KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Maya Moore and Seimone Augustus gave the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony a huge Minnesota feel.
Moore and Augustus helped the Lynx win four WNBA championships in their time with the team.
“I’m hard pressed to think of another dynasty that had a better combination of talent, character, and visible chemistry on the court and the league’s teams that I played for,” Moore said Saturday night.
Augustus, who peppered her speech with a lot of humor, put it simply: “We like to win and win a lot.”
The pair also led the U.S. to Olympic gold medals in 2012 and 2016, while Augustus was also part of the 2008 team.
Other inductees included former players Taj McWilliams-Franklin, who played her final two years with the Lynx, and Rita Gail Easterling; former official Violet Palmer, the first woman to referee an NBA game; and coaches Sue Phillips and Roonie Scovel.
The Hall of Fame also recognized Cheyney University — formerly Cheyney State — as its recipient of the “Trailblazer of the Game.” The team, coached by former Iowa and Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringe r, was the first and only HBCU to reach the championship game of the NCAA Tournament, doing so in 1982.
Former player Valerie Walker asked why it took so long for the team to get recognized.
“We are very thankful, but 42 years?” she said.
She brought up the shirts sold at that Final Four only had three teams on them and didn't mention Cheyney State.
“When you want to really understand and know about the history of women’s NCAA championships, you have to go back to the first year," Walker said.
The Afghan Resettlement Program received the “For the Love of the Game” award.
Moore officially retired from playing basketball in January — five years after she played her last game with the Lynx. In between her last game and her retirement announcement, Moore helped her now-husband Jonathan Irons win his release from prison by getting his 50-year sentence overturned in 2020.
She went 150-4 in her career at UConn. The two-time AP Player of the Year and four-time All-American was a key part of the Huskies’ 90-game winning streak that was the longest ever until the school had a 111-game run a few years later.
Augustus was drafted first by the Lynx in 2006 after winning back-to-back AP Player of the Year awards while starring at LSU. She led the Tigers to the Final Four from 2004-06.
McWilliams-Franklin played on the 2011 Lynx team with Moore and Augustus. She also previously had won WNBA titles with the Detroit Shock in 2006 and ’08.
Easterling played for Mississippi College from 1973-77, helping the team make the 1974 AIAW national championship game. She had a short career as well in the Women’s Professional Basketball League, a precursor to the WNBA.
Phillips had a 761-165 record as a high school coach at Archbishop Mitty High in California. She was a major part of USA Basketball, coaching many of the youth teams that won gold medals.
Scovel won six junior college national titles as coach of Gulf Coast State College in Florida. She went 646-91.
Palmer officiated at nearly ever level, including the NBA, WNBA and women’s college basketball. She made history in 1997 when she became the first female to officiate an NBA game.
It was the 25th anniversary of the Hall of Fame.
AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball
FILE - Minnesota Lynx guard Seimone Augustus (33) and forward Maya Moore (23) embrace after Game 5 of the team's WNBA Finals against the Los Angeles Sparks, Oct. 4, 2017 in Minneapolis. The Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame had a huge Minnesota feel to it with the induction of Moore and Augustus getting enshrined on Saturday, April 25, 2024. (Aaron Lavinsky/Star Tribune via AP, File)
The Israeli military is fighting Palestinian militants in Rafah while ordering the population to evacuate from some parts of the southern Gaza city. Israeli forces are also battling militants in northern Gaza in Zeitoun and the urban Jabaliya refugee camp, areas where the army had launched major operations earlier in the war.
The United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees said 360,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah over the past week, out of 1.3 million who were sheltering there before the operation began. Aid workers are struggling to distribute dwindling food and other supplies to displaced Palestinians.
No food has entered the two main border crossings in southern Gaza for the past week. The Rafah crossing into Egypt has been closed since Israeli troops seized it a week ago. Fighting in Rafah has made it impossible for aid groups to access the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel, although Israel says it is allowing supply trucks to enter from its side.
Some 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza face catastrophic levels of hunger, on the brink of starvation, and a “full-blown famine” is taking place in the north, according to the U.N. The death toll from the war in Gaza has soared to more than 35,000 people, most of them women and children, according to local health officials.
The war began Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250 others. Israel says militants still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
Currently:
— Israel moves deeper into Rafah and fights Hamas militants regrouping in northern Gaza.
— Blinken delivers some of the U.S.'s strongest public criticism yet of Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza.
— U.K. foreign secretary David Cameron says halting arms sales to Israel would only strengthen Hamas.
— With the shock of Oct. 7 still raw, sadness and anger grip Israel on its Memorial Day.
— Pro-Palestinian protests dwindle on U.S. campuses, as some college graduations are marked by defiant acts.
Here's the latest:
NICOSIA, Cyprus — Humanitarian aid could start entering Gaza in the next few days through a long-promised floating pier built by the U.S. military after delays caused by bad weather, according to officials in the U.S. and Cyprus.
Improved sea conditions will allow the U.S. Army to anchor a causeway onto the beach this week, Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said Monday. The work could be finished Wednesday or Thursday, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public.
At a news conference, Cyprus' Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said he hopes aid could start flowing into Gaza through the sea corridor this week. “All these issues will be basically resolved in the next few days,” he said.
The plan is for aid ships to travel from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus to the floating pier near Gaza, where the cargo will be loaded into smaller U.S. Army boats that go to the causeway onshore. Trucks driven by contractors who are not from the U.S. will drive off the Army boats onto the causeway and down to the beach.
The U.S. ship Sagamore is in waters off Gaza, where U.S. officials said it would transfer some 475 pallets of food to another ship until the causeway is in place.
The Gaza pier project is expected to cost around $320 million. No food has entered the two main land crossings into southern Gaza for the past week, as the Israeli military intensified its bombardment and other operations in Rafah.
Almost the entire population of Gaza relies on humanitarian aid to survive. Israeli restrictions and ongoing fighting have hindered humanitarian efforts, causing widespread hunger and a “full-blown famine” in the north, according to the U.N.
Jordan, the United States and other nations began airdropping aid into Gaza earlier this year, but aid agencies describe that as a costly, last-ditch effort that cannot meet mounting needs.
Associated Press writers Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia and Tara Copp in Washington contributed to this report.
UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations says a clearly marked U.N. convoy has been attacked in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, killing a U.N. international security staff member and lightly wounding another.
U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the staff member who died in the attack Monday morning was the first U.N. international staff member killed since Israel's war in Gaza began on Oct. 7.
Around 190 U.N. staff members have been killed in the war, all Palestinian nationals working mainly for the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA, Haq said.
Haq said the U.N. staffers, whose nationalities were not disclosed, were in a U.N.-marked vehicle in a convoy that was struck as it traveled to the European Hospital in Rafah.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “condemns all attacks on U.N. personnel and calls for a full investigation,” the spokesman said.
The U.N. chief said the seven-month war has not only taken a heavy toll on civilians but all on humanitarian workers and reiterated his urgent appeal for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire and release of all hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7, Haq said.
JERUSALEM — Israeli media are reporting that dozens of protesters opposed to sending humanitarian aid to Gaza have blocked trucks heading toward the territory, destroying some of the aid.
Videos online showed protesters tearing through boxes of aid and throwing them to the ground at a crossing between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Israel. The aid trucks originated in Jordan and were making their way toward Gaza.
Israeli police said a number of people were arrested, without elaborating.
Over the past week, activists with the Tzav 9 organization have blocked trucks that arrived from Jordan bound for Gaza in a number of locations across Israel, snarling traffic in a number of protests. All of the trucks eventually reached the Gaza border.
This is one of the first documented incidents of protesters destroying aid destined for Gaza. The protesters say they are trying to prevent aid from reaching the militant group Hamas. Since Israel launched an operation in Rafah, limited aid has entered Gaza.
COGAT, the branch of the Israeli military responsible for Palestinian civil affairs, says the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing is open. But aid groups say the Gaza side of the crossing is inaccessible because of the fighting and that no aid has entered for the last week.
COGAT said a total of 64 trucks entered Gaza on Sunday, down from more than 250 per day in April.
BEIRUT — Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed that the Lebanese militant group will keep fighting the Israeli military on the Lebanon-Israel border in order to support its Palestinian ally Hamas in Gaza.
In a televised speech Monday, Nasrallah said militant activity from Hamas’ allies in Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon — all of which are backed by Iran — have pressured Israel’s military during its war in Gaza.
Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire on a near-daily basis along the border since the war in Gaza started seven months ago. Tens of thousands are displaced along the border in both countries.
“We tell the (Israeli) settlers of the north: ‘Go to your government and tell them to stop the war on Gaza,’” Nasrallah said, adding that Israel is now at a “dead end” in their operation in Rafah, as they struggle to dismantle Hamas despite months of bombarding the tiny Palestinian enclave.
He dismissed statements from Israeli officials promising all-out war on Lebanon, and maintained that Hezbollah’s goal is to “put pressure to stop the war in Gaza.”
Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire on a near-daily basis along the border since the war in Gaza started seven months ago. Tens of thousands are displaced on each side of the border.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 350 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters with Hezbollah and allied groups but also including more than 50 civilians. In Israel, strikes from Lebanon have killed at least 10 civilians and 12 soldiers.
JERUSALEM — During Israel’s Memorial Day speech by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one spectator waved a flag with “7.10” in red, the date of Hamas’ deadly attack last October, while another heckled the Israeli leader.
The usually somber event has been compounded by the sadness and simmering public anger over the failures of Oct. 7, when Hamas fighters from Gaza broke into southern Israel and killed 1, 200 people, mostly Israelis, the act that sparked the war.
“We are constantly working to bring everyone back, the living and the fallen alike, to bring everyone back home. We have already returned about half of them, and we will return them all,” Netanyahu said.
Shortly after finishing his speech at Mount Herzl cemetery a man in the crowd was heard shouting “garbage” in Hebrew in the direction of the Israeli leader.
Thousands of Israelis have been rallying every week in the coastal city of Tel Aviv, calling for Netanyahu to step down.
Many believe he should be doing more to secure the release of dozens of hostages captured by Hamas.
Netanyahu has rejected Hamas’ demand for an end to the war, saying it would allow the group to remain in control of Gaza and eventually launch another Oct. 7-style attack.
CAIRO — U.N. officials say 360,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah in the past week amid Israel’s intensified assault on the southern Gaza city, and aid agencies are rushing to distribute dwindling food supplies to the newly displaced people.
Abeer Etefa, a spokesperson for the U.N.’s World Food Program, said Monday that 38 trucks of flour had arrived through the Western Erez Crossing, the second access point now operating to the largely devastated northern sector of the Gaza Strip. But no food has entered the two main crossings in southern Gaza for the past week.
The Rafah crossing into Egypt has been closed since Israeli troops seized it a week ago, while fighting in Rafah city has made it impossible for aid groups to access the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel.
The main U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said Monday that so far 360,000 people have fled Rafah, where some 1.3 million Palestinians had been crowded for weeks after fleeing Israel’s onslaught elsewhere in the Gaza Strip.
Etefa said WFP is distributing food from its remaining stocks in the areas of Khan Younis and Deir Balah further north to which many of those escaping Rafah have fled but that the situation is becoming “increasingly unsustainable.”
Almost the entire population of Gaza relies on humanitarian groups’ distribution of food and other supplies to survive. Amid Israeli restrictions and obstacles to aid distribution from violence, some 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza face catastrophic levels of hunger, on the brink of starvation, and a “full-blown famine” is taking place in the north, according to the U.N.
JERUSALEM — Israel’s military said Monday that four of its troops were injured in missile fire from southern Lebanon, as cross-border exchanges of fire with Hezbollah militants continue.
Hezbollah acknowledged the strike, saying its forces struck and destroyed an Israeli tank in the Yitfah area, northern Israel, around a kilometer from the Lebanese border.
The Israeli army said one of the soldiers was moderately injured, and all were taken to hospital. No further information was immediately available.
Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire on a near-daily basis along the border since the start of the war in Gaza seven months ago.
The Shiite force, which controls vast swathes of southern Lebanon, says it is acting in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose deadly Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel triggered the war.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 350 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters with Hezbollah and allied groups but also including more than 50 civilians. In Israel, strikes from Lebanon have killed at least 10 civilians and 12 soldiers.
JERUSALEM — Israel’s leaders commemorated Memorial Day on Monday, honoring the country’s fallen soldiers and those killed in attacks on a holiday that was almost entirely absorbed by the ongoing war in Gaza.
The usually somber calendar event has been compounded by the sadness and simmering public anger over the failures of Oct. 7, when Hamas fighters from Gaza broke into southern Israel and killed 1,200 people, mostly Israelis, the act that sparked the war. The holiday began Sunday evening and lasts until nightfall on Monday.
During the day’s opening ceremony at Mount Herzl cemetery on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed once again to defeat Hamas, a promise he has made repeatedly during Israel’s brutal seven month war with the militant group.
“We are determined to win this struggle, we exacted and will exact a high price from the enemy for their criminal acts, we will realize the goals of victory and at the center of them the return of all our hostages home,” Netanyahu said from the podium.
Israel responded to Hamas’ deadly October assault by bombarding and invading Gaza, killing over 35,000 Palestinians from the enclave according to the Hamas-run health Ministry. More than 600 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the war erupted.
Among the other attendees at Mount Herzl was the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog.
At 11:00 A.M. on Monday, sirens announced two minutes of silence, and a formation of four fighter planes then flew over Jerusalem and the surrounding areas.
Smoke rises to the sky after an explosion in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Monday, May 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Backdropped by smoke rising to the sky after an explosion in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli tank stands near the Israel-Gaza border as seen from southern Israel, Monday, May 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Smoke rises following an Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Monday, May 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from southern Israel towards the Gaza Strip, in a position near the Israel-Gaza border, Monday, May 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Backdropped by smoke rising to the sky after an explosion in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli tank stands near the Israel-Gaza border as seen from southern Israel, Monday, May 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi, front left, listens to a message during a ceremony marking Memorial Day for fallen soldiers of Israel's wars and victims of attacks at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl military cemetery Monday, May 13, 2024. (Gil Cohen-Magen/Pool Photo via AP)
Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi attends a ceremony marking Memorial Day for fallen soldiers of Israel's wars and victims of attacks at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl military cemetery Monday, May 13, 2024. (Gil Cohen-Magen/Pool Photo via AP)
An Israeli soldier knees next to the national flag during the celebrations of the Israel's annual Memorial Day for the fallen soldiers at the site where revelers were killed and kidnapped on Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas militants at the Nova music festival near the kibbutz Reim, southern Israel, Monday, May 13, 2024. Israel marks the annual Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of nationalistic attacks. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
An Israeli soldier stands still to observe two minutes of silence as air raid sirens sound marking the Israel's annual Memorial Day for the fallen soldiers, at the site where revellers were killed and kidnapped on Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas militants at the Nova music festival near the kibbutz Reim, southern Israel, Monday, May 13, 2024. Israel marks the annual Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of nationalistic attacks. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Israelis observe two minutes of silence as air raid sirens sound to mark Israel's annual Memorial Day for the fallen soldiers who died in the nation's conflicts and victims of nationalistic attacks at the Armored Corps memorial site in Latrun, Israel, Monday, May 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip walk through a makeshift tent camp in Deir al Balah, Gaza, Sunday, May 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardments of the Gaza Strip in front of the morgue of the Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on Sunday, May 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardments of the Gaza Strip in front of the morgue of the Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on Sunday, May 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardments of the Gaza Strip in front of the morgue of the Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on Sunday, May 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a ceremony marking Memorial Day for fallen soldiers of Israel's wars and victims of attacks at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl military cemetery Monday, May 13, 2024. (Gil Cohen-Magen/Pool Photo via AP)
People pray during celebrations for the Israel's annual Memorial Day for the fallen soldiers, at the site where revellers were killed and kidnapped on Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas militants at the Nova music festival near the kibbutz Reim, southern Israel, Monday, May 13, 2024. Israel marks the annual Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of nationalistic attacks. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
An Israeli soldier knees next to the national flag during the celebrations of the Israel's annual Memorial Day for the fallen soldiers at the site where revelers were killed and kidnapped on Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas militants at the Nova music festival near the kibbutz Reim, southern Israel, Monday, May 13, 2024. Israel marks the annual Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of nationalistic attacks. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
