The 2024 WNBA Playoffs are in full swing and we’ve reached the semifinals, which includes a Finals rematch between the top-seeded New York Liberty and Las Vegas Aces and a defensive-focused showdown between the Minnesota Lynx and Connecticut Sun.

We’re also in the middle of awards season. The league announced several major awards, including MVP, which went to Aces star A’ja Wilson for the third time, and the Defensive Player of the Year award, which Lynx forward Napheesa Collier picked up on Sunday. There is also a report from Shams Charania that Caitlin Clark was named Rookie of the Year, although this has not been officially announced.

Here’s a look at the awards we know of so far and what’s to come:

Wilson put together the best individual season the league has ever seen and, in fact, had secured the MVP award by mid-summer. She became the first player to score 1,000 points in a season, set a record for highest scoring average in a season (26.9 points) and broke the single-season rebounding record (451). Among all players, she was first in scoring, second in rebounds, first in blocks and fifth in steals. The only real question was whether Wilson would win the award unanimously, which she did, joining Cynthia Cooper (1997) as the only players to achieve that feat.

The league has not yet officially announced the rookie of the year, but Charania reported that Clark will be the winner. That’s no surprise after having one of the best debut seasons in league history. Clark set the single-game assist record, the single-season assist record, the rookie scoring record and the rookie 3-point record, was the first rookie to record a triple-double (she tied with two off) and the first rookie to receive a Player of the Month honor. She ranked seventh in the league in scoring and first in assists.

The Lynx were the biggest surprise team this season. They won a franchise-record 30 games and secured the second playoff spot thanks to their dynamic defense that ranked second in the league (94.8 defensive rating). Collier was the anchor of this unit. She averaged 1.9 steals and 1.4 blocks per game, which ranked second and seventh in the league, respectively, and had 3.7 defensive win shares, also good for second.

Carrington moved into the Sun’s starting lineup this year and posted career-highs across the board with 12.7 points, five rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.6 steals per game. While that was impressive, she was named the best player largely because of the jump she made on the defensive side of the ball. Carrington is arguably the best fullback in the league and played a key role in the Sun’s league-best defensive rating of 94.1.

For the second time ever, the Coach of the Year and Manager of the Year were the same person, Reeve from Minnesota. The Lynx maestro is now also the first person in league history to win Coach of the Year four times. She made a series of smart moves in both the winter and midseason, culminating in the signings of Courtney Williams and Alanna Smith, and led the Lynx to a franchise-record 30 wins and the No. 2 overall pick.

All-Defensive Teams

First team

Second team

TEMPLE, Texas (KWTX) – Owner Helen Robinson remembers the ups and downs she and her husband have faced over the past few years keeping their family farm running as this year marks five years since her husband Brian was diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder.

“He’s strong, he’s healthy, he still has permanent disabilities due to the nerve damage we deal with every day, but he’s glad he’s healthy and here with us living his dream,” Robinson said .

In 2022, the Robinsons experienced a large grass fire in their parking lot that destroyed 70 vehicles, and last May, a tornado that devastated most of Temple destroyed many of their barns and buildings.

But despite everything the Robinsons have experienced, Helen says they’re grateful to be open in time for fall.

“So many people don’t know we were hit by a tornado, they have no idea, and whether you did or not, you deserve the best experience and that’s what we want to provide,” Robinson said .

Local farm Halvorson’s Hidden Harvest has been working with the Robinsons since 2019, and owner James Halvorson says the Robinsons’ commitment to their community is what keeps people coming back every year.

“It’s such a happy place, the kids and families that come here love it, and so they’ve done a good job of separating the worries and troubles that were going on behind the scenes,” Halvorson noted.

Robinson says her family is happy to once again be open to the community they value so much.

The Robinson’s Fall Festival continues every weekend from now until November 10th.

Copyright 2024 KWTX. All rights reserved.

The 2024 WNBA Playoffs are in full swing and we’ve reached the semifinals, which includes a Finals rematch between the top-seeded New York Liberty and Las Vegas Aces and a defensive-focused showdown between the Minnesota Lynx and Connecticut Sun.

We’re also in the middle of awards season. The league announced several major awards, including MVP, which went to Aces star A’ja Wilson for the third time, and the Defensive Player of the Year award, which Lynx forward Napheesa Collier picked up on Sunday. There is also a report from Shams Charania that Caitlin Clark was named Rookie of the Year, although this has not been officially announced.

Here’s a look at the awards we know of so far and what’s to come:

Wilson put together the best individual season the league has ever seen and, in fact, had secured the MVP award by mid-summer. She became the first player to score 1,000 points in a season, set a record for highest scoring average in a season (26.9 points) and broke the single-season rebounding record (451). Among all players, she was first in scoring, second in rebounds, first in blocks and fifth in steals. The only real question was whether Wilson would win the award unanimously, which she did, joining Cynthia Cooper (1997) as the only players to achieve that feat.

The league has not yet officially announced the rookie of the year, but Charania reported that Clark will be the winner. That’s no surprise after having one of the best debut seasons in league history. Clark set the single-game assist record, the single-season assist record, the rookie scoring record and the rookie 3-point record, was the first rookie to record a triple-double (she tied with two off) and the first rookie to receive a Player of the Month honor. She ranked seventh in the league in scoring and first in assists.

The Lynx were the biggest surprise team this season. They won a franchise-record 30 games and secured the second playoff spot thanks to their dynamic defense that ranked second in the league (94.8 defensive rating). Collier was the anchor of this unit. She averaged 1.9 steals and 1.4 blocks per game, which ranked second and seventh in the league, respectively, and had 3.7 defensive win shares, also good for second.

Carrington moved into the Sun’s starting lineup this year and posted career-highs across the board with 12.7 points, five rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.6 steals per game. While that was impressive, she was named the best player largely because of the jump she made on the defensive side of the ball. Carrington is arguably the best fullback in the league and played a key role in the Sun’s league-best defensive rating of 94.1.

For the second time ever, the Coach of the Year and Manager of the Year were the same person, Reeve from Minnesota. The Lynx maestro is now also the first person in league history to win Coach of the Year four times. She made a series of smart moves in both the winter and midseason, culminating in the signings of Courtney Williams and Alanna Smith, and led the Lynx to a franchise-record 30 wins and the No. 2 overall pick.

All-Defensive Teams

First team

Second team

COLUMBIA COUNTY, Fla. — Columbia County officials held a meeting Sunday to discuss recovery efforts following Hurricane Helene.

RELATED: ‘It shook the whole house’: Columbia County woman’s front door blocked, roof damaged after a tree fell in Helene’s home

Officials said the Red Cross will give away meals at four locations:

• Deep Creek Community Center

• Richardson Community Center

• Fort White Community Center

• Winfield Community Center

People at the Winfield Community Center said they were thrilled the Red Cross was distributing food.

People will also have the opportunity to shower, do laundry and use toilets.

Clarence Jett and others without electricity took advantage of the free laundry facility in Winfield.

He said he didn’t have clean work clothes before the power went out.

Maenell Bailey said it felt great that she could take a hot shower while his power was out.

“I should be able to sleep well at night,” Bailey said.

Electric companies are working to restore power to the area.

Clay Electric hopes to have power restored to 98% of its customers by Tuesday. This excludes the Three Rivers area. They hope power will be restored Wednesday evening or Thursday.

FPL said it hopes to have power restored to 95% of its customers by the end of Monday.

Suwannee Valley Electric and Duke hope to restore service to their customers in the next few days.

A state rapid assessment team was in the area Sunday and a local team will be in the area Monday.

The emergency operations center director said it was an important step in recovery efforts.

“Hopefully we can get a PA declaration and also an IA declaration and then get to be included in that FEMA declaration so that residents can then ask for reimbursements for Hurricane Helene,” Shayne Morgan said.

Morgan said it was important that any damage in the area be reported. You can do this by calling the hotline at 386-719-7530.

Jez Butterworth’s ambitious, captivating and hugely rewarding family drama The Hills of California moves between two worlds of dream and reality, oscillating between two crucial periods in the lives of the Webb women.

Although this tightly packed, 17-actor piece is more family-focused in its themes than Butterworth’s earlier, breathtaking epics “Jerusalem” and “The Ferryman” as well as “The Hills of California” – also directed by Tony-winning Sam Mendes The award-winning film “Ferryman” also attracts social attention because it describes women with limited opportunities and many obstacles in an ever-changing world.

In the mid-1950s, Veronica Webb (Laura Donnelly), a disciplined but caring mother, trains her young teen and tween daughters to form a singing and dancing quartet reminiscent of the style and song list of ’40s girl group The Andrew Sisters remembered. But 20 years later, the four-part harmonies have long since fallen silent as the emotionally damaged sisters gather in their parents’ home to watch over their dying mother.

The piece fluctuates between the two time periods and begins in the late 1970s during a debilitating heat wave. The unmarried Jill (Helena Wilson), who has remained in the house with her dying mother, awaits the arrival of two of her siblings, Ruby (Ophelia Lovibond) and Gloria (Leanne Best). A fourth sister, Joan (also played, transformatively, by Donnelly), left home to pursue a career as a musician in the United States and has lived estranged from the family for two decades. What led to the family split and the question of Joan’s uncertain return hovers over the proceedings as the disappointed daughters exchange memories, grievances and heartache.

Designer Rob Howell has created a revolving play space that depicts the guest house’s public parlor on one side – with Veronica’s desperate efforts to attract customers (a broken jukebox, a faded tiki bar) – and the private kitchen on the other Family. But Howell has also added a dark, foreboding multi-story structure that looms large (and is hauntingly lit by Natasha Chivers) and features a series of long staircases leading to guest rooms named after US states – another reminder of American dreams.

But flashbacks to happier times reveal a family full of resilience, humor and courage, as well as a clever and resourceful mother raising her daughters alone and determined to see them escape the dead-end life in the English seaside town of Blackpool and the fading guest house that lies (and where the family lives), incorrectly called “The Seaview”.

But times and tastes have changed, and only one daughter has fled her decaying hometown for the illusory freedom of the Golden State, as promised in the Johnny Mercer song they sing – and which gives the piece its title ( “The hills of California are waiting for you”).

Music for the Webbs is more than a means of potential independence; It’s also a refuge, as Veronica tells her young daughters: “A song is a place you can be…a place you can live…and you can go anywhere.”

Some may recognize echoes of “Gypsy” – coincidentally, soon to be revived on 44th Street. After all, both stories are about stage mothers who are forces of nature, although Veronica’s girls are not proxies for their own thwarted dreams. Yet in their ambitious quest to make each of their girls a star, both mothers make shocking moral decisions that upend their relationships.

Although the play received positive reviews for its West End premiere earlier this year, Butterworth has since streamlined the work, particularly the cluttered ending – and all for the better, making it more efficient and satisfying.

However, the focus remains on the women and their stories, and the series still features rich and complex roles for actresses. The men here are more marginal figures who illuminate or comment on the world of women: a male lodger who demonstrates Veronica’s strength; another with showbiz connections to provide a plot twist; a piano tuner for display and Gloria and Ruby’s accommodating husbands to reflect their marital dynamic. (However, two children who are briefly seen are superfluous characters who only further extend the considerable running time.)

As in “The Ferryman,” Mendes once again leads a finely tuned ensemble. Wilson’s Jill reveals more beneath the surface than her dutiful personality suggests; Lovibond gives a sad subtext to the beaming Ruby, the peacekeeping sister prone to panic attacks; And in Best’s sharp-tongued Gloria, this daughter’s long-simmering resentments and deep wounds cannot be hidden.

David Wilson Barnes is also coolly nuanced as a showbiz agent. The younger versions of the women (Nancy Allsop, Nicola Turner, Sophia Ally) all radiate exuberance and talent, while Lara McDonnell is particularly compelling as the younger incarnation of Joan, deftly expressing and making the exceptionalism of this clever, rebellious and self-possessed daughter makes it clear that she is not only Veronica’s favorite, but also her mirror.

But it’s Donnelly — who received a Tony nomination for “The Ferryman” — and her dual roles here that ground the play and give it its resonance. Her adult Joan is the perfect image of one of Laurel Canyon’s lost dreamers – a person with a deliciously lazy sense of humor. As Veronica, Donnelly is complex: loving, scary and heartbreaking, as she ultimately reveals a mother’s troubling desperation that leads to a tragic end as dreams and realities collide in a song no one wants to live in.

Does it feel like we’ve seen it all before, except with bikinis and beaches instead of parkas and peaks?

There’s been quite a surge in new reality competition series in recent years, from Netflix’s offensive “Squid Game” competition to Peacock’s Emmy-winning “The Traitors.” So it seems like the perfect time for CBS to debut the mountaineering competition “The Summit” (special preview Sunday, 9:00 a.m. EDT/PDT, moved to Wednesday, 9:30 a.m. EDT/PDT on October 9, ★ ★ appears). out of four). The series, adapted from an Australian series, sends a group of strangers on a journey to reach the top of a mountain in just 14 days. Anyone who makes it shares the rest of the $1 million cash prize that the climbers carry on their backs. But here’s the catch: the group can lose players and money in the process.

Things aren’t looking good for George Gascón. The results of the primary and recent Surveys show he is likely to be replaced as Los Angeles County District by Nathan Hochman. Much of this is his fault: he has demonstrated a lack of common sense and poor leadership skills.

In a recent interview with Gascón, in which I participated along with members of this publication’s editorial board, Gascón seemed to be on the defensive throughout. He didn’t take responsibility for any of his questionable decisions. Instead, he repeatedly blamed public misunderstandings about the crime situation in Los Angeles County, which he said were created by his well-funded political opposition.

Gascón didn’t make things too difficult for his opponent as he made plenty of mistakes that easily grabbed headlines. We will come back to this shortly.

Many of Gascón’s actions are extremely justifiable. Almost immediately after taking office, Gascón ordered his prosecutors to stop asking for bail for some minor crimes.

Yes, it seems unfair that rich people are released while poor people have to stay in prison while they await trial.

He ordered his staff to stop calling for the death penalty. That’s right – there are too many problems with the implementation of the death penalty and it leads to too many injustices.

Gascón stopped prosecuting people under 18 as adults. Sure, teenagers’ brains are very underdeveloped, which affects their decision-making ability and therefore reduces their culpability – that’s the point of juvenile courts.

Setting aside concerns that Gascón’s mandates undermined the potential benefits of prosecutorial discretion, many of his actions are entirely justified. The problem is that he botched so many individual decisions.

A clear example of this is his lack of common sense in his handling of the Hannah Tubbs case – Tubbs, who had a history of violent crimes, received a very lenient two-year sentence for sexually assaulting a 10-year-old Girls, after Gascón refused to transfer Tubbs’ case to adult court.

While he later admitted that he should have recommended that Tubbs be tried as an adult, it should have been obvious to him at the time since Tubbs had already been convicted of aggravated assault twice and Gascón’s office had prison phone calls showing them It appeared that Tubbs was gloating over an easy sentence. It should have been obvious that Gascón’s blanket policy of trying juveniles as adults was wrong. The original prosecutor tried to introduce the calls as evidence, but Gascón pulled him from the case.

District attorneys in other California counties have done so insulted Gascón and publicly stated that they would not share jurisdiction of cases with him. Most prosecutors in his office voted to support recall attempts against their own boss. Gascón’s arrogance has made it impossible for him to acknowledge the fact that he has gone too far.

He was overly confident that he knew best while forgetting the need to not appear crazy to voters and his prosecutors, which is why he is now likely to lose office. He never took responsibility during the interview. It was always someone else’s fault and there was always an explanation for why an unsavory statistic was unreliable.

He appeared to want to exercise absolute control over his prosecutors, tolerated no dissent and reportedly sidelined those who had raised legitimate concerns. This led to most wanting him gone.

He’s not a leader, he’s a cocky idealist with no leadership skills.

At the start of his term, Gascón ordered his prosecutors not to seek life in prison without parole. Fears about abolishing the death penalty are somewhat alleviated by the alternative of life imprisonment without parole. Gascón doesn’t understand that justice sometimes requires putting people in prison for life. He has focused on the impact that incarceration has on public safety, completely ignoring the fact that sometimes people deserve to be in prison and that victims deserve these criminals to be in prison, namely beyond the impact their detention has on public safety.

TIRUNELVELI: Farm workers and residents of Anainthanadarpatti demanded action against Malanadu Ammonia Private Limited citing frequent ammonia gas leakage while refilling the tank. Farm workers and staff at a nearby private school reported a large gas leak on Saturday.

Speaking to TNIE, V Pandi, a farmer from Anainthanadarpatti said, “The workers on my farm and I myself experienced eye irritation, throat congestion and vomiting while working on Saturday morning. My farm is about 500 meters from the plant and the leak was strong. When I rushed to report the leak, a truck driver at the plant told me that the gas had overflowed while personnel were filling the tank.”

A private secondary school located 100 meters from the power plant was frequently affected by the leaks.

Residents of Anainthanadarpatti also said they were affected by the gas leak. TNIE had reported an ammonia leak from this plant in March, which was brought to the notice of Cheranmahadevi sub-collector Arpit Jain.

On Saturday, Idaikal Panchayat Vice-President S. Dharmaraj briefed TNIE reporter District Collector Dr. KP Karthikeyan alerted and officers were sent to investigate.

Joseph Arokia, the manager of Malanadu Ammonia Private Limited, confirmed the incident. “The liquid ammonia transported by SPIC overflowed and leaked while being loaded into the tank. Normally the leak spreads within our premises, but the wind could have carried it to the nearby farm.”

Deputy Director Industrial Safety Ganesan and Ambasamudram Tahsildar Sabari Mallika refuted the claims. “I examined the entire system and found no leak,” he said.

TNPCB officials also visited the plant on Saturday. Collector Karthikeyan said the officials had inspected the company and would submit a detailed report on Monday. “Further action will be taken based on the report,” he said.

LAS VEGAS — There are a whole lot of big buildings that have been built along the Las Vegas Strip off the backs of visitors who have lost. The Raiders play just off the Strip, but the Browns are just the latest to leave Sin City a loser this afternoon.

Quarterback Deshaun Watson was sacked on fourth-and-3 from the Raiders 9 by Las Vegas’ Charles Snowden with 35 seconds remaining. That was the final nail in the coffin of a 20-16 Raiders win.

The Browns had first-and-10 at the Raiders 16 coming out of the two-minute warning. Watson and center Nick Harris had a miscommunication on the snap, leading to a 7-yard loss.

Winner: D’Andre Swift, Chicago Bears

Loser: New York Jets

Winner: Joe Flacco, Indianapolis Colts

Loser: Najee Harris, Pittsburgh Steelers

Winner: Washington Commanders

Loser: Philadelphia Eagles

Winner: Younghoe Koo, Atlanta Falcons

Loser: Green Bay Packers kicker Brayden Narveson

Winner: Minnesota Vikings

Losers: Doug Pederson and the Jacksonville Jaguars