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RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina lawmakers took steps Thursday to set aside a half-million dollars for the legal defense of a law limiting protections for LGBT people as a judge sought to streamline a cluster of lawsuits it has inspired.Republican lawmakers were mapping out the end of the session, including possible changes to the law known as House Bill 2, which has attracted high-profile critics including the NBA. The session could end this weekend.But there was no appetite to change the provision requiring transgender people to use restrooms corresponding to the sex on their birth certificate in schools, universities and many other public buildings. The law also excludes sexual orientation and gender identity from statewide anti-discrimination protections.Pressure to change the law has come from several quarters including NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who said earlier this month that there needed to be progress on changing the law this summer to ensure the league keeps its 2017 All-Star Game in Charlotte.The league issued a joint statement late Thursday with the Charlotte Hornets saying they were doubtful that proposed changes would go far enough.We have been engaged in dialogue with numerous groups at the city and state levels, but we do not endorse the version of the bill that we understand is currently before the legislature, the statement said.Legislative leaders were weighing possible adjustments, while trying to determine whether theres enough support to get the legislation to Gov. Pat McCrorys desk. McCrory has urged lawmakers to repeal a provision preventing workers from using state law to sue over workplace discrimination.The governor has been public in what he has asked us to look at, House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, said Thursday. We are reviewing those matters and its just still in discussion.Moore confirmed other changes are being considered but he declined to elaborate.The Senate also approved a plan to give McCrorys office $500,000 to defend the law in court, by transferring money from a disaster relief fund. The measure still must pass the House.Entertainers including Bruce Springsteen canceled concerts to protest the law, while scores of business leaders signed a letter seeking its repeal. Rallies to support the law, meanwhile, drew thousands of conservatives to Raleigh.Other legislators have said possible changes include increasing criminal penalties for people who commit sexual assaults in bathrooms and locker rooms. There also could be dispensations for transgender people who have undergone sex reassignment surgery but were born in the few states where the sex on a birth certificate cant be changed.Gay rights advocates held a news conference to say nothing short of the laws repeal would suffice.There is only one fix for H.B. 2, and its full and total repeal, said Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin. If they choose not to and Gov. McCrory and his political cronies run out the clock on this short session, they wont be able to outrun the voters of this state in November.McCrory discussed the law privately with Democratic legislators at the Executive Mansion.Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, described the discussion as candid. But he said Democrats remained concerned that proposed changes dont fix fundamental problems with the law.A spokesman for McCrorys re-election campaign, Ricky Diaz, later said in an email: Any Democrat standing with the Human Rights Campaign and other out-of-state liberal interest groups by refusing any compromise is attempting to drive the NBA All-Star Game from North Carolina.Transgender residents and the U.S. Department of Justice have challenged the law in court, while McCrory, legislative leaders and a citizen group filed lawsuits to defend it. Legislative leaders will have their own legal expenses after filing a lawsuit separate from the governors.Federal Judge Louise Wood Flanagan, who was overseeing lawsuits by the legislative leaders and citizens group, on Wednesday ordered that they be sent to another federal court hearing separate challenges to the law. Her move increased the likelihood that at least four of the five cases will end up before one judge. It also denied efforts to consolidate the two cases with the lawsuit filed by McCrory before a different judge.The risk of inconsistent adjudication is high and the relative expense of multiple proceedings, as compared to a single proceeding, is plain, Flanagan wrote. Stephon Marbury Jersey . The 28-year-old from Calgary matched his career best after missing just one shot in his two rounds of shooting in the mens 10-kilometre sprint competition. Smith finished in 23 minutes 15. Anthony Peeler Jersey . -- Charlie Graham stopped 67 shots as the Belleville Bulls edged the visiting Guelph Storm 6-5 on Saturday in Ontario Hockey League action. https://www.cheaptimberwolves.com/190j-craig-smith-jersey-timberwolves.html . -- Quarterback Will Finch threw for 252 yards and three touchdowns, and Yannick Harou rushed in two scores as the No. Kevin Garnett Jersey . 10 VCU 85-67 on Thursday night at the Puerto Rico Tip-Off. The Seminoles (4-0) have scored at least 80 points in each of their games. Wally Szczerbiak Jersey . He says so-called TRT is only one problem and he wants to go even further than the ban. "Its about time," St-Pierre told reporters at a promotional event in Montreal on Friday. "I think its a good thing. There are few sports that owe their origins to the ancient equivalent of a Bond movie -- but modern pentathlon is one of them.It was created by French baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement, and combines all of the aspects of traditional combat.The basic premise is of a soldier trapped in a castle on a lake. He must fence his way out before swimming to the shore, riding an unfamiliar horse out of the village and running through a wood shooting at enemies.Modern pentathlon was first held at the 1912 Olympic Games and an event for women was added in 2000. It consists of fencing, swimming, show jumping, shooting and running.---ONE TO WATCH:Cheered on by a home crowd, Brazilian Yane Marques will be bidding to improve on the bronze medal she won four years ago.Modern pentathlon was a little known discipline in Brazil when Marques, who was born in a small town in the Brazilian northeast, took it up in 2003, becoming national champion just a year later.But a series of titles, including gold at the 2007 Pan American Games and becoming the first Olympic medal winner in modern pentathlon in the entire Southern Hemisphere has made the country sit up and take note.Marques also won gold at the 2015 Pan American Games and silver at the 2013 world championships, where she lost out to Olympic gold medalist Laura Asadauskaite.There are advantages: knowing the facilities, having a huge crowd behind me, my family being able to see me race, the 32-year-old Marques said. Aside from all this though, there is a very great pressure.The 32-year-old again faces stiff competition, with the top seven from London all returning.Asadauskaite of Lithuania will be favorite, along with Germanys Lena Schoneborn, the 2008 Olympic champion and 2015 World champion.---RULE CHANGES:The core sport remains largely the same since London 2012, but with the addition of a fencing bonus round, which sees the athletes compete in a one-on-one format on a single piste after the traditional round robin in a bid to up their score.The combined event has also been slightly altered to involve four 800m laps of running, instead of 1000m, each still prefaced by laser shooting at five targets, with the intention of restoring more weight to the shooting element.The introduction of the combined event was one of two dramatic changes between Beijing 2008 and Londonn, with the other being the replacement of air pistols with laser ones, for safety reasons.dddddddddddd---FAMILY AFFAIRS:For the first time in modern pentathlon history, two sisters will compete in the same Games.It will be a third successive Olympics for 24-year-old American Margaux Isaksen, who was fourth in London, just two seconds away from a medal, and a first for younger sister Isabella, 22.To be able to compete together with your sister, there is nothing more special, Margaux said. I think this could be the most special Olympics just in that respect.There could also be sibling rivalry on the mens team. Nathan Schrimsher was the first American athlete in any sport to qualify for the Rio Games and younger brother Lucas is his reserve teammate.Sydney siblings Max and Chloe Esposito will also both be competing in the modern pentathlon and the family link doesnt stop there.Right alongside them will be their father and coach, Daniel Esposito, who represented Australia in the sport in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and also qualified for the 1988 Seoul Olympics but had to pull out due to injury.Chloe, 23, finished a surprise seventh in London and is now targeting a first medal in modern pentathlon for Australia. It is 18-year-old Maxs first Olympic Games.---SKULDUGGERYOne of the biggest scandals in Olympic history took place in modern pentathlon during the 1976 Games in Montreal.Soviet athlete Boris Onischenko was one of the stars of the discipline. He had helped his country win the team event in 1972, where he was also an individual silver-medallist, and he won the world championship three times.At the age of 38, Onischenko was expected to bow out of his last Olympics with a medal.However, during the fencing section it was discovered that he had wired his epee so that he could trigger the electronic scoring system with his hand and register a hit at will.Onishchenko was disqualified and escorted from the athletes village by Soviet officials that very night.Two months later it was reported that Onischenko had been called before Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev for a personal scolding, dismissed from the Red Army, fined 5,000 rubles, stripped of all his sporting honors, and was working as a taxi driver in Kiev. ' ' '