Putin Triumphs In 2013 Yet Tough Challenges Loom

Dear Amy: Two years ago, my friend “Kim” admitted that she has cut alcohol out of her life after her brother died due to his alcoholism. I thought this was great; we have enjoyed doing things together without alcohol. A couple of times I suspected she had been drinking. Last summer I took my suspicions to her sister-in-law, “Bea,” who is also a friend. Bea confided that Kim is in group therapy for drinking, but that she went on a bender and got her second DUI. I was asked to keep this confidential, and so I decided to act oblivious around Kim. This month, Kim’s lies got bigger.

Moon Alert: Avoid shopping or making important decisions from 4 a.m. to 5 a.m. EDT today (1 a.m. to 2 a.m. PDT. After that, the Moon moves from Taurus into Gemini. Happy Birthday for Wednesday, June 5, 2024: You are interesting, imaginative, energetic and busy. You get things done. You often juggle many projects and multitask.

Trenton, N. J. — Democratic Rep. Andy Kim won New Jersey’s Senate primary Tuesday, putting him in strong position for the general election in the blue-leaning state, though the win comes a day after Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez filed to run as an independent amid his federal corruption trial. Kim, a three-term congressman who launched his campaign after charges against Menendez were announced last year, rose to the top in the state’s dominant political party over a relatively short period.

In April 2014, a tape was leaked of 80-year-old then-Clippers owner Donald Sterling making racist comments to his 31-year-old mistress, V. Stiviano, an incident that ballooned into one of the biggest scandals in the NBA and changed the league forever. The recording incited a media frenzy—which led to Sterling selling the team and earning a lifetime ban from the NBA—and brought to light Sterling’s long and uncomfortable history of racial discrimination, pushing long overdue conversations about race and structural power in not only the NBA, but the world at large. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Read more: The NBA’s Response to Donald Sterling’s Racism Got Everything Right Now, a decade later, this shocking story is still making waves in Clipped, a new six-episode mini series that revisits the scandal that rocked the NBA.

New York — James Kane has used a powerful magnet to fish all manner of junk from New York City waterways, but he says the stacks of $100 bills he pulled from a safe were something else entirely. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Kane’s girlfriend, Barbi Agostini, was recording last Friday as he pulled a slimy safe out of a lake in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, famous as the location of the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs, and extracted bags of waterlogged, gunk-covered Benjamins from inside it. “Oh, that’s money,” Kane said in the video of the discovery.

Camp Hill, Pa. — A young black bear took a dive from a tree Tuesday, landing in a giant tarp held aloft by a group of wildlife, public safety and rescue officials who tranquilized it after it roamed into a suburban Pennsylvania neighborhood. The bruin showed up around lunchtime in a residential area of Camp Hill, outside the capital of Harrisburg.