Earl Lloyd, who became the first black player in the NBA nearly 65 years ago, died Thursday at age 86.

Lloyd had a long career that stretched from West Virginia State to basketball’s Hall of Fame. He once told a young man who thanked him for being a pioneer, “Man, you owe me absolutely nothing.”

As a player, the 6’5″ Lloyd was nicknamed The Big Cat. He was drafted in the same year as other black players, but he was the first to play in the regular season, for the then-Washington Capitols.

In 1955, Lloyd helped the Syracuse Nationals win an NBA title; he later played for the Detroit Pistons.

At the time of his death, Lloyd had been living in Crossville, Tenn., with his wife, Charlita. He was a native of Alexandria, Va., who also lived for many years in Detroit.

Lloyd was also a jazz fan. During his playing days, he carried around issues of Downbeat magazine during road trips, to help him find gigs in the cities he visited.

After his playing days, Lloyd had stints as a scout and coach in the NBA. He “is credited with discovering basketball talents Willis Reed, Earl Monroe, Dave Bing, Ray Scott and Wally Jones,” according to a statement from West Virginia State.

Lloyd went on to work at the Dodge division of the Chrysler Corporation, followed by working in job placement in Detroit’s school system.

Lloyd spoke to NPR several times in the past 15 years. We’ve collected some of the most compelling quotes from those conversations here.

From 2000, speaking to NPR’s Linda Wertheimer:

“Here I am, a young black kid — from kindergarten right through graduating from college, I never had a white classmate. And you’re born and raised in the den of segregation, you’ve been treated third-class all your life. So you tend to believe that you’re inferior. And when you walk into a pro training camp… the first thing you ask yourself, very quietly, [is] ‘Do I belong here?’ And at training camp, where it’s on, and you start scrimmaging these guys and playing against them, you know — then the bulb lights up, and tells you that you belong.”

From a 2013 talk with NPR’s Gene Demby:

“My parents used to say it only matters if other people think you’re special. What you think is only as important as a rat’s behind.”

“I always say that if someone had to handpick a place to play their first game as a black player, it would be Rochester, N.Y. In that part of the country in the wintertime, no one hates anyone. You see black folks and white folks pushing each other’s cars through the snow. But the next day we were in St. Louis. That was not a nice place to be in 1950. That was not a nice place to be. But there was no Klansmen [at that first game] and all that, with signs and ropes. It was too cold for all that.”

From a 2010 talk with NPR’s Liane Hansen:

“Jackie made things a lot easier for me. But what happened, if you think about it, Jackie Robinson played first base. The guy playing left field, he can call him all the names he wants to call him and their paths will never cross. But in pro basketball, you stand on a foul line and some guy who might want to call you a name is less apt to — because the proximity is kind of immediate. And there’s a little danger involved in calling a guy a name who’s standing right next to you.”

“One kid said to me, he said, Mr. Lloyd, we really owe you. And I explained to him, man, you owe me absolutely nothing. I said, whatever kind of career I had, it has served me well, but you do owe some people. And the people you owe are the folks who are going to come behind you. It’s incumbent upon each watch — when you play your 10, 11 years and you’re in your group — when you leave, I truly hope that you’ve done all you can possibly do to leave it a better place for the folks who come behind you.”

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Updated at 1:16 p.m.

Actor Leonard Nimoy, best known for his role as Mr. Spock, the logical half-Vulcan, half-human in the original Star Trek series and several movies, has died at his home in Los Angeles, his granddaughter, Madeleine, told NPR. Nimoy was 83.

The cause was end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, she said.

NPR’s Neda Ulaby, who is reporting on the story, tells our Newscast unit:

“Leonard Nimoy started acting as a teenager at a settlement house theater in Boston where he grew up. His father was a barber, a Jewish refugee from Ukraine. Nimoy felt stifled by Spock at times during his career. He also appeared on Broadway, wrote poetry and plays and directed a few blockbuster movies, including Star Trek 4. He eventually made peace with the character. Spock could have been just pointy ears and punch lines. Leonard Nimoy gave him gravitas.”

Nimoy reprised the role he is most famous for in the J.J. Abrams’ reboot of the franchise. He told NPR’s Guy Raz in 2009: “I know why they wanted me in this last film, which was to create a bridge between the original cast and the new. But that’s been done. So I would suspect that there’s no need for my presence again.”

Actor Zachary Quinto, who took over as Mr. Spock in the reboot and its sequel, told NPR in 2013 that Nimoy “was very supportive from the beginning, and we became incredibly good friends.”

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

A Bangladeshi-American blogger, whose writings denounced fundamentalist thought and earned him death threats from Islamist groups, was hacked to death by two attackers in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital. Avijit Roy’s wife, Rafida Ahmed, who was with him during the attack late Thursday, was severely wounded.

Roy and Ahmed, Bangladeshi-born U.S. citizens, were returning from a book fair when they were attacked on a crowded sidewalk in Dhaka. The Dhaka Tribune newspaper reports that Roy died in hospital from excessive bleeding and an internal brain injury. His wife is reportedly in critical but stable condition. The couple was due to return to the U.S. next month.

The Associated Press reports that Ansar Bangla 7, a previously unknown group, claimed responsibility for the attack, citing Roy’s “crime against Islam.” Police are investigating the attack, but no arrests have as yet been made.

NPR’s Julie McCarthy, who is in New Delhi, India, tells our Newscast unit that Roy had received threats on social media from hard-liners angered by his writing. She says:

“Roy founded the website ‘Free Mind,’ a congregation of free thinkers, atheists and humanists of mainly Bengali descent. The clash between secularists and Muslim fundamentalists risks destabilizing Bangladesh, where hard-line Islamist groups demand public executions of writers like Roy, the second blogger to be murdered in Bangladesh in two years.”

In 2013, blogger Rajib Hyder was killed in nearly the same way, the Dhaka Tribune reported.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

More details are emerging about Mohammed Emwazi, the man identified as the militant seen in beheading videos released by the self-styled Islamic State. His name came out Thursday.

Emwazi is a British citizen who was born in Kuwait and grew up in West London. He reportedly graduated from the University of Westminster with a degree in computer programming.

There are two narratives about Emwazi’s past that attempt to explain how the man dubbed by the media as “Jihadi John” became radicalized and internationally notorious.

One scenario has been put forth by a researcher with a Muslim advocacy organization in the U.K. called CAGE. The researcher says that when he met with Emwazi in the fall of 2009, Emwazi was incensed over having been detained by British security services while traveling, NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston reports on Morning Edition.

“The implication has been that Emwazi was radicalized because of this poor treatment,” Dina says on Friday’s Morning Edition.

But another part of the story comes from court papers recently obtained by the BBC. They suggest that Emwazi had radical leanings even before he was detained.

“Those court papers were filed back in 2011, and they say that Emwazi was part of a group known as the North London Boys,” Dina says. “They had links to the Somali-based terrorist group al-Shabab. The London Boys were allegedly funneling money and fighters to the group as far back as 2007.”

A member of that group went to fight in Somalia in 2009 after saying he was traveling to Africa to go on safari — a story that, Dina says, Emwazi also told when he was stopped by authorities months later.

Emwazi moved to Kuwait in 2009 and eventually reached Syria in 2012.

Trying to piece together Emwazi’s past, the British media has descended on a building in London where the man is believed to have lived.

For a look at Emwazi’s life when he graduated from college in 2009, here’s The Guardian:

“By this time, Emwazi was said to be a polite, observant Muslim with a penchant for designer clothes. He was also a member of a loose-knit group of Muslim youths who played five-a-side football together, were educated at the same schools, attended the same mosques, and were all impressed by a particular preacher, Hani al-Sibai.

“Of that group, three are now dead, one is living in Sudan after being stripped of his British citizenship, a fourth cannot leave the UK for fear that he too will be deprived of his citizenship, and several are serving prison sentences.”

Under the headline “Jihadi Junior,” The Sun has printed a class photo that the newspaper says includes Emwazi at age 11. It adds that he was a fan of Manchester United.

U.S. and British authorities have not publicly confirmed Emwazi’s identity, but intelligence officials in both countries have told journalists that they identified Emwazi months ago — and that they wanted to keep their discovery secret because of operational reasons.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

A pair of llamas on the loose in Sun City, Ariz., riveted the nation this afternoon.

The major cable news networks — CNN, Fox, MSNBC — broke into their news coverage for chopper footage showing a black llama and a white llama running through parking lots and boulevards while being chased by a bunch of guys:

Eventually, more men with lassos joined the chase:

And the black llama was cornered and, much to the dismay of Twitter, was captured:

But the white llama was still holding on to the dream:

The llama escaped a few lasso attempts from men on foot. But then, they brought in the pickup truck and the “Great Llama Drama of 2015″ came to an end:

And everybody thought:

(By the way: Per The Associated Press, this all happened in Maricopa County. There’s no word on whether these llamas were pets.)

Update at 6:27 p.m. ET. Therapy Llamas:

The AP reports that the escaped llamas were working at a retirement home. The wire service adds:

“The fugitive llamas were part of a trio that were making a therapy visit to elderly residents at GenCare SunCity at The Carillons. Executive Director Jill Parsons said it was the first time the facility had hosted the llamas.

“The animals bolted when their handlers took them outside for a bathroom break.

“Parsons declined to name the llamas’ owners, saying that they were somewhat embarrassed by the whole ordeal. Their televised breakout quickly inspired a Twitter account and several hashtags.”

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Extramarital sex is no longer a crime in South Korea, giving shares of contraceptive companies a boost.

On Thursday, South Korea’s Constitutional Court struck down a decades-old law that made adultery a crime punishable by up to two years in prison.

NPR’s Anthony Kuhn tell our Newscast unit that “roughly 100,000 people have been convicted of adultery since the law was passed in 1953, but conviction rates have recently fallen to below 1 percent.”

Still, The Guardian reports there is “a deep vein of traditionalism” in the country. The adultery law, the newspaper says, was passed with the stated purpose of protecting women at a time when the country was largely dependent on agriculture and women had few property rights. But changes in the economy and sexual mores made the law feel obsolete to many South Koreans.

Last year, South Korea blocked a Korean version of the extramarital-hookup site Ashley Madison. Earlier Thursday, Fusion interviewed Ashley Madison founder Noel Biderman, who says he is interested in returning to the country.

Two of the court’s nine judges involved in the Thursday ruling voted to uphold the law, saying decriminalization would encourage affairs and debauchery.

The New York Times reports that “more than 5,000 people who have been indicted on adultery charges since that 2008 ruling can now seek a new trial or, if they have not been convicted, demand that the charges be dropped.”

Share prices for leading condom brand Unidus were up nearly 15 percent, the daily limit on the country’s Kosdaq market. And shares of Hyundai Pharmaceutical, which makes morning-after birth control pills and pregnancy tests, rose 9.7 percent.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Banksy’s work is now in the Gaza Strip.

The artist, who uses public spaces for his often-provocative murals, posted images that he said were of art he created in the Gaza Strip, along with a two-minute video of life in the Palestinian territory, titled “Make this the year YOU discover a new destination.”

Here are some of the murals, which you can also see on Banksy’s own website.

Banksy writes about this image:

“A local man came up and said ‘Please — what does this mean?’ I explained I wanted to highlight the destruction in Gaza by posting photos on my website — but on the internet people only look at pictures of kittens.”

And on his website, he writes about the mural below: “Gaza is often described as ‘the world’s largest open air prison’ because no-one is allowed to enter or leave. But that seems a bit unfair to prisons — they don’t have their electricity and drinking water cut off randomly almost every day.”

Banksy is known for his political art that is often provocative. And these images, and the video below, are likely to have supporters as well as detractors given that they deal with the impact last year’s fighting between Hamas, which runs Gaza, and Israel had on the territory.

The two-minute video has a line that reads: “If we wash our hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless we side with the powerful — we don’t remain neutral.”

The artist also posted one of the murals in Gaza on Instagram:

A publicist for the artist, whose identity is not known, released a statement to The New York Times that said:

“I don’t want to take sides. But when you see entire suburban neighborhoods reduced to rubble with no hope of a future — what you’re really looking at is a vast outdoor recruitment center for terrorists. And we should probably address this for all our sakes.”

Banksy’s work has previously appeared in the West Bank and other parts of the world, including his native U.K. In 2010, the artist worked on the opening sequence for The Simpsons that featured an Asian sweatshop.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.