Kristen Black took a semester off from college to have her baby. She was determined to go back and continue her studies to become an optometrist, her dream job. Black, 21, did just that when she re-enrolled at Arkansas State University this spring as a biology major. She and her boyfriend found a daytime sitter for their little girl, Izzy, now 8 months. Subscribe to the Post Most newsletter: Today’s most popular stories on The Washington Post As a requisite, Black had to take an introductory physics course. Her professor, Bruce Johnson, was known for holding extra study hours twice a week to help students with their homework. Most of the 80 students who took the class attended the study hours, because the subject matter is challenging. He booked a big room for the sessions. But Black couldn’t attend because she had to pick up Izzy from the babysitter. A few weeks ago, she felt as if she needed to go to a study session. She wanted help before an upcoming test. She asked Johnson whether she could bring Izzy. “I was like, ‘I’m struggling with this section, but I can’t come because I have to get my baby,’ ” Black said. He told her it was fine to bring the baby. About halfway into the two-hour study session, Johnson walked around the room and stopped at Black’s desk. Izzy smiled at Johnson, who himself has four kids and seven grandchildren. “Anytime someone that cute smiles at you, it melts you,” Johnson said in a phone interview this week. Then Izzy leaned over. Johnson asked if he could pick her up. He did an airplane ride with her and cooed at her for a minute. “I thought, ‘I can’t keep everybody waiting,’ ” he said. “So I put her on my hip and went up to the white board.” Izzy was happily on his hip for about 20 minutes as he helped students work through the concept of the ideal gas law. Black snapped a photo. “I was able to take notes while he was holding her,” Black said. “It was the sweetest thing ever.” He gave Izzy a marker with the cap on to play with while he was writing on the board. Black thanked him for his kind gesture. Johnson told her: “We’ll do what we can to get you through this class.” She sent the photo to her mother, who was blown away that her daughter’s professor was so kind-hearted. “It means a lot to have teacher genuinely care about his students,” Black said. “He’s a great teacher.” Black also happened to show the photo to the university’s chancellor, Kelly Damphousse, who put it on Facebook. Johnson, 58, who describes himself as a quiet man, said other students have brought kids to class from time to time during his 24 years teaching at the university. “When you see somebody with children who is going to school, they are amazing to me,” Johnson said. “I can’t say enough about what they’re doing and sacrifices they’re making.”

HONOLULU — A man who was on death row in Delaware until being retried and found not guilty of murder is back behind bars in Hawaii less than a year later. Isaiah McCoy enjoyed the limelight that came with sharing his story after he left Delaware's death row a free and exonerated man. He gave speeches to innocence projects, anti-death penalty groups and lawyers associations. Now, he's in a federal detention center in Honolulu, where prosecutors accuse him of sex trafficking. They say McCoy forced young women into prostitution. McCoy spoke to The Associated Press at the Honolulu Federal Detention Center. He says he's again accused of a crime he didn't commit. He says he'll use his knowledge of the criminal justice system to represent himself at his upcoming trial.

Some people know they’ve found The One when they discover their date loves the same music or roots for the same sports team. For Jeremy Jacobson, a good hint came when he and his future wife visited a tourist area of Beijing and she wasn’t tempted to buy any tchotchkes. The year was 2004, and Jacobson, then a Seattle-based engineer who was in China on business, had already embarked on the aggressive savings path that would lead him to early retirement in late 2012, at age 38. “I was car-free and biking by that point,” Jacobson, now 43, recalls. His future wife, Winnie Tseng, now 39, shared his frugal ways, allowing the couple to bypass the persuasion phase that many would-be early retirees go through when one needs to convince the other to save upwards of half of their income. Tseng was working in tech in Taiwan when she met Jacobson in Beijing. The couple married in 2010 and nowadays are reaping the rewards of their formerly spartan lifestyle. They have travelled the world with their 3-year-old son, Julian, and recently settled in Taiwan to allow him to attend pre-school. Here’s how they pulled off their life of travel and leisure. Jacobson, who worked for Microsoft, arranged a work transfer to Taiwan in 2005. The move allowed him to be with Tseng and also to turbo-charge his savings, thanks to the country’s lower cost of living. He brought Tseng back to Seattle after a couple years, where the couple pinched their pennies together. They slashed their spending on three major expenses to get the biggest bang for their savings buck. Roughly 62% of Americans’ average annual spending goes toward housing, food and transportation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Significantly reducing your spending on these three expenses will get you to early retirement a lot faster than giving up your daily latte or using Groupons for dining out. “We lived a lifestyle that a lot of people refused to live,” Jacobson says. It helped that both Jacobson and Tseng came from lower-income families and grew up living with, and on, less. Years before Jacobson met Tseng, he did acquire more conventional trappings of a middle class life, but by the time he had met her, he had already sold his house, car and motorcycle. To further cut expenses, the couple lived in a 900 square foot apartment, well under what they could afford on Jacobson’s $135,000 salary. (Tseng stopped working when they came to the U.S.) They ate all of their meals at home and entertained friends with potluck parties, which hardly felt like a sacrifice since Tseng is an accomplished cook. The couple’s frugal ways allowed them to save $100,000 a year. Jacobson maxed out his 401(k) and IRA and put the remainder into a taxable brokerage account. They invested in low-cost Vanguard index funds, and by the time Jacobson retired in late 2012, they had amassed a nest egg of more than a million dollars. It was this brute savings and not, as some people assume, a lottery windfall or inheritance that got them to the point where they never have to work for pay again. Slash Your Taxes The Internal Revenue Service taxes Americans based on their worldwide income, but Jacobson and Tseng manage to pay next-to-nothing in taxes. For tax purposes, the couple is based in Washington, one of a handful of states with no state income state. Jacobson is registered to vote in Washington and maintains a driver’s license from the state, even though they’re now living full time in Taiwan. They live off a combination of their savings and ad and referral income from their blog, GoCurryCracker. Most of their investment income comes from capital gains, dividends and tax-free municipal bond interest. Long-term capital gains aren’t taxed for married couples making up to $77,200 in 2018. Depending on their type, dividends are either not taxed in lower income brackets or taxed at ordinary income rates. The couple made about $57,000 in revenue from their blog last year, but since they live abroad, they take advantage of the foreign earned income exclusion that exempts up to $104,100 of work income per qualifying person from federal income taxes. The family posts their spending on their blog. Their total outlay for 2017 was $93,648, or about $7,800 per month. It’s much higher than previous years, due to a combination of one-time expenses like the Alaskan cruise he treated his mother and grandmother to and rising ongoing expenses like the fact that his son is eating more and attending school. But Jacobson isn’t concerned: the family can afford to live off their savings alone, and the blog income provides a buffer. Their investment income is spitting out around $5600 a month. Though the family is settled for now in Taiwan, they resume their world travels during school breaks; they recently got back from a trip to Vietnam during Chinese New Year. As Jeremy writes on his blog, “We are doing our best to be completely normal in every way that doesn’t involve going to work.”

Lorenzen Wright made headlines as the seventh overall pick in the 1996 NBA draft – but he also won the hearts of so many because of his impact on thousands of kids who were inspired by him. That ended in July 2010 during a call to 911. The chilling recording captured the 34-year-old's dying word: "Goddamn." A dispatcher then heard repeated gunshots – 11 in all – unaware where it was happening or who was on the other end of the line. "You can just listen to that tape and know he was in trouble," says Toney Armstrong, former director of police at the Memphis Police Department, who oversaw the investigation. "We literally threw everything we had at this investigation. We really wanted to solve it. We really, really wanted to solve this case." As Memphis mourned, months turned into years and the city became obsessed with solving the murder of its favorite son. Then, seven long years after the murder, police got the break they needed. Who wanted Wright dead, and how does a beloved basketball player's life end that way? HOMETOWN HERO Perched on the banks of the Mississippi River, Memphis, Tennessee, has always been a city of contrasts: famous for its place in music history and infamous for its place in the American civil rights movement. Dr. Bill Adkins: Memphis is a city that, unfortunately, has been divided by race for many, many years. Pastor Bill Adkins has been a long-time advocate for unity in the City of Memphis. Dr. Bill Adkins | Lorenzen's mentor: It's a lot better than it used to be. But there are still divisions. Decisions … unfortunately, still made along racial lines. But in a city divided, both racially and economically, there is something that brings people together. Dr. Bill Adkins: Basketball in Memphis became -- a instrument of change … which brought races together. …You know, Memphis basketball was literally everything. And Lorenzen was a big part of that. Once celebrated as one of Memphis' favorite sons, the memory of Lorenzen Wright still haunts this town. James Brown | CBS News special correspondent: Put in perspective how big the Lorenzen Wright story is here in Memphis. Marc Perrusquia: It's huge. I mean, Lorenzen Wright was a true hometown hero. He was beloved. Marc Perrusquia has been writing for the Memphis newspaper, The Commercial Appeal, for almost 30 years. Marc Perrusquia: We talk about big murders in the history of Memphis. You got Martin Luther King, OK, you can't trump that one, but he comes very close. James Brown: That significant? Marc Perrusquia: That significant. Born in Oxford, Mississippi, Lorenzen Wright moved to Memphis to play basketball at Booker T. Washington High School. Being 6' 11" tall at 17 years old, he turned a lot of heads. Dr. Bill Adkins: I decided to go take a look for myself. James Brown: What did you see? Dr. Bill Adkins: Oh, yeah, I saw this huge kid that could run the floor like a gazelle. …I mean, he could run the floor better than any big man I ever saw in my life. Lorenzen went on to dazzle fans at the University of Memphis, but not for long. LORENZEN WRIGHT [NEWS INTERVIEW] Thinking about what I'm going to be doing next year, whether I'm going to be at the University of Memphis or you know, in the NBA. In 1996, he was drafted by the Los Angeles Clippers. Dr. Bill Adkins: When he stepped up to that podium -- everybody just cheered. I mean, every -- every water hole, ever sports bar in this town had it on the TV screen. Everybody was watching. Everybody was cheering.

The buzz about pollination drones is more important than ever, and companies like Walmart want in on the action. When several types of bees and bumblebees made the endangered-species list thanks to declining bee populations it's easy to see why companies are looking towards robotics as a possible solution. After all, bees supply more than just honey. Without busy bees pollinating plants, domestic crops such as various fruit and vegetables could be hit hard. More than 75 percent of the world's food crops rely at least in part on pollination by insects and other animals. Between $235 billion and $577 billion worth of annual global food production relies on direct contributions by pollinators, according to a 2016 report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The European Union went so far as to recently ban all outdoor use of pesticides containing harmful neonicotinoids to protect bee populations overseas. Now Walmart wants to get in on the act of giving bees a helping hand while investing in advanced robotics. Walmart filed a patent in March for autonomous robot bees that can pollinate like their real insect counterparts. Tiny cameras on the robots -- also called pollination drones -- not only detect and spot the locations of the crops that need pollinating, but the sensitive sensors on the drones will assure that successful pollination occurs. Five other patents were also filed that same month by Walmart for additional farming drones, including one drone that monitors the ongoing health of various crops and another that can hunt down plant pests, hopefully erasing the need for use of harmful pesticides that endanger bees in the first place. INC. TODAY'S MUST READS: I've Studied Hundreds of Organizations. Here's Why Most Can't Innovate Walmart is no stranger to utilizing advanced robots. This year, the large chain starting using using sophisticated scanner robots built by Bossa Nova Robotics to monitor store inventory. Walmart may be one of the largest companies to currently invest in robotic bees like those in the patent, however researchers are hoping to offer more kinds of pollination drones for additional companies to fund. Back in 2013, Harvard University researchers introduced autonomous flying microrobots called RoboBees that were the size of a penny and used two wafer-thin wings that flapped 120 times per second to fly. More recently in 2017, a student studying at Georgia's Savannah College of Art and Design created Plan Bee -- a pollination drone that could be controlled by a smart device. Hopefully more companies will follow suit in robotic bee investing, until then Walmart may be the front runner in looking towards the future when it comes to replacing dwindling bee populations with advanced technology instead of relying on environmental friendly legislation.

While you were enjoying that slab of Chili's Grill & Bar baby back ribs, hackers may have been feasting on your payment card information. The chain's parent company Brinker International announced Saturday that a data incident at some Chili’s restaurants may have resulted in a credit and debit card data breach. The list of impacted restaurants has not been released, but officials said the incident happened between March and April. "We sincerely apologize to those who may have been affected and assure you we are working diligently to resolve this incident," Brinker International said in a statement. More: With gas prices going up, what's it cost to fill up your car The company, who said it learned of the breach on Friday, is now working with third-party forensic experts to determine the details of what happened and how many customers are affected. Preliminary investigation indicates that malware was used to gather payment card information, including credit and debit card numbers, as well as names of cardholders who made in-restaurant purchases. "Law enforcement has been notified of this incident and we will continue to fully cooperate. We are working to provide fraud resolution and credit monitoring services for those guests who may have been impacted," Brinker International said.

MEFALSIM, Israel — As Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump watch the plaque being unveiled at the new embassy in Jerusalem on Monday, 50 miles away the Israeli army will be readying for its nightmare scenario: thousands of Palestinians bursting through the fence with Gaza. Demonstrations are planned across the Palestinian territories to protest the U.S. decision to shift its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognize the city as Israel’s capital, seen as a major blow to the Palestinian cause. But they are expected to be largest in Gaza, where six weeks of demonstrations dubbed the “March of Return” will reach a climax this week. Israeli snipers have already killed at least 49 Palestinians in the unrest at the fence, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and shot 2,240 more. Subscribe to the Post Most newsletter: Today’s most popular stories on The Washington Post “We really believe that’s what they will do, the motivation is very, very big,” an Israeli army official from the southern command said of the potential for protesters to break through the fence as he drove an armored Land Rover along it during demonstrations Friday. He pointed out fresh rolls of barbed wire, ready for areas perceived as weak spots. The embassy move has added extra friction to what was already a highly charged week. Scuffles broke out in Jerusalem’s Old City on Sunday as Israelis celebrated the “reunification” of the city, an annexation not recognized internationally. The opening of the embassy on Monday is followed by Nakba Day — when Palestinians mark the anniversary of mass expulsions and flight that displaced an estimated 700,000 people when Israel was founded 70 years ago. This year, organizers of demonstrations in Gaza and the West Bank are spreading them over two days to coincide with the embassy opening. But Israel is not letting the threat of violence dull its party. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs gathered 1,000 guests for a celebratory event on the ministry grounds on Sunday. Among them wereTreasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. “President Trump is making history,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to rounds of applause. “Our people will be eternally grateful for his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.” As guests sipped wine in front of a stage with a backdrop of American and Israeli flags, the mosques in Gaza were urging people to attend protests. The Israeli military says it will deploy two additional battalions of soldiers on the edges of the barricaded strip, roughly doubling the number of forces. A second and third defense line of troops will be set up and reservists have been called in. Another extra battalion will be deployed in the occupied West Bank. In Jerusalem, protests are planned at the same time as the embassy opening, with one in an Arab neighborhood just a few blocks away. More than 1,000 police officers are working with the U.S. Embassy to coordinate security for Monday’s event, a police spokesman said. “This one-sided move strengthens Israel’s occupation and takes us further from peace,” said Ayman Odeh, leader of the Arab faction in Israel’s parliament. Hamas has thrown its weight behind the demonstrations in Gaza, which have deflected Palestinians’ frustration with their leadership as residents of the blockaded 140-square-mile territory struggle to make ends meet. More than 70 percent of Palestinians living in Gaza are refugees or descendants of refugees from areas in Isreal, and the demonstrations have rallied for their U.N.-endorsed right of return. “Our people have the right to break the walls of this big prison,” Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, said in a briefing with foreign journalists. “We went out to knock the wall of the prison and declare it clearly that we won’t accept to die slowly.” Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza in 2005, though the United Nations still classifies it as occupied because of the level of control wielded by Israel, which restricts the movement of people and goods. Egypt has also only sporadically opened its border. “What’s the problem if hundreds of thousands storm this fence which is not a border?” Sinwar said. Palestinians have burned tires, thrown stones, tried to break the fence and sent kites carrying burning coals over it. The military has also said there have been cases where explosives were thrown or planted, and one shooting incident. But the use of live ammunition on largely peaceful crowds has drawn condemnation from human rights groups. On the boundary with Gaza on Friday, near the Israeli kibbutz of Mefalsim, the Israeli official, who declined to be named in line with the military’s protocol, said Palestinian casualty numbers appear broadly accurate, except for on one point — injuries by rubber bullets. “We saw something about rubber bullets,” he said, “but we didn’t shoot one.” Under the rules of engagement, a protester can be shot in the head only during “terror activities,” he said. That does not include stone throwers, he added. Otherwise the instructions are to shoot below the knees of ringleaders. Videotaped incidents that show otherwise are investigated, he said. Israel says that Hamas is using the demonstrations as a cover to carry out attacks, pointing out that some of those killed are known militants. The death toll at recent demonstrations has shrunk, with one Palestinian killed on Friday, and no deaths the previous week. “I think it’s the experience of the forces,” the officer said. “If you do it one time, you get better, you learn what not to do if you don’t want people killed.” ” Hospitals in Gaza are preparing for bloodshed, setting up tents with extra beds outside. Next to the sniper positions at the border fence the Israeli officer hands over a pair of binoculars. The Gazans largely stand stoically facing the border fence. “Do you see a stone thrower?” he asks. After a minute or so, a man picks up a stone and throws it, but it falls short of the fence. Black smoke from burning tires billows across. A few minutes later, the crack of a bullet rings out. A warning shot, the officer says. For many, including the army officer, the big question is what happens next? Israel is investing more than $800 million in a below- and aboveground barrier around Gaza, due to be completed next year. But few seem to be talking of a long-term solution to an increasingly explosive situation, as Gaza is also being squeezed by salary cuts by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. On Saturday, protesters burned the main cargo terminal to Gaza, causing $2.8 million in damage and further choking off supplies. “There is a wild tiger that was besieged and starved through 11 years, and now it was set free and no one knows where it’s going and what it will do,” Sinwar said.

Republican leaders are scrambling to lock down enough votes for the GOP farm bill, with members still divided over the measure's sugar support program and work requirements for food stamps. The legislation, a top priority for retiring Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) because it contains elements of welfare reform, is scheduled to hit the floor this week. But House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway said Republicans are shy of the 218 votes needed to pass the bill. Still, the Texas Republican expressed confidence that he can flip enough members by working the phones over the weekend, clearing up any questions and concerns, and pointing out that some amendments will get a floor vote. "We believe we'll get there. We've got several folks that are still reading the bill and coming to their own conclusions. We've got a lot of undecideds," Conaway said Thursday. "I'll be working with them over the weekend to get them to where they need to be, and get whatever information they need to so they'll understand exactly what the bill does." "I believe we'll be there next week and we'll have it on the floor," he added. Conaway also met with President Trump at the White House on Thursday afternoon, following reports that he may veto the bill if it doesn't include stricter work requirements for food stamp recipients. But Conaway said no veto threat was discussed. In fact, he said, Trump was supportive of his effort - a sentiment that could go a long way with some of the conservatives who are still skeptical over certain components of the farm plan. "It went really well. The president is very smart and it became crystal clear right off the bat though that he has a real heart for the folks living in rural America... He wants to help them and he said that multiple times," Conaway said. "He's also a really strong proponent of the work requirements being improved in SNAP, because he believes that work is a pathway to prosperity and that our program should help people get on that path and not trap them in some sort of public assistance program." Ryan and his leadership team have been aggressively working to build support for the farm bill over the last few weeks, holding listening sessions, inviting Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to a GOP whip team meeting and dispatching Conaway to an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) event aimed at highlighting the proposal. As a way to attract more support, Republican leaders are expected to allow a structured debate process that enables some germane amendments to receive a floor vote. The five-year farm bill authorizes a number of farm, agricultural and food programs that are set to expire at the end of September. But the bulk of the measure's funding - and one of the areas that has been a lightning rod in the debate - goes toward the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. This year's farm bill would impose tougher work requirements on millions of food stamp recipients and shift the program's funding toward job training - a change that Ryan and the GOP say will help lift people out of poverty and get people back on their feet. Under the measure, all able-bodied adults between the ages of 18 and 59 have to be working or enrolled in a training program for at least 20 hours per week in order to qualify for food stamps. People who are elderly, disabled or pregnant would be exempt from the requirements. But the contentious idea has sparked a bitter intraparty fight in the House. Moderate Republicans worry that the new requirements are too tough and will prevent 1 million people from getting food assistance. "I have concerns regarding SNAP," said Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), who is facing a tough reelection bid. "Those from New Jersey who have come into my office have said they would be unable to fulfill the requirements." Democrats have also slammed the idea as cruel, and claim it is nothing more than a messaging bill since it stands little chance of passing the Senate. Democrats walked away from the normally bipartisan farm bill process earlier this year when Republicans decided to include the SNAP revamp. "The farm bill is another example of the division and dysfunction in the Republican Party. ... They eschew compromise and they continue to pander to the hard-line elements of their caucus," Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the House minority whip, told reporters this week. "It is my understanding they don't have the votes on their side of the aisle." While the SNAP overhaul has helped woo some conservatives who would normally oppose the farm bill - and GOP leaders have highlighted the changes as a key selling point - other hard-liners say that the changes don't go far enough, and have been pushing for actual funding cuts to SNAP. "I like that it's actually doing something on SNAP. But it seems to me, if we're going to do something, we should be really aggressive on it," said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a Freedom Caucus leader. "I've got to see if this is good enough." "I'm just wondering how many new federal workforce development programs we need," Jordan added. One way to get more wavering Republicans on board with the farm bill is to allow them to vote on some amendments. So far, nearly 100 amendments have been submitted to the House Rules Committee, which will meet this week to set the rules for floor debate. Conaway, however, has suggested that lawmakers shouldn't be allowed to offer amendments if they aren't willing to support the final bill. "If you're a no already on the bill no matter what, then why would you get a poison pill amendment added to make it worse for everybody else?" Conaway said earlier this week. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), a member of the Freedom Caucus, told The Hill he plans to offer a slate of amendments related to federal nutrition programs, including one that would send SNAP money to states based on their actual enrollment numbers, not just on the number of people who are eligible. If there is an open debate and amendment process, Davidson said, he would be more willing to support the final farm bill. "I whipped undecided, because I thought it was important to have a meaningful amendment process," Davidson said. SNAP isn't the only sticking point that has emerged in the farm bill. Members have also been fighting over the bill's federal sugar program, which aims to keep sugar prices high by imposing restrictions on sugar imports and controlling how much sugar is produced in the U.S. The program also offers non-recourse loans to domestic sugar producers. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), a member of the Rules Committee, is pushing for a sugar reform amendment that would give the Agriculture Secretary more flexibility to allow sugar imports and ensure taxpayers don't foot the bill for bailouts of the sugar industry. The idea has gained some steam among conservatives. But Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.), a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus, is fiercely pushing back against the amendment, which he warned would be a poison pill if it gets adopted. Conaway has even vowed to vote against his own legislation if the sugar reform language were included. Yoho was making the rounds on Thursday during floor votes to encourage his Republican colleagues to oppose the provision. "We prefer they don't support it, because if they do, it throws the farm bill in jeopardy," Yoho told The Hill. It's unclear, however, whether the Foxx amendment will even get a vote. Ryan said that while he supports sugar reforms, he also wants the legislation to be able to pass the House. And given Trump's new tariff policies and trade negotiations, some Republicans are reluctant to further shake up the agriculture industry. "There are a lot of things people would like to change, but when you look at market conditions for farmers, when you look at where prices are and the impact of current trade negations, this is not the time to make big changes," Davidson said.

BOSTON (AP) -- The assignment for Boston Celtics forward Marcus Morris in his first start this postseason was easy to explain but nearly impossible to execute. His job: Guard LeBron James, and keep the four-time NBA MVP from running the Celtics out of their own gym in the Eastern Conference finals for the second year in a row. "He's obviously the best player in the game," said Morris, who during the week boasted that he was up to the challenge and on Sunday explained why he wanted it. "Because I'm a competitor. He's the best player, and I'm going to be able to tell my kids this one day." Morris scored 21 points and added 10 rebounds while pestering James into a playoff-high seven turnovers -- and a playoff-low 15 points -- and the Celtics opened a 21-point, first-quarter lead to scorch Cleveland 108-83 in Game 1. BOX SCORE: CELTICS 108, CAVALIERS 83 Jaylen Brown scored 23 points and Al Horford had 20 for Boston, which ran off 17 points in a row in the first and never allowed the Cavaliers within single digits again. The Celtics led by 28 when Cleveland coach Tyronn Lue pulled James for good with 7:09 left. Game 2 is Tuesday night. "I have zero level of concern at this stage," said James, who was 5 for 16 from the floor and missed all five 3-point attempts. "I've been down before in the postseason, but for me there's never any level of concern -- no matter how bad I played tonight, with seven turnovers, how inefficient I was shooting the ball," he said. "We have another opportunity to be better as a ball club coming in Tuesday night, and we'll see what happens." Kevin Love had 17 points and eight rebounds, and James added nine assists and seven boards. The Cavaliers missed their first 14 3-point attempts of the game and shot just 32 percent in the first half. By that time, Boston led 61-35 -- the biggest halftime playoff deficit in James' career. "I think we're very alert to the fact that we'll get a heavyweight punch on Tuesday night," Celtics coach Brad Stevens said. "It's another great challenge, another great opportunity to experience something for this team." With injured stars Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving on the bench in street clothes, the Celtics continued their stunning run this season with what may have been the most surprising turn of events yet. A year after dropping the first two games at home against Cleveland in a five-game East final, the Celtics pounced on James, and the favored Cavaliers were never really in it. "The last couple of playoffs, and our meeting at the end of year, they blew us out of the water," Boston guard Marcus Smart said. "We've got a different team, just like they do, and a lot of younger guys. So for them to see that, and have that feeling like we did tonight, is huge." TIP-INS Cavaliers: Kyle Korver's 3-pointer with nine minutes left in the third period was their first after missing 14 in a row. It cut the deficit from 28 points to 65-40. ... Tristan Thompson had eight points and 11 rebounds. Celtics: The Celtics improved to 8-0 at home this postseason. They do not have to win on the road to reach the NBA Finals. ... Boston's 36-18 lead at the end of one quarter was the second-largest in a playoff game in franchise history. GET HYPED The Celtics took the floor to a hype video that began with the broadcast of Hayward's injury in the first quarter of the first game, at Cleveland. A variety of commentators predicted the team's demise, including Hall of Famer Charles Barkley saying: "Their season's over." As more players went down to injury -- including Irving, who came over from the Cavaliers last summer but was done for the season in March -- the prophesies grew even gloomier. But there the Celtics were, back in the Eastern Conference finals against the Cavaliers for the second year in a row -- with Hayward, Irving, Daniel Theis and Shane Larkin all injured and Stevens down to an eight-man rotation. It was more than they needed. Starting in place of Aron Baynes, Morris backed up his boast that he could cover James better than anyone except Kawhi Leonard. The Cavaliers star had seven of Cleveland's nine turnovers after accruing eight in the entire four-game, second-round sweep of the Raptors. "Our confidence level is very high," said Morris, who recorded the first postseason double-double of his career. "The younger guys to the older guys, we think we can compete and play with anybody. At the end of the day, all the talking is done off the court." FAST START Horford made his first seven shots and scored 10, including eight straight, during the 17-0 run that turned a three-point deficit into a 21-7 lead. After James wiggled his way to a layup -- Cleveland's first points in 4 minutes, 43 seconds -- Boston ran off eight more points in a row; Brown had six of them, and he finished the quarter with 13 points and five rebounds. Cleveland scored seven straight points early in the third and finished the quarter with six in a row to make it 78-64. But Boston made the first three baskets in the fourth and, after running off nine in a row to make it 96-68 with 7:09 left, the Cavs conceded. UP NEXT Game 2: Tuesday night, Boston.

Tiger Woods had a rough finish, but what a weekend it was. Woods fired a 3-under 69 on Sunday at the Players Championship to finish the week at 11 under. After making the cut on the number, he's currently in lie to tie for 11th. And for a moment Sunday, a win seemed possible as Woods (for a time) lit up TPC Sawgrass' Stadium Course again. While Woods' Saturday heroics (he shot 65 in Round 3) were the product of a hot start, the Sunday show was more of a slow burn. The day began sluggishly with a par-par start in a scoreable stretch. But the 14-time major champion then went to work. Woods drained a 15-footer for birdie at the par-3 third, nestled his second at the par-4 fourth to 4 feet and nestled in the putt and buried an 18-footer at the par-4 fifth for three straight birdies. He had quickly rocketed to a tie for fourth at 11 under. He couldn't get an 11-footer to drop at the par-4 sixth for a fourth straight birdie, and then Woods had to grind. He made a 7-footer for par at the par-4 seventh and rolled in a 6-footer for par at the par-3 eighth to keep the momentum. After his 7-footer for birdie fell at the par-5 ninth, he had gone out in 4-under 32. The start of the back nine brought a hint of a charge, even if it was brief. Woods pushed a 7-foot birdie effort at the par-4 10th, but he gave himself a tap-in birdie at the par-5 11th after nearly draining a 23-footer for eagle. He hit a pretty wedge to 4 feet at the par-4 12th and rolled in the putt. At that point, Woods had moved into a tie for second at 14 under and was within five. Moments later, Simpson would bogey and Woods was four back. The whiff of an incredible comeback was suddenly in the air as Woods was mounting a huge charge. The excitement would be short-lived. Simpson would birdie No. 11 to move back to 19 under. Woods launched a 354-yard drive down the difficult par-4 14th, but he spun a 111-yard wedge off the front of the green, putted up to 9 feet and lipped out that remainder for a demoralizing bogey. The swift move to six behind seemed to kill any of Woods' slim hopes of putting Simpson in the crosshairs. Then came the day's worst moment. Woods made a disappointing par at the par-5 16th and proceeded to dunk his tee shot in the water at the par-3 17th - as he came up woefully short. The deflating shot was followed by a nice recovery from the drop zone, but he couldn't coax in the 12-footer for bogey. It was a tough double bogey to take. He then missed a good look for birdie at the 18th, relegating him to a 3-under 69 in a round where he was 6 under with six to play. While a deflating finish, Woods can be proud of this weekend performance. There are still some kinks to work out on his finishes, but Woods is well on his way in this comeback.

Tesla says it doesn't know if the Autopilot feature was engaged on one of its sedans that crashed into the back of a fire department truck on a Utah roadway. The South Jordan Police Department says the Tesla Model S hit a fire department mechanic truck stopped at a red light Friday. Police say witnesses indicate the Tesla "did not brake prior to impact." The cause of the crash is under investigation. Palo Alto, California-based Tesla said Sunday it has not received any data from the car and "does not know the facts of what occurred," including whether the Autopilot was engaged. Police say the Tesla's driver suffered a broken right ankle and the driver of the Unified Fire Authority mechanic truck didn't require treatment. EARLIER: SOUTH JORDAN, Utah — A Tesla sedan with a semi-autonomous Autopilot feature rear-ended a fire department truck at 60 mph (97 kph) apparently without braking before impact, but police say it's unknown if the Autopilot feature was engaged. The cause of the Friday evening crash, involving a Tesla Model S and a fire department mechanic truck stopped at a red light, was under investigation, said police in South Jordan, a suburb of Salt Lake City. The crash, in which the Tesla driver was injured, comes as federal safety agencies investigate the performance of Tesla's semi-autonomous driving system. The Tesla's air bags were activated in the crash, South Jordan police Sgt. Samuel Winkler said Saturday. The Tesla's driver suffered a broken right ankle, and the driver of the Unified Fire Authority mechanic truck didn't require treatment, Winkler said. There was no indication the Tesla's driver was under the influence of any substance, and information on what the driver may have told investigators about the circumstances of the crash likely wouldn't be available before Monday, Winkler said by telephone. There was light rain falling and roads were wet when the crash occurred, police said in a statement. "Witnesses indicated the Tesla Model S did not brake prior to impact," the statement said. Tesla's Autopilot system uses cameras, radar and computers to keep speed, change lanes and automatically stop vehicles. The company, which is based in Palo Alto, California, and has a huge battery factory in the Reno, Nevada, area, tells drivers the system requires them to keep their eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel so they can take control to avoid accidents. "Tesla has not yet received any data from the car and thus does not know the facts of what occurred, including whether Autopilot was engaged," a Tesla spokesperson said in a statement Sunday. Police said they had been in contact with the National Transportation Safety Board about the crash. NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said he didn't know whether the agency would get involved with the crash. The NTSB and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are investigating at least two other crashes involving Tesla vehicles. In March, a Tesla Model X SUV crashed on a California highway, killing the driver, and investigators are looking into the performance of the semi-autonomous driving system in that crash.

Meghan McCain says she's still waiting for the public apology from the White House aide who joked about her father's brain cancer diagnosis. Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) daughter told ABC News on Sunday that White House staffer Kelly Sadler has not yet followed through on her reported promise to publicly apologize. The Hill reported Thursday that Sadler had brushed off the senator's opposition to President Trump's nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel, by saying "It doesn't matter, he's dying anyway." John McCain, 81, is currently in Arizona battling an aggressive form of brain cancer. Meghan McCain, who is a co-host on "The View," said that Sadler called her and her family on Thursday to apologize. "When I had a conversation with Kelly, I asked her to publicly apologize and she said she would," Meghan McCain said. "I have not spoken to her since and I assume that it will never come." Meghan McCain suggested on Friday that Sadler should be fired. "I don't understand what kind of environment you're working in when that would be acceptable and then you could come to work the next day and still have a job," Meghan McCain said. "And that's all I have to say about it." White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to address the issue during a press briefing on Friday, saying it was a staff matter. "I'm not going to validate a leak, one way or another, out of an internal staff meeting," Sanders said during her Friday press briefing as reporters peppered her with questions. Sanders declined to confirm or deny reports about a public apology from the White House during the briefing. The Hill has reached out to the White House on Sunday for a response to Meghan McCain's request. Sanders reportedly scolded her staff on Friday after Sadler's remark was leaked to the media. "I am sure this conversation is going to leak, too. And that's just disgusting," she said according to a report by Axios on Saturday.

The grand jury witnesses arrive one by one at the windowless room in the federal courthouse on Constitution Avenue in downtown Washington. They are struck first by how commonplace the setting feels — more classroom than courtroom, two witnesses said. One of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s prosecutors stands at a lectern. The jurors, diverse by age and ethnicity, are attentive and take notes. The questioning is polite yet aggressive, surprising witnesses with its precision and often accompanied by evidence — including text messages and emails — displayed on a large old-fashioned overhead projector. The investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, which hits its one-year mark Thursday, has formed the cloudy backdrop of Donald Trump’s presidency — a rolling fog of controversy, much of it self-inflicted, that is a near-constant distraction for the commander in chief. Subscribe to the Post Most newsletter: Today’s most popular stories on The Washington Post The Mueller operation, like the former Marine Corps platoon commander who leads it, is secretive and methodical. Ten blocks west in the White House, President Trump combats the probe with bluster, disarray and defiance as he scrambles for survival. The president vents to associates about the FBI raids on his personal attorney Michael Cohen — as often as “20 times a day,” in the estimation of one confidant — and they frequently listen in silence, knowing little they say will soothe him. Trump gripes that he needs better “TV lawyers” to defend him on cable news and is impatient to halt the “witch hunt” that he believes undermines his legitimacy as president. And he plots his battle plans with former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, his new legal consigliere. “We’re on the same wavelength,” Giuliani said. “We’ve gone from defense to offense.” The probe is a steaming locomotive, already delivering indictments or guilty pleas involving 19 people and three companies, while soliciting interviews with most of the president’s closest aides and outside associates. Players have departed, including most of Trump’s original legal team, while others have joined — including, most recently, Cohen, adult-film actress Stormy Daniels and her attorney, Michael Avenatti. “This has moved at a lightning speed,” said Christopher Ruddy, a Trump friend and chief executive of Newsmax. “They’re not messing around. They’re going very quickly. The number of indictments, pleas and other moves is just amazing. I think it will come to a head quicker than other investigations.” This portrait of the president and the special counsel investigation nearing its first anniversary is based on interviews with 22 White House and Justice Department officials, witnesses, Trump confidants and attorneys connected to the probe, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer candid assessments. “Everyone seems resigned to just buckle up and get through whatever we’ve got to get through for it to reach its conclusion,” one White House official said. Many Trump aides and associates say they are confident the president himself will ultimately be exonerated. But they privately express worries that the probe may yet ensnare more figures in Trump’s orbit, including family members. There is particularly worry about Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and a senior adviser. Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the election and connections to Trump’s campaign and associates already has resulted in a guilty plea from former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who is cooperating, and an indictment of former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is scheduled to go on trial in Virginia in July and in Washington in September on conspiracy, bank fraud and tax fraud charges. The special counsel also is examining whether Trump obstructed justice in a variety of areas, from his request of then-FBI Director James B. Comey to drop the Flynn investigation to his firing of Comey to his role dictating a misleading statement on behalf of Donald Trump Jr. about his 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer. Mueller and his prosecutors are probing other areas as well, including the relationship between former Trump political adviser Roger Stone and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whose organization released hacked Democratic Party emails, according to people familiar with the probe. The sprawling investigations amount to a political anchor as Trump leads the Republican Party into the fall midterm elections. Though few candidates see it as a decisive issue, the probe still sows doubt among some voters about the credibility of Trump’s election and about his conduct in office. Public opinion surveys have found wide support for the Mueller investigation. An April Washington Post-ABC News poll found 69 percent of Americans backing the probe and 25 percent opposing it, though other surveys this spring have shown a modest decline from earlier polls in support of continuing the investigation. Among the political class, there is a guessing game about whether the special counsel completes its work this summer — sufficiently in advance of the November elections — or presses well past it. The longer Mueller’s work continues, legal analysts said, the more difficult it may be for the special counsel to maintain public confidence, especially with Trump, Vice President Pence and other administration officials calling for the probe to wrap up. “You don’t have much longer than 18 months to 24 months to get to the heart of the matter and resolve the things that need to be resolved,” said Robert W. Ray, who served as independent counsel toward the end of the Whitewater investigation during the Clinton presidency. “That’s about the length of time that public sentiment is with the investigation.” The Mueller probe has also brought a national reckoning about the boundaries of presidential power. Trump is at war with the leadership of his own Justice Department and FBI, has threatened to defy a subpoena to testify, and even toyed with ordering the firing of Mueller. “We want to get the investigation over, done with,” Trump said last month. “Put it behind us.” ‘Like a classroom’ Mueller — the 73-year-old former FBI director with a hangdog visage and rigid bearing — looms over the investigation but is an intermittent presence in the windowless room in the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse. Three witnesses who described their experience of being subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury said Mueller was not present for their initial interviews, which instead were conducted by one of his prosecutors standing at a podium — peppering them with questions and presenting the case to members of the jury, who scribbled notes. The cramped room, complete with inelegant furniture, one witness said, “looked like a classroom from an underfunded junior college in the 1970s.” The range of witnesses Mueller has called in has been breathtaking. He has interviewed everyone from White House counsel Donald McGahn — at least twice — to Avi Berkowitz, the 29-year-old personal assistant to Kushner. One prominent witness who was called to appear in front of the grand jury recounted entering through a rear entrance, to avoid the press gathered at the front of the building. But another, former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg, said he was not given that option and, regardless, preferred to enter and exit in full view of reporters. “If they had asked me to go through a back door, I would have said, ‘No, I prefer to see the paparazzi,’” he said, recalling the phalanx of cameras that swarmed him during his appearance in early March. Yet aside from a few witnesses who have shared glimpses of their experiences with Mueller’s team, the exact contours of the investigation remain opaque — even for Trump’s lawyers, who have been in regular contact with Mueller’s investigators. Only last week, for instance, did the public learn that Mueller had been probing payments made by Fortune 500 companies to Cohen since at least last fall. Mueller and his team seldom issue public statements and speak mainly through indictments and court filings. In pressing for an interview with Trump, investigators would not provide a written list of questions, which could increase the chances of a leak and constrain prosecutors in their inquiries. Instead, investigators verbally provided the president’s lawyers with only the subject areas that prosecutors wished to discuss. A Trump attorney then formulated a list of 49 potential questions the legal team believed Trump might be asked — a list that soon leaked to the New York Times. “The biggest challenge for the White House is that the special counsel is conducting an investigation properly, which is not commenting publicly, only making known its activities by virtue of bringing cases or executing legal process in a manner that is publicly observable,” said Jacob S. Frenkel, who worked in the independent counsel’s office in late 1990s. Even Giuliani, who said he was brought in to end the probe and initially predicted it would wrap up within two weeks, now seems uncertain of where Mueller’s investigation will conclude. © Provided by WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post Giuliani met with Mueller five days after his hiring, on April 24, to try to understand issues ranging from the scope of a possible Trump interview to whether Mueller believes that Comey, whose firing by Trump triggered the probe, is a credible witness. “From our point of view, it’s a two-track possibility for what’s next,” Giuliani said, referring to the possibility that Trump may sit for an interview with Mueller or, if he refuses, that Mueller may subpoena him. “But we don’t know which track it’ll end up being.” ‘This Russia thing’ Few achievements make Trump more proud than the 306 electoral college votes he won on Nov. 8, 2016. The president relishes showing off a county-by-county map of the election results — the United States bathed in red — and giving visitors a tour of the trophy he inherited, the Oval Office. But every time he hears about “this Russia thing,” as he memorably phrased it in an NBC interview last year, he feels the legitimacy of his victory is under attack. He characterizes the Russia probe as a “hoax” orchestrated by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats — a reminder of the majority of voters who didn’t choose him and those who are eager to evict him. The only option, the president has said, is to hit back. “Let me tell you, folks, we’re all fighting battles,” Trump bellowed at the National Rifle Association annual convention earlier this month. “But I love fighting these battles.” It would be easy to interpret the president’s tweets — and even his behavior — as an admission of guilt. But Trump’s advisers and friends say he believes he has done nothing wrong. What some legal analysts call obstruction of justice, Trump’s associates call punching back. “His view is, ‘If I’m defending myself, you mean that’s obstructing justice?’ ” Giuliani said. “He’s right. He’s being president, but he’s not going to just sit there.” Ruddy, who often talks with Trump during the president’s getaways to his Mar-a-Lago estate, said he would counsel him to wall himself off and emotionally disconnect from the investigation. “People will say he’s acting like he’s guilty,” Ruddy said. “No. This is Donald Trump’s personality. He just has to respond. He’s been so emotional . . . It takes a toll on him, and the way he deals with it is to lash out.” Trump’s attacks on Mueller and his probe are also helping to undermine the investigation in the court of public opinion, and especially with the president’s base. “I don’t see any downside at this point for the president and his team to make a full-throated public defense of their situation,” said Mark Corallo, a former adviser on Trump’s legal team. “There are very few outside the Beltway who are in the we-need-to-prosecute-and-impeach-this-guy camp.” Giuliani’s hiring marked the latest stage of the Russia fight. Already, Trump’s legal team was in flux. Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer dealing with the probe, had repeatedly counseled Trump that if he cooperated fully it would be over soon — first by Thanksgiving, then by Christmas, then early in 2018. But Cobb is now exiting, to be replaced by Emmet Flood, one of Clinton’s former impeachment attorneys. Also gone is John Dowd, who had been Trump’s personal lawyer and grew frustrated with his difficult client. Trump liked Giuliani’s more aggressive approach, including his earlier television defenses of him. And the president, feeling increasingly isolated in the West Wing, with few true confidants on the staff, saw in Giuliani a loyal contemporary. But within the White House, Giuliani — who already has a strained relationship with Kelly — has created tensions with other senior staff members, in part over his frequent media appearances, which he does not coordinate with them. In a freestyling interview earlier this month with Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity, Giuliani disclosed that Trump had reimbursed Cohen for a $130,000 payment to Daniels near the end of the 2016 campaign in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. The revelation drove headlines for days, frustrating the president, who told reporters that Giuliani was “a great guy” but needed to “get his facts straight.” But for now, Trump and Guiliani are inextricably bound. The two men huddled for five hours May 6 at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia, Giuliani said, eating a Cobb salad (Giuliani) and a well-done burger (Trump) with half a bun in service to his health. “I do that, too, sometimes,” Giuliani said about the half-bun. “It’s a good way to do it.” That afternoon, the lawyer said he counseled his client to focus on his job as president and leave the legal matters to him. But Trump could not be restrained. The next day at 7:27 a.m., he fired off a presidential missive on Twitter: “The Russia Witch Hunt is rapidly losing credibility ...”

They sit in courtroom pews, almost all of them young black men, waiting their turn before a New York City judge to face a charge that no longer exists in some states: possessing marijuana. They tell of smoking in a housing project hallway, or of being in a car with a friend who was smoking, or of lighting up a Black & Mild cigar the police mistake for a blunt. There are many ways to be arrested on marijuana charges, but one pattern has remained true through years of piecemeal policy changes in New York: The primary targets are black and Hispanic people. Across the city, black people were arrested on low-level marijuana charges at eight times the rate of white, non-Hispanic people over the past three years, The New York Times found. Hispanic people were arrested at five times the rate of white people. In Manhattan, the gap is even starker: Black people there were arrested at 15 times the rate of white people. Sign Up For the Morning Briefing Newsletter With crime dropping and the Police Department under pressure to justify the number of low-level arrests it makes, a senior police official recently testified to lawmakers that there was a simple reason for the racial imbalance: More residents in predominately black and Hispanic neighborhoods were calling to complain about marijuana. An analysis by The Times found that fact did not fully explain the racial disparity. Instead, among neighborhoods where people called about marijuana at the same rate, the police almost always made arrests at a higher rate in the area with more black residents, The Times found. In Brooklyn, officers in the precinct covering Canarsie arrested people on marijuana possession charges at a rate more than four times as high as in the precinct that includes Greenpoint, despite residents calling 311, the city’s help line, and 911 to complain about marijuana at the same rate, police data show. The Canarsie precinct is 85 percent black. The Greenpoint precinct is 4 percent black. In Queens, the marijuana arrest rate is more than 10 times as high in the precinct covering Queens Village as it is in precinct that serves Forest Hills. Both got marijuana complaints at the same rate, but the Queens Village precinct is just over half black, while the one covering Forest Hills has a tiny portion of black residents. And in Manhattan, officers in a precinct covering a stretch of western Harlem make marijuana arrests at double the rate of their counterparts in a precinct covering the northern part of the Upper West Side. Both received complaints at the same rate, but the precinct covering western Harlem has double the percentage of black residents as the one that serves the Upper West Side. The Times’s analysis, combined with interviews with defendants facing marijuana charges, lawyers and police officers, paints a picture of uneven enforcement. In some neighborhoods, officers expected by their commanders to be assertive on the streets seize on the smell of marijuana and stop people who are smoking. In others, people smoke in public without fear of an officer passing by or stopping them. Black neighborhoods often contend with more violent crime, and the police often deploy extra officers there, which can lead to residents being exposed more to the police. “More cops in neighborhoods means they’re more likely to encounter somebody smoking,” said Jeffrey Fagan, a Columbia Law School professor who also advised The Times on its marijuana-arrest analysis. But more officers are historically assigned to black neighborhoods than would be expected based on crime rates, according to a study by Professor Fagan. And research has found “there is no good evidence” that marijuana arrests in New York City are associated with reductions in serious crime. Officers who catch someone smoking marijuana are legally able to stop and search that person and check for open warrants. Some defense lawyers and criminologists say those searches and warrant checks are the real impetus for enforcing marijuana laws more heavily in some neighborhoods. The analysis by The Times shows that at least some quality-of-life arrests have more to do with the Police Department’s strategies than with residents who call for help, undermining one of the arguments the police have used to defend mass enforcement of minor offenses in an era of declining serious crime. The analysis examined how marijuana arrests were related to the marijuana-complaint rate, race, violent-crime levels, the poverty rate and homeownership data in each precinct. It also considered the borough where an arrest took place to account for different policing practices across the city. The arrests represent cases in which the most serious charge against someone was low-level marijuana possession. Government surveys have shown that black and white people use marijuana at roughly the same rate. Marijuana smoke wafts down streets all over the city, from the brownstones in upper-middle-class areas of Manhattan to apartment buildings in working-class neighborhoods in other boroughs. Mayor Bill de Blasio said in late 2014 that the police would largely give summonses instead of making arrests for carrying personal marijuana, and reserve arrests mainly for smoking in public. Since then, the police have arrested 17,500 people for marijuana possession on average a year, down from about 26,000 people in 2014, and issued thousands of additional summonses. Overall, arrests have dropped sharply from their recent peak of more than 50,000 during some years under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. About 87 percent of those arrested in recent years have been black or Hispanic, a proportion that has remained roughly the same for decades, according to research led by Harry G. Levine, a sociology professor at Queens College. “What you have is people smoking weed in the same places in any neighborhood in the city,” said Scott Levy, a special counsel to the criminal defense practice at the Bronx Defenders, who has studied marijuana arrests. “It’s just those neighborhoods are patrolled very, very differently. And the people in those neighborhoods are seen very differently by the police.” Responding to The Times’s analysis, the Police Department said pockets of violent crime — and the heavier deployments that result — push up marijuana arrests in some neighborhoods. J. Peter Donald, an assistant commissioner in the department’s public information office, also said more people smoke in public in some neighborhoods than others, driving up arrests. He said 911 and 311 complaints about marijuana had increased in recent years. “N.Y.P.D. police officers enforce the law fairly and evenly, not only where and when they observe infractions but also in response to complaints from 911 and 311 calls, tenant associations, community councils and build-the-block meetings,” Mr. Donald said in a statement. Appearing before the City Council in February, Chief Dermot F. Shea said, “The remaining arrests that we make now are overlaid exactly in the parts of the city where we are receiving complaints from the public.” He asked, “What would you have the police do when people are calling?” Police data do show that neighborhoods with many black and Hispanic residents tend to generate more 311 and 911 complaints about marijuana. Criminal justice reform advocates said that is not because more people are smoking marijuana in those areas. Rather, people in poor neighborhoods call the police because they are less likely to have a responsive landlord, building superintendent or co-op board member who can field their complaints. Rory Lancman, a councilman from Queens who pressed police officials for the marijuana data at the February hearing, said with the police still arresting thousands of people for smoking amid a widespread push for reform, the police “blame it on the communities themselves because they’re the ones calling on us.” The city’s 77 precincts, led by commanders with their own enforcement priorities, show erratic arrest patterns. In Sunset Park, Brooklyn, for example, the police made more than twice as many marijuana arrests last year as in 2016, despite receiving roughly the same number of annual complaints. And in a precinct covering a section of northwestern Harlem, arrests dropped to 90 last year from almost 700 a year earlier, even though complaints fell only slightly from one year to the next. Criticism of marijuana arrests provided fuel for Mr. de Blasio’s campaign for mayor in 2013, when he won promising to “reverse the racial impact of low-level marijuana arrests.” The next year the new Brooklyn district attorney, Ken Thompson, defied the Police Department and said his office would stop prosecuting many low-level marijuana arrests. Yet the disparities remain. Black and Hispanic people are the main targets of arrests even in mostly white neighborhoods. In the precinct covering the southern part of the Upper West Side, for example, white residents outnumber their black and Hispanic neighbors by six to one, yet seven out of every 10 people charged with marijuana possession in the last three years are black or Hispanic, state data show. In the precinct covering Park Slope, Brooklyn, where a fifth of the residents are black or Hispanic, three-quarters of those arrested on marijuana charges are black or Hispanic. The question of how to address those disparities has divided Democratic politicians in New York. Cynthia Nixon, who is campaigning for the Democratic nomination for governor against Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, has vowed to legalize marijuana and clear people’s arrest records. Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Cuomo have been reluctant to support the same measures. In Criminal Court in Brooklyn on a recent Monday, the people waiting in the crowded pews to be arraigned on marijuana charges were almost all black men. In interviews, some declined to give their full names for fear of compounding the consequences of their arrests. They had missed work or school, sometimes losing hundreds of dollars in wages, to show up in court — often twice, because paperwork was not ready the first time. Their cases were all dismissed so long as they stayed out of trouble for a stretch, an indication of what Scott Hechinger, a senior staff lawyer and director of policy at Brooklyn Defender Services, said was the low value the court system places on such cases. Eli, 18, said he had been smoking in a housing project hallway because his parents preferred him to keep it out of the apartment. Greg, 39, said he had not even been smoking himself, but was sitting in his car next to his wife, who he said smokes marijuana to relieve the symptoms of multiple sclerosis. “They do it because that’s the easiest way to arrest you,” Greg said. Rashawn Nicol, 27, said officers found his female friend holding a lit blunt on a third-floor stairwell landing in a Brooklyn housing project. They backed off arresting her once she started crying, he said, but said they needed to bring their supervisor an arrest because he had radioed over a noise complaint. “Somebody’s got to go down for this,” Mr. Nicol said an officer told him. So they let her go, but arrested him. Several people asked why the police hound residents for small-time infractions like marijuana in more violent neighborhoods, but are slow to follow up about serious crimes. “The resources they waste for this are ridiculous,” Mr. Nicol said

PAHOA, Hawaii — A new fissure emitting steam and lava spatter spurred Hawaii officials to call for more evacuations on Sunday as residents braced for an expected eruption from the Kilauea volcano. The Hawaii County Civil Defense issued an alert after the fissure was discovered along a road west of a major highway on the Big Island. Residents on that road were told to evacuate, and two nearby community centers were serving as shelters for people and pets. The new opening was still showing signs of activity Sunday afternoon. Popping, exploding and sloshing sounds could be heard from the fissure as far as 1,500 yards (1,400 meters) away. But the behavior from the fissure was not terribly vigorous, the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said. "The appearance of the fissures in the past couple of days does not change the overall picture or concern," observatory scientist Steve Brantley said. "The amount of lava that has erupted from the fissure so far is very, very small." The fissure measures about 1,000 feet (300 meters) long. Brantley said it was emitting intermittent lava spatter but there was no substantial lava flow. The fissures, ground deformation and abundant volcanic gases indicate eruptions on the eastern flank of Kilauea are likely to continue. Most of the lava outbreaks have occurred in and around the Leilani Estates neighborhood, where molten rock has burst through the ground, destroying more than two dozen homes and resulting in evacuation orders for nearly 2,000 people. The U.S. Geological Survey has reported nearly 20 active fissures. One that opened Saturday night was spattering, but no flow had formed. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reported the fissures opened just east of the Puna Geothermal Venture energy conversion plant, where steam and hot liquid are brought up through underground wells and the steam feeds a turbine generator to produce electricity. Plant workers last week as a precaution removed 50,000 gallons of a flammable gas stored at the site. Geologists warn that Kilauea's summit could have an explosive steam eruption that would hurl rocks and ash miles into the sky.

Islamic State, which has claimed the deadly knife attack in Paris this weekend, released a video on Sunday of a young man it claims was the attacker pledging allegiance to the jihadi group. The IS propaganda agency Amaq posted the video online using Telegram, featuring a young man wearing a hood with only his eyes exposed as the lower part of his face is covered by a black cloth. Speaking in French, he vows allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The attack in central Paris on Saturday night by a knifeman, later shot dead by police, left one person dead and four wounded. "The author of this knife attack in Paris is a soldier of the Islamic State and the operation had been carried out in retaliation against the states in the coalition," said a "security source" at Amaq, referring to the international forces including France which are fighting jihadists in Syria and Iraq. The attacker killed at the scene by French police has been identified as Khamzat Azimov, a 20-year-old French citizen born in Chechnya who had been on two watchlists for suspected Islamist extremism.

The most “prolific” White House leakers will impersonate each other so they won’t be suspected of leaking, according to Axios. The Daily Beast also confirmed the use of the tactic among leakers. “To cover my tracks, I usually pay attention to other staffers’ idioms and use that in my background quotes. That throws the scent off me,” one White House source told the site. Other leakers were quoted as saying they shared information with reporters as an easy way to settle scores within the White House, a way to act out on “personal vendettas,” and out of sheer frustration with the leadership. They also said there was a strategic element involved—whether it be getting an “accurate record of what’s really going on in the White House” out to the public, to “drive narrative,” or to give them an opportunity to win a policy debate. “By leaking the decision, the loser gets one last chance to kill it with blowback from the public, Congress or even the President,” a source said.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Sunday he has instructed his Commerce Department to help get a Chinese telecommunications company "back into business" after the U.S. government cut off access to its American suppliers. At issue is that department's move last month to block the ZTE Corp., a major supplier of telecoms networks and smartphones based in southern China, from importing American components for seven years. The U.S. accused ZTE of misleading American regulators after it settled charges of violating sanctions against North Korea and Iran. ZTE, which has more than 70,000 employees and has supplied networks or equipment to some of the world's biggest telecoms companies, said in early May that it had halted its main operations as a result of the department's "denial order." Trump, who has taken a hard line on trade and technology issues with Beijing, tweeted on Sunday that he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping "are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!" ZTE has asked the department to suspend the seven-year ban on doing business with U.S. technology exporters. By cutting off access to U.S. suppliers of essential components such as microchips, the ban threatens ZTE's existence, the company has said. During recent trade meetings in Beijing, Chinese officials said they raised their objections to ZTE's punishment with the American delegation, which they said agreed to report them to Trump. The U.S. imposed the penalty after discovering that Shenzhen-based ZTE, which had paid a $1.2 billion fine in the case, had failed to discipline employees involved and paid them bonuses instead.

All Erika Zak wants to do is play with her daughter on the playground. Take her to the zoo. Walk her to school. She's never been able to be the mother she longs to be. At 38, Erika is dying. Her battle to live began almost as soon as her daughter, Loïe, was born four years ago, when Erika was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic colon cancer that had spread to her liver. The cancer was removed from her colon and, her doctors say, she responded well to treatment. But a microwave ablation surgery last year to remove two tumors from her liver went terribly wrong, leaving a fist-sized hole in her liver and destroying her bile ducts. Every day since has been a fight to survive. She's been hospitalized 19 times in Oregon over the last 12 months for infections, bleeding and an array of other health issues. She has high blood pressure in her liver, which backs up the veins in her esophagus and can be catastrophic. Her surgical oncologist constantly worries she will fall ill with a bad infection and die. "Every time she calls me and has a fever and some bleeding, we all hold our breath, worried: Will this be the time Erika bleeds to death?" says Dr. Skye Mayo, her surgical oncologist at Oregon Health & Science University. "This is kind of the end game of what liver failure looks like." Erika and Scott Powers met in college while they were both in school in Rhode Island. More than 100 doctors at three of the nation's top medical centers have weighed in on her case, which is complex and exceedingly rare. Their conclusion: The only way to save Erika's life is to give her a new liver. After weeks of evaluation at the Cleveland Clinic in December and January, Erika finally got her big break. On February 2, doctors there approved putting her on the wait list for a liver transplant. The news changed everything. Erika finally had hope. Around the house, 4-year-old Loïe would say, "Mommy, when you get a new liver, can you push me in the swing?" But Erika hit an immediate wall. Her insurer, UnitedHealthcare, denied coverage for the transplant, saying it would not be a "promising treatment." She appealed and was rejected again. The mom who desperately wanted to live looked into Oregon's Death with Dignity program. Erika had written a letter to her daughter months ago to be read after she died. Now she worried Loïe might receive it sooner than Mom had planned: Dear Loïe, If you're reading this, I'm probably not on this earth anymore. So please remember this: I am with you always; even if you can no longer see my face or feel my hands through your hair. I am with you when you look up to the sky and see tiny birds flying free or the stars twinkling in your eyes. I am with you when you feel a perfect, warm breeze upon your sweet face. Erika wasn't going to give up. Her little girl with bright blue eyes was a constant reminder of all that is precious. Outraged and heartbroken, Erika wrote a four-page letter to the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare (UHC), giving him a piece of her mind about what she felt was a rigged review process, riddled with errors, that determined her life wasn't worth saving. Weeks passed until the company reached a decision. Despite her plea, the answer was the same: Denied. Then, last week, an amazing thing happened. 'My life hangs in the balance' If it's true that opening your heart, revealing your feelings, unleashes freedom and makes you whole, Erika turned to one of the things she loves most in an effort to save her life. Writing. It was early April. She sat at her computer, her keyboard clacking. She wasn't going to leave her husband, Scott Powers, and their daughter Loïe behind without trying her damnedest to stay on this Earth for as long as possible. There was too much at stake. UnitedHealthcare had overruled her treating physicians and denied the transplant, saying "unproven health services is not a covered benefit." The words burned, like chemo. Her first appeal went nowhere, and she felt trapped in a labyrinth of red tape. The young mother — frail from having lost 20 pounds in the past year, her skin and eyes yellow from jaundice — felt the only way to get a new liver was to plead her case directly to the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, David Wichmann. Her frame may be tiny, but don't mistake that for weakness. She is one of the strongest women you will ever meet. As she typed, Erika bared her soul. Of longing to live. Of seeing her daughter grow up. Of the need for "my only option," a liver transplant. "Given that my life hangs in the balance based on this review," she wrote, "it is unconscionable that it has not been undertaken with the level of competence and professionalism anyone would expect of UHC." She blasted what she called the "shockingly incompetent manner" in which the country's largest insurance company handled her case. She outlined what she described as a series of errors made in the review process — ranging from UHC saying her liver failure stems from "chemotherapy toxicity" to an insurance medical director who erroneously said she had "life-threatening lesions." "Neither are true," she wrote Wichmann. "(UHC's) handling of my case has been plagued by unnecessary delays, incomplete responses, inept scheduling, contradictory statements, and worst of all repeated factual errors regarding my medical history. "Most importantly, decisions based on inaccurate information and analysis have already delayed my listing and transplant two months." One review doctor noted she had a "9cm tumor" in her liver, she wrote, apparently unaware that was actually the hole from the ablation surgery resulting in her chronic liver failure. "I have been doing every single thing I possibly can do to stay alive for these past four years, scratching and clawing by day and praying every night an opportunity like this would come along," Erika wrote. "Now, when the promise of my long-term survival is actually greatest, I need UHC's support more than ever." She sent the letter via FedEx on April 11. Her concerns were valid. Her transplant team at the Cleveland Clinic made clear to UHC's appeals unit the primary cause of her liver failure was not from chemo toxicity or cancer, but instead was the result of "a consequence of complications following microwave ablation." "Of note, what mainly drives the indication of liver transplantation in this case is liver failure and NOT liver metastases from colorectal cancer, which makes the patient's post-transplant oncologic outcome more encouraging," wrote Dr. Federico Aucejo, the director of the Cleveland Clinic's Liver Cancer Program, in an appeal on Erika's behalf on March 6. He did note that she had some chemotoxicity, which was a secondary cause of liver failure. "The opinion of the experienced Cleveland Clinic multidisciplinary liver transplant committee (is) that liver transplantation would prolong this young patient's life substantially, and that there is NO other treatment alternative that could match this outcome at this point in time." Two days after sending her letter, Erika and her husband were told the UHC executive team had received it and that her case was undergoing further review. Several times, the family said it was told a decision would be made by a certain date; those dates came and went without a decision. As time wore on, Erika grew ill with a high fever and was hospitalized for several days. It was the fifth time she'd been admitted since February 2, the day Cleveland Clinic doctors approved her for a transplant. On Instagram, she posted an illustration with the words "waiting, waiting, waiting" on a pink backdrop with black crosses. "Waiting for insurance to approve the only thing that will save me: a liver," she wrote. "Waiting for my liver to fail completely; waiting to die. Waiting to be saved." 'Wait or die' More than 100,000 Americans are on wait lists for organ transplants, and every hour someone dies while waiting for the life-saving surgery, said Dr. Andrew Cameron, the chief of transplant surgery at Johns Hopkins and the surgical director of its liver transplant program. For liver transplants, 20,000 Americans are on the wait list and only 7,000 will receive a new liver in 2018, according to Cameron, who is not connected to Erika's case. "The lucky few undergo a transformative life-saving procedure," he said. "Those who don't get that lottery ticket wait or die." Transplant teams at hospitals spend hours upon hours — months even — assessing and debating whether a patient is a good candidate for a transplant, Cameron said, typically with more than a dozen doctors weighing in. It is deeply disturbing, he said, when an insurance company overrules the "decision made by a thoughtful, careful transplant team to utilize one of society's limited resources — that precious gift to save somebody's life." The negotiated cost for a liver transplant for an insurance company is roughly $200,000, Cameron said, adding it is "exceedingly rare" for an insurer to deny a transplant. "That is highly unusual and highly undesirable," Cameron told CNN. In Cleveland, Dr. Aucejo is trailblazing the field for patients like Erika, having performed the only two transplants in America this century on people suffering from what is called unresectable metastasis in the liver from colorectal cancer. It's groundbreaking and could prove transformative. "I hope that we can achieve good results and set precedent," he said. When you're trying such a new approach, Dr. Aucejo said, it can be difficult getting insurers to agree to treatment and he wished getting them aboard could be done "in a more expeditious way." He explained that in the late 1980s and 1990s, surgeons tried transplants on patients like Erika with "unresectable metastasis in the liver from colorectal cancer," but the "outcomes were not good." Only 18% of the patients lived past five years, so the transplants were stopped, Dr. Aucejo said. But, he emphasized, most of the bad outcomes were the result of technical complications and post-transplant management, not from the cancer returning. The field of transplants has greatly improved in the decades since, he said. Doctors in Europe, primarily in Norway, have begun changing the field, he said, finding that about 50-60% of patients with Erika's condition survive a transplant past five years. That is a substantial difference, he said. Dr. Mayo, Erika's surgical oncologist in Oregon, said no one at the insurance company reached out to him during the review process "to help explain the facts of her case." That is troubling, he said, especially when it's one of the most complicated cases a doctor will ever see. "It is frustrating when it seems that the facts aren't all being considered," Dr. Mayo said. "Her life now is not limited by her cancer," he said. "It's limited by the fact she will go into liver failure and die within the next several months if she doesn't have a liver transplant." When opposites attract Erika was in the prime of her life. At 34, she'd given birth to her first and only child, Loïe, the little girl who Mom calls "my tiniest, most amazing companion." She'd been married to the love of her life for four years. She and Scott met in 1998 when he was at Brown University and she was at the Rhode Island School of Design, both in Providence. The two were polar opposites. He was the MVP of Brown's soccer team and majored in economics. She was into the arts and majored in textile design. He was from the tightly wound East Coast, she from the free-wheeling West Coast. The connection wasn't immediate, so Erika had a mutual friend slip a tiny drawing to Scott. It contained her phone number; he called it. Soon they clicked. Scott made her laugh and feel beautiful. Erika saw in him someone who was kind and devoted; in her, he found the woman who he'd always searched for, with a captivating sense of humor and a sailor's mouth. They tied the knot on Halloween in 2009 in the wine country of Healdsburg, California. Her career was taking off, too. She was working for Old Navy, choosing and designing the fabrics, prints and plaids for the company's baby and toddler division. While she was pregnant, she was promoted to senior textile designer. "It was all coming together," she wrote on her blog. "And then, like that, my foundation crumbled." During the final trimester of her pregnancy, she'd experienced pain in her stomach. It was thought to be nothing more than part of the difficulties of pregnancy. But in the weeks after delivery, the pain grew excruciating and she felt a lump on her side. On April 8, 2014, she received the awful news — that she had stage 4 metastatic colon cancer that had spread to her liver. Her daughter was just 3 months old. "Worst Day Ever" read the headline of her blog. She had survived cancer once before. At 28, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Her thyroid was removed, and life continued as normal. It was nothing close to a stage 4 diagnosis. In the years after her colon cancer diagnosis, she blogged about most everything. Of losing her father to Alzheimer's at age 83. Of the pain over two friends' deaths — including an oncologist she'd met in a cancer support group. "Have you ever cried and screamed so hard that the blood vessels around your eyes burst?" she wrote. In her blog posts, she was brutally honest about her cancer and the effects of chemotherapy. She'd sit on the shower floor in a fetal position, screaming and sobbing. It was "anguish and pain and longing for my former life and utter disbelief for the war my body was waging on itself," she blogged. Her fingertips felt like they had been "burned on a hot pan most of the time." Her hands cramped into weird, contorted positions. Her hair was dry and brittle, like straw. Her energy was so drained she felt twice her age. As a teen, she'd suffered debilitating depression and anxiety that was so bad at times, she said, "I hoped that I could just disappear forever." "It's funny how afraid I am of that now: disappearing. How much I want to live. How important it feels to be here," she wrote on December 1, 2016, two and half years into her cancer battle. She would face multiple surgeries and undergo more than 70 rounds of chemo. On February 28, 2017, she wrote: "This is chemo day. Scream in your pillow day. Hide in the shower day. Lie to your baby day. Tell her you're going to work day. Vials and vials of blood day. Tell your doctor you're angry day. Make your husband cry day. Poison your body day." On another day, she penned: "Cancer is a slow form of torture. It strips you of dignity; of peace of mind; of stability." On April 4, 2017, nearly three years to the day of her diagnosis, she and her daughter had a soul-crushing conversation. The cancer had been eradicated from her colon shortly after the diagnosis, but it remained in her liver. "Mommy, are you going to last?" Loïe asked. "What do you mean, Loïe?" "Will you be here forever and ever?" the girl asked. "I really don't know, babe." Six days later, Erika underwent the ablation surgery at a facility in New York to target two small tumors on her liver. Something went wrong. She ended up with the hole in her liver. To save her life, surgeons had to block off the veins and arteries going to her liver. The entire central part of her liver died, Dr. Mayo said. Two bags are now attached to her abdomen to drain the bile. With bile going immediately outside her body, instead of through the liver and her body, Erika was susceptible to extreme sickness and potential fatal bleeds. "All of those things culminated in what is now liver failure for her," Dr. Mayo said. "She's in this cycle right now where she's losing on a daily basis some of her body's most vital fluids." The cancer in her liver, meanwhile, was progressing on a path, he said, where "she would die of cancer." She could no longer tolerate any standard form of chemo treatment. Her doctors in Oregon last fall tried one last treatment to fend off her cancer: a groundbreaking immunotherapy cancer drug called pembrolizumab, known by its brand name Keytruda. Her sky-high tumor marker levels fell to normal. "She had an incredible response to this new drug," Dr. Mayo said. "I think all of the cancer remaining in her body is dead at this point. What she will die of is liver failure." With a new liver, he said, her problems with bleeding and high blood pressure could be resolved. Her jaundice would be gone, too. But transplant surgery is not without major risks. Most of those who've received a transplant with unresectable metastasis in the liver from colorectal cancer, Cleveland's Dr. Aucejo said, experience a recurrence of cancer within 12 months. Most of the cancers that return can be treated with standard care, like chemotherapy or surgery, he said, profoundly prolonging their lives. For a small subset of patients, though, the cancer comes back aggressively and it's not treatable with chemo or surgery, he said. "Unfortunately in that subset of patients, the survival is more dismal." While it's impossible to predict the outcome, he said, Erika shows "features that may do well." There's no evidence cancer has spread beyond her liver, he said. Plus, patients who had their colon cancer removed two years or more before the transplant, Dr. Aucejo said, tend do well. Erika had the cancerous portion of her colon removed in 2014: "That's a good indicator." Dr. Aucejo also emphasized the criteria for transplant qualification is stringent and that Erika shows promise. "We're talking about distributing limited organs," he said. "Again, we have to be very careful that we're not giving organs to people who are not going to benefit from it when there's people dying with standard indications because there's not enough organs." 'This is so messed up' In the days and weeks after Erika fired off her letter to the CEO, her husband, Scott, worked the phones. He felt lost in an endless loop of delays and broken promises as to when the insurer would reach its decision. Finally, they were told a decision would come May 2. Erika couldn't sleep the night before. She pulled out her phone and recorded a message, weeping for much of the video. "My life is literally in their hands, and every day I feel myself kind of fading away more and more," she says. "I don't want to leave. I don't want to die." The next day came. Each minute crept by. Shortly after 2 p.m., Scott's phone rang. It was their point of contact with UnitedHealthcare. He had crushing news: Denied. He explained Erika's case was sent back to the three reviewing doctors. One of them, he said, "changed his decision from 'not promising' to 'promising.'" However, the other two doctors ruled the transplant not to be promising: "The bottom line is they're upholding that decision." The doctor who sided in favor of the transplant, their UHC contact told them, was the only one of the three who talked directly with her transplant surgeon. Scott grew furious. "Honestly, you know that is messed up," he said. "I don't know who you've got to go to, but I would go to someone now and have someone call us, because this is so messed up." Scott pressed for more information. He got little. "Scott, I know what you've been through," the UHC rep told him. "I know what you're going through." Erika sat silently for the first 10 minutes of the conservation, absorbing the news and what it meant for her fate. But at those words, it was time to speak up. "Hey!" she shouted. "This is Erika, and you've never heard from me before. You don't know what we're going through. Because I'm dying." Through tears, she said, "I need a liver transplant, and I need it now." The UHC rep confided he "was not hoping for this outcome. I was hoping that I'd have good news." He suggested Erika and Scott fax over any new information they thought might be relevant. He also acknowledged the delays in recent weeks were not in keeping with the company's policies. "Someone needs to be accountable for this," he said. "You know, why, when we have these guidelines in place, did we not follow them? "That needs to be looked into," he said, adding, "I'm not trying to sweep anything under the rug." He apologized for having to be the bearer of bad news, saying his goal had been to end the day on a positive note. "Like I said, I wish I had better news." After more than 30 minutes, he ended with: "Have a good night, OK." Not the words the couple wanted to hear. Erika went numb. Heartbroken and angry didn't even begin to describe her feelings. Scott felt equally distraught. "I just want her to get a liver," he said. "She deserves that." The CEO never responded — not by email, phone or letter. A sudden change Five days later, on Monday, May 7, a surprise call came. Erika and Scott were preparing Loïe for school when Scott's phone rang. They had spent the weekend trying to figure out their next move, while trying not to focus too much on when Erika might need Death with Dignity. They knew they had one appeal left, and they didn't want to blow it. They hadn't sent any new information since the last call. It was their UHC rep on the phone. This time, he had good news: The insurer would cover Erika's transplant. When Scott heard she'd been approved, he jumped up and down. Erika watched him from across the room. There was no explanation for the change. They were told to focus on Erika's health and next steps. Erika called her mother, who unleashed a guttural scream at work. Dr. Mayo was preparing for surgery when he took Scott's call. Elation spread across the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Science University where doctors, nurses and staff celebrated. In Cleveland, Dr. Aucejo heard the welcome news from his transplant coordinator. He'd not spoken with anyone at UHC about the case in the five days since the previous denial. "They had decided on their own. We hadn't gotten back to them," he said. "I'm happy they ended up sharing our vision." I had been speaking with Erika and Scott for this story over the last month and had reviewed her medical records extensively. During the May 2 phone call in which Erika was told her transplant had been denied, Scott told the UHC rep that the couple had been speaking with a member of the national news media. I was on a flight to Oregon when they received the joyous news. "UHC just called and approved Erika. Unreal. Know you're in flight but call whenever," Scott texted. When we met a couple hours later, Erika's emotions were still raw. She thought this would be her last Mother's Day. Now, suddenly, she has hope for more. Glancing at her daughter and husband, Erika broke down in tears. "I can't imagine not being here," she said. "It's not because I keep the family together or anything. It's just the love I have for them." "Mommy, why are you crying?" Loïe said. "I'm crying because I love you." Loïe placed her fingers in her mother's right hand. "Love you," Loïe said. As she and Loïe locked hands, the tattoo on Erika's wrist displayed a fitting message: "Be brave." Epilogue UnitedHealthcare declined to answer CNN's questions about the handling of Erika's case, except to issue this one-sentence statement: "We had on-going conversations with her husband and contacted him as soon as the decision was made to approve the transplant request." Even after the approval, Erika said she still wanted to move forward with the story, to speak up for others who've experienced the pain of similar denials. To let them know they're not alone. To encourage them to be their own best advocates. It can mean the difference between life and death. "No one should have to fight and work that hard," she said, "especially when I have all these doctors saying it will save my life." Since the approval, the family has been preparing to move to Cleveland for Erika's surgery and recovery at the Cleveland Clinic. Erika was officially notified Friday morning she was placed on the liver transplant wait list. It's impossible to know how long the family will be in Cleveland or when the transplant will occur. Transplant candidates are given what is known as a "MELD score," ranging from 6 to 40. Those closest to 40 are given the highest priority. Erika's MELD score has hovered around 22. If her score is still in that range, Dr. Aucejo said, her transplant could be a few months away. "But this varies a lot," he said. "There are many variables at play here." A patient for a liver transplant, he said, is typically hospitalized 7 to 10 days for the procedure, with a recovery time of 4 to 8 weeks before the patient resumes normal activities. Would Erika have had the transplant by now if the surgery had been approved in February? "That is very speculative, at the least," Dr. Aucejo said. "I couldn't say that." He chose his words carefully, saying it's a "complex dynamic" between hospitals and insurance companies and he doesn't want to upset that balance. "She's been approved and that's what matters — and hopefully we can move forward with her transplant." Dr. Aucejo said he can somewhat understand the insurance company's initial reluctance at coverage because the procedure is so rare for patients with Erika's condition. "It's a new territory," he told CNN. "I can't blame anybody." If Erika receives her transplant and succeeds, Dr. Aucejo said, she could help set precedent for many others down the road.

Percy Ronald Chess left home for good 20 years ago and made his way across America. He had served in the Air Force in the early 1970s, then rejoined relatives in Miami. But he struggled to hold a job, and his family believes he suffered from mental illness. At first he’d wander for weeks or months. But one day he didn’t come back. Over the years, Chess’s relatives scoured the Internet, tracking his travels through his arrest record of mostly petty crimes of loitering, prowling, stealing and receiving stolen property. They found signs he’d been in Florida, Alabama, Washington, Tennessee. Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia. They think Chess hitchhiked and earned a few dollars fixing cars and broken machines — skills he learned as a child. They tried to find him, to help him, but they were never able to catch up. His story came to a sad end on March 31, when a tourist in a paddle boat found his body floating in the Tidal Basin near the Jefferson Memorial. It took authorities two weeks to find his family. Chess was 65. D.C. police do not suspect foul play; his cause of death is pending. Chess’s family plans to bury him Tuesday at Georgia National Cemetery for veterans, outside Atlanta, where several of his relatives now live. “In different times and different circumstances, he could have had a really great life,” said his niece, Margaret Smith-Williams, 33, who lives in Miami and last saw her uncle when she was 13. “You don’t want your loved ones to pass away alone.” An obituary written by his family notes that Chess was received “with much excitement and great joy” when he was born in Miami on Aug. 21, 1952. Chess’s sudden death, his obituary says, “is most disquieting and without answers.” The family did not try to hide Chess’s troubles. They wrote that the man who had once coveted family and church had returned from military service a recluse, disappearing for long spells even as his parents kept a room for him. Not much is known about his military service, but records indicate he was never deployed overseas. “Percy lived his life out in the open,” the obituary says, “sometimes alone and sometimes sleeping in the rough terrors and fierce weather of the night. . . .We can only speculate what life may have been for Percy from day-to-day.” Relatives said they prefer to recall Chess as a youth — a boy who looked after his younger sister and an enterprising teen who would take the toaster apart and put it back together again. He read books on engineering, fixed his neighbor’s cars. Chess also set out to “master the game that matched his name,” said Smith-Williams, his niece. He spent hours studying strategy plotting moves far ahead in the game. His family said he used “his quick wit and charming savvy” to draw competitors into what he called “his game.” His family described him as a “cool dresser” who is “remembered for having ‘swag’ even before any of us knew what ‘swag’ meant.” Chess enlisted in the Air Force in May 1971 at the age of 19 after he had graduated from high school in Miami. What happened during those years remains a mystery to his family. From his discharge notice, it appears Chess never left the United States, although he served during the final years of the Vietnam War. The one-page form the Air Force provided his family after his death lists his service time as two years, eight months and 18 days, none overseas. It notes that Chess served in an engineering division as a tractor operator. He was honorably discharged in February 1974 from McChord Air Force Base, now part of Joint Base Lewis-McChord outside Tacoma, Wash. He went back to his family home in Miami, but seemed different. Relatives said he appeared to be suffering from mental illness, although they can’t recall a diagnosis. “He was very secluded,” said one of his sisters, Elouise Chess Williams, who lives in Atlanta. “It was as if he was in a totally different world.” He retreated to his room for dinner, eating whatever was served as long as it came with ketchup. He never married, and had no children. Over the next 20 years, he often left for weeks, sometimes months, but would return, sometimes with bruises from being beaten or bitten by dogs. He hitchhiked, carrying a mat to sleep on and a baseball bat. He went with Williams when she moved to South Carolina. He did odd jobs but couldn’t keep them. His father, retired from a gas company, started a yard service that could have meant steady work for Chess. But by then Chess was drinking and refusing to take his medication. He emerged from his room only at night. He walked away from programs his family had enrolled him in to help. His sister said she paid $500 to put him in a mental health facility but he didn’t stay long. “He would come out and say we were the ones who were crazy, he wasn’t,” Williams said. One day 20 years ago, Chess left. In the years that followed, if a family member lived close to a police station or a courthouse where they thought he might be, they’d speed over in hopes of finding him. They never did. One cousin, learning he had just been released from a jail in Jacksonville, Fla., drove around the city all night, but with no luck. One of Chess’s brothers is convinced he saw Chess walking along a highway in Atlanta, but by the time he reached the next exit and turned around, the man was gone. In mid-April, one of Chess’s brothers in Florida got a call from the police in Fort Lauderdale, who had been contacted by the police in the District. They had located Percy Chess. Though not an unexpected ending, it was still tragic. “We’re talking over 40 years of him coming and going, and us really wondering if he’s dead or alive,” said his sister, Williams. “In one way it’s a relief. But it’s sad because he was so much a part of us.”

As volcanic eruptions spew toxic gas into the air, some residents of Hawaii's Big Island are frantically searching for masks for protection. But the Hawaii Department of Health says "no commercial mask sold in stores" would actually do residents any good. "I'm just worried about, you know, the air quality," resident Clayton Thomas told CNN affiliate KHNL/KGMB. He wanted to get a mask for his nephew, who has asthma, but went to five different stores with no luck. By Sunday afternoon, 17 volcanic fissures had opened, pouring lava into the area, according to the Hawaii County Civil Defense Emergency System. And one of the biggest health and safety concerns is the sulfur dioxide in the "vog," or volcanic smog, coming from the vents. At high concentrations, vog can cause headaches and irritation to the lungs and eyes, according to the University of Hawaii at Hilo. It can induce asthma attacks and cause shortness of breath or other respiratory problems. That's why Myke Metcalf sold out of all his protective masks within 15 minutes of opening his store on Friday, according to KHNL/KGMB. He had lines of people wrapped around his shop, Pahoa Auto Parts, to buy the masks, which he's selling at cost. "Some people are just so tired of hearing 'no' that they just turn around and walk away," he said. "Some people say, 'Well just sell me some for my kids, I don't need one for myself.'" He wants the government to step in and help, the local station reported. But according to the Hawaii Department of Health, the masks — particularly the common N-95 or other dust masks — wouldn't help protect residents against sulfur dioxide anyway. In a statement earlier this month, the department cautioned consumers, saying "no mask sold in stores provides protection from the extremely dangerous volcanic gases that are being released from the current volcanic eruption." Even respirators and gas masks aren't recommended by health officials for use by the general public, in part because proper use of respirators requires correct filters and training to ensure proper fitting and use, according to the International Volcanic Health Hazard Network, Hawaii Department of Health and the US Geological Survey. The masks "don't work against gases," Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim said on Twitter Sunday. "Please let your 'ohana (family) know that the best thing to do is to avoid the gases by staying indoors with your windows shut, or by vacating the area when you perceive the gas emissions are affecting your breathing," he wrote. Residents should simply stay away, the Department of Health says. "The best way to protect yourself and your family from the extremely dangerous volcanic gases is to leave the immediate area of the volcano defined by the police and fire department," it said in a statement.

The Broward County, Fla., school district's repeated, emphatic - and it turns out, false - statements that Nikolas Cruz had not been in a controversial disciplinary program fit a pattern of an institution on the defense and under siege. Facing significant legal and political exposure over the Feb. 14 shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the district has tried to keep information from the public and put out untrue and misleading statements, frustrating parents who say this is the time for maximum transparency. The district is fighting in court against the release of school surveillance video. It flatly refused to provide any records regarding the shooting to the news media, in a possible violation of the state's open-records law. Superintendent Robert Runcie has blocked critics, including parents, from his Twitter account. More than two months after the shooting, a Broward sheriff's detective told a state commission on school safety that he was still waiting for the district to provide all of Cruz's disciplinary records. The worst came last week, when Runcie acknowledged that his forceful denials that Cruz had been involved in the Promise program, which is intended to provide an alternative to the arrest of students for minor offenses, were wrong. "It would appear that the district is more interested in protecting their programs than they are the students and teachers in our schools," said Ryan Petty, whose 14-year-old daughter, Alaina, was killed by Cruz during his rampage through the school. "As a father, I would ask the district to please be completely transparent so we can make sure this doesn't happen to any other children in any other schools in Florida." School district spokeswoman Tracy Clark said the district has provided accurate information to investigators, the press and the public as fast as possible and "any suggestion that the district is not being forthcoming is either based on a misunderstanding or misinformation." "The district continues to focus on responding in a timely and accurate manner to the unprecedented number of public records requests, media requests and subpoenas related to the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School," she said in an email. "In addition, we have coordinated numerous interviews with employees as part of the various ongoing investigations. Both the State Attorney's Office, through the Broward Sheriff's Office, and the Public Defender's Office have been given complete copies of the records related to Nikolas Cruz that have been gathered to date." Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was killed in the shooting, said he was surprised to learn that the district still has not provided all of Cruz's records to investigators. At a meeting of the state commission set up after the shooting to improve school safety, Pollack asked a Broward sheriff's detective whether all of the records had been provided. "I believe that some of the items we are seeking to get from the school board, we have received some," Detective Zachary Scott said. "But I do not believe we've received everything yet." "It caught us all off guard," Pollack said in an interview last week. "We didn't believe it. It's past two months now already. A lot of the people on the committee couldn't believe it." From the school district, Pollack said, "there's no honesty at all." Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright declined to say whether the school district has supplied the records and whether it is cooperating with the investigation. School district spokeswoman Clark said the district provided investigators with all of the records it could find so far. Although the Broward Sheriff's Office has not produced every record requested by the news media, the agency has released dozens of documents, including reports of incidents at Cruz's home and documents on its own flawed response. But the school district has issued a blanket refusal to release any documents, including emails about the shooting among the district's leadership and notices of intent to sue by victims and their families, despite Florida's broad public records law. The school district, joined by the Broward Sheriff's Office, tried to stop the release to the media of surveillance video from the school. The district's lawyers argued in court that the videos would threaten school security by revealing blind spots in the surveillance system. The district partially dropped its opposition after all sides agreed to an initial release of videos that showed the inaction of a Broward sheriff's deputy who resigned after the incident. And the district lost in court when Broward Circuit Judge Jeffrey R. Levenson ordered the release of more videos, saying any "potential harm" to the school's security system was "outweighed by the strong public interest in disclosure." The school district, along with the state attorney's office, is appealing. Runcie's Twitter account contains fewer critics of the district, now that he's blocked several of them. "He blocked me," Diana Alvarez, whose son is a 10-grader in the Broward system and who had served as an elementary school PTA president, posted on Twitter. "NOT good to block a parent in your district." Among others shut out of Runcie's account was Tim Sternberg, a former district administrator who had run the Promise program before resigning a year ago. Now a critic of how the district runs the program, he was blocked last month. Runcie said he won't tolerate "profanity, hate speech or false information" on his Twitter account. "Negative commentary from constituents is part of a public official's job," he said in a statement emailed to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. "However, the heightened political climate our community is currently experiencing has inspired some individuals to cross a threshold in terms of vitriol." Questions about the Promise program had been a source of frustration for district officials, as well as students and parents. Many felt that the program had been unfairly seized upon as a distraction by conservative opponents of gun control, who preferred to focus on blundering by the district and the sheriff's office. At a Feb. 28 news conference, Runcie insisted that Cruz had no connection to the program. "This particular individual was never a participant in the Promise program. He wasn't eligible for it," Runcie said. "There's no connection between Cruz and the district's Promise program." In a March 24 column in the Sun Sentinel, Runcie called the reports of a Promise connection to Cruz "fake news," lumping them with the false charges that Stoneman Douglas survivors were "crisis actors." Later the standard answer developed a nuance, with Runcie claiming that Cruz had not been in the program "while in high school." "Once he said that comment, I knew the guy was lying and being deceitful," Pollack said. "Once he shaded it that way, I knew it." County Commissioner Michael Udine, a former mayor of Parkland, said the hedged responses from the district are a disservice to the community. "People want the whole truth, they want the whole truth quickly and they want the complete truth out in the open," he said. "Everything's coming out at some point. The half-answers that have come out - whether he was in the Promise program at one time or not completely in the program - is not the right way to handle it. Full and complete transparency is what's called for here."

Video game dads might be all the rage in gaming of late, but there are plenty of great female characters as well. Seeing how it's Mother's Day in the United States, it only seems natural to shine the spotlight on one of them. Out of all of the iconic digital moms, Life is Strange's Joyce Price might just be the best. While teenage antics and complicated relationships drive the drama of Dontnod Entertainment's Life is Strange, it's a mother's warmth that provides the heart. Joyce is the mother of Chloe Price, who serves as a crucial character in both the 2015 original and its recent prequel, Before the Storm. At first, they seem like tonal opposites; Chloe is a rambunctious teenager rebelling against societal norms, while Joyce is the kind diner worker that exemplifies small town kindness. Over time, though, it's shown that both mother and daughter share a strong moral compass, and a drive to do what's right for their loved ones. The maternal relationship between Joyce and Chloe is one of the most interesting aspects of Life is Strange. Flashbacks and objects found around the Price household paint a portrait of the two being incredibly close until the tragic death of Chloe's father, William. This serves as a dividing point, as Chloe has never been able to move past the tragedy, and part of her begins to resent her mother for moving on and marrying her often misunderstood stepfather, David. Despite these struggles, and having to deal with her own heartbreak, Joyce always does her best to stay composed in order to keep the household together. This isn't an easy task, as Chloe begins to get into recreational drugs and goes from a great student to a trouble child that gets expelled from school. Her strength as both a woman and mother is shown as she constantly serves as the mediator between David and Chloe, and she always shows understanding towards her daughter acting out when it'd be so much easier to simply cast blame towards Chloe's rash actions. Joyce Price shows truly unconditional love and an incredible spirit to keep everything together after the death of her husband. She always has the best in mind for her daughter, and she never even thinks of giving up on Chloe. These qualities not only give her depth and make her a character worth celebrating, but they also indisputably earn Joyce a place as one of the best video game moms.

The season finale of Young Sheldon dropped an exciting reveal for fans of The Big Bang Theory, as Sheldon (played by Iain Armitage in the series, with Jim Parsons providing narration) revealed in a voiceover that he eventually goes on to have children. This came immediately in the wake of The Big Bang Theory's season 11 finale, in which Sheldon finally married his long-time girlfriend, Amy (Mayim Bialik). We knew early on that Young Sheldon would have strong links to The Big Bang Theory, with showrunner Chuck Lorre saying last year that "the stories we tell on Young Sheldon can echo on The Big Bang Theory... We’re definitely discussing the ripple effect that the shows can have going forward in time." So far Young Sheldon has explained some of the older Sheldon's quirks, like where the "Soft Kitty" song comes from, but now the prequel series has revealed where the original show could be heading next. In Young Sheldon's season 1 finale, Sheldon's grandmother, Meemaw (Annie Potts), became annoyed by her grandson's interference in her relationship with Dr. John Sturgis (Wallace Shawn), and insisted on laying down some "ground rules" for both Sheldon and John. After hearing some of her demands, John says, "This list is getting long, maybe we should write it down." An idea occurs to Sheldon, and in voiceover Parsons says, "In that moment, I had an epiphany. I could draw up a contract for any social relationship." He writes up a contract for himself and Meemaw, and then the narration continues with the big reveal... Barring an unfortunate turn of events for Sheldon and Amy, it's pretty safe to assume that the children referred to in the voiceover will be their kids. After all, it's no accident that Young Sheldon dropped this bombshell right after The Big Bang Theory's big wedding episode. We learned this week that The Big Bang Theory has been renewed for season 12, which isn't at all surprising given the show's ratings; the wedding episode was watched by 15 million viewers. Meanwhile, Young Sheldon was renewed for a second season back in January. In the wake of Young Sheldon's exciting revelation, the big question on fans' minds is whether or not we'll get to see Amy and Sheldon's kids soon on The Big Bang Theory. Incorporating babies and child characters into sitcoms about young adults without dragging the show down is a tricky thing to pull off, but now that fans know Sheldon will eventually have kids, many will no doubt be eagerly awaiting a reveal that Amy is pregnant in The Big Bang Theory season 12.

FOX has renewed Lethal Weapon for season 3 but with Seann William Scott starring in a co-lead role opposite Daymon Wayans. Lethal Weapon has had quite a storied history in Hollywood, beginning with the blockbuster buddy comedy in 1987 starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as detectives Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh, respectively. Directed by Richard Donner, the film's success led to a highly lucrative franchise that ran for four films over an 11-year period, adding the likes of co-stars Rene Russo, Joe Pesci, and Chris Rock along the way. Despite Donner and the film's leads enjoying all that success together, the franchise went dormant for 18 years after Lethal Weapon IV released in 1998, until FOX revived Lethal Weapon as an hour-long crime comedy TV series in 2016. Keeping with the spirit of the films, the slightly crazy Riggs and grounded Murtaugh were back – but this time played by Clayne Crawford and Wayans – and the series ran for two seasons before the idea of a third season was suddenly thrown into limbo because of the shaky future of Crawford on the show. But, it seems FOX has worked out the situation. THR reports that FOX has renewed Lethal Weapon for season 3, but with Seann William Scott replacing Clayne Crawford as the co-lead character, following Crawford's reported firing last week. Scott will play a new character in the series that begins a partnership with Murtaugh; however, sources told THR that Scott may play Martin Riggs' brother to keep the Riggs' name. This news comes two weeks after it was revealed that Crawford had been reprimanded twice for his behavior on set. The show's production studio didn't go into details as to why they parted ways with Crawford, only saying in a statement Sunday: "Warner Bros. Television has decided not to renew Clayne Crawford’s contract for 'Lethal Weapon.'" Crawford previously addressed the issues on his Instagram account, saying there were on set issues “over working conditions that did not feel safe or conducive to good work under the leadership of a guest director and assistant director.” The actor also said he met with human resources and completed "studio-appointed" therapy. While this news may disappoint his fans, there's no question that he's being replaced with a solid comedy actor. Not only was Scott hilarious in the American Pie series, but he also carved out a following as the lead in the cult indie sports comedies Goon and Goon: Last of the Enforcers. Scott has never had a problem establishing a winning presence on-screen, and he will no doubt easily slip into his first role as a series lead opposite the always entertaining Wayans, but audiences will determine that for themselves when Lethal Weapon returns for season 3. As for Crawford, it will be interesting to see how his career unfolds considering losing a slot on a hit series is a blow for any actor.