Greene

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he would be scoreboard watching on Sunday afternoon.

But he insisted he didn’t care how things played out.

His team, of course, had already been locked in as the National League’s No. 3 seed, set to host a best-of-three wild card series at Dodger Stadium starting Tuesday.

What wasn’t clear until the end of play on Sunday, however, was whether the Dodgers would be facing the Cincinnati Reds or New York Mets to open the postseason.

“I honestly don’t really care, I really don’t,” Roberts said. “I think the way we’re playing right now, it doesn’t matter who we play.”

In a photo finish for the NL’s final wild-card berth, it was the Reds who earned the final ticket to the postseason, clinching in spite of their Sunday loss to the Milwaukee Brewers thanks to the Mets’ defeat in Miami at the hand of the Marlins.

Thus, it will be the Reds coming to Chavez Ravine this week, trying to halt the Dodgers’ defense of last year’s championship.

“It’s a gritty group. It’s a hungry group. It’s certainly a younger group,” Roberts said after the matchup was set. “These guys are going to be coming in to win a series. They’re feeling really good about themselves. So we’ve got to focus on ourselves and take it to them.”

Here are nine things to know about the Reds ahead of Game 1 at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday at 6:08 p.m. (ESPN):

Graham Greene, the Oscar-nominated actor who helped open doors for Indigenous actors in Hollywood, died on Monday in Toronto after battling a long illness, Deadline and others report. The Canadian actor was 73.

Born in Ohsweken, on the Six Nations Reserve, Greene saw his Hollywood profile catapult after Kevin Costner cast him as Kicking Bird (Ziŋtká Nagwáka) in 1990’s “Dances With Wolves,” which won the Academy Award for best picture and earned Greene an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor.

During his screen career, which began with the 1979 Canadian drama series “The Great Detective,” Greene was cast in more than 180 films and TV shows. His first movie role was in 1983’s “Running Brave.”

He went on to star in several other high-profile films including “Maverick,” “The Green Mile,” “Die Hard With a Vengeance” and “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2.” The actor also appeared in “Tulsa King,” “Riverdale” and as Maximus in the final season of the Emmy-nominated show “Reservation Dogs,” which was among his final roles.

Graham Greene, right, and Kevin Costner in “Dances With Wolves.”

(Courtesy of Orion Pictures Corp.)

At the time of his death, he had eight upcoming projects, including the Stefan Ruzowitzky-directed thriller “Ice Fall,” which he had completed filming with Joel Kinnaman and Danny Huston. It’s scheduled to be released in October.

“He was a great man of morals, ethics and character and will be eternally missed,” Greene’s agent Michael Greene (no relation) said in a statement released to several outlets, including Deadline and TMZ. “You are finally free. Susan Smith is meeting you at the gates of heaven,” he added, referring to the actor’s former agent, who died in 2013.

Graham Greene and Molly Kunz in a scene from the 2021 drama “The Wolf and the Lion.”

(Emmanuel Guionet / Courtesy of Blue Fox Entertainment)

Outside of his acting career, Greene won a Grammy in 2000 for best spoken word album for children for his work on “Listen to the Storyteller.” He is also a Gemini and Canadian Screen Award winner and an Independent Spirit nominee. In 2021, he was immortalized with a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame, and earlier this year, he received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award in his native country.

Graham Greene in 2022 at the unveiling of his commemorative plaque for Arts & Entertainment on Canada’s Walk of Fame at Beanfield Centre in Toronto.

(Mathew Tsang / Getty Images)

In 1991, Greene told The Times that “Dances With Wolves” “was certainly the biggest film I’ve done. It’s made definite changes in my life — I’m more popular with the media, scripts are being offered to me from people I’ve never heard of. On the other hand, I’m being inundated. It’s good in a way. I shouldn’t complain.”

Greene is survived by his wife of 35 years, Hilary Blackmore; daughter Lilly Lazare-Greene; and grandson Tarlo.

Washington, DC – The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has accused Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of betraying “American values” by saying that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

In a fundraising email to supporters on Thursday, AIPAC – one of the most influential foreign policy lobby groups in the United States – likened Greene, a far-right legislator, to left-wing opponents of Israel.

“You expect anti-Israel smears from Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar,” the group said, referring to Muslim-American Democratic congressmembers.

“But now, Marjorie Taylor Greene has joined their ranks – spouting the same vile rhetoric and voting against the US-Israel alliance.”

Last week, Greene, an ally of US President Donald Trump, echoed the growing consensus of rights groups, academics and United Nations experts that Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza.

“It’s the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct 7th in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza,” the congresswoman wrote in a social media post.

The United Nations defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

Over the past 22 months, Israel has destroyed nearly all of Gaza, repeatedly displaced the enclave’s population, killed more than 61,000 people and imposed a suffocating blockade that sparked deadly hunger in the territory.

On Thursday, AIPAC called Greene’s genocide accusation “disgusting”.

“Let’s call this what it is: Marjorie Taylor Greene is the newest member of the anti-Israel Squad,” the group said.

“She may think this earns her praise from the far-left or online radicals — but we see it for what it is: a betrayal of American values and a dangerous distortion of the truth.”

Greene’s recent stances on Gaza stand in stark contrast with her staunch early support for Israel. In 2023, she led efforts to formally rebuke Tlaib – the only Palestinian American in Congress – over condemning Israeli policies.

With criticism of Israel in the US mostly coming from the progressive left, AIPAC rarely denounces members of Trump’s Republican Party.

But the lobby group said on Thursday that it will challenge “lies” about Israel, whether they come from the “radical left or the radical right”.

Although Trump has been uncompromising in his backing for Israel, a segment of his Republican base has been increasingly critical of unconditional support for the US ally, viewing the relationship as incompatible with the president’s “America first” mantra.

AIPAC spending

For decades, AIPAC has encouraged its members to donate to candidates for public office, and in 2022, it started directly spending tens of millions of dollars to defeat critics of Israel.

Last year, AIPAC helped oust two incumbent progressive congressmembers, spending record amounts on election advertisements.

AIPAC has not announced plans to challenge Greene in next year’s midterm elections.

The congresswoman did not face a primary opponent in her Georgia district last year and won the general election by nearly 30 percentage points.

In recent weeks, AIPAC has been trying to mitigate the growing outrage at Israel’s starvation policy in Gaza, often repeating false Israeli statements denying hunger in the territory and accusing Hamas of stealing the humanitarian aid.

However, despite the group’s efforts, many congressmembers, including some legislators who have been backed by AIPAC, have begun condemning Israel’s conduct in Gaza.

On Wednesday, Democratic Congresswoman Valerie Foushee, whom AIPAC helped elect to Congress in 2022 with $2m in campaign spending, said she was co-sponsoring a bill to block offensive weapons to Israel.

“We simply cannot continue to provide the Israeli government with weapons when they are not being used in accordance with international law to maximize the protection of civilians in Gaza,” Foushee wrote in a social media post.

Skeletal babies. Starving families shot down while waiting in line for food. Images and video of the famine in Gaza are now everywhere, and they’ve done in a few weeks what 21 months of war could not: squeeze empathy for Palestinians out of MAGA.

This week, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia became the first House Republican to publicly use the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis now gripping the Palestinian enclave. “It’s the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct. 7 in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza,” Greene said in a social media post on her X account Monday evening.

More than 150 people have died because of malnutrition, including 89 children, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said this week. According to the United Nations, more than 1,000 people have been killed, most by Israeli troops, since May while trying to access food and aid at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution centers. On Monday alone, Israeli strikes or gunfire killed at least 78 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip.

Greene’s comments coincide with growing global outrage over reports of mass starvation in Gaza since Israel first cut off supplies to the enclave in March, then reopened aid lines in May but with new restrictions. In recent days, photographs and videos of emaciated children and dying infants have proliferated across news and social media, as have videos of desperate Palestinians killed while waiting in line for food.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Sunday that “there is no starvation in Gaza.” And commanding officer Effie Defrin, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, told reporters that most of the images were fake and distributed by the militant group Hamas. “It’s a campaign,” he said. “Unfortunately, some of the Israeli media, including some of the international media, is distributing this information and those false pictures, and creating an image of starvation which doesn’t exist.”

But even President Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel and Netanyahu, had to concede when asked about the crisis. “That’s real starvation stuff — I see it, and you can’t fake that,” he said Monday while in Scotland, where he met with European leaders and fielded questions about a crisis of another sort (his relationship with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein). “We have to get the kids fed.”

The undeniable horror in Gaza has hit an inflection point, and while the spike in compassion among the MAGA set may be momentary, other world leaders are seeking solutions to the suffering with or without U.S. support. Late Tuesday, France and 14 other Western nations called on other countries to move toward recognizing a Palestinian state. The statement was signed by the foreign ministers of Andorra, Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Slovenia and Spain.

Greene’s use of the word “genocide” is her strongest condemnation yet of Israel’s war conduct, and it deviates from the Republican Party line of unconditional support for that country. But she has also targeted pro-Palestinian lawmakers such as Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), accusing them of “antisemitic activity” and “sympathizing with terrorists” when they called for Israel to lift its blockade of humanitarian aid for Gazans.

Greene’s comments about Gaza were in part a rebuke to a Republican representative, Randy Fine of Florida. Last week, he said the images of skin-and-bones children in Gaza were “Muslim terror propaganda” and posted, “Release the hostages. Until then, starve away.” The New York Times reported that Fine’s remarks were made the same day he was promoted to a seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee where he would focus on international policy.

Greene posted Sunday that she “can unequivocally say that what happened to innocent people in Israel on Oct 7th was horrific. Just as I can unequivocally say that what has been happening to innocent people and children in Gaza is horrific.”

Recently, the IDF announced it would pause action in certain parts of Gaza for hours each day and increase aid drops. The death toll from the war in Gaza has topped 60,000, with more likely buried under rubble from nearly two years of fighting. Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people in an Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel.

Though there has been an outcry over the staggering number of civilian deaths since the start of the war, increasingly graphic coverage of the Gaza famine has engendered new levels of outrage on both sides of the political spectrum. Too bad it’s taken the unspeakable suffering of babies, families and innocents to get us here.