Kevin Durant buys minority stake in Paris Saint-Germain, will advise club on basketball expansion
PARIS — NBA star Kevin Durant has purchased a minority stake in Champions League winner Paris Saint-Germain , the French soccer club said Friday.
Qatar Sports Investments, PSG's majority shareholder, signed an investment and strategic partnership agreement with Durant, the club said in a statement. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Habz, Stark light up Diamond League as Girma banishes Paris blues
France's Azeddine Habz (C) celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the men's 1500m (EMMA DA SILVA) Unheralded Azzedine Habz and Grace Stark lit up a drama-loaded Diamond League meet in Paris on Friday, snatching the limelight with two outstanding performances that put a raft of higher-profile athletes in the shade. Paris proved to be the perfect testing ground as athletes continue to fine-tune their form ahead of September's world championships in Tokyo. Advertisement Habz sent the partisan crowd into raptures by becoming the sixth fastest man over 1500m of all time, riding the coattails of two pacemakers to clock 3:27.49 for a meet record and new French best. In a shockingly fast race, Kenya's Phanuel Kipkosgei Koech set a world junior record in second, while 11 of the next 12 athletes all timed personal bests, including national records for the Netherlands, Belgium and South Africa. "It's incredible, there's no other word for it," said the 31-year-old Morocco-born Habz, twice a minor medallist at European indoors. "It's truly a dream come true. To succeed in a race like this in Paris is even stronger." Advertisement There were a rash of further meet records in perfect, hot conditions at Stade Charlety. American Stark clocked 12.21sec in the 100m hurdles to go joint fifth fastest of all time, holding off Nigeria's 2022 world champion and world record holder Tobi Amusan. "I wanted to break that 12.3 so bad!" Stark said. "It feels that I can have a party. "And then, I just need to keep working, taking it race by race, stay focused and stay quiet." Dominican Republic's Marileidy Paulino made no mistake in the women's 400m although she had to pull out all stops down the home straight to outpace Bahraini rival Salwa Eid Naser. Advertisement Paulino, gold medallist at last year's Paris Olympics and the 2023 worlds in Budapest, made it three victories in a row at Charlety in 48.81sec, four-hundredths ahead of Naser. American Rai Benjamin also racked up a meet record of 46.93sec in the 400m hurdles, making easy work of the victory in the absence of Norwegian arch-rival Karsten Warholm and Brazilian Alison Dos Santos. "Sub-47 is impressive. I just ran smart and ran for the win," said Benjamin. - 'A little scared' - Ethiopia's Lamecha Girma lit up the 2023 edition of the Meeting de Paris by smashing the previous world record (7:52.11) for the 3,000m steeplechase. Advertisement There was disaster at the Paris Olympics, however, after Girma fell heavily in the last lap of the Stade de France track. But he made a winning return to Stade Charlety, winning in 8:07.01 after admitting he had overcome a sense of dread. "This is a big thing for me today, especially after the Paris Olympics," Girma said. "It feels it was a long time ago, so this was very important for me. This is a very big achievement, so I am very happy." "I was a little scared at first getting into the race. Now that the race is finished I feel much better." Morocco's Sofiane El Bakkali is the two-time Olympic steeplechase champion, but he opted to race the 5,000m in Paris alongside the Ethiopian Yomif Kejelcha, who claimed his 11th Diamond League victory in 12:47.84. Advertisement Kenya's Faith Cherotich ran a world lead of 8:53.37 in the women's steeplechase, holding off Uganda's Peruth Chemutai. Australia's Nicola Olyslagers, a two-time world indoor champion who has won twice in Paris (2021, 2023), won the women's high jump with a best of 2.00m. Ukraine's Yaroslava Mahuchikh, the world and Olympic champion who set the current world record of 2.10 metres at last year's Diamond League meet in Paris, finished second with 1.97m on countback from another Australian, Eleanor Patterson. Grant Holloway, the three-time world champion and Olympic gold medallist making his return to action after a disastrous opening outing in China, could only finish fifth in the 110m hurdles, albeit in a season's best of 13.11sec. Advertisement It was his US teammate Trey Cunningham who won in a personal best of 13.00sec, ahead of Dylan Beard, also in a PB of 13.02sec, while Jason Joseph set a Swiss record of 13.07 for third. And Spain's Mohamed Attaoui picked an inside line to outpace the American duo of Josh Hoey and Bryce Hoppel in what he called a "brutal" 800m in a season's best of 1:42.73. lp/ea
Washington Post
23 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Israel is succeeding but will it overreach?
The Middle East is being reshaped by a fundamental shift in the balance of power: the rise of Israel. Consider the changed landscape. In the 1990s, Israel was closer to a run-of the-mill developing country. Today, its per capita gross domestic product rivals many in Europe and is the highest in the region, except for Qatar (which has a lot of oil and gas and few people). In 1990, Israel's GDP per capita was slightly higher than Iran's; today, it is nearly 15 times Iran's. The country now operates at the frontiers of technology, which is why the Gulf states have been so eager to develop ties with it. And in the last two years, Israel's military and intelligence forces have fought and bested Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Syria and Iran. Its multi-tiered air defenses have stopped the vast majority of incoming missiles and drones. Put this all together, and you have a country that has become the region's superpower. Even so, Israeli officials were cautious about acting forcefully against some of the threats they faced. As Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations points out, for the last two decades, the conventional wisdom in the United States and in Israel was that with adversaries such as Hezbollah and Iran — which had thousands of rockets and missiles that they could rain down on Israel — deterrence was the best that Israel could achieve. Every time it suffered a blow, Israel hit back, but it all seemed calculated to avoid escalation. The attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, changed the Israeli mindset, much as 9/11 did for the United States. The country's leaders were far more willing to take risks and confront adversaries preemptively, even preventively. Even so, it launched its exploding pager operation last September only because the plans were in danger of being exposed. Only then did the rest of Israel's attack follow, and it succeeded beyond all expectations, utterly devastating Hezbollah's leadership and its rocket infrastructure. This was the turning point. Hezbollah, the foe on Israel's borders it feared the most, turned out to be a paper tiger. In 2024, Israel attacked and destroyed many of Iran's air defenses. Neither of Israel's attacks that year produced anything near the kind of response that it had feared. Instead, the effect of these blows was to trigger the fall of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, who had been propped up by Iran, Hezbollah and Russia. And so, in 2025, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to act on the threat that he had been obsessed with for more than 30 years — and to act aggressively. He launched an air attack against Iran and, so far, it has destroyed much of Iran's military leadership and infrastructure. While it has not destroyed the Natanz and Fordow nuclear facilities, both of which are at least partially buried deep below ground, it has destroyed much of the rest of Iran's nuclear operations. President Donald Trump, who had been eager to negotiate a deal with Iran, counseled Netanyahu not to attack (by Trump's own admission), and, when Israel did anyway, Secretary of State Marco Rubio put out a statement distancing the United States from the operation. Since then, watching Israel's success, Trump has had FOMO — fear of missing out — and embraced the operation, even signaling that he might join in and use America's massive firepower to blast Fordow. But ultimately, putting an end to Iran's nuclear program cannot be done with just bombs, even bunker-busting ones. Iran is a country of 90 million, with a nuclear program that is now almost 70 years old, started under the shah. Thousands of scientists and technicians have worked on it. And nuclear technology is not cutting-edge technology; it was developed more than 80 years ago, in the era of shortwave radio and television tubes. The best way to put it under wraps is to make Iran agree to do so and verify that through intrusive inspections. One of the dangers of military success is that it often expands the victor's ambitions. After a stunning initial success in the Korean War, Gen. Douglas MacArthur decided he would try to unify the two Koreas and moved into the North, triggering a massive Chinese response that bogged down American forces for years. After Afghanistan fell in a matter of weeks in 2001, the Bush administration was emboldened to take the War on Terror to Iraq. In 1982, Israel's early successes in Lebanon led it to try to 'solve the problem' once and for all. What followed was an 18-year unsuccessful occupation of southern Lebanon. Israel's victories have been extraordinary so far, but they are making the country's leaders expand their ambitions — with some openly speaking about regime change and assassinating Iran's supreme leader. They are also emboldening Trump, who wants to get in on the glory. But it is at moments such as this that wise leaders avoid hubris and overreach and instead set clear, achievable goals that can transform military victories into lasting political success.
%3Amax_bytes(150000)%3Astrip_icc()%2FTAL-airplane-sunset-BESTAIRLINE0625-80289ebe73674bd1bc9d681bfa134d29.jpg&w=3840&q=100)
Travel + Leisure
36 minutes ago
- Travel + Leisure
This Airline Was Just Named the Best in the World—and It's a 9-time Winner
For many travelers, flying has become little more than a way to reach a destination—efficient, often impersonal, and rarely memorable. But a select group of airlines continue to invest in the idea that the journey still matters. With refined cabins, thoughtful amenities, and attentive service, they aim to make time in the air feel less like transit and more like an experience. Each year, the Skytrax World Airline Awards, often referred to as 'the Oscars of the aviation industry,' recognize the carriers that deliver on that promise. First launched in 1999, the awards are based on global passenger surveys and are considered among the most respected honors in commercial aviation. At the June 17, 2025, ceremony in France, Qatar Airways was named the World's Best Airline for the second consecutive year and the ninth time in Skytrax history. Qatar Airways rose to the top out of more than 325 airlines that were included in the survey results. According to Skytrax's award and survey methodology, the ranking is 'not restricted to member airlines or a pre-selected choice of airline, and any airline in the world can be nominated. The focus of the survey is for customers to make their own, personal choices as to which airline they consider to be the best, underlining the brand as the Passenger's Choice Awards.' 'Being named the World's Best Airline for the ninth time is an extraordinary honor," Qatar Airways Group CEO, Engr. Badr Mohammed Al-Meer, said in the Skytrax press release. "Being continuously recognized as a 5-Star Airline further underscores our mission: to set new benchmarks for the industry and to ensure that our passengers feel genuinely cared for, valued and inspired to return.' Qatar Airways, which is the flag carrier of Qatar and is headquartered in Doha, was also named the Best Airline in the Middle East. Qatar Airways' largest aircraft, the Airbus A380, is a flier favorite. It has two floors and one of the world's largest on-board lounges. Its business class—branded as Qsuites and includes a series of private suites with sliding doors—was named the World's Best Business Class, while the airline's Al Mourjan Garden Lounge in Doha was named the World's Best Business Class Airline Lounge. Singapore Airlines, which was No. 1 in 2023 and has won the award five times, held onto second place for the second year in a row. In third place for 2025 was Cathay Pacific, while Emirates came in at No. 4 and All Nippon Airways (ANA) at No. 5.
