eliminated

PHOENIX — Dearica Hamby scored 16 of her 25 points in the fourth quarter, Rae Burrell had a career-high 20 points off the bench and the Sparks beat the Phoenix Mercury 88-83 on Tuesday night but the Sparks were eliminated from the playoff race.

The Sparks needed a win and a Seattle loss to send the chase for the last playoff spot to the last day of the season on Thursday, but the Storm pulled out a 74-73 win over Golden State.

Phoenix, the No. 4 seed, will host fifth-seeded New York, the defending champion, in the best-of-three series when the playoffs open on Sunday.

Hamby’s layup put the Sparks on top for good at 76-74 with 4:16 to play. She followed that with a three-point play. She added a three-point play with 1:01 to go for an 86-81 lead. There were 17 lead changes.

Kelsey Plum added 17 points for the Sparks (21-22).

Alyssa Thomas had her eighth triple-double of the season for the Mercury (27-16) with 10 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists, but she and the other Phoenix starters sat out the fourth quarter, Satou Sabally led the Mercury with 24 points and Sami Whitcomb added 11.

Phoenix led 25-19 after one quarter but the Sparks were up 45-44 at half.

The Sparks opened the third quarter with a 9-0 run for a 54-44 lead and then the Mercury stormed back to take a 59-58 lead on Whitcomb’s three-pointer.

Burrell’s driving layup in the last minute, when she tied her career high of 18 points, was the difference as the Sparks took a 63-62 lead into the fourth quarter.

Florida’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the state’s congressional redistricting map, rejecting a challenge over the elimination of a majority-Black district in north Florida that was pushed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The court, dominated by DeSantis appointees, ruled that restoration of the district that previously united Black communities from Jacksonville to west of Tallahassee, or across 200 miles, would amount to impermissible racial gerrymandering. That, the majority ruled, violates the Constitution’s equal protection guarantees.

“The record leaves no doubt that such a district would be race-predominant. The record also gives us no reasonable basis to think that further litigation would uncover a potentially viable remedy,” said Chief Justice Carlos Muniz in the court’s majority opinion.

The decision means Florida’s current congressional districts that give Republicans a 20-8 advantage over Democrats will remain in place for the 2026 midterm elections and beyond. The former north Florida district was most recently represented by a Black Democrat, former Rep. Al Lawson. The new districts divide that area among three Republicans.

A panel of three federal judges previously upheld the current congressional districts.

“This was always the constitutionally correct map — and now both the federal courts and the FL Supreme Court have upheld it,” DeSantis said on X.

One of the plaintiffs, the National Redistricting Foundation, called the new ruling “alarming” because it “diminishes the voting power of Black Floridians” by upholding the GOP-drawn map.

“The court is abandoning the most basic role of the judiciary: to provide justice for the people,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the foundation.

Earlier redistricting efforts by the state Legislature included versions of the north Florida district that preserved Black voting power. But after a veto by DeSantis, the governor pushed through the current map that eliminated it.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court said one problem for the plaintiffs was they did not propose a viable alternative map but only pointed out potential problems with the current one.

“It is not enough in the redistricting context for challengers to identify a flaw in an enacted districting plan and demand that the court send the Legislature back to the drawing board,” the decision said.

Justice Jorge Labarga was the lone dissenter, contending the lawsuit should be sent back to a lower court for further proceedings to allow the challengers a chance to produce different districts.

“By foreclosing further litigation, the majority’s decision now allows to remain in place a congressional redistricting plan that is unconstitutional under the Florida Constitution,” Labarga wrote.

Anderson writes for the Associated Press.

California Democrats are denouncing the Trump administration’s decision to terminate $3.7 billion in funding for two dozen clean energy projects, including three in the Golden State.

The 24 awards recently canceled by the U.S. Department of Energy were issued by the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations under the Biden administration and primarily focused on carbon capture and sequestration and decarbonization initiatives. Trump officials said the projects do not “advance the energy needs of the American people” and would not generate a positive return on investment for taxpayers.

“While the previous administration failed to conduct a thorough financial review before signing away billions of taxpayer dollars, the Trump administration is doing our due diligence to ensure we are utilizing taxpayer dollars to strengthen our national security, bolster affordable, reliable energy sources and advance projects that generate the highest possible return on investment,” DOE Secretary Chris Wright wrote in his announcement about the terminations.

One of the largest cuts was a $500-million award for the National Cement Company of California, whose first-of-its-kind Net-Zero Project in Lebec was geared toward developing carbon-neutral cement. Cement production is notoriously emission-intensive, accounting for as much as 8% of planet-warming greenhouse gases due to both the high heat needed in the process and its byproducts.

National Cement Company officials said the project would capture up to 1 million tons of CO2 per year — effectively the entire emissions profile of its cement plant near the border of Los Angeles and Kern counties — but also would act as a roadmap for the cement industry as a whole.

“As we understand the new priorities of the U.S. Department of Energy, we want to emphasize that this project will expand domestic manufacturing capacity for a critical industrial sector, while also integrating new technologies to keep American cement competitive,” the company said in an email. It is now exploring options to keep the project alive.

The funding cuts arrive amid sweeping changes driven by Trump’s orders to rein in federal spending and “unleash American energy.” The president has removed barriers for fossil fuel companies, such as regulations that limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, and called for increased oil and gas drilling and natural resources mining.

California, meanwhile, has set some of the nation’s most ambitious decarbonization goals, including its aim to reach carbon neutrality by 2045. Environmental experts, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, say capturing and storing carbon will be essential for slowing global warming, in addition to efforts to reduce overall carbon emissions.

In a letter to Wright dated Tuesday, California Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla said the terminations “run counter to our shared interest in boosting energy production, innovation, and economic vitality.” They urged Wright to reinstate the projects.

“The United States cannot afford to halt our progress and hinder American companies’ efforts to move beyond outdated technologies if we hope to remain competitive and truly energy dominant around the globe,” the senators wrote. “These irrational cancellations will increase energy prices, hamper innovation, and set us backwards as we strive toward a clean energy future.”

The cement project wasn’t the only one canceled in California. The DOE also terminated a $270-million award for an air-cooled carbon capture and sequestration facility at the Sutter Energy Center, a natural gas power plant in Yuba City. Carbon sequestration is the process of capturing CO2 and preventing it from entering the atmosphere by storing it underground, in aquifers or other geologic formations.

The Sutter project was projected to reduce emissions from the plant by up to 95% and capture and store up to 1.75 million metric tons of CO2 each year, according to its federal project page.

The federal government also canceled $75 million for a project at the Gallo Glass Company in Modesto, which would have demonstrated the viability of replacing gas-powered furnaces with a hybrid electric melter, reducing natural gas use by as much as 70%, the federal database shows.

Schiff and Padilla said all of the awards were provided through legally binding contract agreements between the recipients and the federal government, and so cannot be canceled “on a political whim.”

For its part, the DOE said it arrived at its decisions following a thorough and individualized financial review of each project, which found that they “did not meet the economic, national security or energy security standards necessary to sustain DOE’s investment.”

However, the terminations also appear to run counter to the administration’s own public commitments. The White House on Earth Day said Trump seeks to promote energy innovation “by supporting cutting-edge technologies like carbon capture and storage, nuclear energy, and next-generation geothermal.”

The DOE eliminated funding for projects across the country, including in Texas, Mississippi, Kentucky, Wyoming, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Ohio, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Texas, Washington, Arizona and Nevada.

But the cancellations in California mark yet another affront to the climate conscious state, which has in recent weeks also seen the Trump administration overturn its ability to set strict tailpipe emission standards and eventually ban the sale of new gas-powered gars. The state is suing the administration over that decision.