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INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Two minutes before NBA commissioner Adam Silver was scheduled to address the media in an upstairs room at Intuit Dome, his deputy, Mark Tatum, cheerfully shook hands with reporters before taking his seat in the front row.

That the league's second-in-command was eagerly anticipating Silver's words, much like the other occupants in the room, was poignant. Given the most prominent talking points that have dominated league discourse lately — the tanking epidemic, sports betting issues and alleged cap circumvention — have become so prevalent, the build-up to Silver's news conference was seismic.

However, following the duration ofSilver's availability— he spoke for around 30 minutes — there were far more questions as a result of his answers (or lack thereof).

The first question posed to the commissioner, and the most detailed response Silver gave, was about the issue of tanking. This makes sense, given how quickly the league office acted in response to recent misbehavior from the Utah Jazz and Indiana Pacers. Both organizations were fined; $500,000 to the Jazz and $100,000 to the Pacers for actions detrimental to the core values of the NBA. Utah's modus operandi was far more egregious than Indiana's — sitting its two best players for entire fourth quarters in separate close games is worse than holding someone out under the guise of rest, but neither should be tolerated.

"Are we seeing behavior that is worse this year than we've seen in recent memory?" Silver asked Saturday. "Yes, it is my view. Which was what led to those fines, and not just those fines but to my statement that we're going to be looking more closely at the totality of all the circumstances this season in terms of teams' behavior, and very intentionally wanted teams to be on notice."

Now, therealproblem with tanking, at least from the vantage point of one writer, is it's the lone arena where 29 other teams can't share in the winnings. At least not initially. (Lottery picks don't always pan out, and sometimes the late firsts and early seconds become the mainstays.) But don't worry, there's no proposal of a quick fix to what's going on, although I'm sure you'veread or heard a plethora of ideas this week alone. All I'm suggesting is Silverhadto do something. For what it's worth, he honestly didn't even want to dignify the mere word of "tanking," but it's reached a point of no return.

There's an answer that lies somewhere in the middle of the ongoing epidemic; not completely punishing teams for losing, but not rewarding the seemingly cunning ones that try to game the system. Sometimes, you're the Sacramento Kings, which goes hand in hand with parity and purgatory. How much better are the Chicago Bulls set up for their future than, say, the Brooklyn Nets? The Clippers and Hornets are both 26-29 heading into the All-Star break — would you consider them to be on equal footing?

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"Part of the problem is if you step back," Silver said, "the fundamental theory behind a draft is to help your worst-performing teams restock and be able to compete, and by the way, yes, we want parity, but parity of opportunity. … My sense is, talking to GMs and coaches around the league, that there's probably even more parity than is reflected in our records. That goes to the incentive issue. It's not clear to me, for example, that the 30th performing team is that much measurably worse than the 22nd performing team, particularly if you have incentive to perform poorly to get a better draft pick. It's a bit of a conundrum."

So where does it end? The Jazz aren't going to suddenly turn over a new leaf and be competitive the rest of the way. Half a million isn't enough to deter or prevent future behavior — Utah has clearly shown it's fine with throwing away money. Vince Williams Jr., who arrived at the deadline, played seven minutes in a 135-119 loss to Portland this week — he's owed $2.3 million. (The Jazz are only on the hook for a prorated amount, but you get the point.) How do you also govern the other teams that could potentially fall under the same umbrella? Silver needs to move quickly before tanking takes on a life of its own, especially considering the talent of incoming players in a few months.

On the topic of expansion, Silver essentially confirmed, then tried to reverse his words about the possibilities of Las Vegas and Seattle being the NBA's next destinations.

"My sense is at the March Board of Governors meetings, we'll be having further discussions around an expansion process," Silver said. "We won't be voting at the March meeting, but we will likely come out of those meetings ready, prepared to take a next step in terms of potentially talking to interested parties. No, it doesn't have to be a two-team expansion. Frankly, it doesn't have to be any number of teams."

Hmm, sure? There are a number of hoops to jump through before arriving at City X and/or Y as expansion teams, but kicking the can down the road by saying you'll make a decision on making a decision in a few months is not as clear as one may think.

In the case of Kawhi Leonard, Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and alleged cap circumvention, Silver conceded judiciary control to the Wachtell Lipton firm, the NBA's go-to litigation arm. Ballmer and the Clippers are alleged to have orchestrated a $28 million endorsement deal — an absurd amount of money, enough to seriously threaten the integrity of the league. Maybe it's not as outlandish as former referee Tim Donaghy's scandal (Wachtell Lipton took around a year to finalize its investigation in that matter, according to The Athletic), but the league doesn't need this to drag on for nearly the same length of time. The backlash, not only from fans and media, but the other 29 owners could be seismic.

"I'm not involved day-to-day in the investigation," Silver said. "I think, as I've said before, it's enormously complex. You have a company in bankruptcy. You have thousands of documents, multiple witnesses that have been needed to be interviewed. Our charge to the Wachtell law firm is to do the work and then come back and make recommendations to the league office, and that's where things now stand."

All-Star Weekend, in its purest form, is supposed to be a celebration of the good parts of the NBA — the inclusivity, the opportunity and the excellence. An uplifting view of the state of the league. Instead, we're reminded of the economic and moral perils of basketball at the highest level, and head into the break with a slew of unsolved problems.

Put aside, just for a moment, the LIV Golf-PGA Tour's subtext of perpetual scuffling. Try not to think about the posturing and skepticism that accompanies virtually every LIV story. Focus, just for a second, on the simple facts:

Anthony Kim won a golf tournament. Against Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau. In 2026.

Kim, one of sports' true prodigal sons, claimed LIV's Adelaide event in Australia on Sunday, riding a final-round, nine-birdie 63, turning a five-shot deficit into a three-shot victory. If nothing else — if Kim's story goes no further than this right here — it's a pretty incredible comeback for a guy who briefly ruled the golf world, then literally disappeared for more than a decade.

Every so often, golf produces one of these back-to-the-mountaintop stories, when a name from the past has a late-career week of their lives. Think Jack Nicklaus at the Masters in 1986, Tom Watson (almost) at the Open Championship in 2009, Tiger Woods at the Masters in 2019, Phil Mickelson at the PGA Championship in 2021. Everything comes together for one weekend, past meeting present, and it's remarkable to see.

Obviously, Kim's victory doesn't have anywhere near that historical resonance; about the only thing Adelaide and Augusta National have in common is a starting letter. But Kim's first professional win in nearly 16 years is an impressive story of facing down the demons of addiction and injury.

"For anyone who's struggling, you can get through anything" -@AnthonyKim_GolfInspirational.#LIVGolfAdelaidepic.twitter.com/oRvavK7iPC

— LIV Golf (@livgolf_league)February 15, 2026

It's tough to remember now, but for a brief moment, Kim's popularity in golf was second only to Woods — and Woods' personal scandals erupted right as Kim was playing his best golf. Before Scottie Scheffler, before Brooks Koepka, before Jordan Spieth, before Rahm and DeChambeau, before Rory McIlroy had won a single tournament, there was Kim. He went toe-to-toe with Tiger, he hung with Michael Jordan, he was a SportsCenter darling back when SportsCenter was, well, the center of the sports universe.

Scanning leaderboards from Kim's prime 2009-10 era feels like looking at faded family pictures in a scrapbook. There's only one player from Kim's most recent win, the 2010 Shell Houston Open, still in the top 20: ageless wonder Justin Rose. The tee sheet at Kim's most recent Masters, 2011, included Ernie Els, Mark O'Meara, Craig Stadler and Watson.

But after suffering an Achilles injury in 2012, Kim stepped away from the game. And not in the "showing-up-on-NBA-sidelines-and-ESPN-red-carpets" kind of way. No, he flat-outvanishedfor more than a decade. Rumors of Kim surfaced here and there — he was playing golf with buddies in Oklahoma, he was keeping in shape in California, he hadn't touched a club in five years — but no one managed to get even a picture of Kim, much less his story.

"I was around some bad people," Kim said in 2024. "People that took advantage of me. Scam artists. When you're 24, 25, even 30 years old, you don't realize the snakes that are living under your roof."

That's why Greg Norman'sdramatic 2024 reveal of Kimas a new LIV addition caused such a ripple in certain segments of golf fandom. Kim was once the coolest dude possible, the heir to Woods, the herald of a new era of golf. What would he have left after so many years away from the game?

Not much, to start. He failed to earn even a single point in his first two seasons on the tour, and was relegated. That could have been the end of his story, but he managed to place third in LIV's Promotions Event, posted a T22 in the first tournament of the season … and now this. A win is a win, especially when two of the world's best are in your final grouping.

It'll be interesting to see how the golf establishment views this victory. LIV players, as expected, haveralliedaroundKim. European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald was one of the first non-LIV players to praise Kim's achievement, unsurprising given that it occurred in the middle of the night for America:

Way to go AK!Redemption stories always resonate. From being one of the most talented players in the world, to disappearing from the game, to putting in the work to get yourself back into the winner's circle - that takes something special.We all fail at times. Not everyone has…

— Luke Donald (@LukeDonald)February 15, 2026

For LIV, this is undoubtedly the most significant victory in the tour's history. This story will break wide in a way that, say, Rippers GC's latest team victory at Adelaide won't. The presence of Rahm and DeChambeau legitimizes the win, and LIV's challenge now is transforming this burst of fans' attention into longer-term connections.

For Kim, the takeaway is much more simple. Yes, he'll rise up to around 200th in the world rankings, but that's not the real story here. Kim picked himself up from life's floor, got his life back together, and returned to the top of the leaderboard. Right now, that's more than enough.

Russian opposition figure and outspoken Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny, whodied two years ago, was killed while in prison by a lethal toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America, five European countries have saidin a statementSaturday.

Analyses of samples taken from Navalny's body have "conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine," the statement said. The substance is not found naturally in Russia, it added.

The five countries – UK, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands – said Moscow "had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison" to Navalny while he was held in a penal colony north of the Arctic Circle.

Only "the Russian state had the combined means, motive and disregard for international law" to contribute to Navalny's death, they added.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday the United States had no reason to dispute what he called a "troubling report."

"Sometimes countries go out and do their thing with based on the intelligence they've gathered. We obviously are aware of the report. It's a troubling report," Rubio said while in Slovakia.

"We're not disputing or getting into a fight with these countries over it, but it was their report, and they put that out there."

Russian officials have repeatedly denied being responsible for Navalny's death and on Saturday Russian news agency TASS quoted the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as dismissing the frog poison claim as "propaganda."

The Russian Embassy to the United Kingdom dismissed the findings as a "political pageant." "As with the Skripal case there are strident accusations, media hysteria, zero evidence, and a host of questions the accusers would rather ignore," a statement from the embassy said.

The embassy claimed that the intention was to "revive a waning anti-Russian fervour within Western societies. If there is no pretext, one is laboriously invented."

CNN has reached out to the Kremlin for comment.

The announcement came during theMunich Security Conferencein Germany, during which Navalny's death was announced in 2024.

At the event two years ago, Navalny's wife Yulia Navalnaya came on stage at the conference in tears and received a standing ovation.

Speaking at the same security conference on Saturday, Navalnaya said: "Two years ago, I was here in Munich. It was the most horrible day (of) my life. I came to the stage and I said that my husband, Alexey Navalny, was poisoned."

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In apost on Xearlier in the day, Navalnaya said that she "was certain from the first day that my husband had been poisoned, but now there is proof: (Russian President Vladimir) Putin killed (Alexey) with chemical weapon."

"I am grateful to the European states for the meticulous work they carried out over two years and for uncovering the truth," she said, adding: "Vladimir Putin is a murderer. He must be held accountable for all his crimes."

When Navalny died, the Russian prison service said that he had "felt unwell after a walk" and "almost immediately" lost consciousness.

He had been imprisoned in an Arctic penal colony since returning to Russia in 2021 from Germany, where he had been treated after beingpoisoned with Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent.

Ajoint investigationby CNN and the group Bellingcat implicated the Russian Security Service (FSB) in the poisoning. It found that the FSB had formed an elite team specializing in nerve agents that trailed Navalny for more than three years.

Russia denied involvement then, too, with Putin saying at the time that if the Russian security service had wanted to kill Navalny, it "would have finished" the job.

Navalny, who had organizedanti-government street protestsand used his blog and social media to expose alleged corruption in the Kremlin and in Russian business, was viewed as one of the most serious threats to Putin before his death.

In a2018 interview with CNN, he said that he had a "clear understanding" of the risks involved in taking on the government.

"But I'm not afraid and I'm not going to give up on what I'm going to do. I won't give up on my country. I won't give up on my civil rights. I won't give up on uniting those around me who believe in the same ideals as me. And there are quite a lot of people like that in Russia," he said.

In a statement released on Saturday, British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said that "Russia saw Navalny as a threat. By using this form of poison, the Russian state demonstrated the despicable tools it has at its disposal and the overwhelming fear it has of political opposition."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was asked at the Munich Security Conference if he feared that Putin would use the same toxins against him. "I don't think about myself because we have already lost a large number of people. I am one of many Ukrainian citizens who continue to fight," Zelensky said. "I cannot think about Vladimir Putin, about his poisons or toxins that he has or had."

The five countries said in their joint statement that they have written to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons about what they called a "Russian breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention."

CNN's Sebastian Shukla, Anna Chernova and Christian Edwards, Svitlana Vlasova and Moriah Thomas contributed to this reporting.

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MUNICH, Germany − The leaders ofDenmark and Greenlanddo not think the crisis over the Arctic territory has ended and believe PresidentDonald Trumpis still "very serious" about acquiring the territory.

Mette Frederiksen, Denmark's prime minister, and her Greenlandic counterpart Jens-Frederik Nielsen, made the comment about the semi-autonomous Danish island while appearing at theMunich Security Conferenceon Feb 14.

"I think the desire from the U.S. president is exactly the same," said Frederiksen, when asked during a panel how to describe the situation now that formal talks over the issue have begun. "He's very serious about this," she said.

'Europe will never be irrelevant.'Rubio mends fences after Vance bombshell

Responding to the same question about whether the talks wouldappease Trump, Nielsen said "we cannot lower our shoulders." He said that Trump's desire to acquire Greenland was "still there."

Their lingering anxiety over Trump's interest inGreenlandcomes even though both leaders said they held constructive talks with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the conference. The United States, Denmark and Greenland launched talks in late January to resolve the diplomatic crisis.

But virtually no details about the discussion have been made public beyond a statement from Trump while he was attending theWorld Economic Forumlast month, when he said the "framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland" had been reached.

'Y'all belong in Louisiana.'The strange case of Trump's missing Greenland envoy

Greenland and Denmark caught by suprise

That announcement appeared to catch Denmark and Greenland by surprise. And NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte later clarified that he did not discuss Greenland's sovereignty with Trump.

Greenlanders march in defiance of Trump's efforts to claim the island

US official:Greenland action could come within 'weeks or months'

"I hope we can find a solution to all this," Denmark's Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters, including USA TODAY, on the sidelines of the conference in Germany's Bavarian capital.

Nielsen said the saga was taking a toll on theGreenlandic people, who have repeatedly expressed in polls that while they want eventually to become independent of Denmark, they have no interest at all in becoming American.

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Invasion, coercion, purchase.How Trump's Greenland episode could end

"If I think about my people, we are so proud. We live in a harsh environment, we are resilient, we live in a land where nobody was able to live for many, many, many years. There's a reason why we are the ones left," Nielsen joked during a discussion aboutArctic security. His statement drew laughter from the audience.

"The paradox," he added, "is that the Greenlandic people have never felt threatened, and now [for] the first time they feel unsafe for real, [it is] with an ally who is talking about acquiring them, buying them and so on. It's outrageous."

Underdog Denmark:USA's depth wins out in men's hockey comeback

'Red line.'Greenland shuts down Trump on sovereignty for US bases

Frederiksen said Denmark is willing to work with the Trump administration to find a solution but "there are of course things you cannot compromise on." She named a state's sovereignty and territorial integrity as two of those things.

A seniorGreenlandic officialpreviously told USA TODAY that an idea floated by Trump that the United States could effectively take ownership of American military bases in Greenland also marked a "red line."

Frederiksen said that revising a 1951 defense agreement between Denmark and the United States likely offers a "very easy" way for Washington to "have a stronger footprint in Greenland." Trump has said his desire to acquireGreenlandis driven by a combination of national security strategy and access to natural resources.

Kremlin on Greenland:Russia warns of response to any US weapons deployment

NATO said on Feb. 11 that it had launched a mission to strengthen its presence in the Arctic, part of an effort to defuse tensions within the alliance prompted by Trump's push to acquire Greenland from Denmark.

"We don't think it's over," said Frederiksen in Munich.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Denmark, Greenland worry Trump still wants to take control

A mother shot dead outside a supermarket. A man killed after leaving a mosque. A doctor gunned down while treating patients. These shocking cases are no longer anomalies: they are the toll of a violent crime epidemic sweeping across Israel.

The victims are allPalestinian citizens of Israel. Homicides in their community have risen so dramatically that one person has been killed every day on average this year. Palestinian citizens make up 20% of the country's population, and many say the Israeli government has not only failed to curb the crime wave, but that its inaction has helped spur a cycle of violence largely perpetrated by Arab organized crime groups.

The data bears out a stark inequality: Israel Police has solved just 15% of homicides in Israel's Arab communities versus 65% among Jewish Israelis, according to data from Israel's parliament, the Knesset, and Eilaf, the Center for Advancing Security in Arab Society.

Palestinian citizens of Israel are descendants of those who were notexpelled or forced to flee their homeswhen Israel was established in 1948. They were given citizenship but lived under military rule until 1966, and many say they continue to face discrimination in Israeli society.

Last year was the deadliest on record for the community, with 252 killed – the vast majority by gunfire – according to a report published byAbraham Initiatives,a group that advances social inclusion and equal rights for Israel's Palestinian citizens.

And 2026 is already off to a bloody start, with 46 killed so far, according to the group.

It is a deadly reality that has raised alarm bells, with tens of thousands of the country's Palestinian citizens taking to the streets in recent weeks – joined by some Jewish Israelis – to demand government action.

"No to killing, no to death, we want to live in justice," demonstrators chanted in Arabic at a January protest in Sakhnin, a majority Palestinian city in northern Israel, which drew tens of thousands of people.

Attendees told CNN it was the largest demonstration the Arab community has seen in years, culminating a multi-day general strike from shop owners.

What began there has since grown into a nationwide protest movement, with strikes and demonstrations taking place almost daily across Israel. Streets across the country were filled with a sea of black flags and water fountains were dyed red as citizens declared a "national day of disruption."

A week after the Sakhnin strike, Israeli President Isaac Herzog made a rare visit to the city, where he met with local Arab authorities and protest organizers.

He said the fight against crime and violence in the Arab community "must be at the very top of the national priorities and be addressed with the utmost determination" calling it a "moral obligation."

And on Thursday, Israel's Police Commissioner Daniel Levi declared crime in the Arab community "a state of national emergency" and "an intolerable situation that must stop."

He called on other government agencies to join the police in helping address the issue.

'Let them kill each other'

For many Palestinian citizens of Israel, those declarations ring hollow. Qasem Awad has waited for more than a year for his son's killer to be brought to justice.

His son, Abdullah, a doctor from Mazra'a in the western Galilee, was treating a mother and her two children at a clinic last February when a masked gunman walked in and fatally shot him at close range. He was 30 at the time.

Abdullah had been filling in for another doctor that day. His father believes he was mistaken for someone else.

"If you look at the Palestinian Arab community in Israel, how many are being killed daily and for no reason?" Awad said. "These people have nothing to do with the world of crime. They are collateral damage, and my son is one of them."

In the days following Abdullah's death, his parents say Israel Police visited and assured them they would investigate his death and identify the perpetrator.

More than a year later, the pledge remains unfulfilled, and the family says it hasn't heard from law enforcement authorities.

If his son had been Jewish, Awad believes the killer would've been arrested "in an hour".

Like many others in his community, Awad believes the Israeli government intentionally neglects crime perpetrated against Palestinian citizens.

"It is part of a policy to divide and conquer. 'Let them kill each other while we sit back and relax,'" he said.

Awad points to the speed with which Palestinian perpetrators are brought to justice in crimes against Israelis.

"The technological tools and know-how are available for them to catch the killers. But when it is affecting the Arab demographic, they no longer have the tools or the know-how?" he asked.

According to the Eilaf report, Palestinian citizens of Israel face "selective enforcement" of the law.

"On the one hand, a tough approach towards political activity andfreedom of expression, and on the other, a soft approach towards criminals and crime," the report said.

In response to a query from CNN, the Israel Police said in a statement that a "thorough and complex investigation was launched" following the killing of Dr. Awad, where authorities have questioned "dozens of involved parties, with the aim of locating the suspects and uncovering the truth."

Homicides doubling under Ben Gvir's watch

Data compiled by Abraham Initiatives shows that homicide cases among Palestinian citizens of Israelmore than doubled in 2023.

That was far-right Minister of National SecurityItamar Ben Gvir'sfirst full year overseeing the police.

Ben Gvir, who was convicted for supporting terrorism and incitinganti-Arab racism, has rejected responsibility, instead blaming local Arab leaders for turning a "blind eye" to criminal activity. Last month, he said he had "allocated enormous resources to the fight against crime and criminal organizations."

Critics say his actions speak louder than his words. Within months of entering office, Ben Gvir cut off key funding for an anti-Arab crime initiative called "Stop the Bleeding," launched by the previous government. The next year, he dismissed the police official in charge of fighting crime in Arab society and put a lower-ranking official in his place.

On Sunday, Ben Gvir defended the job he's done, saying on Kan Reshet Bet radio that there have been "great successes" during his tenure. "I don't work for the Arabs, not just for the Arabs," he said. "I work for everyone."

"There is 20% less murder in the Jewish sector, let's put that on the table … 60% fewer murders of Jewish women, and 20% fewer car thefts." Ben Gvir said crime in the Arab sector is a "grave phenomenon" and he intends to "combat it." But he blamed the Attorney General, with whom he has had an ongoing feud, and "40 years of neglect" from authorities for the surge, despite record killings during his tenure.

The concern is not only the surge in killings, but the increasing brazenness with which they are carried out.

According to Eilaf's report, three out of four killings last year occurred in public spaces, indicating the "dangerous normalization of open crime… without any real fear of immediate intervention or effective deterrence."

"In light of weak governance, limited police presence, and declining trust in institutions, organized crime in Arab towns found a fertile ground for expansion, gradually building its economic and social influence by exploiting the vacuum left by the state," said Rawyah Handaqlu, the head of Eilaf.

She says the violence reflects the "exclusion and marginalization" of Palestinian citizens of Israel, arguing that the state has frequently relegated crime and violence to simply being a product of Arab society, which "holds society responsible for a reality imposed on it."

Aida Touma-Suleiman, a Palestinian member of the Knesset who actively raises the crime issue in parliament, believes the first step to eradicate crime in the Arab community is to topple the right-wing government, which she describes as "racist, fascist and criminal."

"When the government is not acting… not holding the criminals responsible and not prosecuting them, it's like sponsoring them," she told CNN at the Sakhnin protest. "We want them to do the work they are supposed to do, and we want to give our young people the security to develop and to feel that they are living."

In December, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office announced plans to redirect $70 million from a program designed to promote Arab economic development to the police to address "severe nationalistic crime" in the Arab community.

The Mosawa Center, a group advocating equal rights for Palestinian citizens, called it a "dangerous political step" that would do nothing to combat crime.

"While the ministry fails to use the budgets already at its disposal, it is pushing to cut budgets allocated to other areas such as education and housing and transfer them to its own coffers," it said in a statement. "This can only be interpreted as a deliberate policy of further impoverishing Arab society and plunging it deeper into crises, including the scourge of crime."

Back at his home in Mazra'a, Awad's wait for justice continues. He finds comfort only in the photographs of his late son.

Asked if he has any hope that there will be justice for his death, he sighs and points to the ceiling.

"Justice only exists up there, with God."

Cyril Theophilos and Dana Karni contributed to this report.

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