Former NBA great Shaquille O’Neal surprised a 13-year-old basketball player with new shoes after learning the teen’s mother can’t afford to buy her son size 18 sneakers. The retired NBA star surprised Zach Keith, a young basketball player from Georgia, with 10 pairs of extra-large specialty shoes after hearing of the family’s financial struggles. “Mom […]

LOS ANGELES — A big crowd showed up for the festive unveiling of President Barack Obama Boulevard here last weekend, at the intersection of “hope and resistance,” as one news outlet put it. Sure, it’s just a three-and-a-half-mile stretch of road, a living ex-president’s name added to streets honoring Jefferson and Washington. But the ceremony […]

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.) Good morning, We start today with escalating trade tensions between the U.S. and China, a push for Ukraine to wade into American political crises and the Catholic Church’s first worldwide law requiring officials to report sexual abuse. China trade deal hangs in the balance Tariffs […]

Last June, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council speaker, Corey Johnson, stood before scores of older New Yorkers outside City Hall to celebrate the news that this year’s capital budget would include $500 million to build new housing for low-income seniors. Yet, nearly a year later, it turns out that the money wasn’t […]

Last month, Joe Biden called me to talk about his conduct during Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991. There has been a lot of discussion recently about whether he has offered me the right words. Given the #MeToo movement and Mr. Biden’s bid for the presidency, it’s understandable why his role in the […]

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LONDON (Reuters) – Global power and utility executives are positive about the prospects for mergers and acquisitions in the year ahead, despite deals falling to their lowest level since 2012 in the first quarter, Ernst & Young (EY) said on Thursday. The value of global deals in the sector was $20.6 billion in the first […]

The flight home was delayed, which meant several hours hanging around the airport gate, waiting for news of a departure. By the time we eventually boarded, it was pushing 10pm, and the parents in the front row already looked exhausted. Their two fractious young children, a baby boy of about a year, and his toddler […]

President Trump owes the American people a fuller account of his financial dealings, including the release of his recent tax returns, because politicians should keep their promises, because the public deserves to know whether his policies are lining his pockets and because the integrity of our system of government requires everyone, particularly the president, to […]

After hearing horror stories about the homeless camping in Riverdale and elsewhere, some action is going to happen on a couple of fronts at Edmonton City Hall. At Wednesday’s community services committee, Councillor Michael Walters called for an action plan to be reviewed by May 22, the next meeting in two weeks after city staff […]