “abnormal”.
Adding to concerns was data showing fixed-asset investment growth remains down. It inched up to 5.4 percent in January-September from a record low of 5.3 percent in the first eight months as Beijing reined in spending on bridges, railways, and highways this year.
Spending appears to be bottoming out thanks to the recent step up in local government borrowing, said Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics.
But he added: “Looking ahead, we doubt the latest pick-up in infrastructure spending will be enough to prevent the economy from cooling further in the coming quarters.”
Analysts say the slowing growth could prompt an end to Beijing’s fiscal prudence, while the gloomy export picture has reinforced the need for China to rely on its legion of consumers to grow its economy.
“We expect further escalation of US-China trade tensions going into 2019, which will likely be partially offset by yuan adjustment and more growth-supportive fiscal and monetary policies,” JPMorgan economists led by Zhu Haibin, said in a note.
Washington has hit roughly half of Chinese imports worth about $250 while Beijing has responded in kind.
Exports still drive a significant chunk of China’s economy and Washington’s targeting of cars, machinery, electronics, consumer appliances and other products has led many firms to shift production out of the country, or begin considering it.
It’s Oct. 19, and Apple has opened up pre-orders for the iPhone XR, the more colorful, less expensive, and slightly less powerful variant of its flagship new phone.
To recap: The iPhone XR has the same software and the same powerful chip as the iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max. It only has a single instead of a dual camera on the back, the screen is LCD instead of OLED, the frame is aluminum instead of steel, there’s no 3D Touch and (according to this filing) it has less RAM memory than the XS.
It’s not all bad, though: The iPhone XR has a bigger battery than the XS. It also comes in six colors: black, blue, coral, red, white and yellow. It’s available with three different storage capacities: 64, 128 and 256GB.
Image: Stan Schroeder/Mashable/Apple
The iPhone XR is available in more than 50 countries and territories. The price is $749 for the 64GB version. If you opt for 128GB, the price climbs up to $799, and the 256GB variant costs $899.
The phone is officially shipping on October 26. It was reportedly delayed due to manufacturing issues, so we’ll see if Apple has enough units in stock to meet the demand.
While the country’s government is set to benefit from taxes, and the cannabis industry is sure to grow, the policy has already done wonders for a Girl Guide in Edmonton.
Elina Childs, 9, sold C$120 worth of sandwich cookies and mint thins to a line of people waiting to buy legal marijuana at Nova Cannabis on Wednesday, as reported by CBC.
It took her less than 45 minutes to sell all 30 boxes, compared to how slow it was selling cookies to people in her neighborhood.
“It amazed me how quickly they went,” her dad Seann Childs told the broadcaster. “Even people in cars driving on the avenue there would stop and roll down their window and ask for cookies.”
While a clever business scheme, it was also an opportunity for dad to teach Elina, who has cystic fibrosis, about cannabis and its recent legalization. The Girl Guides were also cool with it.
“Good on her and her family for thinking of it,” Edmonton commissioner Heather Monahan told the Canadian Press. “It’s fun and it’s different and what better way to get rid of cookies.”
In February, a girl scout in San Diego did the same thing outside a dispensary, managing to sell 300 boxes in six hours. Smart cookies, both of them.
Anything could’ve happened in LeBron James’ debut with the Los Angeles Lakers, which resulted in a 128-119 loss to the host Portland Trail Blazers while he recorded 26 points, 12 rebounds and six assists.
Surrounded by new teammates and wearing the storied purple-and-gold uniform for the first time in his equally storied career—battling against a Western Conference foe for the first of many times in 2018-19 and playing at a breakneck pace—James found himself in a situation where unpredictability was the only predictable element.
Could he operate at his peak level while running alongside a group of limited shooters after thriving for so many years in a drive-and-kick scheme? Could he maximize the talents of Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Kyle Kuzma, Josh Hart and the other youngsters in Hollywood? Could he immediately push the Lakers past a Portland squad that advanced through the NBA‘s tougher half and made the 2018 playoffs before returning 11 players and the vast majority of its logged minutes from last year?
The answers, as you might expect, aren’t simple. But the process of collecting our first data point of this new Lakers era sure made for 48 minutes of high-quality entertainment.
From the opening tip, L.A. made clear its intention to feature James in a new manner. Gone are the days in which he’d slow the tempo and commandeer possessions through setup dribbles on the perimeter or interminable post-ups, probing the defense for either a scoring opportunity or a kick-out feed to an open teammate. Those possessions happened on occasion, but they came between lightning-quick transition opportunities for a team intent on pushing the pace.
We haven’t seen this before from a James-led squad. That’s a factual statement, and not the least bit hyperbolic:
Per NBA.com, the Lakers played with an estimated 113.5 pace over the course of the season’s initial game. And though pace statistics vary slightly between sources, Basketball Reference shows that exactly zero Cleveland Cavaliers contests featured a more frenetic speed during the 2017-18 season. Taking it one step further, this was the single highest number recorded by a James-led team during his entire career.
This is already unabashedly uncharted territory, and the results began to justify the alterations made by head coach Luke Walton.
Just take a gander at James’ first two buckets, both of which came via rim-rattling jams from a man in full-fledged freight-train mode:
By the end of the first half, Los Angeles, though trailing by two points to a Portland squad featuring a red-hot Nik Stauskas, had already racked up 50 points in the paint. With James in attack mode, the entire team pushing the tempo, JaVale McGee thriving and Rajon Rondo showing off both his creativity around the hoop and ESP-driven feeds, L.A. had no trouble scoring close to the hoop.
Now that might sound familiar.
Last year’s Cavaliers were a middling squad in the painted area (No. 15 in per-game scoring), but hearkening back to LeBron’s Miami days provides a semi-valid comparison:
By the end of James’ tenure with the Heat, they’d figured out how to excel in transition and attack the bucket in ceaseless fashion. But the methodology was still different. They did so without incessantly pushing the pace, instead taking advantage of their athletic superiority and ability to trade possessions between two slashing superstars—James and Dwyane Wade.
The Lakers are doing both, which might lead to astronomical numbers for James. And when he puts up big figures, his team tends to fare well. The on/off splits usually show his squad thrives when he logs minutes.
Still, that has a downside. When so much success stems from one player’s efforts, the team can sputter without him, as was the case during Game 1 of this new adventure. Rondo’s offensive brilliance on opening night helped mitigate some of the losses when James caught his breath, but even the distributing dynamo could only do so much.
In fact, the first time James rode the pine while wearing an L.A. uniform, his teammates ceded a 16-4 run that let Portland gain its first advantage of the night. By the time the final buzzer sounded in the nine-point loss that featured sloppy fourth-quarter play from the visitors, that split had diminished. But the Lakers were only outscored by four points in 37 minutes with him on the floor, as opposed to falling five more points behind in the 11 minutes he didn’t play.
Those numbers might normalize as Ball and other bench players on this revamped roster find their strides. But they still leave so much room for growth.
After all, the blueprint in Los Angeles was obvious Thursday night: push the pace and let James overpower the opposition whenever possible; then take advantage of the many ball-handlers in other situations. But just as clear was the room for significant improvement.
Steve Dykes/Getty Images
We won’t focus on the defensive mishaps, of which James himself was frequently guilty. That’s a topic for another time, though it’s important if the Lakers are to not only make the Western Conference playoffs but also make noise within them.
Even if the Lakers play lackluster defense—allowing far too many offensive rebounds (Portland had 14) and missing basic rotations that allow uncontested looks at the hoop—they can survive through sheer offensive excellence. Of course, that’s only true if they continue to push a pace that slowed noticeably in the second half and discover some semblance of shooting ability.
That’s where James’ room to grow is most obvious.
His six assists in his franchise debut would’ve topped just eight efforts from the prior go-around, though that’s inevitable when the Lakers could only muster a 7-of-30 performance from beyond the rainbow. James feasts on kick-outs to shooters in the corners, and he put a handful of those feeds right in a teammate’s breadbasket Thursday night, only to see the ensuing attempts clang off a Moda Center rim.
Shooting growth has to come if this team is to maximize its potential—and James’ along with it. Part of that will arrive via natural regression to the mean, but the roster also needs someone to evolve as a perimeter marksman. Maybe Kentavious Caldwell-Pope gets more involved. Perhaps Ball, who’s not shy about firing away, will show off his new form with a few more splashes. Kyle Kuzma and Josh Hart, who ended the team’s 0-of-15 dry spell from deep with 2:19 remaining in the third quarter, could become deadly.
Andrew D. Bernstein/Getty Images
The bad news for Los Angeles is the dearth of established shooting scattered throughout the depth chart. The good news is the plethora of options that roster could eventually provide, and James will spend much of the year trying to promote that exact type of development.
Lest we forget, this is a learning process for everyone involved. Even a 33-year-old GOAT candidate with an unimpeachable resume isn’t immune to growing pains when feeling out a new set of compatriots this early in the calendar. He lost his Miami debut eight years ago, then dropped the first game of the season yet again upon his return to Northeast Ohio in 2014. We’re not traversing new territory with struggles in the season opener.
But the pieces are still in place for something special.
At the very least, Walton’s uptempo desires will lead to jaw-dropping numbers for the perennial MVP candidate. And if the Lakers learn how to shoot while gaining the confidence necessary to keep pushing the pace for all four quarters, the ceiling could rise quite a bit higher for an organization looking to stop the longest playoff drought in franchise history at five years.
Adam Fromal covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter:@fromal09.
You can’t just steal Spider-Man’s mask, guys. Especially when he’s wearing a brand new suit.
During Jimmy Kimmel’s show on Thursday night in Brooklyn, the late show host’s trusty sidekick Guillermo was goofing around in a Spidey mask.
Seriously, he shouted, “Pew! Pew! Pew!” for almost a full minute.
Then, he was upstaged by the web-slingin’ Peter Parker himself, Tom Holland, in what was the unexpected debut of the brand new suit to be featured in the 2019 release Spider-Man: Far From Home, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Spidey demanded his mask back, and explained how he lost his mask to the mischievous Guillermo.
“It’s a long story, Jimmy, it’s a sad story too,” said Holland. “I ran out of web fluid, I was waiting for the B38, and he snuck up behind me and stole it right off my head.”
Technically, Boston’s $217 million ace went into his Thursday assignment against the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park on three days’ rest. In actuality, it was less than 24 hours. Price had warmed up in both the eighth and ninth innings of Boston’s 8-6 Game 4 win, throwing many pitches in the process.
Then there’s the opposition he was up against. The Astros were the reigning champs, and they’d be countering the left-hander with a lineup full of dangerous right-handed hitters. Also, veteran ace and postseason legend Justin Verlander would be on the hill for the home team.
In light of all this, it would have been understandable if Price’s career playoff ERA went up from 5.42. Heck, even his strongest detractors might have given him a pass for it.
Here’s what happened instead: Price dazzled with six scoreless innings, and the Red Sox won handily 4-1.
J.D. Martinez and Rafael Devers are also deserving of major props. They supplied all of the Red Sox’s offense—the former with a solo home run in the third inning, and the latter with a three-run homer in the sixth.
Nathan Eovaldi and Craig Kimbrel deserve props of their own. After Marwin Gonzalez’s solo homer off Matt Barnes tightened Boston’s lead, they came in and allowed two baserunners while picking up the final seven outs.
Homage must also be paid to Houston’s heroes. For Game 5, Verlander is chief among them despite the loss. His performance won’t rank among the best of his storied career, but he pitched better than his final line score (four runs in six innings) indicates.
For that matter, the Astros played better in this ALCS than history is bound to remember. They routed the Red Sox in Game 1 at Fenway Park, and they could have won Games 2, 4 and 5. That goes double for Game 4, which was an instant classic with seemingly millions of twists and turns.
And yet, the Red Sox are moving on.
It’s easy to say it now, but of course they are. These Red Sox won a franchise-record 108 games in the regular season. Starting with the New York Yankees, they’ve dispatched not one, but two fellow 100-win teams in October.
There was no way they were going to do it without contributions from all over. Lucky for them, they have stars well beyond Martinez, Mookie Betts, Chris Sale and ALCS MVP Jackie Bradley Jr.
At this moment, however, Price is the Red Sox who deserves a pedestal unto himself.
David J. Phillip/Associated Press
Price may be an AL Cy Young Award winner and two-time AL ERA champion, but it was nearly impossible to coat his postseason track record in sugar before Thursday.
Exactly one of his 11 postseason starts featured more than six innings pitched and two or fewer runs allowed. And while there weren’t many glaring differences between his regular-season peripherals and his postseason peripherals, there was this one: He’d allowed 1.7 homers per nine innings in the playoffs, compared to 0.9 otherwise.
How to explain all this? Good question. Price obviously had it in him to be a great pitcher in October. For whatever reason, he just…wasn’t.
In any case, what matters now is how Price broke out of his postseason curse. Put simply: He threw the heck out of the ball and gave Astros hitters not a single inch.
Despite basically not getting any rest ahead of Game 5, Price had a fastball that sat at 94 mph and climbed as high as 96 mph. He rarely had that kind of average velocity or maximum velocity this season.
The 33-year-old also brought one hell of a changeup to play with. He expertly kept it on the same plane as his hard stuff, right up until the bottom dropped out of it as it entered the hitting zone.
Via Rob Friedman, cue Jose Altuve’s illustration of how Astros hitters had no answer for the pitch:
Price collected 12 swings and misses on his changeup alone and 15 total. The latter shattered his previous career high (12) for whiffs in a playoff game.
In addition to keeping Astros hitters off balance, Price attacked the strike zone with a vengeance. He threw first-pitch strikes to 14 of the 21 batters he faced and ended up with 65 strikes out of 93 total pitches. That’s a rate of 70 percent.
In short, the Red Sox got vintage Price in Game 5. This is arguably a first for his three seasons with the team, which have been frequently marked by subpar stuff and command.
But better late than never, as they say, and both Price and the Red Sox have every reason to feel thrilled about it.
Price just cut down all his postseason demons with one fell swoop. The Red Sox have won as many American League pennants since 2004 as they did from 1919 to 2003 (four). If Price has any more where that came from, they may not have much trouble overcoming either the Los Angeles Dodgers or Milwaukee Brewers to claim their fourth World Series championship since 2004.
Good stuff for a player and team that people used to think were cursed.
Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, left, raising the UMNO flag with former PM Najib in 2017 [File: Lai Seng Sin/Reuters]
Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, Malaysia’s former deputy prime minister, appeared in court in Kuala Lumpur on Friday charged with 45 counts of corruption, the latest senior politician to be charged with suspected graft since May’s general election brought the country’s first change in government in 60 years.
Zahid, who currently leads the opposition as president of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), waved to supporters and the media as he arrived in court where he was charged with abuse of power, criminal breach of trust, and money laundering amounting to 114 million ringgit ($27.4m).
Some of the charges relate to the misuse of funds from a charitable foundation set up by his family, while others are in connection with questionable payments he received when he was home minister from 2013 until earlier this year. Zahid has denied any wrongdoing.
‘Moral support’
UMNO ruled Malaysia for six decades before its defeat in May’s general election, amid simmering public anger over a multi-billion dollar scandal at state fund 1MDB that was overseen by former prime minister and finance minister Najib Razak.
Malaysia: Bags of cash, jewellery seized from Najib’s properties
Zahid spent the night in custody after his arrest on Thursday by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC). The court set bail at 2 million ringgit ($481,000) and the politician was ordered to surrender his passport.
Najib and his wife, Rosmah Mansor, are already facing trial in relation to multiple 1MDB-related charges.
Najib, who local media reported was at court on Friday to give “moral support” to his former deputy, has denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to 32 criminal charges involving more than 2.3 billion ringgit ($553m) allegedly siphoned from the fund. Rosmah has pleaded not guilty to 17 money-laundering offences.
Malaysia has frozen hundreds of bank accounts and blocked several people from leaving the country as it steps up investigations into how billions of dollars allegedly went missing from state coffers.
In June, the MACC said it had frozen several accounts linked to UMNO as part of their investigations into 1MDB.
US authorities say more than $4.5bn was misappropriated from 1MDB, and nearly $700m diverted into Najib’s personal bank accounts.
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