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The Senate has passed legislation to combat the rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The measure passed Thursday would expedite the review of hate crimes and provide support for local law enforcement in response to thousands of reported violent incidents in the past year. The House is expected to consider a similar bill in the coming weeks. Police have seen a noted uptick in such crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders during the coronavirus pandemic. The Senate's bipartisan denunciation of such violence is a modest step toward legislating in a chamber where most of President Joe Biden’s agenda has stalled.

Jacob deGrom of the Mets is 1-1 with a 0.45 ERA, 35 strikeouts and three walks in 20 innings going into a homestand opener against Washington and Erick Fedde. While deGrom has a 2.03 ERA in 79 starts since the start of the 2018 season, New York is 37-42 in those games. Meanwhile, Clayton Kershaw starts for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the second game of the big series at Dodger Stadium against the San Diego Padres. Yu Darvish takes the mound for the Padres, who lost two of three last weekend in San Diego during the first series of the season between the NL West rivals.

An appellate court has ruled for music producer Dr. Luke on an important issue in his defamation suit against pop star Kesha. A New York appeals court concluded in a decision issued Thursday that the Grammy-nominated hitmaker isn’t a public figure in the eyes of the law. That matters because public figures have to meet a higher standard than everyday people do in order to prove they’ve been defamed. The decision is far from a final judgment in the long-running court clash between the multiplatinum-selling singer and the producer. She says Dr. Luke raped her. He denies it and says she smeared him with lies. The Associated Press does not generally name people who report being sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Kesha has done.

Two of the nation’s largest university systems say they intend to require COVID-19 vaccinations for all students, faculty and staff on University of California and California State University campuses this fall. Thursday’s joint announcement from the 10-campus UC system and the 23-campus CSU is the largest of its kind in U.S. higher education. It would affect more than 1 million students and employees across 33 university campuses. Several U.S. colleges and universities hoping to get back to normal campus life after months of online learning also have said they plan to make the vaccination mandatory.

Michael Andretti has emerged from the pandemic confident Andretti Autosport has weathered the worst of its difficulties. The team has four full-time cars entered in Sunday's race in St. Petersburg, Florida. Michael Andretti is running 15 cars across seven different series. Andretti Autosport will have six cars in the Indianapolis 500, a race Michael Andretti has won five times as a team owner. He’s got legitimate title contenders in Alexander Rossi and Colton Herta. 

A prosecutor says the man accused of killing 10 people at a crowded Colorado supermarket last month had armed himself with 10 high-capacity ammunition magazines. The devices have been banned in the state since 2013 after previous mass shootings in the state. Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty told reporters Thursday that 22-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa possessed the magazines unlawfully but that investigators don’t believe Alissa purchased the magazines illegally. Magazines that hold more than 15 rounds were banned in Colorado after the 2012 mass shootings at a suburban Denver movie theater and at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. 

Hundreds of theater workers marched down Broadway on Thursday, rallying to demand more inclusion in the industry, protesting producer Scott Rudin and to call for greater transparency from their union, Actors’ Equity Association. Organizers had several demands, including finding how 2020 Equity dues were spent and what percentage is being spent to help conversations around diversity, achieve greater inclusion for transgender, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming artists and urge efforts to improve diversity within the labor union’s council. Protesters called for the removal of Rudin, who is accused of abusive behavior toward his workers, from the Broadway League.

At least 23.2 million Americans watched on television this week when former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin was declared guilty of murder in the death of George Floyd. The Nielsen company's estimate came from viewership figure on 11 different networks that carried Tuesday's verdict live. The actual audience was surely bigger, however, since Nielsen's count did not include ESPN, which also covered the news. CNN had just over 4 million viewers, more than any other network. But Nielsen found that ABC, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, NBC and CBS all had at least 3 million people watching, too.

As the U.S. debates the future of policing, the policies that govern the release of body camera footage still vary widely across the nation. In Columbus, Ohio, the release of a recent police shooting video took just five hours. In North Carolina, it requires a court order. In New York City, police can wait up to 30 days — sometimes longer. Pressure is building on law enforcement agencies to act swiftly, even if it means releasing videos before investigations have barely begun. Geoffrey Alpert is a criminal justice professor at the University of South Carolina. He says the disparities have to do with state laws and previous litigation.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A controversial disciplinary body within Poland's Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a prosecutor's request to arrest a judge who has become a symbol of resistance for those who believe judicial independence is threatened in the country.…

David Peralta hit a three-run triple in a six-run 10th inning to finish with five hits and a career-best seven RBIs, and the Arizona Diamondbacks overcame six Cincinnati home runs to beat the Reds 14-11. Carson Kelly followed Peralta with a two-run homer as the Diamondbacks opened a 14-8 lead. Arizona  hung on in the bottom half to complete a three-game sweep that extended its winning streak to four. The Reds lost their fourth straight, finishing a 2-4 homestand. Cincinnati’s Jesse Winker had his third career two-homer game, and Nick Castellanos hit his sixth home run of the season.

Phillip Evans kept Akil Baddoo’s drive to left field in the park in the seventh inning to help Pittsburgh escape a jam, and the Pirates scored twice in the eighth to beat the Detroit Tigers 4-2. Colin Moran and Erik González hit RBI singles with two outs in the eighth. With the score tied at 2, Baddoo nearly put the Tigers ahead, but Evans reached above the fence in left, and the ball bounced off his glove and back into the field of play. Baddoo wound up with a double, and he didn’t end up scoring.

It may be hard to believe that there are still many “firsts” left to check off after 93 years of the Academy Awards, and yet this year there are a handful for Asian actors and filmmakers. In the past, Asian actors have been recognized for playing stereotypes and foreigners and sometimes not at all. Best picture winner “Parasite” had no acting nominations. The historic gains spotlight where the organization has made progress and where there is still work to do, especially after a year in which Asian Americans were increasingly targeted in racist attacks. But the big unknown is whether this will be a sea change going forward.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Afghanistan’s military “will certainly collapse” without some continued American support once all U.S. troops are withdrawn, the top U.S. general for the Middle East told Congress Thursday. Gen. Frank McKenzie also said he was very concerned about…

Athletes who make political or social justice protests at the Tokyo Olympics have been promised legal support by a global union and an activist group in Germany. The pledges by the World Players Association and Athleten Deutschland came one day after the International Olympic Committee confirmed its long-standing ban on “demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda.” Rule 50 applies to the field of play, medal podiums and opening and closing ceremonies. Raising a fist or kneeling for a national anthem could lead to punishment from the IOC.

Julius Randle had 40 points and 10 rebounds to lead the New York Knicks to a 137-127 overtime victory over the Atlanta Hawks. Randle’s driving layup with eight seconds left in regulation gave New York a 122-119 lead, but Bogdan Bogdanovic hit a 3-pointer with 6.2 seconds to go to send the game into overtime. The Knicks won their NBA-best eighth straight game. Derrick Rose and Immanuel Quickley each scored 20 points for New York. Reggie Bullock added 18 and R.J Barrett 16. Nerlens Noel had 12 rebounds. Trae Young had 20 points and 14 assists for the Hawks

The California Department of Education says public school enrollment dropped by more than 160,000 this academic year. That's by far the biggest decline in the state in years and the clearest picture yet of the pandemic’s devastating toll on public schools. The data made public Thursday shows that the decline was driven by several factors brought on by the pandemic. Fewer parents enrolled their children in kindergarten and some students left public schools for other learning environments. The departures were led by white students who account for just 22% of California’s public school population but represented half those who left. That's prompted fears about exacerbating California’s education disparities.

A crew has returned from the northernmost islands in the Hawaiian archipelago this week with a boatload of marine plastic and abandoned fishing nets that threaten to entangle endangered Hawaiian monk seals and other animals. The cleanup effort in the nation's largest protected marine reserve lasted three weeks and the crew picked up more than 47 tons of “ghost nets” and other marine plastics. The uninhabited islands are in the northern Pacific Ocean and surrounded by what is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — a huge gyre of floating plastic and other debris that circulates in ocean currents.