SAN FRANCISCO — Rookie VJ Edgecombe had 25 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, Andre Drummond added 12 points and 12 rebounds, and the 76ers won their fifth straight game, 113-94 on Tuesday night over the Golden State Warriors, who were missing Stephen Curry because of a painful right knee.
Trendon Watford had 16 points and eight rebounds off the bench while Adem Bona made all five of his first-half field goals in nine minutes to help the Sixers to a 58-57 lead at the break. Bona finished with 11 points.
Philadelphia’s second bus arrived only about 75 minutes before tipoff because of Bay Area traffic, but coach Nick Nurse was unconcerned about his team having a prolonged warmup since it was the second game of a back-to-back. The Sixers beat the Clippers 128-113 on Monday.
Curry exited early from Golden State’s 131-124 loss to Detroit on Friday because of the troublesome knee. Forward Jonathan Kuminga, whose future with the franchise remains uncertain, sat out his fifth straight game with a bone bruise in his left knee.
Gui Santos and Pat Spencer scored 13 points apiece and Moses Moody added 12 for the Warriors, who lost a third straight game at home.
Sixers center Andre Drummond finished with 12 points and 12 rebounds against Golden State on Tuesday night.
With Golden State trailing 16-9 early, Draymond Green and Al Horford hit consecutive three-pointers midway through the first quarter on which they both assisted for the other. Golden State hit eight three-pointers in the opening period and shot 12-for-19 overall from deep. Horford had 10 points playing through foul trouble.
The Sixers their five-game West Coast swing at the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday night (10 p.m., NBCSP).
James Harden is headed to the Cleveland Cavaliers, with the Los Angeles Clippers agreeing to send the 11-time All-Star back to the Eastern Conference during his highest-scoring season in six years, a person with knowledge of the agreement said Tuesday night.
ESPN was first to report the deal was finalized.
The Cavaliers are giving up point guard Darius Garland and a second-round pick, said the person, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the trade has not yet been approved by the NBA.
That approval could come by Wednesday, when the Cavaliers and Clippers face off in Inglewood, California.
Harden is averaging 25.4 points this season, his most since averaging 34.3 points in 2019-20. He’s been a huge part of the Clippers’ resurgence back into playoff — or, at least, play-in — contention after a dismal 6-21 start.
“He means a lot to our team and we’ve seen it the last three years,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said Monday night when stories began breaking indicating such a move was close. “Who wouldn’t want to have James Harden?”
Cleveland will become Harden’s sixth team. He played for Oklahoma City, then Houston, then Brooklyn, then Philadelphia and, since 2023, the Clippers.
Darius Garland (right) was drafted by Cleveland in 2019.
For the Cavaliers, it seems to be a move for right now — pairing the 36-year-old Harden with another star guard in Donovan Mitchell. For the Clippers, it seems to be a move with an eye on the future — the 26-year-old Garland is a two-time All-Star, averaging 18 points and 6.9 assists this season for Cleveland.
Harden opted out of the final year of his contract last summer with the Clippers to sign a new deal that would have been worth $81.5 million for this season and the 2026-27 campaign. Next year is at his option, which basically meant he was on a one-year contract anyway.
He got that deal after averaging 22.8 points, 5.8 rebounds and 8.7 assists and returning to the All-NBA team for the first time since 2019-20.
Now, attorneys for the man charged in Kirk’s killing want a state judge to block such videos from being shown during a hearing scheduled for Tuesday. Defense attorneys also want to oust TV and still cameras from the courtroom, arguing that “highly biased” news outlets risk tainting the case.
Prosecutors, attorneys for news organizations, and Kirk’s widow urged state District Judge Tony Graf to keep the proceedings open.
“In the absence of transparency, speculation, misinformation, and conspiracy theories are likely to proliferate, eroding public confidence in the judicial process,” Erika Kirk’s attorney wrote in a Monday court filing. “Such an outcome serves neither the interests of justice nor those of Ms. Kirk.”
But legal experts say the defense team’s worries are real: Media coverage in high-profile cases such as Tyler Robinson’s can have a direct “biasing effect” on potential jurors, said Cornell Law School Professor Valerie Hans.
“There were videos about the killing, and pictures and analysis (and) the entire saga of how this particular defendant came to turn himself in,” said Hans, a leading expert on the jury system. “When jurors come to a trial with this kind of background information from the media, it shapes how they see the evidence that is presented in the courtroom.”
Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty for Robinson, 22, who is charged with aggravated murder in the Sept. 10 shooting of Kirk on the Utah Valley University campus in Orem. An estimated 3,000 people attended the outdoor rally to hear Kirk, a co-founder of Turning Point USA, who helped mobilize young people to vote for President Donald Trump.
To secure a death sentence in Utah, prosecutors must demonstrate aggravating circumstances, such as that the crime was especially heinous or atrocious. That’s where the graphic videos could come into play.
Watching those videos might make people think, “’Yeah, this was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel,’” Hans said.
Further complicating efforts to ensure a fair trial is the political rhetoric swirling around Kirk, stemming from the role his organization played in Trump’s 2024 election. Even before Robinson’s arrest, people had jumped to conclusions about who the shooter could be and what kind of politics he espoused, said University of Utah law professor Teneille Brown.
“People are just projecting a lot of their own sense of what they think was going on, and that really creates concerns about whether they can be open to hearing the actual evidence that’s presented,” she said.
Robinson’s attorneys have ramped up claims of bias as the case has advanced, even accusing news outlets of using lip readers to deduce what the defendant is whispering to his attorneys during court hearings.
Fueling those concerns was a television camera operator who zoomed in on Robinson’s face as he talked to his attorneys during a Jan. 16 hearing. That violated courtroom orders, prompting the judge to stop filming of Robinson for the remainder of the hearing.
“Rather than being a beacon for truth and openness, the News Media have simply become a financial investor in this case,” defense attorneys wrote in a request for the court to seal some of their accusations of media bias. Unsealing those records, they added, “will simply generate even more views of the offending coverage, and more revenue for the News Media.”
Prosecutors acknowledged the intense public interest surrounding the case but said that does not permit the court to compromise on openness. They said the need for transparency transcends Robinson’s case.
“This case arose, and will remain, in the public eye. That reality favors greater transparency of case proceedings, not less,” Utah County prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
Defense attorneys are seeking to disqualify local prosecutors because the daughter of a deputy county attorney involved in the case attended the rally where Kirk was shot. The defense alleges that the relationship represents a conflict of interest.
In response, prosecutors said in a court filing that they could present videos at Tuesday’s hearing to demonstrate that the daughter was not a necessary witness since numerous other people recorded the shooting.
Among the videos, prosecutors wrote, is one that shows the bullet hitting Kirk, blood coming from his neck and Kirk falling from his chair.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is demanding a $1 billion payment from Harvard University to end his prolonged standoff with the Ivy League campus, doubling the amount he sought previously as both sides appear to move further from reaching a deal.
The president raised the stakes on social media Monday night, saying Harvard has been “behaving very badly.” He said the university must pay the government directly as part of any deal — something Harvard has opposed — and that his administration wants “nothing further to do” with Harvard in the future.
Trump’s comments on Truth Social came in response to a New York Times report saying the president had dropped his demand for a financial payment, lowering the bar for a deal. Trump denied he was backing down.
Harvard officials did not immediately comment.
Trump’s outburst appears to leave both sides firmly entrenched in a conflict that Trump previously said was nearing an end.
Last June, Trump said a deal was just days away and that Harvard had acted “extremely appropriately” during negotiations. He later said an agreement was being finalized that would require Harvard to put $500 million toward the creation of a “series of trade schools” rather than a payment to the government.
That deal appears to have fallen apart entirely. In his social media post, Trump said the trade school proposal had been turned down because it was “convoluted” and “wholly inadequate.”
Harvard has long been Trump’s top target in his administration’s campaign to bring the nation’s most prestigious universities to heel. His officials have cut billions of dollars in Harvard’s federal research funding and attempted to block it from enrolling foreign students after the campus rebuffed a series of government demands last April.
The White House has said it’s punishing Harvard for tolerating anti-Jewish bias on campus.
In a pair of lawsuits, Harvard said it’s being unfairly penalized for refusing to adopt the administration’s views. A federal judge agreed in December, reversing the funding cuts and calling the antisemitism argument a “smokescreen.”
Trump’s latest escalation comes as other parts of his higher education campaign are teetering.
Last fall, the White House invited nine universities to join a “compact” that offered funding priority in exchange for adopting Trump’s agenda. None of the schools accepted. In January, the administration abandoned its legal defense of an Education Department document threatening to cut schools’ funding over diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.
When he took office for his second term, Trump made it a priority to go after elite universities that he said had been overrun by liberal thinking and anti-Jewish bias. His officials have frozen huge sums of research funding, which colleges have come to rely on for scientific and medical research.
Several universities have reached agreements with the White House to restore funding. Some deals have included direct payments to the government, including $200 million from Columbia University. Brown University agreed to pay $50 million toward state workforce development groups.
CAIRO — Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the son and one-time heir apparent of Libya’s late dictator Moammar Gadhafi, was killed in the northern African country, Libyan officials said Tuesday.
The 53-year-old was killed in the town of Zintan, 85 miles southwest of the capital, Tripoli, according to two Libyan security officials in western Libya. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
Khaled al-Zaidi, a lawyer for Seif al-Islam, confirmed his death on Facebook, without providing details.
Abdullah Othman Abdurrahim, who represented Gadhafi in the U.N.-brokered political dialogue which aimed to resolve Libya’s long-running conflict, also announced his death on Facebook.
Abdurrahim, who leads his political team, didn’t provide further details, but Libyan news outlet Fawasel Media cited him as saying that armed men killed Seif al-Islam in his home. The outlet reported that prosecutors were investigating the killing.
Seif al-Islam’s political team later released a statement, saying that “four masked men” stormed his house and killed him in a “cowardly and treacherous assassination.” The statement said that he clashed with the assailants, who closed the CCTV cameras at the house “in a desperate attempt to conceal traces of their heinous crimes.”
Born in June 1972 in Tripoli, Seif al-Islam was the second-born son of the longtime dictator. He studied for a Ph.D. at the London School of Economics and was seen as the reformist face of the Gadhafi regime.
Moammar Gadhafi was toppled in a NATO-backed popular uprising in 2011 after more than 40 years in power. He was killed in October 2011 amid the ensuing fighting that would turn into a civil war. The country has since plunged into chaos and divided between rival armed groups and militias.
Seif al-Islam was captured by fighters in Zintan late in 2011 while attempting to flee to neighboring Niger. The fighters released him in June 2017 after one of Libya’s rival governments granted him amnesty. He had since lived in Zintan.
A Libyan court convicted him of inciting violence and murdering protesters and sentenced him to death in absentia in 2015. He was also wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity related to the 2011 uprising.
In November 2021, Seif al-Islam announced his candidacy in the country’s presidential election in a controversial move that was met with outcry from anti-Gadhafi political forces in western and eastern Libya.
The country’s High National Elections Committee disqualified him, but the election wasn’t held over disputes between rival administrations and armed groups that have ruled Libya since the bloody ouster of Moammar Gadhafi.
WILMINGTON — The first husband of former first lady Jill Biden has been charged with killing his wife at their Delaware home in late December, authorities announced in a news release Tuesday.
William Stevenson, 77, of Wilmington was married to Jill Biden from 1970 to 1975.
Caroline Harrison, the Delaware Attorney General’s spokesperson, confirmed in a phone call that Stevenson is the former husband of Jill Biden.
Jill Biden declined to comment, according to an e-mailed response from a spokesperson at the former president and first lady’s office.
Stevenson remains in jail after failing to post $500,000 bail after his arrest Monday on first-degree murder charges. He is charged with killing Linda Stevenson, 64, on Dec. 28.
Police were called to the home for a reported domestic dispute after 11 p.m. and found a woman unresponsive in the living room, according to a prior news release. Life-saving measures were unsuccessful.
She ran a bookkeeping business and was described as a family-oriented mother and grandmother and a Philadelphia Eagles fan, according to her obituary, which does not mention her husband.
Stevenson was charged in a grand jury indictment after a weekslong investigation by detectives in the Delaware Department of Justice.
It was not immediately clear if Stevenson has a lawyer. He founded a popular music venue in Newark called the Stone Balloon in the early 1970s.
Jill Biden married U.S. Sen. Joe Biden in 1977. He served as U.S. president from January 2021 to January 2025.
MINNEAPOLIS — Immigration officers with guns drawn arrested some activists who were trailing their vehicles on Tuesday in Minneapolis, a sign that tensions have not eased since the departure last week of a high-profile commander.
At least one person who had an anti-ICE message on clothing was handcuffed while face-down on the ground. An Associated Press photographer witnessed the arrests.
Meanwhile, Tuesday was the deadline for the Minnesota governor, state attorney general and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul to produce documents to a federal grand jury in response to a Justice Department request for records of any effort to stifle the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Officials have denounced it as a bullying tactic.
Federal agents in the Twin Cities lately have been conducting more targeted immigration arrests at homes and neighborhoods, rather than staging in parking lots. The convoys have been harder to find and less aggressive. Alerts in activist group chats have been more about sightings than immigration-related detainments.
Several cars followed officers through south Minneapolis after there were reports of them knocking at homes. Officers stopped their vehicles and ordered activists to come out of a car at gunpoint. Agents told reporters at the scene to stay back and threatened to use pepper spray.
There was no immediate response to a request for comment from the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
A federal judge last month put limits on how officers treat motorists who are following them but not obstructing their operations. Safely following agents “at an appropriate distance does not, by itself, create reasonable suspicion to justify a vehicle stop,” the judge said. An appeals court, however, set the order aside.
Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, who was leading an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and other big U.S. cities, left town last week, shortly after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, the second local killing of a U.S. citizen in January.
Trump administration border czar Tom Homan was dispatched to Minnesota instead. He warned that protesters could face consequences if they interfere with officers.
Grand jury seeks communications, records
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s office said it was complying with a grand jury subpoena requesting documents about the city’s response to Operation Metro Surge, but it released no other details.
“We have done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide, but when the federal government weaponizes the criminal justice system against political opponents, it’s important to stand up and fight back,” spokesperson Ally Peters said.
Other state and local offices run by Democrats were given similar requests. People familiar with the matter have told the AP that the subpoenas are related to an investigation into whether Minnesota officials obstructed enforcement through public statements.
No bond for man in Omar incident
Elsewhere, a man charged with squirting apple cider vinegar on Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar will remain in jail. U.S. Magistrate Judge David Schultz granted a federal prosecutor’s request to deny bond to Anthony Kazmierczak.
“We simply cannot have protesters and people — whatever side of the aisle they’re on — running up to representatives who are conducting official business, and holding town halls, and assaulting them,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Bejar said Tuesday.
Defense attorney John Fossum said the vinegar posed a low risk to Omar. He said Kazmierczak’s health problems weren’t being properly addressed in jail and that his release would be appropriate.
The Pentagon issued a warning late Monday to Scouting America, formerly known as the Boy Scouts, saying the organization risks losing its long-standing partnership with the U.S. military unless it rapidly implements “core value reforms.”
The public warning, delivered on social media by Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, comes just months before thousands of Scouts are expected in West Virginia for National Jamboree, a once-every-four-years camping summit that relies on hundreds of National Guard and active-duty service members for medical, security, and logistical support. A sudden loss of that support could jeopardize the youth gathering.
The organization has been in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s crosshairs for years, ever since the group allowed girls to join and in 2024 said it would rebrand as Scouting America to project its inclusiveness. Hegseth is an avowed critic of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and has worked aggressively during his tenure atop the Pentagon to purge what he calls “woke” programs — and people — from the institution.
The Pentagon in recent days had begun finalizing plans to end all support for the Scouts, seeking input from the National Guard and the military’s active-duty components on the potential impact of such a move, said multiple people familiar with a draft memo detailing the plans.
If Scouting America does not comply with Hegseth’s demands, which have not been made public, the group could also lose its access to military facilities — which would have a disproportionate impact on military children who participate in Scouting troops at U.S. bases overseas, people familiar with the matter said. Like some others interviewed for this report, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the Pentagon’s deliberations.
In his post to social media, Parnell said that after a review of the organization, the Pentagon is near a final agreement whereby it would continue supporting the organization because Scouting America has “firmly committed to a return to core principles.”
“Back to God and country — immediately!” Parnell wrote, assailing what he called Scouting America’s “unacceptable” decisions in recent years “that run counter to the values of this administration,” including “an embrace of DEI and other social justice, gender-fluid ideological stances.”
It was not immediately clear what changes the Scouts might agree to, including whether the organization would return to being for boys only. Neither the Pentagon nor Scouting America addressed questions seeking details on the scope of what it would require of the group.
“For nearly 116 years Scouting has stood as a cornerstone of American ideals, good citizenship, service and adventure for American youth. We are encouraged by tonight’s social media post by the Pentagon and we look forward to providing more details as we move ahead,” Scouting America said in a statement to the Washington Post late Monday.
Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said the Pentagon “would have more to announce soon.”
Scouts salute as they recite the Pledge of Allegiance during a 2005 National Jamboree in Bowling Green, Va.
Left uncertain is the fate of this year’s Jamboree, a massive 10-day summit scheduled for July and expected to draw more than 15,000 Scouts from throughout the country to West Virginia. In the past, upward of 500 National Guard personnel, military reservists, and active-duty service members have provided a range of equipment and logistical support for the event — all now in doubt if the organization does not meet the Pentagon’s demands.
“They are on the clock,” Parnell wrote on social media, “and we are watching.”
Scout troops spend years planning and raising money — through popcorn sales and other fundraisers — to travel to the Summit Bechtel Reserve for Jamboree. A spokesperson for Scouting America did not answer questions about what would happen to the summit if military support is pulled, saying in a statement that the West Virginia National Guard, which leads the Defense Department’s involvement in Jamboree, “has indicated that they are fully prepared to support” the event.
In a statement, the West Virginia National Guard said that “no official communication has been disseminated to us that would contradict or cease ongoing preparations” and that, for now, military officials are planning to support Jamboree.
Since becoming defense secretary a year ago, Hegseth has moved aggressively to purge the military of DEI programs and to fire senior leaders whom he accused of being overly focused on them. He pushed out transgender service members, too, referring to them as “dudes in dresses,” and directed the military’s service academies to get rid of books, student organizations, and courses that in his estimation were “woke.”
Threats to sever the Defense Department’s ties with the Scouts appear to be the latest evolution in this broader, highly politicized campaign.
NBC News and NPR have previously reported that the Pentagon was considering cutting ties with the Scouts. In November, when NPR disclosed the draft memo’s existence, Scouting America released a statement emphasizing that it has “always” been nonpartisan.
“Over more than a century,” it continues, “we’ve worked constructively with every U.S. presidential administration — Democratic and Republican — focusing on our common goal of building future leaders grounded in integrity, responsibility, and community service.”
A dissolution of the two entities’ partnership would end what for many decades has been a mutually beneficial relationship, as a significant portion of the nation’s military officers have Scouting backgrounds, according to the organization.
It would mark a shift for Hegseth’s boss, too. During his first term in office, in 2017, President Donald Trump appeared at Jamboree and told the thousands of assembled Scouts how proud he was to be there — and that 10 of his Cabinet members at the time had been Scouts.
“The Scouts,” Trump said at the time, “believe in putting America first.”
A year later, the organization began admitting girls.
The rebrand of Scouting America was announced in 2024, as the organization worked to move beyond decades of scandals involving sexual abuse allegations made by thousands of Scouts who say they were abused by Scout leaders or volunteers.
As a Fox News commentator then, Hegseth said allowing girls to join and then renaming the Scouts was “basically the end” of the group, and he blamed “the left” for the change.
“They didn’t want to improve it. They wanted to destroy it or dilute it into something that stood for nothing,” Hegseth said on Fox & Friends.
The Scouts’ interconnectedness with the military is reflected in Army and Air Force policy, which says that the services’ most junior enlisted members, known as an E-1, can be automatically bumped up to the next higher pay grade if they join having previously earned the rank of Eagle Scout. In the Navy, attaining Eagle Scout allows an enlisted member to jump from the rank of E-1 to E-3.
The Scouts have served as a sort of feeder program for the military’s service academies, too. According to Scouting magazine, in 2017 about 20% of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point had attained the rank of Eagle Scout. At the U.S. Naval Academy for the Class of 2020, about 17% of male midshipmen had participated in Scouting.
It was not immediately clear how many current cadets or midshipmen have Scouting backgrounds. Spokespeople for the academies referred questions to the Pentagon.
The relationship between Scouting and the Pentagon is codified in law, too. Title 10 Section 2554 of the U.S. Code authorizes the defense secretary to provide all the support the Scouts might need at Jamboree — such as cots, flags and refrigerators — to the extent that it “will not interfere with the requirements of military operations.” It also states that the Pentagon must seek a waiver from Congressif the military intends to cut its support, and explain why giving that assistance “would be detrimental to the national security of the United States.”
Spokespeople for the House and Senate Armed Services committees did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia carried out a major overnight attack on Ukraine in what President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday was a broken commitment to halt striking energy infrastructure as the countries prepared for more talks on ending Moscow’s 4-year-old full-scale invasion.
The bombardment included hundreds of drones and a record 32 ballistic missiles, wounding at least 10 people. It specifically took aim at the power grid, Zelensky said, as part of what Ukraine says is Moscow’s ongoing campaign to deny civilians light, heating and running water during the coldest winter in years.
“Taking advantage of the coldest days of winter to terrorize people is more important to Russia than diplomacy,” Zelensky said. Temperatures in Kyiv fell to minus minus 4 Fahrenheit during the night and stood at minus minus 3 F on Tuesday.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte visited Kyiv in a show of support. He said that the overnight strikes raise doubts about Moscow’s intentions on the eve of talks, calling them “a really bad signal.”
He added that it was clear that the attacks only strengthen Ukrainians’ resolve.
Officials have described recent talks between Moscow and Kyiv delegations as constructive. But after a year of efforts, the Trump administration is still searching for a breakthrough on key issues such as who keeps the Ukrainian land that Russia’s army has occupied, and a comprehensive settlement appears distant. The talks in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, are scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.
Zelensky said Ukraine is ready to discuss how to end the fighting. “But no one is going to surrender,” he said.
Dispute over power grid attacks
A Kremlin official said last week that Russia had agreed to halt strikes on Kyiv for a week until Feb. 1 because of the frigid temperatures, following a personal request from U.S. President Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, the bitter cold is continuing and so are Russia’s aerial attacks.
Zelensky, however, accused Russia of breaking its commitment to hold off its attacks on Ukraine’s energy assets, claiming the weeklong pause was due to come into force last Friday.
“We believe this Russian strike clearly violates what the American side discussed, and there must be consequences,” he said.
The bombardment of at least five regions of Ukraine comprised 450 long-range drones and 70 missiles, Ukrainian officials said.
Russian officials provided no immediate response to Zelenskyy’s comments.
Ukraine says Russia has tried to wear down Ukrainians’ appetite for the fight by creating hardship for the civilian population living in dark, freezing homes.
It has tried to wreck Ukraine’s electricity network, targeting substations, transformers, turbines and generators at power plants. Ukraine’s largest private power company, DTEK, said that the overnight attack hit its thermal power plants in the ninth major assault since October.
NATO show of support
Rutte addressed the Ukrainian parliament during his visit and said that countries in the military alliance “are ready to provide support quickly and consistently” as peace efforts drag on.
Since last summer, NATO members have provided 75% of all missiles, and 90% of those used for Ukraine’s air defense, under a financial arrangement whereby alliance countries buy American weapons to give to Ukraine, he said.
European countries, fearing Moscow’s ambitions, see their own future security as being on the line in Ukraine.
“Be assured that NATO stands with Ukraine and is ready to do so for years to come,” Rutte said. “Your security is our security. Your peace is our peace. And it must be lasting.”
Kyiv apartment blocks left without power
In Kyiv, officials said that five people were wounded in the strikes that damaged and set fire to residential buildings, a kindergarten and a gas station in various parts of the capital, according to the State Emergency Service.
By early morning, 1,170 apartment buildings in the capital were without heating, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. That set back desperate repair operations that had restored heat to all but 80 apartment buildings before the attack, he said.
Russia also struck Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, where injuries were reported, and the southern Odesa region.
The attack also damaged the Hall of Fame at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, in Kyiv, Ukrainian Culture Minister Tetiana Berezhna said.
“It is symbolic and cynical at the same time: The aggressor state strikes a place of memory about the fight against aggression in the 20th century, repeating crimes in the 21st,” Berezhna said.
NEW YORK — Chuck Negron, a founding member of the soul-rock sensations Three Dog Night who sang lead on such hits as “One” and “Just an Old Fashioned Love Song“ and hollered the immortal opening line “Jeremiah was a bullfrog!” on the chart-topping “Joy to the World,” died Monday. He was 83.
He died of complications from heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at his home in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles, according to publicist Zach Farnum.
Mr. Negron and fellow vocalists Cory Wells and Danny Hutton were Los Angeles-based performers who began working together in the mid-1960s, originally called themselves Redwood and settled on Three Dog Night, Australian slang for frigid outback weather. Between 1969 and 1974, they were among the world’s most successful acts, with 18 top 20 singles and 12 albums certified gold for selling at least 500,000 copies.
The group contributed little of its own material, but proved uniquely adept at interpreting others, reworking songs by such rising stars of the time as Randy Newman (“Mama Told Me Not to Come”), Paul Williams (“Just an Old-Fashioned Love Song”), and Laura Nyro (“Eli’s Coming”). No matter the originator, the sound was unmistakably Three Dog Night: The trio of stars worked themselves into a raved-up, free-for-all passion, as if each singer were attempting to vault in front of the others. “The Kings of Oversing,” the Village Voice would call them.
Three Dog Night was so popular, and so in demand, it released four albums within 18 months. In December 1972, the band hosted and performed on the inaugural edition of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.
“We were really on a roll and very prolific,” Mr. Negron told smashinginterviews.com in 2013. “We were in the zone so to speak and really putting it out there. Back then, I don’t think it hurt us. It started hurting a little after that when there was just too much product. We were going to towns too many times a year. I remember getting off a plane in Dallas and thinking, ‘Wait a second. Weren’t we just here?’ Just thinking, ‘Oh, God, how are we going to sell out?’”
Well, hello Jeremiah
Mr. Negron himself stood out for his drooping mustache, in contrast to his clean-shaven peers, and for his multioctave tenor. He helped transform “One,” a Harry Nilsson ballad, from a breakup song to a cry of helpless solitude. And he helped convince Wells and Hutton not to pass on what became their most famous song.
“Joy to the World,” written by Hoyt Axton, shared the title and little else with the 18th century English hymn. Axton’s novelty anthem was a secular blessing — “Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me” — with carefree asides about women, rainbow-riding, and the friendship of a wine-guzzling bullfrog named Jeremiah. According to Mr. Negron, the other singers had twice turned down “Joy to the World” in his absence before Axton played him a demo.
“When he started, I liked it immediately. I thought we could have some fun with it,” Mr. Negron told forbes.com in 2022. “We had some free time later, so we started jamming ‘Joy’ for fun. We didn’t have to be so cool all of the time, right? That opening line had to be screamed. Did that guy just say, ‘Jeremiah was a bullfrog’? I got up the scale to D, which is pretty high, and just screamed it out. When the band heard that, they went, ‘Holy crap, that’s great.‘”
No one seemed to care what “Jeremiah was a bullfrog!” was supposed to mean; it became a catchphrase of the era. “Joy to the World” outsold all other songs in 1971, received two Grammy nominations and lived on through oldies radio stations and movie soundtracks, notably for The Big Chill and Forrest Gump. The song caught on so fast, and for so long, that Three Dog Night performed it at back-to-back Grammy ceremonies.
Their other hits included “Black and White,” “Celebrate,” “Shambala,” and “Easy to Be Hard.” But by the mid-1970s, the band was burned out, feuding and self-destructing. They broke up in 1976, attempted the occasional reunion and settled in as an oldies act, with Hutton the only remaining original singer. Wells died in 2015, while Mr. Negron had dropped out for good in the mid-1980s, when his drug problems led to his being fired.
Mr. Negron would call his memoir, published in 1998 and reissued 20 years later, Three Dog Nightmare. Chapter titles included “Making Millions and Stoned All the Time” and “Threw Up My Guts and Loved It.”
After decades of estrangement between him and Hutton, the two men reconciled last year.
Mr. Negron was married four times, most recently to his manager, Ami Albea Negron, and he is survived by five children His previous wives include Julie Densmore, former wife of drummer John Densmore of the Doors.
Surviving a rock star’s life
Born Charles Negron II in 1942, he was a New York City native who was still a toddler when his parents broke up: For a time, Negron lived in a foster home because his mother couldn’t afford to raise him and his twin sister, Nancy. He initially dreamed of playing basketball, but his life changed in adolescence when his best friend convinced him to try singing. He won a school talent show, and was soon singing professionally, at the Apollo and other venues around New York.
After graduating from Hancock, a junior college in Santa Maria, Calif., Mr. Negron performed in clubs in Los Angeles and met Wells and Hutton, whose friends included Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. They nearly signed with the Beach Boys’ Brothers Records before Wilson’s band mates, worried that their leader was using up his talents elsewhere, intervened. Mr. Negron, Wells and Hutton ended up at ABC-Dunhill, and recruited a backing band, including Floyd Sneed on drums, Joe Schermie on bass and Jimmy Greenspoon on keyboards.
In his post-Three Dog Night years, Mr. Negron released several solo albums, including Joy to the World and Long Road Back, a companion to his memoir, and otherwise dedicated himself to helping others struggling with substance abuse. Before cleaning up in the 1990s — Sept. 17, 1991 — he had been so addicted to heroin and other drugs that he nearly died numerous times, lost his family and all of his money and descended from a luxurious villa in Hollywood Hills to sleeping on a mattress in a vacant lot.
“That’s what drugs do. I don’t care if it gives you a hit song. What does it matter?” he told smashinginterviews.com. “The point is not if it helps you create, the point is it kills you! Are you willing to die because you wanted to try drugs to try a new experience? That’s the question. I’m in a town here where there are many who ain’t the same and never will be.”
