The National Basketball Association on Saturday unveiled the format and groups for its in-season tournament set to debut next season.

The new annual competition will tip off on November 3 with group play and run through December 9 with the championship game.

All 30 NBA teams will participate in the group stage, with each team being placed in three groups of five teams within both the Eastern and Western conferences. All teams were randomly drawn into their groups based on win-loss records from the 2022-23 regular season, according to the NBA.

Eastern Conference:

Western Conference:

Each team will play four games during the group stage, which include two home games and two away games, the league said. All games will be exclusively played on Tuesdays and Thursdays between November 3-28. No games will be played on November 7 due to Election Day.

The team with the best record in each group and two wild-card teams will then advance to the knockout stage. The wild cards will include the team in each conference that finished with the best record in group play, but second within its group.

The knockout stage will be single elimination, hosted by the teams with the best record in group play on December 4-5.

The semifinals and championship game will be held on December 7 and December 9 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. All games will count toward regular season standings except the championship game.

Teams that advance to the knockout stage and beyond will be allocated a prize pool.

The league will name an MVP after the conclusion of the tournament along with an all-tournament team. Selections “will be based on the players’ performance in both Group Play and the Knockout Rounds,” according to the NBA.

Japanese golfer Nasa Hataoka will be looking to win her first major title on Sunday as she leads the US Women’s Open at Pebble Beach.

Hataoka, a six-time LPGA Tour winner, tops the leaderboard after three rounds in California, one shot ahead of American Allisen Corpuz.

She had to master windy conditions during her bogey-free 66 on Saturday – one of only 11 players to shoot under-par in the testing weather.

“I would say that from around the seventh hole I started to feel the wind, and of course we were at the waterfront, so it was quite different,” said Hataoka of the conditions at Pebble Beach.

“Then, of course, I had some of the par saves, and so compared to my last two days, I think that from the back nine onwards I did pretty well.”

After birdieing the first and sixth holes in her excellent third-round performance, Hataoka produced four more birdies on the back nine – including back-to-back on the 16th and 17th holes.

The 24-year-old, a runner-up at the 2021 US Women’s Open and the 2018 Women’s PGA Championship, will likely have to hold off a challenge from Corpuz if she is to win her first major title.

The Hawaiian native bogeyed the 18th hole during her one-under 71 as she searches for her first professional win.

Behind Corpuz on four-under overall are South Korea’s Kim Hyo-joo and the USA’s Bailey Tardy, who shot 73 and 75 respectively on Saturday.

No one expected Jamie MoCrazy to live after her fall. The chances of survival are slim when the brain starts bleeding in eight spots. Her fatality report was written in the helicopter that took her to the Vancouver hospital where she would spend the next few weeks of her life. Family and friends waited, hoping for a miracle but fearing the worst.

She had been competing in freestyle skiing’s World Tour Finals in Canada when disaster struck. Having successfully completed her first run, ranking fourth in the standings, she cranked up the difficulty for her second and final run.

So she attempted a double ‘flat-7’ off-access backflip, a trick she had been practicing for a week leading up to the Finals.

“It was an off-access trick and it had never been done before, so I was pushing the limits again,” explains the now 30-year-old, recalling her last memories of that April day in 2015. “But even though the trick was big, that wasn’t the only reason I went into a coma.”

MoCrazy – she changed her legal name from Crane-Mauzy to her childhood nickname after marrying last May – kissed her sister Jeanee, who was also competing, albeit in the separate halfpipe discipline, and set off for what was to be a career-defining performance. Instead, what happened next changed her life. In fact, it nearly killed her.

She remembers nothing of what happened when her head whiplashed into the snow on landing from her flip. She went into a natural coma, was intubated on the mountain and a battle began to save her life.

During those days in Vancouver, MoCrazy became one of the first people in North America to have catheters placed into her brain which allowed physicians to instantly monitor and modify her brain’s oxygen and nutrient levels, as well as her blood pressure.

Ten days after the accident, against the odds, the then 22-year-old opened her eyes, just for a few seconds, but long enough to add a flicker of light to the darkest of days. But even then, as Jeanne explains, her sister was “almost totally unconscious the entire time” and the right side of her body was paralyzed.

It took six weeks for the Connecticut-native to remember who she was and recognize her parents. She had a vague recollection of Jeanee but not of her younger sister, Jilly. “It was like being reborn, like she was an infant, basically she had to re-grow from there,” says Jeanee.

MoCrazy was flown to Salt Lake to be closer to her family, which allowed her mom Grace, better known as “Mama Fruit” and who had studied early childhood brain development, to live with her in the hospital where she introduced what Jeanee describes as “wellness techniques” to complement the medical care her daughter was receiving.

It was the beginning what the former skier calls the second version of herself, “Jamie 2.0.” Recovery was slow, often painful. There were physical and mental hurdles to overcome. “We did everything together,” Jeanne says of that summer, even going to the bathroom, she adds, to ease the confusion her sister would suffer when alone.

MoCrazy had been intubated for such a lengthy period that it took two months for her to re-learn to swallow.

“She had to have thickened liquids because the muscles had been pretty much destroyed by the breathing tube,” Jeanee says.

Then MoCrazy had to learn to talk again. At first, she had to be taught how to express herself and then, in Jeanee’s words, how to cognitively “articulate and speak like an intellectual adult,” which improved when she returned to college, later graduating from Westminster College in Salt Lake City with a degree in communications.

Her mom forced her to learn algebra again, the argument being that her brain had to relearn its critical thinking skills. It was her mom who taught her how to read using kindergarten books and how to write.

“I basically did therapy or I slept,” MoCrazy says, adding that she would not be the person she is today were it not for her mother’s care.

And, like a toddler learning to master climbing, she would walk stairs every day, up and down endlessly with the help of family and a gait belt, which is placed around the waist so a caregiver can assist by holding the belt, as she rebuilt muscle strength and muscle memory in an attempt to walk again.

Climbing an alternative peak

But, in many respects, the physical challenges she faced were the easiest. “I was getting a lot of attention and applause … ‘Wow, Jamie’s walking again. Jamie’s riding a bike’ … my cognition and my emotions were greatly affected and took a long time to heal,” she says.

It took her five years to emotionally recover from the accident, MoCrazy says.

“Nobody knew that, nobody was paying attention, nobody really understood,” she says. “And emotions have been scientifically proven to be affected by traumatic brain injury. It affects your emotions, and it also changes your life.

“That does not mean that your life has to be worse. I use the metaphor of climbing an alternative peak … the views might be even more amazing. But you have to climb. And while you’re climbing, your life will be different, and you will have different challenges and different opportunities.”

Even when she was in a wheelchair, her intention was to compete again. Her goal was to live the only life she had known, that of a high-achieving young athlete with hopes of becoming an Olympian.

Then, during the first winter of her recovery, reality struck.

“I felt old and washed up at 23,” she says. “No vision, no future. I felt done and going back to college definitely helped me set goals and be tested on things and actually start performing again and build a new life for myself.”

Jeanne went to New Zealand that winter for her first competitive event since her sister’s accident.

“I just cried the whole competition, I couldn’t handle it at all,” she says, “and then when I came back, that was the hardest part because, even when it was all-consuming beforehand, once she woke up, she was really happy and she was really fun and she was like a really fun child to hang out with.

“And we played toys and did our projects … it was like parenting a 10-year-old, but mostly like a fun 10-year-old. Then in the winter, she started feeling like she was fine, but she wasn’t fine and, at that point, she was more like the rebellious teenager.”

Jeanne says her job during that period was keeping her older sister safe, making sure she didn’t take car keys because no matter how capable MoCrazy felt, the truth was she was unable to multitask.

“She could literally have just the one thought in her head. That was the harder part. She was really not emotionally healed yet, but she physically was,” says Jeanne. “So the entire world treated her as if she was fine, except for those of us who lived with her and knew she wasn’t fine.”

Undoubtedly, life has changed for MoCrazy since the accident. She is the same, she says, though some of her childhood traits have returned.

“I’m just much more goofy, but that’s how I was as a child,” she says. “I’m still adventurous and still hard working and ambitious. I think a lot of my traits stayed the same.”

She has since returned to the mountain where she almost died, to celebrate her marriage to the love of her life, Reggie, an experience she describes as “one of the most beautiful, breathtaking, emotional of my life.”

MoCrazy is also skiing again, though with caution. “I still don’t do tricks and I still don’t compete,” she says, adding that, though her brain is now stronger, she doesn’t know what would happen were she to hit her head hard again.

She says she feels “completely recovered” from the injury, though life has since thrown more misfortune her way, namely the death of her oldest sister, Amy, from leukemia in 2022, who was one of the physicians who cared for her at Vancouver General Hospital.

“She saved me, and I couldn’t save her and that was really challenging,” she says. “So I have gone back to therapy, but it definitely is not because of my brain injury.”

Her life goal is now to help others who have suffered traumatic brain injuries and raise awareness on recovery methods, setting up the non-profit organization MoCrazy Strong with Jeanee and her mother for the purpose of “changing the narrative” and “giving back.”

In March of this year, MoCrazy and her sister went to Capitol Hill to talk to legislators and show a recent short documentary entitled “#MoCrazyStrong” that has been made about her recovery process, one which was particularly family-orientated, she says.

“There are so many decisions” she says her family made “that would have changed the outcome that you see,” explaining, as way of example, that her mom would tape her stronger hand to make her use her weaker one.

“I understand how fortunate my recovery was in the factors that I had so much education in my family of caregivers,” she says.

“And the fact that I am a White, privileged, accomplished athlete with finances made a huge difference in my recovery. So my goal is to share that … and save millions of lives. And we are starting to do that and that feels very rewarding to be able to take this story and save people with it.

“I feel completely healed. And something that really helps with my contentedness in life is that I feel like I have an alternative peak and I am seeing some amazing views and I’m helping others.”

Large crowds blocked Tel Aviv’s main highway, and roads in other Israeli cities, in response to the resignation of the city’s police chief.

Ami Eshed announced his resignation from the police force late Wednesday after being sidelined by Israel’s far right national security minister, the outgoing police chief said in a live television broadcast.

Itamar Ben Gvir demoted Eshed in March after accusing him of being political in his conduct while serving as a senior police officer. The demotion was quickly put on hold following public criticism.

Eshed said he would not “cooperate with this artificial” appointment and would not “accept my political removal from my role as chief of Tel Aviv police.”

During Israel’s ongoing weekly anti-judicial overhaul protests, Ben Gvir claimed Eshed was lenient with protesters, allowing them to paralyze Tel Aviv’s downtown for hours over the past half year.

As he announced his resignation, Eshed responded to Ben Gvir, saying “I could have easily met the expectations, I could have exerted unreasonable force, and I could have filled the emergency ward of Tel Aviv’s [main] hospital …….at the terrible cost of breaking skulls and bones”, stating he avoided bloodshed with his actions.

Attempts by the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to pass a contentious judicial reform bill sparked some of the largest protests the country has seen in the past few months.

When the outcome is success, a high-risk decision can look courageous and wise. But if it doesn’t go to plan, questions are asked.

Alejandro Davidovich Fokina opted for an underarm serve at a crucial point in his third-round Wimbledon match against Holger Rune on Saturday.

After nearly four hours on Court Three, the pair were embroiled in a fifth-set tiebreak and all-square at 8-8 when the Spaniard rolled the dice with his risky strategy.

Rune, the 20-year-old sixth seed, comfortably dealt with the ball – hitting a fierce return winner for match point, eventually clinching an entertaining 6-3 4-6 3-6 6-4 7-6 (10-8) win.

“Yeah, that was crazy. That was very unexpected, for sure,” the Dane, who had saved two match points, told reporters afterwards. “In a way, it’s nice, because he was serving really well during the match. But also, you know, it’s pressure, because imagine I missed that one. That would feel awful.”

Asked if he would have served underarm at such an important period, the Dane said “no.”

“Every player has a different style. If he made it, it would have been the right shot. It’s tough to say,” he added.

“But yeah, I wouldn’t have done it. I thought that I would trust my serve and go big, also like I did in the match points, the match point I saved. I think it’s different from person to person.

“It was obviously surprising, but I don’t think he even bounced the ball, so I was aware that something was different.

“Then when I saw it, I just ran for it and tried to hit it where he wasn’t there. I mean, I choose to go cross. That was the right way. Yeah, I was maybe a little bit lucky, but I’m happy to be through.”

Davidovich Fokina, the world No. 34, had served seven aces in the match, winning an average 70% of points on his first serve and 60% on his second.

It was the second successive year he had lost a match at Wimbledon in unusual circumstances, receiving a penalty point when match point down last year for hitting a ball in frustration.

He told reporters, per Reuters: “I cannot explain what is going through my mind there in that moment because a lot of things are going through your mind, everybody is shouting and you are nervous.

“I cannot explain to you what is happening in my head.”

Rune, who lost in the first round at Wimbledon last year, will next play either 10th seed Frances Tiafoe or 21st seed Grigor Dimitrov.

Elena Milashina, a prominent Russian journalist who uncovered the horrific crackdown on gay men in Chechnya, has been beaten up alongside a lawyer while visiting the southern Russian republic.

Milashina and attorney Alexander Nemov were attacked while they were on the way to attend a court sentencing of a human rights activist in Chechnya’s regional capital, Grozny.

She said her attackers “knew what they were doing,” and were “in a hurry,” explaining she believes they intended to frighten her and gain access to her and Nemov’s devices.

“They beat us up two times,” Milashina said in a recorded interview with her employer Novaya Gazeta. “They were very specific, they knew what they wanted, knew what their limits were, beyond which they could not go.”

In the video interview Milashina is shown visibly bruised, her head shaved off and painted green.

“They did this,” she says when asked about her hair. “I don’t have any wounds, thank God, just bruises,” she added, going on to explain she believes Nemov and her were targeted for their professional activity,.

Nemov was beaten and stabbed with a knife, but he still planned on attending the court hearing, according to the Novaya Gazeta.

The newspaper reported that the perpetrators are unknown, also noting that Milashina and Nemov were asked to give a statement to police at the hospital but refused.

Milashina and Nemov were attending a court ruling in the case of Zarema Musaeva – the mother of Chechen activists, the Yangulbaev brothers, who are vocal critics of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Musaeva was sentenced to five years and six months in prison on charges of fraud and violence against a police officer, TASS said.

The Kremlin called it “a very serious attack” that required investigative actions and serious measures to be taken. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin was informed of the attack and the incident is being handled by Russia’s human rights ombudsman.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched an investigation into the attack.

In a statement to Russian state media RIA Novosti, Moskalkova confirmed that the pair were attacked by unknown people and that Milashina’s fingers were broken. Moskalkova also said she asked the Commissioner for Human Rights in Chechnya to ensure the safety of the journalist.

‘Cowardly assault’

Human rights groups have condemned the violent assault, calling for a swift investigation.

Sergey Babinets, the head of the Russian human rights organization the Crew Against Torture, said that the attackers had mentioned Milashina’s work and previous court reporting while beating the pair. “This is clearly not a gangster attack, this is a direct attack for their work,” he said in a statement

“Amnesty International condemns this cowardly assault in the strongest terms and calls on the Russian authorities to swiftly bring the perpetrators to justice and ensure the safety of those who seek truth and justice,” Amnesty International’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia director, Marie Struthers, said.

Milashina has been previously threatened for her journalism. Following her reporting on a crackdown on gay men in Chechnya in 2017, Muslim clerics in Chechnya called for “retribution” against her and other journalists. She faced death threats and was temporarily forced to flee the country.

The 2017 crackdown saw hundreds of men allegedly held and tortured in detention.

The detentions prompted heavy international criticism of Russia. The country has a checkered record on gay rights, breaking up gay pride marches and passing anti-gay propaganda laws.

But the allegations of detention camps and torture emerging from Chechnya were unprecedented. In response, Chechen leader and Kremlin-backed strongman Kadyrov said there were no gay people in his republic, and that if there were any they should be taken away from the region

The BBC has confirmed it is looking into allegations of sexual misconduct by one of its presenters.

“We treat any allegations very seriously and we have processes in place to proactively deal with them,” a BBC spokesperson confirmed in a statement on Saturday.

“As part of that, if we receive information that requires further investigation or examination we will take steps to do this. That includes actively attempting to speak to those who have contacted us in order to seek further detail and understanding of the situation,” the BBC statement said,

“If we get no reply to our attempts or receive no further contact that can limit our ability to progress things but it does not mean our enquiries stop. If, at any point, new information comes to light or is provided – including via newspapers – this will be acted upon appropriately, in line with internal processes,” the BBC spokesperson said.

On Friday, UK tabloid newspaper The Sun published a report on a woman accusing an unnamed male BBC presenter of paying her teen child for sexually explicit photographs.

The BBC spokesperson would not confirm the identity of the presenter or their current status at the broadcaster.

The report led to several BBC presenters to release public statements on Twitter denying that they were the subject of the article.

Large crowds of protesters across Israel have come out in the 27th consecutive week of demonstrations against the government’s judicial overhaul plans.

Organizers say protesters are out in force and estimate 365,000 people have come out in cities around the country, with 180,000 people in the streets of central Tel Aviv alone, among the largest protests so far.

The protests come just before the bill to lessen judicial oversight of the executive and legislative branches will get its first reading in the Knesset, the national legislature, on Monday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has renewed its efforts to pass judicial overhaul, this time in stages, after six months of fierce opposition from center, left and even right-wing citizens, military reservists, and political parties.

This second effort is galvanizing protesters across the country, with a spokesman for the national protest movement promising an “all nighter.”

At the end of June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said one the most controversial aspects of his government’s proposed judicial reform, a provision allowing the Knesset to overturn Supreme Court rulings, has been dropped.

Israel has no check on the power of the Knesset other than the Supreme Court.

As the protests reached their peak this Saturday, social media videos and Israeli press reported Israeli police using water cannons to clear demonstrators from blocking one of Tel Aviv’s main highways.

At least 22 people have been killed and dozens injured in an airstrike in the city of Omdurman, Sudan, according to a Reuters report citing the Sudanese ministry of health.

In a statement released Saturday, the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said that more than 31 people were killed with homes demolished and dozens of civilians injured.

“The Rapid Support Forces condemn the most severe aircraft bombing on Saturday morning, on innocent citizens in a number of residential neighborhoods,” the statement read.

“We call on all activists at home and abroad to do their responsibilities to monitor and document the killings committed by the coup d’etatists and the ruling system on a daily basis.”

Clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and RSF erupted in April, killing hundreds and injuring thousands more, officials say – while parts of the capital Khartoum have become a war zone.

SAF said they carried out an operation on Saturday in Omdurman, Sudan’s most populous city, killing a number of rebels and destroying combat vehicles.

Data from the United Nations International Organization for Migration, (IOM) said nearly 2.8 million people have fled Sudan, many without passports, for neighboring countries like Egypt, Ethiopia and Libya.

A restaurant in China that challenged its customers to eat more than 100 dumplings in return for a free meal has fallen foul of authorities, who are investigating whether it has violated the country’s anti-food waste law.

Local authorities in Yibin city in the southwestern province of Sichuan swooped on the restaurant after hearing of its “king of big stomach challenge,” the state-affiliated news outlet The Cover reported this week.

The challenge reportedly involved patrons competing to eat 108 chaoshous, or spicy wonton dumplings, as quickly as possible to win a free meal and additional prizes.

To drum up interest, the restaurant had advertised the offer on social media to entice patrons only to find itself in the hot seat when the State Administration for Market Regulation said it would open an investigation into whether it had breached the law surrounding food waste.

While eating contests are relatively common in Western countries and can bring fame for their winners – like Joey Chestnut, who last week won Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island by downing 62 hot dogs in 10 minutes – they can be a sensitive matter in China.

Many in the country still have memories of the famine of the 1950s and 60s that killed an estimated 45 million people.

The Cover said the restaurant, which it did not name, was one of several being probed by the authorities over similar competitions.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has in the past called food waste “shocking and distressing” and in March this year said agricultural supplies were like the foundation of national security.

The law against wasting food was enacted in 2021, following pointed government criticisms of online bloggers who live-streamed themselves binge eating to draw in viewers. Many of their accounts were subsequently suspended by the social media platforms.

Under the law, restaurant owners can be fined up to 10,000 yuan ($1,400) if their establishments “induce or mislead customers to order excessively to cause obvious waste.”

Radio and television stations, as well as online video and audio providers, face a maximum fine of 10 times that amount if they are found to be involved in “making, publishing, promoting programs or audio messages about eating excessively and binge eating and drinking.”

The restaurant in Yibin “demonstrates behaviors of binge eating and drinking and inducing customers to order excessively,” the Cover said, citing the local market regulator.

However, some Chinese internet users have criticized the authorities for overreaching.

“Is this counted as a waste? Why not let people compete for the biggest eater? Will the food not consumed there actually go to the poor?” wrote one user on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter.

Another user pointed to the country’s poor track record on food safety, which has included scandals ranging from contaminated baby milk powder to the use of “gutter oil” – recycled oil tainted with food waste or even sewage.

“You didn’t regulate food safety … but this?” the user said.