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Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, a lovable, quick-witted nun who became a national phenomenon for her relentless support of the Loyola Chicago University basketball team during its magical Final Four run in 2018, died Thursday, the school said. She was 106.

Sister Jean, as she was known, was 98 during Loyola’s March Madness splash. Her ever-present smile and the sparkle in her eyes were trademarks as she cheered on an unheralded underdog team that notched upset after upset before falling in the semifinals.

After each victory, she was pushed onto the court in her wheelchair and Loyola players and coaches swarmed to her, believing Sister Jean had somehow authored divine intervention.

“Just to have her around and her presence and her aura, when you see her, it’s just like the world is just great because of her spirit and her faith in us and Loyola basketball,” Loyola guard Marques Townes said at the time.

For her part, the lifelong nun downplayed any celestial impact even when leading the Ramblers in pregame prayers in her role as team chaplain.

“At the end of the prayer I always ask God to be sure that the scoreboard indicates that the Ramblers have the big W,” she told the Chicago Tribune. “God always hears but maybe he thinks it’s better for us to do the ‘L’ instead of the ‘W,’ and we have to accept that.”

Sister Jean lived on the top floor of Regis Hall, a campus dormitory that housed mostly freshmen. She’d broken her left hip during a fall a few months before the March Madness run, necessitating the wheelchair. But once she recovered, the barely 5-foot-tall firebrand was plenty mobile in her Loyola maroon Nikes.

She compiled scouting reports on opponents and hand-delivered them to the coaching staff. She sent encouraging emails to players and coaches after games, celebrating or consoling them depending on the outcome.

“If I had a down game or didn’t help the team like I thought I could,” Loyola star forward Donte Ingram said at the time, “she’d be like, ‘Keep your head up. They were out to get you tonight, but you still found ways to pull through.’ Just stuff like that.”

Sister Jean could also be quick with a joke. And she was hardly self-effacing. Told that the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum sold a record number of Sister Jean statuettes, she cracked during a special media breakout session at the Final Four, “I’m not saying this in a proud fashion, but I think the company could retire when they’re finished making my bobbleheads.”

Even the Covid shutdown couldn’t dampen her spirit. In 2021 at age 102, Sister Jean traveled to Indianapolis and watched Loyola upset top-seeded Illinois 71-58 to earn a berth in that year’s Sweet 16. The Ramblers players waved to her in the stands after the game.

“It was a great moment,” Sister Jean told reporters. “We just held our own the whole time. At the end, to see the scoreboard said the W belonged to Loyola, that whole game was just so thrilling.”

Dolores Bertha Schmidt was born in San Francisco on Aug. 21, 1919, the oldest of three children. She felt a calling to become a nun in the third grade, and after high school joined a convent in Dubuque, Iowa.

After taking her vows, she returned to California and became an elementary school teacher, first at St. Bernard School in Glassell Park before moving in 1946 to St. Charles Borromeo School in North Hollywood, where she also coached several sports including basketball. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Mount St. Mary’s College in L.A. in 1949.

“At noon, during lunch on the playground, I would have the boys play the girls,” she told the Athletic. “I told them, ‘I know you have to hold back because you play full court, but we need to make our girls strong.’ And they did make them strong.”

Among her students were Cardinal Roger Mahony, who served as archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 to 2011, Father Thomas Rausch, chairman of the theology department at Loyola Marymount, and Sister Mary Milligan, who became the first U.S.-born general superior of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary.

Sister Jean earned a master’s degree from Loyola Marymount University in L.A. in 1961 and took a teaching position in Chicago at Mundelein College, a school near Loyola that was all women at the time. She later served as dean.

Mundelein merged with Loyola in 1991 and within a few years Sister Jean became a team chaplain, a position she held until earlier this year.

“In many roles at Loyola over the course of more than 60 years, Sister Jean was an invaluable source of wisdom and grace for generations of students, faculty, and staff,” Loyola President Mark C. Reed said in a statement. “While we feel grief and a sense of loss, there is great joy in her legacy. Her presence was a profound blessing for our entire community and her spirit abides in thousands of lives. In her honor, we can aspire to share with others the love and compassion Sister Jean shared with us.”

Asked about her legacy, Sister Jean told the Chicago Tribune she hoped to be remembered as someone who served others.

“The legacy I want is that I helped people and I was not afraid to give my time to people and teach them to be positive about what happens and that they can do good for other people,” she said. “And being willing to take a risk. People might say, ‘Why didn’t I do that?’ Well, just go ahead and try it — as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody.”

Wearing size 17 shoes and standing 7-foot-3, Cherif Millogo is under the basket holding up his arms and touching the rim without leaving the ground. The rest of the “tiny” people in the St. Francis High gym are gawking in awe at his 7-9 wingspan.

That includes 6-8 head coach Todd Wolfson, who has twice won the basketball coaching lottery by having his second 7-footer show up out of nowhere. The first was 7-0 Belgium exchange student Gilles Dierickx when he was coaching at Chaminade in 2017.

This time, Wolfson received a phone call from an administrator at St. Francis in August.

“There’s a 7-3 kid wanting to come to St. Francis,” the administrator said.

“I thought he was lying,” Wolfson said.

Millogo didn’t play last season while attending the Cambridge Arts, Technology and Science Academy in Boston after tearing a knee ligament. He’s from the tiny West Africa country Burkina Faso. He was a soccer player until he had a growth spurt, participated in a basketball camp and was spotted playing in Togo, a country bordering Ghana. He ended up moving to Florida two years ago. He said he learned how to shoot a basketball watching YouTube videos of Kevin Durant.

St. Francis coach Todd Wolfson, who’s 6-foot-8, is no longer the tallest person in the gym. Cherif Millogo is 7-3 and a native of Burkina Faso.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

He speaks French, English and two tribal languages. He has a 7-foot older brother and his father is 6-8. He turned 18 on Sept. 27, which means he has two years of high school eligibility left. His guardian is former UCLA and NBA player Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, who came here from Cameroon.

Millogo was instantly embraced around St. Francis because of his engaging, friendly personality. During a practice, while listening in a circle around Wolfson, he had his arms around a teammate as if they were lifelong friends.

“He’s made me a better person,” Wolfson said. “His values are amazing.”

Millogo said his parents taught him to be respectful and friendly.

“For me, it’s natural,” he said.

Sophomore guard Luke Paulus said players were as surprised as Wolfson to learn about Millogo’s arrival.

“No way,” he said when he heard about the rumors. “First day of school, I saw him. ‘Wow, that’s a big human being.’ He’s a fun guy.”

Millogo, who’s Muslim, said attending a Catholic school is good. “I’m learning about new religions,” he said.

He also can show off his soccer skills if asked by juggling a ball with his feet.

Millogo joins an already talent-filled Mission League with the No. 1 class of 2026 prospect, Tyran Stokes of Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, and top five 2026 prospect, Brandon McCoy of Sierra Canyon.

Cherif Millogo towers over his new St. Francis High teammates.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

Millogo was asked if he was aware of Stokes and McCoy.

“From social media,” he said.

See what having an Instagram account can do to promote a high school basketball program? He said he saw a social media post of St. Francis’ students cheering at a game.

To say there could be lots of alley-oop passes this season for St. Francis might be an understatement. Wolfson, who has used a matchup zone defense at times during his coaching days, is teasing how it might make a return with Millogo in the middle. And he’s already planning for some new out-of-bounds plays trying to take advantage of Millogo’s height.

Millogo looks like a sold free-throw shooter and shot-blocker. Then there’s dunking with ease. He had nine dunks last weekend in a fall league game in which he scored 32 points. The previous game, he had 24 points, including five dunks. He should be eligible immediately next month when the season officially begins based on the fact he didn’t play last season, but St. Francis has yet to submit his transfer paperwork.

One thing is certain: The St. Francis student section and many other fans are going to be entertained watching Millogo deliver dunk after dunk.

Kim Jong Un claims no mistakes made in 80-year history of ruling party at event attended by Chinese and Russian leaders.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared the country’s global standing is growing stronger and promised to transform the country into an “affluent socialist paradise” during an event marking the 80th anniversary of the governing Workers’ Party of Korea, according to state media.

At a speech at May Day stadium in Pyongyang on Thursday, Kim said the party had not made “a single mistake or error” in its 80-year history, leading the country on a path of ascent riding on the wisdom and strength of the people, KCNA state news agency said on Friday.

“Today, we stand before the world as a mighty people with no obstacles we cannot overcome and no great achievement we cannot accomplish,” he said, KCNA reported.

North Korea has long been one of the most isolated and insular nations in the world, suffering economic difficulties while building up its nuclear weapons capabilities.

Friday’s events follow Kim’s visit to Beijing last month for China’s 80th anniversary of its World War II victory, standing with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a massive military parade in his first public appearance on the multilateral diplomatic stage.

United States President Donald Trump suggested that Russian, Chinese and North Korean leaders were conspiring against the United States as they gathered in Beijing, saying “no one even had this in their thoughts”.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote to China’s leader Xi Jinping at the time: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”

KCNA did not name the guests attending Thursday’s events. Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Vietnamese leader To Lam and Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev had arrived in Pyongyang to attend anniversary celebrations, state media had reported.

Mass games and art performances were held at the stadium, with Kim accompanied by guests whom the large crowd gathered greeted with cheers “that shook the capital’s night sky”, KCNA said.

Al Jazeera’s Jack Barton, reporting from Seoul, said according to a South Korean government adviser, North Korea was “no longer the most isolated state in the world”.

“The message here is also … that he has consolidated his power at home and now increasingly on the international stage,” Barton added.

Kim talks tough on US and promises to build a ‘socialist paradise’

Kim said that North Korea has been pushing for the simultaneous development of nuclear weapons and the economy to cope with “growing nuclear war threats by the US imperialists”, according to state media.

“Our party and government are still coping with our adversaries’ ferocious political and military moves of pressure by pursuing harder-line policies, holding fast to firm principles and employing brave, unflinching countermeasures,” Kim said.

“This is powerfully propelling the growth of the progressive camp against war and hegemony.”

Last month, Kim Jong Un had suggested that he is open to talks with the US if Washington stops insisting that his country give up its nuclear weapons.

“If the United States drops the absurd obsession with denuclearising us and accepts reality, and wants genuine peaceful coexistence, there is no reason for us not to sit down with the United States,” Kim said in late September.

Kim on Friday also expressed confidence in overcoming difficulties and drastically improving the economy in the near future. “I will surely turn this country into a more affluent and beautiful land and into the best socialist paradise in the world,” Kim said.

The North Korean leader also held talks with Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Thursday, praising the two countries’ “friendly and cooperative relations”.

Kim praised Li’s visit as “showing the invariable support and special friendly feeling towards the WPK and the government and people of the DPRK” as well as Beijing’s efforts to maintain “traditional DPRK-China friendly and cooperative relations and further develop them”, KCNA reported.

Congratulations are in order for President Trump. He said he would bring home Israel’s hostages and end the horrific fighting in Gaza, and that appears to be exactly what he is doing with this week’s deal. While many of the ideas that went into Trump’s 20-point peace plan predated his reelection, he and his team deserve a standing ovation for translating those ideas into a practical proposal, defining a first phase that was both big and digestible and putting together all the pieces that made its agreement possible.

Success, however, does have its downsides. Remember the Pottery Barn rule of foreign policy, made famous during the Iraq war? “You break it, you own it.” We now have the Trump corollary: “You patch it, you own it.”

Despite coming to office eager to shed America’s Middle East commitments, Trump just took on a huge one: responsibility for a peace plan that will forever bear his name. On Oct. 6, 2023, the day before Hamas’ assault, Arab-Israeli relations were poised for the historic breakthrough of Saudi-Israel normalization; two years later, Arab-Israeli relations — including Trump’s first-term Middle East peacemaking achievement of the Abraham Accords — are hanging on by a thread. By offering a plan that promises not just an end to fighting in Gaza but building a full and enduring regional peace, the president has taken on the task of repairing the damage wrought by Hamas’ unholy war. In other words: fixing the Middle East.

How Trump fulfills this not inconsequential responsibility has major consequences for America’s role in the region and in the world. The Chinese are watching whether, when the going gets rough, he will have the mettle to maintain a broad alliance. The Russians are watching whether the president will strictly enforce the letter of the deal or let certain unpleasant aspects slip. The Iranians will be watching whether Trump will find himself so drowning in the details of Gaza reconstruction that he won’t be able to stitch together a repeat of the highly successful Arab-Israeli coalition that protected Israel a year ago from Iran’s barrages of ballistic missiles and drones. And all these adversaries — and others — will wonder whether the intense U.S. focus needed to ensure implementation of this deal will distract the president from their own areas of mischief.

Those are some of the international stakes. There’s a difficult road ahead in achieving the deal itself. Some of the most vexing challenges will include:

• Implementing a highly complex Gaza peace plan that, in its requirements for disarmament, envisions Hamas to be fully complicit in its organizational suicide — or at least its institutional castration;
• Having the U.S. military orchestrate the recruitment, deployment and management of multinational forces to police the territory just as the Israel Defense Forces are withdrawing from it, a tricky maneuver fraught with risk;
• Creating and supervising a transitional administration that will oversee everything from humanitarian relief to rubble and ordnance removal to massive reconstruction projects, all the while preventing what’s left of Hamas from stealing goods to divert to underground weapons factories, an art that it perfected after previous ceasefires;
• Securing buy-in from the United Nations and its specialized agencies, which need to play an essential role in delivering food and medical services, without buckling under pressure to rehabilitate the deeply flawed U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, an organization that bears special responsibility for keeping the Palestinian-Israeli conflict alive for decades;
• Preventing Qatar and Turkey — longtime friends of Hamas who have emerged in recent weeks as diplomatic Good Samaritans — from translating their current status into a malign influence over the direction of Palestinian politics, which can only be worrisome to Israel and the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority and a long-term detriment to the cause of peace;
• And dealing every step of the way with an Israeli prime minister of a rightist coalition who will likely view every decision, great and small, through the lens of a fateful election he is expected to call very soon that will show whether the Israeli people want to punish him for the terrible errors that left Israel unprepared for Hamas’ 2023 attack or reward him for the impressive victories Israel’s military achieved across the region in the two years that followed.

Getting this far was a huge achievement. Ensuring effective execution — never a strong suit for a “big idea guy” like Trump — is a thousand times more difficult. This can’t be done with a small team of White House officials chatting on Signal. It will require an army of — please excuse the term — experts: experts in military command and control, experts in ordnance removal and disposal, experts in civilian rehabilitation and reconstruction, experts in communication and community engagement. Corporate subcontracting can address some of this, as can the impressive talents of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, but don’t be fooled into thinking that a consulting company or a former foreign official can pick up the slack of the entire U.S. government. This plan, after all, has Trump’s name on it, not Deloitte’s or Blair’s.

The president has at least one more vital task in this matter. He must explain to the American people why we are doing this. For nearly 20 years, American presidents of both parties have said they wanted to pivot away from the Middle East, but they continually find themselves entangled in the region’s often byzantine conflicts and politics. Americans deserve to know why the “America First” president has decided that American interests are intimately bound up in the success of this peace plan. Our domestic divisions notwithstanding, fair-minded people on both sides of the aisle will be rooting for Trump’s success in this peace deal.

For now, sure, the president should enjoy the accolades and celebrate the coming release of Hamas’ hostages. The morning after will come soon enough.

Robert Satloff is executive director of the Washington Institute.

Brooke Knowles knew she wanted the black puppy posted on the Facebook page of a self-described home breeder of Coton De Tulears. He looked like he’d have an outgoing personality.

She put down a nonrefundable deposit and drove to Temecula to pick him up. She paid about $2,000 and named him Ted.

Before she even left for home, Ted vomited and had diarrhea on the grass outside. He was lethargic, his chest soaked with drool.

A closer look later at the paperwork provided by the seller revealed something else unsettling: Ted wasn’t bred in California. He had been imported from a kennel in Utah.

“I thought that I was getting a dog that had been bred at his home,” Knowles said in a series of interviews with The Times. “This poor puppy, he was so traumatized.”

On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a series of animal welfare bills into state law that will restrict puppy sales and strengthen protections for buyers like Knowles. The bills were introduced as a result of a Times investigation last year that detailed how designer dogs are trucked into California from out-of-state commercial breeders and resold by people saying they were small, local operators.

The three bills Newsom signed into law are:

• Assembly Bill 519 by Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) bans online marketplaces where dogs are sold by brokers, which is defined as any person or business that sells or transports a dog bred by someone else for profit. That includes major national pet retailers, including PuppySpot, as well as California-based operations that resell puppies bred elsewhere. The law applies to dogs, cats and rabbits under a year old. It does not apply to police dogs or service animals and provides an exemption for shelters, rescues and 4H clubs.
• AB 506 by Assemblymember Steve Bennett (D-Ventura) voids pet purchase contracts involving California buyers if the seller requires a nonrefundable deposit. The law also makes the pet seller liable if they fail to disclose breeder details and medical history.
• Senate Bill 312 by state Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Orange) requires pet sellers to share health certificates with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which would then make them available without redactions to the public.

The bills were supported by California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who said they are “an important step in shutting down deceptive sales tactics of these puppy brokers.”

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and it’s time to shine a light on puppy mills,” Newsom said in a statement. “Greater transparency in pet purchases will bring to light abusive practices that take advantage of pets in order to exploit hopeful pet owners. Today’s legislation protects both animals and Californians by addressing fraudulent pet breeding and selling practices.”

Lawmakers said new laws close loopholes that emerged after California in 2019 banned the sale of commercially bred dogs, cats and rabbits in pet stores. That retail ban did not apply to online sales, which surged during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Times’ investigation found that in the years after the retail ban took effect, a network of resellers stepped in to replace pet stores, often posing as local breeders and masking where puppies were actually bred. Some buyers later discovered they had purchased dogs from sellers using fake names or disposable phone numbers after their pets became ill or died.

Times reporters analyzed the movement of more than 71,000 dogs coming into California since 2019 by requesting certificates of veterinary inspection, which are issued by a federally accredited veterinarian listing where the animal came from, its destination and verification that it is healthy enough to travel.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture has long received those health certificates from other states by mistake — the records are supposed to go to county public health departments — and, in recent years, made it a practice to immediately destroy them. Dog importers who were supposed to submit the records to counties largely failed to do so.

The Times obtained the records by requesting the documents from every other state. In the days following the story’s publication, lawmakers and animal advocates called on the state’s Food and Agriculture Department to stop “destroying evidence” of the deceptive practices by purging the records. The department began preserving the records thereafter, but released them with significant redactions.

In one instance, the state redacted the name and address of a person with numerous shipments of puppies from Ohio. The Times obtained the same travel certificates without redactions from the Ohio Department of Agriculture. The address listed on the records is for a Home Depot in Milpitas. The phone number on some of those travel certificates belongs to Randy Kadee Vo.

The Times’ reporting last year found Vo’s name and various Bay Area addresses, including a warehouse, were listed as the destination for 1,900 dogs imported into California since 2019. At the time, he disputed that number but declined to say how many he had imported. People who bought puppies from Vo told The Times that they were told they were buying puppies that were locally bred.

Shortly after The Times questioned Vo about the imports, a different name, along with the Home Depot address, began appearing on health certificates with his phone number. Vo did not respond to a request for comment.

The Times identified hundreds of records detailing other sellers with names that appear to be fake or addresses that go to unaffiliated businesses, shopping centers and commercial mailbox offices.

While the new laws were championed by animal welfare groups, some have questioned how adequately the laws will be enforced by state officials — particularly when it comes to policing out-of-state facilities selling online and then shipping puppies directly California buyers.

“Enforcement will now fall on nonprofits like ours to monitor and report issues that we see, in hopes that the agencies act,” said Mindi Callison, head of the Iowa-based anti-puppy-mill nonprofit Bailing Out Benji.

Callison said lawmakers should next turn their focus to requiring California breeders to be licensed, similar to standards in Iowa, Missouri and other states. California does not have a statewide licensing program, instead relying on local jurisdictions for oversight. While some cities and counties require breeders to be licensed and inspected, little information is available online to help consumers vet them.

“There is a higher risk of dogs being kept in inhumane conditions in states where there are no regulations to follow and have no eyes on them,” Callison said.

Opponents of the legislation argued that California’s previous attempts to cut off the supply from puppy mills by banning pet store sales only fueled an unregulated marketplace — and warned banning brokers will do the same.

“Eliminating these brokers will not reduce demand for pets; it will simply force more Californians into unregulated, riskier marketplaces,” said Alyssa Miller-Hurley of the Pet Advocacy Network, which represents breeders, retailers and pet owners, in a letter opposing the legislation.

For consumers like Knowles, the lack of transparency when buying her puppy Ted has been long-lasting and costly. More than a year after Knowles took the puppy to her home in Long Beach, he developed stomach issues that got so bad he wound up in the emergency room. She also had doubts that her puppy was a purebred Coton De Tulear as advertised.

She said a pet DNA test confirmed those suspicions and connected her with other people whose dogs were purchased from the same seller. The test results said one of the dogs share the same amount of DNA as people do with their full siblings – and that they’re mutts.

“We call him the most expensive rescue dog we’ve ever had,” Knowles said of Ted, who is now on a restrictive diet. “Our group started to call our dogs ‘Fauxtons,’ since they weren’t Cotons.”

Knowles sued the seller, Tweed Fox of Carlsbad Cotons, over the test results showing Ted was not a purebred puppy, but said she lost.

“Really the core issue is … masquerading to be something you’re not,” she said.

Fox told The Times that he began sourcing from a Utah company during the Covid pandemic, when the demand for puppies spiked beyond the number he was able to breed at home.

He thought the Utah puppies were purebreds because they came with the proper registration paperwork, but said that “turned out not to be the case.” He said he did not mislead customers because he was in fact a home breeder, and only advertised the out-of-state puppies as Coton de Tulears, “which is what I thought I was purchasing.”

“You only can breed so many in a home,” he said. “I thought I was providing equal quality puppies at the time, and apparently, I wasn’t at that point, except for my own home bred.”

Fox said he has since moved to Dallas, where he breeds and sells Cotons. While the California broker law won’t impact him now that he’s left the state, he said he refuses to buy anyone else’s puppies for resale.

“I only sell my own,” he said. “I’m not in the business to cheat people out of anything.”

PRINCE Harry and Meghan have been named Humanitarians of the Year at a glitzy gala in New York.

The Duke and Duchess jetted to the city to accept the gong which recognised their efforts in mental health advocacy.

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The couple were announced as Project Healthy Minds’ Humanitarians of the Year award on Thursday at a glam awards bash.

The nonprofit’s World Mental Health Day Gala saw the couple feted in a flashy ceremony held at Spring Studios.

Prince Harry and Meghan have close ties to the charity and have collaborated extensively with them in the past.

They were awarded the accolade for their work in building a safer digital world for families and young people as well as their global mental health work.

Alongside Meghan, Prince Harry co-founded The Archewell Foundation in 2020 with a mission to “show up, do good”.

Through the foundation, they established The Parent’s Network in 2023 – a support network for parents and families who have been impacted by “social media harms”.

That year, Harry and Meghan said their two children, Prince Archie, 6 and Princess Lillibet, 4, were the inspiration behind their charity work.

On Saturday, they will also attend the Project Healthy Minds’ World Mental Health Day Festival where they previously launched The Parent’s Network.

The Sussexes released a statement ahead of the gala which said: “Working with families and young people to prioritise safety online has been some of the most meaningful work of our lives.

“As parents ourselves, we have been moved to action by the power of their stories and are honoured to support them.

“We’re proud to be long-time partners of Project Healthy Minds as we work together to shine a light on what remains one of the most pressing issues of our time.”

It comes after Meghan made a surprise appearance at a Balenciaga show during Paris Fashion Week during her solo trip to Europe last week.

But the award comes at an awkward time for Prince Harry after an African country cut ties with a “disrespectful” charity associated with the Duke.

Harry is a board member for African Parks and was the former president of the organisation.

The Sun reported on Tuesday that Chad announced it has axed a mandate held by a non-profit conservation group associated with the Duke of Sussex to manage its wildlife reserves.

They alleged the charity was not active enough in trying to stop poaching, as reported by The Times.

It marks the termination of a 15-year partnership between the charity and government.

Earlier this year, the charity  admitted guards at one of the national parks had violated human rights of Indigenous people displaced when the park was made.

It is the latest setback to hit the Duke, after he sensationally walked away from his charity Sentebale in August.

His move came after a damning report accused him of “harming” its reputation.

The Duke of Sussex was slammed by a watchdog for letting a bullying row damage his African youth charity.

But he continues to work tirelessly for his Invictus Games Foundation, and the UK charity WellChild and is working with Halo Trust, 28 years after his mother did the same.

ROSEMONT, Ill. — At first, landing Lauren Betts was not a plus when it came to getting her little sister to follow her to UCLA.

When Bruins women’s basketball coach Cori Close called Sienna Betts about Lauren transferring from Stanford at her parents’ request, the younger sibling didn’t hide her displeasure.

“UCLA was my school,” Sienna told Close. “I don’t want to go where my sister’s going.”

It took some massaging of the situation to get Sienna back on board with becoming a Bruin. Big sister helped convince Sienna by delivering a PowerPoint presentation about why she should come to Westwood for Lauren’s final college season.

“By the end, there were tears everywhere,” Close said Wednesday at Big Ten media day inside the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center. “It was very heartfelt, it was very genuine. It was just why she wanted to share this experience with her sister and why they needed to share it together.”

It could be a seasonlong joy ride for the sisters after Sienna agreed to join a team that’s been picked to win the Big Ten and contend for the national championship. Lauren and point guard Kiki Rice were selected to the preseason all-conference team and could be joined on the postseason version by teammates Gianna Kneepkens and Charlisse Leger-Walker.

UCLA center Lauren Betts goes to the basket against Maryland forward Amari DeBerry, left, during the first half of a game last season.

(Nick Wass / Associated Press)

Sienna is an early candidate for Big Ten freshman of the year based on her dynamic skill set. The 6-foot-4 forward has been playing a lot alongside her 6-7 sister in practice, leading to some unusual exchanges.

“Every once in a while on the court, you’ll hear, like, the bickering from a sister standpoint, you know what I mean?” Rice said. “Like, it’s a special tone, you know, it only happens between siblings and they’ll be like, ‘Lauren, shut up’ or something like that and they get on each other and it happens quick and they move on pretty fast, but it’s always funny.”

Having her sister around could free Lauren to operate more on the perimeter, where she’s been working on her outside shot. Plus, it has the added benefit of reducing a little wear on the elder sibling.

“I told her, I was, like, ‘Listen, it’s exhausting running baseline to baseline all the time,’” Lauren cracked. “She can do it once.”

Lauren said she’s helped her sister with learning plays and persevering through tough practices while letting Sienna mostly hang out with fellow freshmen off the court. She’s always wanted what’s best for her sister, as demonstrated by that PowerPoint presentation.

“It was just to show her that, like, this recruiting process isn’t about me, and it’s not to get the Betts sisters to play with each other,” Lauren said. “It’s, I want her here because she’s Sienna Betts and she’s a really important part of our team and she would bring so much to us and she would help us win a national championship.”

Might Lauren put together another UCLA presentation for brother Dylan, a 7-2 center who is another top high school prospect?

“Yeah, his recruiting process is a little different,” Lauren said with a laugh, “so we’ll see.”

Fighting on

Don’t ever expect a concession speech from USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb.

After losing the reigning national player of the year to injury and a starting frontcourt who is now in the WNBA, Gottlieb said her team’s goals don’t change.

“That’s a lot of talent to replace,” Gottlieb said, referring to sidelined star JuJu Watkins and departed post players Kiki Iriafen and Rayah Marshall, “but we look at it in the collective and we say USC women’s basketball is not going anywhere. All the goals that we still have are in front of us. … I think we’ll have the ability to compete at a really high level.”

How do the Trojans replace Watkins, who is out for the season because of a torn knee ligament? It will be a collective effort led by returning guard Kennedy Smith, freshman phenom Jazzy Davidson and five transfers.

“No one’s gonna be JuJu, no one’s trying to be JuJu,” Gottlieb said, “but I think we can put a team on the floor that’s incredibly versatile, that plays an exciting brand of basketball and we’re going to take our shot at achieving our goals.”

Davidson, a 6-1 guard who was the nation’s top high school prospect, is already creating a buzz for a team that was picked by the media to finish third in the Big Ten.

“I don’t compare her to anybody else,” Gottlieb said, “but in terms of the way I felt when JuJu walked in the door as a freshman about her readiness for college basketball, I think Jazzy’s a pretty unique talent and will make an incredible affect not only on us but I think on the national scene.”

Finally united

Six years later, the voicemail that Gottlieb saved from a 14-year-old has additional meaning.

That teenager is now on her team.

Gottlieb was recruiting Londynn Jones when she coached at California and accepted a job with the Cleveland Cavaliers, becoming the first head women’s college coach to be hired by an NBA team. Jones left a congratulatory message tinged with sorrow.

“ ‘Coach,’” Jones said, “‘I’m happy for you, but I’m sad for me, don’t forget about me.’ ”

Now they’re together after Jones transferred from UCLA after helping the Bruins reach the Final Four.

“Here we are,” Gottlieb said, “all these years later.”

After averaging 8.5 points and making 35.1% of her three-pointers last season, Jones could play a new role across town.

“She’s a ballhandler, a distributor, she shoots the three really well,” Gottlieb said, “so I think she was looking for that just sort of ability to be dynamic and show what she’s capable of, but we just need her to be a really kind of solid, all-around contributor.”

Twice as nice

Dreams really do come true. As a freshman, UCLA softball slugger Megan Grant told roommate Amanda Muse, a forward on the basketball team, that it was her dream to play college basketball. Now Grant is on the verge of her debut in a second sport. Close described Grant as a “bully ball kind of player” who would add screening, rebounding and hustle.