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Mavericks GM Nico Harrison says he didn’t know ‘to what level’ fans loved Luka Doncic

Embattled Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison was peppered with questions Monday about his decision to trade Luka Doncic in Febhttps://www.nbcnews.com/sports/nfl/travis-hunter-nfl-draft-offense-defense-rcna200534ruary, admitting he didn’t know exactly how much Mavericks fans cared about the former franchise superstar.

Answering questions from reporters at an end-of-season press conference, Harrison was asked if the “anger and outrage” from fans exceeded what he expected when he made the decision to trade Doncic, who led Dallas to the NBA Finals in 2023.

“I knew Luka was important to the fan base,” Harrison said. “I didn’t quite know it to what level.”

Doncic, a five-time NBA All-Star and five-time All-NBA First Team selection, was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers on Feb. 2 in a move that shocked the basketball world. In his introductory press conference with the Lakers, Doncic — who is second only to Michael Jordan in postseason scoring average — said he planned to sign an extension with the Mavericks this summer. Doncic has also since said he planned to spend his entire career in Dallas.

Harrison has been widely criticized for the move, most vociferously by the team’s own fans. Immediately following the trade, Mavericks fans created something of a memorial for the traded player right outside the team’s home arena. Harrison has also been subject to numerous “Fire Nico” chants at home games since the transaction.

In a meeting with selected reporters earlier this month, Harrison said he had “no regrets” about the trade, reportedly repeating the phrase “defense wins championships” when asked about his reasoning for the move.

To make matters worse for Dallas, point guard Kyrie Irving tore his ACL in early March, and forward Anthony Davis, the centerpiece of the return package for Doncic, appeared in only nine regular season games for the Mavericks because of injuries.

Dallas ultimately missed the playoffs after losing to the Memphis Grizzlies in the second round of the Play-In Tournament.

Harrison was asked directly by a reporter why he should still have his job after the turmoil of the last three months.

“I think I’ve done a really good job here,” Harrison said. “I don’t think I can be judged by injuries this year. You have to be judged in totality from beginning to end.”

On April 9, Doncic played in his first game back in Dallas since joining the Lakers. He visibly cried during the team’s tribute video for him during the game.

Doncic also scored 45 points in a 112-97 win for Los Angeles.

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April 21, 2025

Pope Francis created a ‘seismic shift’ toward acceptance, LGBTQ Catholics say

In July 2013, Pope Francis posed a question that marked a radical shift in the Catholic Church’s treatment of gay people.

“If a person is gay and seeks God and has goodwill, who am I to judge him?” he asked reporters in 2013. “Who am I to judge?”

Francis died early Monday, the day after Easter, and LGBTQ Catholics and theologians recalled the comment as one of the first Francis made that promoted acceptance of queer people. It was a dramatic departure from the way the previous figureheads of the Holy See and church doctrine had often spoken about gay people, describing homosexuality as “an intrinsic moral evil” and an “objective disorder,” and the relatively accepting tone would go on to become a major theme of Francis’ papacy and, now, his complex legacy.

Francis would go on to urge parents not to condemn their gay children and approve priests’ blessing same-sex unions. However, “he wasn’t perfect” in the eyes of LGBTQ Catholics, said Jason Steidl Jack, an assistant teaching professor of religious studies at St. Joseph’s University, New York. Just after the “Who am I to judge?” remark, Francis said homosexuality is still a sin under Catholic doctrine. He also referred to gay people with slurs on at least two occasions, Steidl Jack said, and spoke negatively about what he called “gender ideology.” He also said blessings of same-sex couples couldn’t resemble traditional marriage vows.

But what made Francis’ papacy historic is that, unlike his predecessors, he met with LGBTQ people from around the world and listened to their stories.

“He could have conversations that just weren’t possible under John Paul II and Benedict XVI,” Steidl Jack said of the two popes before Francis. “As the years of his papacy went on, he seemed to get more open, both to gays and lesbians, but also to the trans community. This is a level of openness that was unthinkable before Pope Francis. It’s been a revolution of compassion, a revolution of welcome, and it’s changed the church. It’s changed the church’s relationship to the LGBTQ community.”

‘He sat and held our hands’

Francis’ positive remarks about the LGBTQ community were a “seismic shift” in the church’s treatment of gay and lesbian people, said Marianne Duddy-Burke, the executive director of DignityUSA, which advocates for LGBTQ rights within the Catholic Church.

In response to the organization’s advocacy, the Vatican issued a controversial “Letter to the Bishops on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons” in 1986, which resulted in many of the organization’s chapters being expelled from their home parishes and barred from meeting on Catholic properties, Duddy-Burke said.

Nearly three decades later, the Vatican invited Duddy-Burke, who is also a co-chair of Global Network of Rainbow Catholics, an international organization of LGBTQ Catholics, and two other members of the organization to meet with Francis during a synod assembly in October 2023.

They talked to him about the importance of his statement earlier that year calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality worldwide, but told him that the sentiment needed to be implemented by Catholic bishops and politicians. They also told him LGBTQ people are often still excluded from Catholic churches, and discussed the importance of gender-affirming health care for transgender people.

“He was very warm, and he laughed with us, and he made eye contact through the whole thing,” Duddy-Burke said. “He sat and held our hands and hugged one of us.”

At the end of their meeting, Francis told them, in Italian, “Your work is important. Keep pressing on,” Duddy-Burke said through tears as she recalled the moment.

She said there was a huge public response to photos and news about the meeting, which “showed just how significant it was for representatives [of the community] to be seen with the pope.”

Michael O’Loughlin, author of “Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear,” wrote a letter to Francis after O’Loughlin published his book to tell the pontiff about the conversations he had with Catholic nuns and priests who went against the teachings of the church at the time and worked behind the scenes to care for people dying from AIDS-related illnesses.

Michael O'Loughlin shakes hands with Pope Francis. — Michael O’Loughlin shakes hands with Pope Francis.Courtesy Michael O’Loughlin

In August 2021, Francis wrote back. The letter was written in Spanish but was translated to English. He thanked O’Loughlin for shining a light on the priests, religious sisters and lay people who supported those who were sick from HIV and AIDS.

“Instead of indifference, alienation and even condemnation, these people let themselves be moved by the mercy of the Father and allowed that to become their own life’s work; a discreet mercy, silent and hidden, but still capable of sustaining and restoring the life and history of each one of us,” Francis wrote.

“I’ll always remember Francis for creating space for LGBT people to tell our own stories in the church,” said O’Loughlin, who is also the executive director of Outreach, an LGBTQ Catholic organization. “While some LGBT advocates point out that he maybe didn’t go far enough in what they had hoped he would do, he nonetheless created these opportunities for us to show that we want to live our lives in the church just like any other Catholics.”

Max Kuzma, a lifelong Catholic and transgender advocate, said he was also struck by Francis’ pastoral presence and compassion when he met the pontiff last year. Kuzma said he introduced himself to Francis, in Spanish, as a transgender man. It was a busy moment, Kuzma said, and Francis was being pushed along in his wheelchair, so he didn’t respond verbally.

Max Kuzma meeting Pope Francis. — Max Kuzma meets Pope Francis.Courtesy Max Kuzma

“But it was his expression and the way that he grasped my hand,” Kuzma said. “I really felt that moment of acceptance and love and support, a very pastoral feeling when you look in the eyes of the pope.”

An uncertain future

Though Francis’ gestures of acceptance for LGBTQ people set an example for other Catholic Church leaders, Steidl Jack said, it’s unclear how far they will carry into the next papacy, because Francis didn’t fundamentally change church doctrine.

“If you open up the Catechism, it still describes homosexuality as intrinsically disordered, as something that goes against God’s purposes for human sexuality, and that is opposed to human flourishing,” Steidl Jack said. He added that after Francis issued the document allowing for blessings of same-sex couples, he faced backlash from priests in parts of Africa and Eastern Europe, and he was likely afraid that pushing for doctrinal change too quickly would cause a schism in the church.

Francis’ statements regarding LGBTQ people also haven’t been entirely positive and have often been contradictory. For example, at the start of the pandemic, Francis began meeting with trans women, many of them sex workers, at the Vatican. In 2023, he also said trans people can be baptized and can become godparents. However, in March 2024, he called “gender ideology” the “ugliest danger” of our time.

Kuzma said that statement, combined with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops praising President Donald Trump’s executive order barring trans women and girls from competing in female sports, makes him nervous about the future if the next pope is hostile toward trans people.

“That unhelpfully fed into some of the culture war stuff,” Kuzma said, especially in more conservative Catholic spaces, which Kuzma said he used to be a part of.

Still, Kuzma said he believes that if Francis had lived longer, he would’ve formed friendships with trans people in the way he formed a friendship with Juan Carlos Cruz, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse. In 2018, regarding Cruz being gay, Francis famously told him, “God made you like this.” In 2021, he appointed Cruz to a commission for protecting minors. Kuzma said such friendships would’ve likely changed Francis’ mind.

Steidl Jack agreed, saying that one of the major lessons from Francis’ pontificate was that he “didn’t get things right all the time,” but he was willing to listen.

“He was willing to spend time with people and accept them as they are,” Steidl Jack said. “I believe he grew from that, and I believe the church grew from that as well. And that’s where the church needs to continue growing. It’s a ministry of listening to, a ministry of openness. It’s a ministry of being willing to learn.”

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April 21, 2025

Visa is reinstated for BYU student from Japan who had a fishing citation and speeding tickets

A Brigham Young University student from Japan discovered that his visa was reinstated last week after it had been abruptly revoked a few weeks ago, his attorney told NBC News.

Suguru Onda, a doctoral student and father of five, had received a notice from government officials that his legal status was terminated because he was “identified in criminal records check and/or has had their VISA revoked.”

Adam Crayk, his attorney, told the NBC News affiliate KSL-TV in Salt Lake City that Onda has no record aside from a few speeding tickets and a fishing-related citation, and that he believes AI software likely mistakenly terminated the visa. But he’s been given little explanation for the reversal.

“I’m just grateful to be here,” Onda told KSL.

The State Department declined NBC News’ request for comment.

The Department of Homeland Security did not elaborate on Onda’s case “due to privacy concerns and visa confidentiality.”

“DHS, through ICE HSI, conducts regular reviews of records in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) to ensure visa holders remain in compliance with program requirements,” a senior DHS official said.

The attorney told KSL that he suspects officials are not thoroughly checking the names that are being pulled by the AI software.

DHS has created a task force that uses data analytic tools to scour the social media histories of international students, as well as criminal charges or records, three sources familiar with the operation told NBC News this month.

Crayk said that BYU, in Provo, Utah, received an email about the reinstatement just minutes after Onda, a doctoral student who is a year away from finishing his degree in computer science, filed a lawsuit with several other international students in Utah against the Department of Homeland Security for terminating their statuses. They argue in the lawsuit that their due process and other Fifth Amendment rights were violated.

The reinstatement, however, came as a surprise, Crayk said, especially since no immigration officials had reached out.

“He is reinstated as if it was never revoked,” Crayk told KSL.

Onda, who’s been in the U.S. for roughly six years, had been given 15 days to return to Japan or face deportation. With little social media presence and no history of political activism, Onda was likely flagged, Crayk told the Deseret News, because of the 2019 catch-and-release fishing violation from a church outing. It was eventually dismissed.

“He didn’t catch a fish — but because he was the organizer or the face of the activity, [Onda] was cited for harvesting more than their license permitted,” Crayk told the News.

Kimmy Yam

Kimmy Yam is a reporter for NBC Asian America.

Janhvi Bhojwani contributed.

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April 21, 2025

RFK Jr. announces plans to remove artificial dyes from the nation’s food supply

The Trump administration said Monday it will announce a plan to remove petroleum-based synthetic dyes from the nation’s food supply.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary are expected to discuss the plan during a press conference Tuesday afternoon, according to an HHS press release.

An agency spokesperson confirmed the press conference.

Kennedy has previously vowed to eliminate artificial dyes from the nation’s food supply, claiming that the dyes are responsible for behavioral problems in children, including hyperactivity — a link the FDA says it is monitoring but hasn’t established.

The FDA has approved 36 color additives, including nine petroleum-based synthetic dyes used in foods and beverages.

Among them is Red No. 3, which is made from petroleum and gives food and drinks a cherry color and was banned in January over concerns about possible cancer risks. It was approved for use in foods in 1907. Food companies will have until 2027 to remove the dye; drug companies get an additional year.

The dyes are commonly used in thousands of products marketed to kids, including candy, breakfast cereals and soda, giving the products bright, vibrant hues.

Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, called the issue “an easy one” for Kennedy to address.

While the FDA hasn’t established a link, Nestle said there is some research that dyes might contribute to behavioral problems in kids.

A 2021 report from the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, for example, reviewed 27 trials in children and concluded food dyes can interfere with normal behavior in at least some kids.

Nestle — who added that the dyes serve no purpose for food beyond cosmetics — noted that other countries have moved to either restrict or ban the dyes. In those countries, she said, companies have introduced natural alternatives.

”This should have been done a long time ago,” Nestle said. “They’ve been promising to get rid of these things for years and balking. They’ve gotten rid of them in Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. There’s no reason why we can’t use something else.”

Jerold Mande, an adjunct professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who is also a former FDA senior adviser and former deputy undersecretary for food safety at the Agriculture Department, said food dyes make ultra processed foods look more appealing, resulting in over-eating and obesity.

“Overweight is the primary food cause of cancer,” he said in an email. “Thus, we must regulate the use of both synthetic and natural colors as well as flavors that allow food companies to transform powders and sludges into calorically dense, hyperpalatable ultra processed ‘foods’ that are making us and our children sick.”

The FDA began looking into a possible link between dyes and behavioral problems in kids in the 1970s, when a California allergist and pediatrician proposed a possible connection. In 2011 and 2019, however, the FDA determined that no causal relationship could be established.

Still, there’s also a growing movement among several states to eliminate dyes.

In March, Kennedy praised West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey after he signed into a bill into law banning seven of the artificial dyes approved by the FDA. The law takes effect in 2028. The law follows a similar move from California last year that banned six dyes from food served in public schools.

That same month, Kennedy also told executives from major food companies in a closed-door meeting that he wanted them all gone by the end of his term.

The Consumer Brands Association, an industry trade group, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement in March, Sarah Gallo, senior vice president of product policy for the group, said food and beverage makers are committed to food safety.

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April 21, 2025

Google faces off with U.S. government in attempt to break up company in search monopoly case

WASHINGTON — Google is confronting an existential threat as the U.S. government tries to break up the company as punishment for turning its revolutionary search engine into an illegal monopoly.

The drama began to unfold Monday in a Washington courtroom as three weeks of hearings kicked off to determine how the company should be penalized for operating a monopoly in search. In its opening arguments, federal antitrust enforcers also urged the court to impose forward-looking remedies to prevent Google from using artificial intelligence to further its dominance.

“This is a moment in time, we’re at an inflection point, will we abandon the search market and surrender them to control of the monopolists or will we let competition prevail and give choice to future generations,” said Justice Department attorney David Dahlquist.

The proceedings, known in legal parlance as a “remedy hearing,” are set to feature a parade of witnesses that includes Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

The U.S. Department of Justice is asking a federal judge to order a radical shake-up that would ban Google from striking the multibillion dollar deals with Apple and other tech companies that shield its search engine from competition, share its repository of valuable user data with rivals and force a sale of its popular Chrome browser.

Google’s attorney, John Schmidtlein, said in his opening statement that the court should take a much lighter touch. He said the government’s heavy-handed proposed remedies wouldn’t boost competition but instead unfairly reward lesser rivals with inferior technology.

“Google won its place in the market fair and square,” Schmidtlein said.

The moment of reckoning comes four-and-a-half-years after the Justice Department filed a landmark lawsuit alleging Google’s search engine had been abusing its power as the internet’s main gateway to stifle competition and innovation for more than a decade.

After the case finally went to trial in 2023, a federal judge last year ruled Google had been making anti-competitive deals to lock in its search engine as the go-to place for digital information on the iPhone, personal computers and other widely used devices, including those running on its own Android software.

That landmark ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sets up a high-stakes drama that will determine the penalties for Google’s misconduct in a search market that it has defined since Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded the company in a Silicon Valley garage in 1998.

Since that austere start, Google has expanded far beyond search to become a powerhouse in email, digital mapping, online video, web browsing, smartphone software and data centers.

Seizing upon its victory in the search case, the Justice Department is now setting out to prove that radical steps must be taken to rein in Google and its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc.

“Google’s illegal conduct has created an economic goliath, one that wreaks havoc over the marketplace to ensure that — no matter what occurs — Google always wins,” the Justice Department argued in documents outlining its proposed penalties. “The American people thus are forced to accept the unbridled demands and shifting, ideological preferences of an economic leviathan in return for a search engine the public may enjoy.”

Although the proposed penalties were originally made under President Joe Biden’s term, they are still being embraced by the Justice Department under President Donald Trump, whose first administration filed the case against Google. Since the change in administrations, the Justice Department has also attempted to cast Google’s immense power as a threat to freedom, too.

In his opening statement, Dahlquist noted that top officials from the Justice Department were in the room to watch proceedings. He said their presence indicated that the case had the full support of federal antitrust regulators, both past and present.

“The fact that this case was filed in 2020, tried in 2023, under two different administrations, and joined by 49 states demonstrates the non-partisan nature of this case and our proposed remedies,” Dahlquist said.

Dahlquist also said that Mehta would be hearing a lot about AI — “perhaps more than you want, your honor,” — and said top executives from AI companies, like ChatGPT, would be called to testify. He said the court’s remedies should include provisions to make sure that Google’s AI product, Gemini, isn’t used to strengthen its existing search monopoly.

“We believe that Google can and will attempt to circumvent the court’s remedies if it is not included,” Dahlquist said. “Gen AI is Google’s next evolution to keep their vicious cycle spinning.”

Schmidtlein, Google’s attorney, said rival AI companies had seen enormous growth in recent years and were doing “just fine.”

Google is also sounding alarms about the proposed requirements to share online search data with rivals and the proposed sale of Chrome posing privacy and security risks. “The breadth and depth of the proposed remedies risks doing significant damage to a complex ecosystem. Some of the proposed remedies would imperil browser developers and jeopardize the digital security of millions of consumers,” Google lawyers said in a filing leading up to hearings.

The showdown over Google’s fate marks the climax of the biggest antitrust case in the U.S. since the Justice Department sued Microsoft in the late 1990s for leveraging its Windows software for personal computers to crush potential rivals.

The Microsoft battle culminated in a federal judge declaring the company an illegal monopoly and ordering a partial breakup — a remedy that was eventually overturned by an appeals court.

Google intends to file an appeal of Mehta’s ruling from last year that branded its search engine as an illegal monopoly but can’t do so until the remedy hearings are completed. After closing arguments are presented in late May, Mehta intends to make his decision on the remedies before Labor Day.

The search case marked the first in a succession of antitrust cases that have been brought against a litany of tech giants that include Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms, which is currently fighting allegations of running an illegal monopoly in social media in another Washington D.C. trial. Other antitrust cases have been brought against both Apple and Amazon, too.

The Justice Department also targeted Google’s digital advertising network in a separate antitrust case that resulted last week in another federal judge’s decision that found the company was abusing its power in that market, too. That ruling means Google will be heading into another remedy hearing that could once again raise the specter of a breakup later this year or early next year.

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April 21, 2025

As a nationwide push to ban cellphones in schools grows, Congress looks to get involved

FAIRFAX, VA. — A bipartisan duo of senators is looking to back the efforts a growing number of states around the country are taking to ban or limit students’ use of cellphones in classrooms.

A recent Associated Press study found that nine states have already implemented statewide restrictions related to cellphones in schools, while another 39 are exploring them. That’s caught the attention of Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., who have proposed a bill to provide federal funding to incentivize classroom cellphone restrictions.

“It’s an issue where we can come together and try to empower parents and school districts to make the right choices for their kids and their students,” Cotton said.

The legislation would provide up to $5 million to school districts nationwide to study and develop pilot programs to lay the groundwork for long-term cellphone bans.

“I think all the districts are grappling with two big challenges: maximizing student learning, maximizing student mental health. And we think excessive cellphone usage gets in the way of both,” Kaine said.

Kaine’s home state of Virginia was one of the first in the nation to implement a cellphone ban in schools. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order last year instructing schools to comply with Virginia Education Department guidance for cellphone use in schools. The policy allows high schoolers to be on their phones between periods and in lunch, but not instructional periods. Middle schoolers have no access to their phones throughout the school day.

In Fairfax, Robinson Secondary School has close to 4,000 middle school and high school students on campus. The high school students place their phones in caddies in the front of a classroom before the period starts and can retrieve them when the period ends. Middle schoolers put their phones into a magnetic triggered pouch at the start of the school day that they keep with them. They can unlock the pouches to get access to their phones as they leave for the day.

“The kids are on board, the community is on board and we’ve had a lot of success,” said Tracey Phillips, the principal at Robinson Secondary School who’s responsible for implementing the program.

The goal in the Fairfax district is not to just ban phones, but also to help students there develop healthy habits with the devices while working to make sure they do not interrupt the learning process.

“I think we’re going to have to find out a way to balance the use of using cellphones as a tool in school and for use for the students’ needs, but also making sure that we protect instructional time,” said Dr. Nardos King, the chief equity officer for Fairfax County Public Schools who is overseeing the cellphone policy for schools across the district.

Administrators and teachers are discovering that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to cellphone policies. Kaine and Cotton made clear that they are not looking for the federal government to dictate the policy from Washington.

“Little Rock is going to be different from Fairfax,” Kaine said. “So let the local officials who are responsive to the voters in the town try to figure out what that right balance is.”

Kaine and Cotton’s bill has yet to receive consideration in the Senate. They are hoping that with the bipartisan support it already has, the legislation could be tacked on to a broader bill that would expedite its passage through the House and the Senate.

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April 21, 2025

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‘He sat and held our hands’

An uncertain future