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Charles Barkley says he will not retire and remain with TNT Sports even if they don't have the NBA

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Charles Barkley says he will not retire and remain with TNT Sports even if they don't have the NBA
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Charles Barkley says he will not retire and remain with TNT Sports even if they don't have the NBA

2024-08-07 01:20 Last Updated At:01:30

Charles Barkley intends to remain with TNT Sports through the remainder of his contract.

The Hall of Fame player announced Tuesday that he will not retire next season, reversing the announcement he made in June during the NBA Finals.

Barkley said at the time that the 2024-25 season would be his last on television, no matter what eventually happened with the NBA's media deal negotiations. He signed a 10-year contract extension with TNT Sports in 2022.

Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of TNT Sports, has sued the NBA in New York state court after the league did not accept the company’s matching offer for one of the packages in its new 11-year media rights deal, which will begin with the 2025-26 season.

“I love my TNT Sports family. My (number one) 1 priority has been and always will be our people and keeping everyone together for as long as possible. We have the most amazing people, and they are the best at what they do. I’m looking forward to continuing to work with them both on the shows we currently have and new ones we develop together in the future. This is the only place for me," Barkley said in a statement. "I have to say ... I’ve been impressed by the leadership team who is fighting hard and have been aggressive in adding new properties to TNT Sports, which I am very excited about. I appreciate them and all of my colleagues for their continued support, and most importantly our fans. I’m going to give my all as we keep them entertained for years to come.”

ESPN/ABC, NBC and Amazon Prime Video were expected to try to court Barkley before Tuesday's announcement. “Inside the NBA” host Ernie Johnson has also said he intends to remain with TNT but the futures of Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith remain uncertain.

Barkley joined TNT in 2000 and has been a part of the iconic “Inside the NBA” show, which has won 21 Sports Emmy Awards and has been a model for studio shows. Barkley took home his fifth Sports Emmy for Outstanding Studio Analyst in May.

What Barkley's future looks like if TNT does not have the NBA remains to be seen. Turner has had an NBA package since 1984 and games have been on TNT since the network launched in 1988.

However, the relationship started to become strained when Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said during an RBC Investor Conference in November 2022 that Turner and WBD “don’t have to have the NBA.”

TNT Sports also carries the NHL and NCAA men's basketball tournament with CBS. It recently has added the College Football Playoffs, Big East basketball, NASCAR and the French Open.

“Charles is one of the best and most beloved sportscasters in the history of television. I know I speak for all the members of the TNT Sports family when I say we are incredibly thrilled to share this mutual commitment to continue showcasing Charles’ one-of-a-kind talents and entertain fans well into the future," TNT Sports Chairman and CEO Luis Silberwasser said in a statement. "We continue to add to the breadth and depth of our sports portfolio and it’s fantastic to have Charles for this journey as we develop new content ideas and shows for our fans.”

Barkley was the co-host of “King Charles,” a weekly talk show on CNN with “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King. But the limited-run series ended in April after six months.

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

FILE - Charles Barkley arrives at the NBA Awards on June 24, 2019, at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, Calif. . (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Charles Barkley arrives at the NBA Awards on June 24, 2019, at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, Calif. . (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

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The Latest: Trump administration cancels refugee resettlement, stranding thousands

2025-01-23 01:18 Last Updated At:01:20

Donald Trump is remaking the traditional boundaries of Washington, unleashing unprecedented executive orders and daring anyone to stop him.

Here's the latest:

The Trump administration has put a freeze on many federal health agency communications with the public through at least the end of the month.

In a memo obtained by The Associated Press, acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Dorothy Fink told agency staff leaders Tuesday that an “immediate pause” had been ordered on — among other things — regulations, guidance, announcements, press releases, social media posts and website posts until such communications had been approved by a political appointee.

The pause also applies to anything intended to be published in the Federal Register, where the executive branch communicates rules and regulations, and the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientific publication.

▶ Read more about federal health agency communications

President Donald Trump ’s national security adviser is sidelining roughly 160 career government employees on temporary duty at the White House National Security Council, telling them to work from home for the time-being as the administration reviews staffing for the White House arm that provides national security and foreign policy advice to the president, Trump administration officials told The Associated Press.

The career employees, commonly referred to as detailees, were summoned Wednesday to an all-staff meeting in they which were to be told they’ll be expected to be available to the NSC’s senior directors but would not need to report to the White House, the officials said.

Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz had signaled before Inauguration Day that he would look to move holdover civil servants that served in the NSC during President Joe Biden’s administration back to their home agencies. The move is meant to ensure the council is staffed by those who support Trump’s agenda.

▶ Read more about the National Security Council

Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette D. Clarke said President Donald Trump promised to try to lower costs and improve the economy for all communities.

“Instead of working to create economic opportunities that will allow Americans to get ahead, build generational wealth and achieve the American dream, President Trump on day one of his administration signed an executive order to systematically dismantle all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives within the federal government,” she said in a statement.

Clarke added that MAGA Republicans had set their sights on “cutting off access to economic opportunity for Black and minority communities in the federal government, on college campuses and in corporate America” since the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision that said race could not be a factor in college admissions.

She called the executive order “nothing short of an attempt to take our country backward.”

Trump is heading back to Florida next week to speak at a private retreat for House Republicans.

Republicans are gathering for their annual conference retreat in Doral where Trump has a resort.

House Speaker Mike Johnson says Trump will come to speak to the lawmakers as they plan priorities on taxes, spending cuts and others.

Trump pardoned and commuted the sentences of some 1,500 people in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol siege.

“The president’s made his decision — I don’t second guess those,” Johnson said at a Wednesday news conference.

Rhode Island Democrat Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, said new allegations of drunkenness and potential violent behavior by Trump Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth toward his second wife Samantha Hegseth should be disqualifying. And he called into question the thoroughness of the FBI’s background check into Hegseth’s past.

The allegations — including one that Hegseth was drunk in public in uniform at a Minneapolis strip club during a former drill weekend — were part of a signed affidavit by Hegseth’s former sister-in-law, Danielle Hegseth, that detailed many encounters she said she had with the nominee that left her deeply concerned.

Those also included that Samantha Hegseth had a “safe word” she communicated in 2015 or 2016 to Danielle Hegseth that indicated she needed help to get away from her husband. Hegseth’s full Senate confirmation vote could come in a matter of days.

Hegseth, through his attorney, has denied the allegations.

Refugees who had been approved to travel to the United States before a Jan. 27 deadline suspending America’s refugee resettlement program have had their travel plans canceled by the Trump administration.

Thousands of refugees are now stranded at various locations around the globe.

The suspension was in an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Monday. It left open the possibility that people who had undergone the lengthy process to be approved as refugees and permitted to come to the U.S., and had flights booked before that deadline, might still be able to get in under the wire.

But in an email reviewed Wednesday by The Associated Press, the U.S. agency overseeing refugee processing and arrival told staff and stakeholders that “refugee arrival to the United States have been suspended until further notice.”

▶ Read more about the refugee resettlement program

Within hours of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the new administration took down the Spanish-language version of the official White House website.

The site — currently https://www.whitehouse.gov/es/ — now gives users an “Error 404” message. It also included a “Go Home” button that directed viewers to a page featuring a video montage of Trump in his first term and on the campaign trail. The button was later updated to read “Go To Home Page”.

Hispanic advocacy groups and others expressed confusion at the abrupt change and frustration at what some called the administration’s lack of efforts to maintain communication with the Latino community, which helped propel him to the presidency.

The Spanish profile of the White House’s X account, @LaCasaBlanca, and the government page on reproductive freedom also were disbanded.

▶ Read more about the White House Spanish-language page

That wobbly faith in the criminal justice system under Trump’s watch appears to mirror the American public’s perspective.

About half of Americans are “not very” or “not at all” confident that the Justice Department, the FBI or the Supreme Court will act in a fair and nonpartisan manner during Trump’s second term. In each instance, roughly 3 in 10 are “somewhat” confident and about 2 in 10 are “extremely” or “very” confident, according to an AP-NORC poll from January.

A day that began with the outgoing president’s pardon of lawmakers and his own family ended with the incoming president’s pardon of supporters who violently stormed the U.S. Capitol four years ago.

The clemency grants by Biden and Trump are vastly different in scope, impact and their meaning for the rule of law.

But the remarkable flex of executive authority in a 12-hour span also shows the men’s deeply rooted suspicion of one another, with both signaling to their supporters that the tall pillars of the criminal justice system — facts, evidence and law — could not be trusted as foundational principles in each other’s administrations.

Russell Vought, nominated to lead the Office of Management and Budget, is scheduled for a hearing before the Budget Committee at 10 a.m. ET.

Vought was OMB director during Trump’s first term. He already had a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Vought was closely involved with Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for Trump’s second term that the Republican nominee tried to distance himself from during the campaign. The budget director oversees the building of the president’s budget and reviews proposed regulations.

“The Panama Canal belongs to Panama and will continue to belong to Panama. The Panama Canal is not a concession or a gift from the United States,” José Raul Mulino said Wednesday while appearing on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The Panama Canal came into being in 1914, following a bilateral treaty in 1903. At the dawn of our independence with Colombia.”

Trump falsely claimed during his inaugural address that China runs the canal, a critical trade route. He said the U.S. “gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”

Mulino said Trump’s “misinformed” remarks don’t worry him because “that in strict law is an impossibility.”

“Panama is not distracted by this type of pronouncements,” he said.

The Justice Department is directing its federal prosecutors to investigate any state or local officials who stand in the way of beefed-up enforcement of immigration laws under the Trump administration, according to a memo to the entire workforce obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Written by Emil Bove, the acting deputy attorney general, the memo also says the department will return to the principle of charging defendants with the most serious crime it can prove, a staple position of Republican-led departments meant to remove a prosecutor’s discretion to charge a lower-level offense.

Much of the memo is centered on immigration enforcement. Bove wrote that prosecutors shall “take all steps necessary to protect the public and secure the American border by removing illegal aliens from the country and prosecuting illegal aliens for crimes” committed in U.S. jurisdiction.

▶ Read more about the Justice Department and immigration enforcement

The Right Rev. Mariann Budde asked President Trump during her sermon Tuesday to have mercy on the LGBTQ+ community and migrants here illegally. Trump has promised mass deportations of undocumented migrants. And he’s signed an executive order recognizing only two sexes, male and female.

In an angry overnight post on his social media site, Trump sharply criticized Budde as a “so-called Bishop” who’s a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater.” Trump said she was “nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.” He said she and her church “owe the public an apology.

Many U.S. adults are on board with the idea of beefing up security at the southern border and undertaking some targeted deportations, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. But findings also suggest his actions may quickly push the country beyond its limited consensus on the issue.

Half of U.S. adults think increasing security at the border should be a high priority for the federal government, according to the poll, and about 3 in 10 say it should be a moderate priority. Just 2 in 10, roughly, consider it a low priority.

President Donald Trump is swiftly breaching the traditional boundaries of presidential power, bringing to bear a lifetime of bending the limits in courthouses, boardrooms and politics to forge an expansive view of his authority.

He’s already unleashed an unprecedented wave of executive orders, with actions intended to clamp down on border crossings, limit the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship and keep the popular Chinese-owned TikTok operational despite a law shutting down the social media platform.

Trump is drafting a new blueprint for the presidency, one that demonstrates the primacy of blunt force in a democratic system predicated on checks and balances between the branches of government.

▶ Read more about Trump’s first days in office

President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

FILE - Then Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference on July 27, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)

FILE - Then Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference on July 27, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)

President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

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