Jabari Walker and the 76ers have agreed to a two-year standard contract, a league source confirmed to The Inquirer Monday night.
The standard deal comes after Walker, a 6-foot-7 forward, exhausted his 50 active NBA games allowed while on a two-way contract. As a result, Walker was unable to play in the Sixers’ last four games before the All-Star break.
Before then, Walker had been in the Sixers’ rotation for the bulk of the season. He is averaging 3.7 points and 3.1 rebounds in 12.1 minutes across 45 games and has been praised for his high-energy playing style.
Walker’s contract conversion comes on the heels of the Sixers agreeing to a rest-of-season deal with veteran guard Cameron Payne, who spent part of the 2023-24 season in Philly and had been playing in Serbia. The moves help shore up the Sixers’ roster following the trade deadline, when they dealt away 2024 first-round draft pick Jared McCain and veteran guard Eric Gordon. The prorated deals will also keep the Sixers under the luxury tax threshold.
The Sixers also converted starting forward Dominick Barlow’s two-way contract to a standard deal on Feb. 5. Dalen Terry and MarJon Beauchamp currently hold the Sixers’ other two-way slots.
Once Walker’s contract is converted, the Sixers intend to sign forward Tyrese Martin to the vacated two-way roster slot.
Martin, a 26-year-old Allentown native, last played for the Brooklyn Nets before being released to free up a roster spot at the trade deadline. The 6-6 Martin has averaged 7.2 points, three rebounds, and 1.7 assists in 113 career NBA games across three seasons.
Eagles wide receiver DeVonta Smith will host his fifth celebrity softball game in Allentown on May 2, the Lehigh Valley IronPigs announced Monday. The event will take place at Coca-Cola Park, the IronPigs’ home stadium.
Smith had another successful campaign for the Eagles, recording 1,008 receiving yards and four touchdowns on 77 receptions. It was the third time Smith has topped 1,000 yards in a season.
The softball game will feature some of Smith’s teammates, friends, and other NFL players. A home run derby will take place at 1:30 p.m. followed by the softball game at 3 p.m.
Darius Slay (left) and A.J. Brown at DeVonta Smith’s celebrity softball game in 2024.
Smith’s game has provided fireworks for fans in the past. Running back Saquon Barkley, defensive end Brandon Graham, tight end Dallas Goedert, and cornerbacks Darius Slay and Cooper DeJean participated last year, along with former Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens. DeJean earned last year’s game MVP.
Packers edge rusher Micah Parsons built his own team in 2022 to face Smith’s team. That year, Smith had wide receiver A.J. Brown on his team. Brown beat Parsons in the home run derby, then hit the walk-off home run to beat Team Parsons, which featured Miami Dolphins wide receiver Jaylen Waddle and former Eagles running back Boston Scott.
Participants for this year’s game will be announced at a later date.
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israeli prosecutors said Monday that they plan to charge a settler in the killing of a Palestinian activist during a confrontation that was caught on video, opening a rare prosecution of violence by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.
Attacks from settlers and home demolitions by authorities have spiked dramatically over the past two years, but the death in July of Awdah Hathaleen has drawn particular attention due to his involvement in the 2025 Oscar-winning film No Other Land, which chronicled Palestinian villagers’ fight to stay on their land. The case also stands out because the confrontation between Palestinians and Yinon Levi, an internationally sanctioned settler, was captured on video from multiple vantage points.
An Israeli judge released Levi from custody six months ago, citing a lack of evidence that he fired the shots that killed Hathaleen.
Israel’s State Attorney General’s office confirmed in a statement Monday that it had initiated proceedings to indict Levi. It did not specify the charges.
Eitan Peleg, an attorney for Hathaleen’s family, said the office had informed them it planned to indict Levi for reckless homicide, triggering a process that allows Levi to contest charges before they’re formally filed.
“Enforcement of the law in cases like this involving Palestinians in the West Bank is very rare, so this is unique,” Peleg told the Associated Press on Monday.
Israel’s military referred questions on the indictment to police, who have not yet responded. Both bodies enforce laws in the area.
More than 3.4 million Palestinians and 700,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by Palestinians for a future state. The international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlement construction in these areas to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.
Palestinians and rights groups say authorities routinely fail to prosecute settlers or hold them accountable for violence. Under National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, investigations into settler attacks have plummeted, according to the Israeli rights group Yesh Din.
Khalil Hathaleen, Awdah’s brother, said the family was glad some measure of justice was being pursued but felt the charge of “reckless homicide” was insufficient.
“It was an intentional killing in broad daylight, with prior intent and premeditation,” he said.
Levi’s attorney, Avichai Hajbi, declined Monday to comment on the coming indictment, which he said he hadn’t received. After the shooting, he told the Associated Press that Levi acted in self-defense, without elaborating. Levi did not answer phone calls Monday.
Parts of confrontation were filmed
Video released last year by B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, showed Levi firing a gun toward the person filming. At the moment that B’Tselem says Hathaleen collapsed, the visuals are jostled but moans of pain can be heard. The group said it obtained the video from the family of Hathaleen, who said he filmed it.
Additional footage obtained by the AP last year showed Levi waving a pistol during the standoff in Umm al-Khair with a group of Palestinians over an excavator that had rolled down from a nearby settlement and damaged Palestinian property earlier in the day.
Alaa Hathaleen, a cousin who filmed the encounter, told AP at the time that he had approached Levi to tell him the group was unarmed and to stop the bulldozing.
In the video, one Palestinian insults Levi and another challenges him to shoot. Levi shoves someone just out of the frame, demands to know who threw stones, and later fires a shot, seemingly away from the crowd. He then fires again and yells toward the crowd to get away from the excavator.
The footage did not show where bullets struck, though other relatives said they saw Awdah Hathaleen fall immediately after shots were fired.
Levi was detained before being released to house arrest. That condition was eventually lifted, too.
Levi was among the Israeli settlers sanctioned by the United States and other Western countries over allegations of violence toward Palestinians in 2024. U.S. President Donald Trump lifted the U.S. sanctions after taking office the following year.
Attacks spike as spotlight grows
Activists and crew members on the film No Other Land have said settler attacks have intensified on the village portrayed since the movie won the Oscar.
Hamdan Ballal, one of the film’s directors, said his family home in Umm al-Khair was subject to another attack on Sunday. Four relatives were arrested during the confrontation, he said.
Ballal said a soldier, who came to their home accompanied by another soldier and a settler-herder, grabbed his brother by the neck and tried to choke him. Neither the army nor the police responded to requests for comment on the incident.
“The year after I won the Oscar, the assaults increased significantly. On a daily basis, settlers come and destroy the fields, destroy the trees, destroy the crops around the house,” he said.
Israeli proof-of-ownership rules spark anger
As prosecutors move to indict Levi and violence persists across the West Bank, Israel is moving ahead with measures to deepen its control over land in the occupied territory.
On Sunday, it announced it would resume a land registration process across the West Bank to require anyone with a claim to land to submit documents proving ownership. Rights groups say the process could strip Palestinians of land they’ve lived on and farmed for generations and transfer vast swaths of land to Israeli state control.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the steps countered Palestinian Authority land registration efforts in areas where Israel maintains civil and military control.
The measures follow years of accusations by Palestinians that actions by settlers and the military — campaigns of violence, harassment and demolitions — have pushed them from their land.
The decisions have drawn widespread condemnation as violations of international law, including from countries involved in the ceasefire process in the Gaza Strip and Trump’s Board of Peace.
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry in a statement on Monday said the measures were part of Israel’s effort to impose a “new legal and administrative reality” that undermines prospects for peace and stability. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry called the move a “flagrant violation” of international law, warning it would escalate tensions in the Palestinian territories and across the region.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres condemned Israel’s decision, calling it not only destabilizing but unlawful according to the International Court of Justice, the U.N.’s highest tribunal, his spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said.
The boys’ basketball players from Carver Engineering & Sciences who left the bench last week came onto the court after fans from Constitution’s stands rushed the court and surrounded their teammates, according to a report by one of the game’s officials that was submitted to the School District of Philadelphia.
The referee said the altercation in Thursday’s Public League playoff game was started by a player from Constitution, who the ref said pushed the E&S player as the E&S player walked away.
“Then I saw a crowd of people from the [Constitution] spectator area of the bleachers running towards those two players,” the referee wrote. “So, I gradually backed off because I didn’t know what was coming next.”
What came next was the reserves from E&S leaving the bench. They “eased onto the court,” the ref said. And that was enough for E&S to be suspended from the league playoffs.
The Engineers were ahead by 12 points with 1 minute, 11 seconds left when an altercation started by an opposing player was inflamed by opposing fans. And now that opposing team is taking E&S’ place on Tuesday against Imhotep Charter in the Public League semifinals at La Salle University.
Representatives from E&S met Sunday night on Zoom with Jimmy Lynch, the Public League president. Lynch told them the ruling stood. League rules say that a team must forfeit once their “entire bench” enters the field of play.
The PIAA told E&S that the decision stood with the school district. A school district spokeswoman said Monday that the decision would not be changed. Lynch could not be reached for comment.
The representatives from E&S did not argue that their players left the bench but they were hoping that the rule could be applied with the context of the situation: the players came onto the court to protect their teammates once their teammates were surrounded by spectators. The E&S players did not throw a punch or look to fight, the parents said.
“If our students engaged in the on-court incident we would’ve had penalties and suspensions,” said Miya Brown, a mother of an E&S player. “But because we avoided the confrontation, we have been disqualified from continuing on. All of this is so disgusting. It really is. The mission is supposed to be about student safety but they’re ignoring the safety part of this incident.”
“If this brawl happened at the opposing team’s end of the bench and our student athletes ran to the other end of the bench, I could understand. If this happened on center court and our student athletes left the bench, I could understand. But this happened in front of our bench and the crowd is running toward our student athletes. There is no way you can make a just decision based on those facts. It got out of control.”
E&S did not practice Monday but remained hopeful that something would change before tipoff of Tuesday’s semifinal. That seems unlikely.
The Carver Engineering and Science boys’ basketball team after winning a tournament earlier this season.
The Engineers were 20-4 this season before the forfeit became their fifth loss. They won a tournament in Northeastern Pa. and took Imhotep — the defending league champions — to overtime in January before losing. They wanted another shot.
“That’s the matchup everyone wants to see,” said Dave McField, a father of an E&S player.
The referee said he asked during the first quarter for security guards to be placed near the Constitution fans because “they were being unruly.” At halftime, he told E&S’ athletic director that he needed more security. He said a security guard stopped the game in the third quarter to warn the fans but the guard did not stay in the area.
“So when everything jumped off,” he wrote. “Those same unruly fans rushed the court.”
The referee said he planned to eject the Constitution player from the game “because he started this chain of events” and “was the only player I saw push or hit any opponent.” The referee stood in the corner of the court as fans overtook the floor. E&S was 71 seconds left from reaching their first league semifinals in 20 years. Instead, their season was about to end.
“I glanced at the [Constitution] bench area where I saw the head coach next to about five of his bench players,” the ref wrote. “At that time, I called the game and walked off.”
Philadelphia police on Monday released images of a distinctive vehicle that injured a 9-year-old boy in a hit-and-run that happened over the weekend in Southwest Philadelphia.
Just after 12:20 p.m. Saturday, the boy was struck by a midsized crossover SUV on the 2200 block of South 56th Street, police said.
The boy was transported to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where he was listed in stable condition.
Police described the vehicle as a 2010 to 2013 Honda Crosstour, mostly burgundy in color, but with a green front passenger-side door, a white rear passenger-side door, and a black passenger-side fender. The Honda also had a bicycle rack on the roof.
.@Phillypolice is seeking the public’s help in identifying the driver involved in a critical injury hit & run involving a 9-year-old boy. 2200 block of S. 56th St. 2/14 at 12:22PM Vehicle: 2010–13 Honda Crosstour (burgundy w/mismatched panels) Call 911 or 215-686-TIPS w/ info pic.twitter.com/PPjW93rZbt
The driver was described as a Black man around 25 to 35 years old, with short hair and a beard.
The boy suffered a broken leg, according to 6abc, which showed video from a doorbell camera of the boy trying to cross the street and then falling before being hit by the fast-moving Honda.
Police said anyone with information about the vehicle or driver can call 215-686-TIPS or dial 911.
CLEARWATER, Fla. — Four innings before Orion Kerkering’s error sealed the Phillies’ fate in Game 4 of the 2025 National League Division Series, home plate umpire Mark Wegner made a call that may have helped tilt the game.
Cristopher Sánchez’s 2-2 pitch to Alex Call in the seventh, which caught the inside edge of the plate, was called a ball. What could have been a strikeout ultimately became a walk, and Justin Dean, who pinch ran for Call, went on to score the tying run in a game the Los Angeles Dodgers won, 2-1, in 11 innings.
In the quiet clubhouse after the Phillies were eliminated, Sánchez said that Wegner actually apologized to him for missing the strike.
“He knows he missed it,” Sánchez said through a team interpreter. “He knows he missed it because he told me, and he apologized to me. But a lot of pressure, important game, important situation, you can’t miss those things. You can’t miss those calls.”
With the automated ball-strike challenge system arriving to MLB in 2026, it’s possible those impactful misses could be a thing of the past. Under the system, each team starts with two challenges, which can be used by the pitcher, catcher, or batter to challenge a pitch call. If a challenge is unsuccessful, the team loses it.
According to the rules, challenges must be made immediately after the umpire’s call, and no input from the bench or manager is allowed. A team without challenges in extra innings will receive an additional one.
The Phillies piloted the system during spring training last year, and they will use this spring as a chance to get further acclimated.
“I think it will change the game a lot late, just making sure those calls are right in the biggest moments,” shortstop Trea Turner said. “Even if a team challenges and they’re wrong, at least you know the call is right. So I think that’s going to be big later on.”
Some critics of the system think that ABS removes the “human element” of baseball in the umpire’s strike zone.
“It’s kind of now that human element’s back on the players,” Turner said. “So that’s kind of interesting. It’s going to be fun to watch.”
The Phillies will eventually develop a strategy for using ABS as the regular season begins. Some teams only allow catchers to challenge, rather than pitchers, since they have a better vantage point. Teams also might prefer to save their challenges for after a certain inning of the game.
But for the first few weeks of spring training, Phillies manager Rob Thomson will have no rules.
“We need to push them to use it, so that they can learn,” Thomson said. “And as the situations come up, we just talk them through it. ‘This might be a situation where you should use it,’ even if they didn’t. ‘No, maybe that’s not the situation.’ But we still want them to try and get some experience with it.”
The Seattle Mariners’ Julio Rodriguez challenges a pitch call, initiating a review with the automated ball-strike challenge system during a spring training game last February in Peoria, Ariz.
Turner said that typically, when he has disagreed with umpires’ calls at the plate and then reviewed the footage later, he is often right about pitches he thought were inside or outside, but has been wrong about pitches high or low.
“I think that’s part of this. You’ve got to know what you’re good at, and where you’re good at,” he said. “I don’t plan on challenging too much, but if I do, I’ll probably be on the corners more so than up and down. And I think some guys are good at some things, and you’re going to have to learn.”
Extra bases
Zack Wheeler threw out to 120 feet for the first time Monday as he continues his rehab from thoracic outlet decompression surgery. Thomson said he did not have a date for when Wheeler will get on a mound, but “he’s getting there.” … Kerkering (mild hamstring strain) is running and doing agility drills and threw on flat ground. The next step is a light bullpen session, possibly on Wednesday, according to Thomson. … Brandon Marsh cut his foot off the field and did not fully participate in the workout, although he did glove work and played catch. “It’s minor,” Thomson said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he was out there hitting [Tuesday].”
CLEARWATER, Fla. — Brandon Marsh stood in the outfield of the main stadium here the other day alongside a half-dozen teammates when it dawned on him.
“I was the oldest guy out there,” he said, a toothy smile forming above his lumberjack beard, “and I was like, ‘What the heck?’ I’ve never, ever in my life been in this position.”
Don’t tell Marsh, then, that these are the Same Old Phillies.
Other changes: A 22-year-old rookie (Justin Crawford) in center field, and a righty-hitting utility man (Otto Kemp) who might see most of his playing time in left field whenever the Phillies face left-handed pitching.
And — voila! — Marsh is the new dean of an outfield that critics believe will be among the worst in the majors.
Brandon Marsh didn’t have a hit in April but batted .303 over the final five months of the season.
“It’s going to be almost a complete different outfield, I know that,” said Marsh, limited in the Phillies’ first full-squad workout Monday because of a cut on his foot that Thomson didn’t consider serious. “But we have some incredible guys here that are going to step up. As humans, we always want to challenge ourselves. It’s going to be a fun challenge for us, and nothing that we’re not capable of doing.”
Maybe. Crawford did bat .300 at every level of the minors despite hitting a high rate of balls on the ground. García, a two-time All-Star, is three years removed from 39 homers and a dominant postseason for the World Series-champion Texas Rangers. Kemp impressed team officials with his grit last season while playing through shoulder and knee injuries.
But any improvement over last season, when the Phillies ranked 19th in the majors in outfield OPS (.710) and 21st in wins above replacement (3.2, measured by Fangraphs) must involve Marsh.
It has been nearly four years since the Phillies traded for Marsh. With Bryson Stott and Alec Bohm, he comprised a group of young, often goofy players dubbed by teammates as the “Daycare” along the way to the 2022 World Series. He has been a supporting cast member ever since.
Marsh is 28 now. He has two seasons before free agency. And still, there are questions about his ceiling as a player.
Take last season, for instance. Marsh was 4-for-42 — and hitless in April (0-for-29) — when he strained his right hamstring. The injury was mild. Physically, he was ready to return after the minimum 10-day term on the injured list. Mentally, he was a wreck.
“Honestly, I’ve never been on a baseball field and felt that low before,” Marsh said. “Not low as in depression or anything, but just like self-belief and just realizing like, ‘Dang, am I really cut out for this?’
“But I think the second half of last year really proved — not to anyone else but just to myself — that I can get through the thick of it. You know?”
Indeed, upon returning May 3, Marsh batted .303 with 25 doubles, 10 homers, and a .358 on-base percentage for the rest of the season. Among 96 National League players with at least 350 plate appearances after May 1, Marsh ranked 17th with an .836 OPS.
Brandon Marsh’s .836 OPS from May 3 through the rest of the season ranked 17th in the National League among players with at least 350 plate appearances.
Never mind, then, that Marsh continued to struggle to hit left-handed pitching. The Phillies would sign up for his post-April production from last season and install him as the strong (lefty-hitting) half of a left-field platoon.
But can they count on Marsh being that player?
“I’ve got to go off what the last five months looked like,” Thomson said. “All our analytics and what we see with our eyes has told us that that’s who he is. Now, maybe he’s becoming that. Hopefully he has a full year of that type of performance.”
If anything, the depths of Marsh’s struggle were surprising because of when it occurred.
Given the length of the season, with a game almost every day for six months, most players, especially veterans, downplay April slumps. It’s early, they insist, while falling back on clichés about the numbers on the back of their baseball card.
But Marsh — Bohm, too, his roommate and close friend who started in a 9-for-60 tailspin — was drowning.
“You play in Philadelphia and you’re hitting .090,” Marsh said. “… And I deserved every bit of boos I got and every bit of bashing that I got, and I just had to wear it the best I could. Some days were harder than others, for sure.
“I remember saying that to someone, like, ‘It’s April.’ But it’s easy to get overwhelmed, and there were days where I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this mountain might be too steep to climb.’ I might be too low, fighting for keeping a job and stuff like that. There was a whole bunch of stuff going on.
“Me and Bohmer, I remember us just driving home and we were like, ‘Bro, it can’t get any worse.’”
The Phillies signed Adolis García this offseason to replace Nick Castellanos in right field.
It helped that the Phillies gave Marsh a few extra days on his injury rehab assignment at triple-A Lehigh Valley. He credited catcher Garrett Stubbs for changing his perspective.
“Show up and smile,” Stubbs said.
“When Brandon Marsh was with us, we had some epic wins, a couple walk-off home runs, and he was just as happy as anybody on our team,” triple-A hitting coach Adam Lind said. “Maybe that’s just what it was. Sometimes a rehab assignment can just reignite that joy in the game. You can take a deep breath.”
In any case, Marsh salvaged his season. He batted .280 overall, “but it felt like I hit .800.” And the Phillies chose to remake their outfield around him.
Garcia represents “a very big bounce-back candidate,” as Bryce Harper put it.
“I think he’s going to have a lot more fun hitting in Philly than he did in a big Texas stadium,” Harper said. “But also, you’re not really sure until it happens.”
Ditto for Crawford, whom the Phillies expect to bring speed and energy to the bottom of the lineup. But he also would be the youngest player in a Phillies’ opening-day lineup since Freddy Galvis in 2012.
So, Marsh looked around the outfield the other day as the constant at the one spot on the Phillies’ roster that has undergone massive change. Last April, he never would’ve guessed it.
“I’m glad that bad stretch happened because it showed just to myself what I could crawl out of,” Marsh said. “I have that self-confidence now of feeling like you’re a dude, like you’re supposed to be here. That’s kind of where I’m at.”
Kelly Oubre Jr. appears to be spending his All-Star break in the recording studio.
On Monday, the Sixers forward posted a clip of his newest single, “Fast & Furious,” on Instagram under the stage name t$unami, which he has been using since 2020 on Soundcloud. Oubre also uploaded the song to Spotify and Apple Music.
The rap song is the first Oubre has released since “A prayer for you” in 2023. He also released “Flipped the Game” in 2022, which is currently his most-streamed song on Spotify, with over 300,000 streams.
Oubre is just the latest in a series of Philly athletes who have tried their hands at music, including Allen Iverson, Brett Myers, Lou Williams, DeSean Jackson, and more recently Terrell Edmunds. Jason Kelce, Lane Johnson, and Jordan Mailata — better known as The Philly Specials — also released a few original songs on their three Eagles Christmas albums.
The Sixers return from the All-Star break on Feb. 19, against the Miami Heat.
CLEARWATER, Fla. — Next month will mark three years since Trea Turner made history with one swing at Miami’s LoanDepot Park.
During the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Turner became the first Team USA player in a decade to hit a grand slam in the tournament. It propelled his team to a come-from-behind win over then-undefeated Venezuela in the quarterfinals, and it was just one of many big moments for Turner that March.
He finished with five home runs to tie a WBC record, helping his team to a silver medal.
But this year, when Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and Brad Keller leave Phillies spring training to join Team USA for the 2026 iteration of the international tournament, Turner will not join them.
“The phone never rang,” Turner said. “I wish those guys the best. I think it’s so much fun. I gladly would have done it again. I said the last time, if they ever asked, I would say yes. They’ve got a great roster this year, stacked.”
Team USA manager Mark DeRosa included Kansas City Royals star Bobby Witt Jr. and the Baltimore Orioles’ Gunnar Henderson as shortstops on his roster. Milwaukee’s Brice Turang is the second baseman for the American team, while Toronto’s Ernie Clement is listed as a utility infielder.
Turner won the National League batting title in 2025 with a .304 average and also had one of the best seasons of his career defensively. He posted +17 outs above average at shortstop, ranking in the 99th percentile at his position according to StatCast data.
“I think we’re in a good spot to win,” Turner said of Team USA. “I’ll definitely be watching it, and I wish Kyle and Bryce and all these guys, [Edmundo] Sosa, everyone playing, I hope they perform well for their countries, and it’s a lot of fun.”
Other WBC participants from the Phillies’ major league roster are Sosa (Panama); Cristopher Sánchez and Johan Rojas (Dominican Republic); Taijuan Walker (Mexico); José Alvarado (Venezuela); Garrett Stubbs and 21-year-old (Israel); and Aaron Nola (Italy).
Turner knows that Harper, in particular, is excited to play in the WBC. He had planned to join the team alongside Turner in 2023 but was unable to participate after undergoing Tommy John elbow surgery the previous winter.
The Phillies jog during the first full-squad workout of spring training on Monday.
“You have to prepare a little bit differently in spring training for that,” Turner said. “You’ve got to kind of get out there earlier, and get your at-bats earlier. So it seems like he’s working harder. But at the same time, he’s just got to get ready, because he’s going to have live at-bats. But he’s competitive.”
Turner’s own offseason was about the same as usual for him, he said. His main priority this year is maintaining his health, which also happened to be the main theme of manager Rob Thomson’s speech to the team Monday morning ahead of the first official full-squad workout of the spring.
Turner, 32, missed time in each of the last two seasons with hamstring strains, and he is aiming to prevent that from happening again primarily through nutrition and hydration.
“Body feels good. Still feel young, although when I have to play with guys like this and Aidan and whatnot, makes me feel old,” Turner said, gesturing to the nearby lockers of 22-year-old Justin Crawford and 21-year-old Aidan Miller. “But I feel 25. I feel ready.”
Turner is looking forward to how Crawford and his speed could help lengthen the bottom half of the Phillies’ lineup. He said he hadn’t seen much of Miller before Monday, when they did infield work together.
“Glove looks good,” Turner said. “Got a chance to talk to him, just trying to get to know him a little bit more. Seems like a great kid, had a good season last year, and excited for him to be around much more and contribute. Because we need guys like that.
“We need to build depth. We need some younger guys. And I think that’s really important for a good organization.”
YAOUNDE, Cameroon — A new group of third-country nationals was deported by the United States to Cameroon on Monday, lawyers told the Associated Press, days after it came to light that the Trump administration sent nine people to the Central African nation last month as part of its secretive program to remove immigrants to countries they have no ties with.
Lawyer Alma David of the U.S.-based Novo Legal Group said that a group of migrants who were not Cameroonian citizens arrived on a deportation flight that landed in the capital, Yaounde, on Monday.
David and Cameroon-based lawyer Joseph Awah Fru said they believed there were eight third-country nationals on the plane but had not spoken to them yet. The two lawyers said they are giving legal advice to some of the nine migrants — five women and four men — from other African countries who were deported from the U.S. to Cameroon last month.
The lawyers also expected to offer counsel to the new group of deportees, they said.
“For now, my focus is handling their shock,” Fru said.
A White House official, who was not authorized to comment publicly about the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged the second deportation flight to Cameroon but gave no details.
The New York Times first reported Saturday on the group of nine sent secretly to Cameroon last month. Two of them have since been repatriated to their home countries, David said.
Most of the deportees had protection orders
Eight of those nine previously deported migrants had protection orders granted by a U.S. immigration judge that prevented them from being deported to their home countries for fear of persecution or torture, David said, some of them because of their sexual orientation and others because of political activity.
Deporting them to a third country like Cameroon, from where they could ultimately be sent home, was effectively a legal “loophole,” David said.
“That is why the United States did not send them directly to their countries,” Fru said. “Because there is cause for concern that they might be harmed, that their lives are threatened.”
David said none of the nine sent to Cameroon last month, which included migrants from Zimbabwe, Morocco, and Ghana, had criminal records apart from driving-related offenses. She had no details yet on the eight who arrived on Monday.
African nations are being paid millions
Cameroon, where 93-year-old President Paul Biya has ruled since 1982, is the latest of at least seven African nations to receive deported third-country nationals in a deal with the U.S. Others that have struck deals with the Trump administration include South Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana, and Equatorial Guinea.
Some of them have received millions of dollars in payments to take deported migrants, according to documents released by the U.S. State Department. Details of some of the other agreements, including the one with Cameroon, have not been released by the Trump administration.
The Trump administration has spent at least $40 million to deport roughly 300 migrants to countries other than their own in Africa, Central America, and elsewhere, according to a report compiled by the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and released last week.
According to internal administration documents reviewed by the AP, there are 47 third-country agreements at various stages of negotiation. Of those, 15 have been concluded and 10 are at or near conclusion.
Immigration policies are a ‘top priority’
The U.S. State Department said Monday in a statement to the AP on the Cameroon deportations that it had “no comment on the details of our diplomatic communications with other governments.”
“Implementing the Trump Administration’s immigration policies is a top priority for the Department of State,” it said, adding, “we remain unwavering in our commitment to end illegal and mass immigration and bolster America’s border security.”
Cameroon’s Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed there had been deportations to Cameroon in January but didn’t give specific information on third-country migrants. It did not comment on the second plane.
“We are applying the law as written. If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period,” the department said. “These third-country agreements, which ensure due process under the U.S. Constitution, are essential to the safety of our homeland and the American people.”
The Trump administration has used third-country deportation deals as a deterrent to force migrants who are in the U.S. illegally to leave on their own, saying they could end up “in any number of third countries” if deported.
It has also defended the practice as part of a crackdown to remove what it refers to as dangerous criminals and gang members.
Activists and lawyers say the U.S. should know that sending migrants to third countries with poor human rights records risks them being denied due process and exposed to abuse.
Last year, the U.S. deported five nationals from Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen, and Laos to the southern African nation of Eswatini. The deportees had all been convicted of serious criminal offenses, including murder, attempted murder, and rape. They had all served their criminal sentences in the U.S.
Four of them have been held at a maximum-security prison in Eswatini for more than six months without charges and have not been allowed to meet in person with a lawyer. Their detentions are the subject of two legal challenges in Eswatini.
Eswatini, which is ruled by a king as Africa’s last absolute monarchy, will be paid $5.1 million to take up to 160 third-country deportees, according to details of the deal released by the State Department. The Eswatini king, Mswati III, has long been accused of clamping down on pro-democracy protests in a country where political parties are banned while using public money to fund his lavish lifestyle.
