serve

SACRAMENTO — Former Sen. Joseph B. Montoya, facing the possibility of prison for his conviction on seven corruption charges, should not be sentenced to more than a year behind bars, his lawyers argued in documents filed in federal court.

Montoya is due to be sentenced Thursday and his attorneys, Michael Sands and Bruce Kelton, contend that federal sentencing guidelines allow for a sentence of no more than six to 12 months in prison.

Earlier this week, federal prosecutors argued that, under the same guidelines, the Whittier Democrat’s conviction on extortion, racketeering and money laundering charges calls for a term ranging from eight years and one month to 10 years and one month.

U.S. Atty. David F. Levi said Montoya’s use of his Senate post to extort payments from citizens, his use of his state staff to help solicit money and his failure to turn over key documents subpoenaed by prosecutors are all factors that should increase his sentence.

Montoya’s lawyers argued, however, that he had no control over what documents were turned over to the government by his staff under the subpoena.

“There is no evidence whatever that Sen. Montoya was ever aware of what specific documents had, or had not, been found,” they said. “The government’s paranoid suspicions cannot substitute for evidence.”

Sands and Kelton also repeated their contention that the prosecution thwarted the senator’s defense by refusing to grant immunity to Montoya aide Steve English, who invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to testify.

In a separate recommendation to U.S. District Judge Milton L. Schwartz, federal probation officers have recommended a sentence of 6 1/2 years in prison for Montoya.

There’s some good news related to the Trump administration’s concerted attack on the Social Security Administration: Thus far, it doesn’t appear to have significantly affected the delivery of benefits. Checks are still going out and payments into beneficiaries’ bank accounts are still arriving on time.

Beyond that, however, the system is going to hell.

While Social Security appears to still be working well — superficially — under the surface the agency is suffering through a period of unprecedented turmoil. That’s the gist of a new report by Kathleen Romig and Devin O’Connor, Social Security experts at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Under the Trump administration, Romig and O’Connor observe, the Social Security Administration’s regional office staff “have been mostly eliminated, robbing front-line staff of key supports.” Headquarters staffing has been cut by nearly half, including technology experts. Field office and call center staff also have been eviscerated.

Few departments within SSA have been spared — not even the office tasked with helping members of Congress assist their constituents with Social Security issues and helping to develop legislation.

The so-called Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs was cut to three employees from 50. Constituent caseworkers in congressional offices have been receiving “bounce-back emails and no-replies from legislative liaison offices that were previously responsive to congressional inquiries,” according to a letter sent by 50 Democratic House members to the SSA in July.

Even Republicans, who generally have been willing to go along with the administration’s rampage through agency budgets, raised the alarm about customer service failures at SSA, noting in a legislative markup that “there are significant service delivery challenges at SSA that are impacting critical services that millions of Americans count on. “

The agency’s staffing problems may be simmering under the surface, but it translates into chronically poor customer service. “Inadequate staffing at SSA directly harms the retirees, people with disabilities, and bereaved families the agency is responsible for serving,” Romig and O’Connor report.

“Because there aren’t enough workers in SSA’s local offices, applicants wait over a month on average for an appointment. Because there aren’t enough people answering the agency’s 800 number, most callers wait over two hours on average for an answer, as of early August,” they write. “Because there aren’t enough disability examiners, applicants wait eight months for an initial decision on their eligibility for disability benefits, with an additional seven-month wait for those who appeal.”

Meanwhile, more information has emerged about the incursion of untrained representatives of Elon Musk’s budget-cutting DOGE service into Social Security’s most carefully guarded databases. The outcome has been the exposure of workers’ and beneficiaries’ private personal information to outsiders, all without adequate oversight.

I’ve been following Trump’s campaign against Social Security from the outset. Although Trump has promised repeatedly that “we’re not touching Social Security,” actions speak louder than words, and his unconcern about the program, if not his outright hostility, have been screaming from the rooftops.

Among the weapons Trump could use to undermine the program, as I wrote, was “starving the program of administrative resources — think money and staff.” As it happened, Sure enough, within a month of Trump’s inauguration, the program announced plans to reduce its employee base to 50,000 from 57,000.

Its press release about the reduction referred to the program’s “bloated workforce.” That sounded like a cheap gag, since the truth is that the agency has been hopelessly understaffed for years.

The DOGE team showed its ignorance and incompetence at every turn, issuing inaccurate assertions about fraud at Social Security and then instituting operational changes that had no effect on fraud but inconvenienced thousands of beneficiaries. In March, for example, a DOGE employee went on Fox News with the claim that 40% of phone calls to the agency to change direct deposit information came from fraudsters. As a result, the agency mandated that such changes had to be made in person or online.

The true statistic misinterpreted by DOGE was that 40% of direct deposit fraud is connected with phone calls, not that 40% of all calls to change bank information is fraudulent. After the dime dropped at DOGE, the restriction was rescinded.

Since then, the Trump administration has acted from time to time as if the Social Security Administration is an arm of the White House. In March, it shut down SSA services in Maine because the state’s governor had challenged Trump face-to-face over his policies. (The decision was promptly reversed, but then-Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek admitted that he had taken the step in retaliation for the governor’s conflict with Trump.)

In April, Trump tried to dragoon Social Security into his anti-immigrant campaign by declaring some 6,300 purportedly illegal immigrants to be “dead” in program records, even though they were very much alive. The administration said its goal was to deny the workers benefits, though under the law noncitizens without legal residency in the U.S. can’t collect benefits, even if they’ve made payroll contributions to the program.

The biggest threat to the public’s confidence in Social Security may be the administration’s raid on its secure databases, starting with a rampage by DOGE documented by then-Chief of Staff Tiffany Flick.

More has come out since Flick filed her account in court. Last month, Chuck Borges, formerly the program’s chief data officer, filed a whistleblower affidavit outlining his concerns about “serious data security lapses, evidently orchestrated by DOGE officials, currently employed as SSA employees, that risk the security of over 300 million Americans’ Social Security data.”

DOGE, Borges reported, created “a live copy of the country’s Social Security information” and placed it in a digital platform that could be easily accessed by those without authorization.

At issue is the so-called NUMIDENT database, which includes the “name, … place and date of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, parents’ names and social security numbers, phone number, address, and other personal information” of every applicant for a Social Security card.

“Should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment,” Borges asserts, “Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, may lose vital healthcare and food benefits, and the government may be responsible for re-issuing every American a new Social Security Number at great cost.”

Trump has instituted the largest staffing cut in Social Security history, while the caseload per employee is higher than ever

(Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)

A federal court shut that access and activity down. But in June it was overruled by the Supreme Court, which unaccountably granted DOGE members access to the agency database “in order for those members to do their work.”

SSA didn’t respond to my request for comment on these issues or on increasing concern about the program’s functioning under its recently installed commissioner, Frank Bisignano.

Bisignano has been issuing self-congratulatory press releases boasting about improvements to customer service metrics at the agency — for example, phone answer times cut to an average of six minutes, down from 30 minutes last year. A press release issued in July attributed the improvement to “focused technology enhancements and process engineering.”

In fact, according to Romig and O’Connor, it’s more likely that the improvement happened because the agency reassigned 1,000 staffers from field offices, where they served clients face-to-face, to answering phones. The reassignments, Romig and O’Connor observed, “likely is coming at a steep cost to the rest of the agency’s work.”

At least 2,000 field office employees already had been pushed out by DOGE, so removing an additional 1,000 workers from the field only “deepens problems for people seeking in-person service — which were already considerable.”

Indeed, back in April the agency itself acknowledged that more than three dozen field offices around the country were in dire condition, suffering staff losses of 25% to 33% from DOGE’s “voluntary” resignation program that resulted in the loss of more than 7,000 workers overall, or 13% of the payroll.

Earlier this year, DOGE listed 47 Social Security offices due for closing, though it is not clear how many have actually been shuttered this year or what the schedule is for closing the rest.

Over the last decade or so, Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been wringing their hands over what they say is Social Security’s impending fiscal crisis, caused by the exhaustion of its trust fund reserve sometime in the next decade. But that’s still the subject of conjecture.

What’s more certain is that the congressional cheeseparing and the DOGE raid that have produced the largest staffing cut in the program’s history — at a time when its caseload is at record size and is destined to grow even further — loom as a greater threat to most workers and beneficiaries.

“To raise customer service to acceptable levels, Congress must not only provide SSA with sufficient funding but also forcefully push back against the Administration’s current mismanagement of its existing resources,” Romig and O’Connor maintain.

They’re right. Isn’t it time for Capitol Hill to take firm, bipartisan action to protect America’s most important government service from its enemies?

Sept. 12 (UPI) — Former South Korean President Roh Tae-woo’s eldest son has been nominated to serve as the country’s next ambassador to China, according to reports.

The nomination of Roh Jae-heon, 60, was reported Thursday by Yonhap, JoongAng Ilbo and other local media, citing unidentified diplomatic sources.

Roh, director of the East Asia Culture Center in Seoul, would become the first ambassador to China under the administration of President Lee Jae-myung, who was sworn in ln June 4.

China’s foreign ministry spokesman, Lin Jian, told reporters during a regular scheduled press conference on Thursday that he has noted the reports of Roh’s nomination.

“Diplomatic envoys are important bridges for friendly cooperation and development of relations between countries,” he said. “China is waiting for the ROK’s formal nomination.”

The Republic of Korea is the country’s official name.

While Roh has no public service experience as a diplomat, he has been involved in relations between South Korea and China for over a decade, reports said.

He was among Lee’s delegation to China last month, just before a South Korea-U.S. summit in Washington.

Roh established the Korea-China Culture Center in 2012, which marked the 20th anniversary of the establishment of ties between the two countries, which occurred during his father’s presidency. The center has since been renamed the East Asia Culture Center.

Critics of the appointment called it an “insult” to the families of the victims of the Gwangju Democratic Uprising in 1980. Roh’s father was associated with a brutal military crackdown against the pro-democracy uprising in Gwangju.

Head of the American Immigration Lawyers Association says plan similar to having ‘a cardiologist do a hip replacement’.

Hundreds of military and civilian lawyers working for the United States Department of Defense (DOD) will serve as immigration judges temporarily, officials have said, in the latest move by President Donald Trump’s administration to involve the military in US domestic affairs.

“These DOD attorneys will augment existing resources to help further combat a backlog of cases by presiding over immigration hearings,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement on Tuesday.

Military lawyers are not trained to serve as immigration judges, and one US official told the Reuters news agency that even with additional training, it would be difficult for military lawyers to act as judges.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to the Justice Department as part of the plan, according to a memo reviewed by The Associated Press news agency.

The military will begin sending groups of 150 lawyers “as soon as practicable”, according to the memo, with the lawyers expected to serve as immigration judges for 179 days initially, Reuters reported.

The head of the American Immigration Lawyers Association described the plan as similar to having “a cardiologist do a hip replacement”.

“Expecting fair decisions from judges unfamiliar with the law is absurd. This reckless move guts due process and further undermines the integrity of our immigration court system,” said Ben Johnson, the organisation ‘s executive director.

In his 2024 book The War on Warriors, Defense Secretary Hegseth was highly critical of military lawyers, saying that most “spend more time prosecuting our troops than putting away bad guys”.

The move to deploy the military lawyers comes as the Trump administration turns to military support for its crackdown on undocumented immigration, including the growing role of troops patrolling the US-Mexico border, National Guard members being sent into US cities to support immigration enforcement efforts, detaining people at military bases in advance of deportation, and using military aircraft to carry out deportations.

On Tuesday, a court ruled that the Trump administration had “wilfully” violated federal law by sending National Guard troops to Los Angeles in early June.

Shares in Serve Robotics (SERV -1.96%) rose by 15.7% in the week through Friday morning, driven higher by the initiation of coverage by Wedbush Securities, whose analyst Dan Ives slapped a $15 price target on the stock and gave it an “outperform” rating. Given that the price target represents a 33% premium to the stock price at the time of writing, it’s not too late to buy in if you have confidence in the analyst’s expectations.

Serve Robotics’ expansion plan

While it’s never a good idea to slavishly follow Wall Street analysts, there’s certainly a case for the stock based on the growth potential for its last-mile delivery of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven robots. Last-mile deliveries to residential addresses can be costly and inefficient, and it makes perfect logistical and commercial sense to have them carried out by robots; hence Serve’s contract with Uber Eats.

Management has already launched the service in Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, and Atlanta, and expects to scale these locations while launching additional ones in Chicago and ultimately reaching 2,000 robots in service by the end of the year.

Image source: Getty Images.

Where next for Serve Robotics?

The Wall Street consensus predicts sales to surge by $35 million in 2026 and then $71 million in 2027, driven by the rollout. That’s fair enough, but before investing in the stock, consider that this is a competitive field. Unlike Tesla and its robotaxi rollout, Serve simply doesn’t have a dominant market position in the type of vehicle/robot used in service. That might put pressure on its ability to grow margins in the future.

“Beautiful Girls” hitmaker Sean Kingston will spend three and a half years behind bars for his involvement in a months-long scheme that defrauded luxury goods businesses of more than $1 million.

U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz handed down the 35-year-old performer’s sentence Friday, months after a Florida jury convicted the singer (born Kisean Paul Anderson) and his mother, Janice Turner, in March on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and four counts of wire fraud each.

“We respect the Court’s decision and the judicial process,” Kingston attorney Zeljka Bozanic told The Times in a statement. Bozanic said Kingston’s defense team is “content” the court opted for a shorter prison sentence — the government had requested five years in prison — and said “most of the restitution in this case was paid back, even before these charges were brought.”

“Sean is taking this as a learning experience and will continue moving forward in a positive direction,” Bozanic added. “We are actively reviewing all available options, including potential appeals, to ensure his rights are fully protected.”

During his court appearance in a South Florida courtroom Friday, Kingston apologized to the judge and said he had learned from his actions. Under house arrest since his conviction, Kingston was taken into custody immediately despite a defense attorney’s request that Kingston self-surrender at a later date due to health issues. Prior to the sentencing, Bozanic filed a sentencing memorandum requesting that the court consider a shorter sentence.

“Mr. Anderson accepted responsibility in this case and has made all the positive steps toward learning and growing from this situation,” Bozanic said in the memorandum, which also describes the singer’s previous charitable acts. The document notes that Kingston has “never served prison time before” and that a “high sentence is not necessary to deter future conduct.”

Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida accused Kingston and his mother of swindling more than $480,000 worth of jewelry from one person and, from others, a Cadillac Escalade worth nearly $160,000 and furniture costing upward of $86,500. Prosecutors said Kingston and his mother also stole more than $200,000 from Bank of America and more than $100,000 from First Republic Bank — allegations they initially denied.

SWAT officers descended on the “Take You There” singer’s Florida home last May. His mother was arrested during the raid and Kingston was arrested soon after near the Fort Irwin Army base in San Bernardino County. Turner was sentenced to five years in prison last month.

Kingston rose to popularity in the early 2000s for “Beautiful Girls,” which samples Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me.” He is also known for the songs “Eenie Meenie,” “Fire Burning” and “Me Love.”

Times editorial library director Cary Schneider and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

With the Jeffrey Epstein controversy still dogging him, President Trump has embraced his favorite distraction: the culture wars.

It began when he announced that Coca-Cola was switching to cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. Coke responded with a statement that basically boiled down to: “Wait, what?” — before announcing the company would release a Trump-approved version of the famous cola.

Now, you might think decisions like these should be left up to the companies. After all, it’s none of the government’s business, and Republicans supposedly believe in free markets.

But no! Trump followed up by threatening to block a new stadium for Washington’s NFL team unless it changed its name back to the Redskins. He also demanded that Cleveland’s baseball team go back to being called the Indians.

At first glance, this seems like a ridiculous ploy to distract us from Epstein. And sure, that’s part of the story. But here’s what Trump understands: A lot of Americans feel like somebody came along and stole all their cool stuff — iconic team names, high-hold hair spray, military bases named after Confederate generals — and replaced them with soulless, modern stuff. “Guardians,” “low-flow shower heads,” “Fort Liberty.”

We might laugh at his trivial Coke crusade, but sports teams evoke more primal emotions. You can drink a Coke today and a Pepsi tomorrow. But you can’t root for the Indians on Monday and the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday. Not unless you’re a psychopath — or someone who wants to get punched in a bar. Team loyalty matters.

Trump gets this. When I was a kid, the Redskins won three Super Bowls. There were songs like “Hail to the Redskins,” team heroes (like John Riggins, Doug Williams and coach Joe Gibbs), and all manner of burgundy and gold merch. It wasn’t just a team. It was part of our identity — as well as an excuse to spend time together (even as decades passed without another Super Bowl run).

Then one day: poof. Goodbye Redskins.

Now imagine that same sense of loss in an already deracinated place like the Rust Belt, where the ball club is a big part of the city’s identity, and where they already closed Dad’s factory and then had the gall to take his boyhood team’s name too.

This isn’t really about names. It’s about nostalgia. Tradition. Identity. It’s about trying to keep a tenuous grip on a world you can still recognize, while everything else dissolves into a place where even choosing a bathroom is a political statement.

Now, is the name Redskins offensive? Sure. Even though a 2016 Washington Post poll found that 9 out of 10 Native Americans weren’t offended, you’d be hard-pressed to defend it on the merits. But the Indians? Come on. Just lose the Chief Wahoo cartoon. This isn’t rocket science.

So is Trump onto something when it comes to the real-world backlash to overwrought political correctness? Yes. But he’s also profiting politically off of people pining for a world that never really existed.

I thought about this last fall when Trump worked the fry station and drive-through window at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania. At first, it seemed like just another stunt to troll Kamala Harris (who said she once worked for McDonald’s).

But then I saw him in that red apron with the yellow piping — still wearing his red tie, of course — and thought: This is Rockwell. This image evokes a time when a white guy of a certain age could sling burgers, go home to his wife and kids, mow his middle-class lawn, crack open a Coca-Cola, and watch the Redskins and the Cowboys.

Whether Trump consciously appreciates the power of this imagery, I don’t know. But he clearly understands that there is power in yearning, that culture is more primordial than American politics and that refusing to exploit these forces (out of some sense of propriety) would be a sucker’s move.

To some degree, he’s been playing this game for years — think energy efficient lightbulbs, paper straws and his criticism over Apple’s decision to get rid of the iPhone home button. If something new comes along, Trump is already up there stoking cultural outrage, blaming the “woke” left and demanding somebody bring him a Diet Coke. It’s what he does.

But here’s why this actually matters: These little skirmishes don’t just distract from the bigger, more dangerous stuff — they enable it.

Even as he accuses former President Obama of treason (which is absurd and dangerous), Trump’s bond with his supporters is reinforced by these small, almost laughable grievances. He makes them feel seen, defended and nostalgic for a world that (to them, at least) made more sense.

That emotional connection with his base is what allows Trump to tell bigger lies and launch bolder attacks without losing them.

Coke and the Redskins may seem trivial. But they’re the sugar that helps the poison go down.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

A consumer rights champion has explained the rules after one woman had to eat Greek food every day on her Greek holiday

A consumer rights expert has explained what you can do if your hotel on a foreign holiday refuses to serve you a full English breakfast, after a woman got £100 from TUI because she couldn’t get British food on her Greek break. Susan Edwards took a seven-night getaway to the Greek island of Corfu but was horrified to find there was no English food available – although she did get chips one night.

Susan, from Westerhope, described the holiday as “horrendous from the minute [they] got there.”

Susan said: “It was all-inclusive, £750 each we paid and there was no food we could eat and we couldn’t have anything to drink.”

Susan, who has ulcerative colitis, said: “On a morning you could have toast, a hard boiled egg, or something in sauce. There was no bacon. For breakfast there was mozzarella and sliced tomatoes. There was no hot bacon or sausage.

“We got chips one day. One day out of the whole lot. There was fish, sardines and rice – I was sick to death of looking at rice. There was pasta and salads, none of this was marked (labelled). One night there was a Greek night and they had kebabs, I couldn’t eat that. It’s the worst holiday I’ve ever been on.”

Susan was offered £100 in holiday vouchers from TUI but has turned down the offer.

Consumer rights expert Helen Dewdney, known as The Complaining Cow, said your package holiday rights are protected under the Package Holiday and Linked Travel Arrangements 2018.

She said: “A package holiday consists or two or more components, such as accommodation and flight or transfers, and must last longer than 24 hours or at the very least have an overnight element. The organiser (i.e. the travel company with which you booked) is liable for the failures of hoteliers, suppliers and services within the contract.”

Helen said: “The organiser must not provide misleading information. If the holiday does not match the description, you will be entitled to redress. The organiser must clearly state the details of the booking in a Standard Information Form, before you make any payment. The Form must include specifics of any arrangements: dates, times, costs, meals, excursions included/excluded, activities, transportation, cancellation fees, contact details for the package organiser, information on compulsory/voluntary insurance regarding repatriation in the event of illness/death/accident, and/or the cost of termination of the contract by the traveller.”

She added: “You are entitled to redress for the disappointment and distress caused by things going wrong. The amount will be dependent on what and for how much of the holiday.”

Helen said: “Make sure you take out travel insurance at the same time you book your holiday. You never know what might happen between now and then!”

She added: “Is it reasonable to claim for a lack of ‘English food’ on a continental holiday? Probably not. However, at least one TUI customer has succeeded in claiming limited compensation for this alleged breach, although she has got to buy another holiday to use it!”

A spokesperson for TUI UK and Ireland said: “Our priority is to ensure customers have the best possible holiday experience, so we are sorry to hear that Mrs Edwards felt dissatisfied with her holiday. We have been in touch directly with Mrs Edwards to come to a resolution.”

PARIS — Top-ranked Jannik Sinner beat Novak Djokovic 6-4, 7-5, 7-6 (3) on Friday to set up a French Open final against defending champion Carlos Alcaraz.

Djokovic is the men’s record 24-time Grand Slam champion but could not counter Sinner’s relentless accuracy and pounding forehands on Court Philippe-Chatrier.

Sinner became only the second Italian man to reach the final at Roland-Garros after Adriano Panatta, the 1976 champion.

Earlier, Alcaraz led 4-6, 7-6 (3), 6-0, 2-0 against Lorenzo Musetti when the eighth-seeded Italian retired with a leg injury.

Sinner is aiming for his fourth major title, Alcaraz his fifth.

Djokovic fought back in the third set but wilted in the tiebreaker, somehow missing an easy smash at the net to trail 3-0 and then lost on the second match point he faced when his forehand hit the net.

“These are rare and special moments,” Sinner said. “I’m very happy.”

He extended his winning streak in Grand Slam tournaments to 20 matches, after winning the U.S. Open and the Australian Open.

Djokovic was bidding for a record-extending 38th Grand Slam final, and eighth in Paris, where he was won three times. But he spent much of the semifinal camped behind the baseline, sliding at full stretch and grunting loudly while Sinner sent him scurrying left and right like a windshield wiper.

A cross-court two-handed backhand winner from Sinner in the ninth game of the third set was executed with such pure timing that it drew applause even from Djokovic.

Sinner gave him almost no chances, but there was a glimmer of light in the 10th game, when Djokovic had four chances to break Sinner’s serve.

The crowd broke out into prolonged chants of “Nole! Nole!” as Djokovic forced two break points at 15-40.

Sinner saved both. Tensions were rising.

The crowd started self-policing when a couple of rowdy fans shouted out as Sinner prepared to serve, telling the offenders to “Chut!” (the French for shush).

Djokovic’s forehand landed wide on his third break-point chance making it deuce. The chair umpire Damien Dumusois came down to check the mark. Djokovic disagreed and walked over, saying “It’s on the line.” Then Sinner came to the net and had a brief discussion with Djokovic, who lost the point but won the next with an overhead smash for a fourth set point, saved again by Sinner.

In the first semifinal, Alcaraz acknowledged it was a tough way for Musetti to lose.

“It’s not great to win a match like this. Lorenzo is a great player,” Alcaraz said. “I wish him all the best, and wish him a quick recovery and hope to see him soon on the court.”

Musetti had treatment on the inside of his left thigh late in the third set and then again before the fourth.

He was 5-0 down after 16 minutes of the third set when he called for a trainer. Alcaraz broke Musetti in the next game to clinch the set in 21 minutes, winning 24 of 29 points.

Musetti was clearly hindered in his movements and called for the trainer again. After Alcaraz broke his serve to lead 2-0, Musetti walked slowly up to the net and received a hug from Alcaraz.

“I felt at the beginning of the third when I was serving, I start losing a little bit of strength on the left leg behind, and definitely was going worse and worse, so I decided to stop,” Musetti said. “I think was the right decision to make, even if it was not what I wanted. Tomorrow I will do exams.”

Shawn Kemp’s name has long been synonymous with prodigious talent, a ton of trouble and wasted opportunity.

Now he’ll likely also be known for a jail sentence.

Kemp, 55, pleaded guilty to second-degree assault Tuesday for shooting at two men inside a vehicle in a Tacoma, Wash., mall parking lot. The plea was part of an agreement in Pierce County Superior Court in which prosecutors will recommend nine months of confinement in the county jail when Kemp is sentenced in August.

Kemp was initially charged with one count of first-degree assault with a firearm enhancement after the March 2003 shooting, and prosecutors last week added another count of assault as well as a drive-by shooting charge. No one was hurt, but the Toyota 4Runner the men were inside and another vehicle were damaged.

Kemp contended in a court filing that he fired in self-defense after one of the men shot at him. The 4Runner drove off before Tacoma police arrived, and and an empty holster was found inside the vehicle when it was discovered abandoned days later.

“Shawn is committed to moving forward in a positive direction,” Kemp’s attorney Tim Leary told the Seattle Times. “He was presented with an offer from the state that allows him to take responsibility, but I think also recognizes the self-defense nature of how this transpired.”

Seattle SuperSonics’ Shawn Kemp going in for a dunk against the Houston Rockets during their NBA playoff game May 5, 1997, in Houston.

(Pat Sullivan / Associated Press)

Kemp famously battled cocaine addiction and fathered at least seven children with six different women during a 15-year NBA career that began when he was 19 years old in 1989.

Kemp was arrested in 2006 for drug possession in Washington after he was found with cocaine, marijuana, and a pistol.

Growth has been halting, however, even for someone who sprouted 13 inches between the ninth and 11th grades, topping out at 6-foot-10. His weight ballooned during his career from 230 pounds to more than 300, yet he remained capable of dominating on the court.

That was long ago, though. And on Tuesday in court, his attorney explained that Kemp’s truck was broken into on March 8, 2023, when he and other employees who worked at his marijuana dispensary, Kemp’s Cannabis, were attending a concert in Seattle.

According to court documents, Kemp’s cellphone and game-worn Kemp and Gary Payton jerseys were among the items stolen. Kemp used a phone tracking app to look for the thieves, and confronted the driver of the 4Runner in a Tacoma mall parking lot.

A man in the back seat shot at Kemp with a handgun, according to the filing, and Kemp returned fire. The 4Runner fled, and when the vehicle was found abandoned days later, an empty holster was found inside but there was no gun, documents said.

As part of his plea, Kemp cannot possess a firearm. In addition to the proposed nine-month sentence, Kemp will spend one year in community custody and pay restitution.

“His plan is to tell the community about the dangers of gun violence, really to be a positive influence on youth,” Aaron Kiviat, another of Kemp’s attorneys, told the Seattle Times.

In a statement outlining the plea agreement, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Thomas Howe said that the case should be resolved ahead of trial because the two alleged victims were illegally in possession of Kemp’s belongings.

Both alleged victims are currently serving prison sentences in other cases. One is serving a seven-year sentence, in part for a July 2023 shooting in which he mistook the victim for Kemp. The same man recently filed a civil suit against Kemp stemming from the mall shooting.

Nicknamed the “Reign Man,” Kemp made $91,572,963 during his 15-year NBA career that ended in 2004. He was a six-time All-Star and helped the Seattle SuperSonics to the NBA finals in 1996 when he averaged a career-high 21.2 points a game. Kemp also played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, Portland Trail Blazers and Orlando Magic.

Kemp reflected on the ups and downs of his career on the All the Smoke podcast with former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, saying, “Going through some problems and stuff that I went through in my career also hurts you at the end. But I think when you look at the good side of it, and you compare the numbers and stuff, I’m right there with some of the best ones.”

May 18 (UPI) — Pope Leo XIV said it is “with fear and trembling” that he will seek to serve all people with “faith and joy” while he was delivering his inaugural homily as pontiff in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican on Sunday.

The Vatican reported about 100,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square to try and catch a glimpse of the new pontiff, who was driven through the square in an open-topped popemobile, the Vatican’s press office said.

The pope spoke during his homily of the remarkable events taking place during his ascendancy. He said there is “too much discord, too many wounds caused by hatred, violence, prejudice, the fear of difference, and the economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalizes the poorest.”

Leo XIV called on the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics to adopt a “missionary spirit” instead of closing themselves off “in our small groups” and asked the world’s faithful to eschew an attitude of being “superior to the world.”

“We are called to offer God’s love to everyone, in order to achieve that unity which does not cancel out differences but values the personal history of each person and the social and religious culture of every people,” he said.

Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were among official attendees, joining other political and religious dignitaries.

Vance had a private meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenksy later in the day, the Vatican said in a press release.