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Day: April 3, 2026
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LAS VEGAS — In a 35-second span midway through the first half Wednesday night, with Baylor trailing Minnesota in the opening round of the College Basketball Crown, freshman guard Tounde Yessoufou authored an exhilarating sequence that encapsulated why so many NBA scouts and executives are awaiting his decision to turn pro or remain with the Bears for another season. The flurry began with Yessoufou peeling off his man defensively to snag a rebound following a missed 3-point shot by the Gophers. He dribbled across midcourt and dished to a teammate before settling into position near the free-throw line against the Minnesota zone. After ensuring the rest of Baylor’s players were properly aligned, Yessoufou popped out beyond the 3-point line, caught a pass, pump faked and glided into the lane for an acrobatic layup through contact, tying the game before landing painfully on the hardwood. Undeterred, Yessoufou hopped back up, grimacing and grasping at his left hip all the while. He retreated into a defensive position and tracked his man across the baseline to make a leaping block on an attempted 3-pointer, swatting the ball into the stands directly in front of the Baylor bench. His teammates rose from their seats to bellow, flex and roar. From that point on, the Bears never trailed in an eventual 67-48 win that propelled them into a semifinal matchup with Oklahoma on Saturday (1:30 pm ET on FOX). “It’s a blessing to play in April,” Baylor head coach Scott Drew told me after the game. “I know our guys are really excited. All of them took it real serious, obviously, and stayed in shape, worked out and wanted to come here and compete. I’m proud of how we fought the first game. And [I’m] also proud that everybody not only wanted to keep playing for Baylor University, but they wanted to split the [prize] money up and make it even and do it as a team. As a coach, you just love that.” Having his entire team buy into the postseason tournament here in Las Vegas was particularly meaningful for Drew after what can only be described as a disappointing regular season. Despite fielding an extremely talented roster that includes two potential first-round picks in Yessoufou (17.9 points per game) and fellow wing Cameron Carr (19 points per game), the Bears could only muster a 16-16 overall record entering the College Basketball Crown, sinking into a tie for 13th in the Big 12 standings. It would have been easy — and perhaps even understandable — for Drew’s future pros to simply wash their hands of Baylor’s downtrodden campaign after bowing out in the conference tournament, focusing instead on the pre-draft process and their impending decisions. Instead, both players have chosen to remain fully committed for however long the Bears’ season lasts. Yessoufou, who was battling sickness on Wednesday night, scored a team-high 19 points and grabbed seven rebounds against the Gophers. Carr, who turned an ankle early in the first half but still logged 37 minutes, added 15 points and a team-high nine rebounds. As a pair, Yessoufou and Carr form what is unquestionably the most talented duo remaining in this year’s field, and that alone gives Baylor an excellent chance to win it all. “I think it just speaks to their character,” Drew told me after Baylor’s win on Wednesday night. “Wanting to play for Baylor, wanting to have a chance to win a championship, that speaks volumes to them. I know everybody is entitled to their own decisions — and every situation is different — but I know we’re excited that they’re playing. “Tounde was under the weather. I mean, he could have said he wasn’t ready to play tonight. You saw that he loves to play, he loves to compete, loves to support his team and did a great job. Cam tweaked his ankle early and could have just sat it down. And he wanted to compete, wanted to play for his team. As a coach, you’re really proud of that.” Yessoufou is a complicated evaluation for NBA scouts and executives. A former five-star recruit in the 2025 cycle, he has an NBA-ready physique, despite being one month shy of his 20th birthday. The broad and brawny shoulders on his 6-foot-5, 215-pound frame give way to rippling biceps that are in keeping with Yessoufou’s bullying play style, muscling through defenders as an aggressive slasher. He ranks 13th among freshmen in the PRPG! metric on Torvik, which calculates how many points per game an individual contributes to his team beyond what a replacement-level player would provide. But Yessoufou doesn’t shoot the ball well enough from the perimeter (29.5% on 3s, 0-for-4 vs. Minnesota) to be viewed as a multidimensional scoring threat at this juncture in his career. And he’s not quite big enough to play either forward spot in the NBA. An argument can be made that Yessoufou could benefit significantly from another year in college dedicated to improving his 3-point shot. “Regardless of whatever the decision may be, whether it’s me going or not, I will always play,” Yessoufou told me when asked about his decision to participate in the College Basketball Crown. “I’m a competitive guy. I always want to compete at a high level. And if I have the chance to wear this jersey one more time, who knows, I’m willing to do it any time of day.” Carr, a redshirt sophomore, is viewed by most evaluators as having the higher NBA ceiling and a player likely to be selected in the low- to mid-20s should he choose to enter the draft. Listed at 6-foot-5 and 190 pounds, he possesses a massive wingspan that has been measured at greater than seven feet. When paired with his eye-catching, pogo-stick athleticism — evidenced by one high-flying alley-oop finish against the Gophers and an array of body-contorting finishes around the rim — it’s easy to appreciate his lofty potential. Originally a four-star prospect in the 2023 recruiting cycle, Carr spent his first two collegiate years in a reserve role at Tennessee. He made just 14 appearances as a true freshman and only four as a sophomore before leaving the Volunteers near the midway point of last season, ultimately landing at Baylor in time for the 2025-26 campaign. Carr’s production skyrocketed once he assumed a more prominent role for the Bears: He scored at least 20 points in 15 games this season and shot 38.5% from beyond the arc — all while grading out as Baylor’s best defender, according to EvanMiya.com. The argument for Carr to turn pro is far clearer. But first, Carr and Yessoufou are aiming to rewrite the end to Baylor’s season by hoisting the College Basketball Crown. Their decisions about whether to enter the NBA Draft can wait a while longer. “I really feel like the best impression is the last impression,” Baylor guard Obi Agbim told me after the win over Minnesota. “So just us leaving a really good last impression, I feel like it would mean a lot to us to be able to cut down a net and leave as winners instead of losers. I really think that’s a big emphasis for us to finish our season.” In Game Changers, we offer the playbook on the characters you need to know, on the court and off.Latest Sports News from FOX Sports
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Whole troll-caught Chinook salmon, also known as king salmon, is displayed on ice and offered for sale at Anchorage’s New Sagaya Midtown Market on June 23, 2023. The troll-caught fish, which are handled carefully to preserve quality, are prized in the market and fetch high prices. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Fishers in Southeast Alaska will be allowed to harvest 205,300 Chinook salmon this year, returning to a normal total after last year’s ultra-low harvest limit.
The Southeast Alaska Chinook harvest total, set in accordance with the U.S.-Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty, was announced this week by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
Last year’s Southeast Chinook catch limit of 133,500 fish was the lowest in any year since the Pacific Salmon Treaty went into effect in 1985, according to the department.
Chinook salmon, also known as king salmon, make up the smallest total harvest of Alaska’s five species of salmon. But they are also sold at a premium, usually fetching the highest market prices. Those that swim in Southeast Alaska waters are the subject of management from different jurisdictions in the U.S. and Canada, through the Pacific Salmon Treaty. The treaty is necessary because the fish are highly migratory and swim through and spawn in various locations, said Dani Evenson, Pacific Salmon Treaty and Arctic Policy Coordinator for the department’s Division of Commercial Fisheries.
“They kind of ignore things like international borders and jurisdictions, and they’re going to do what they do,” Evenson said. “And so we have this treaty where we share the burden of conservation, we share the available catch. And it’s a shared resource.”
Along with Alaska and the federal governments of the U.S. and Canada, participants in the treaty process include Washington state, Oregon, British Columbia, the Yukon Territory and tribal governments.
Southeast Chinook salmon are the only Alaska salmon for which a numerical harvest cap is set each year, Evenson said.
Alaska’s cap and those for the other jurisdictions covered by the treaty are the products of analysis conducted by regional panels and technical committees. Those panels and committees provide information to the bilateral Pacific Salmon Commission, the decision-making body under the treaty.
Last year’s record-low cap reflected what appeared to be poor conditions for the region’s highly prized Chinook. Evenson said the slashed harvest levels posed a hardship on some fishing dependent communities.
“Last year was terrible,” she said.
It turned out, as determined through post-season analysis, that last year’s harvest cap was overly conservative and that another 53,800 Chinook salmon could have been safely caught by Southeast Alaska fishers, she said.
Improvements in abundance and ocean conditions support this year’s increased catch limits, Evenson said. Nonetheless, the overall harvest limit is at a level considered “judicious,” in light of conservation challenges facing various Chinook stocks and the contention over harvest allocations.
“Chinook have been a flashpoint,” she said. “It seems prudent to approach more cautiously.”
As determined by the Alaska Board of Fisheries, most of this year’s Southeast Alaska Chinook catch – 146,000 fish, about three quarters of the total — is allocated to harvesters who use troll gear. Salmon trolling involves hooking individual fish, and those caught in that method fetch high prices because they can be iced quickly and handled carefully, thus maintaining high quality.
The next largest total, 43,600 fish, is allocated to sport anglers, according to the Board of Fisheries decision. The remainder of the Southeast Alaska Chinook harvest is allocated to fishers who use nets and are targeting other salmon species but catch some Chinooks incidentally.
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FRAUDTUITOUS: Gov. Kathy Hochul has spent the last four months beating the auto-insurance affordability drum and fighting the trial lawyers and unconvinced lawmakers who stand in her way.
She’s proposing limiting the ways car crash victims — especially those deemed at fault for the collision — can sue for damages, a move she says will cut the cost of auto insurance. She also wants to target insurance fraud and staged crashes.
It’s been a massive sticking point in negotiations to finish her now-late budget.
“If, God forbid, you are the majority reason that there’s an accident, you will no longer be entitled to pain and suffering,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie told reporters Wednesday. “That’s a pretty serious thing for people to accept. I mean, accidents do happen.”
But as Hochul hopes to draw the Assembly and Senate to her side, it just so happens that federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York dropped indictments this week targeting a close personal friend of former Mayor Eric Adams and alleging a massive car-crash-victim-fraud scheme.
Perfect! Timing!
“This alleged scheme is exactly the type of fraud Governor Hochul’s auto insurance reforms are designed to curb in New York State,” Hochul spokesperson Kristin Devoe told Playbook in a statement.
Her office is arguing that the scheme might never have happened had Hochul’s proposed changes been in place.
“The Governor’s proposals would strengthen enforcement, allow more time to investigate suspected fraudulent claims and crack down on the networks and providers that make this type of fraud possible in the first place,” Devoe said.
Our colleague Chris Sommerfeldt reported this morning that federal prosecutors dropped a superseding indictment Thursday in their fraud case against Zhan “Johnny” Petrosyants, the man who hobnobbed, dined and clubbed with Adams during his tenure, as Hizzoner tested New York City’s nightlife “product.” The superseder alleged businessmen Vladislav Stoyanovsky and Dmitriy Khavko participated in the scheme as well. All three men pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors claim the men had car crash victims in medical clinics undergo dubious procedures conducted by clinicians who were part of the scheme. The indictment also alleges the men behind the operation billed insurers for procedures that never happened.
Petrosyants, Stoyanovsky and Khavko then allegedly filed no-fault claims to the insurance companies, who, under state law, are required to pay out the claims in just 30 days. The scheme brought in tens of millions of dollars, prosecutors said.
Hochul’s office wants to change that. The governor says she’d give insurers more time to investigate whether a no-fault claim is fraudulent. Right now, if an insurer delays a payout, it can’t defend itself in court by saying it was busy investigating the claim. Insurers would still have to pay interest on delayed payouts. And if someone sues to force a reluctant insurer to pay up, the insurer would have to cover attorneys fees.
The cost of paying out bogus insurance claims is a main factor in the high cost of auto insurance in New York, contends Team Hochul. Last year, insurance carriers reported 43,811 incidents of suspected auto insurance fraud to regulators, an 80 percent jump compared to 2020.
The Trial Lawyers Association says Hochul’s proposals would give insurance companies more time to delay and deny claims.
“Stripping away consumer rights while insurers rake in record profit is a giveaway to the industry that leaves New Yorkers to pick up the tab,” association spokesperson Sabrina Rezzy said in a statement. — Jason Beeferman
From the Capitol
TIGHTENING ALBANY’S BELTWAY: The much-derided I-787 — an asphalt apron familiar to Capital Region drivers who commute downtown to the statehouse — is one step closer to a makeover.
Hochul announced Thursday the state is opening a community outreach center amid an environmental review focused on how to improve waterfront access. I-787 runs parallel to the Hudson River.
“Reimagining the I-787 corridor is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape the future of downtown Albany, so it is imperative that the people who live and work in the area have a major voice in how this project progresses,” Hochul said. — Nick Reisman
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
BLACKBURN’S BONDI PAST: In 2016, years before she became one of the Trump administration’s most prominent and polarizing officials, then-Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi had a young intern in her office named Conrad Blackburn.
That fact is now being seized on by Blackburn’s critics as he runs for a Harlem-based Assembly seat as a democratic socialist and unabashed enemy of Trump.
“It is unconscionable that Conrad Blackburn chose to work for Pam Bondi at the very moment she was leading the charge to keep more than a million Floridians, including one in five Black adults, permanently locked out of the voting booth,” Uptown Democratic Club President Donna-Marie Gibbons told Playbook, referencing Bondi’s effort to preserve a Florida law that made it difficult for felons to regain voting rights after serving time. “Anyone who signed up to work in that office while she was fighting to preserve this racist, Jim Crow-era machinery has questions to answer about their commitment to our community.”
Trump fired Bondi as his U.S. attorney general Thursday.
Blackburn, who grew up in Florida, said criticism of his stint with the attorney general there says more about his haters than it does about him.
He told Playbook he took the unpaid, two-month internship in Bondi’s criminal appeals bureau while in law school — and the experience drove him to become a public defender, a role he continues to serve in to this day.
“I did not need very long to say that the system was broken and I needed to spend my time working to protect Black folks from it, with actions, not just words,” Blackburn said.
“I am happy to debate my record on its merits,” he continued. “But harkening back to my days as a 1L, as a poor kid trying to work in the criminal appeals bureau of the Florida AG’s office as some kinda gotcha? That is everything wrong with politics now. If the powers that be in this district focused on the issues, they would have to explain the lack of meaningful change in the community…Heck, if the powers that be did their jobs, I may not be running in this race at all.”
Blackburn is facing off in June’s Democratic primary against Assemblymember Jordan Wright, the son of Manhattan Democratic Party head Keith Wright.
New York Focus reported today that Charlie King, a longtime aide to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is launching a super PAC to boost Wright, whose district Mayor Zohran Mamdani comfortably won in last year’s election. — Chris Sommerfeldt
IN OTHER NEWS
— ARRESTS SURGE: ICE arrested more New Yorkers between November and January than in any comparable period since 2022, according to federal data. (Times Union)
— ONE MAN’S TRASH: Reports show that progress in New York’s composting push slowed after officials halted fines and enforcement efforts. (Gothamist)
— BLESS THIS MESS: Competing lobbying groups in Hochul’s car insurance reform fight are clashing over dueling clergy letters and even disputing who actually signed which. (City and State)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
Politics
By: Sean Maguire, Alaska Beacon
The Alaska House Finance Committee on Wednesday advanced a draft operating budget with a roughly $3,800 Permanent Fund dividend.
For a decade, the annual PFD check has been part of the Legislature’s annual budget-making process. A $3,800 PFD would follow a formula from a 1982 statute.
Lawmakers on a budget panel adopted the full, statutory dividend in the evening after long debate. Anchorage Democratic Rep. Andy Josephson, co-chair of the House Finance Committee, cautioned legislators that the vote means Alaskans “will absolutely have the impression” that “a very liberal dividend” will be paid this year.
Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy proposed a full PFD as part of his budget proposal in December. A $3,800 dividend check is estimated to cost roughly $2.47 billion, the largest single spending item in the budget.
Ketchikan independent Rep. Jeremy Bynum proposed that the PFD would come from two sources. Almost $1 billion would be drawn from the general fund of the state treasury. A simple majority of lawmakers is required to spend from that account.
However, close to $1.5 billion would come from the state’s main savings account, the $3 billion Constitutional Budget Reserve. Three-quarters of the House and Senate would need to support spending from that account.
If the three-quarter vote fails, the dividend paid to Alaskans in 2026 would drop to around $1,500. Some lawmakers cautioned that would still leave the state roughly $100 million in deficit.
Last year’s dividend paid to over 618,000 Alaskans was $1,000.
The roughly $3,800 PFD was approved 6-5 by the House Finance Committee. All five minority House Republicans supported a check of that size, alongside Nome Democratic Rep. Neal Foster, co-chair of the House Finance Committee.
The remaining five members of the Democrat-dominated House majority voted no.
Supporters of a full PFD said that high oil prices justified a larger dividend this year. In 2022, Alaskans received a $3,284 dividend and energy relief check when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent oil prices skyrocketing.
Rep. Frank Tomaszewski, R-Fairbanks, said that the “people of Alaska are hurting right now” and are facing difficult circumstances from high energy bills.
The U.S.-Israel war in Iran has seen oil prices spike to well over $100 per barrel. The Alaska Department of Revenue projected last month that would see the state collect $1 billion more revenue than expected over the current fiscal year and the fiscal year that starts July 1.
Lawmakers have already earmarked a substantial portion of that additional revenue to pay Alaska’s outstanding bills.
The operating budget now advances to debate by the full Alaska House. Once approved in that chamber, it advances to the Alaska Senate for its consideration before heading to the governor’s desk.