American doctors are successfully persuading increasing numbers of men with low-risk prostate cancer to reject immediate surgery and radiation in favor of surveillance, a trend that is sparing men's sexual health without increasing their risk of death. The latest evidence that more men are postponing aggressive therapy unless their symptoms worsen came in a large study published Tuesday that involved more than 125,000 veterans diagnosed with nonaggressive prostate cancer between 2005 and 2015. Researchers reviewed the former servicemen's medical records and found that in 2005, only 27 percent of men under 65 chose to forgo immediate therapy and instead signed up for “watchful waiting” or “active surveillance” to keep track of their tumors. By 2015, the situation had flipped — 72 percent rejected immediate surgery or radiation in favor of such monitoring. The data for men older than 65 was similar. The study, which appeared in JAMA, was conducted by researchers at the New York University School of Medicine and the Manhattan campus of the Department of Veterans Affairs New York Harbor Healthcare System. The data came from throughout the country. “I think it's hugely important,” said Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, who was not involved in the study. “Remember that until 2010, a man diagnosed with prostate cancer was told to get your prostate out, next week at the latest.” The movement away from aggressive early action has gained momentum as doctors, researchers and patients have increasingly recognized the potential harms that can occur in overtreating malignancies that may never pose a threat. “As we got better at early detection, we found more cancers,” including ones that grew slowly or not at all, said William Nelson, director of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. “Then the greatest threat to the poor man was our attempt to help him with radiation and surgery.” Those treatments can cause incontinence and sexual dysfunction, he said. In addition, studies from the United States and Europe in recent years have shown that holding off on treatment for nonaggressive prostate cancer does not result in higher death rates. Similar research is underway in very early stage breast cancer — sometimes called Stage 0 — to see whether active surveillance is a safe alternative to immediate surgery and radiation. Brawley, who has long warned about the dangers of overtreatment of prostate and breast cancer, said the study shows efforts are paying off to convince patients that not all cancers pose the same level of danger. And he said the study is a leading indicator of where the rest of the country is going; he estimated that about half of non-VA patients with the same type of malignancies are now rejecting immediate treatment and the number is growing quickly. “The VA is the tip of the spear,” he added. “Five years from now, the whole country will be at 70 percent.” Stacy Loeb, an assistant professor of urology at NYU School of Medicine and Manhattan VA who led the study of veterans, said the shift to surveillance represents “a historic reversal, at least at the VA, in the decades-long overtreatment of men with prostate cancers least likely to cause harm, and brings their care more in line with the latest best-practice guidelines.” Those guidelines include recommendations by the American Urological Association and the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Most of the increase in the monitoring-only arm, Loeb said, occurred in a category called “active surveillance,” in which men are subjected to more rigorous monitoring and testing than those engaged in “watchful waiting.” While 4 percent of men chose active surveillance in 2005, 39 percent selected it in 2015, the researchers found. Loeb said as many as two-thirds of men with low-risk malignancies treated in private medical practices are undergoing aggressive early treatment. She suggested that one reason VA may be adhering to national guidelines at a higher rate is its lack of financial incentives for salaried physicians to recommend expensive fee-for-service procedures. In addition, VA facilities often are affiliated with academic medical centers, which are faster to adopt new approaches. Jonathan Simons, president and chief executive of the Prostate Cancer Foundation, which helped fund the study, said that while the VA medical system has some problems, when it comes to the “No. 1 cancer of veterans, prostate cancer, the outcomes are better in VA hospitals than in the rest of American medicine.” Active surveillance is not for all prostate-cancer patients. It isn't recommended for men with higher-risk prostate cancer or those with genetic defects such as a BRCA mutation, which can increase the chance of having more aggressive cancer. Clark Howard, an Atlanta resident who writes and does a radio show on consumer issues, was one of the earliest patients to opt for active surveillance rather than aggressive treatment. He was diagnosed with low-risk prostate cancer at age 53 in 2009, and his doctors pressed him to immediately schedule an operation. He refused. “My wife thought I was crazy and burst into tears,” he said. “I have never seen her scream and weep like that. She was so mad.” As part of the monitoring of his cancer, Howard gets PSA (prostate-specific antigen) tests twice a year and biopsies every other year. He also has had two MRI-based tests. His cancer hasn't worsened; if it does, he says, he'll get treatment then. “So many people are conditioned that cancer must be treated aggressively and immediately and if you don’t, you are going to die,” he said.

A Russian weapon the U.S. is currently unable to defend against will be ready for war by 2020, according to sources with direct knowledge of American intelligence reports. The sources, who spoke to CNBC on the condition of anonymity, said Russia successfully tested the weapon, which could carry a nuclear warhead, twice in 2016. The third known test of the device, called a hypersonic glide vehicle, was carried out in October 2017 and resulted in a failure when the platform crashed seconds before striking its target. The latest revelations come more than two months after Russian President Vladimir Putin touted his nation's growing hypersonic arsenal as "invincible." The hypersonic glide vehicle, dubbed Avangard, is designed to sit atop of an intercontinental ballistic missile. Once launched, it uses aerodynamic forces to sail on top of the atmosphere. One U.S. intelligence report, according to a source, noted that the hypersonic glide vehicles were mounted to Russian-made SS-19 intercontinental ballistic missiles – and one test featured a mock warhead. Devastation even without explosives While it is unclear whether Avangard will be outfitted with explosives, the precision and speed of the weapon is believed to pack enough force to obliterate targets. The weapon, which Moscow has been developing for three decades, can travel at least five times the speed of sound, or about one mile per second. "These kinds of boost glide vehicles attack the gaps in our missile defense system," Thomas Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CNBC. "There's no time like the present to modify our current missile defense posture," Karako added, saying it was "unfortunate that we have let Russia come this far." The Russians are expected to conduct a fourth test sometime this summer. Sources familiar with the U.S. intelligence reports assess that the Russian hypersonic glide vehicles are equipped with onboard countermeasures that are able to defeat even the most advanced missile-defense systems. The weapons are also highly maneuverable and, therefore, unpredictable, which makes them difficult to track. The intelligence reports, which were curated this spring, calculate that Russia's hypersonic glide vehicles are likely to achieve initial operational capability by 2020, a significant step that would enable the Kremlin to surpass the U.S. and China in this regard.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has submitted his annual financial disclosure to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, and it is expected to be released publicly in the coming days. Trump's disclosure, which includes all of 2017 and part of 2018, is being closely watched to see whether it will disclose the $130,000 paid to porn star Stormy Daniels on his behalf by his attorney Michael Cohen. Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said during a Fox News interview that the president had repaid Cohen. Ethics experts say that if that money isn't disclosed, Trump could be in violation of ethics laws for failing to disclose a reportable item, a violation for which others have been prosecuted. The White House confirmed that Trump and Vice President Mike Pence filed their financial disclosures Tuesday, along with the reports of some 25,000 senior executive branch officials, but declined to comment further. The Office of Government Ethics said the president's report is under review. Trump's disclosure will also be the first extended look at how his businesses have performed since he became president in January 2017. When Trump took office, he refused to fully divest from his global business, instead putting his assets in a trust controlled by his two sons and a senior executive. Still, Trump can take back control of the trust at any time and he's allowed to withdraw cash from it as he pleases. Trump's previous report, covering January 2016 through the first few months of 2017, showed he had at least $1.4 billion in assets and at least $594 million in income.

Explosions intensified on Hawaii's Kilauea volcano on Tuesday, spewing ash and triggering a red alert for aircraft for the first time since the latest eruption began 12 days ago. Ash and volcanic smog, or vog, as it is called, rose to 12,000 feet (3,657 meters) above Kilauea's crater and floated southwest, showering cars on Highway 11 with gray dust and prompting an "unhealthy air" advisory in the community of Pahala, 18 miles (29 km) from the summit. An aviation red alert means a volcanic eruption is under way that could spew ash along aircraft routes, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) says on its website. Ash was also a new hazard for residents of Hawaii's Big Island, already grappling with volcanic gas and lava that has destroyed 37 homes and other structures and forced the evacuation of about 2,000 residents. A shift in winds was expected to bring ash and vog inland on Wednesday and make them more concentrated, said John Bravender of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). "We're observing more or less continuous emission of ash now with intermittent, more energetic ash bursts or plumes," Steve Brantley, a deputy scientist in charge at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO), said on a conference call with reporters. The observatory warned the eruption could become more violent. "At any time, activity may become more explosive, increasing the intensity of ash production and producing ballistic projectiles near the vent," the HVO said in a statement on the change in aviation alert level to red from orange. Ash is not poisonous but irritates the nose, eyes and airways. It can make roads slippery and large emissions could cause the failure of electrical power lines, said USGS chemist David Damby. NEW FISSURE The eruption has hit the island's tourism industry. Big Island summer hotel bookings have dropped by almost half from last year, Rob Birch, executive director of the Island of Hawaii Visitor Bureau, told journalists on a conference call. College exchange student Constantin Plinke, 24, was planning to go to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park before it was shut. "We had a big list of things to do and maybe 80 percent of them were in the national park," he said, after stopping by the side of the road to watch ash plumes rising into the air. "It's sad." The area taking the brunt of the eruption is about 25 miles (40 km) down Kilauea's eastern flank, near the village of Pahoa. Lava has burst from the ground to tear through housing developments and farmland, threatening one of the last exit routes from coastal areas, state Highway 132. The latest fissure in the earth opened on Tuesday, spewing lava and toxic gases that pushed air quality into "condition red" around Lanipuna Gardens and nearby farms, causing "choking and inability to breathe," the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and Hawaii County Civil Defense said. Road crews put metal plates over steaming cracks on nearby Highway 130 and reopened it to give coastal residents an escape route should a lava flow reach the ocean and block another road, Highway 137, Civil Defense said. No major injuries or deaths have been reported from the eruption. A looming menace remains the possibility of an "explosive eruption" of Kilauea, an event last seen in 1924. Pent-up steam could drive a 20,000-foot (6,100-meter) ash plume out of the crater and scatter debris over 12 miles (19 km), the USGS said.

Welcome, President Trump, to the infuriating, indecipherable game of North Korean nuclear diplomacy. An unexpected series of threats from the enclosed Stalinist state threatened to nix next month's planned summit in Singapore between Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un and sink White House hopes of a spectacular foreign policy success. The warning delivered a jolt of reality, underscoring that despite weeks of positive steps by North Korea and Trump's gusher of praise for Kim, the process of negotiating with the inscrutable state remains as treacherous as ever. First, North Korea shocked Washington by lashing out at US-South Korea military drills, saying they could lead to the summit being scrapped. Then in a more ominous development, it warned that if the White House required the dismantling of its nuclear arsenal up front, there was little point in talking. "If the Trump Administration is genuinely committed to improving NK-US relations and come out to the NK-US summit, they will receive a deserving response," Kim Kye-gwan, First Vice Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was quoted as saying by the official KCNA news agency. "But if they try to push us into the corner and force only unilateral nuclear abandonment, we will no longer be interested in that kind of talks and will have to reconsider whether we will accept the upcoming NK-US summit." The comments appeared to be a direct repudiation of statements by top Trump administration officials that North Korea must accept the total and irrevocable elimination of its nuclear arsenal before it could accept tangible benefits from the US as part of any peace drive. Kim was clearly signaling he's not done yet with the classic North Korean strategy of provocations and demands. And the President and supporters might want to put that talk about the Nobel Peace Prize on ice, at least for now. On the other hand, as strong as they were, Kim's protests came on paper, and not in the form of missile launches or a nuclear test -- a potential sign of progress in that he registered anger but did not take a step that would immediately sink the summit. The North's sharp messages came just a week after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo returned home from a friendly meeting with Kim with three US prisoners, prompting Trump to stage a middle-of-the-night welcoming ceremony. It left the White House scrambling to decipher Pyongyang's motives and analysts handicapping the prospects for the summit. "I have to say, this is a little bit out of the blue," said Harry Kazianis, a Korea expert at the Center for the National Interest. "The North Korean pattern is to do provocations whether it is tests of missiles or nukes, ask for negotiations then string us along for months and years," he said. "But this time, they are not even getting to that point, they are already causing problems before we have the negotiation." North Korea's motives North Korea's closed political system and the difficulty of getting reliable intelligence from inside Kim's inner circle mean that explaining Tuesday's bombshell is guesswork. It's possible Kim wanted to send a shot across America's bow, and feels he has not got much in return for meeting South Korean leader Moon Jae-in, agreeing to see Trump, sending US prisoners home and offering to dismantle a nuclear test site. He may also be balking at emerging details of America's goal for the summit -- an agreement for full and irreversible denuclearization by North Korea in return for security guarantees and the promise of future investment by US firms in the impoverished nation. Trump's national security adviser John Bolton -- a skeptic who would have been unsurprised by Kim's Tuesday broadside -- told CNN's Jake Tapper over the weekend, "I wouldn't look for economic aid from us," and said the Singapore summit would test whether Kim had made a strategic decision to get rid of his nuclear arsenal. The KCNA dispatch took direct aim at Bolton and rejected his view that North Korea should follow Libya's model and unilaterally give up all its nuclear weapons. The statement may also indicate that the ambition and speed of the US approach -- which implies invasive inspections of the North's nuclear, missile and chemical and biological weapons programs and confiscation of its arsenals -- has spooked Kim. Pompeo has said Washington would not follow its traditional and failed strategy of offering the North concessions like the lifting of sanctions and financial aid in return for proportional steps by Pyongyang to decommission its weapons. "We're hoping this will be bigger, different, faster," Pompeo told CBS "Face the Nation." Last week, Chinese state media reported that Kim wanted "phased and synchronous measures" to defuse the nuclear showdown, a possible sign of dissent with the US approach. Head to head Given that the summit will likely hinge on a mano-a-mano test of wills, Kim may also have been trying to demonstrate his own personal leverage over Trump. After all, Kim is not the first to threaten not to show up -- Trump has done so repeatedly. "If I think that it is a meeting that is not going to be fruitful, we are not going to go," Trump said on April 18. Some experts speculated whether the North Korean statement, which also suspended planned high-level talks with South Korea due to begin Wednesday, could be a sign of internal political pressure on Kim. It's not out of the question that he was signaling to military officers worried that he may be about to overturn decades of political dogma by dealing with the US. Such is the opacity of his regime, no will ever know for sure. Kim may also be testing just how much Trump wants the summit -- given his predictions of success -- and whether that will make him more likely to offer Pyongyang a good deal. Or he may be laying groundwork for a face-saving exit if Trump comes in too hard. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said that he hoped that Kim's threat was just a manifestation of his long-held resentment over US-South Korean military exercises, even though the South Koreans had told Washington he was now unperturbed by such drills. "Overall, I am still optimistic," Paul said on "The Situation Room" on CNN. "There is a great deal of hope and optimism that with this high-level meeting with Kim Jong Un and the President that we will find peace." The North Korean curveball left the White House with a dilemma about how to respond. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders issued a noncommittal statement pledging to coordinate with allies. As Washington tries to work out what is going on, the contacts and goodwill built up in Pyongyang by Pompeo during two recent trips into reclusive North Korea will be crucial. The blip in the run-up to the summit will also test Trump's restraint, at a time when a misfired Twitter blast aimed at "Little Rocket Man" could exacerbate tensions and threaten the meeting further. On Tuesday night, he stonewalled reporters shouting questions on the South Lawn of the White House. Possibly, now that he has got the prisoners home, and Pyongyang remains under stringent "maximum pressure" sanctions, Trump has the luxury of time. He could wait it out and see whether North Korea is really ready to pass up the chance for a summit that offers Kim the long-sought legitimacy of standing side-by-side with the US President. On the other hand, Tuesday's developments make the face-to-face summit more crucial than ever -- as it will give the President the chance to size up Kim's sincerity. In that sense, Trump can claim validation for his shock decision to meet Kim, even though it turned diplomatic conventions upside down and led some experts to worry he was offering too many concessions too early. Dampened expectations might be a good thing North Korea's warning might also be valuable in another way if it tones down the crescendo of expectations in Washington about the summit. Trump has fired off a string of tweets in recent weeks touting progress, and supporters at a recent political rally chanted "Nobel, Nobel" at the President. Last week, as he welcomed the prisoners back to Joint Base Andrews, Trump said Kim had been "excellent" to the three men, despite imprisoning them and the fact he has one of the world's worst human rights records. On April 24, Trump said Kim had been "very open and I think very honorable."

An explosion at a Southern California building that killed one person and injured three others may have been an "intentional detonation," law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation said, although other officials cautioned that a cause and whether it was intentional has not been determined. The investigation into the explosion that occurred in Aliso Viejo at around 1 p.m. local time on Tuesday (4 p.m. ET) is being assisted by the FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, officials said. Multiple law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation told NBC News that preliminarily, the explosion is believed to have been the result of an "intentional detonation," and that authorities were investigating how the explosive device was sent or delivered to the building. Those sources said it appeared to have been contained in some sort of package. But Orange County sheriff's Commander Dave Sawyer told reporters Tuesday evening local time that "we cannot say exclusively that this explosion was intentional," adding that "as soon as we can confirm that information, we will share it with you." The woman that was killed was not identified. That person and the three people who were injured were likely in close proximity to the explosion, Sawyer said. The blast occurred at a suite on the first floor of the building, he said. "We'd just like everyone to know that our thoughts are with her family," Sawyer said of the person who was killed. © Provided by NBCU News Group, a division of NBCUniversal Media LLC Image: Alison Viejo ExplosionOrange County first responders investigate the scene of an explosion in Aliso Viejo, Calif., on May 15, 2018. Capt. Tony Bommarito, a public information officer for the Orange County Fire Authority, said the department was called at around 1:09 p.m. on a report of an explosion, and units that arrived "found an obvious explosion, with debris scattered into the parking lot and into the road." "There's heavy damage on the first floor corner of the building, walls and windows blown out," he said earlier Tuesday evening. Sawyer said that investigators were going through the interior of the building to find out a cause. He said that any blast of such magnitude would be investigated as suspicious. "We have not found any type of specific device inside of the building right now that could tell us or lead us to exactly what the device was, if it was a device," he said. Three people were transported to local hospitals, Bommarito said. He did not characterize their injuries. "At this time, at this point of investigation, there's nothing that indicates there were any threats made towards this business, or any other types of incidents that occurred before this explosion," Sawyer said earlier Tuesday evening. An FBI spokesperson said earlier Tuesday that the agency was sending a Joint Terrorism Task Force to assist in the explosion investigation as a precaution. The building where the blast occurred is across the street from an academy and day care facility, NBC Los Angeles reported. The children were reunited with their parents at a nearby Target parking lot. Tony Dik, whose son attends the preschool, told the station that it was emotional for parents who realized that their children were on the same street as the explosion. "When I was playing outside I heard the big crash, I thought it was a garbage truck but it was a building that smashed," his son, 6-year-old Kingston, said, according to the station.

A state representative, an Air Force veteran and two high-powered lawyers — all women — won Democratic House primaries on Tuesday in Pennsylvania, where a record number of women ran for House seats in a year of intense political enthusiasm among female Democrats. It was a night of victories for at least seven Democratic women running for the House in a state that has an all-male congressional delegation of 20 and a Statehouse dominated by male politicians. Female candidates showed strength in nearly every region of Pennsylvania, from the Philadelphia suburbs to the conservative southwest. Madeleine Dean, the state House member; Chrissy Houlahan, the veteran; and Mary Gay Scanlon, one of the lawyers, each won in Philadelphia suburban districts that they are now favored to carry in November, according to results from The Associated Press. Their primary victories raise the likelihood of women cracking the state’s all-male congressional delegation. Sign Up For the Morning Briefing Newsletter Susan Wild, the other lawyer, won a competitive primary in the Lehigh Valley but now faces a tough general election race in a district with many blue-collar voters. The women won in districts that were redrawn to replace a gerrymandered Republican map that the State Supreme Court ruled illegal in January. The new map of the state’s 18 House districts — and the ebullience it set off among Democrats hoping to capture the House of Representatives in the midterms — put Pennsylvania front-and-center among four states that held primaries on Tuesday. President Trump narrowly won Pennsylvania in 2016 and Democrats, seeking to tap into grass-roots rejection of the president, badly want a version of a do-over in the midterm elections. And the state will be critical to determining whether Republicans or Democrats win control of the House in November. Nationwide, Democrats need to flip two dozen Republican-held seats to gain a majority in the House. Under the new congressional map, Democrats have a shot at flipping at least three and possibly as many as six seats this fall in the Keystone State, most in a collar of counties around Philadelphia. Redistricting recognized the shifting demographics that have remade the region from a once-solid Republican enclave. But the National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s chief spending arm, is not easily ceding races in the suburbs. The committee has reserved $7.8 million in television advertising for the fall in the Philadelphia market, a spokesman confirmed Tuesday, its largest early spending commitment of any region nationally. Most of the money will be aimed at two competitive districts north of Philadelphia that are considered tossup races this fall; both have been Republican-held, but Democrats believe they have a shot at winning them. In one, centered on Bucks County, first-term Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, a moderate Republican, will face Scott Wallace, a millionaire who outspent a rival 16-to-1. Republicans are expected to attack Mr. Wallace as a carpetbagger who only moved back to the district last year from Maryland and has not voted there in decades. Though Mr. Fitzpatrick is vulnerable after just a single term, he succeeded his brother in the seat, so his name is known to voters in a district Hillary Clinton narrowly won in 2016. The other district that will be a November battleground is Ms. Wild’s race. The first female solicitor of Allentown, Ms. Wild defeated primary rivals to her right and her left: Greg Edwards, who had been endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and John Morganelli, a district attorney who tweeted after that presidential election of 2016 that he would like a job with the Trump administration. Ms. Dean was the winner in a suburban district in Montgomery County considered a safe Democratic seat after redistricting. Ms. Houlahan had the good fortune of being the only Democrat running in a district almost as safe, centered in Chester County, which Mrs. Clinton won two years ago by nine percentage points. And Ms. Scanlon prevailed in a Democratic primary field that included five other women — the largest number of female Democrats in any congressional primary race in the nation this year. The House races were the centerpiece, but not the only show in Pennsylvania. In two important statewide primaries for the right to challenge Democratic incumbents — for governor and the United States Senate — the favorites carried the day. Lou Barletta, a congressman from Luzerne County, who made a reputation on unflinching opposition to illegal immigrants and became an early supporter of Mr. Trump, won the Republican nomination to challenge Senator Bob Casey Jr., a mild-mannered politician who has become a relentless critic of Mr. Trump. And Scott Wagner, a state senator whose fortune from waste hauling led to an inevitable campaign slogan that he would be Pennsylvania’s “cleanup guy,” won the nomination to challenge Gov. Tom Wolf. Mr. Wagner and Mr. Wolf are ideological opposites. Their fall race is expected to include fierce disagreement over Mr. Wagner’s support of anti-union “right to work” legislation, in a state where organized labor remains strong. Mr. Wolf opposes the legislation. Mr. Wagner beat Paul Mango, a former health care consultant and West Point graduate, in one of the nastiest primaries the state has seen. Mr. Mango attacked Mr. Wagner over a protective order a daughter once obtained against him, which prompted a response ad by the daughter in which she angrily defended her father. In an unusual down-ballot race, Lt. Gov. Mike Stack, a Democrat who had a falling out with Governor Wolf, lost to a primary challenger, John Fetterman, the mayor of Braddock. Mr. Stack was in the news last year after accusations he mistreated State Police in his protective detail. And in the southwest corner of the state, State Senator Guy Reschenthaler defeated State Representative Rick Saccone, who previously lost a widely watched special election to Conor Lamb, a moderate Democrat, in a region that had strongly backed Mr. Trump. Idaho, Oregon and Nebraska also went to the polls on Tuesday. In Nebraska, the Democrat Jane Raybould, a city councilwoman in Lincoln, won the primary and will face Senator Deb Fischer, a Republican seeking her second term in a comfortably red state. Knute Buehler, a member of the Oregon House of Representatives, won the Republican nomination for governor in the state, easily prevailing over nine other candidates. He will face the incumbent Democrat, Kate Brown.

Jay Leno got rich by being America’s class clown. The comedian has an estimated net worth of $350 million, largely thanks to his tenure as the host of The Tonight Show, which he left in 2014. He’s still cracking jokes, but now he does it on Jay Leno’s Garage, which started as a web series and is now in its fourth season on CNBC (airing Thursdays). It follows Leno’s one true splurge: collecting prized and pricey cars. We talked to him about the money tips he’s picked up from his auto obsession, how he started his standup career homeless, and the one thing he tells every comic who’s trying to make a buck telling jokes. You were extremely scrappy when you started in comedy. In Leading with My Chin, you wrote about being homeless and telling jokes to police when they picked you up off the street. [Laughs] Yeah, I did. I just got on a plane one day and went to Los Angeles. I looked in the paper for open houses, say, from noon to 4 p.m., and I would get there at 3:30, and then I would hide in the closet. The realtor would leave and lock the door, and now I had a place to stay. Sometimes I could stay in a house two to three days. I didn’t wreck anything. I did get picked up twice for vagrancy on Hollywood Boulevard. In fact, where I got my [Walk of Fame] star was where the cops picked me up. They’d put you in the back of the car, and they’d drive you around their entire shift, and then let you out in the morning. They must’ve been used to that on Hollywood Boulevard. I would tell the cops jokes, and most of the cops are pretty blue-collar guys. Once they realized you’re not dangerous, you’re not a crazy person… “You find a place to live yet? No? Okay, get in the back.” It was okay. They were nice guys. How’d you become a car geek, anyway? I grew up in Andover, Massachusetts, which was a pretty rural area when I was a kid. There were always broken tractors, lawn mowers, vehicles you had to fix. I remember somebody had abandoned an old Renault in a field when we were about 11 or 12. We would drive it around the backyard. Your mom would kind of watch through the window. Of, course now they’d call child services, and the parents would be taken away. Back then, it was seen as not a bad thing—it taught you how to fix cars and get things running. I never set out to collect cars. I just bought what I liked. The general rule of car collecting is if you’re reasonably astute and you understand how things work, if you like it, chances are other people will like it, too. My three things are: It should be of technical and historical significance. It should be fun to drive. And it should be attractive to look at. If an automobile has those three qualifications, then it’s probably something that would be considered collectible. There’s a lot of speculation out there about your vast car collection. Exactly how many do you own? About 181 cars, and about 160 motorcycles. Do you have any idea what they’re all worth? No. I know individual ones. I bought a McLaren F1 in ‘99 for $800,000, and the last offer I got was $17.5 million. They only built 64 of them. Are there any cars you look back on and think, “I wish I hadn’t bought that”? There’s this thing in the car world: “You didn’t pay too much, you just bought it too soon.” There are a couple there. I don’t really dwell on them too much. If you buy something that’s rare and valuable, it will always be rare and valuable. How often do you sell the cars? I’ve never sold a car [Laughs]. Ever? I will donate a car to charity. We’ve done that probably 10 or 15 times. Your passion for cars is palpable. Is there anything else you don’t mind dropping serious dough on? You know, there’s really not. It’s obviously not clothes. I’m not an experienced person. I know I’m pretty wealthy, but I live like someone who’s on their last dime. I take nothing for granted. I don’t take vacations. When you’re in show business, you get to go to vacation places. I enjoy doing philanthropy stuff. I like feeling like if I don’t work this week, I’m gonna go broke. People say, “Why do you work all the time?” I go, “What do I do on a Tuesday that’s worth this kind of money?” A job comes up, and I always feel like I was broke for so long, I never wanted to be in the position of, “Well, how much is that job? Oh no, I’m not…” It just seems so presumptuous to turn down. You still have that hustler mentality. Yeah, and I like being a piecemeal comic, the idea of write joke, tell joke, get check. I don’t do HBO or Netflix specials because I can make almost the same money doing a live show. Why not just do four or five live shows instead of giving something away on TV? So no eight-figure Netflix special for you. It doesn’t interest me. I’m not saying that to be snobby. It just doesn’t appeal to me because once your joke is on TV, it disappears forever. I always think, “Did this person just hear me say this last night?” I always know where my act is. I control it. You came into quite a lot of money as a famous comedian. What did you learn about spending money from that? I never spent money before I had it. I never bought anything before I could afford it. I never bought anything on time. I don’t lease vehicles. Cash is king. You’re not risky with your income. I work and my money relaxes—that’s the way I look at it. I live pretty frugally. I’m a huge believer in low self-esteem. The only ones with high self-esteem are actors and criminals. I’m dyslexic. My mother would say, “You’re gonna have to work twice as hard as the other kid to get the same thing,” and that always seemed like a fair tradeoff. The nice thing about being dyslexic—people tend to focus on something and then that becomes their goal. That always worked pretty well for me. I’ve always had two jobs, and I lived on one job and banked the other. All through The Tonight Show, I never touched a dime of my TV money because TV money is fleeting money. When you’re a comedian, you can always generate income. You can always stand somewhere and tell jokes and get paid for it. In college I would go to what they used to call hootenanny night and I would put $50 on the bar. I would say to the bartender, ”Let me go up and tell jokes. If I do good, give me my $50 back. If I do bad, you keep the $50.” Eventually you could make $15, $20 bucks a night by doing that. What do you say when you talk to a young comedian who’s coming up and reaching for the kind of career you’ve had? My advice is just take the job. Don’t worry about how much it pays. I’m always astounded when I meet comedians who go, “I’m not going there for that kind of money,” and I go, “Who are you? You haven’t done anything. No one knows who you are.” If you’re any good, the money will come. Pay attention to your product. If you’re not making enough money, it’s ‘cause you’re not good enough. I spent almost a year at the Comedy Store asking to go on after Richard Pryor. No one wanted to follow Pryor because he just blew the room out. He was really the best. After that, I realized I didn’t have an hour of material. I had about 18 minutes of really funny material. I just kept throwing out everything that wasn’t funny.

North Korea threatened Wednesday to cancel the forthcoming summit between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump if Washington seeks to push Pyongyang into unilaterally giving up its nuclear arsenal. It also cancelled high-level talks due Wednesday with Seoul over the Max Thunder joint military exercises being held between the United States and South Korea, denouncing the drills as a "rude and wicked provocation". It is a sudden and dramatic return to the the rhetoric of the past by Pyongyang, after months of rapid diplomatic rapprochement on the peninsula. "If the US is trying to drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment, we will no longer be interested in such dialogue," first vice foreign minister Kim Kye Gwan said in a statement carried by state media. In that case, he added, Pyongyang would have to "reconsider" its participation at the summit, due in Singapore on June 12. The North's arsenal is expected to be at the top of the agenda of the historic talks, but Pyongyang has long insisted it needs the weapons to defend itself against invasion by the US. Washington is pressing for its complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation. But so far the North has not given any public indication of what concessions it is offering, beyond euphemistic commitments to denuclearisation of the "Korean peninsula". Pyongyang had "made clear on several occasions that precondition for denuclearisation is to put an end to anti-DPRK hostile policy and nuclear threats and blackmail of the United States", minister Kim said. In the past, Pyongyang has demanded the withdrawal of the US troops stationed in the South to protect it from its neighbour, and an end to Washington's nuclear umbrella over its security ally. The minister also blasted US National Security Advisor John Bolton's talk of a "Libyan model" for North Korean denuclearisation. It was a "sinister move to impose on our dignified state the destiny of Libya or Iraq", he said. "I cannot suppress indignation at such moves of the US, and harbour doubt about the US sincerity."

LONDON (AP) — Kensington Palace is not commenting on reports that Meghan Markle's father needs a heart procedure and will miss Saturday's royal wedding in Windsor. Prince Harry's press office said Wednesday it had no additional comment beyond a statement made two days ago calling for "understanding and respect" for Markle's father, Thomas, "in this difficult situation." Thomas Markle, 73, is a retired Hollywood cinematographer who lives in Mexico and is divorced from Markle's mother. He told the TMZ celebrity website he needs treatment Wednesday for blocked coronary arteries including receiving a stent. That treatment would normally rule out making a lengthy plane trip to England right after the procedure. Thomas Markle had been expected to spend the days before the wedding in Britain meeting Queen Elizabeth II and other senior royals. He is also still scheduled to walk his daughter down the aisle during the wedding Saturday in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. The palace has not announced any alternative plans for Thomas Markle's role. An official announcement is expected if it's confirmed that he will not be traveling to Britain for the wedding. Meghan Markle's mother, Doria Ragland, is expected to visit with the queen and senior royals this week before the wedding. She will also ride with her daughter to the chapel on the morning of the ceremony. Some estranged members of Meghan Markle's extended family have arrived in Britain but have not received invitations to the wedding.

Denver Broncos General Manager and Vice President of Football Operations John Elway is the latest NFL executive to be questioned in regards to Colin Kaepernick‘s ongoing collusion case against the NFL. According to Mike Klis of 9NEWS, Elway was deposed at Broncos team headquarters on Tuesday. Elway joins Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, Houston Texans owner Bob McNair, Baltimore Ravens General Manager Ozzie Newsome and head coach John Harbaugh and Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll and G.M. John Schneider as people already questioned during the grievance process. Kaepernick attended the deposition as he has other sessions throughout the case. The Broncos had interest in acquiring Kaepernick in trade from the San Francisco 49ers over the 2016 offseason. However, the deal never came together as the two sides couldn’t agree upon a restructured contract. Kaepernick is trying to find evidence that proves the NFL jointly discussed and formulated a plan to keep him off an NFL roster after his decision to protest social issues by kneeling for the national anthem prior to games in 2016.

The 2018 NBA Draft lottery is over and the draft order is officially set. The Phoenix Suns will pick first overall and will likely select DeAndre Ayton or Luka Doncic. The Kings climb all the way up and land the No. 2 overall pick while the Hawks round out the top three. Here are the winners and losers: WINNERS Phoenix and its ongoing rebuild The Phoenix Suns have been in a weird place ever since their surprisingly successful 2013-14 season, and they needed some good news on Tuesday -- at the end of their 21-win campaign in April, Devin Booker said that he is "done with not making the playoffs." The No. 1 pick does not guarantee a return to relevance next season, but it makes their future a lot brighter and gives Booker a reason to believe in general manager Ryan McDonough's plan. McDonough's draft history is a mixed bag. Getting Booker at No. 13 in 2015 is a minor miracle, and it makes up for selecting Alex Len No. 5 in 2013. The jury is still out on Marquese Chriss, Dragan Bender and Josh Jackson. Now, Phoenix will have a chance to select someone who can be a real cornerstone (alongside Booker) and simplify everybody else's role. The question over the next 6 weeks: which high-ceiling prospect does this front office want? Which brings us to … Luka Doncic? The connection between new Suns coach Igor Kokoskov and the do-everything 19-year-old is real: The two of them won EuroBasket with the Slovenian national team last summer, and they are definitely mutual admirers. Because of this -- and the fact that a Booker-Doncic backcourt is extremely exciting -- it is possible that Phoenix winning the lottery represented the best possible outcome if Doncic dreams of being selected first. If the Suns take Doncic, having Kokoskov around should help his transition to the NBA. It is also nice that his mentor, Goran Dragic, is familiar with the city of Phoenix. It's too early to know whether or not he will end up being at the top of McDonough's draft board, though. DeAndre Ayton? Doncic would be the best story for the Suns, but let's not forget that his main competition played just down the street at Arizona. Ayton, a massive and talented center, is a known quantity among all NBA talent evaulators, but he will be particularly familiar to the Phoenix front office. Another bonus for Ayton: While there is a surplus of good centers in the league, the Suns clearly need someone like him. If Len is retained in the offseason, it will be as a backup. If Tyson Chandler finishes out his contract in Phoenix, it will be as a mentor. Sacramento, the most desperate team at the lottery This is an amazing evening for the Sacramento Kings, who don't have a pick in next year's draft and thus desperately needed something good to happen in the lottery. They had an 18.3 chance to jump into the top three, and it happened -- they will pick No. 2 overall. Let's hope they don't outsmart themselves here: the easy thing to do is just take Ayton or Doncic, depending on who is available. Sacramento has a bunch of interesting young players -- De'Aaron Fox, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Buddy Hield and Willie Cauley-Stein among them -- but it is unclear if any of them have true franchise-player potential. In June, they will add a player who does. Atlanta Hawks? The Atlanta Hawks had essentially the same odds as Dallas, but wound up with the third pick. We have to call them winners, but it's interesting to think about how many executives would really want to be in their position. As the draft approaches, a lot of analysts are going to say that it only really starts with the third pick, as Ayton and Doncic are the likely selections in the top two. Nailing a pick like this is extremely difficult, and fans of rebuilding teams do not tend to be forgiving when a front office hits a single rather than a home run. The Hawks got a great, potentially franchise-changing asset here, but they will be under a lot of pressure. LOSERS Cleveland and its silly streak The Cleveland Cavaliers' lottery luck finally ran out. After getting the No. 1 pick in 2011, 2013 and 2014, the Cavs stayed put at No. 8 with Brooklyn's pick this time. While this pick is still a valuable asset, their front office was definitely hoping for more when they acquired it in the Kyrie Irving deal last summer. It is impossible, of course, to talk about this without talking about the future of LeBron James. If he leaves this summer, management should not expect to be able to find a new franchise player in the draft. If Cleveland wants to trade the pick for an established player to try to convince James to stay, it might have to be part of a bigger deal that includes, say, Kevin Love. The scariest part of all of this is that general manager Koby Altman and his staff will likely have to decide what to do without knowing James' intentions. Memphis, now in no-man's land The Grizzlies had the second-best odds to win the lottery, but instead fell to fourth. This is a murky position where they will have plenty of options, and a lot will be riding on this pick. Aside from grabbing Dillon Brooks 45th overall last season, Memphis' recent draft history is pretty rough, but the hope was that this injury-ravaged season would result in the front office adding a transformational player that would be almost impossible to find otherwise. That is still possible, but it's tricky. How do you rank Marvin Bagley, Jaren Jackson, Mo Bamba, Trae Young, Miles Bridges, Mikal Bridges, Wendell Carter and Michael Porter? There is absolutely no consensus here among draft "experts," and the Grizzlies will be ripped if they don't get this one right. The good news: The last time Memphis picked fourth, it took Mike Conley. Dallas, in need of an heir to Dirk's throne The Dallas Mavericks fell to fifth, which isn't all that bad but is definitely disappointing. Like the Grizzlies, they were hoping that their tanked season would give them a surefire superstar. While they are still in the range where they could wind up with the best player in the draft, no organization sets itself up for a 24-win season because it wants the fifth pick.

A Japanese railway company has made global headlines after one of its trains left a few seconds earlier than scheduled. Early Friday morning, a train en route to Nishi-Akashi Station departed Notogawa Station at 7:11:35 a.m. instead of 7:12 a.m. on the dot. The West Japan Railway Company, or JR West, later issued a formal apology via a press release on its website, Sora News reported. © Provided by Business Insider Inc japanese bullet train According to the railway company's statement, the train's conductor "misunderstood" the scheduled departure time and "sent a signal" to leave the station before 7:12 a.m. At that time, several people were still on the platform waiting to board. One of these passengers reported the incident to a station attendant, who contacted the Osaka General Directorate. "The great inconvenience we placed upon our customers was truly inexcusable," JR West said. "We will be thoroughly evaluating our conduct and striving to keep such an incident from occurring again." Japan's railway system is known for being one of the most punctual in the world — although recent reports suggest rush-hour congestion causes frequent delays in densely populated cities like Tokyo. Just last year, managers of the Tsukuba Express Line between Tokyo and Tsukuba apologized after a train departed 20 seconds earlier than scheduled, even though not a single passenger complained.

The Walton family, founders of the world's largest company by revenue, Walmart (WMT), officially tops the latest Sunday Times Rich List, the paper's ranking of the wealthiest 100 people in the world. Load Error The U.K.-based newspaper reports that the American family has a collective net worth of £128.9 billion (nearly $175 billion) in its 30th annual list published on Sunday, May 13. Brothers Charles and David Koch, worth £88.9 billion ($120 billion), place second. Although Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos comes in third, he's still the world's single richest person with a net worth of £83 billion ($112 billion). Two other individuals round out the top five: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, worth £66.7 billion ($90 billion) and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, worth £62.2 billion ($84 billion). While Bezos may be the world's richest man, Walmart heiress and philanthropist Alice Walton remains the world's richest woman, according to the Forbes 2018 billionaires list. The youngest of Sam Walton's children, Alice Walton, 68, is reportedly worth $40.5 billion. Her elaborate $500 million art collection and donation of $225 million in Walmart shares to the Walton Family Foundation in 2016 were two major components of raising the family's overall wealth, the Sunday Times reports. "My parents spent a lot of time with us growing up talking about the importance of giving back," Alice Walton said in a 2011 CBS News interview. The Walton Family also reaps the benefits from other Walmart-owned companies, such as the warehouse chain Sam's Club and the British supermarket chain Asda. Walmart, as the no. 1 Fortune 500 company, has become a lot larger than its late founder Sam Walton first envisioned. While getting his degree in economics at the University of Missouri at Columbia in the 1930s, Walton waited tables, delivered newspapers and clerked at a five-and-dime. He opened the first Walmart store in Arkansas in 1962 and built his retail business on the premise that Walmart should service rural areas and "help customers, cut costs and share profits." His company grew rapidly and went public in 1970. Sales associates who had remained with the company and received Walmart shares saw their own wealth grow, CNBC anchor David Faber reports in the documentary "The Age of Walmart." Walton and his wife Helen raised four children, Rob, John, Jim, and Alice. In 1992, President George H. W. Bush awarded Walton the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Walmart founder passed away the same year. By then, his family was already the richest in the nation, and his New York Times obituary called him "the most successful merchant of his time." His son John died in a plane crash in 2005 and Helen died in 2007. The surviving three children own about 50 percent of Walmart's stock. "My parents didn't believe value and worth had anything to do with money. I think it's always been important to keep your feet on the ground and your nose out of the air," Alice Walton told CBS News. Though her wealth helped increase the family's bottom line, the billionaire still holds tight to one of her father's frugal habits: driving an old, cheap car. Sam Walton drove around the 1979 version of the same truck until he died over a decade later, and other members of the Sunday Times Rich List, including Bezos, Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg, also have a habit of driving old cars. The world's richest woman's vehicle of choice is a 2006 Ford F-150 King Ranch, which has a modest price of around $40,000.

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Fox network executives say it wasn't their decision to fire Clayne Crawford from Lethal Weapon, but they support studio Warner Bros.' choice. Crawford, who played Officer Martin Riggs in the first two seasons of the action series, was dismissed from the show over anger management issues that made other members of the cast and crew feel unsafe. On Sunday, Fox announced that he will be replaced by American Pie's Seann William Scott, who will play Det. Murtaugh's (Damon Wayans) new partner, a recasting that irked many Riggs fans. Riggs, after all, is the character played by Mel Gibson in the film series, and is the franchise's most iconic character. Plus, fans really love Clayne Crawford's performance and hair. "This was not our choice," Fox Television Group CEO and co-chair Dana Walden said. "Ultimately, our partners at Warner Brothers came to us about three weeks ago to tell us that they could not deliver Lethal Weapon as we've known it before [because] there were some real challenges in the cast." Walden said that Fox does think Warner Bros. made the right decision, and that the show has Fox's full marketing support. Fox TV co-chair Gary Newman cited other TV shows that recast a lead, like NYPD Blue, which "did that sort of beautifully" and continued to be successful when Jimmy Smits took over for David Caruso in Season 2. He anticipates that Lethal Weapon showrunner Matt Miller will be able to do something similar with Seann William Scott. Lethal Weapon Season 3 will air Tuesdays at 9/8c this fall on Fox.

Alden Ehrenreich, the actor playing young Han Solo in “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” got pranked by none other than original Han Solo himself. Actor Harrison Ford recently snuck up on Ehrenreich during an interview with “Entertainment Tonight.” “You’re shitting me,” Ehrenreich said as Ford appeared next to him. “Oh my God.” “Get out of my chair,” Ford deadpanned. “Get out of my life!” Ford then gushed about Ehrenreich’s performance in the role he originated, calling it “spectacular.” Even “Solo” director Ron Howard was surprised by the extent of the praise. “I have to say, I’ve known Harrison a long time,” Howard told ET. “He can be great, he can be supportive. He’s never effusive.” “Solo: A Star Wars Story” opens on May 25

Opening up. NCIS actress Pauley Perrette claims she endured “multiple physical assaults” on the set of one of her shows, and said that is the reason why she left. “I refused to go low, that’s why I’ve never told publicly what happened,” the 49-year-old tweeted on Saturday, May 12. “But there are tabloid articles out there that are telling total lies about me. If you believe them? Please leave me alone. You clearly don’t know me. (Sorry guys, had to be said).” “Maybe I’m wrong for not ‘spilling the beans’ Telling the story, THE TRUTH. I feel I have to protect my crew, jobs and so many people. But at what cost? I.don’t know. Just know, I’m trying to do the right thing, but maybe silence isn’t the right thing about crime. I’m… Just… ?” she continued on Sunday, May 13. “There is a ‘machine’ keeping me silent and feeding FALSE stories about me. A very rich, very powerful publicity ‘machine.’ No morals, no obligation to truth, and I’m just left here, reading the lies, trying to protect my crew. Trying to remain calm. He did it.” She added: “I’ve been supporting anti-bullying programs forever. But now I KNOW because it was ME! If it’s school or work, that you’re required to go to? It’s horrifying. I left. Multiple Physical Assaults. I REALLY get it now. Stay safe. Nothing is worth your safety. Tell someone.” © Provided by American Media Inc. Emily Wickersham, Pauley Perrette, and Brian Dietzen on NCIS. In an interview with CBS’ Sunday Morning about her final episode, the actress revealed that though she was mourning her exit from the long-running show, going to and leaving work every day wasn’t easy either. “It makes me sad to imagine a world without Abby in it,” the actress said at the time. “I’m still grieving. And it’s sad. I, like, usually cry in my car every single day when I drive to work. I usually cry on my way home at some point. And then I take a deep breath and I go, ‘All right,’ you know?” The actress — who has also appeared on Fantasy Hospital, Jag, Dawson’s Creek and more — made the announcement that she was leaving NCIS in October 2017. “So it is true that I am leaving NCIS … There have been all kinds of false rumors as to why (NO I DON’T HAVE A SKIN CARE LINE AND NO MY NETWORK AND SHOW ARE NOT MAD AT ME!),” she tweeted at the time. “It was a decision made last year,” she continued. “I hope everyone will love and enjoy EVERYTHING ABBY not only for the rest of this season but for everything she has given all of us for 16 years. All the love, all the laughter, all the inspiration. I love her as much as you do.”

As James Harden looked ahead to the game and series that had he been so inclined he could have anticipated for at least the past six months, he was sure of two things. The Golden State Warriors, NBA champions in two of the past three seasons and a minute away from three straight titles, would be a greater challenge than the Rockets have faced. And, Harden was as certain, the Rockets would be ready for it. "Obviously, the Warriors, who have been here a few years in a row, they're a whole different beast," Harden said on Sunday, a day before the Rockets will host Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals in Toyota Center. "Utah was a defensive beast and they got after you, they were aggressive. Golden State can get hot at any moment. Defensively, they're active. They do a really good job of shot-blocking. "Whenever we do our moves and everything, we have to be strong and aggressive." He could have gone on, but the more Harden praised the qualities that made the Warriors champions, the more he was willing to share his season-long conviction that for the Rockets, "This is the year." "We're prepared," Harden said. "We've been preparing for this the entire season. They've been here, but we're hungry. We got a lot of guys individually that have been on their own teams, whether it's Chris (Paul) or Trevor (Ariza) or Eric (Gordon), who are hungry. This is the perfect opportunity for it. We've been saying it all year. "In order to be the best you have to beat the best. We know what's at stake. We know what's in front of us. We're ready for it. We just have to go out there, accept the challenge and do what we've been doing all year. No different." The Rockets have not lost four games in a stretch of seven all season, other than in their five-game losing streak in December when Paul, Luc Mbah a Moute and Clint Capela were out through most of that stretch. When Paul, Harden and Capela all play, the Rockets have gone 50-5, including their 4-1 runs through each of the playoffs' first two rounds. The Warriors, however, have moved far past the injuries that marked their regular-season slide to the second-best record. To advance, the Rockets would have to send them to more playoff losses in seven games than the Warriors have had in their six postseason series over the past two seasons. "We did win 65 (games,)" Rockets coach Mike D'Antoni said. "They're the ones that always win homecourt advantage. Hopefully, we gained a little ground. These guys are champions for a reason. They've shown on the big stage that they can perform at a very, very, very high level, as good as anybody ever. We haven't shown that yet. "That's the doubt in most people's mind. Until you show it, they don't know. We got to beat them and show them we can do it." D'Antoni, however, said he has no doubt that the Rockets can do what they have never done together before, even against the proven champions, for one good reason. "I have the good pleasure to watch them 82 games and be in the locker room," D'Antoni said. "I know the intensity of what they want to get accomplished. I'm a believer."

The Democratic staff of the Senate intelligence committee has prepared a classified background document on President Trump's CIA nominee that includes details some senators and aides have found disturbing, four people familiar with the document told NBC News. The document, which has been made available to senators and cleared aides, describes Gina Haspel's role in the CIA's post-9/11 torture program, citing cable traffic and internal CIA messages that were not discussed in her public confirmation hearing. The sources, some of whom support Haspel and some of whom do not, say the document describes comments by Haspel in support of the CIA's brutal interrogation program at the time it was ongoing. But they said there was nothing explosive that would change the dynamic of her confirmation chances, which appear to be strong. After NBC News began asking questions about the document, senators were informed Monday that it had been removed from the Senate's secure space, and that senators could request to see it from the intelligence committee by appointment, according to a document reviewed by NBC News. Haspel was not an architect of the interrogation program, but she ran a secret CIA base in Thailand where a detainee was waterboarded and confined to a small box. Several years later, she played a role in the destruction of videotapes of interrogation sessions, drafting a cable ordering shredding that later was sent by her boss. The secret Senate document contains details of CIA interrogations that some found hard to read, the sources said. But they added it's not clear whether the senators and aides who reacted that way have also read the classified version of the 2014 Senate report on CIA interrogations, which contains photos and gruesome accounts of torture. Some may not even have read the 528-page public summary of that report, which itself is quite graphic, describing one interrogation session so brutal that some CIA personnel broke down in tears. The Senate Intelligence Committee is scheduled to vote on Haspel's nomination to head the CIA on Wednesday at 9:15 a.m. in a closed business meeting. Her nomination would then require a simple majority of the full Senate. Two Democrats — Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Joe Donnelly of Indiana — have expressed support for her; two Republicans — John McCain of Arizona and Rand Paul of Kentucky —are opposed. Even if every other Democrat voted against her, which is by no means assured, other Republicans would also have to oppose her to kill the nomination. Haspel has broad support among intelligence veterans from both parties, and at the moment, Senate aides and others involved in the nomination say she is expected to be confirmed. But some Republicans, including Jeff Flake of Arizona, have asked for more information. Flake said Friday he wants every senator to read the report of a special prosecutor who investigated Haspel's role in the tape destruction and other issues without filing charges. At her confirmation hearing last week, Haspel told senators that she believes torture was immoral and that the CIA would not resume interrogations of any sort on her watch. But she also said she believed the CIA obtained useful intelligence from its post-9/11 interrogation program, and she avoided questions about whether the harsh tactics were moral, consistent with American values, or sound policy. Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he decided to oppose her because he found her answers "lawyerly" and "evasive." Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, who has seen classified documents about Haspel's role, asked her whether, between 2005 and 2007 when the program was winding down, she called for it to be continued or expanded. She did not answer directly, but said: "Like all of us who were in the counterterrorism center and working at CIA and those years after 9/11, we all believed in our work. We were committed, we had been charged with making sure the country wasn't attacked again, and we had been informed that the techniques in CIA's program were legal and authorized by the highest legal authority in our country and also the president." Two people who were present for her testimony in the closed committee session said she struck a slightly different tone behind closed doors, acknowledging that in retrospect, the harsh CIA interrogations eroded America's standing in the world. She told senators that she did not want to be seen as impugning her colleagues by saying something similar in public.

DALLAS – A Southwest Airlines plane was forced to make an emergency landing Saturday after the cabin started losing pressure. CBSDFW reports the plane is now undergoing a maintenance review. Flight 861 was headed from Denver to Dallas Saturday night, and there were more than 100 passengers on board. Passenger Glen Eichelberger said at around 9 p.m., the oxygen masks came down and passengers were told to put them on because the cabin was losing pressure. Passenger Josh Trimberger said the plane was about 30 minutes outside of Dallas at that point. "Luckily, we were in the DFW area where we have Alliance, Love Field and DFW," said Trimberger. "I had no idea what was going on or what the outcome was going to be," said Eichelberger. "I reached over and grabbed Josh by the arm because I didn't know if we were going to make it or not. There was no communication what so ever from the flight attendants or from the cockpit as far whether we were in mortal danger." The two wish there was better communication on board, but said, luckily, it didn't take long for the pilot to get the plane safely on the ground. A spokesperson for Southwest Airlines said there were no major injuries, but paramedics did have to treat some passengers for ear pain. In an email response, the spokesperson called the landing uneventful, but passengers on board said that's not the case. "When you're in the air 20,000 feet above the ground and don't know what's going on, it's not uneventful," said Eichelberger. Eichelberger and Trimberger said they recognize accidents happen and will still be flying Southwest, but hope passenger safety is being taken seriously. "They do thousands of flights a day and it's a rare instance that this happened and I think it could have happened to anybody," said Trimberger. Southwest gave the following statement to CBS News: "The Crew of Flight 861 traveling from Denver to Dallas Saturday night radioed ahead for paramedics to meet the aircraft after a pressurization issue in flight. Following an uneventful landing, initial reports indicate four of the 120 Customers onboard requested a check from paramedics to assess ear pain. All of the Customers were ending their journey with us in Dallas, as was the aircraft, which will underwent a maintenance review." Saturday's emergency landing is just the latest safety scare for Southwest Airlines. Last month, a mother was killed after a jet engine exploded during a flight. A few weeks later, a cracked window prompted another emergency landing.

Scientists presented further evidence Monday for water plumes on the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, raising hopes of probing the jets for signs of life around the second planet from Earth. Europa's frozen surface has long been thought to cover a salty ocean about twice the size of our planet's. Given the suspected abundance of warm, liquid water under its kilometres-thick ice shell, the moon is considered a "top candidate" by NASA for life on a Solar System body other than Earth. But sending a robot craft to land on Europa and drill through its surface would be a much more costly and complicated endeavour than, say, flying through a plume of water ejected from the moon's innards, and measuring its composition. Twice before has NASA reported evidence, from its Hubble Space Telescope, for the existence of water plumes on Europa, though this interpretation has caused much debate. The new data, reported in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy, comes from measurements made from much closer up during a flyby of NASA's now-expired Galileo spacecraft. The data was captured on Galileo's closest encounter with the moon on December 16, 1997, and has now been re-examined for evidence that a blip in the data it captured was caused when it crossed a water plume. The spacecraft, launched in 1989 to examine the fifth planet from the Sun with its dozens of moons, became the first in 1995 to enter the orbit of a gas giant planet. Before ending its mission in 2003 with a planned crash into Jupiter's atmosphere, Galileo reported the first data suggestive of a liquid water ocean under Europa's surface. For the new study, experts measured variations in the moon's magnetic field and plasma waves as measured during Galileo's close flyby, and found they were "consistent" with the spacecraft crossing a plume. "These results provide strong independent evidence of the presence of plumes at Europa," they wrote. The team reconstructed the spacecraft's path to pinpoint the plume's location on the moon's surface. "These findings will help plan future missions to Europa, such as NASA’s Europa Clipper and ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer spacecraft, both of which are expected to arrive at Jupiter between the late 2020s and early 2030s," said a Nature summary.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of New Jersey on Monday effectively killed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), the federal law that essentially limited sports betting to one state for the last 25 years. PASPA was declared unconstitutional in the 7-2 decision, meaning it will be up to states – including New Jersey, which has sought to establish sports gambling for years – to decide whether to allow its residents to bet on sports. Here’s a breakdown of what the ruling by the nation’s highest court means: What is PASPA? PASPA was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1992 and went into effect in January 1993. Nevada – the only state at the time the bill became law that had widespread state-sponsored sports bettors – and three other states with more limited betting (Oregon, Delaware and Montana) were grandfathered in. PASPA didn’t outlaw sports betting because that was already illegal. Rather, PASPA banned states – outside those given exemptions – from regulating (and taxing) sports betting. Despite PASPA’s existence, the American Gaming Association (AGA) estimates at least $150 billion a year is gambled on sports in the U.S. and 97% of that amount was bet illegally. How soon could states offer sanctioned sports betting? With PASPA stricken down, states now can establish their own regulated sports betting. Many are expected to move quickly to establish sports betting as a means to increase their respective coffers. West Virginia Lottery general counsel Danielle Boyd told Legal Sports Report that the state – which already passed a law to authorize sports betting – could have sports betting within 90 days of PASPA's repeal. "That's the news every one of these states was waiting for," sports and gambling law attorney Daniel Wallach told USA TODAY Sports. "Every one of these states' legislative measures hinged on the finding of the Supreme Court that PASPA is unconstitutional. The ruling allows the states to legislate immediately and for all such laws to become effective immediately." West Virginia is among 17 states that has passed or have bills making their way through state legislatures to legalize sports betting upon PASPA's repeal, according to the AGA. New Jersey and Mississippi are two other states Wallach said he sees moving the quickest to allow betting. MORE: Supreme Court strikes down ban on sports betting in victory for New Jersey Now that it's legal, what barriers remain? Some of the legislation – like one proposal in Pennsylvania – requires a one-time license fee of up to $10 million, along with a tax of as much as 34% on gross receipts, something AGA senior vice president of public affairs Sara Slane told USA TODAY Sports could be a non-starter for potential operators. "I think their intentions are good," Slane said. "I think some states will have to go back and structure a policy that will allow operators to want to come into the state." What do pro sports leagues stand to gain? The NBA and MLB, seeing the potential of PASPA's repeal, have pushed the idea of a 1% sports integrity fee. (This would be taken out of all sports bets before the government gets to tax bets.) While the leagues have pitched this as a way to police point-shaving and other gambling-related corruption, Slane said it would take such a chunk that it would make legalized sports betting non-viable. "The integrity fee is really a 20% grab on gaming revenue," Slane said. According to the AGA, the average sports book keeps only about 5% of the money wagered. The fee would also limit how much each state could earn in tax revenue. Nevada sports books have operated for decades without any such fee. “The major professional sports leagues earn exorbitant profits from ticket sales, concessions, merchandise and advertising rights, and while we welcome their support for our efforts to end the failed ban on sports wagering, we do not agree that it is good policy for the leagues to take money away from law enforcement agencies that neither they nor their athletes have earned,” Chuck Canterbury, national president of the fraternal order of police, said in a statement. “Our professional leagues should focus on their sport and let us focus on enforcing the law.” Could another federal law be on the horizon? One has already been proposed, although the bill hasn’t budged since it was outlined about a year ago and was introduced in December. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) offered up the the Gaming Accountability and Modernization Enhancement (GAME) Act that hasn’t even been considered by a committee. There’s little chance it will get a floor vote as Congress is consumed by other issues ahead of the midterm elections. Part of the GAME Act is now moot, since it would have allowed states to offer legalized sports betting. But it would also mandate consumer protections, including a ban on underage betting and establish safeguards against compulsive gambling. "I don't see Frank Pallone's bill as a relevant piece of legislation," said Wallach, a partner at Becker & Poliakoff. "There has been significant movement on the state level with no corresponding movement on the federal level. I think what we will see is a new bill coming out of one of the committees, maybe even his committee (Energy and Commerce)." Minutes after the Supreme Court's ruling was released, Pallone used the decision to again tout the GAME Act. "Now that the Supreme Court has struck down this unlawful and confusing law, it is time for Congress to move the GAME Act forward to ensure that consumer protections are in place in any state that decides to implement sports betting,” Pallone said in a statement. How soon could a new federal law be in place? Wallach said federal legislation – especially in a gridlocked environment on Capitol Hill –could come well after many states have already started taking bets and likely after the midterm elections. "At some point, if the legislation starts to diverge from state to state and, more importantly, the leagues don't get what they want at the state level, I think you will see Congress jump into the fray and pass some kind of legislation to create more uniformity across the country," Wallach said.

Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas needed a favor: Before retiring at the end of his term, Mr. Hensarling, a powerful conservative, wanted to anoint an activist named Bunni Pounds as his successor. He reached out to President Trump for help, but Mr. Trump and his aides hesitated to meddle in a House primary, according to a person familiar with the overture. Instead, Mr. Hensarling found a willing ally at Mr. Trump’s right hand: Vice President Mike Pence. Anxious to please his former House colleague, the vice president backed Ms. Pounds last month in a tweet that blindsided key White House aides. The eager assistance Mr. Pence provided a senior lawmaker reflected the outsized political portfolio that the vice president and his aides have seized for themselves as the 2018 elections approach. While Mr. Trump remains an overpowering personality in Republican politics, he is mostly uninterested in the mechanics of managing a political party. His team of advisers is riven with personal divisions and the White House has not yet crafted a strategy for the midterms. So Mr. Trump’s supremely disciplined running mate has stepped into the void. Republican officials now see Mr. Pence as seeking to exercise expansive control over a political party ostensibly helmed by Mr. Trump, tending to his own allies and interests even when the president’s instincts lean in another direction. Even as he laces his public remarks with praise for the president, Mr. Pence and his influential chief of staff, Nick Ayers, are unsettling a group of Mr. Trump’s fierce loyalists who fear they are forging a separate power base. In addition to addressing dozens of party events in recent months, Mr. Pence has effectively made himself the frontman for America First Policies, an outside group set up to back Mr. Trump’s agenda. He has keynoted more than a dozen of its events this year, traveling under its banner to states including Iowa and New Hampshire. And Mr. Pence has worked insistently to shape Mr. Trump’s endorsements, prodding him in the contests for governor of Florida and speaker of the House, among others. Word of the internal tensions is getting out beyond the walls of the White House: one prominent lawmaker said the complaints of high-ranking Trump officials were starting to circulate on Capitol Hill. “They’re looking for people to stay on the team, not break away from the team,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, of the Trump side of the West Wing. Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence remain on good terms personally, and the president has largely welcomed the vice president’s political guidance, according to people close to both men. And Mr. Pence has been intimately involved in planning for the 2020 campaign: He joined Mr. Trump for the meeting where the president told Brad Parscale, a digital strategist in the 2016 election, that he would manage the 2020 race. Mr. Pence stood behind Mr. Parscale, rubbing his shoulders, as Mr. Trump spoke. Yet in at least two instances, the vice president, Mr. Ayers and other aides have badly overstepped. Mr. Pence recently abandoned an attempt to hire Jon Lerner, a Republican pollster close to Mr. Ayers, as a national security aide, after Mr. Trump discovered Mr. Lerner had helped lead attacks on him in the 2016 election. The quick dismissal of Mr. Lerner was widely seen as a brushback against Mr. Pence and Mr. Ayers, a way for Mr. Trump’s advisers to signal that they closely watching the vice president’s office. Two senior White House officials said the Lerner episode made Mr. Trump more acutely aware of what these aides described as Mr. Pence’s empire-building. Tensions also flared last year, after Mr. Ayers and another Pence aide were reported to have made suggestive comments to Republican donors about planning for an unpredictable 2020 election. Most brazenly, Marty Obst, a senior Pence adviser, told a Republican donor that Mr. Pence wanted to be prepared for the next presidential race in case there was an opening. For now, Mr. Pence and his aides have found a yawning opening within the West Wing, as Mr. Trump’s principal political aides spend much of their time managing his impulses and vying with each other, instead of overseeing the party and this year’s campaign. While past vice presidents, like Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Dick Cheney, have played important roles maintaining the political coalitions of their ticket-mates, neither man wielded Mr. Pence’s independent influence over an administration’s political network and agenda. Steering Mr. Pence’s strategy is Mr. Ayers, a 35-year-old operative who is the subject of the most pointed criticism from Trump stalwarts. Mr. Ayers regularly joins Mr. Pence in meetings with the president and has told associates that if aides in the West Wing cannot stay on top of things, his office will step up, White House officials said. Mr. Ayers again unsettled skeptics in the West Wing this month by poaching a politically savvy aide to Mr. Trump, William Kirkland, to join the Pence team. Mr. Kirkland ran Senator David Perdue’s 2014 campaign in Georgia, and Trump officials believe he will effectively run a shadow political office for Mr. Pence, a setup unheard-of so soon into a new administration. Mr. Pence’s team is aware of the unease within the White House, and Mr. Ayers recently told one Republican ally that one reason Mr. Pence is so effusive in his public remarks about Mr. Trump — he has recently hailed Mr. Trump as a “champion” for conservatives and branded the recent tax cuts a “Trump bonus” for America — is to tamp down questions about his loyalty. Alyssa Farah, a spokeswoman for Mr. Pence, said in an email that the vice president’s activities were planned in “close coordination” with Mr. Trump and congressional leaders. She said they had formulated a 2018 campaign plan at a Camp David retreat in January and followed the blueprint since then. “The vice president’s political and fund-raising travel advances the president’s agenda by aiding targeted candidates and committees during the midterms, which is what the president asked us to do,” Ms. Farah said. “Our team works hand-in-hand with our colleagues and have tremendous respect for the work they do.” Ms. Farah denied that Mr. Ayers had made comments about displacing the White House political office. “Nick has never said anything of the sort,” she said. She also said Mr. Ayers had not described Mr. Pence as being publicly ingratiating to prove his loyalty: “This is false.” Marc Short, the White House director of legislative affairs, said in a statement that Mr. Pence was vital to the administration’s political strategy. “The vice president’s tireless efforts to protect the majority in the House and expand our majority in the Senate are essential to our legislative agenda,” he said. Mr. Pence and his aides, however, have plainly functioned in many cases as allies of traditional Republican Party leaders, at times checking Mr. Trump’s instincts. In April, after Paul D. Ryan announced he would step down as speaker of the House, Mr. Pence urged Mr. Trump against endorsing Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican who is the House majority leader, to succeed Mr. Ryan. Mr. Pence counseled the president to let congressional Republicans work things out on their own, according to Republicans close to the White House and congressional leaders. The same month, Mr. Pence weighed in to deter Mr. Trump from intervening aggressively in the race for governor of Florida. The president had endorsed Representative Ron DeSantis, a vocal defender of Mr. Trump and critic of Robert S. Mueller III on Fox News, in a December tweet, and privately told Mr. DeSantis to expect a joint appearance this spring. But Mr. DeSantis faces a contested primary against Adam Putnam, Florida’s agriculture commissioner and a former House colleague of Mr. Pence. After allies of Mr. Putnam appealed to the vice president, Mr. Pence — along with cautious White House aides — argued against further meddling in the race, according to people briefed on the White House deliberations. Mr. Trump has yet to appear with Mr. DeSantis. Advisers to Mr. DeSantis remain optimistic that Mr. Trump will intervene again in the race, despite internal resistance. Even skeptics of Mr. Pence have done little to block him from building his own political apparatus, and some concede he is performing a role that has been left more or less vacant. Mr. Pence formed a joint fund-raising committee with Mr. McCarthy and also created his own political action committee, taking in millions of dollars to give congressional candidates. Jan Brewer, the former governor of Arizona, who introduced Mr. Pence at a Phoenix event convened by America First in early May, said he could operate more freely than Mr. Trump at this point. “We really, really appreciate him leading our party in that respect,” Ms. Brewer said, adding: “His mission is maybe a little bit different than the president, and he is not under attack 24/7 like the president is.” The vice president drew wide criticism, and grumbling from White House aides, for hailing former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio as a “tireless champion of strong borders and the rule of law.” Mr. Arpaio, who is running in a Senate race Mr. Trump’s advisers tried to keep him out of, was convicted of criminal contempt but pardoned by the president last year. Attendees at the gathering cheered Mr. Pence but said they were drawn to him chiefly because of his association with Mr. Trump. “I don’t know if he can get the nomination or not,” said Lyle Campbell, a retiree living in Scottsdale. “I like Pence very much, but I’d rather have a woman run — I’d rather have the ambassador to the U.N.” That would be Nikki R. Haley, the former South Carolina governor who currently employs Mr. Lerner and intended to retain him as a joint adviser with Mr. Pence. After opening for Mr. Trump at the National Rifle Association’s convention in Dallas on May 4, Mr. Pence earned appreciative but not overenthusiastic reviews. John Ray, a retired medical-equipment executive from Missouri, called him a useful sidekick. “He brings to the table staunch support of the president,” Mr. Ray said. “And the president needs that.”

An investigation by an Australian TV news program suggests the pilot of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared with 239 people aboard more than four years ago, deliberately crashed into the Indian Ocean. Investigators are still searching for the aircraft, but these findings raise the possibility that one of the greatest aviation mysteries in modern history may not have been a catastrophic accident, but instead a possible mass murder-suicide. "60 Minutes Australia" brought together an international group of aviation experts who say that the disappearance of MH370 was a criminal act by veteran pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah. "He was killing himself; unfortunately, he was killing everybody else on board, and he did it deliberately," said Canadian Air crash investigator Larry Vance. Boeing 777 pilot and instructor Simon Hardy reconstructed the flight plan based on military radar, and says Captain Shah flew along the border of Malaysia and Thailand, crossing in and out of each country's airspace to avoid detection. "It did the job," Hardy said, "because we know, as a fact, that the military did not come and intercept the aircraft." Hardy also made a strange discovery: Captain Shah likely dipped the plane's wing over Penang, his hometown. "Somebody was looking out the window," he suggested. "Why did he want to look outside Penang?" asked reporter Tara Brown. "It might be a long, emotional goodbye -- or a short, emotional goodbye," Hardy replied. Two experts from the "60 Minutes Australia" investigation also disagreed with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau's scenario of the "death dive" with no one in control. "I think someone was controlling the aircraft until the end," said Hardy. They argue instead that Captain Shah flew Flight MH370 another 115 miles than originally thought. "This was a mission by one of the crew to hide the aircraft as far away from civilization as possible," Hardy said. "Which puts us way outside the search area that is currently being done." The wreckage uncovered so far may be further evidence that the pilot actually had control and that it was not a high speed crash. As Larry Vance noted of one wing component recovered from the shore of Africa, "The front of it would be pressed in and hollow. The water would invade inside and it would just explode from the inside. So this piece would not even exist." "They are very compelling," aviation analyst Henry Harteveldt, president of Atmosphere Research Group, told CBS News' Kris Van Cleave. "What I find very compelling is the hypothesis that the pilot did this deliberately, and did one of the most heinous acts in modern commercial aviation." CBS News spoke to multiple family members of the MH370 victims, and some say that this is nothing new and that without forensic evidence, they will not be convinced. Captain Shah's family tells CBS News that "pointing a finger toward him does not make them expert investigators – they have to find the plane."