BREAKING NEWS Alert!

Kevin Durant made a loud statement by picking Brooklyn in free agency — and has been quiet since. But the injured superstar sat down — with a Nets logo positioned in the backdrop — to talk about various topics, including his new team and the possibility of coming back this season. “I’m excited about this group,” Durant told sneakerhead/gaming influencer Chris Henderson in a YouTube video. “Obviously with me not starting off the season and obviously being injured, you’re going to see a lot of guys step up and do some things and go to another level as a player.” Starting off are the operative words. While it’s hardly a guarantee, it’s noteworthy — and enough to get Nets fans’ ears perking up. After Durant ruptured his Achilles during June’s NBA Finals, Golden State flatly said he’d miss next season, but The Post has steadfastly left open the possibility of a return this coming campaign. Now, after general manager Sean Marks refused to rule Durant out for the season during July’s sum...

New documents found by reporter Ronan Farrow show that the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concealed its relationship with Jeffrey Epstein as it secretly pocketed at least $1.7 million in his donations — far more than the school has admitted publicly. The Media Lab knew the disgraced financier was a convicted sex offender, but still took his gifts and used him as an intermediary with other wealthy donors, including Bill Gates and investor Leon Black, Farrow reported for The New Yorker. Epstein helped secure at least $7.5 million from well-heeled donors for the school, including two million dollars from Gates and $5.5 million from Black, Farrow wrote, citing interviews and dozens of pages of e-mails and other documents from the school. The documents show that while Epstein was listed as “disqualified” in M.I.T’s official donor database, the Media Lab continued to pocket his cash in secret — by marking his contributions as “anonymous.” The donations were kept ...

The Antonio Brown-Raiders saga keeps getting weirder. Just when it appeared the star receiver’s confrontation with General Manager Mike Mayock and the threat of a suspension had been put behind them, Brown ensured he got the last word. Brown posted a nearly two-minute, black–and-white video to his official YouTube account late Friday night after he reportedly delivered “an emotional apology the team” and the Raiders chose not to suspend the receiver for his tirade. Wednesday’s blow up, during which he reportedly called Mayock a “cracker,” happened because Brown was frustrated with the fines he received for missing a walkthrough and practice. The video, which he said on Instagram was for him to “control my own narrative,” starts with Brown running on the field in his Raiders uniform and includes a recorded call between him and coach Jon Gruden playing in the background. It ends with Brown saying: “This is my life. Ain’t no more games.” “Please stop this s–t and just play football,”...

Hard seltzer-obsessed Yuppies are freaking out on Twitter over a nationwide shortage of White Claw. Stores can’t keep the bubbly, low-calorie booze on the shelf due to sky-high demand, Business Insider reported Friday — and millennials and Gen Z drinkers are in a panic. The brand confirmed the shortage on Twitter Friday night, when a concerned drinker tweeted, “I’m gonna lose my god damn mind. Please tell me you have someone working on this?!?! @WhiteClaw.” White Claw tweeted back: “We have the best team in the business working on this.” Another hard-seltzer drinker noted similarities to the Popeye’s chicken sandwich shortage. “If you’re having a Popeyes chicken sandwich with a White Claw this weekend, you have won the lottery,” he wrote . White Claw told Business Insider in a statement, “We are working around the clock to increase supply given the rapid growth in consumer demand.” “In the meantime, we have been allocating product to our distributor partners to keep all markets...

BOSTON — Two Yankees capitalized on a rare day off to visit a wounded friend … who also happens to be an enemy of their team. David Ortiz, the iconic, retired Red Sox slugger who was shot in his native Dominican Republic on June 9, welcomed countrymen Edwin Encarnacion and Gary Sanchez to his Boston-area home for about three hours Thursday. For Encarnacion, it marked his second meeting with Ortiz since the highly publicized shooting. For Sanchez, it served as an opportunity to salute a mentor. “It was really nice to see him and see him healthy,” Sanchez said through an interpreter. “Last time I was in Boston, some of the guys went to visit. I had to leave early that series. So I’m glad I had the chance now to see him, thank God, because he’s looking healthy.” Encarnacion, one of the people who saw Ortiz the last time the Yankees were in Boston in late July, said: “It was better to see him the second time. He looks stronger. He’s walking around. Everything’s normal. It was good to s...

Two Alaska Airlines travelers shared new details about what sparked mass chaos at Newark Airport on Labor Day, saying an airline employee went berserk right after asking them bizarre questions about their Asian heritage. “Why are you acting suspiciously?” the employee, whose name has not been released, asked 29-year-old Han Han Xue as he tried to fly home to San Francisco Monday evening, he told BuzzFeed News. The employee is reportedly bipolar and had an issue with her medication. “How much are they paying you? Did they give you a visa? Did they give your family a visa? Do you make a lot of money? Do you work on Wall Street? Are you on an American visa?” Xue told the news site she asked him. She also quizzed 20-year-old Chunyi Luo, who was standing nearby, asking him: “Are you scared? Are you nervous?” according to the report. The two men — who did not know each other — tried to avoid the employee, but she allegedly told them, “I’m onto you guys. The cops are already called.” ...

BOSTON — Not every rough outing by a starting pitcher is cause for concern, especially when that pitcher has been as steady as Domingo German. But it’s also true the right-hander is in uncharted waters. German entered Friday having already thrown a career-high 132 ¹/₃ innings and a potential limit has been discussed almost since the beginning of the season. That talk could continue after a 6-1 loss to the Red Sox at Fenway Park. German, coming off two good starts in which he allowed just three runs over 11 innings, had pitched well in three of his previous four outings and allowed just two walks and no hits through the first three innings at Fenway Park. But he unraveled quickly in the fourth. Rafael Devers delivered Boston’s first hit, a double off the Green Monster to lead off the bottom of the fourth. German struck out Xander Bogaerts and J.D. Martinez grounded to second, moving Devers to third. After Andrew Benintendi walked, Brock Holt drilled a hard grounder that got by G...

Rafael Nadal will get his chance at No. 19. The second-seeded Spaniard dispensed of Matteo Berrettini, 7-6 (6), 6-4, 6-1, in the US Open men’s semifinals at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Friday night. He advances to play Daniil Medvedev, who beat Grigor Dimitrov 7-6 (5), 6-4, 6-3 in the other semifinal, on Sunday. A victory would give Nadal his 19th Grand Slam title, putting him one behind Roger Federer for the all-time lead. Credit: Source link The post Rafael Nadal cruises into US Open final with straight-set win appeared first on Fox USA Live . from Fox USA Live https://ift.tt/2LAvmv7

A Queens hoarder’s house is as horrid inside as it is outside, new photos show. Two interior snapshots of the house obtained by The Post show piles of clothes and other junk crammed throughout the notorious South Jamaica hovel, which has become an eyesore in its neighborhood due to its garbage-laden lawn. Countless shirts, sweaters and other clothing are piled through the house on 118th Avenue, where the tenant has racked up $343,000 in unpaid fines since 2015, “for continued non-compliance with [Department of Buildings] orders to keep the property in a safe and code-compliant condition,” according to city officials. Another photo shows dressers and chairs in the house covered in clothes, electronics and other knickknacks. The house, which is occupied by Carmine Bhimull, came under scrutiny after a front-page Post report that showed its filthy conditions had spilled out into the front lawn, stacked up to the second-story window. City officials said Friday that they plan to c...

The French investigation into the sprawling Jeffrey Epstein sex case is heating up — thanks to two women who are providing evidence against one of his alleged procurers, celebrity model scout Jean-Luc Brunel. The women, both of whom are French, told authorities that Brunel scouted girls for Epstein, who had a house in Paris, the Telegraph reported, citing sources close to the French investigation launched last month. They also accused Brunel of sexually assaulting them, the Telegraph reported. The women’s identities and details of how they knew Brunel were not revealed. Brunel, 72, vanished after Epstein’s suicide last month, and is being sought by French authorities. He is credited with discovering some of the biggest names in modeling, including Christy Turlington and Angie Everhart. Credit: Source link The post French probe of Jeffrey Epstein case heating up appeared first on Fox USA Live . from Fox USA Live https://ift.tt/2LDd1h0

The Democratic National Committee warned New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo Friday that moving up the state’s primary election day would come with consequences. Cuomo’s desire to change the Democratic primary from April 28 to February came up at a DNC Rules and Bylaws meeting Friday and was quickly dismissed by leadership. “Moving into the February pre-window would be a violation of the DNC timing rules,” said Jim Roosevelt, co-chair of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee. “And those whose memories stretch back to 2008 will remember that we do not take violations of the timing rule lightly and we would take appropriate action if that were to happen.” In 2008, Michigan and Florida skirted party rules and moved up their primaries in effort to grab some of the candidate attention that is usually reserved for early states like Iowa and New Hampshire. As punishment, the DNC took away half their delegate votes at the convention. NY1 reported Thursday that Cuomo was considering also moving the Se...

A Broadway pianist is a pedophile, the Queens DA said Friday night. Musician and vocal coach Justin Brown, 26 — who has worked as a rehearsal pianist for “Dear Evan Hansen” and “King Kong” — was arrested Thursday when he showed up at a Queens address with his backpack filled with lubricant and condoms, prosecutors said. He thought he was meeting a 14-year-old boy for sex, prosecutors said. In fact, the “boy” was an undercover NYPD cop who’d posed as a kid on the dating app Grindr, prosecutors said. In custody, Brown allegedly admitted that he’d been chatting with several underage boys. “The defendant, who was told numerous times that the person he was chatting with was an underage boy, continued to pursue the ‘youngster’ and traveled from Manhattan to Queens to meet for sex,” said Queens Acting District Attorney John M. Ryan. Brown was using the dating app Grindr at 11 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 2, when he started a back-and-forth with the “boy.” “Brown asked for the individual’s age...

The NYPD unveiled its new Manhattan facility for its Special Victims Division on Friday, along with renovated SVD units in Brooklyn and The Bronx. “Victim-centered facility upgrades” also are under way in Queens and Staten Island and will be finished by the end of the year, officials said. Deputy Chief Judith Harrison, commanding officer of the SVD, said her team’s mission is to employ a “victim-centered approach” in everything it does. “Traditional police facilities can often look intimidating. Over the past year, the department has undertaken major renovations,” Harrison said. “You see the furniture, you see colors that were picked out … you see the decor, the aesthetic — all of this was done with the survivor in mind,” she said. The facility upgrades include child-friendly waiting rooms, a designated interview room, renovated work-spaces for investigators, comfortable furniture and aesthetic improvements such as art, plants, welcoming signage and new paint with a calming blue ...

Andy Ruiz Jr. was sporting new Gucci sneakers, a thick bracelet packed with diamonds and a ring with enough bling to impress Floyd Mayweather. These are just a few of the spoils Ruiz has enjoyed since upsetting Anthony Joshua in June at Madison Square Garden to capture three of the four major heavyweight championship belts. The stunning seventh-round TKO over previously unbeaten Joshua made Ruiz the first heavyweight champion of Mexican heritage and launched celebrations from Mexico to his home in Imperial Valley, Calif. Along the way, Ruiz has treated himself to some of the finer things in life, raising questions of whether he has overindulged in his success and won’t be ready for the rematch, set for Dec. 7 in Saudi Arabia. Ruiz (33-1, 21 KOs) discounted that notion during a press conference this week in Manhattan to announce the bout, which DAZN will livestream in the United States. “Just because I bought some jewelry and things I’ve always wished for and always wanted, it does...