Greek basketball star Giannis Antetokounmpo has been named the NBA‘s Most Valuable Player (MVP).

Nicknamed the “Greek Freak”, the 24-year-old Milwaukee Bucks player on Monday got 78 first-place votes, well ahead of the 23 received by fellow MVP finalist James Harden of the Houston Rockets. 

“Two, three years ago, I had the goal in my head, that goal [was] to be the best player in the league,” a tearful Antetokounmpo said at the packed awards ceremony in Santa Monica, California.

“I’m going to do whatever it takes to win and I’m going to win MVP. And every time I step on the floor, I think of my dad, and that motivates me to play harder and move forward when my body is sore,” he said, referring to his late father whom he credits for his hard work ethic. 

Congratulations to @Giannis_An34 of the @Bucks on winning the 2018-19 Most Valuable Player! #KiaMVP #NBAAwards pic.twitter.com/l8SN27FFTG

— NBA (@NBA) June 25, 2019

Bucks General Manager John Horst said the recognition was the result of the player’s hard work and dedication as well as his “grace on and off the court”. 

Here are seven things to know about Antetokounmpo, the epitome of a rags-to-riches story.

1) He is of Nigerian descent

Antetokounmpo was born in Greece‘s capital, Athens, on December 6, 1994.

His parents, Veronica and Charles Antetokounmpo, immigrated to Greece after leaving Nigeria‘s commercial capital, Lagos, in the early 1990s.

Though proud of his Nigerian heritage, the 2.11-metre-tall player opted to play for his native Greece and made his debut for the national team in July 2013, at the FIBA Europe Under-20 Championship. 

A year later, he joined the senior team and went on to represent Greece at the EuroBasket 2015.

2) He took Greek citizenship aged 18

Greek immigration laws are such that the children of immigrants cannot apply for citizenship until they turn 18.

Antetokounmpo’s parents were undocumented migrants, which effectively meant that he could not claim legal status in neither Greece nor his family’s homeland, making him stateless.

All that began to change when he took up basketball at age 12. By the time he turned 16, it became apparent to local and national scouts that they were dealing with the country’s next sports phenomenon.

“A dream came true. We are now officially Greek citizens, as we felt all these years,” an elated Antetokounmpo said upon his naturalisation in 2013.

In six years, a whole lot can change.

Congratulations to the MVP, @Giannis_An34.

To see more of “I Am Giannis,” click here: https://t.co/VX4IjFJUA8 pic.twitter.com/MQVg4MbAGL

— The Players’ Tribune (@PlayersTribune) June 25, 2019

3) First Greek to win MVP

Antetokounmpo is the first Greek national to take the coveted honour. 

He was also the first Greek player to be selected for an NBA All-Star Game in 2017, garnering 1.6 million votes and coming in third after NBA superstars LeBron James and Kyrie Irving, respectively. 

In January 2018, Antetokounmpo earned a starting position in the NBA All-Star Game for the second year in a row. 

Antetokounmpo was again selected as starter in 2019 and became team captain for the first time.

4) He didn’t have it easy

His MVP win on Monday capped Antetokounmpo’s astounding rise to the top of the game. The NBA’s best top player grew up in a tough neighbourhood of Athens, sharing a tiny flat with the other members of his poor family.

His immigrant parents found it difficult to secure steady jobs and getting by was a daily struggle.

In fact, only a few years before he was selected by the Bucks as the 15th pick of 2013 NBA draft, the “Greek Freak” and his brother, Thanasis, could be seen in the streets of Athens hawking various products such as watches, hats and DVDs to help their family make ends meet.

“It was tough. We didn’t have a lot of money. But we had a lot of happiness. So we wasn’t broke happiness wise. When we were struggling back in the day, we were all together in one room, same room. We were having fun. We were smiling,” he told 60 Minutes last year.    

5) His nickname isn’t an insult

His versatility is what earned him his nickname.

Whether it’s supporters, sports commentators or journalists, Antetokounmpo’s ability to be – or appear to be – everywhere in the court at all-time didn’t go unnoticed. Being able to play every position – from point guard to centre – he has been consistently leading the Bucks in points, rebounds and assist.

Indeed, despite averaging 27.7 points and 12.5 rebounds per game, Antetokounmpo was also finalist for defensive player of the year, which he ultimately lost out to Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert.

Scoring-wise, his career-high so far was recorded in a match against the Philadelphia 76ers in March, logging a staggering 52 points.

Six years after making his NBA debut, Antetokounmpo in May led the Bucks to the Eastern Conference finals, which they lost to subsequent champions Toronto Raptors.

6) There’s (potentially) more like him 

Antetokounmpo isn’t the only one in the family to have taken up the sport.

His older brother, 26-year-old Thanasis Antetokounmpo, 26, plays for Greek champions, Panathinaikos, while Kostas, 21, made his NBA debut with the Dallas Mavericks in March.

Their youngest brother, Alexandros, whom Giannis has described as possibly the best among them, also looks set to follow in the elder Antetokounmpos’ footsteps. 

The eldest of the boys, 31-year-old Francis, is the only of the Antetokounmpo brothers to have been born in Nigeria.

“I want to thank my amazing brothers,” Antetokounmpo said during his MVP-acceptance speech, tears running down his face. “I love you guys.”

7) Speaking up against racism 

In late 2018, Antetokounpo didn’t hesitate to hit back after a presenter of a Greek TV show used a racial slur to describe his older brother, Thanasis.

He took to instagram to denounce the incident and reiterate his pride in being a Greek-Nigerian. 

“My brothers and I are Greek-Nigerian.” he wrote. “If anybody doesn’t like it, that’s their problem.” 

Elections

The party chairman resigns, and a potentially brutal battle could begin to replace him in a state critical to Donald Trump’s reelection.

The embattled leader of the Pennsylvania GOP has resigned amid a #MeToo scandal, throwing the party into further upheaval in a state critical to President Donald Trump’s reelection chances.

The news of Val DiGiorgio’s departure follows months of party infighting and disastrous midterm election results for Republicans in the state, including the loss of three congressional seats and double-digit collapses in the gubernatorial and Senate races.

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Republicans are rushing to contain the chaos, and some in the party urged DiGiorgio to step down earlier to lessen the bleeding, according to sources familiar with the matter. Former Rep. Lou Barletta, a close ally of Trump’s, told POLITICO that he has been asked by his backers to take the reins at the state committee.

“Although I have not campaigned for it, I have received calls from supporters to consider it,” he said. “Whoever the next chair is, they need to focus on getting President Trump re-elected, growing the majority in the state legislature and re-electing incumbents in Congress. I will continue to help the president and the party any way I can.”

Some Republicans said Barletta has the inside track.

“I’m hearing it is Barletta’s if he wants it, he holds a special place in Trump’s political orbit,” said former Rep. Ryan Costello (R-Pa.). However, there are also “a few talented county chairs that are being talked about, too.”

Bob Asher, a top fundraiser and member of the Republican National Committee, is said to support Bernadette “Bernie” Comfort, the current vice chair of the state party.

Other candidates being talked about as potential replacements to DiGiorgio, according to Pennsylvania GOP political insiders, include Ted Christian, former state director for the Trump’s 2016 campaign in Pennsylvania; Lawrence Tabas, ex-state GOP general counsel; Andy Reilly, chairman of the Southeast Pennsylvania caucus of the state GOP; and Elizabeth Preate Havey, leader of the Montgomery County Republican Party. Christian, Reilly, Havey, Tabas and Comfort did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The last race for party chair in 2017 was extremely close — DiGiorgio won by only two votes — and geographical and ideological divisions remain in the state GOP that could lead to another competitive, and perhaps bruising, battle.

Comfort will immediately become the acting chair of the Pennsylvania GOP under state party rules, and she has 10 days to schedule a time and place for party members to pick a new leader.

The Philadelphia Inquirer first reported Tuesday that DiGiorgio exchanged sexually charged text messages with a Philadelphia city council candidate and sent her a picture of his genitals. He said it was council hopeful Irina Goldstein’s “duty to the party” to send photos to him and promised her to “get you to [the] White House at some point,” according to the messages reviewed by the newspaper.

DiGiorgio’s lawyer, Joel Frank, said the messages were “mutual private exchanges between adults” and labeled Goldstein’s allegations “a mischaracterization, incomplete and defamatory.”

In a statement announcing his resignation, DiGiorgio said, “Any communications between Ms. Goldstein and me were entirely consensual. Any attempt to characterize any communication exchanges between Ms. Goldstein and myself as harassment or abuse of power is fundamentally untrue.”

The world is on course for “climate apartheid”, where the rich buy their way out of the worst effects of global warming while the poor bear the brunt, according to a United Nations human rights expert. 

Philip Alston, the special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, issued the warning in a new report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday. 

“Climate change threatens to undo the last 50 years of progress in development, global health, and poverty reduction,” Alston said in a statement. “It could push more than 120 million more people into poverty by 2030 and will have the most severe impact in poor countries, regions, and the places poor people live and work.”

While people living in poverty were responsible for just a fraction of global emissions, they have the least capacity to protect themselves, Alston said. 

“We risk a ‘climate apartheid’ scenario where the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer,” he added. 

There was no shortage of global alarm bells over climate change – including record temperatures, rapidly melting icecaps, unprecedented wildfires, as well as more frequent floods and hurricanes – but they “seem to have remained largely unheard so far,” the report said. 

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Marseille in France, Alston condemned world leaders for failing to act and called for “societal transformation” to address the threat. 

The world was “sleepwalking into a climate change horror story,” Alston said. “If there is going to be any chance of preventing horrific global warming we need to be undertaking dramatically affirmative measures now,” he said. 

“The only solution is for governments to adopt a major re-engineering of the economies.”

In his report, Alston said business was supposed to play a vital role in coping with climate change, but could not be relied on to look after the poor.

He cited vulnerable New Yorkers being stranded without power or healthcare when Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012, while “the Goldman Sachs headquarters was protected by tens of thousands of its own sandbags and power from its generator”.

Relying exclusively on the private sector to protect against extreme weather and rising seas “would almost guarantee massive human rights violations, with the wealthy catered to and the poorest left behind”, he wrote.

The report criticised governments for doing little more than sending officials to conferences to make “sombre speeches”, even though scientists and climate activists have been ringing alarm bells since the 1970s.

“States have marched past every scientific warning and threshold, and what was once considered catastrophic warming now seems like a best-case scenario,” he went on, adding that the fossil fuel industry is continued to be subsidised with $5.2 trillion a year.

Since 1980, the United States alone had suffered 241 weather and climate disasters costing $1bn or more, at a cumulative cost of $1.6 trillion.

There had been some positive developments, with renewable energy prices falling, coal becoming uncompetitive, emissions declining in 49 countries, and 7,000 cities, 245 regions, and 6,000 companies committing to climate mitigation.

However, despite ending its reliance on coal, China was still exporting coal-fired power plants and failing to crack down on its own methane emissions; and Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro planned to open up the Amazon rainforest for mining, end demarcation of indigenous lands, and weaken environmental protection.

“In the United States, until recently the world’s biggest producer of global emissions, President [Donald] Trump has placed former lobbyists in oversight roles, adopted industry talking points, presided over an aggressive rollback of environmental regulations, and is actively silencing and obfuscating climate science,” Alston wrote.

Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner John Sanders is resigning amid heightened scrutiny over the administration’s treatment of migrant children detained in facilities along the southern border.

Sanders’ exit, which he confirmed Tuesday in an email to CBP employees, marks the latest high-profile departure at President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security. It creates a new leadership vacuum atop the nation’s chief border enforcement agency as it struggles to quell a surge in Central American migrants entering the U.S. through Mexico.

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“As some of you are aware, yesterday I offered my resignation to Secretary McAleenan, effective Friday, July 5,” Sanders wrote in his staff-wide email.

“In that letter, I quoted a wise man who said to me, ‘each man will judge their success by their own metrics,’” he continued. “Although I will leave it to you to determine whether I was successful, I can unequivocally say that helping support the amazing men and women of CBP has been the most fulfilling and satisfying opportunity of my career.”

News of his resignation, first reported by the New York Times, comes hours after the administration on Tuesday returned at least 100 migrant children to a Texas Border Patrol that had been criticized for its unsanitary conditions, according to the Associated Press. It is unclear if Sanders’ departure is related to the growing controversy.

Sanders was appointed CBP chief after Trump named the agency’s former head, Kevin McAleenan, to become his next Homeland Security secretary following the April ouster of Kirstjen Nielsen.

Stephanie Grisham, a top aide to First Lady Melania Trump, will be the next White House press secretary and communications director.

Melania Trump announced the news on Twitter on Tuesday. “She has been with us since 2015 – @potus & I can think of no better person to serve the Administration & our country. Excited to have Stephanie working for both sides of the @WhiteHouse. #BeBest,” she wrote

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Grisham, who serves as the first lady’s deputy chief of staff and communications director, had long been seen as the leading candidate for the job. Grisham won the trust of both the president and the first lady after working on Trump’s campaign, his transition team and as a deputy to then-press secretary Sean Spicer before moving to the East Wing. Since going to work for the first lady, Grisham has emerged as a fierce advocate for Melania Trump, pushing back on negative stories about her both behind the scenes and in public.

The outgoing White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, announced earlier this month that she planned to step down at the end of the month and return to her home state of Arkansas, where she is seriously considering eventually running for governor.

Trump had been considering several candidates to replace Sanders, but aides said he was inclined to choose a woman for the role, as well as somebody he knew well. That made Grisham an obvious choice. Grisham has been working at the White House for the entirety of Trump’s time in office. And since Grisham moved to the East Wing, Trump has frequently joked about stealing her back, a White House official said.

“I’m sad to leave the WH, but so happy to leave our team in such great hands. Stephanie will do a phenomenal job. Proud to have another mom and a great friend in this role,” Sanders wrote on Twitter.

Grisham takes the helm at a tumultuous period for the Trump administration that has been frequently marked by tensions between the White House and the press. It has been more than 100 days since Sanders held a formal, televised briefing, an approach advocated by the president, who grew to detest the longstanding tradition. Instead, Sanders mostly takes questions from reporters on the White House driveway after doing interviews on cable news networks.

Sanders also came under intense criticism for her unequivocal defense Trump and for sparring with reporters. Public attention particularly focused on Sanders after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which said Sanders acknowledged her claim that “countless” FBI officials told her they were pleased with Trump’s move to fire FBI chief James Comey was a “slip of the tongue” and not based on facts. Sanders later insisted that the thrust of the comment was accurate.

That glare is expected to extend to Grisham, who has a much lower profile and isn’t a frequent presence on television.