New York to let Jeremy Lin walk
With point guard Raymond Felton on his way to New York via a sign-and-trade deal with the Portland Trail Blazers, evidence is mounting that the Knicks will not match the Houston Rockets' offer sheet to Jeremy Lin.
Team sources say the Knicks are still deliberating whether they can pay Lin more than $25 million over three years, but one source within the Knicks organization tells ESPN's Stephen A. Smith that the Knicks will not match the offer.
A team source tells ESPNNewYork.com's Ian Begley that the third year of the Rockets' offer -- worth $14.8 million -- makes it unlikely the Knicks would match. If the Knicks were to match the offer, they would also be subject to a luxury tax in the third year, bringing their total out-of-pocket cost for Lin to approximately $30 million in 2014-2015.
The Rockets' offer to Lin would pay him $5 million in the first year, $5.225 million in the second and $14.8 million in the third, according to sources.
A source close to the process told ESPN.com's Marc Stein the Knicks received the offer sheet Saturday night, meaning they have until 11:59 p.m. ET Tuesday to match it or let Lin go to the Rockets.
When asked on Sunday if he thought Lin would be back with the Knicks, Carmelo Anthony was unsure but took a swipe at the Rockets' contract offer to the point guard.
"It's not up to me. It's up to the organization to say that they want to match that ridiculous contract," he told the paper.
Anthony also said, "I'd love to see him back, but I think he has to do what's best for him right now."
Jared Jeffries, headed to Portland in the sign-and-trade deal that will bring Felton to the Knicks, is one who shares the sentiment that Lin won't be back with the Knicks.
"I never thought they would let him go," he told ESPN New York via text message on Sunday.
A source close to Lin told ESPNNewYork.com that the Knicks' trade for Felton caught Lin off guard.
"He was very surprised," the source said. "He felt the whole time that the Knicks would just match the offer."
Initial reports had the Rockets offering Lin a four-year deal for around $28 million. That deal included salaries of more than $9 million in each of the last two years, which would be a big hit on the Knicks' salary cap.
Still, the organization seemed intent on matching.
They will match any offer on Lin up to $1 billion," a source told ESPN.com's Stein last week.
Knicks coach Mike Woodson said Wednesday that Lin would not only be back but would enter next season as the Knicks' starting point guard.
It's not clear, however, if the new deal has changed that thinking since the third year of the current deal carries an even bigger cap hit.
If the Knicks re-sign Lin, they'll have $75 million tied up in four players -- Lin, Anthony, Amare Stoudemire, and Tyson Chandler -- in 2014-15.
Lin, a restricted free agent, made $788,000 last season. He averaged 14.6 points, 6.2 assists and 3.1 rebounds in 35 games with 25 starts before his season was cut short because of surgery to repair torn cartilage in his knee.
But in the 35 games he was healthy, Lin went from an end-of-the-bench afterthought to an international phenomenon. The undrafted guard out of Harvard, who was cut twice in the preseason (once by the Rockets) and played in the D-League, set the league on fire in February, leading the Knicks to seven consecutive wins. He scored at least 20 points in nine of 10 games during that stretch.
Felton, meanwhile, will return to New York, where he played 54 games during the 2010-11 season before being traded to the Denver Nuggets as part of the Anthony blockbuster. Felton played well in half a season in New York, averaging 17.1 points before the Knicks sent him to Denver.
He struggled this season with the Trail Blazers, scoring 11.4 points per game on 40.7 percent shooting and briefly losing his starting job.
Felton's agent, Tony Dutt, told ESPN The Magazine's Chris Broussard that returning to New York has been Felton's first choice all along.
ESPN
Jason Kidd charged with DWI
New York Knicks point guard Jason Kidd was arrested early Sunday and charged with a misdemeanor of driving while intoxicated, according to Southampton Town police.
A police spokesman said Kidd was involved in a single-car accident in which his 2010 Cadillac Escalade struck a telephone pole and went into the woods in hamlet of Watermill at around 2 a.m. Water Mill is a serene, mainly residential community east of Southampton Village.
Kidd, 39, suffered minor injuries, according to the spokesman, and was treated at Southampton Hospital.
He was then transferred to police headquarters to be processed. He was held for arraignment Sunday morning and was released on his own recognizance.
Police did not say whether Kidd had taken a breathalyzer test.
Kidd's agent didn't immediately respond to phone or email messages from The Associated Press. The Knicks, who signed the 10-time All-Star in free agency this week, had no immediate comment.
Kidd's next court date wasn't immediate available. The DWI charge carries the potential for up to a year in jail.
The Knicks signed Kidd away from the Dallas Mavericks this week in a deal that will pay him about $3 million a year. Kidd had played in New Jersey, leading the Nets to two NBA Finals appearances, before being traded to Dallas and remains fond of the New York City area, where his children continued to live.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist has been in trouble with the law before. While playing with Phoenix in 2001, he was arrested on a domestic violence charge, acknowledging that he struck his former wife.
Kidd is second on the NBA's career list in assists and steals. The Knicks believe Kidd, who helped the Mavericks win the 2011 NBA championship, would be a good mentor to point guard Jeremy Lin if the team opts to keep him.
Ian Begley is a regular contributor to ESPNNewYork.com. Information from The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Tour de France: Bradley Wiggins halts stage 14 amid sabotage
The 14th stage of the Tour de France was marred by a series of punctures, caused by tacks thrown on to the road, on the final climb of the day.
Race leader Bradley Wiggins temporarily called a halt to competitive racing after defending champion Cadel Evans was among those to suffer a puncture.
Wiggins, who still leads by more than two minutes, slowed the pace to allow Evans to return to the group.
Spain's Luis-Leon Sanchez, who was involved in a breakaway, won the stage.
However, the day's drama was unfolding back at the summit of the Mur de Peguere, a Pyreneean mountain which was making its debut as a climb in the Tour.
Race official Jean-Francois Pescheux confirmed: "The nails were mainly thrown on the ground around 200m from the summit.
"It was obviously done on purpose. We have the tacks but we don't know who spread them. They are imbeciles."
However, he was quick to praise the actions of Wiggins. "Sky showed they are for fair play," he added. "They saw that something had happened and they slowed the peloton so that things could come together for the ride to the finish."
Tour etiquette dictates that rivals do not take advantage of another rider's misfortune and, as soon as he realised what was happening, Team Sky's lead rider called for a truce.
"I thought it was the honourable thing to do," said 32-year-old Wiggins who is aiming to become the first British rider to win the race. "Nobody wants to benefit from someone else's misfortune."
Wiggins, who was spending a British record seventh day in the yellow jersey, conceded though that the riders are powerless to stop such actions.
"It's something we can't control," said Wiggins, who was hit by a flare on Saturday. "There's nothing stopping more of that sort of stuff happening. It's sad. These are the type of things we have to put up with as cyclists.
"I think people take that for granted sometimes, just how close they can get to us. If that happened in a football stadium, or wherever, you'd be arrested, CCTV.
"But we're out there, quite vulnerable at times, very close to the public on climbs. We're just the riders at the end of the day and we're there to be shot at, literally."
Wiggins, Froome, Evans and Vincenzo Nibali, the four riders in contention to win this year's race, all reached the summit together but BMC rider Evans immediately jumped off his bike and removed his damaged back wheel.
However, the Australian's support car was struggling to get up the narrow mountain road which was lined with thousands of spectators and his first team-mate who could offer support, Britain's Steven Cummings, also had a rear wheel puncture.
Evans waited for more than one minute for assistance and then suffered two more punctures on the descent.
George Hincapie, Evans's BMC team-mate, who is riding in a record 17th Tour de France, said: "There was something on the road. I've never seen anything like that."
Any thoughts that Evans would lose significant time in the race though were tempered by the actions of Wiggins, who also had to change his own bike on the descent, although it is unclear whether he too suffered a puncture.
Evans acknowledged the sportsmanship of Wiggins as the peloton crossed the line more than 18 minutes after race winner Sanchez.
Rabobank rider Sanchez escaped from a group of five others, which included green points jersey leader Peter Sagan, with 11km of the 191km race from Limoux to Foix remaining and he held his form to complete the fourth Tour de France stage win of his career.
Serena Williams to face Coco Vandeweghe in Stanford final
Wimbledon champion Serena Williams advanced to the Stanford Classic final after she swept aside Romania's Sorana Cirstea 6-1 6-2.
The 14-time Grand Slam champion will meet fellow American Coco Vandeweghe, who made her first WTA final after beating Yanina Wickmayer 6-2 3-6 6-2.
Williams struggled with serve but was still too good for the world number 43.
Meanwhile, Britain's Heather Watson, 20, made the doubles final with partner Marina Erakovic.
The British number one and New Zealander Erakovic beat third seeds Natalie Grandin and Vladimira Uhlirova 7-5 6-7 (6/8) 10-7 in just over two hours.
And they will now face top seeds Jarmila Gajdosova and Vania King in the final.
In contrast to her performance at Wimbledon, Williams managed to get only 38% of her first serves in but she broke Cirstea four times in the match and only faced one break point, which she easily fought off.
Cirstea, meanwhile, committed 32 unforced errors.
World number four Williams said: "I think we were both disappointed tonight because we both have big serves, and tonight for whatever reason we weren't able to do it.
"I feel like I haven't served well all week and 38% is outrageous."
The final between Williams and Vandeweghe will be the first all-American WTA final since November 2009 and it guarantees world number 120 Vandeweghe a move into the world's top 100 and a place in the US Open.
West Indies beat New Zealand by 24 runs
West Indies beat New Zealand by 24 runs in their fourth one-day international at Warner Park in St Kitts today.
Scores: West Indies 264 all out from 49.5 overs (Kieron Pollard 56, Marlon Samuels 46; Jacob Oram 3-42, Tim Southee 3-53); New Zealand 240 all out from 49.3 overs (Ross Taylor 110; Tino Best 4-46)
West Indies lead the five-match series 3-1.
Mobs beat and Burn 3 Suspected Thieves in Haiti
Police in Haiti say they are still investigating the circumstances which led to the killing of three young, suspected thieves.
The three were killed last weekend by groups of angry people who hung one and burned two in burning tires.
Two bodies were found charred and limbs tied in the district of San, in La Plaine (north of Port-au-Prince). A third body was found in roughly the same condition on Route National 2 (south of the capital).
"Regarding the incident in Santo, there were three motorcycle thieves that were chased by an angry mob. We caught one, but two others were beaten with stones and iron bars by a crowd that then began to burn the bodies," said a police officer contacted by phone by the AFP.
Police could not provide an explanation about the third person found dead with hands tied and the body hung on Route National 2.
Four Barbadian nationals in custody in St.Vincent
Four Barbadian nationals are in custody in St.Vincent and the Grenadines, after they were arrestedd by Law Enforcement officials in that country.
The arrests after an operation at sea which was led by the Royal Barbados Poilce Force Drug Squad, the Barbados Coast Guard, an element of the RSS, with the assistance of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ Coast Guard.
The operation resulted in the seizure of 24 bales of cannabis weighing 1706 lbs, in the territorial waters of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
A Barbados registered fishing boat was also seized.
Senate passes VAT Act, sticks to October 1 date
Despite reservations among lawmakers about business readiness, operational costs and timing, the St. Lucia Senate has passed the Value Added Tax (VAT) Act, keeping the legislation on course for the revised October 1 implementation date.
With the law’s assent by Governor General Dame Pearlette Louisy, St Lucia will become the last member state in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) single market but Montserrat to introduce the sales tax that is intended to replace a raft of taxes and duties. St Lucia’s VAT is to be levied at 15 per cent on goods and services and at eight per cent in hotels.
There were calls from two independent senators – a doctor and a hotelier – for a further delay in VAT, and government Senator Debra Tobierre, a business owner in the south, admitted that all of her questions on the indirect tax were yet to be answered.
But she supported the bill while at the same time making a call for more public information during the transition to the tax.
The independent senators, Dr. Stephen King and Berthia Parle, said they would have preferred to see a delay in the full implementation of VAT to give businesses more time to prepare.
Dr King, a former chief medical officer, suggested a “testing period ” of up to three months and a “forgiving period” of at least one month “before going live”.
But he argued for the use of VAT revenue to avert “a major crisis” in the country’s health services and to encourage better nutrition among St Lucians.
He said that operation of the new hospital to be completed by year end and a reconstructed St. Judes Hospital in the south would require an additional 50 million EC dollars (18.5 million US dollars).
Senator Parle, a veteran hotel executive, acknowledged that no member of the formal business community was opposed to the VAT.
“We understand the imposition of VAT but there are serious concerns,” she said.
Leader of Government Business and Minister of Home Affairs Senator Phillip La Corbiniere presented the bill from the lower house with the admission that VAT in any country would lead to both price rises and cuts for consumers.
But he informed members that most food items had been placed in a “VAT-exempt food basket.”
In response to concerns about the fate of prescription medicines in the VAT legislation, Senator La Corbiniere said Castries had applied to the CARICOM Secretariat for the removal of all import duties on medicines.
The minister said his eight-month-old administration came to office facing “a very challenging economic period which made it even more difficult to raise revenue which is going to be needed to sustain employment and support economic growth.”
He said it is with that kind of challenge in mind that government has had to face the “inevitable implementation” of the Value Added Tax.
That prompted opposition senator and former agriculture minister Ezekiel Joseph to claim that the governing St. Lucia Labour Party had changed its position on VAT, claiming that Prime Minister Kenny Anthony once referred to it “as an oppressive tax” which his party never considered it as the wisest choice for St. Lucia.
The value added tax or general consumption tax is now common across CARICOM.
In early July, CARICOM associate member Turks and Caicos announced it will introduce VAT at eight per cent – the second-lowest rate in CARICOM, with Haiti’s rate at ten per cent, Suriname’s dual tax rate of ten per cent on goods and eight per cent on services, and just ahead of Belize at 12.5 per cent.
The rates elsewhere in the region are: Antigua and Barbuda 15 per cent; Barbados 17.5 per cent; Dominica 15 per cent; Grenada 15 per cent; Guyana 16 per cent; Jamaica 16.5 per cent; St. Kitts and Nevis 17 per cent; St Vincent and the Grenadines 15 per cent; and Trinidad and Tobago 15 per cent.
The Bahamas, which is not a member of CARICOM’s customs union or any of its economic arrangements, including the single market, is contemplating the introduction of the tax.
Washington confirms use of drones to track Caribbean narco-trafficking
US officials have confirmed they are flying unmanned aircraft, or drones, above the Caribbean Basin in search of narcotics cargo.
Department of Homeland Security officials said other surveillance technology, including radar-equipped P-3 aircraft, last up to only 10 hours – not long enough to pinpoint drug runners on the high seas. They said the drones can loiter in the skies twice as long.
They said part-submarine vessels travelling great distances without surfacing to refuel are emerging as a key vehicle for ferrying drugs through the Caribbean Sea.
And cocaine-laden speedboats often sail at night to evade capture, the US officials added.
“The goal is to be on station long enough to detect and track targets making their way through the transit zone and bring in units for the intercept [that] can track a variety of smuggling vessels, including semisubmersibles and go-fast vessels,” said Lothar Eckardt, executive director of DHS Customs and Border Protection national air security operations.
“It doesn't matter what the target is; it matters that we are able to stay out and look for it,” he added.
Eckardt said the Guardian, a maritime version of Homeland Security’s other Predator drones, is mounted with search radar and an electro-optical/infrared sensor.
Since 2011, US officials said the Miami-based Joint Interagency Task Force South, a command with staff from DHS and the intelligence community, as well as the US Defence and Justice departments, has disrupted five semisubmersibles, each escorting more than 6.5 tonnes of cocaine.
Of the 214 reported incidents, the stealth vessels evaded authorities 79 per cent of the time, the Department said.
No new cholera deaths in Cuba
Cuba's Health Ministry yesterday reported 158 cases of cholera, nearly three times as many as previously disclosed, but said there were no new deaths and the outbreak appears to have been contained and on the wane.
The ministry said intensive efforts to quarantine those infected, hand out chlorine tablets and educate the population has meant a drop in cases transmitted by water, and there is no evidence of the disease spreading through the food supply.
Virtually all of the cases have come from the city of Manzanillo, in eastern Granma province some 430 miles (700 kilometres) east of the capital, or from people who recently travelled from the area.
"We have diagnosed isolated cases in other regions of people that were infected in Manzanillo, all of whom were treated and studied quickly," the ministry said. "There has been no spread of the outbreak."
Cuba announced July 3 that three elderly people had died from the tropical disease and 53 people sickened in the first incidence of cholera on the island in decades. Until Saturday's report, authorities had said little more, prompting rumours of more deaths and a wider problem. Still, even in the infected area, hotel workers and residents said there was no panic.
Cuba has a well-organized civil defence system capable of rapidly mobilizing government agencies and citizens groups, as it does for tropical storms and hurricanes. Brigades of workers go door to door, eliminating standing water where mosquitoes bearing another tropical disease, dengue, could breed.
The country also has thousands of well-trained doctors and nurses, many of whom played a key role in fighting a much deadlier cholera outbreak in nearby Haiti after that country's devastating earthquake.
A rise in cases of diarrhoea and tropical diseases are normal in Cuba in the summer, due to the intense heat and heavy rains. In its communiqué on Saturday, the Health Ministry urged people to wash their hands, boil water and pay better attention to their personal hygiene.