COLU @ CONCEPTS

CLEVELAND (AP) — One victory left for the Golden State Warriors to claim another title. Not the one as NBA champions. The one as the best team ever. Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry and the rest of the Warriors will be able to make that boast if they win Friday to complete the most impressive postseason run in major sports history. They moved to the brink of that with a 118-113 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday in Game 3 of the NBA Finals. The Warriors are 15-0 and can finish off the NBA’s first perfect postseason with a victory here in Game 4. Combine that with last year’s 73-win season, and a second title in three years — which could have easily been three consecutive championships — and foundation of the case has been made. The Cavaliers are no match for these Warriors, not even with arguably the best player on the planet in LeBron James. Golden State’s only competition is with Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan and the Bulls, and othe...

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A jury that heard seven hours of testimony from a woman who says Bill Cosby drugged and assaulted her may soon hear from Cosby himself — even if he doesn’t take the stand. Prosecutors are expected to show jurors an earlier deposition in which Cosby said that he routinely gave women pills and alcohol before sexual encounters and gave at least one of them quaaludes, a now-banned sedative. The suburban Philadelphia jury on Wednesday heard trial accuser Andrea Constand offer her most direct denial yet that any of their earlier meetings were romantic. A third day of testimony wrapped up in the sexual assault trial of actor Bill Cosby on Wednesday. Associated Press reporter Maryclaire Dale breaks down the day’s news. (June 7) “It wasn’t a romantic time, no,” Constand, 44, of Toronto, said of an earlier fireside dinner with Cosby, a trustee at Temple University, where she directed the women’s basketball team. The jury also heard Cosby’s voice on a 2...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Kuwait’s emir traveled to Qatar to help mediate an end to a crisis that’s seen Arab nations cut ties to the energy-rich nation home to a major U.S. military base, though Emirati officials warned there was “nothing to negotiate.” Kuwait’s Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah was met planeside by Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, when he arrived on Wednesday night. The Qatari Foreign Ministry said in a statement the two held talks on how “restore the normal relations” of the Gulf as the 2022 FIFA World Cup host and international air travel hub now finds itself isolated by land, sea and air. But the visit came after Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash told The Associated Press that Qatar has “chosen to ride the tiger of extremism and terrorism” and now needed to pay the price, despite Qatar long denying the allegation. Gargash said Qatar “definitely” should expel members of Hamas, stop its support of terror group...

LONDON (AP) — British voters went to the polls Thursday for an election envisioned to be dominated by the country’s pending departure from the European Union but that ended up focusing on international terrorism following attacks in London and Manchester. Voters are choosing 650 lawmakers for the House of Commons after Prime Minister Theresa May called the vote three years early, hoping to boost her majority before starting Brexit negotiations. But the attacks forced her to defend the government’s record on terrorism, and she’s promised to crack down on extremism if she wins. Voter Rachel Sheard, who was casting her ballot near the site of Saturday’s attack in London, said the election had not gone as expected. “They wanted this election to be very much a kind of Brexit vote and I don’t think that’s in the hearts and minds of Londoners at the minute, (not) nearly as much as the security is,” said Sheard, 22. “It was very scary on Saturday.” Atrocities near Parliament, a Ma...

GANZHOU, China (AP) — When the police called, Deng Guilian was at an indoor playground watching her 3-year-old. It was 2:19 p.m., Tuesday, May 30. The man on the phone said her husband had been picked up on suspicion of making illegal recordings and taking illegal photographs. He told her she didn’t need to know the details, he just needed her address so he could send a formal notification. “Could you please say that again?” Deng asked. Her husband, Hua Haifeng, was a thousand kilometers (620 miles) away from her, in Ganzhou, a city in southeastern China where he had been investigating working conditions at factories that until at least March made shoes for Ivanka Trump’s brand. He and his colleagues at China Labor Watch, a New York nonprofit, were preparing to publish a report alleging low pay, excessive overtime, crude verbal abuse and possible misuse of student labor at Huajian Group factories. The company denies the allegations. Deng grew furious at the man on the phon...

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement could accelerate damage to his family’s real estate empire in the coming decades, especially his properties that lie just feet from the encroaching sea in low-lying South Florida. The president’s Mar-a-Lago estate, the soaring apartment towers bearing his name on Miami-area beaches and his Doral golf course are all threatened by rising seas, according to projections from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the South Florida Regional Climate Change Compact. President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement could end up hurting his real estate empire’s bottom line in coming decades, especially his properties that lie just feet from the encroaching sea in low-lying South Florida. (June 8) Severe damage may come sooner rather than later if the U.S. abandons the international agreement aimed at curbing emissions of heat-trapping gases that cau...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Five of the men who launched an attack in the heart of Iran’s capital previously fought for the Islamic State group, the country’s Intelligence Ministry said Thursday, acknowledging the first such assault by the extremists in the Shiite power. The attacks Wednesday on Iran’s parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader killed at least 17 people and wounded over 40, stunning its people. The ministry issued a statement on its website with bloody pictures of the men’s corpses. It identified them only by their first names, saying they didn’t want to release their last names due to security and privacy concerns for their families. It described them as “long affiliated with the Wahhabi,” an ultraconservative form of Sunni Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia. However, it stopped short of directly blaming the kingdom for the attack, though many in the country expressed suspicion Iran’s regional rival had a hand in the attack. The men had left Iran to fight f...

WASHINGTON (AP) — This city knows how to do big hearings — even Titanic ones. Dramatic congressional hearings are something of a Washington art form, a rite of democracy carefully crafted for the cameras. Suspense is building as fired FBI Director James Comey prepares to claim the microphone Thursday in an austere, modern hearing room of the Hart Senate Office Building. He is to testify about his dealings with President Donald Trump and the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections with Russia. A look at past high-drama hearings: ELEVEN HOURS Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s marathon grilling before the House Select Committee on Benghazi in October 2015 was her moment — an extremely long moment — to push back against critics’ suggestions that her State Department failed to protect U.S. diplomats in Libya before the 2012 attack that killed four Americans. In hours of sometimes testy testimony, Clinton, by then front-runner for the Democratic pre...