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Sunday, May 3, 2026

Pistons advance in playoffs for 1st time in 18 years, beating Magic 116-94

May 03, 2026
Pistons advance in playoffs for 1st time in 18 years, beating Magic 116-94

DETROIT (AP) — Cade Cunningham had 32 points and 12 assists, Tobias Harris added 30 points and the Detroit Pistons beat the Orlando Magic 116-94 in Game 7 on Sunday to win a playoff series for the first time in 18 years.

Associated Press

Cunningham averaged 32.4 points for Detroit, which last won a postseason series by beating Orlando in the second round in 2008. The Pistons advance to play the winner of Sunday evening’s Game 7 between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Toronto Raptors. Game 1 will be Tuesday at Little Caesars Arena.

The Pistons became the 15th team in NBA history to overcome a 3-1 deficit and the second in the last two nights, after the Philadelphia 76ers came back to eliminate Boston.

They trailed by 24 points in Game 6 in Orlando before rallying to take the series at home. Orlando only scored 113 points in the final six quarters of the series — an average of 18.8 per period.

Cunningham and Harris became the first Pistons teammates to score 30 points in a playoff game since Bob Lanier (33) and Howard Porter (30) against the Golden State Warriors on April 17, 1977.

CAVALIERS 114, RAPTORS 102

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CLEVELAND (AP) — Jarrett Allen tied his playoff career high with 22 points and grabbed 19 rebounds as Cleveland advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals with a victory over Toronto in Game 7 of their series.

Donovan Mitchell led the Cavaliers with 22 points and James Harden added 18 in a series in which the home team won all seven games.

Cleveland, the No. 4 seed, will visit top-seeded Detroit on Tuesday night in Game 1 of the second round. The Central Division rivals split their four regular-season meetings.

Scottie Barnes had 24 points and nine rebounds and RJ Barrett scored 23 for the Raptors, who were in the playoffs for the first time since 2022.

Allen had 14 points and 10 rebounds, including five on the offensive end, as Cleveland went on a 49-21 run during a 15-minute span over the second and third quarters where it turned a nine-point deficit into an 19-point advantage.

Toronto led for most of the first half and had a 10-point lead midway through the second quarter before Cleveland began its comeback.

The Cavaliers were down 47-38 with 2:58 remaining before going on a 11-2 run to close the half and tie it at 49. The Cavs were 4 of 17 on 3-pointers before Harden, Max Strus and Jaylon Tyson connected from beyond the arc.

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Braves place Ronald Acuña Jr. on the 10-day injured list with a strained hamstring

May 03, 2026
Braves place Ronald Acuña Jr. on the 10-day injured list with a strained hamstring

DENVER (AP) — TheAtlanta Bravesplaced star right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. on the 10-day injured list because ofa strained left hamstringon Sunday.

Associated Press Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acuña Jr., center left, walks gingerly after being injured while running out a groundout as first base umpire Bill Miller, center right, looks on in the second inning of a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies, Saturday, May 2, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski) Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acuña Jr., left, is escorted off the field after being injured in the second inning of a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies, Saturday, May 2, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Braves Rockies Baseball

The Braves owned the best record in baseball at 24-10 entering Sunday's game against theColorado Rockies. But they'll have to get by for now without one of their top players.

Acuña leftSaturday night’s gamein the second inning. He was attempting to run out a ground ball before he pulled up about halfway down the base path and grabbed at his hamstring.

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The five-time All-Star and 2023 National League MVP is batting .252 with two home runs, nine RBIs, 17 runs and a team-high seven steals. He had played in all 34 games after a torn ACL he suffered in May 2024 limited him to a combined 144 games over the past two seasons.

The Braves activated right-hander Spencer Strider from the injured list prior to Sunday's start. The 2023 All-Star was set to make his season debut after being sidelined with a strained oblique. The Braves optioned right-hander Hunter Stratton to Triple-A Gwinnett following Saturday's game to make room for him. They also selected outfielder José Azócar's contract from the minor league club on Sunday with Acuña going on the injured list.

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

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Saturday, May 2, 2026

Cubans struggle to survive on pocket-size government ration books as products dwindle

May 02, 2026
Cubans struggle to survive on pocket-size government ration books as products dwindle

HAVANA (AP) — José Luis Amate López hasn’t had a customer in almost two weeks, not counting the scrawny brown kitten that slinks around the bodega where he works in centralHavana.

Associated Press A man shows his ration book known as a A woman stands at the counter of a state-run bodega in Havana, Cuba, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa) Vendors wait for customers at a weekly food fair in Alamar, Havana province, Cuba, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa) People line up to buy papaya at a weekly food fair in Alamar, Havana province, Cuba, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa) Seen through the window of a passing American classic car, seniors stand in line to buy bread in Old Havana, Cuba, Friday, April 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Cuba Daily Life

The shelves once laden with goods during his childhood sat nearly empty in late April, with barely anything to offer the 5,000 clients who depend on the state-run store for subsidized food.

Government ration booksthat once provided for a healthy diet and kept families fully fed for a month are now shrinking.

As the economy collapses and prices soar, a growing number ofCubansfind themselves unable to afford alternatives to state-run storesand struggle to subsiston meager salaries in a socialist country of nearly 10 million where basic goods increasingly are sold in U.S. dollars.

“No Cuban can truly survive on the products from the ration book anymore,” Amate López said.

‘Living

off air’

Revolutionary leaderFidel Castroestablished the ration book — “la libreta”— in the early 1960s. It offered heavily subsidized goods ranging from milk to fish and even cigarettes. Cubans knew their assigned bodega would be stocked with everything they needed by the first of the month.

The ration book shrank during the “Special Period,” when Soviet aid plummeted in the 1990s and deprivation hit Cuba. During that time, Cubans lost an average of 5% to 25% of their body weight, according to one study published in a medical journal, with goods including bread, milk, eggs and chicken in scarce quantities.

Even so, many Cubans who lived through that period say the current situation is worse.

Amate López recalled that his assigned bodega was so full decades ago “you could barely walk.”

It’s now an empty room with dusty old posters detailing the prices and amounts of nearly two dozen goods no longer available, including yogurt, pasta and bars of soap. Two industrial freezers once packed with meat and chicken serve only to keep Amate López’s water bottle cold. In April, the only items he had available to sell were rice, sugar and split chickpeas.

Cuban teens turning 15, a landmark birthday in Latin America, used to receive cake and several cases of beer. Now they only get 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) of ground beef. The government recently opted to celebrate those turning 65 by awarding them sardines, a bar of soap and a package of toilet paper. But Amate López said he doesn't have those items.

Havana resident Ana Enamorado, 68, said she only was able to buy split chickpeas and 2 pounds (1 kilogram) of sugar at her assigned bodega in April.

She struggles to buy the remaining basic goods at small, privately owned stores known as“mipymes”with her salary and pension totaling some 8,000Cuban pesos($16) a month.

A carton of 30 eggs costs roughly 3,000 pesos ($125), 2 pounds of meat hash are nearly 900 pesos ($37) and 1 pound of cornmeal is roughly 200 pesos ($8).

“There’s hardly anything in the ration book,” she said. “We’re practically living off air.”

Her lunches and dinners are a rotation of rice, seasoned ground meat and cornmeal, or sometimes nothing at all. She recalled once upon a time being able to eat pork, lamb, fricassee, fried plantain slices and red beans and rice.

“Now we have to cut back, have one meal a day and live on memories,” Enamorado said.

Subsidizing people in need instead of goods

Cuba imports up to 80% of the food it consumes, including goods offered at state stores that are increasingly unavailable given a lack of government resources.

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“They just don’t have the money to do it anymore,” William LeoGrande, a professor at American University who has tracked Cuba for years, said about the government running out of funds. “Things come in an ad hoc way.”

LeoGrande said the government “bungled” the2021 merging of two Cuban currenciesand the resulting inflation has persisted because the state spends far more money than it takes in.

The government has to stop printing money and balance its budget without drastically cutting social services, a challenge since the bulk of state funds is spent on health, education, social welfare and food imports, he said.

“Any major cuts in state spending are going to have a profound social impact, which is why they haven’t done it,” LeoGrande said, adding that the government’s investment in tourism is “way higher” than the demand for tourism, whichhas plummeted.

In recent years, Cuba’s government has talked about subsidizing people in need instead of goods. That would free up money to import fuel, medicine and other items, LeoGrande said.

But many Cubans still depend on their ration books while the island's crises deepen assevere power outages, petroleum shortages and aU.S. energy blockadepersist.

Cuban comedians have spoofed the ration book, creating a character named “Pánfilo" who sings a rhyming chorus in a recent video posted online: “Place the notebook in a cemetery, because it's ready to be buried.”

Struggling to buy basic goods

On a recent sunny afternoon, Lázaro Cuesta, 56, stood in line to receive a daily allowance of two small bread rolls for him and his wife.

“Before it was 80 grams and cost 5 (Cuban) cents. Now it’s 40 grams and costs 75 cents,'' he said. “And the quality is worse.”

Cuesta works in food preparation and earns 6,000 Cuban pesos ($250) a month. His wife, a retired nurse, receives 4,800 pesos in monthly pension. They also receive $200 a month from her brother and daughter who live abroad.

The remittances allow them to eat avocados, eggs and red beans and rice, Cuesta said.

“If not for the remittances,” he said as he grabbed his neck with his right hand, “hang yourself.”

Roughly 60% of Cubans on the island receive remittances, but Rosa Rodríguez, 54, of Havana is not one of them.

“Everything is scarce here — everything — even that wretched bread they give us,” Rodríguez said. She earns 4,000 Cuban pesos ($8) a month, which she said isn’t a bad salary for Cuba, but “no matter how hard you work, it’s simply not enough.”

Rodríguez said the only product she obtained at her assigned bodega in April was a donation of 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms) of rice, while she struggles to buy other basic goods.

“If you buy beans, then you can’t buy sugar,” she said, noting that most of her salary is spent on a large carton of eggs. “If I retire, I die.”

Follow the AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean athttps://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

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Danny Janssen's HR, Josh Jung's two RBIs lead Rangers past Tigers 5-4

May 02, 2026
Danny Janssen's HR, Josh Jung's two RBIs lead Rangers past Tigers 5-4

DETROIT (AP) — Danny Janssen homered and Josh Jung drove in two runs as the Texas Rangers defeated the Detroit Tigers 5-4 on a rainy Friday night.

Associated Press Texas Rangers right fielder Ezequiel Duran (20) catches a Detroit Tigers' Kerry Carpenter fly ball during the seventh inning of a baseball game Friday, May 1, 2026, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Detroit Tigers right fielder Wenceel Pérez catches a Texas Rangers' Evan Carter fly ball during the first inning of a baseball game Friday, May 1, 2026, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Texas Rangers pitcher Jacob Latz throws against the Detroit Tigers during the ninth inning of a baseball game Friday, May 1, 2026, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Detroit Tigers pitcher Burch Smith throws against the Texas Rangers during the ninth inning of a baseball game Friday, May 1, 2026, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Detroit Tigers' Kerry Carpenter, right, steals second base under the tag of Texas Rangers second baseman Josh Smith, left, during the fifth inning of a baseball game Friday, May 1, 2026, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Rangers Tigers Baseball

The Rangers (16-16) are back to .500 after losing three of their previous four game. Detroit (16-17) has lost five of its last seven.

Texas broke a 4-all tie against Burch Smith (0-1) in the eighth. With one out, Jake Burger and Alejandro Osuna hit back-to-back doubles to make it 5-4.

Jakob Junis pitched a scoreless eighth and Jacob Latz pitched the ninth for his third save. Former Tiger Tyler Alexander (1-0) picked up the win in relief.

Neither starter was involved in the decision. MacKenzie Gore allowed three runs in 3 2/3 innings, while Detroit's Jack Flaherty gave up four runs in 3 2/3 innings.

Jung gave the Rangers a 1--0 lead in the first inning with a two-out RBI single.

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Janssen led off the third with a homer over the Tigers bullpen in left, and Flaherty walked the next three hitters. Jung singled to left, bringing home Brandon Nimmo, and Joc Pederson followed with a sacrifice fly to make it 4-0.

Flaherty then dropped a pop-up in front of the plate, but the infield-fly rule prevented any damage.

The Tigers made it 4-3 in the fourth. Detroit loaded the bases with two out on two hits and a walk. Wenceel Perez hit a two-run single to left, and Hao-Yu looped a single into right-center to knock in a third run.

Riley Greene tied the game in the fifth, beating out a double-play attempt to allow Kerry Carpenter to score from third.

Nimmo left the game in the bottom of the third with right hamstring tightness — the second straight game he has exited with the same issue.

Up next

Detroit RHP Keider Montero (1-2, 4.00 ERA) is scheduled to face RHP Kumar Rocker (1-2, 3.38) on Saturday night.

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Friday, May 1, 2026

Where is Renee Good’s killer? AOC outraged by ICE agent’s reinstatement

May 01, 2026
Where is Renee Good’s killer? AOC outraged by ICE agent’s reinstatement

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is furious that the immigration agent who fatallyshot Renee Goodin Minneapolis hasbeen reinstated— and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to know if he's working in their state.

The Independent US

"God forbid, every single American, every single person that that man encounters from his reinstatement on is in just great danger as she was in," Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said in a video clip posted on X by theMeidasTouch Network.

Ocasio-Cortez also called Good's reinstatement "so brazen" and "intentional."

“You have an ICE agent who killed a woman, you know, in cold blood. But the fact that the agency has reinstated him is a direct message from the administration about the impunity they feel.”

In a letter to President Donald Trump's "border czar,"Tom Homan, Hochul said she was "deeply troubled by reports that Jonathan Ross, the agent who shot Ms. Good three times, has been quietly reassigned to another state" and said she had "no confidence that Ross can be trusted to safely interact with the public."

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is outraged that the ICE agent who shot and killed Minnesota mom Renee Good has been reassigned. And Gov. Kathy Hochul wants President Donald Trump to tell her if he’s working in their state. (Getty)

"I am formally requesting confirmation that Jonathan Ross has not been reassigned to work in New York State," Hochul wrote in the letter posted online byPolitico.

"If Jonathan Ross has been reassigned to work in New York, I demand that he be immediately removed and not redeployed unless cleared after a full, independent investigation."

Rep. Delia Rodriguez (D-Ill.) also toldPunchUp and Migrant Insiderthat Ross's reinstatement "should concern everyone,” asking, "What state will he go to?

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The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that it didn’t discuss personnel matters. The White House didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

Ross was placed on three days of administrative leave after shooting Good during an ICE operation on Jan. 7.

Democratic lawmakers are outraged that immigration agent Jonathan Ross, shown here on an electronic billboard in Minneapolis in January, has been reinstated and reassigned outside Minnesota (AFP/Getty) A photo of Renee Good is displayed at a January protest in Minneapolis following her shooting by immigration agent Jonathan Ross, who’s since been reinstated and reassigned outside Minnesota (AFP/Getty)

Earlier this week,PunchUpreported that Ross had been transferred out of Minnesota and was working in another, unidentified state.

He's been reassigned to administrative duty, according toNewsNation.

Rep. Sarah McBride said it was "absolutely outrageous" that Ross was again working for ICE and invoked the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti during a confrontation with Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis on Jan. 24.

"It is clear this administration has learned nothing from the murders of Renee Good or Alex Pretti, and they seem to be asking for it happen again," she said in a video clip posted byMeidasTouch. "There is no, no, no reason to put someone who murdered an American citizen on our streets back on those streets.

"There should be accountability, not unleashing this person back on American citizens in our communities," McBride said.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn), who represents the Minneapolis district where Good lived, told told PunchUp and Migrant Insider that it was “really, really heartbreaking that we cannot get accountability” for her slaying.

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