Clippers apologize to fans amid Leonard scandal
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Clippers on Monday apologized to fans and warned of grave challenges ahead after the NBA franchise was hit with severe penalties for its violations of salary cap rules.
Earlier this month, the Clippers were fined a record $30 million, stripped of five first-round NBA Draft picks and had multiple leadership figures banned after a probe uncovered violations involving payments to former star Kawhi Leonard.
After initially pledging to fight the sanctions, the Clippers have since pledged to comply with the NBA's decision. They begin their new season on October 21 against the Sacramento Kings.
"Obviously, this took a little longer than we had hoped. You guys deserved to hear from us before this. Our fans deserved to hear from us before this, and for that, we're sorry," said Trent Redden, interim head of basketball operations, at the team's media day.
Redden was standing in for Lawrence Frank, one of several Clipper executives suspended over the scandal, along with team owner Steve Ballmer.
Redden said running the team "will be a challenge without them" and warned that the "penalties we are facing are significant."
"These challenges are large, not just the penalties, but some of the injuries that we've already faced as well," he added.
Forward Brandon Ingram -- one of two players the Clippers acquired in exchange for trading Leonard back to the Toronto Raptors -- will miss the start of the new season as he recovers from surgery on a partially torn Achilles tendon, said Redden.
Shooting guard Bradley Beal will miss the start of training camp due to a knee injury, while young star Jordan Miller will not be available for months after surgery to repair a torn left rotator cuff.
"This franchise often has done its best work with its back against the wall," said Redden.
"We hope to represent our fans the same way we always have in dark times -- by coming out fighting."
The NBA investigation found the Clippers aided Leonard in evading salary cap rules in deals worth millions of dollars with team corporate sponsors when he signed in 2022.
The probe found the club induced companies to enter into agreements with Leonard by offering them business, paid personal expenses for Leonard and his representatives, and failed to report improper solicitations for income opportunities by Leonard's then-business manager.
John Gibson, a Los Angeles lawyer and long-standing Clippers fan, has been appointed interim governor and chief executive officer during Ballmer's year-long suspension.
Netanyahu asked Sheikh Mohamed to deny the report, according to a person said to have firsthand information about the meeting. Netanyahu’s office had previously denied the Haaretz report.
The person, along with a regional official briefed on the meeting, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the secret trip.
The UAE’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on reports about the meeting but stressed it maintains “open and direct lines of communication” with Israel and shares “all relevant intelligence.”
There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office.
But the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, filed a complaint with Israel’s chief military censor against Channel 12 over what it called a serious censorship violation. It said the timing of the report endangered the prime minister and the operation and forces on the ground and exposed Shin Bet operational methods.
The PMO said Channel 12 reported the flight at 9:38 p.m. while the plane was still outside Israel and about an hour before it landed.
—By Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Samy Magdy in Cairo
EU applies for observer status in a Saudi mission in the Red Sea
The European Union is applying for “observer status” in a new multinational maritime defense coalition led by Saudi Arabia formed to protect the kingdom’s energy exports.
The bloc’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas made the announcement on Monday, ahead of a Brussels meeting. The energy-hungry EU is facing record energy prices due to the war in Iran.
Kallas said she will ask for an expansion of the bloc’s own small naval force in the Red Sea dubbed ASPIDES to help escort cargo vessels through the key strategic chokepoint of the Bab el-Mandeb strait and protect them from attacks by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
Kallas said the “need is bigger than it’s ever been” for more ships. It’s unclear what observer status in the Saudi-led coalition would mean operationally for either the EU or ASPIDES.
Supreme leader says Iranian troops defended the Strait of Hormuz from the enemy
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has praised his country’s fighters for allegedly preventing “enemy forces” from “roaming freely” in the Strait of Hormuz.
Khamenei said in a message carried by the state broadcaster on Monday that Iran’s enemies now “do not come" closer to the strait than the Arabian Sea, which is part of the Indian Ocean.
Soon, "the Arabian Sea too, will be rid of them,” said the message, issued to mark the two-year anniversary of the killing of the militant Hezbollah group's longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon.
Khamenei hasn't been seen or heard publicly since the opening attacks of the war on Feb. 28 that killed his father and previous supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
WHO says more people have been killed or wounded in Yemen
The World Health Organization said Sunday it has documented 164 deaths and 645 injuries from the war in Yemen between Sept. 19 and Sept. 26.
This brings the overall casualties since Aug. 6 to 4,481, with 838 fatalities. The latest intense fighting between the Iran-backed Houthis and Yemeni government forces has displaced more than 180,000 people.
Israeli strikes in Gaza kill at least 1 person, wound others
A woman was killed and her husband wounded when an Israeli strike hit a Gaza City rooftop on Monday, Shifa Hospital officials said. Another person was also wounded and in critical condition.
The Israeli military later said it was aware of this strike and was looking into its results.
Later Monday, a second Israeli strike, on a school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, left one person critically injured, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza.
The Israeli military said it targeted a “military operative,” but did not immediately provide further details or identify the individual.
More than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed since the Gaza ceasefire took effect nearly a year ago. Around half of that number are women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which maintains detailed records that international organizations consider reliable.
UN envoy says West Bank settler violence at ‘unprecedented levels’
The United Nations' acting Mideast envoy said Monday that settler violence in the West Bank has reached “unprecedented levels” – often with Israeli forces present.
Ramiz Alakbarov told the U.N. Security Council that 630 documented settler attacks between June 13 and Sept. 18. resulted in casualties, property damage or both. Three Palestinian communities were "fully depopulated" during that period, he said, "bringing to 49 the number of communities fully displaced under similar circumstances since January 2023.”
Israel’s expansion of settlements in the West Bank, in violation of international law, also threatens prospects of a contiguous Palestinian state and a two-state solution, Alakbarov said.
An Israeli minister vows to press on with West Bank settlement project
Israel’s polarizing Cabinet minister in charge of settlement construction, Bezalel Smotrich, has condemned a decision by the attorney general to freeze a contentious project near Jerusalem.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara ordered the project to be put on hold until after the Oct. 27 elections so it wouldn't “be used for election propaganda.”
The project — known as E1 settlement development — is especially controversial because it would carve out a strategic section of the West Bank in a way that critics say would destroy hopes for a viable future Palestinian state.
Smotrich accused on X Baharav-Miara of “interfering in the election campaign” and acting in the service of Netanyahu’s political opponents.
Israel reprimands Spain over youth minister's controversial remarks
Israel summoned the Spanish Embassy’s chargé d’affaires over remarks by Spain's youth minister who declared the country's public support for a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea” — a slogan that implies a call for the elimination of the Israeli state.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said Monday that Spanish Youth Minister Sira Rego’s remarks were “part of a systematic anti-Israel policy pursued by the Spanish government” and its leader, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Rego was barred from entering Israel in Sept. 2025.
