BIG LEAGUE or CINDERELLA CITY?

N E W S 

THE aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.

He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”

He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is “a little too risky”. He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.

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Round 1 went to David Stern on Thursday night when the NBA commissioner went Dirty Harry style and dared coaches and players to “make my day” by publicly criticizing game officials. He said they risked not just a fine but a suspension.

On Friday, Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson fought back.

“I think when you start throwing one- and two-game suspensions in the threats, I think that means a lot to both ball clubs and coaches,” Jackson said at Lakers practice. “It seems awful heavy-handed to me, but David is one who isn’t shy about being heavy-handed.”

Jackson framed his comments about the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Kevin Durant’s free throw shooting made prior to the series as trying to gain a competitive edge. Stern described the comments as “corrosive.”

“There’s a certain gamesmanship that goes on that obviously he feels cheapens the game,” Jackson continued. “It never was explained to us until it suddenly came down in this last week that arbitrarily they were going to do this. I missed the coaches meeting last September. Maybe they explained it in the coaches meeting last year because they said there was a couple instances last year when I think it was [Stan] Van Gundy and [Rick] Adelman were fined during the playoffs for statements that led to manipulating the press, I guess is the best way I can say it.

“I don’t know how you guys could be so naive, being members of the fifth estate, third estate, second estate or whatever state you’re members of.”

The Lakers coach received two separate $35,000 fines from the league in the month of April. Jackson was fined for the Durant comments, insinuating the 21-year-old scoring champion led the league in free-throw attempts in part because, “I think a lot of the referees are treating him like a superstar; he gets to the line easy and often.”

Jackson was fined earlier in the month for saying the “referees turned against us” after a game against San Antonio and for calling out veteran official Bennett Salvatore by name and saying, “With Bennett, you don’t know what you’re going to get.”

Jackson said he thought the severity of Stern’s statement was unwarranted.

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Long-awaited climate change legislation was put on hold by its authors Saturday when a dispute over immigration politics and Senate priorities threatened to unravel a bipartisan effort that took months of work.

Voicing regrets, Sen. John Kerry said Saturday he is postponing the much anticipated unveiling of comprehensive energy and climate change legislation scheduled for Monday. The Massachusetts Democrat made his announcement after a key partner in drafting the bill, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, threatened to withhold support if Senate Democratic leaders push ahead first with an immigration bill.

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Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm (D) says she’s once again on President Obama’s short list for appointment to the Supreme Court. In an interview with CNN, the term-limited governor says she has talked with people in the Obama administration about the upcoming nomination to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

“It’s a great honor to be on — considered on the list,” said Granholm who went through this process last year with the opening that went to Sonia Sotomayor. She did not say if she’s spoken with the President who Fox News reported this past week held informal discussions with some of the people he’s considering.

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The New England Patriots drafted Oklahoma State quarterback Zac Robinson in the seventh round of the NFL Draft. Robinson was the 250th overall pick. Advertisement Robinson is Oklahoma State’s career record holder in total offense with 10,175 yards, passing yards with 8,317 yards, touchdown passes with 66 and completion percentage with a 61.2 mark.

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CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Gunmen ambushed two police vehicles at a busy intersection in this drug- and violence-plagued city, killing seven officers and a 17-year-old boy who was passing by, authorities said.

Six of the police officers killed in Friday’s attack were federal, and one was a local police woman, said Enrique Torres Valadez, a spokesman for the state of Chihuahua, where Ciudad Juarez is located. Two local police officers were in critical condition.

Authorities said the police officers had stopped to talk to a street vendor who flagged them down for help when gunmen opened fire from behind their pickup patrol trucks. The assailants fled in three vehicles.

Investigators said they don’t know why the officers were shot, although they don’t believe they were targeted because of any recent arrests they had made.

No one has been arrested but police said they have recovered two of the three cars used in the shooting.

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Republicans are beginning to attack the financial regulatory reform bill by attacking the Democrats pitching it as simply not believable.

“Just think about some of the things Americans have been told,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said on Thursday. “As a senator, the current President railed against deficits and debt. He said America has a debt problem and that it was a failure of leadership not to address it. Yet last year his administration released a budget that doubles the debt in five years and triples it in 10. The debt has increased over $2 trillion since he took office. And in February, the federal government ran the largest monthly deficit in history.”

“There’s a lot of skepticism” among the American people about what Washington is promising these days, a senior GOP leadership aide tells ABC News.

The most recent exhibit in this prosecution in the court of public opinion: analyses of the new health care reform law from the Medicare Actuaries at the Department of Health and Human Services. The studies, issued Thursday night, conclude that the law will mean 34 million Americans currently uninsured will be covered.

But the report by Richard Foster, chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, forecasts a rocky and uncertain path to that end.

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Bret Michaels was rushed to the hospital Thursday night with a massive subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Michaels, 47, is in critical condition.

The ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ star was rushed to the hospital after an excruciating headache, according to the report.

“After several CAT scans, MRIs and an angiogram, [doctors] decided to keep Michaels in the ICU and are running several tests to determine the cause. [It] will be touch and go for the next few days while he is under intense observation,” a source told People.com.

Michaels had an emergency appendectomy in San Antonio, Texas, on April 12, 2010, and broke his nose in June, 2009 during a Tony Awards telecast when part of the set lowered onto his head. Michaels also has diabetes.

There is no word whether his hemorrhage is related to any of these things.

A subarachnoid hemorrhage is bleeding at the base of the brain stem.

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Schoolchildren in Virginia who aren’t old enough to pack their lunches yet will soon start learning about packing heat.

Move over, Crime Dog McGruff. There’s a new mascot on the playground and he’s got the backing of the powerful National Rifle Association.

The NRA’s Eddie Eagle will soon be offering his brand of gun-safety lessons to the state’s schoolchildren.

A new law will require Virginia’s education department to come up with a gun-safety curriculum for public elementary schools that incorporates guidelines from the NRA.

The law allows local school divisions to offer gun-safety education to pupils in kindergarten through fifth grade. While each school board can decide whether to offer it, those that do must use the state curriculum — which will include rules used by the NRA’s Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program.

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The Supreme Court has turned down ACORN’s request for help in its lawsuit claiming Congress was wrong to shut off the activist group’s federal funding.

The high court on Friday refused to throw out a decision by the federal appellate court in New York City. That court had decided to freeze a judge’s determination that Congress acted unconstitutionally in yanking the group’s funding.

ACORN, which bills itself as an advocate for low-income and minority home buyers and residents, has drastically cut its operations since losing its funding.

Lawmakers acted after a widely circulated video showed three employees apparently advising a couple posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend to lie about her profession and launder her earnings.