New York Knicks win NBA championship for first time in over 50 years
The New York Knicks won the National Basketball Association championship for the first time in over 50 years, sending the city and fans into a frenzy after the long-awaited victory.
The Knicks clinched the title on Saturday night against the San Antonio Spurs, 94-90, in the fifth game of the best-of-seven series.
While the game was in Texas, New Yorkers took to their hometown streets in droves to watch and celebrate the milestone moment for the team, its fans and the entire city.
Some fans also made their way to Texas where the two teams faced off at the Frost Center, the Spurs’ home arena.
Elizabeth Madigan flew to San Antonio from New York Friday night ahead of Saturday’s game.
“I’ve been waiting for this, honestly most of my life. The last time the Knicks won, I was 6 months old, and so I can’t begin to describe how excited I am. It’s been unbelievable,” she said.
“I definitely had my doubts. But we did pull it off. Knicks forever.”
This season has represented a stunning reversal of fortune for the Knicks after decades as one of the worst teams in the league. The last time they made it all the way to the finals was in 1999, also against the Spurs, who ultimately beat them. Their last finals win was even earlier, in 1973.
They held a 3-1 lead in the series heading into Saturday’s game.
“I grew up watching the Knicks. They were so bad for so long,” said Jake Minicucci while sitting with his friends on the patio of a Manhattan sports bar “This might be the first time I cry in a very long time, tonight.”
Fans’ anticipation before the game was like a champagne bottle about to pop its cork.
“This city is electric,” said Jake Minicucci while sitting with friends on the patio of a Manhattan sports bar. “I’ve never gotten so many head nods, everybody knowing we are in it for the Knicks together.”
The 50-plus year drought was very much on the minds of some Knicks fans including Daniel Brown who said the evening had the potential “to be one of the best nights in the history of this city.”
“I’ve lived here all my life, I’ve never experienced anything like this,” said the 24-year-old.
Ahead of the game, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a social media post that the city was working with the Knicks to host watch parties outside Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall and Wollman Rink.
“As we celebrate, be responsible, look out for one another, stay safe, be smart, and make this a night that reflects the very best of our city,” the mayor said.
His call for safety came after a few instances of violence in New York City against Spurs fans, including one assault that landed a fan in the hospital and another in which a fast food worker wearing a Spurs jersey was attacked, according to local reports.
Madigan said that in San Antonio, even as a Knicks fan, she felt welcome.
“Honestly the San Antonians have been so loving and welcoming despite the obvious competition,” she said.
Both Knicks and Spurs players have condemned the violence and harassment.
Ahead of Saturday’s Game 5, fan travelling to San Antonio from New York to attend the game were in a frenzy about possibly getting locked out of the arena.
In a note on its website for the game, Ticketmaster said purchases by those living farther than 150mi (241km) from the San Antonio arena would be cancelled and refunded without notice.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul posted on social media: “Knicks fans finally get within one game of a championship and their reward is having their tickets canceled?”

Tens of thousands of people marched through the streets of Rome in anti- and pro-migration demonstrations on Saturday, after a far-right citizens initiative seeking sweeping measures against migrants garnered enough support to be brought to Italy’s parliament. The “Remigration and Reconquest” initiative gathered the 50,000 signatures needed to trigger parliamentary discussion, pushing the once-fringe concept of “remigration” into the political mainstream, the AP reports. The proposal promoted by right-wing groups calls for sweeping measures against foreigners, including coercive returns, incentives to leave the country, and broader policies that critics contend could extend to legal residents.
Several thousand demonstrators from around Italy gathered for the anti-migration march, singing the national anthem. On several occasions, many of them raised their arms in the fascist salute, shouting “Duce! Duce!” in reference to dictator Benito Mussolini, who ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943. A rival, pro-migration demonstration saw tens of thousands of people take to the streets in another part of Rome on Saturday evening. That march was attended by various left-wing groups and trade unions, with some demonstrators waving Palestinian flags. Thousands of police were deployed to ensure the two groups would remain apart. No violence was reported.
The debate on migration represents a balancing act for Premier Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing coalition. While the anti-migration League has backed opening discussion, Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and centrist allies have been more cautious about endorsing a proposal linked to extremist circles in the face of concerns over legal risks and internal divisions. Opponents, including rival parties and legal experts, argue the proposal would violate constitutional and international anti-discrimination principles by targeting people based on ethnic background, including naturalized citizens and their descendants. A vote on the measure has not been scheduled.
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The World Cup is expected to bring 1.2 million international tourists to the region, raising concerns about the possibility of rare diseases like Ebola and hantavirus spreading to the United States.
While healthcare professionals are watching for these potentially deadly diseases, they’re not necessarily the primary concern ahead of the big event.
“I would say the more exotic diseases — like hantavirus, like Ebola — statistically speaking, are not something that a regular person who’s going to either a game or a watch party should be concerned with,” said Dr. Beth Kushner, an emergency medicine physician at St. Joseph’s University Medical Center in Paterson, located less than 20 minutes from the Meadowlands.
The overall risk of Ebola to the American public remains low, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC and Department of Homeland Security have implemented enhanced travel screening, entry restrictions and public health measures to prevent Ebola from entering the country amid ongoing outbreaks in East and Central Africa.
Similarly, a deadly hantavirus outbreak aboard a luxury cruise ship in May 2026 provoked global concern. However, no hantavirus cases have been confirmed in the U.S. because of this outbreak and the risk to the public remains extremely low, according to the CDC.
“The common person should be far more concerned about getting an upper respiratory virus that will take them five to seven days to feel better,” said Kushner. “That is, statistically speaking, much more common to get at a watch party or a game when they’re surrounded by other people.”
All-day festivities like the World Cup also increase the likelihood of contracting a food-borne illness such as E.Coli and norovirus.
“If you’re at your friend’s house for a watch party and you’re there starting at noon, and somebody put out some dip and you’re there till 6 p.m., and that dip has been out, maybe in the heat, not refrigerated, that could cause food-borne illnesses,” said Kushner. “That is a much more common occurrence than somebody who has Ebola, who is unaware they have it, coming and affecting you.”
Dr. Daniel Varga, chief physician at Hackensack Meridian Health, said he’s urging his staff to keep an eye out for “the basics” — things like the flu, COVID-19 and RSV — as well as “things we used to never think about, like measles.”
Although measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. nearly 30 years ago, it has reemerged in recent years due to declining measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination coverage.
According to the CDC, MMR coverage among kindergartners in the U.S. decreased from 95.2% during the 2019–2020 school year to 92.5% during the 2024–2025 school year. That’s well below the 95% coverage target required for herd immunity.
“We’re always on the lookout for those things and the current vaccine hesitancy that we’ve seen makes us even more on the alert for those sorts of diseases,” said Varga.
There’s also a variety of public health concerns related to the World Cup that have nothing to do with germs.
“Infectious disease is always one of the major concerns for healthcare, but I wouldn’t say it’s the only concern,” said Adam S. Perper, director of emergency management and preparedness at St. Joseph’s Health.
Perper said St. Joseph’s Health has spent well over a year working with local, county, state and federal officials to prepare for the World Cup from an “all-hazards lens.”
This includes preparing for the possibility of mass casualty scenarios, crowd crush injuries, heat emergencies, security incidents, transportation disruptions and overwhelmed emergency rooms.
“You are way more likely to be harmed by the things that are way more common and way more likely to occur, like trauma, like dehydration, like heat-related illnesses and behavioral health stressors,” said Dr. Gerardo Chiricolo, chair of the department of emergency medicine at RWJBarnabas Health Community Medical Center.
Temps are expected to climb into the upper 80s to the mid-90s during the first match on Saturday. Whether fans plan to attend a backyard watch party or head to MetLife Stadium, Chiricolo said they should be mindful of the excessive heat.
“Heat-related illnesses are a real thing and can really cause devastating health consequences if not mitigated,” Chiricolo said.
In extreme heat, experts recommend wearing loose clothing, limiting alcohol intake, drinking cool water, staying in shaded areas and seeking medical attention if any of the following symptoms occur:

The phenomenon El Niño has arrived, the U.S. weather agency said Thursday, and scientists expect the pattern, synonymous with droughts, floods and soaring temperatures, will intensify through the end of the year, potentially to historic strength.
El Niño is a natural climate occurrence that warms surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, bringing worldwide changes in winds and rainfall patterns and erratic weather.
Scientists fear it will exacerbate the heat of a planet already warming from burning fossil fuels while amplifying weather extremes.
“El Niño is here, and it could be one for the history books,” said meteorologist Haley Thiem in an explainer video from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In its latest advisory, scientists at NOAA said there is a 63% chance “of a very strong El Niño during November-January that would rank among the largest El Niño events in the historical record going back to 1950.”
Every El Niño is different, but major events often follow familiar patterns. This includes drought across parts of the Amazon, Indonesia and Australia; disrupted monsoons in India; and shifting rainfall throughout the tropics.
It typically takes place every two to seven years and lasts around nine to 12 months.
El Niño tends to peak late in the year, but heat in the oceans releases more slowly into the atmosphere, pushing up global temperatures the following year.
In response to the forecast, Marc Alessi of the Union of Concerned Scientists said “the combination of fossil fuel-caused climate change and a potential super El Niño event makes a terrible team,” adding that it could “easily” push global temperatures to record levels.
“While El Niño is a naturally occurring phenomenon, there is evidence that fossil fuel-caused climate change is making El Niño events more intense,” he said in a statement to AFP.
‘Deadly siren’
Mohamed Adow, director of the Nairobi-based climate and energy think tank Power Shift Africa, said for millions of people across the globe, “it’s not just another weather forecast” but a “deadly siren to be feared.”
“It means failed rains, dying crops, rising food prices, and families pushed to the edge yet again.”
Governments across the dry countries of Central America have raised alert levels over El Niño.
In that region known as the “Dry Corridor”—including parts of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua—El Niño’s return has triggered fears of drought and stoked concerns of famine.
The Guatemalan government, for example, says it has 1.1 million rations ready to distribute in the face of a food security emergency.
In East Africa, Adow said the extremes will likely strike “communities already battered by droughts and floods in recent years.”
Predictions from elsewhere in the world mirror those of NOAA, anticipating a particularly strong El Niño.
“The odds are strongly in favor of a moderate to strong, or probably strong to record-breaking, event at this stage,” Carlo Buontempo, the director of Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, told AFP.
Earlier this month, U.N. chief Antonio Guterres urged the world to treat the likely intense incoming weather “as the urgent climate warning it is.”
“El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world,” he said.
“The only effective response is climate action equal to the crisis—ending the addiction to fossil fuels, accelerating the shift to renewables, protecting the most vulnerable, and delivering early warning systems for all.”
© 2026 AFP

On board the Iberia Airways flight taking Pope Leo XIV from Tenerife back to Rome, the captain made an announcement. A technical problem had been discovered, and the plane wasn’t able to take off. Moments later the pope and some of his entourage left the aircraft.
I was one of the roughly 80 journalists on board travelling with the pope for his June 6-12 visit to Spain, and we were flying on an Iberia Airways flight back to Rome. When he travels, the pope uses a regular plane, and flies out using an ITA aircraft, while the host country often provides the plane on the way back.
The journalists travelling with the pope sit at the back of the plane, while the pope, cardinals, bishops and Vatican staff sit at the front. We pay business class fares for economy class seats, but in return get to meet the pope on the way out while he holds a press conference with reporters on the way home. The food is much better on papal flights with special menus printed with the pope’s coat of arms, which also adorn the head rests.
Papal aircraft have had technical problems in the past, but for a plane carrying the pope to be unable to take off is unheard of. It’s seen as an honour for local carriers to fly the pope, and whether it’s Aereo Dili in East Timor or Emirates in the UAE the flights normally progress seamlessly. So when the captain on Iberia made his announcement, it sparked chaos among the travelling press corps.
Eventually, we were told to disembark and news then filtered through that the pope had been offered the King of Spain’s private plane to fly back to Rome. I watched as Pope Leo walked across the tarmac to get on board and we reporters stayed back waiting for another plane to fly us to Rome.
It marked a chaotic end to what had been an historic visit to Spain by Pope Leo. The first American pope, who is a fluent Spanish speaker, drew huge crowds in Madrid, including around 1.2 million for a Mass and procession. He became the first pontiff to address Spain’s parliament receiving a seven-minute standing ovation from across representatives of the country’s intensely polarized political spectrum.
The large crowd numbers came as a surprise, with the pope telling CNN on the flight over that he knew he was competing with the Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny, who had a concert in Madrid on the night Leo arrived. After plenty of speculation that Bad Bunny might somehow link up with a papal event, the Vatican confirmed that the pair had a brief, behind-closed-doors meeting, although no photos were released.
But the showstopper moment of the trip came at Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia basilica. One hundred years after the death of Antoni Gaudí, the architect visionary behind the building, the pope celebrated a Mass in the basilica and blessed the tower of Jesus Christ, which makes it the tallest church in the world. Choristers from the oldest choir in Europe sang as the basilica was bathed in color by a light show and fireworks. Drone lights then made Gaudí’s face light up the night sky.
Alongside the large-scale events, the pope made time for low-key but moments. He met migrants at the Las Raices camp in Santa Cruz, Tenerife as he highlighted the plight of those risking their lives on wooden boats to cross the sea from west Africa to Europe. And the pope condemned those trafficking migrants telling them to “stop” and “repent,” adding that they would face “divine justice.” He used the last part of his Spain visit to travel to the Canary Islands, a major entry point for new arrivals into Europe, to highlight the plight of migrants, a major priority of his papacy. The pope also met abuse survivors privately and urged Spain’s bishops to listen to victims and make reparations.
Perhaps the most striking part of the visit was seeing the pope appearing the most relaxed and happy since the beginning of his papacy. He spoke off the cuff – which is rare for Leo – when encouraging young people to consider getting married and starting a family and talking about his time playing soccer and American Football in his youth. He pointed out that he still plays tennis and takes exercise.
Leo looked like he was enjoying himself. On one occasion he took to the cockpit of the plane during the trip from Madrid to Barcelona, talking to the pilots on the in-flight radio and waving at the military plane escort. On several occasions he delighted the crowd from the popemobile as he did the “six-seven” hand gesture, something that he likes to do frequently.
The pope taking the Spanish king’s plane meant reporters couldn’t ask him questions at the end during the in-flight press conference which remains a rare opportunity for the pope to engage in a sustained question and answer with journalists.
The last two papal trips have seen dramatic, unscheduled moments. From President Donald Trump’s extraordinary broadside against the pope on the eve of his Africa visit in April, to the unprecedented grounding of a papal flight, the Leo papacy is throwing up plenty of surprises.