FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — The New York Jets now have a pair of big, physical, first-round building blocks for their offensive line.
Missouri offensive tackle Armand Membou was taken by the Jets with the No. 7 overall pick in the NFL draft on Thursday night. The addition of Membou comes a year after New York drafted Olu Fashanu with the 11th overall pick.
“I think the Jets’ O-line has a good, young foundation,” Membou said during a video call a few minutes after he was drafted. “I feel like adding me to it, you know, the work I’m going to put in to this organization, we’ll be very good up in the trenches.”
With the Jets entering the draft with several needs, including at right tackle, new general manager Darren Mougey and coach Aaron Glenn opted to continue upgrading the offensive line.
“He’s mean, he’s nasty, he’s tough,” Glenn said of Membou. “What we’re trying to do on offense, he really fits what we’re trying to do, so it was a no-brainer. I mean, once the pick was there for us, man, it was like, this is the guy.”
Fashanu started at both offensive tackle spots last year, but played well late after he took over on the left side for the injured Tyron Smith. Fashanu will stay at left tackle and Mougey said Membou will compete to take over on the right side.
“I had a feeling this was going to be my home,” said Membou, who added he had good conversations with the Jets leading up to the draft.
New York has an opening at right tackle after Morgan Moses signed with New England as a free agent last month. New York also has Carter Warren, Max Mitchell and Chukwuma Okorafor who could play right tackle, but the 6-foot-4, 330-pound Membou could be a plug-in and play option.
Membou has terrific speed and body control and has been impressive as a pass blocker. He was a second-team All-SEC selection last season after starting 12 games at right tackle for Missouri. He also allowed no sacks last season as a junior and should help provide protection for new Jets quarterback Justin Fields.
“They’re getting a mauler, for sure,” Membou said. “A mauler in the run game and then in pass pro, I’m someone who’s very consistent. I’m going to make sure to keep my quarterback clean.”
Membou’s selection at No. 7 marked the first time the Jets have taken a player in that spot in the NFL draft.
“It’s definitely been long and was a little confusing at first because I wasn’t sure where I’d go,” Membou said of his journey to the draft. “I was still debating whether I was going to go back to school or not. But in my heart, I knew I was ready. I just knew it was my time to go and I’m glad I trusted my decision.”
Glenn has said he envisions an offense that includes a physical rushing attack behind the Jets’ trio of running backs with Breece Hall, Braelon Allen and Isaiah Davis. And Membou thinks he’ll fit right in.
“Like I said, I’m a mauler,” he said. “So, whatever they need to do, it don’t matter — just run behind me, really.”
Glenn pointed out that teams in his previous stops as an assistant in New Orleans and Detroit were successful after building their offensive lines, something he and Mougey are trying to do in New York. Glenn also sees some resemblances in Membou to Lions two-time All-Pro offensive tackle Penei Sewell.
“The mentality and the demeanor of the player is exactly the same,” Glenn said. “That’s what attracted me to that player, first and foremost. And then you start seeing, athletically, how he moves, and then that attracts you. And then when you get a chance to talk to the player and get to know exactly who he is as a person, then that attracts you also.
“So it was like a perfect storm on that guy being a Jet.”

DETROIT (AP) — Karl-Anthony Towns was aggressive early and Jalen Brunson was effective late.
Towns scored 11 of his 31 points in the first quarter and Brunson had 12 of his 30 in the fourth to help the New York Knicks hold on for a 118-116 win over the Detroit Pistons on Thursday night to take a 2-1 lead in the first-round series.
“I thought the way we started the game was much better,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “And, we made timely plays down the stretch.”
Game 4 is on Sunday in Detroit.
The Pistons have lost eight straight home playoff games since 2008, pulling within one of an NBA record set by Philadelphia from 1968 to 1971.
When Detroit won at New York in Game 2, the franchise ended a league-record, 15-playoff game losing streak to take home-court advantage, but the Knicks snatched it back.
Brunson, who won the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year award on Wednesday, made consecutive layups late in the game to give the Knicks a seven-point lead.
Brunson made one of two free throws with 3.5 seconds left for a four-point lead after Detroit’s coaches, players and fans were screaming for an over-and-back violation to be called.
“If you catch the ball, have possession and put it down, to me, that’s possession in the front court,” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said.
Brunson made another free throw with 0.5 seconds left and after missing the second intentionally, the Pistons were given the ball in front of their bench after the buzzer sounded prematurely.
“It doesn’t seem right to me,” Thibodeau said. “It’s unfortunate. That should never happen in a playoff game.”
Detroit, though, didn’t get a final shot off because Jalen Duren’s pass from in front of his team’s bench went out of bounds on the other side of the court.
Towns, a 7-foot center, made 4-of-8 3-pointers after combining to shoot 1 of 5 beyond the arc over the first two games.
“He bounced back,” Thibodeau said. “He can score a lot of different ways and he used his versatility to his strength.”
Detroit’s Cade Cunningham scored 24 points and had 11 assists, but missed 15 of 25 shots and had six turnovers.
Tim Hardaway Jr. had 24 points, making a career playoff-high seven 3-pointers. Dennis Schroder scored 18 points and Duren had 16 for the Pistons.
OG Anunoby scored 22 points and Mikal Bridges added 20 points for the Knicks.
New York led 33-27 after an emotionally charged opening quarter and was ahead 66-53 at halftime.
The Pistons pulled within one point twice in the third, but the Knicks went on another surge to take a 10-point lead into the final quarter and the cushion was comfortable enough to hold off Detroit’s attempts to rally.

Sources say Thomas Mascia the ex-state trooper who claimed he was shot in the line of duty is expected to plead guilty to official misconduct, tampering with evidence and filing a false report.

Mascia’s parents will also reportedly plead guilty to an illegal weapon charge when they are in court on May 7.

Mascia had claimed he was shot by a man on the Southern State Parkway but investigators said Mascia shot himself and then lied.

(Nassau Police) The Third Squad reports the arrest of an East Garden City man for an incident that occurred on Sunday, April 20, 2025 at 1:50 pm in East Garden City.

According to Detectives, Defendant Victor Divergilio, 83, of 223 Wheeler Avenue entered the parking lot of the Roosevelt Field Mall located at 630 Old Country Road when he walked alongside five brand new Tesla vehicles and used a sharp object to deeply scratch, causing approximately $23,000 worth of damage, to these vehicles.

After a thorough investigation, detectives located the defendant at his residence and placed him under arrest without incident.

Defendant Victor Divergilio is charged with Criminal Mischief 2nd Degree. He will be arraigned on Wednesday, April 23, 2025 at First District Court, 99 Main Street, Hempstead.

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — A woman and toddler whose remains were discovered scattered along an oceanfront highway not far from the victims of Long Island’s infamous Gilgo Beach killings were identified Wednesday as a U.S. Army veteran from Alabama and her daughter.
Tanya Denise Jackson, 26, of Mobile, had been living in Brooklyn with her 2-year-old daughter, Tatiana Marie Dykes, at the time of their deaths, Nassau County police announced.
Jackson, who police say may have worked as a medical assistant, had been previously nicknamed “Peaches” by investigators after a tattoo on her body.
Her identity had been a mystery for nearly 28 years. For roughly half that time, investigators have sought to determine whether she and her daughter were victims of the same killer, or killers, who left the bodies of several other people strewn in the sand along the parkway that runs the length of Jones Beach Island.
Police said Wednesday that they had no evidence at this point linking the mother and daughter’s deaths to Rex Heuermann, who has been charged in the deaths of seven women whose remains were discovered elsewhere on the beach road and other parts of Long Island.
“Although Tanya and Tatiana have commonly been linked to the Gilgo Beach serial killings because the timing and locations of their recovered remains, we are not discounting the possibility that their cases are unrelated from that investigation,” Nassau Police Det. Capt. Stephen Fitzpatrick said.
“I’m not saying it is Rex Heuermann and I’m not saying it’s not,” he added. “We are proceeding as if it’s not, keeping our eyes wide open.”
Some of Jackson’s remains were discovered on June 28, 1997, stuffed inside a plastic tub in a state park in West Hempstead. More remains, and the skeletal remains of the female child, were found in April 2011 off Ocean Parkway, which runs for 15 miles (24 kilometers) along Long Island’s barrier island beaches.
At the briefing Wednesday, law enforcement officials said they had identified Jackson and her daughter through advanced DNA and genealogy research.
“The reality is, our work has just begun,” Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said. “Knowing the identities of the mom and the little baby is just a first step to help us get to solving these murders.”
Fitzpatrick said police spoke with the child’s father, who was cooperating with the investigation and is not considered a suspect at this time.
He said local authorities initially turned over DNA evidence to the FBI, which provided a likely identification for the two in 2022. Additional DNA samples obtained the following year allowed police to notify surviving family members last year. The two were recently laid to rest, with Jackson receiving “full military honors,” Fitzpatrick said.
Jackson, who drove a black 1991 Geo Storm, was estranged from her family so it was some time before she was reported missing, he added. She served in the U.S. Army from 1993 to 1995, living on three bases in Texas, Georgia and Missouri, according to Fitzpatrick.
“We never gave up on striving for justice for either Tanya or Tatiana,” he said. “We’re determined to find the reasons and circumstances that led to their untimely deaths.”
Nassau Police said they’re offering a $25,000 reward to anyone with information leading to an arrest.
Public interest in the mystery of “Peaches” identity surged in 2011, when police searching for victims of a possible serial killer discovered that her bones were among 10 sets of human remains discovered off of Ocean Parkway not far from Gilgo Beach.
Most of the victims were female sex workers.
Heuermann, an architect who lived on Long Island, was charged with killing three of the women in 2023. Authorities have since charged him with four more killings. Heuermann has maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty. His lawyer did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Wednesday.
Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney’s office, which is prosecuting Heuermann, said in a statement he is not commenting on “any topics even tangentially involved to the investigation” while a pre-trial hearing plays out.
Authorities are still trying to identify one more set of remains. In September, Long Island officials released more detailed renderings of a victim believed to be of Chinese descent whose remains were found off Ocean Parkway in 2011. The victim died in 2006 or earlier, was likely between ages 17 and 23 and about 5 feet 6 inches (170 centimeters) tall.
Officials for years had identified the victim as male, but said they now believe the person may have presented outwardly as female as they were dressed in women’s clothing.