During the offseason, the Lakers set their sights on enhancing the depth of their team roster.

A key focus for them was to boost the team’s athletic ability.

Adding younger talent was also high on their agenda.

In a strategic move to fulfill these objectives, the Lakers picked Baylor’s wing player Cameron Carr with the 24th overall selection in the first round of the NBA draft. This choice came after they advanced in the draft order, following a trade with the New York Knicks on Tuesday night.

Carr, in his single season at Baylor in 2025-26, showcased an impressive performance by averaging 18.9 points, 5.8 rebounds, 2.6 assists, and 1.3 blocks over 34 games, following a two-year stint at Tennessee.

Before Tuesday, Carr wasn’t expected to be available for the Lakers by the time they were on the clock to draft a prospect. 

Most mock drafts from major media publications projected Carr to be selected just outside of the lottery, between picks Nos. 15-20. 

But he fell to the Lakers, who moved up one spot after a draft-day trade with the Knicks to acquire Carr’s draft rights.

Where Carr stands out

Carr’s 3-point shooting and athleticism are his clearest strengths that should immediately translate from college to the NBA. 

He shot 37.4% from beyond the arc with the Bears last season, including over 40% on catch-and-shoot 3s, while attempting 6.1 3s per game. 

And while standstill shooting is a strength, it isn’t the only time Carr is dangerous from beyond the arc: Carr is a threat spotting up, relocating, curling off of screens and even showed potential as a pull-up 3-point shooter in college. 

Carr showed he knows how to leverage his threat as a 3-point shooter into easier scoring opportunties inside of the arc, where he shot 60.2%. 

He thrived with attacking closeouts or cutting into open space near the rim after defenders pressed up on him too much, using his athleticism to explode for dunks.

Carr had the second-fastest lane agility time (10.46 seconds), second-highest standing vertical leap (38 inches) and third-highest max vertical leap (42 ½ inches) at the NBA combine last month. He uses his explosive athleticism and length in functional ways as a threat in the open floor and above-the-rim finisher/lob threat when he has space in front of him. 

Even though he has several areas of improvements on the defensive end of the floor, Carr showed he can at least be a defensive disruptor by using his vertical pop and length (7 ¼-foot wingspan was the longest among players 6-foot-6 or shorter at the combine) to block shots.  

Where Carr needs to improve

The biggest areas the 6-foot-5 Carr needs to address are his strength and frame.

He weighed 184.4 pounds at the combine, which was the lightest among all players who measured at least 6-foot-3. 

Carr’s lack of strength hurts him on both ends of the floor.

He can get bumped off of his driving lanes pretty easily, making it harder for him to finish at the rim, and he can get bumped easily when trying to guard bigger guards and forwards – the types of players he’ll be expected to defend in the NBA – making it challenging for him to stay in front of his assignment. 

Carr will need to get stronger and improve his physicality to be a viable point-of-attack defender at the NBA level. 

His shotblocking in college showcased his use of timing and instincts in conjunction with his length and athleticism. With more consistent effort and attentiveness, those elements should show up in other areas on defense. 

Offensively, he wasn’t a true creator for himself or others for a variety of reasons: The lack of strength; not having much wiggle in his handle; not reading defenses the best (though he’ll make the simple pass).

Fit/Expectations 

The Lakers are as good of a fit for Carr as any NBA team since they have the playmakers, led by superstar guard Luka Doncic, who’ll create easier looks for him as he takes on a lower-usage role than he had at Baylor. 

Doncic will create the spot-up 3s Carr thrived with during college, as well as connect with the uber-athletic Carr on alley-oops and cuts to the basket. 

If free agents Austin Reaves and/or LeBron James return to the Lakers, there will be even more playmakers who’ll allow Carr to focus on his strengths as an off-ball scorer.

The Lakers could use more defensive proficiency on the wings, but Carr has the tools to be a positive on that end of the floor if he gets stronger and provides consistent effort. 

Carr should be in the mix for a spot in the rotation at the start of the season depending on what happens with the rest of the Lakers’ offseason. At the very least, he’ll be a viable depth option. 

Draft grade: B+

Carr’s lack of strength, and how that affects his upside on both ends of the floor, is the biggest swing factor for his career. 

But his 3-point shooting, cutting, slashing, length and athleticism should make him an impactful player from Day 1 as he develops his body. 

Drafting a player of his caliber late in the first round was great value for the Lakers even with the clear areas of improvement.  

Stephen A. Smith remains steadfast regarding his opinion on the Karmelo Anthony verdict.

The outspoken sports commentator and host of the “Straight Shooter” podcast continues to leverage his platform to directly address supporters of Anthony.

In the latest episode of his podcast, Smith openly questioned the rationale behind ongoing challenges to the verdict.

He said, “When we sit up here and we think about the battles that need to be fought, we gotta be mindful of what’s worth fighting for and what’s not worth fighting for.”

Earlier this month, Anthony was convicted of murder and sentenced to 35 years behind bars. He fatally stabbed 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a high school track meet in Texas last year.

In the podcast episode titled “We’re Fighting the Wrong Battle!”, Smith maintained his stance on the verdict.

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“He killed someone and his argument of self-defense in the jury’s eyes didn’t hold weight,” he said.

News Media previously reported the commentator said, “Karmelo Anthony murdered Austin Metcalf. There is no other way to slice it,” in another podcast episode.

While Smith is calling on “viewers to think critically,” activist and founder of the Next Generation Action Network Minister Dominique Alexander started a movement titled “Stand with the Anthony Family.”

In a recent social media post advertising the initiative, Alexander said in part, “It is important that people have access to accurate information, meaningful opportunities to participate, and a way to stay connected to the movement. We cannot allow misinformation, division, or confusion to define this moment.”

Smith referred to the recent violent spike in deadly shootings that happened over the weekend in Chicago as an example of battles not being fought.

“We can try to fight and fight and fight over that. But you know what? If you’re gonna fight as vigilantly, as diligently over that, how come we not fighting about what’s happening in Chicago? Why we ain’t fighting about that?”

A representative for Smith could not be immediately reached by News Media.

News Media has reached out to Alexander, who has been acting as a spokesperson for the Anthony family, but did not immediately hear back.

Federal agents arrested a key figure from ex-New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ circle on Wednesday morning as part of an extensive corruption investigation.

Frank Carone, aged 56, was apprehended at his $2 million residence on federal corruption allegations tied to a bribery scheme, as reported by multiple sources including Politico and the New York Times.

Carone was initially appointed as the first chief of staff under Adams’ tenure as mayor before pivoting to launch his own lobbying business.

On Wednesday, an unsealed federal indictment laid out several charges against him, including bribery, wire fraud, and money laundering.

According to the prosecutors, Carone allegedly received numerous bribes from Queens hotel owner Yan Po Zhu and Zhu’s assistant, Crystal Chen, following a contract awarded in 2022 for housing migrants.

In total, Carone was paid around $120,000 by Zhu and Che for the emergency shelter contract, prosecutors said.

The money was passed through a law firm owned by his brother, Anthony Carone, according to the indictment. Anthony was also arrested at his home on Wednesday in connection with the federal charges. 

The alleged bribery scheme transpired during a time when New York City experienced an influx of migrant asylum seekers. 

City government worked with hotels to secure ‘Emergency Shelter Contracts’ to combat the lack of housing for those in need.

Prosecutors said that the Carone brothers, Zhu and Chen ‘devised and executed a scheme to exploit the City’s migrant crisis for profit.’ 

The four allegedly entered into a ‘multimillion-dollar Emergency Shelter Contract’ involving Zhu’s hotel, the Microtel in Long Island City. 

Zhu and Chen had initially failed to secure the contract after hiring a consultant. Prosecutors cited a June 14, 2022, meeting in which the Department of Social Services said its hotel was not an option because there were already enough shelter contracts in Long Island City. 

Zhu then allegedly ‘leveraged his burgeoning personal relationship’ with Carone to secure the contract. 

Prosecutors included photos of the two together at Zhu’s Long Island residence on June 3, 2022, alleging that the plan was brokered that evening. 

Three days later, Zhu allegedly messaged Carone, asking whom he should contact for approval of his hotel for the shelter program, to which Carone responded, ‘Ok standby.’ 

Carone has a long history in New York City politics. He served as a counsel to the Democratic Party and was a close ally of Adams during his political career. 

Carone helped mentor Adams, supporting the former mayor’s rise from Brooklyn borough president to his controversial tenure in City Hall. 

Allegations of federal corruption against Carone were first reported on earlier this year. He denied any wrongdoing at the time, claiming that the investigation was founded on ‘baseless accusations’ and ‘stereotypical accusations.’ 

This is a breaking news story… 

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a surprising turn for the 2026 tax season, the IRS managed to issue refunds more efficiently than anticipated despite facing significant staff reductions. However, the national taxpayer advocate highlighted that individuals needing direct assistance were often left without support.

“Many taxpayers who required personal assistance found it difficult to get the help they needed,” stated Erin M. Collins, the leader of the IRS’s independent oversight agency.

Earlier this year, Collins cautioned that the 2026 tax season could present substantial challenges for those experiencing filing difficulties, mainly due to the significant decrease in the IRS workforce since the Trump administration’s onset.

The IRS commenced 2025 with a workforce of approximately 102,000 but saw a reduction to about 74,000 employees by year’s end. This decrease in staff was the result of a series of terminations and layoffs executed by the Department of Government Efficiency, helmed by trillionaire Elon Musk. In the previous year, those employees involved in processing the 2025 tax returns were barred from accepting buyout offers from the Trump administration until after the tax filing deadline. Consequently, many of those key customer service representatives have since departed.

In her latest mid-year report, Collins noted that overall, the IRS exceeded her expectations. “Most taxpayers managed to file their returns without major issues and received their refunds in a timely manner,” she reported.

Technology improvements and automation helped prevent a total meltdown during the tax season, according to the report, released Wednesday.

However, the agency fell short in answering phones, the report said. Some 59% of calls on major accounts management lines were answered, but taxpayers on compliance lines got through only 34% of the time, and the line that handles identity theft victims got through only 19% of the time.

Identity theft victims overall have to wait nearly two years for help from the IRS, the report said. This is a longstanding issue at the agency.

The taxpayer advocate report says more than 500,000 identity-theft victims continue to face average case resolution times of roughly 20 months, with average processing times approaching 600 days.

On Tuesday, France paid tribute to historian Marc Bloch by reinterring him at the Panthéon in Paris, with French President Emmanuel Macron presiding over the event.

Bloch, a renowned French Jewish scholar and a key founder of the Annales school of historiography, is widely celebrated for his courageous actions during World War II as a member of the French Resistance. Captured, tortured, and ultimately killed by the Nazis in 1944, his legacy of heroism endures.

During the ceremony, Bloch and his wife’s caskets, accompanied by the historian’s medals and photographs, received military honors as they were laid to rest. This respectful tribute was attended by their descendants and took place at the mausoleum dedicated to France’s revered national figures.

Respecting the family’s wishes, Bloch’s ashes remain interred in the village in central France where he spent a significant portion of his life.

President Macron reflected on Bloch’s legacy by quoting his words: “a Jew, who does not hide,” during his moving eulogy.

“Handed over to the Nazis and murdered, along with his companions, on the evening of June 16, 1944, Marc Bloch was portrayed by Vichy propaganda as a terrorist simply because he was Jewish,” Macron said. “Let us state it clearly. This is where antisemitism inevitably leads as soon as anyone embarks on this path of darkness.”

“Faced with this nightmare, Marc Bloch’s greatness lies in the fact that he never lost hope for France and the French people,” Macron said.

Bloch was born in 1886 in Lyon to an Alsatian Jewish family and raised in Paris.

He volunteered for the French Army in 1914 at the start of the First World War, in which he was wounded twice and awarded the Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre.

After two decades in academia as a specialist in medieval studies who helped revolutionize the study of history in France by co-founding the journal Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, Bloch was re-mobilized for military service on the eve of the Second World War at age 53.

His book, “Strange Defeat,” written in 1940 and published posthumously, is a first-hand account of France’s military failure and surrender in the face of Nazi Germany’s invasion.

Under the collaborationist Vichy regime of Philippe Pétain, Bloch joined the French Resistance.

“When the enemy occupied France, starting in June 1940, when the government of the French State, in the hands of Pétain and Laval, embarked on the path of collaboration, Marc Bloch’s fate, like that of all Jews, was irrevocably altered,” Macron said.

“A true republican at heart and in his thinking, an ardent and tireless defender of secularism, Marc Bloch endured the consequences of the state-sponsored antisemitism initiated by Marshal Pétain’s government,” he added.

The Gestapo arrested Bloch in March 1944. Though he was subjected to torture under Klaus Barbie, the notorious Nazi war criminal responsible for deporting thousands of French Jews to death camps, Bloch refused to divulge information about his associates.

The Nazis executed Bloch shortly after D-Day.

Macron credited Bloch as being among those who “saved the honor and soul of France” amid a generation tainted by Jew-hatred and collaboration with Nazism.

Some of Macron’s potential successors to the French presidency on the political left and right sparred on social media on Tuesday over the meaning of the historian’s legacy.

“His contribution to the discipline of history is immense, but it is his work of testimony and analysis ‘Strange Defeat’ that enjoys the widest posterity today for its unrelenting indictment of the cynicism, selfishness and blindness of a portion of the French elites who led our country into the abyss in 1940,” wrote Jordan Bardella, president of the right-wing National Rally party, in French.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has run for the presidency three times as the head of left-wing parties and is seeking office again in 2027 as the leader of La France Insoumise, accused Bardella of being an heir of Vichy.

“Those who ‘drove our country to the abyss’ were the ones who shouted: ‘Hitler rather than the Popular Front,’” Mélenchon wrote in French. “De Gaulle and the Resistance pulled France out of that abyss. Your founders tried to assassinate him. Don’t think we’ll fall for your electoral disguise.”

Bardella responded in kind by accusing the man who helped arrest Bloch of being a communist.

“Bloch was denounced by Francis André, who campaigned for the French Communist Party in the 1930s, before following one of its leaders, Jacques Doriot, into the French Popular Party,” Bardella said in French.

“Mr. Mélenchon’s culture stops where the crimes of the left begin,” he added.

In a surprising development, General Chris Donahue, who heads the U.S. Army operations in Europe and Africa, is set to retire. This decision comes amidst a push by Pete Hegseth, who is advocating for changes in the Pentagon’s leadership, which includes demoting his command and removing top senior officers without much clarity.

The 56-year-old decorated general, well-regarded for his extensive combat experience and leadership, is expected to announce his retirement this Wednesday. Donahue is renowned for commanding the Army’s elite Delta Force and is considered among the top leaders within the Army.

Having served with distinction, Donahue was always viewed as a potential candidate for the future role of chief of staff. His notable moments include commanding the 82nd Airborne Division during the U.S.’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. He was famously photographed through a night-vision lens as the last American service member to leave the country, boarding a C-17 aircraft.

The timing of his departure is intriguing, particularly as Pete Hegseth’s plans to reduce Donahue’s position from a four-star to a three-star command gain momentum. According to a source reported by ABC News, these organizational shifts seem to be paving the path for Donahue’s imminent exit from his storied military career.

His departure comes as Hegseth was preparing to downgrade Donahue’s post from a four-star command to a three-star one, a source told ABC News.

Going from a four-star to a three-star post strips the command of the military’s highest rank, signaling reduced prestige and authority. 

Four-star officers can only hold positions designated for that rank, so when no such command is available, early retirement is often the only option left.

The effort is reportedly part of Hegseth’s broader plan to sideline and purge senior officials within the Pentagon. 

The abrupt departures and reassignments among senior Pentagon leaders under Hegseth has developed a pattern critics describe as an effort to clear out officials seen as insufficiently loyal.

The shake-up has intensified in recent weeks, with Hegseth moving against several high-ranking officers in the wake of the US military confrontation with Iran.

Hegseth routinely boasted that US forces held complete air and naval superiority over Iran, even as the regime kept control of the Strait of Hormuz for months.

Supporters cast the changes as overdue streamlining of a bloated general officer corps. 

Detractors warn that sidelining experienced commanders risks hollowing out the military’s leadership at a volatile moment. 

In April, Hegseth forced out Army Chief of Staff General Randy George during the Iran war, along with the Army’s chief of chaplains, Major General William Green Jr., and the head of Army Transformation and Training Command, General David Hodne.

George’s removal followed repeated clashes with Hegseth, including over the secretary’s decision to block the promotions of four Army officers

Those firings followed the ousting of more than a dozen generals and admirals since Hegseth took office, including Joint Chiefs Chairman General CQ Brown and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti.

The Daily Mail has contacted the Pentagon for comment.

Lieutenant General Kevin Admiral is expected to be nominated by Hegseth to take over Donaue’s role.

Donahue’s departure from leading US army operations in Europe and Africa also comes as the US prepares to withdraw military support from European NATO allies. 

The Pentagon announced last week that it will conduct a six-month review of troop levels in Europe as it looks to scale back its military presence. 

The goal, according to Hegseth, is aimed at shifting more of the continent’s defense onto European allies.

Along with evaluating the number of troops stationed in Europe, the Pentagon will also reduce the fighter jets, drones, warships, and submarines it keeps in the region for use in a war or crisis.