A couple from Queensland are on Australia’s longest pub crawl, aiming to have at least one drink in every pub in the country.
Andrew and Ursula Keese set themselves the adventurous task for their retirement and they believe nobody has attempted it before.
“We both like to travel and we both like drinks and we both like to see Australia,” Mr Keese said.
They have ticked off every Queensland hotel and are just about to finish South Australia, where they have pulled up a seat at more than 380 pubs, bringing their total to more than 1,500.
Andrew and Ursula Keese plan to spend six months each year traveling to pubs across Australia.(Supplied: Ursula and Andrew Keese)
“I’ve been going to pubs since I was literally a baby with my mum and dad, and Ursula’s dream was to buy a motor home and travel around Australia so we thought we’d combine the two,” he said.
They expect it will take eight years to visit every pub in the country which they research online.
“We print out all the towns and suburbs and each state, and as we go we’ll cross off the town or the suburb,” Mr Keese said.
Andrew and Ursula Keese at William Creek Hotel.(Supplied: Ursula and Andrew Keese)
“There’s only one website … that lists all the pubs, which is 6,033, but unfortunately it’s about 15 years out of date so we’re finding since that time about 10 per cent of pubs have closed.
“Some stunning old pubs [have closed] which is tragic so we’re hopefully doing our little bit just to promote pubs, especially country pubs and get people traveling out and going to their local once again.”
Reputation precedes them
The couple post photographs on social media and quite often the next pub on their list is expecting them.
“We always get our photo out the front of the pub so we’ve got proof that we’ve been there,” Mr Keese said.
“Some of them have seen us on other pubs they follow and they are happy to see us in their pub.
Ursula Keese enjoys meeting the locals at the Poochera Hotel in rural South Australia.(Supplied: Ursula and Andrew Keese)
“So many of them show you around the pub and take you on a tour which is really nice.
“They say ‘We’ve been wondering when you’d come into our pub’.”
They photograph the bars and features of the pub.
“If there’s stunning facades we get that and then all of the inside of the pub … just so people can see what does the pub look like and what does it offer.”
A drink at each watering hole
The couple have at least a drink at the pub, and try the local drops whenever they are available.
“We’ll order local, certainly anything different on tap or if they’ve got a local gin or a local wine,” Mr Keese said.
“We try and change it up so we’re always ordering something local because we went through outback Queensland for about three months and you could only get XXXX and Great Northern and I’ll drink them, but it was certainly a stretch,” he said.
The couple enjoy exploring Australia’s most remote and quirky pubs and take a photo of the bar person who serves them.(Supplied: Andrew and Ursula Keese)
Most of their favorite pubs were older pubs that had character on the outside and characters on the bar stools inside.
“The beautiful old country pubs, they’ve just got a different feel and the locals they’ll always welcome you especially in the old pubs.
“It’s rare that you walk in and people don’t go ‘g’day, how ya going?'”
AUSTIN, Texas — When viral lies harm private people, are the courts their best refuge? A trial to decide how much the conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones must pay a Sandy Hook family for defaming them attempts to answer that question.
Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of Jesse Lewis, 6, who died at Sandy Hook, are requesting $150 million in compensatory damages for years of torment and threats they endured in the aftermath of Mr. Jones’s lies about them on Infowars, his Austin -based website and broadcast. They are suing him in the first of three trials in which juries will decide how much he must pay relatives of 10 people killed in the Dec. 14, 2012, mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., for spreading lies that they were actors in a “false flag” operation, planned by the government as a pretext for gun control.
Last year Mr. Jones lost a series of Sandy Hook defamation cases by default, setting the stage for the damage trials.
Mr. Heslin, Ms. Lewis and JT Lewis, Jesse’s brother, will testify this week.
More important than money, the parents said, is society’s verdict on a culture in which viral misinformation damages lives and destroys reputations, yet those who spread it are seldom held accountable. “Speech is free, but lies you have to pay for,” Mark Bankston, the parents’ lawyer, told the jury in his opening statement last week. “This is a case about creating change.”
But the trial demonstrates how difficult it is to counter the views of die-hard conspiracy theorists. Over nearly three days of testimony last week, Daria Karpova, Infowars’ corporate representative, advanced bogus claims, refusing even to rule out the possibility that the trial itself was a staged event. She cast Mr. Jones as the victim, worrying over his health and saying the Sandy Hook lawsuits have cost him “millions.”
That claim allowed the families’ lawyers to share records with the jury showing that Infowars reaped revenues of more than $50 million annually in recent years.
At the heart of the trial is a June 2017 episode of NBC’s “Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly,” in which Ms. Kelly profiled Mr. Jones. In the broadcast Mr. Heslin protested Mr. Jones’s denial of the shooting. He recalled his last moments of him with Jesse, saying, “I held my son with a bullet hole through his head of him.”
Afterward, Mr. Jones and Owen Shroyer, a lieutenant of Mr. Jones at Infowars, aired shows implying that Mr. Heslin had lied. “Will there be a clarification from Heslin or Megyn Kelly?” Mr. Shroyer said on Infowars. “I wouldn’t hold your breath.”
The Sandy Hook School Massacre
Cards 1 of 5
A devastating attack. On Dec. 14, 2012, a 20-year-old gunman killed his mother and then walked into the elementary school armed with semiautomatic pistols and a semiautomatic rifle. He killed 26 people there, 20 of them children, before killing himself.
The push for gun control. Then-President Barack Obama vowed to “use whatever power this office holds” to stop such massacres from happening again. Though legislative efforts to pass a ban on assault weapons and expand background checks failed, a new wave of activism focused on gun control gained traction following the shooting.
Lawyers say the three trials hold lessons for other cases against conspiracy-minded defendants, from the Jan. 6 insurrectionists to Trump allies sued for falsely claiming that voting machine manufacturers helped “steal” the 2020 presidential election. Mr. Jones is also under scrutiny for his role in events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
“These Sandy Hook parents have spent years of their lives and sacrificed whatever is left of their privacy to shine a light on peddlers of disinformation, not only to seek justice for their children, but to make folks who profit from tragedy consider the consequences of their actions,” said Karen Burgess, a trial lawyer at Burgess Law in Austin who represented Dominion Voting Systems when it was sued by Texas conspiracy theorists who said the company helped rig the 2020 vote. Facing sanctions from the court, the conspiracy theorists dropped their suit against the company.
Lawyers for the Sandy Hook families say a verdict, expected this week in the first trial, could send a signal to other conspiracy purveyors about the cost of online lies and set into motion a chain of events that could shut Infowars down.
Still, the path forward is not clear. On Friday Mr. Jones put Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which usually automatically halts all pending litigation. Free Speech Systems, however, requested that the bankruptcy court lift that automatic stay, so the trial in progress can continue to a verdict. That motion is set for a hearing Monday morning in a bankruptcy court in Victoria, Texas. Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of the Travis County District Court indicated that the trial would proceed.
Lawyers for the families say a big jury award this week along with the bankruptcy could threaten Infowars’ operations, but many details about Mr. Jones’s current finances are murky.
For now the filing puts on hold the remaining two Sandy Hook damages trials, both scheduled for September.
In court last week, Mr. Jones’s lawyers launched a defense advanced by other defendants in politically charged defamation cases: Our national discourse has become so polluted by disinformation, they said, that who really knows what is true or false?
Federico Andino Reynal, Mr. Jones’s lawyer, blamed errors in mainstream media reports about Sandy Hook for the bogus theories spread by Mr. Jones.
“He had seen what he perceived as so many lies and so many cover-ups and so much hand-washing of the facts that he had become biased,” Mr. Reynal said. “He was looking at the world through dirty glasses. And if you look at the world through dirty glasses, everything you see is dirty.”
But Infowars staffers testified that they did not check easily available facts about Sandy Hook — or much else — before broadcasting their incendiary assertions. Lawyers for Mr. Heslin and Ms. Lewis, using internal emails and testimony from Infowars staffers, showed how Mr. Jones and his top lieutenants ignored multiple warnings that continuing to broadcast Sandy Hook lies would harm the survivors and land Infowars in legal trouble.
In a videotaped deposition, a former employee, Rob Jacobson, said he repeatedly delivered these warnings to Infowars staffers, “only to be received with laughter and jokes.”
The NBC episode, which was shown in court, was particularly striking. In it Mr. Jones made a variety of damaging false claims, including dismissing a 2017 suicide bombing that killed 22 adults and children at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, as an attack on “a bunch of liberal trends,” who support “ Islamist” immigration.
Mr. Shroyer also testified that he failed to fact-check a false report on the episode defaming Mr. Heslin because he did not have the time.
At the trial last week, Mr. Jones’s seat at the defense table often remained empty. His lawyer for him, Mr. Reynal, has declined to say whether he will testify, adding that Mr. Jones is in charge of his defense for him. Mr. Reynal told the judge that Mr. Jones’s absences were because of a “medical condition” that Mr. Jones, speaking outside the courthouse, described as an untreated hernia.
But he continues to broadcast his show, where he and Mr. Shroyer derived the trial last week, violating the judge’s order not to comment on it. When Mr. Jones did come to court, he drove up in a motorcade and sat in the courtroom surrounded by bodyguards. Last week Mr. Reynal thrust a raised middle finger into the face of the families’ lawyer in a dispute over exhibits that nearly ended in a fistfight.
The trial proceedings have taken a toll on Mr. Heslin and Ms. Lewis. They hired security after they spotted people waiting for them outside their hotel, and they have heard Infowars loyalists describe them as pawns in Mr. Jones’s pursuit of online clout.
During his testimony in court on Thursday, Mr. Shroyer suggested that it was the lawsuits, not his and Mr. Jones’ lies, that exacerbated the families’ suffering. “I’m very upset that this continues,” he said, citing its “tremendous negative effects on my career and livelihood.”
Pokemon UNITE released in July 2021 for Nintendo Switch and Sept. 2021 on mobile devices, with both versions being completely free-to-play and featuring crossplay and full cross-progression.
It follows the trend most MOBA titles tend to use, being F2P but moonlighting more as a “free-to-start” experience that has content such as playable Pokémon and other content that needs to be unlocked before becoming usable.
Even developer TiMi Studio consistently uses the free-to-start to market the game, as UNITE offers numerous optional in-game purchases. These involve players purchasing Aeos Gems to unlock Gem-only cosmetic items for playable Pokémon called Holowear, avatar cosmetics, and the game’s premium battle pass, which is the only ay to unlock items included in the battle pass like Holowear.
Aeos Gems can also be used to easily unlock many other items in the game, like other cosmetics and Unite Licenses for Pokémon that you can use in battle. Normal items can typically be obtained using Aeos Coins or Aeos Tickets, the game’s free currency you earn by playing the game, though the grind can sometimes be real for frequent players who really want to unlock more than just the occasional piece of content.
It is also important to note, just like most multi-platform games that offer microtransactions, if you purchase Aeos Gems you can’t use them on both systems—so any premium currency purchased on Switch can’t be used on mobile.
However, players can use the same account on different devices, using either a Pokémon Trainer Club account or a Nintendo account, and content purchased with gems will carry over.
Two riders were hospitalized and multiple spectators required medical treatment after a crash catapulted an Olympic gold medalist into the crowd during a Commonwealth Games qualifying race on the high-banked, Lee Valley velodrome.
England’s Matt Walls was treated in the stands for almost 40 minutes after both he and his bike were flung off the track.
The 24-year-old, who won the omnium at last year’s Tokyo Olympics, and Isle of Man rider Matt Bostock were taken to hospital after the incident in which several riders collided on a turn.
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England’s Matt Walls, top left, and Canada’s Derek Gee, right, go over the barrier and into the crowd. (AP)
Walls was later released from the hospital.
“Following medical treatment in hospital, Matt Walls has been discharged with stitches in his forehead, scrapes and bruises but thankfully no major injuries,” Team England said in a statement.
“We send our best wishes to all other riders and spectators involved in the crash and thank the medical teams for their expert care.”
Bostock had a CT scan from which the initial prognosis was positive, his Isle of Man team said.
The morning session of cycling was abandoned and spectators were asked to leave the stadium as Walls received treatment behind a temporary screen after the crash.
Witnesses said that because of the gradient of the banking on the track, spectators in the front row could not see the crash unfolding, nor Walls coming towards them.
One man received treatment for cuts to his arm and a young girl also required medical assistance.
Officials from several teams sprinted towards the stricken riders after the crash on the final lap of the second qualifying heat.
“I think the crashes are getting worse and it’s because the speeds are getting higher, the positions (on the bike) are getting more extreme,” five-time British Olympic champion Laura Kenny said.
“Some of the pursuit positions people are getting in, you see people crashing into the back of people.
“At some point, the UCI is going to have to put a cap on these positions. Maybe there should be screens because Matt should not have been able to go over the top and into the crowd, that’s pretty damn dangerous.”
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Commonwealth Games in pictures: Heartmelting moment Aussie para-swimmer learns of gold-medal feat, world record
There’s a longstanding but unacknowledged – and often unnoticed – bias in mainstream commentary on the state of the economy. We dwell on problems created by governments or greedy workers and their interfering unions, but never entertain the thought that the behavior of business could be part of the problem.
This ubiquitous pro-business bias – reinforced daily by the national press – is easily seen in the debate on how worried we should be about inflation, and in the instant attraction to the notion that continuing to cut real wages is central to getting inflation back under control. This is being pushed by the econocrats, and last week’s economic statement from Treasurer Jim Chalmers reveals it’s been swallowed by the new Labor government.
Last week’s economic statement from Treasurer Jim Chalmers shows the concept of real wage cuts to get inflation under control has been swallowed by the Labor government.Credit:alex ellinghausen
I’ve been arguing strongly that the primary source of the huge price rises we’ve seen is quite different to what we’re used to. It’s blockages in the supply of goods, caused by a perfect storm of global problems: the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and even climate change’s effect on meat and vegetable prices.
Since monetary policy can do nothing to fix supply problems, we should be patient and wait for these once-off, temporary issues to resolve themselves. The econocrats’ reply is that, though most price rises come from deficient supply, some come from strong demand – and they’re right.
Although more than half the 1.8 per cent rise in consumer prices in the June quarter came from just three categories – food, petrol and home-building costs – it’s also true there were increases in a high proportion of categories.
The glaring example of price rises caused by strong demand is the cost of building new homes. Although there have been shortages of imported building materials, it’s clear that hugely excessive stimulus – from interest rates and the budget – has led to an industry that hasn’t had a hope of keeping up with the government-caused surge in demand for new homes. It’s done what it always does: used the opportunity to jack up prices.
But as for a more general effect of strong demand on prices, what you don’t see in the figures is any sign it’s high wages that are prompting businesses to raise their prices. Almost 80 per cent of the rise in prices over the year to June came from the price of goods rather than services. That’s despite goods’ share of total production and employment being about 20 per cent.
This – along with direct measures of wage growth – says it’s not soaring labor costs that have caused so many businesses to raise their prices. Rather, strong demand for their product has allowed them to pass on, rather than absorb, the higher cost of imported inputs – and, probably, fatten their profit margins while they’re at it.
Take the amazing 7 per cent increase in furniture prices during the quarter. We’re told this is explained by higher freight costs. really? I can’t believe it.
Arizona state House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) on Sunday said he’ll never vote for former President Trump again, a reversal of earlier claims that he’d back Trump in a match-up against President Biden.
“I’ll never vote for him, but I won’t have to. Because I think America’s tired and there’s some absolutely forceful, qualified, morally defensible and upright people, and that’s what I want. That’s what I want in my party and that’s what I want to see,” Bowers told moderator Jonathan Karl during an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”
The Arizona lawmaker called Trump a “demagogue” who maintains hold on his base through “thuggery and intimidation.”
“I have thought, at times, someone born how he was, raised how he was — he has no idea what a hard life is. And what people have to go through in real—in the real world. He has no idea what courage is,” Bowers said.
Bowers’s comments were a reversal of his remarks in June, when he said he’d support the former president in a rematch of the 2020 election.
“If he is the nominee, if he was up against Biden, I’d vote for him again. Simply because what he did the first time, before COVID, was so good for the county. In my view it was,” Bowers told The Associated Press before testifying in June to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the US Capitol.
Testifying before the House panel, Bowers rejected the former president’s claims that the two men had discussed a rigged 2020 presidential election in Arizona.
Bowers said members of his party called him a “traitor” after his appearance before the committee. Trump lambasted the lawmaker as a “coward.”
Bowers on Sunday said he hoped Trump would never return to a position of power.
“I would certainly hope not. I certainly don’t trust that authority that he would exercise.”
Bowers is running for Arizona’s state Senate in this year’s midterms, and Trump has endorsed his challenger, David Farnsworth.
Sony is having a really good time at the moment as the PlayStation 5 is making the company proud, thanks to its growing popularity across the globe. The console has succeeded in selling very well, despite the ongoing chip shortage.
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Now a new report has revealed that the PlayStation 5 has achieved yet another sales milestone since it was first launched in November 2020. It looks like gaming enthusiasts want to have the latest and best available device at the moment to enjoy their favorite titles. And there seems to be no chance for any rival to come close.
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PlayStation 5 goes past 21.7 million sales since its original launch
As reported by PlayStation Lifestyle, Sony Interactive Entertainment just revealed that their next-gen device is performing better in 2022. By the end of June 31, the PlayStation 5 has sold over 21.7 million units worldwide.
A Sony PlayStation 5 home video game console, taken on October 29, 2020. (Photo by Olly Curtis/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
It simply means that the manufacturer managed to ship 2.4 million PS5 models in the last quarter. It’s a good increase, if not by a higher margin, when compared to the last year for a similar period. The main reason for this success can be due to the increased supply of the product over the past few months.
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Moreover, the boost in the sales for PlayStation 5 was accompanied by an increase in PS Plus subscribers as well. Coming as a piece of good news for Sony, the revamped service has added another one million new users this year.
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The PS Plus service gained an additional one million subscribers when compared to the same period in the last fiscal year. Talking about numbers, the service had 47.3 million members as of June 31. Last year, the figure stood at 46.3 million.
Meanwhile, the PlayStation 5 might reach a new sales milestone later this year when some really amazing titles come out. Without a doubt, God of War: Ragnarok is the most anticipated PS exclusive at the moment. Gaming fans are extremely hyped for its debut.
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Going by the momentum it’s having already, this game may result in more PS5 sales right ahead of its November release. It’s because those players who haven’t played the first entry so far but want to try out the sequel on a console will surely look forward to having a PS5 over any other device.
WATCH THIS STORY: Best Open-World Games on PlayStation, Xbox and PC
Bill Russell redefined how basketball is played, and then he changed the way sports are viewed in a racially divided country.
Key points:
Bill Russell was a 12-time All-Star and was voted the greatest player in history in 1980
He won 11 championships as the centerpiece of the dominant Boston Celtics team
The MVP award for the best player of the NBA finals series is named after him
The most prolific winner in NBA history, Russell marched with Martin Luther King Jr, supported Muhammad Ali and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama.
The centerpiece of the Boston Celtics dynasty that won 11 championships in 13 years, Russell earned his last two NBA titles as a player-coach — the first black coach in any major US sport.
Russell died on Sunday at the age of 88. His family posted the news on social media, saying his wife Jeannine was by his side. The statement did not give the cause of death, but Russell was not well enough to present the NBA Finals MVP trophy in June due to a long illness.
“Bill’s wife, Jeannine, and his many friends and family thank you for keeping Bill in your prayers. Perhaps you’ll relive one or two of the golden moments he gave us, or recall his trademark laugh as he delighted in explaining the real story behind how those moments unfolded,” the family statement said.
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“And we hope each of us can find a new way to act or speak up with Bill’s uncompromising, dignified and always constructive commitment to principle.
“That would be one last, and lasting, win for our beloved #6.”
NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement that Russell was “the greatest champion in all of team sports.”
“Bill stood for something much bigger than sports: the values of equality, respect and inclusion that he stamped into the DNA of our league. At the height of his athletic career, Bill vigorously advocated for civil rights and social justice, a legacy he passed down to generations of NBA players who followed in his footsteps,” Silver said.
“Through the taunts, threats and unthinkable adversity, Bill rose above it all and remained true to his belief that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity.”
A Hall of Famer, five-time Most Valuable Player and 12-time All-Star, Russell in 1980 was voted the greatest player in the NBA history by basketball writers.
He remains the sport’s most decorated champion — he also won two college titles and an Olympic gold medal — and an archetype of selflessness who won with defense and rebounding while others racked up gaudy scoring totals.
Often, that meant Wilt Chamberlain — the only worthy rival of Russell’s era and his prime competition for rebounds, MVP trophies and bar room arguments about who was better. Chamberlain, who died in 1999 at 63, had twice as many points, four MVP trophies of his own and is the only person in league history to grab more rebounds than Russell — 23,924 to 21,620.
But Russell dominated in the only stat he cared about: 11 championships to two.
The native of Louisiana also left a lasting mark as a black athlete in a city — and country — where race is often a flash point.
He was at the March on Washington in 1963, when King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, and he backed Muhammad Ali when the boxer was pilloried for refusing induction into the military draft.
Bill Russell stands court side during a tribute in his honor during a game in 2013. (AP Photo: Michael Dwyer)
“To be the greatest champion in your sport, to revolutionize the way the game is played, and to be a societal leader all at once seems unthinkable, but that is who Bill Russell was,” the Boston Celtics said in a statement.
In 2011, Mr Obama awarded Russell the Medal of Freedom alongside Congressman John Lewis, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel and baseball great Stan Musial.
“Bill Russell, the man, is someone who stood up for the rights and dignity of all men,” Obama said at the ceremony.
“He marched with King; he stood by Ali. When a restaurant refused to serve the Black Celtics, he refused to play in the scheduled game. He endured insults and vandalism, but he kept on focusing on making the teammates who he loved better players and made possible the success of so many who would follow.”
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Russell said that when he was growing up in the segregated south and later California his parents instilled in him the calm confidence that allowed him to brush off racist taunts.
“Years later, people asked me what I had to go through,” Russell said in 2008.
“Unfortunately, or fortunately, I’ve never been through anything. From my first moment of being alive was the notion that my mother and father loved me.”
It was Russell’s mother who would tell him to disregard comments from those who might see him playing in the yard.
“Whatever they say, good or bad, they don’t know you,” he recalled her saying.
“They’re wrestling with their own demons.”
But it was Jackie Robinson who gave Russell a road map for dealing with racism in his sport: “Jackie was a hero to us. He always conducted himself as a man. He showed me the way to be a man in professional sports.”
The feeling was mutual, Russell learned, when Robinson’s widow, Rachel, called and asked him to be a pallbearer at her husband’s funeral in 1972.
Bill Russell (left), with Muhammad Ali (centre) and college basketballer Lew Alcindor. The photo was taken during a meeting of a group of the nation’s top athletes to hear Ali’s views of him on rejecting Army induction. (Getty Images)
“She hung the phone up and I asked myself, ‘How do you get to be a hero to Jackie Robinson?'” Russell said. “I was so flattered.”
William Felton Russell was born on February 12, 1934, in Monroe, Louisiana.
He was a child when his family moved to the West Coast, and he went to high school in Oakland, California, and then the University of San Francisco. He led the Dons to NCAA championships in 1955 and 1956 and won a gold medal in 1956 at the Melbourne Olympics.
Celtics coach and general manager Red Auerbach so coveted Russell that he worked out a trade with the St Louis Hawks for the second pick in the draft. He promised the Rochester Royals, who owned the number one pick, a lucrative visit by the Ice Capades, which were also run by Celtics owner Walter Brown.
Still, Russell arrived in Boston to complain that he wasn’t that good.
Bill Russell, back left, joins his US teammates in posing for a photo with Soviet Union basketballers during the 1956 Melbourne Olympics at the Royal Exhibition Building.(Getty Images)
“People said it was a wasted draft choice, wasted money,” he recalled.
“They said, ‘He’s no good. All he can do is block shots and rebound.’ And Red said, ‘That’s enough.'”
The Celtics also picked up Tommy Heinsohn and KC Jones, Russell’s college teammate, in the same draft. Although Russell joined the team late because he was leading the US to the Olympic gold, Boston finished the regular season with the league’s best record.
The Celtics won the NBA championship — their first of 17 — in a double-overtime seventh game against Bob Pettit’s St Louis Hawks. Russell won his first MVP award the next season, but the Hawks won the title in a finals rematch. The Celtics won it all again in 1959, starting an unprecedented string of eight consecutive NBA crowns.
At 6-foot-10 centre, Russell never averaged more than 18.9 points during his 13 seasons, each year averaging more rebounds per game than points. For 10 seasons I have averaged more than 20 rebounds. He eleven had 51 rebounds in a game; Chamberlain holds the record with 55.
Auerbach retired after winning the 1966 title, and Russell became the player-coach — the first Black head coach in NBA history, and almost a decade before Frank Robinson took over baseball’s Cleveland Indians. Boston finished with the second-best regular-season record in the NBA, and its title streak ended with a loss to Chamberlain and the Philadelphia 76ers in the Eastern Division finals.
Russell led the Celtics back to titles in 1968 and ’69, each time winning a seven-game play-off series against Chamberlain. Russell retired after the ’69 finals, returning for a relatively successful — but unfulfilling — four-year stint as coach and GM of the Seattle SuperSonics and a less fruitful half season as coach of the Sacramento Kings.
Russell’s number six jersey was retired by the Celtics in 1972. He earned spots on the NBA’s 25th anniversary all-time team in 1970, 35th anniversary team in 1980 and 75th anniversary team. In 1996, he was hailed as one of the NBA’s 50 greatest players.
In 2009, the MVP trophy of the NBA Finals was named in his honor — even though Russell never won himself, because it wasn’t awarded for the first time until 1969. Russell, however, traditionally presented the trophy for many years, the last time in 2019 to Kawhi Leonard; Russell was not there in 2020 because of the NBA bubble nor in 2021 due to COVID-19 concerns.
In 2013, a statue was unveiled on Boston’s City Hall Plaza of Russell surrounded by blocks of granite with quotes on leadership and character. Russell was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1975 but did not attend the ceremony, saying he should not have been the first African American elected. (Chuck Cooper, the NBA’s first Black player, was his choice.)
In 2019, Russell accepted his Hall of Fame ring in a private gathering.
“I felt others before me should have had that honor,” he tweeted. “Good to see progress.”
Silver said he “often called (Russell) basketball’s Babe Ruth for how he transcended time.”
“Bill was the ultimate winner and consummate teammate, and his influence on the NBA will be felt forever,” Silver added. “We send our deepest condolences to his wife, Jeannine, his family, and his many friends.”
Russell’s family said arrangements for the memorial service will be announced in the coming days.
Artist, maker and designer Dom Foffani was 24 years old when he and his brother walked into the family kitchen to find their father dead on the floor.
As his family sat around the table in the hours of grief and planning that followed, Foffani’s mother and brothers realized they had no idea of their father’s wishes for his death: did he want to be buried or cremated? What type of funeral did he want? Had he made a will?
They eventually decided against a “quiet and solemn and shy and sad” ceremony. “We wanted something that was fun and silly and stupid because that was him,” Foffani says.
Preparing for a good death: Dom FoffaniCredit:Pexels/Dom Foffani
“We found out that our dad wanted to be buried, but we decided he would be cremated, and we only found that when his will came to the surface, which none of us had read.”
Foffani, from Sydney, resolved to not die the same way, and the now-29-year-old began preparing for his own death – not as morbid as it might sound. He started talking with his family about his funeral, organ donation and more. He wrote it all down and put it in his backpack before he went overseas.
A ‘good death’ is when you have considered end-of-life planning.
Cherelle Martin
“The idea of what happens when something goes wrong overseas, and no one knows who I am or what my wishes are or who to contact… That was quite a practical decision I made, to write out what my wishes are,” he says.
After years of a pandemic-induced focus on death, and voluntary assisted dying now legal in all states (it is not legal in the ACT or Northern Territory), Australians are being urged to talk about plans for the inevitable.
Having the first conversation about death can be the difference between leaving your family and friends drowning in paperwork and having real space to grieve, says Cherelle Martin, a campaigner for the August 8 Dying to Know Day, a day encouraging Australians to become “death literate” ”.
A 24-year-old police officer was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Madison County, Indiana, around 2 am on Sunday, according to law enforcement.
Noah Shahnavaz, a US Army veteran who had been a member of the Elwood Police Department for 11 months, was taken to an Indianapolis-area hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.
The suspect, 42-year-old Carl Roy Webb Boards II, allegedly got out of a 2012 Buick LaCrosse after being pulled over and fired at Shahnavaz multiple times, striking him at least once, according to the Indiana State Police.
Boards then allegedly fled the scene in his car before Hamilton County Sheriff’s deputies located him around 2:30 am
Police deployed a tire deflation device and performed two PIT maneuvers, sending the Buick into a median. Boards was taken into custody without further incident.
He will be charged on Monday with murder, possession of a firearm by a violent felon, resisting law enforcement, as well as two enhancements for use of a firearm and being a habitual offender, according to Madison County chief deputy prosecutor Andrew Hannah.
TWO LOS ANGELES-AREA POLICE OFFICERS DIE AFTER SHOOTOUT WITH SUSPECT
“Noah proudly wore the Elwood Police Department uniform, serving the citizens of Elwood, he was part of our city family. A senseless act of violence robbed this man of the life and career that he had ahead of him,” Elwood Mayor Todd Jones said at a press conference on Sunday afternoon.
“On behalf of myself, my family and a most grateful city, I’m asking you to keep Noah’s family, friends, the Elwood Police Department and our city in your thoughts and prayers as we attempt to navigate through this tragic time.”
Carl Roy Webb Boards II, 42, allegedly shot and killed a police officer on Sunday morning in Madison County, Indiana. (Hamilton County Jail)
Boards is currently being held in the Hamilton County Jail.
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Shahnavaz, who served in the US Army for five years and graduated from the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy in April, leaves behind his mother, father and siblings.
“When’s it going to stop? I wish I had the answer. This young man served this country for five years and chose to come back and serve a local community,” Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter said Sunday.
Paul Best is a reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter: @KincaidBest.
