UFC Freedom 250 Fighters Meet Trump at White House

The UFC Freedom 250 event, celebrating the U.S. 250th anniversary and President Trump’s 80th birthday, featured a historic visit to the Oval Office by lightweight champion Ilia Topuria, interim champ Justin Gaethje, former two‑division champion Alex Pereira and former interim heavyweight titleholder Ciryl Gane. The fighters posed for cameras and met the president before the main event where Topuria defends his title against Gaethje, and the co‑main event crowns a new interim heavyweight champion between Pereira and Gane.

Victor Wembanyama's San Antonio Spurs thrashed the Minnesota Timberwolves 133-95 to level their NBA playoff series as the New York Knicks edged Philadelphia for a 2-0 lead Wednesday.

Bouncing back from a home-court upset loss on Monday, the Western Conference second-seeded Spurs' resounding win reestablishes them as favorites to progress. sport-newz.biz

Seven-foot-four (2.24m) phenom Wembanyama was in imperious form again in San Antonio, with 19 points plus 15 rebounds and two blocks, as the Spurs notched up their highest playoff score since 1983.

The newly crowned NBA defensive player of the year also helped restrict Minnesota to just 35 points in the first half -- the Timberwolves' lowest-scoring half all season -- to ensure the vital series-tying win was essentially decided by the break.

"I'm expecting this kind of response from myself, from my teammates, so I'm not surprised by any means," said Wembanyama.

"There is some ego. They assaulted us in game one, we wanted to assault in game two," the Frenchman added.

Minnesota's 24-point halftime deficit only widened in the second half, peaking at 47 points, before San Antonio rested its starters for the final stages.

The performance came after Minnesota's head coach had accused Wembanyama of repeated illegal goaltending violations in game one, during which the Frenchman had made a playoff-record 12 blocks.

Asked if there had been any anger on his part entering game two, he replied: "There always is. In the playoffs, magnify that."

Minnesota ace Anthony Edwards, who shone in game one after returning from a left knee injury, was restricted to 12 points and spent the final quarter on the bench icing his legs.

The two sides meet again Friday in Minneapolis for game three.

- 'Ugly' -

Jalen Brunson spearheaded a late surge as the New York Knicks edged a razor-tight NBA playoff clash against the Philadelphia 76ers 108-102 to take a 2-0 lead in their Eastern Conference semi-final series.

Having been thrashed in game one, the underdog Sixers were without star man Joel Embiid, who was ruled out with injury hours before tip-off.

But they put up a much fiercer fight at Madison Square Garden, in a game featuring 25 lead changes -- the most for a playoff game in 11 years -- before the Knicks pulled clear in the final minutes.

Brunson's clutch play -- including eight fourth-quarter points -- ensured victory, with the Knicks talisman joint top-scoring on 26 points.

"It's a playoff basketball game. You know, the game was ugly offensively," said Knicks coach Mike Brown.

The Sixers took a seven-point lead after five minutes. It would prove to be the largest of the closely contested night.

In Embiid's absence, Tyrese Maxey stepped up with 15 points in the second quarter alone, as Philadelphia eked out a single-point half-time lead.

But the Knicks' Karl-Anthony Towns came alive after the break, scoring 20 points plus 10 rebounds and seven assists, while OG Anunoby went 9-of-17 from the field for his 24 points.

With the scores level 99-99 and five minutes to go, Brunson applied the pressure just as the Sixers ran out of steam.

Two Brunson field goals gave New York a four-point lead -- their biggest of the night to that point -- before Mikal Bridges' step-back shot made it a 9-0 run and a six-point lead.

Maxey made a late driving layup -- finishing with 26 points -- but it was not enough to close the gap.

"We played great offense. We just didn't shot-make," said Philadelphia coach Nick Nurse.

The absence of 2023 league Most Valuable Player Embiid, who excelled in the Sixers' upset victory over the Celtics in the previous round, ultimately told.

Embiid was ruled unable to play due to right hip soreness and a right ankle sprain. The Sixers will be sweating on his fitness for Friday, when the series continues in Philadelphia.

amz/pst

PHOENIX (AP) — Paul Skenes struck out the side in the eighth inning, throwing a nasty splitter past Gabriel Moreno on his 97th and final pitch of the evening before smacking his glove in approval as he walked back to the dugout.

Watch out big-league hitters — the defending National League Cy Young winner is starting to heat up.

The 23-year-old right-hander threw eight innings of two-hit ball on Wednesday night, leading the Pirates to a 1-0 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks in a stellar performance that was among the best of his career.

“It’s not easy, but it's simple," Skenes said. “It you execute your pitches, it's going to go the way you want it to.”

It was the second time in the past three outings that Skenes has been at his best. He took a perfect game into the seventh inning of a 6-0 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on April 24.

Skenes pounded the strike zone on Wednesday with his five-pitch mix, coaxing the aggressive Diamondbacks hitters into quick outs. He retired the first 14 batters of the night before Lourdes Gurriel Jr. reached base on a soft dribbler down the third-base line that was ruled a single.

Skenes tried to make the play, but couldn't get off the mound fast enough. His throw to first base sailed well wide of the bag.

“I got a good grip — just threw it away,” Skenes said, flashing a small grin. “Didn’t throw it to the right place. Got to throw it to the right place next time.”

Nolan Arenado followed with a sharp single to left field, but that was the last baserunner Skenes allowed. He struck out seven and he rarely fell behind in the count, throwing 65 of 97 pitches for strikes.

He has a 5-2 record this season with a 2.36 ERA, striking out 46 batters over 42 innings. It's a big reason the Pirates look like contenders this season in the NL Central with a 20-17 record.

“I don’t know what else there is to say — he was unbelievable,” manager Don Kelly said. “Getting ahead in counts, the elite stuff, putting guys away, low pitch count, very efficient. He was unreal.”

It was a mild surprise that Skenes wasn't back on the mound in the ninth to try for his first career shutout. Left-hander Gregory Soto handled the ninth, working around a one-out walk to secure his second save of the season.

Kelly said Skenes' command wasn't quite as sharp in the eighth inning and his velocity was down slightly, prompting the change.

Skenes — the No. 1 overall pick in 2023 out of LSU — has never thrown a nine-inning complete game in his big league career. He threw 8 1/3 innings once as a rookie in 2024 and threw an eight-inning complete game last season in a 1-0 loss against the Phillies.

This time, Skenes was on the winning end of a 1-0 game. Brandon Lowe supplied the only offense, hitting a 435-foot solo homer to center field. After that, the veteran second baseman had a leisurely evening in the field.

On nights like this one, Skenes doesn't need much help.

“It was really easy — didn't have to do a whole lot,” Lowe said. “Just get out there, watch him do what he does and consistently roll out great appearances. It's fun when you can sit back and let him go on auto-pilot.”

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB

Through storms, snow, rain and sunshine, thousands of teenagers have been training over several months in the lead up to the Ten Tors Challenge 2026.

Ten Tors director Col Jim Bird said many people hold the event "close to their heart" and stressed the importance of training months in advance.

Running from 8 May to 10 May, the Dartmoor event in Devon tests thousands of 14 to 19-year-old's navigational skills, life skills and most importantly, their resilience.

Col Bird, who has only been in the role for a couple of months, said the weather on the moor was one of the biggest challenges making it an "arduous event".

Plymouth College student Max, 14, is preparing for the 45-mile route and said the biggest challenge was building up to the distance.

He completed the 35-mile route last year for a "bit of fun" with his friends and said he learnt key skills he had not forgotten.

He said this year's training was "a lot more difficult".

"The weather has been cold and wet and damp which is not fun when you're camping," he said.

To keep morale up during training, he said his team made jokes.

"They're my best friends from school so it's easy to talk to them and mess about while walking at the same time."

The Plymouth College teams use a bunkhouse in Princetown for their Dartmoor training.

Thousands of teenagers in teams of six will navigate routes of either 35, 45 or 55 miles, depending on their age, over the Northern half of Dartmoor visiting 10 nominated tors, also known as checkpoints, in less than two days.

Organisers said its Jubilee Challenge, first introduced in 1996, was closer to Okehampton camp and designed for young people aged between 14 and 21with a range of challenging conditions who complete one of the several routes suited to their ability.

The Granite Challenge, formerly known as the Jubilee Challenge Plus, is aimed at young adults with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) who are capable of an overnight stay but may find the Ten Tors Challenge too inaccessible due to their respective SEND.

Organisers said it provided an "appropriately arduous challenge across difficult terrain and in very changeable weather over at least 18km (11.1m), including an overnight camp".

440 teams will arrive at Okehampton camp on the Friday to pitch tents, make their final checks and prepare themselves for the adventure.

First-timer Britta is training for the 35-mile challenge and said she felt nervous and excited because she had "never done anything like this before".

She said: "At first it was really difficult and now I've got used to it so I've got a bit faster."

Talking about one of the training sessions, she added: "When it was really rainy and I didn't have a bag cover and my bag got really wet and our tents got really wet.

"Walking up all the big tors with the really wet and heavy stuff is really tiring.

"It's really difficult but it's really fun."

Ten Tors organiser Lieutenant Tim Gilbert, who has been involved in the event for about seven years, said the challenge was all about teamwork and rising to the challenge.

He said it also offered a "really good lesson and experience" for the young participants as they do it on their own, on the moor and push themselves hour after hour.

"You can't develop that in the classroom or anywhere else," Gilbert said.

He said teams needed to be prepared for whatever the weather was going to be, which is unpredictable on Dartmoor.

Gilbert said: "I've been out here in August and I've seen sleet, so we do need them to be ready for that bad weather, that heavy rain, maybe even a snow flurry or the heat so by training in the winter they would have experienced some of that so they'll be used to the worst of it for definite.

"I think preparation is the main thing.

"If you turn up and your kit isn't in good order, then you're going to have a really difficult weekend and it's going to affect your chances of finishing.

"If you go through your kit and make sure it's all packed properly, you've got the right items, the right food and you're not bringing anything unnecessary, because that'll add weight and slow you down, then you'll be in the right position to do well at Ten Tors and enjoy it as well."

Head of outdoor education at the college, Olly Rees, who has been training groups for 13 years, said the training involved "a lot of days on Dartmoor" as well as a coast path walk, which all teams are required to do ahead of any Ten Tors Challenge.

Rees said it was "pretty cool" seeing what new participants achieve through the training from not being able to read a map to navigating around a route and looking after themselves for a day and a half.

Col Bird said organising the event started as soon as last year's finished.

"There's a team that's permanently assigned to Ten Tors planning who are liaising with all the agencies and various organisations that support the event, and there are a lot.

"It takes a lot of time to set the conditions for success.

"We will start planning for Ten Tors 2027 no sooner than we've presented the medals this year."

St Ives Academy leader Thomas Studd said six students, two girls and four boys, had been training for the Jubilee Challenge

It was Studd's first time leading a Ten Tors Challenge team in 2025 and the reason for coming back was because it was one of the "most incredible things" he had done in his 20 years of teaching.

"I just thought it was a fantastic event, the scale of it was impressive.

"It's wonderful to see a small group of children and see them realise what they can do, how they can cope with difficult times, manage blistering feet, cold weather, cooking in the cold and making it something they want to do again."

He said this year's group had all different "skills, interests, energy levels and personalities".

He said a four and a half hour coastal training in west Cornwall in March went well, but there was still room for improvement.

"I thought the boys would have just charged on ahead to show how heroic they were but they didn't," Studd said.

"They paused, stopped at all the right times and listened at all the right times to relay information up and down the line.

"They all worked well... we have a good group."

He hopes to run both a Jubilee Challenge and Ten Tors Challenge group next year.

Col Bird added: "Good luck with the last parts of your training and kit preparation and the very best of luck for the day."

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More on this story

• Teamwork and adrenaline: How teens tackle Ten Tors

Related internet links

• Ten Tors Challenge

Arizona’s cursed season has added one more injury-caused expletive.

Coach Chip Hale announced Tuesday night that sophomore pitcher Smith Bailey is done for the remainder of the season The right-hander is dealing with “soft tissue stuff” in his throwing shoulder that caused him to leave his last start Saturday at Kansas after two innings, making him the 10^th player lost to an injury before or during the 2026 season.

“Everything’s checked out so far, all the images they’ve done looked good,” Hale said after Arizona’s 8-6 win over New Mexico State at Hi Corbett Field, which snapped a 6-game losing streak. “There’s no damage in any of the joints or any of the all the muscles. So it’s just a matter of rehabbing it. But the problem is, once you shut a guy down to get him back going again … now you’re talking about every day is probably two days to get to get back, so it’s going to be at least a week before he picked up a ball.”

Arizona (17-30, 7-17 Big 12) has six games remaining in the regular season, and if it finishes in the top 12 in the Big 12 Conference—it’s currently tied for that last spot—it would play in the conference tournament May 19-23 in Surprise. Bailey likely wouldn’t have been able to return until June at the earliest, and the only way the Wildcats would be playing then is if they won the Big 12 tourney to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Bailey went 3-4 with a 4.67 ERA in 12 starts this season, striking out 65 batters in 61.2 innings including a career-high 15 against Kansas State on April 18. That earned him conference and NCBWA Pitcher of the Week honors, but in his next start Bailey allowed five runs in 4.1 innings and then gave up one run over two at Kansas before coming out.

At the time Hale said Bailey “wasn’t feeling great,” language he had used previously when freshman righty Jack Lafflam exited a start on March 31 after two innings and missed four weeks of action. Lafflam started Tuesday and threw four scoreless frames, the longest outing of his career, and had a career-best five strikeouts.

In 2025, Bailey was a Freshman All-American who started 18 games including clinching wins in the Big 12 tourney, Eugene Regional and Chapel Hill Super Regional to send the UA to the College World Series.

Bailey is the fifth pitcher the UA has lost for the season this spring, a list that began for games started when senior closer Tony Pluta underwent elbow surgery. Relievers JT Drake, Mason Russell and Nolan Straneiro are also shut down.

On the position side the Wildcats have had three players suffer season-ending shoulder injuries including left fielder Easton Breyfogle and second baseman Tyler Bickers, while two junior college transfer outfielders (Sean Barta and Chaz McNellis) have yet to play after getting hurt in the preseason.

Another pitcher, Benton Hickman, had to leave his outing Tuesday after two batters with what Hale described as pain in his bicep. The freshman righty could be seen shaking his arm out after a few pitches before getting pulled.

With Bailey done, Hale said the likely plan for this weekend is to keep righty Owen Kramkowski on Friday but move lefty Luc Fladda up to Saturday. The Sunday slot would likely go to righty Collin McKinney, who began the season in that role but has since become a bulk reliever that has a 1.93 ERA in Big 12 games and picked up his first career save against NMSU.

Recapping Tuesday’s win

Arizona began its final homestand of the regular season by jumping out to an 8-1 lead against NMSU and then holding on for dear life. The Aggies scored five times in the top of the 9^th before McKinney closed it out with a strikeout and foul pop fly.

Catcher Beau Sylvester had the UA’s first multi-home run game of the season, hitting a 2-run blast in the 3^rd inning and a solo shot in the 7^th. Cash Brennan had a pair of RBI singles and Nate Novitske was 3 for 5.