Elliot Morales, who appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court, is also charged with criminal possession of a weapon and menacing, according to the complaint filed Sunday by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

Authorities said the Greenwich Village resident used a silver revolver to kill 32-year-old Mark Carson early Saturday as he walked with a companion in Morales’ neighbourhood.

Morales was ordered held without bail pending another court appearance on Thursday. His attorney, Reginald Sharpe, could not be reached for comment.

On Saturday, seconds before opening fire in the lively Village streets just after midnight, police say Morales followed Carson and a companion through the Village, asking if they “want to die here,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

Police said Morales then yelled anti-gay slurs before shooting Carson point-blank in the face in a neighbourhood long known as a bedrock of the gay rights movement.

Morales was soon arrested a few blocks away.

He has a previous arrest for attempted murder in 1998, police said. Details of that arrest weren’t immediately clear.

Saturday’s shooting scene is a few blocks from the Stonewall Inn, the site of 1969 riots that helped give rise to gay rights when patrons reacted to police harassment.

Saturday’s violence follows a spate of recent bias attacks on gay men in New York, but this was the first deadly one. Kelly said police were looking into possible links between the incidents.

The shooting stunned a city where, in many neighbourhoods, same-sex couples now walk freely holding hands. It also comes at a time when the gay marriage movement is gaining momentum in many parts of the United States. Twelve states have legalized same-sex marriage, including New York in 2011.

The Spurs avoided a repeat of their Game 1 loss when the teams met two years ago in the first round. The Grizzlies went on to knock San Antonio out of the playoffs as the top seed that time.

San Antonio raced out to a 17-point lead in the first quarter, then came up with a response when Memphis rallied to get within six in the second half. Both teams pulled their starters with over 5 minutes left and the Spurs leading by 21.

Quincy Pondexter led Memphis with 17 points. Grizzlies All-Star Zach Randolph missed his first seven shots and scored his only points on a tip-in with 9:26 left in the game.

Game 2 is Tuesday night in San Antonio.

The NBA’s stingiest defence wasn’t up to its usual standards, allowing the Spurs to hit 53 per cent of their shots and a franchise post-season-record 14 3-pointers while Randolph struggled. Randolph was a non-factor after going for a playoff-best 28 points and 14 rebounds as Memphis eliminated defending West champ Oklahoma City in Game 5 on Wednesday night.

The Grizzlies started to rally as soon as Randolph came out of the game for the first time in the second half.

Pondexter made a baseline cut for a layup off Darrell Arthur’s pass, then hit back-to-back 3-pointers during a 10-0 burst. Jerryd Bayless’ two-handed, fast-break dunk off a steal got the Grizzlies within 62-56 with 3:43 left in the third quarter.

The comeback was short-lived, though.

Bayless missed a 3-pointer on the next trip, and Manu Ginobili was able to make one at the opposite end to spark an 11-1 response that immediately restored the Spurs’ lead to 16 by end of the quarter. Leonard hit a pair of 3-pointers and Gary Neal had one as San Antonio kept pouring it on in the fourth.

The four regular-season meetings were all won by the team with more points in the paint, but perimeter shooting proved to be a bigger factor in the playoff opener. Memphis, which was second in the NBA by holding opponents to 33.8 shooting on 3-pointers, let San Antonio make 13 of its first 24 from behind the arc and finish 14 of 29.

Danny Green connected three times and scored 16, and Matt Bonner hit four of his five attempts for 12 points.

Marc Gasol provided 15 points for Memphis, and Mike Conley had 14 points and eight assists.

The Spurs asserted themselves early, scoring on their first seven possessions and also getting a couple head-to-head defensive stops from their veterans while claiming a quick 23-8 lead. Parker swiped the ball from Conley on Memphis’ second possession, running out for a layup, and Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins burned a timeout in the first 2 minutes.

Tim Duncan snuffed out the ensuing play by blocking Randolph’s shot, and the Spurs’ strong start continued. Bonner hit back-to-back 3-pointers for a 17-point edge late in the first quarter, and San Antonio pushed out to a 43-23 advantage following consecutive baskets by Parker with 6:06 left before halftime.

It was the largest first-half deficit for the Grizzlies during the playoffs.

Gasol hit three baskets as Memphis made a push to get back in the game before halftime, trimming the deficit to 51-37 at the break.

Notes: Memphis’ only larger deficit this post-season came in the first-round opener against the Los Angeles Clippers. L.A. didn’t lead by 20 until the final minute of a 112-91 victory. … Tracy McGrady got a standing ovation when he checked in with the Spurs up by 20 midway through the fourth quarter. … The Spurs had 13 3-pointers in a game against the Los Angeles Clippers in last year’s playoffs, on May 15.

The 26-year-old South Korean closed with a 1-under 69 to finish at 13-under 267.

Bradley was trying to become the Nelson’s first wire-to-wire winner since Tom Watson in 1980. He set the TPC Four Seasons course record with an opening 60, but finished with a 72 on a day with wind gusting to near 40 mph at times.

Bae already had 11 international victories — on the Korea, Japan and Asian tours.

After four birdies in an early five-hole stretch, Bae had a four-stroke lead. Bradley got even at No. 15, but missed a short birdie putt on the next hole.

Boychuk put a 40-foot shot from the right inside the near post for his third playoff goal to make it 3-2 at 12:08. Brad Marchand, whose overtime goal won the opener, and Milan Lucic stretched the Bruins’ lead in the final period.

Boston never trailed as rookie Torey Krug scored the first goal before Ryan Callahan tied it. Gregory Campbell made it 2-1, and New York pulled even again on Rick Nash’s goal.

Games 3 and 4 of the best-of-seven series will be played in New York on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively.

New York goalie Henrik Lundqvist, last year’s Vezina Trophy winner, had his second straight tough game after posting consecutive shutouts in Games 6 and 7 of the first round against the Washington Capitals when the Rangers faced elimination.

Tuukka Rask was solid again for Boston, stopping 35 shots.

Marchand scored on a similar play to the one that gave Boston a 3-2 overtime win on Thursday night.

On Sunday, Patrice Bergeron carried the puck through the neutral zone along the right side, while Marchand raced toward the net. Bergeron skated deep into the Rangers zone and then passed the puck across the crease to Marchand, who was waiting to tip it past Lundqvist for his second playoff goal.

Lucic made it 5-2 at 12:39 of the third. He skated into the New York end and gave the puck to David Krejci, who was stopped by Lundqvist, but Lucic converted the rebound.

Krug scored his second goal of the series and second of his two-game NHL post-season career to put Boston ahead 1-0 at 5:28 of the first period. Krug fired a shot from just inside the left circle that sailed through a screen and got between Lundqvist’s pads.

New York tied it less than three minutes later when Callahan intercepted Marchand’s pass at the Boston blue line and skated up the left side while outmanoeuvringdefenceman Dougie Hamilton. Callahan cut across the front of the crease and scored into the open right side of the net.

The Bruins took another short-lived lead when Campbell got his first goal of the playoffs at 2:24 of the second period. Krug’s 45-foot shot from the left hit the left skate of Rangers defenceman Dan Girardi in front and went to Campbell, who beat Lundqvist.

That lead lasted less than a minute as Nash scored at 3:20 with a 10-foot shot from the slot over Rask’s right shoulder. It was Nash’s first goal in his nine playoff games this year after leading the Rangers with 21 goals during the regular season.

NOTES: Lundqvist has started New York’s last 29 games against Boston. … The Bruins played their second straight game without injured veteran defencemen Andrew Ference, Dennis Seidenberg and Wade Redden. … A Bruins defenceman got a goal or an assist on each of the team’s goals. … The margin of victory was more than two goals for just the second time in 26 games between the Rangers and Bruins. … In their nine playoff games, the Rangers have scored just twice on 35 power plays. They are 0-for-7 against the Bruins.

(All times Eastern)

NHL Playoffs

Eastern Conference Semifinals

Boston New York Rangers 2

(Boston leads series 2-0)

Pittsburgh at Ottawa, 7:30 p.m.

(Pittsburgh leads series 2-0)

–

World Hockey Championships

At Stockholm

Gold Medal game

Sweden 5 Switzerland 1

Bronze Medal game

U.S. 3 Finland 2 (SO)

–

Memorial Cup at Saskatoon

Round Robin

Saskatoon vs Halifax, 7 p.m.

–

Baseball

American League

Toronto at N.Y. Yankees, ppd

Cleveland 6 Seattle 0

Tampa Bay 3 Baltimore 1

Boston at Minnesota (delayed)

Chicago White Sox at L.A. Angels, 3:35 p.m.

Kansas City at Oakland, 4:05 p.m.

Detroit at Texas, 8:05 p.m.

–

National League

Miami 2 Arizona 1

Philadelphia 3 Cincinnati 2

St. Louis 4 Milwaukee 2

N.Y. Mets 4 Chicago Cubs 3

L.A. Dodgers at Atlanta, 1:35 p.m.

San Francisco at Colorado, 4:10 p.m.

Washington at San Diego, 4:10 p.m.

–

Interleague

Pittsburgh 1 Houston 0

–

NBA Playoffs

Western Conference Final

San Antonio 105 Memphis 83

(San Antonio leads series 1-0)

–

MLS

New York 1 Los Angeles 0

Sporting Kansas City at D.C. United, 5 p.m.

Real Salt Lake at Chivas USA, 10:30 p.m.

–

Fewer than half of the 53 mice and other rodents who blasted off on April 19 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome survived the flight, Russian news agencies reported, quoting Vladimir Sychov, deputy director of the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems and the lead researcher.

Sychov said this was to be expected and the surviving mice were sufficient to complete the study, which was designed to show the effects of weightlessness and other factors of space flight on cell structure. All 15 of the lizards survived, he said. The capsule also carried small crayfish and fish.

The capsule’s orbit reached 575 kilometres (345 miles) above Earth, according to the news agencies, which said this was far higher than the orbit of the International Space Station.

Russian state television showed the round Bion-M capsule and some of the surviving mice after it landed slightly off course but safely in a planted field near Orenburg, about 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) southeast of Moscow.

“This is the first time that animals have flown in space for so long on their own,” Sychov said in the television broadcast from the landing site. The last research craft to carry animals into space spent 12 days in orbit in 2007.

The mice and other animals were to be flown back to Moscow to undergo a series of tests at Sychov’s institute, which is part of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

It’s an amount too high for many to imagine. Compare it to the budget for the city of Zephyrhills: This year’s figure is just more than $49 million. The winning Powerball jackpot is 12 times that.

Whoever has the ticket hadn’t come forward as of Sunday morning.

“This would be the sixth Florida Powerball winner and right now, it’s the sole winner of the largest ever Powerball jackpot,” Florida Lottery executive Cindy O’Connell told The Associated Press. “We’re delighted right now that we have the sole winner.”

Publix spokeswoman Maria Brous said that there are a lot of rumours about who won, but the store doesn’t know.

“We’re excited for the winner or winners,” said Brous. “We don’t promote or endorse the lottery, we offer it as a convenience.”

O’Connell said Florida has had more Powerball winners than any other state but did not give any indication whether anyone had stepped forward with the winning ticket in Saturday’s drawing.

But plenty of people in Zephyrhills — population 13,337 — are wondering whether it’s someone they know.

Joan Albertson drove over to the Publix early Sunday morning with her camera in hand, just in case the winner emerged. She said she had bought a ticket at a store across the street, and the idea of winning that much money was still something of a shock.

“Oh, there’s so much good that you could do with that amount of money.” Albertson said. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

Zephyrhills is a small city in Pasco County, about 30 miles (50 kilometres) northeast of downtown Tampa. Once a rural farming town, it’s now known as a hotbed for skydiving activity, and the home to large retiree mobile home parks and Zephyrhills bottled water.

And now, one lucky lottery ticket.

Sara Jeltis said her parents in Michigan texted her with the news Sunday morning.

“Well, it didn’t click till I came here,” she said, gesturing to the half-dozen TV live trucks humming in the Publix parking lot. “And I’m like, wow I can’t believe it, it’s shocking! Out of the whole country, this Publix, in little Zephyrhills would be the winner.”

With four out of every five possible combinations of Powerball numbers in play, lottery executives said Saturday that someone was almost certain to win the game’s highest jackpot, a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars — and that’s after taxes.

The winning numbers were 10, 13, 14, 22 and 52, with a Powerball of 11.

Estimates had earlier put the jackpot at around $600 million. But Powerball’s online site said Sunday that the jackpot had reached an estimated $590.5 million.

The world’s largest jackpot was a $656 million Mega Millions jackpot in March 2012.

Terry Rich, CEO of the Iowa Lottery, initially confirmed that one Florida winning ticket had been sold. He told AP that following the Florida winner, the Powerball grand prize was being reset at an estimated jackpot of $40 million, or about $25.1 million cash value.

The chances of winning the prize were astronomically low: 1 in 175.2 million. That’s how many different ways you can combine the numbers when you play. But lottery officials estimated that about 80 per cent of those possible combinations had been purchased recently.

While the odds are low for any one individual or individuals, O’Connell said, the chance that one hits paydirt is what makes Powerball exciting.

“There is just the chance that you will have the opportunity, and Florida is a huge Powerball state,” O’Connell said. “We have had more winners than any other state that participates in Powerball.”

The longshot odds didn’t deter people across Powerball-playing states — 43 plus Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands — from lining up at gas stations and convenience stores Saturday.

Clyde Barrow, a public policy professor at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, specializes in the gaming industry. He said one of the key factors behind the ticket-buying frenzy is the size of the jackpot — people are interested in the easy investment.

“Even though the odds are very low, the investment is very small,” he said. “Two dollars gets you a chance.”

___

Rodriguez reported from Des Moines, Iowa.

___

Follow Barbara Rodriguez at http://twitter.com/bcrodriguez.

The town of Qusair has been besieged for weeks by regime troops and pro-government gunmen backed by the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group. The siege is part of a regime offensive that aims to regain control of the towns and villages along the frontier with Lebanon.

The border region’s strategic value is twofold: it links Damascus with the Mediterranean coastal enclave that is the heartland of President Bashar Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam; and rebels smuggle weapons and supplies from Lebanon across the porous frontier to opposition fighters inside Syria.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 30 people, including 16 rebel fighters and one woman, were killed in Qusair in fighting Sunday morning, but that the death toll was expected to rise as government troops continue to try to push into the town.

A government official in the nearby provincial capital of Homs said that regime troops have encircled the town and that “the offensive to liberate Qusair has begun.”

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, said the army has built up its forces on three fronts around Qusair while leaving one clear for “safe passage for fleeing civilians and the armed terrorists who want to surrender.”

The official said government forces have advanced into the town, taking over the municipality building and other vital government institutions.

But Hadi Abdullah, an activist in Qusair reached on Skype, denied the regime made any advances on the ground. He said the municipality was destroyed in fighting six months ago, and that there’s no government building left to take over.

He said heavy shelling began late Saturday and continued through Sunday, and that civilians have sought shelter in basements

“It’s the heaviest since the beginning of the revolution,” he said, adding that at least 17 houses have been destroyed.

The discrepancy in the accounts could not be immediately verified.

Separately, an official at the Homs governor’s office said two suicide bombings in the town of Deir Balbaa just outside of Homs killed at least three people and wounded 15 others. The official declined to be identified because he is not allowed to make public comments.

Another pair of bombings struck near a factory on a different Homs highway, killing four people and wounding 13, the state news agency reported.

The regime’ offensive on Qusair comes as the United States and Russia push a joint effort to get Assad and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country’s civil war. Previous attempts to solve the conflict peacefully have failed.

The U.S.-Russian plan, similar to one set out last year in Geneva, calls for talks on a transition government and an open-ended cease-fire.

More than 70,000 people have been killed and several million displaced since the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011 and escalated into a civil war. The fighting has also spilled over into neighbouring states, including Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Israel, all of which are anxious about the ripple effect of Syria’s conflict on their own nations.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned at a weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday that the Jewish state was prepared to act if there were more shipments to Hezbollah from Syria.

“We are following the developments and changes there closely and we are prepared for every scenario,” he said.

Israeli warplanes carried out two rounds of airstrikes on Damascus early this month on what officials have said were sophisticated missiles bound for Hezbollah.

On Saturday, Assad said in a newspaper interview that he won’t step down before elections and that the United States has no right to interfere in his country’s politics.

Assad’s comments to the Argentine newspaper Clarin were the first about his political future since Washington and Moscow agreed earlier this month to try to bring the regime and the opposition to an international conference for talks about a peaceful resolution to the conflict. The U.S. and Russia have backed opposite sides in the conflict, but appear to have found common ground in the diplomatic push.

The White House and the Kremlin envision holding the meeting next month, but no date has been set. Neither Assad nor the Syrian National Coalition, the main Western-backed opposition coalition group, has made a firm commitment to attend.

In the interview, Assad seemed to play down the importance of such a conference, saying a decision on Syria’s future is up to the Syrian people, not the U.S. He also said a decision on his political future must be made in elections, and not during such a conference.

As the regime and opposition decides whether to even take part in the conference, the planning for the potential talks looked set to move forward.

Jordan is to host Western and Arab foreign ministers, including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, for a meeting Wednesday that brings together the Syrian opposition’s foreign supporters to plan for the peace talks.

In Egypt, the Arab League said its ministerial committee on Syria will meet Thursday to discuss ways to convene the international conference on Syria. The Syrian opposition said they will meet in Turkey that same day to discuss whether to take part in an international conference on the conflict.

___

Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, Aron Heller in Jerusalem, Maamoun Youssef in Cairo, Egypt, and Yasmine Saker in Beirut contributed to this report.

North Korea routinely test-launches short-range missiles. But the latest launches came during a period of tentative diplomacy aimed at easing recent tension, including near-daily threats by North Korea to attack South Korea and the U.S. earlier this year. North Korea protested annual joint military drills by Seoul and Washington and U.N. sanctions imposed over its February nuclear test.

The fourth launch occurred Sunday afternoon, according to officials at Seoul’s Defence Ministry and Joint Chiefs of Staff. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing department rules, refused to say whether it was a missile or artillery round.

On Saturday, North Korea fired two short-range missiles in the morning and another in the afternoon. The U.S. responded by saying threats or provocations would only further deepen North Korea’s international isolation, while South Korea called the launches a provocation and urged the North to take responsible actions.

The North has a variety of missiles but Seoul and Washington don’t believe the country has mastered the technology needed to manufacture nuclear warheads that are small and light enough to be placed on a missile capable of reaching the U.S.

U.S. officials said the North has recently withdrawn two mid-range “Musudan” missiles believed to be capable of reaching Guam after moving them to its east coast during the recent tensions.

The Korean Peninsula officially remains in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. South Korea’s Defence Ministry said Sunday it has deployed dozens of Israeli-made precision guided missiles on front-line islands near the disputed western sea boundary as part of an arms buildup begun after a North Korean artillery strike on one of the islands in 2010 killed four South Koreans.

___

Associated Press writer Sam Kim contributed to this report.

A DIFFERENT TUNE FOR TIMBERLAKE

In the Coen brothers’ “Inside Llewyn Davis,” Justin Timberlake sings music set to a very different beat than “Suit and Tie.”

Timberlake plays a bearded pop folkie in the film, which was to premiere Sunday night at the Cannes Film Festival, about the music scene of early 1960s Greenwich Village. Oscar Isaac stars as a more serious but less successful folk musician than Timberlake’s smiley Jim Berkey.

Speaking to reporters Sunday, Timberlake called Berkey “part of the transition that is sort of the underbelly of the time.” The film summons the period of New York folk just before Bob Dylan arrived in the early ’60s.

“Obviously, it’s on the surface, a different style from the music that I make in real life,” said Timberlake. “But listen, man. I grew up in Tennessee, the home of the blues, the birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll — Memphis — and a lot of country music. So my first musical lessons were given to me by my grandfather an old Gibson guitar. He taught me how to fingerpick.”

Timberlake helped write the music to the film’s most comical song, “Please, Mr. Kennedy,” which he sings with Isaac and Adam Driver of “Girls.” The oft-repeated chorus goes: “Please, Mr. Kennedy, don’t shoot me into outer space.”

Timberlake got reflective about the curious mix of talent, luck and timing that goes into a music act breaking out. In contrast to the success Timberlake has had in music and acting, the characters of “Llewyn Davis” are those for whom things never click.

“I’ve been in the right place and met the wrong people, and I’ve been in the wrong place and met the right people,” the former boy band singer said. “Usually, the second one ends up being the thing that can catapult someone’s career.”

Timberlake suggested disregarding how one’s work is received.

“There’s a lot of analysis now, a lot of analytics on what might be success and what might be failure,” he said. “I don’t know that I would measure the success or failure of it by how it’s perceived because once it’s done, it’s sort of out there. You have to let it live in the ether.”

— Jake Coyle, http://twitter.com/jake_coyle

Young British actor George MacKay is making a splash at Cannes — literally, amid the weekend’s torrential downpours — with his compelling central performance in mythic maritime drama “For Those In Peril.”

Set in a fishing town on the stark Scottish coast, Paul Wright’s debut feature stars 21-year-old MacKay as sole survivor of a boat accident that killed five others, including his elder brother. MacKay carries the intense and poetic film as a young man struggling to cope with loss, even as his survival alienates him from his bereaved neighbours.

“You got our film and our weather, too,” MacKay joked, sitting in a wind-whipped beachside cafe during interviews for the film in Cannes.

Playing in Cannes’ Critics’ Week competition, the movie has garnered strong reviews for its exploration of guilt, masculinity and mythology.

It’s a mature and meaty role for MacKay, who got his movie start aged 10 as one of the Lost Boys in P.J. Hogan’s 2003 adaptation of “Peter Pan,” shot at Warner Bros’ studios on Australia’s Gold Coast.

“It was mad. They built a pirate ship — it was extraordinary. I think, the fact that we were 10, I don’t think we realized how ridiculous the scale (was),” said MacKay, who also appeared alongside Clive Owen in 2009 family drama “The Boys Are Back.”

“For Those in Peril” was a much smaller-scale operation, shot over six weeks in a small town in northeast Scotland — and, for several key sequences, in the cold North Sea.

The boundlessly enthusiastic MacKay says even the frigid water scenes were made bearable by “lots of cups of tea … lots of towels, lots of food.”

“We were kept safe,” he said. “We were out in the middle of the ocean doing it and we had the water safety guys come — very dramatic — shooting across in their little (boat), whack you out and wrap you in towels. It was all good.”

And the town had a bonus: “Best fish and chips you’ve ever had.”

—Jill Lawless, http://Twitter.com/JillLawless