• Brunson scores 32 as Knicks stay alive with Game 5 win

• Towns adds 24 points and 13 boards despite knee injury

• Pacers struggle on offense, miss chance to reach finals

The Madison Square Garden crowd had waited all week for a spark. On Thursday night, they got a firestorm. With their season dangling by a thread, the New York Knicks delivered a wire-to-wire 111–94 beatdown of the Indiana Pacers in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals, keeping their playoff hopes alive and forcing a Game 6 in Indianapolis on Saturday.

Jalen Brunson scored 32 points and Karl-Anthony Towns added 24 points and 13 rebounds – despite a bruised left knee that had left his status uncertain until shortly before tipoff – as the Knicks trimmed the Pacers’ lead to 3–2 in the best-of-seven-games series and gave their home fans something to believe in.

• Faizan Zaki, 13, wins 97th Scripps National Spelling Bee

• How ‘womyn’ dragged the Bee into the US culture wars

• Spelling Bee quiz: can you beat the past years’ winners?

• Reach Bryan on Bluesky at @BryanAGraham or email

It’s time! The nine finalists have taken the stage. Esha Marupudi is first and she nails isopag, an equiglacial line on a map or chart that connects the points where ice is present for approximately the same number of days in winter. Next up is Oliver Halkett and he confidently spells corbicula. Sarvadnya Kadam has no problems with dolabrate. Now it’s Sarv Dharavane, the 11-year-old who is the youngest of the nine finalists. His word is ethology, defined as the scientific and objective study of animal behavior especially under natural conditions. After a few questions for head pronouncer Dr Jacques Bailly, he coolly drills it. Four up, four down: a roaring start heading into the first commercial break.

The majority of entrants in the National Spelling Bee are from the US, hailing from all 50 states. But some have traveled farther for the competition. Alleena Villaluz traveled some 7,800 miles from Saipan, a US commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands roughly 133 miles (by air) from Guam. This was her second consecutive Bee. Other spellers came from Canada, the Bahamas, Germany, Ghana, Kuwait, Nigeria, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

• Onosato becomes 75th yokozuna after Summer title win

• Fastest promotion to yokozuna in modern six-basho era

• First Japan-born grand champion since Kisenosato (2017)

Onosato has been promoted to sumo’s highest rank of yokozuna, the Japan Sumo Association announced on Wednesday, completing a meteoric rise to the summit of Japan’s national sport in the record span of 13 tournaments.

The 24-year-old, who weighs 421lb (191kg) and stands 6ft 4in (1.92m) tall, becomes the 75th yokozuna in sumo’s centuries-spanning history and the first Japan-born wrestler to hold the title since Kisenosato in 2017. His promotion comes just days after clinching the Summer Grand Sumo Tournament at Tokyo’s Ryōgoku Sumo Hall with a 14-1 record, clinching his second straight championship and fourth overall.