The Miami Heat shrugged off the absence of star forward Jimmy Butler to crush the Chicago Bulls 112-91 in their play-in eliminator on Friday and earn a clash with the top-seeded Boston Celtics in the first round of the NBA playoffs.It is the second straight season that Miami have earned the eighth-seed spot via the play-in tournament and they will play the Celtics for the fourth time in the last five post-seasons.
The mayor of a mining town in violence-riddled Ecuador was shot dead Friday, the second such killing in days ahead of a weekend referendum on tougher measures against organized crime, police said.Two days before his killing, the mayor of Camilo Ponce Enriquez in the southern province of Azuay, Jose Sanchez, was shot dead.
The United States agreed Friday to withdraw its more than 1,000 troops from Niger, officials said, upending its posture in West Africa where the country was home to a major drone base.They agreed that a US delegation would head within days to the capital Niamey to arrange an orderly withdrawal, the officials said.