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USA Today
13 hours ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Lakers jersey history No. 3 — Elmore Smith
Through the 2024-25 season, the Los Angeles Lakers have had a total of 506 players suit up for them, going back to their days in Minneapolis. Some were forgettable, some were serviceable, some were good and a select few were flat-out legendary. As the Lakers approach their 80th season of existence (they were founded back in 1946 as the Detroit Gems in the National Basketball League), LeBron Wire is taking a look at each player who has worn their jersey, whether it has been a purple and gold one or the ones they donned back in the Midwest during their early years. This time, we take a look at Elmore Smith, a center who spent two seasons with the Lakers. Smith played college basketball at Kentucky State University, where he averaged 21.3 points and 22.6 rebounds a game and won back-to-back NAIA championships. He was the No. 3 pick in the 1971 NBA Draft by the Buffalo Braves, although the Carolina Cougars of the American Basketball Association (ABA) also drafted him. He put up 17.8 points and 13.8 rebounds a game during his first two seasons in the pros. In 1973, Buffalo traded him to the Lakers for forward Jim McMillian. That offseason, Chamberlain left the Lakers and signed a contract to be a player-coach for the ABA's San Diego Conquistadors. Smith became his replacement, and Smith didn't do too badly. In his first season with the Lakers, Smith registered 12.5 points, 11.2 rebounds and an NBA-high 4.9 blocks a game. The following season, he had 10.9 points, 10.9 boards and 2.9 blocks per contest. In the summer of 1975, the team began building a bridge to its next championship era by landing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar from the Milwaukee Bucks. Smith, along with Junior Bridgeman, Dave Meyers and Brian Winters, was sent to Milwaukee in that deal. He would end up playing five more seasons in the NBA — two with Milwaukee and three with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Boston Globe
17 hours ago
- Business
- Boston Globe
Big law firms withdraw from challenging Trump
But Winston declined to represent the FBI agents, three people with knowledge of the matter said. It was one of several cases Winston turned down in quick succession, they added, that would have pitted the firm against an openly retributive president. Advertisement Some of the country's largest law firms have declined to represent clients challenging the Trump administration, more than a dozen attorneys and nonprofit leaders told ProPublica, while others have sought to avoid any clients that Trump might perceive as his enemies. That includes both clients willing to pay the firms' steep rates, and those who receive free representation. Big Law firms are also refusing to take on legal work involving environmental protections, LGBTQ+ rights and police accountability or to represent elected Democrats and federal workers purged in Trump's war on the 'deep state.' Advocacy groups say this is beginning to hamper their efforts to challenge the Trump administration. Advertisement Their fears intensified after Trump signed a battery of executive orders aimed at punishing top firms over old associations with his adversaries. But as the Winston episode shows, Big Law began to back away from some clients almost the minute he returned to power. The country's top firms remain deeply wary, even though the president has lost all four initial court challenges to those executive orders. 'The President's Policy is working as designed,' said a lawsuit the American Bar Association filed against the administration in June. 'Even as federal judges have ruled over and over that the Law Firm Orders are plainly unconstitutional, law firms that once proudly contributed thousands of hours of pro bono work to a host of causes — including causes championed by the ABA — have withdrawn from such work because it is disfavored by the Administration.' The bar association itself has struggled to find representation, Advertisement The ABA and Susman Godfrey, which is representing the association in its lawsuit against the administration, declined to comment. Winston, Sidley and the White House did not respond to questions sent in writing. Trump's grievances with Big Law stem partly from its role in blocking his first-term agenda. In his executive order targeting Jenner & Block, a firm with close ties to the Democratic Party that fought Trump on transgender rights and immigration, he assailed the firm for allegedly 'abus[ing] its pro bono practice to engage in activities that undermine justice.' Another firm, WilmerHale, was where former Special Counsel Robert Mueller worked before and after leading the Russian interference investigation. The executive orders barred attorneys working for the firms from entering federal buildings where they represent clients, terminated the firms' government contracts, revoked partners' security clearances and required government contractors to disclose if they work with the targeted firms. Perkins Coie, one of Trump's first targets, began to lose business 'within hours,' 'I just think that the law firms have to behave themselves,' Trump said at a press conference in late March. Nine corporate law firms behaved themselves in the form of reaching public settlements with Trump. The deals require them to provide $940 million in total of pro bono support for Trump-approved causes. There has been no public indication of the White House calling on them to perform specific work, and Trump has not released any new executive orders against firms since April. Yet organizations that challenge the government are still feeling the chill. Advertisement 'There's been a real, noticeable shift,' said Lauren Bonds, the executive director of the National Police Accountability Project, a national nonprofit that brings lawsuits over alleged police abuse and was a frequent pro bono client of Big Law. In November, as soon as Trump won reelection, a top firm that was helping NPAP develop a lawsuit against a city's police force abruptly stopped attending all planning calls, Bonds said. Later, the firm became one of the nine that struck a deal with Trump, after which the firm half-heartedly told Bonds, she said, that it would reconsider the case in the future. Bonds declined to identify the firm. Activist nonprofits have long relied on free representation because they typically lack the resources to mount major lawsuits on their own. Civil rights cases in particular are complex undertakings usually lasting years. Many call for hundreds of hours spent deposing witnesses and performing research, as well as upfront costs of tens of thousands of dollars. Big Law, with its deep ranks of attorneys and paying clients to subsidize their volunteer work, is in a unique position to help. In exchange, the work burnishes the firm's reputation and serves as a draw for idealistic young associates. 'I know that [cases] have been shot down that in Trump Administration 1, firms would crawl over each other to get our name at the top of the case so that we could get the New York Times headline,' said a Big Law partner whose firm has not been one of Trump's targets. 'That's the environment. What's become radioactive has grown from a very small number of things to anything this administration and Trump might notice and get angry about.' Advertisement Jill Collen Jefferson, the president and founder of Julian, a small nonprofit that investigates civil rights violations, has felt the chill too. Three years ago, Julian partnered with the elite law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, the country's No. 1 corporate firm most years by per-partner revenue, to bring lawsuits against the town of Lexington, Mississippi, and its police force for racial discrimination. 'It wasn't hard at all to get help,' she recalled. George Floyd's death had raised public support for police accountability, and the details Since January, when Trump began Jefferson now doubts Julian's ability to bring a police abuse lawsuit it had planned to file before the statute of limitations expires this month. Advertisement 'It's been a nightmare,' she said. 'People don't want to stand up, and because of that, people are suffering.' NPAP ultimately joined forces with another civil rights organization to salvage the case after its co-counsel disappeared from planning calls last November. But the suit will be 'less robust' without the firepower of a major law firm, Bonds said. And NPAP's capacity to file future suits is in question. Civil rights attorneys in NPAP's network have developed novel legal theories for challenging arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement under state constitutions, but they lack enough outside partnerships. 'There are cases that aren't being brought at a time when civil rights abuses are maybe at the highest they've been in modern times,' Bonds said. Big Law was often in the vanguard of fighting Trump's first administration. After he signed the 2017 travel ban affecting several predominantly Muslim countries, partners from Now, Davis Polk is among the many firms that are avoiding pro bono immigration cases, Winston & Strawn's annual pro bono reports show how its focus — or at least, its language — has changed. The firm's 2023 Eisen and Zaid, the lawyers representing the FBI agents, themselves became the target of Zaid sued to restore his security clearance in May, in a case that is ongoing. His lawyer, Abbe Lowell, is a high-profile defense attorney who left Winston this spring in order to form his own firm. Lowell said his goal is to represent those 'unlawfully and inappropriately targeted.' New York Attorney General Letitia James, who won a fraud judgment against Trump and is now a target of his DOJ, was one of his first clients. 'The Administration's attempt at retribution against Mark for doing his job — representing whistleblowers without regard to politics — is as illegal as its similar efforts against law firms that have been enjoined in every case,' Lowell wrote in an email to ProPublica. Good-government groups and small and mid-sized law firms have stepped into the breach, helping to file hundreds of lawsuits against the Trump administration. And the four firms that sued Trump over his executive orders are devoting thousands of pro bono hours to others challenging the administration. Perkins Coie, for example, has replaced Kirkland as Lambda Legal's partner in challenging Trump's transgender military ban. But until they build up the capacity to fully replace Big Law, Bonds said, some of the administration's legally dubious actions will go unchallenged. 'There's a financial resources piece that we're really missing when we can't engage a firm,' Bonds said. 'Even if there's a big case and we feel really confident about it, we'll just have to pass on it.'
USA Today
2 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Brooklyn Nets jersey history No. 22 - Al Beard (1967-68)
The Brooklyn Nets have 52 jersey numbers worn by over 600 different players over the course of their history since the franchise was founded in 1967 as a charter member of the American Basketball Association (ABA), when the team was known as the "New Jersey Americans". Since then, that league has been absorbed by the NBA with the team that would later become the New York Nets and New Jersey Nets before settling on the name by which they are known today, bringing their rich player and jersey history with them to the league of today. To commemorate the players who played for the Nets over the decades wearing those 52 different jersey numbers, Nets Wire is covering the entire history of the franchise's jersey numbers and the players who sported them since the founding of the team. The 23rd of those 52 different numbers is jersey No. 22, which has has had a total of 31 players wear the number in the history of the team. The first of those players wearing No. 22 played in the (then) New Jersey Americans (now, Brooklyn Nets) era, big man alum Al Beard. After ending his college career at Norfolk State, Beard would go unselected in the 1967 NBA Draft, instead signing with the ABA's Americans instead. The Fort Valley, Georgia native played the sole season of his ABA career with New Jersey, retiring from the league as a player afterward. During his time suiting up for the Americans, Beard wore only jersey Nos. 22 and 41 and put up 2.5 points and 3.5 rebounds per game. All stats and data courtesy of Basketball Reference.
Edmonton Journal
3 days ago
- Politics
- Edmonton Journal
The redcoats are coming — but this time the Americans invited them
Article content While he's aware of the role soldiers from Fort York played in the War of 1812, Jonathan Cole, who heads the American Bar Association's house of delegates, downplayed any suggestion that inviting redcoats to Monday's session is meant as a commentary on Trump's trade war or his musings about annexing Canada. Article content He noted the ABA's Toronto session has been years in the planning, pre-dating the recent friction between two countries that share the world's longest international land border. Article content 'It's a good chance to work together despite political issues,' Cole said in an interview from Nashville, Tennessee. Article content Fort York's history is a reminder of how 'the two countries have worked together since and have been such great allies,' Cole said. Article content He's excited the honour guard from Fort York is participating. 'They'll present both the American flag and the Canadian flag, and we'll have the national anthems sung for both countries as well before we begin our proceedings.' Article content Article content 'It was an unpleasant business for people in and around York at the time.' Article content Hickey argues the War of 1812 was 'essentially Canada's war of independence — and they won, so it is far better remembered in Canada than in the United States.' Article content Article content There are several ways to see the conflict, he said. Article content 'If you look at what happened on the battlefield and in the peace treaty (of Ghent) it looks like a draw because it was very hard to wage offensive warfare in the North American wilderness and when the United States was on the offensive early in the war they failed to make much headway in Canada,' Hickey said. Article content 'And when the British were in the driver's seat in the last year of the war, they didn't make much headway either.' Article content Article content But overall 'it's a clear British and Canadian victory because the United States went to war to force the British to give up the orders in council, which restricted American trade with the continent of Europe, and also to end impressment — the removal of seamen from American merchant vessels,' Hickey said. 'And neither of those issues was mentioned in the peace treaty' signed in December of 1814. Article content The only way to argue the U.S. benefitted from the conflict is, 'the British had a real problem after the war was over; nobody knew that was going to be the last Anglo-American war. And how were they going to defend Canada next time around from this growing expansionist colossus to the south?' Hickey said. 'They decided that their best tack was to accommodate the United States. And they pursued that policy in the course of the 19th Century, and ultimately it worked. There was a genuine Anglo-American accord by the 1890s. Then it turned into co-belligerency in World War One, and full-fledged alliance in World War Two that continues to this day. So, in the end, the United States got a little more respect for its sovereignty from the British.'
Business Wire
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Wire
Positive Development Raises $51.5M to Expand Nation's Leading Developmental Therapy Model for Autism
MCLEAN, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Positive Development, the leading provider of developmental therapy for autistic children and their families, today announced the close of $51.5M in Series C funding. New Investor aMoon co-led the round with existing investors B Capital and Flare Capital Partners, and continued participation from Digitalis Ventures, Healthworx, the innovation and investment arm of CareFirst Inc. and others. "This funding allows us to continue expanding a model that's working for families, providers, and payers," says Positive Development Co-founder & CEO, Mike Suiters Share Positive Development is the only autism care provider delivering developmental therapy at scale, positioning the company as the clear leader in this fast-growing category. The autism care market faces a crisis. Costs are climbing as autism diagnoses increase, with traditional, intensive Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) interventions for autistic children costing $50,000 to $70,000 per child per year (before adding speech, occupational therapy and/or any other healthcare needs). At the same time, health plans are seeking innovative, value-based care options that better serve families. Positive Development's model is built on Developmental Relationship-Based Interventions (DRBI): a family of relationship-centered approaches grounded in developmental science and academic research. Positive Development's model integrates speech, occupational and mental health therapies with technology and real-time data to improve care quality and parent experience. Unlike traditional autism therapy, DRBI therapies are lower intensity by design, delivering measurable outcomes in fewer hours and at a lower cost. On average, the cost of Positive Development's care model is 50% less than a comparable ABA program. 'Positive Development's ability to improve outcomes and reduce the total cost of care is directly aligned with aMoon's mission to partner with exceptional companies who are advancing solutions that will transform healthcare and help people live healthier, better lives,' said Dr. Tomer Berkovitz, Managing Partner at aMoon. 'Their unique developmental therapy model brings accessibility and affordability to systems in desperate need of change, and their extensive partnerships with payers and Medicaid programs showcase their success. We look forward to partnering with the team to help the company expand and scale to serve more families.' 'This funding allows us to continue expanding a model that's working for families, providers and payers,' said Mike Suiters, Co-founder and CEO of Positive Development. 'As the nation's leading provider of developmental autism care, we're focused on making high-quality, relationship-based support more accessible and affordable. We're grateful to aMoon, B Capital, and all our investors for helping us move this important work forward.' Positive Development will use the funds to grow its DRBI-based care model by expanding within new and existing markets, investing in new health plan and state Medicaid partnerships, and advancing its proprietary technology and AI platform that improves upon the efficiency, experience and quality of care. 'Autistic children and families deserve affordable options that are tailored to their unique strengths and challenges, and our healthcare system needs options that don't break the bank,' said B Capital Partner, Adam Seabrook. 'Positive Development's relationship-based, developmental therapy approach and alternative payment model are the future of autism care, and we're excited to help the company continue to build out these important services to make care more accessible and affordable.' As part of the Series C round, Dr. Tomer Berkovitz of aMoon has joined Positive Development's Board of Directors. To learn more about Positive Development's DRBI model and national expansion, please visit or follow company updates on: Instagram Facebook LinkedIn About Positive Development Since 2020, Positive Development has been on a mission to deliver developmental therapy to as many autistic children and families as possible. Positive Development's team represents dedicated parents, devoted family members, impassioned self-advocates and pioneering clinicians. Together, they have experienced the transformative power of high-quality Developmental Relationship-Based Interventions (DRBI) therapy firsthand – personally, professionally and scientifically. As the largest provider of developmental therapy in the country, Positive Development is committed to broadening access to this life-changing approach while establishing best practices in clinical support. The company's dedication to outcomes measurement and evaluation benefits all families served. About Positive Development's Model Positive Development focuses on play-based developmental therapy based in Developmental Relationship-Based Interventions (DRBI). This family of approaches optimizes outcomes for autistic children by supporting interactions that recognize their innate motivations and constitutional differences, supported by trusting relationships and safe connections. DRBI is less invasive, more empowering and requires less time to see progress than other autism care models. Positive Development encourages and supports parents to participate in their child's care program. With coaching, parents strengthen meaningful interactions with their child through playful engagement that follows the child's intent while challenging them to extend their ideas and abilities. For more information about DRBI, visit
