UR MAG

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Paolo Banchero scored 30 points and the Orlando Magic beat Sacramento 131-94 on Thursday night for the Kings' franchise-record 15th straight loss.

Magic Kings Basketball

Orlando made a team-record 27 3-pointers on 51 attempts. Banchero was 5 of 7 from 3-points range and had six assists and five rebounds in the opener of a four-game trip.

The Kings broke the futility record a day after star center Domantas Sabonis and guard Zach LaVine had season-ending surgeries. The franchise had 14-game losing streaks in 1959-60 and 1971-72 while playing as the Cincinnati Royals.

The NBA record for consecutive losses is 28, set by Philadelphia over the 2014–15 and 2015–16 seasons and matched by Detroit in 2023–24.

The NBA-worst Kings are 12-45, with a five-game trip up next. Sacramento is winless since beating Washington at home Jan 16 for its season-best fourth straight victory.

Orlando broke the team record for 3-pointers of 25 set Jan. 3, 2004, at Sacramento in a 138-135 loss in double overtime.

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Anthony Black added 20 points for Orlando. Desmond Bane had 17, Jett Howard 16, and Jevon Carter 14. Seventh in the East, the Magic improved to 29-25.

Maxime Raynaud led Sacramento with 17 points. Keegan Murray added 15, and Precious Achiuwa and Malik Monk each had 14.

Banchero had 18 points in the first half to help the Magic take a 64-55 lead.

After Sacramento cut it to 83-81 with 4:25 left in the third, Orlando closed the quarter with a 19-3 run to take a 102-84 lead into the fourth.

Tristan da Silva hit three straight 3s early in the fourth to make it 111-88. The Magic outscored the Kings 48-13 in last 16:25.

Sabonis had a meniscus tear in November, and played just 19 games this season. LaVine had surgery to repair a tendon on his right pinky finger.

The Kings started out as the Rochester Royals and also were the Kansas City-Omaha Kings and Kansas City Kings. They moved to Sacramento for the 1985-86 season.

Up next

Magic: At Phoenix on Saturday.Kings: Face San Antonio in Austin, Texas, on Saturday night.___AP NBA:https://apnews.com/hub/nba

Magic: At Phoenix on Saturday.

Kings: Face San Antonio in Austin, Texas, on Saturday night.

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

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Jaylen Brown had 23 points, 15 rebounds and 13 assists for his third triple-double of the season, and the Boston Celtics rolled over a Golden State Warriors team playing without Stephen Curry, 121-110 on Thursday night.

Celtics Warriors Basketball

Payton Pritchard added 26 points and Sam Hauser scored 16 to help Boston win for the seventh time in eight games and spoil the Golden State debut of former Celtic Kristaps Porzingis.

Brown, the leading scorer in the Eastern Conference before the All-Star break, matched his career-high in rebounds, all on the defensive end. His 13 assists are a career-best.

It was the All-Star's fifth career triple-double.

Porzingis played in 99 games over two seasons in Boston and winning a championship before getting traded to Atlanta over the summer. The Warriors acquired him from the Hawks at the trade deadline but the oft-injured 7-foot-2 center had been nursing a left Achilles injury.

The Warriors played without two-time NBA MVP Curry, who is sidelined with a knee injury. Golden State is 6-11 this season when Curry doesn't play.

Golden State struggled to get much going without their star.

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De'Anthony Melton had 18 points and Will Richard and Gui Santos had 17 each for the Warriors. Porzingis had 12 points.

Boston led by 30 then had to hold on when Golden State made a run in the fourth quarter. Gary Payton II's dunk got the Warriors within 111-99 with six minutes left before Pritchard made back-to-back 3-pointers.

Brown had eight points and was one of eight Celtics to score in the first quarter.

Boston pulled away after that. The Celtics opened the second quarter with a 17-2 run, driving past Porzingis several times while building a 74-51 halftime lead.

Up next

Celtics: Face the Lakers in Los Angeles on Sunday.

Warriors: Host Denver on Sunday.

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

Phoenix All-Star guard Devin Booker left the Suns' 121-94 loss against the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday in Austin, Texas, in the second quarter due to right hip soreness.

Initial attempts to return to action didn't go well, prompting Suns coach Jordan Ott to shut Booker down.

"(He) tried to go back out there," Ott said. "Save himself from himself. Wanted to go out and play. Wasn't moving great when he came back in. ...

"He felt good enough to come back in and the first couple of times up and down, I didn't notice anything and then definitely noticed (something) there at the end of that second stint."

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Booker was replaced for good with 2:35 remaining in the first half by Isaiah Livers. Before exiting, he scored five points on 2-for-6 shooting from the field in nine minutes.

The four-time All-Star entered Thursday leading Phoenix with 25.2 points and 6.3 assists per game this season in 43 games.

Booker, 29, missed two weeks after suffering a sprained right ankle Jan. 23 against the Atlanta Hawks. He returned Feb. 7 and played in last weekend's All-Star Game.

--Field Level Media

WASHINGTON, Feb 20 (Reuters) - U.S. economic growth likely slowed to a still-solid pace in the fourth quarter because of disruptions from last year's government shutdown and a moderation in consumer spending, though tax cuts and investment inartificial intelligencewere expected to drive activity this year.

The anticipated slowdown in gross domestic product would follow back-to-back quarters of ‌robust growth. The Commerce Department will publish on Friday its advance estimate of fourth-quarter GDP, which was delayed by the record 43-day government shutdown.

The report is expected to highlight a ‌jobless economic expansion as well as a "K-shaped" economy, where upper-income households are doing well while lower-income consumers are struggling amid high inflation from import tariffs and stalling wage growth. Those conditions have created what economists and President Donald Trump's opponents call an affordability ​crisis.

"We'll end the year still on a solid note in terms of growth, but it doesn't really translate to feel as good as it looks on paper to most Americans," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at consulting firm KPMG.

GDP LIKELY INCREASED 3.0%: SURVEY

GDP probably increased at a 3.0% annualized rate last quarter after accelerating at a 4.4% pace in the July-September quarter, a Reuters survey of economists predicted. The survey was, however, completed before data on Thursday showing the trade deficit widening to a five-month high in December.

The second straight monthly deterioration in the trade deficit led the Atlanta Federal Reserve to cut its GDP estimate to a 3.0% ‌rate from a 3.6% pace.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the government ⁠shutdown would subtract 1.5 percentage points from fourth-quarter GDP through fewer services provided by federal workers, lower federal spending on goods and services and a temporary reduction in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.

The CBO estimated most of the decline in GDP would eventually be recovered, though between $7 billion and $14 billion would not. Economists estimated ⁠the economy grew 2.2% in 2025 after expanding 2.8% in 2024. Only 181,000 jobs were added last year, the fewest outside the pandemic since the 2009 Great Recession, and down from 1.459 million in 2024.

"You have a confluence of shocks affecting the U.S. economy," said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon. "You have on the one hand the drag from higher prices, tariffs, trade restrictions and reduced immigration, but also the boost from AI investment and the continued ​strong ​momentum in terms of stock prices supporting ongoing spending by the more affluent consumers."

GROWTH IN CONSUMER SPENDING LIKELY SLOWED

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Growth ​in consumer spending is expected to have slowed from the third quarter's brisk ‌3.5% pace. Economists say spending has largely been driven by higher-income households and has been at the expense of saving as inflation eroded buying power.

"Getting richer is one thing, but most households rely on incomes to pay bills, and real disposable income pretty much stalled in the quarter," said Sal Guatieri, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.

Consumer spending could get a tailwind from what economists anticipate will be larger tax refunds this year because of tax cuts. A solid pace of business investment is expected, mostly related to AI. The jump in imports in December was partly driven by capital goods, mostly computer accessories and telecommunications equipment amid a data center construction boom to power AI.

That should offset any drag on GDP growth from trade.

Economists estimated AI, including data centers, semiconductors, software and research and development, accounted for ‌a third of GDP growth in the first three quarters of 2025, blunting the hit from tariffs and reduced immigration.

"It's ​a significant contribution from a sector that traditionally has represented a small share of the economy," said EY-Parthenon's Daco. "It's also ​been a key source of volatility in the trade data, because a lot of what we ​are building here and creating is imported."

Economists estimated that trade made little or no contribution to GDP after helping to boost growth for two straight quarters. Inventories ‌were another wild card, having subtracted from GDP for two consecutive quarters.

Residential investment ​is forecast to have contracted for the fourth quarter ​in a row as builders and prospective homebuyers struggled with higher borrowing costs.

The stale report will probably have no impact on monetary policy. But Federal Reserve officials are likely to keep an eye on December's Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation data, due to be released at the same time as the GDP report.

Economists polled by Reuters forecast PCE inflation, excluding the volatile food and ​energy components, rising 0.3%. Core PCE inflation rose 0.2% in November from ‌the previous month. Core PCE inflation was projected to have increased 2.9% year-on-year after rising 2.8% in November. The U.S. central bank has a 2% inflation target.

"The year-on-year growth ​rate of the core has shown essentially no progress since mid-2024," said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP. "Many Fed officials anticipate at least some improvement in the coming ​months, but they will want to see that show up in the actual numbers."

(Editing by Rod Nickel)

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Nearly four years into itsfull-scale invasion,Russia controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory. Many of the estimated 3 million to 5 million people who remain in regions under Moscow's control face housing, water, power, heat and health care woes.

Russia Ukraine War Occupation

EvenPresident Vladimir Putinhas acknowledged "many truly pressing, urgent problems" in the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, which were illegally annexed by Moscow months after the all-out war began on Feb. 24, 2022.

Russian citizenship,language and culture is forced upon residents, including in school lesson plans and textbooks.

Some residents live in fear of being accused of sympathizing with Kyiv,according to Ukrainianswho have left. Many have been imprisoned, beaten and killed, according to human rights activists.

Russia established a "vast network ofsecret and official detention centerswhere tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians" are held indefinitely without charge, said Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Center for Civil Liberties.

Russian officials have refused to comment on past allegations by U.N. human rights officials that it tortures civilians and prisoners of war.

One family's plight

Inna Vnukova spent the first days of the Russian occupation in the Luhansk region hiding in a damp basement with her family. Outside in her village of Kudriashivka, soldiers bullied residents, set up checkpoints and looted homes. There was constant shelling.

"Everyone was very scared and afraid to go outside," Vnukova told The Associated Press in Estonia, where she now lives. The troops sought out officials and civil servants like her and her husband, Oleksii Vnukov.

In mid-March 2022, she and her 16-year-old son, Zhenya, fled the village with her brother's family, even though it meant leaving her husband behind temporarily. They risked a trip by car to nearby Starobilsk, waving a white sheet amid mortar fire.

Oleksii Vnukov, a court security officer, stayed for nearly two weeks. Russian soldiers twice threatened to kill him before he escaped.

"The people there aren't living, they're just surviving," he said of the 150 people — including the couple's parents — who still live in the village that once was home to 800.

Vnukova and her husband have a new life in Estonia, where she works in a printing house and he is an electrician. Their son is now 20, and they have a 1-year-old daughter, Alisa.

Life in shattered Mariupol

Russian forcesbesieged Mariupolfor weeks before the port city fell in May 2022. The bombing of theDonetsk Academic Regional Drama Theateron March 16 of that year killed nearly 600 people in and around the building, an AP investigation found — the war's single deadliest known attack against civilians.

Most of the population of about a half-million fled but many hid in basements, said a former actor who huddled for months with his parents.

The former actor, now in Estonia, spoke on condition of anonymity to not endanger his 76-year-old parents, still in Mariupol. They took Russian citizenship to get medical care and a one-time payment equivalent to $1,300 per person as compensation for their destroyed home, he said.

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Housing remains a problem even though the population is about half of what it was before the war. New apartments are sold to Russian newcomers — not those who lost their homes, according to complaints sent by video to Putin.

Not everyone opposesthe Russian takeover.The former actor says half of the members of his old troupe support the Kremlin. Still, he said his parents asked him not to send postcards in Ukrainian because "it could be dangerous."

Crumbling infrastructure

Years of war and neglect have saddled many cities with crumbling municipal services.

In Alchevsk, a city in the Luhansk region, over half the homes are without heat in this bitterly cold winter. Five warming stations have been set up.

In the Donetsk region, water trucks fill barrels outside apartment blocks — but they freeze solid in winter, said a resident who spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared repercussions. "There's constant squabbling over water," she said.

Moscow encourages Russians to move to the occupied regions, offering various benefits. Teachers, doctors and cultural workers are promised salary supplements if they live there for five years.

The northeastern city of Sievierodonetsk, once home to 140,000 people, suffered significant damage and now has only 45,000 mostly elderly or disabled residents. Only one ambulance crew serves the city, and Russian medical workers rotate in to staff its hospital, said a 67-year-old former engineer who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

"I know how difficult it is now for the residents of the liberated cities and towns. There are many truly pressing, urgent problems," Putin said in September. He cited the need for reliable water supplies and access to health care, and said he has launched a "large-scale socioeconomic development program" for the regions.

Living in fear

Stanislav Shkuta, 25, fromNova Kakhovka in the Kherson region,said he narrowly escaped arrest several times before reaching Ukrainian-controlled territory in 2023. He recalled being on a bus that was stopped by Russian soldiers, and "men and women were asked to strip to the waist to see if they had Ukrainian tattoos."

Shkuta, now in Estonia, said he "turned white with fear, wondering if I'd cleared everything on my phone."

Friends who stayed in Nova Kakhovka say life has worsened, with suspected Ukrainian sympathizers stopped on the street or in surprise door-to-door inspections, he added.

Mykhailo Savva of the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine said "Russian special services continue to identify disloyal Ukrainians, extract confessions, and continue to detain people," with residents facing document checks and mass searches.

Human rights groups say Russia used "filtration camps" early in the war to identify potentially disloyal individuals, as well as anyone who worked for the government, helped the Ukrainian army or had relatives in the military, along with journalists, teachers, scientists and politicians.

About 16,000 civilians have been detained illegally, but that number could be much higher because many are held incommunicado, said Ukrainian Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets.

Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed.