(NEW YORK) — The Houston Rockets were slated to kick off their regular season Wednesday night against the Oklahoma City Thunder but the game was postponed due to COVID-19.
The NBA put Houston’s season opener on pause after three players tested positive or inconclusive for the novel coronavirus.
Also on Wednesday, video surfaced of Rockets star James Harden attending a private indoor event and not wearing a mask. The league fined the 31-year-old shooting guard $50,000 for violating its COVID-19 protocols.
ABC News’ Will Reeve has more on these developments and what it means for the team:
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Wednesday’s sports events:
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION Cleveland 121, Charlotte 114 Orlando 113, Miami 107 Indiana 121, New York 107 Philadelphia 113, Washington 107 New Orleans 113, Toronto 99 Boston 122, Milwaukee 121 San Antonio 131, Memphis 119 Minnesota 111, Detroit 101 Atlanta 124, Chicago 104 Sacramento 124, Denver 122 (OT) Utah 120 Portland 100 Phoenix 106, Dallas 102 Oklahoma City at Houston (Postponed) TOP-25 COLLEGE BASKETBALL Villanova 85, Marquette 68 Tennessee 80, SC-Upstate 60 Ohio St. 80, Rutgers 68 Creighton 66, Xavier 61 Illinois 98, Penn St. 81 UCLA at Oregon (Postponed)
ABCWatching your kids grow up certainly is bittersweet.
Carrie Underwood recently got the chance to bring her five-year-old son, Isaiah, into the recording studio, when he served as her duet partner on a version of “Little Drummer Boy” off her holiday album, My Gift. While Isaiah may still have quite a way to go before he’s all grown up, the singer says there’s one new thing he learned to do recently that made her a little emotional.
“I’ll make you real sad for a second: He now pronounces his ‘Rs,’” Underwood reveals. “He says ‘Pa rum pum pum pum’ when he sings it now, which is very sad for me. I mean, ultimately, you want them to pronounce Rs, but that moment is already gone, and it went like that.”
Still, she adds, Isaiah still brought plenty of childlike joy and enthusiasm to the studio, especially because he’s too young to understand the marketing, PR and business sides of music-making. All he knows is that he’s having fun.
“Which was such a joy for me to watch,” adds Carrie, “because there’s no motive behind any of it except for ‘This is fun and I like to do it.’
As for her? The singer says her duet with Isaiah will be a cherished keepsake long after her son grows up.
“When he is a dude, a man, and he’s got this deep voice, I am always going to have that moment in time captured on this album,” she says.
Courtesy of Focus Features(LOS ANGELES) — The new movie Promising Young Woman is all about believing women. The dark, comedic drama, out Christmas Day, stars Carey Mulligan as a woman looking for revenge after a sexual assault, and it’s winning rave reviews for writer and director Emerald Fennell, who tells ABC Audio the idea for the film started with a simple word – revenge.
“I wanted to write a revenge movie that felt, you know, female led revenge movie that felt kind of closer to what I expect a kind of woman might do if she wanted to get revenge,” says Fennell, who many may know for playing Camilla Parker-Bowles on The Crown.
Revenge aside, Promising Young Woman also shines a light on the movement to believe women which is something that Mulligan admits has progressed but more still needs to be done.
“This is such a seismic shift that will ultimately need to happen, but for sure things are moving. These conversations are public,” she explains. “People are speaking out, and it’s astonishing to witness people’s bravery.”
The English actress adds that in the wake of the “Me Too” movement films like Promising Young Woman can help push the movement forward.
“The more kind of concrete stuff that can get put in place, the better,” Mulligan says. “But that’s talking in a very sort of narrow world view of just my my industry. But in the broader scheme of things, I do think that art contributes to that conversation, which is why what Emerald’s made, I think, will ultimately be really important because it will continue that conversation.”
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — Columbus, Ohio, Mayor Andrew Ginther has called for the termination of a police officer involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black man after body camera footage released Wednesday showed the officer did not appear to provide immediate aid to the victim.
The police officer, identified as Adam Coy, a 19-year veteran of the Columbus Division of Police, had his badge and gun taken away Tuesday pending an investigation after it was discovered that he did not turn on his body camera until after the shooting.
The footage released Wednesday comes from the camera’s “look back” function, which captures video 60 seconds before an officer turns on the device, investigators said. It includes footage from after Coy opened fired as he and other officers responded to a 911 call in Upper Arlington, the Columbus Department of Public Safety said.
Andre Maurice Hill, 47, was killed in the shooting, police said.
The incident began at 1:37 a.m. Tuesday when officers were dispatched to a “non-emergency” disturbance call from a neighbor who allegedly saw a man sitting in an SUV for an extended period of time, according to the Columbus Department of Public Safety. The person in the car allegedly kept turning his vehicle on and off, the agency said.
Hill is seen in the body camera footage coming out of a garage with a cellphone in his left hand and his right hand obscured before Coy opens fire. The “look back” function does not record the audio before the shots were fired.
Coy is then seen approaching Hill’s body, ordering that the wounded man show his hands and roll over, before asking a colleague if medics have been called. Coy does not administer aid to the victim, according to the footage.
Hill was taken to Riverside Hospital where he was pronounced dead, investigators said. No weapon was found at the scene and none of the responding officers had their cameras on until after Hill was shot, according to investigators.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is overseeing the probe into the shooting.
Hill’s family, including his daughter, saw the footage on Tuesday, Ginther said Wednesday.
The mayor said Hill was known to the residents of the house and was their guest that night.
“He was expected. He was not an intruder,” Ginther said.
The mayor said he was shocked and stunned when he saw the body camera footage, especially since it took “several minutes” for the officers to administer aid to Hill.
“To see him lying in the driveway, minute after minute after minute, with no attempt to render aid and comfort. … I’ve never seen body-worn camera footage like that,” Ginther said.
He called for Hill to be terminated for failing to turn on his camera and not administering aid after he opened fire.
Ned Pettus, director of the Department of Public Safety, said at Wednesday’s press conference that there would have to be a hearing before any formal termination could happen.
“My commitment, my legal obligation, is to conduct a fair and impartial hearing, and that is what I intend to do,” he said.
Ginther, who earlier Wednesday had attended the funeral of Casey Goodson Jr., a Black man who was shot by a sheriff’s deputy in Columbus on Dec. 4, said to the city’s Black community that he understood their frustration and concern following both incidents.
“Enough is enough. This community is exhausted,” he said.
Hill’s sister, Shawna Barnett, posted a photo of the two of them on her Facebook page along with a message to others about how the family is dealing with his death.
“My brother was snatched away from me, our family. I’m deeply hurt and in pain at the moment and will be able to speak soon … but not at the moment,” she wrote. “We need time to process what has happened to my brother, my only brother, that I cannot laugh with again, call on the phone, see him smile, hear him talk endlessly, and be there for me when I needed him.”
“Now I and my family will be there for him (and other murdered victims) to take up this plight that our culture has painfully endured for years,” she added. “The violence against us … This has to stop right NOW!”
cmannphoto/iStockBy JEANETTE TORRES-PEREZ, ABC News
