内容摘要：Eric Berton, president of Aix-Marseille University, expressed a similar sentiment after launching the institution’s “Safe Place for Science” program.

Eric Berton, president of Aix-Marseille University, expressed a similar sentiment after launching the institution’s “Safe Place for Science” program.

Drucilla became a ballet dancer, like Rowell herself, a storyline that showed “it is possible to be in a lower socioeconomic environment and be aspirational.”Victoria Rowell poses for a portrait on Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Victoria Rowell poses for a portrait on Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)She still receives letters from fans who cite Drucilla as inspiration.The feeling, Rowell explains is, “Oh my God, I can be a ballet dancer through Drucilla, a pull-up-by-the-bootstraps kind of chick that’s rough around the edges and that can learn how to read and write, perhaps, and meet a Neil Winters and get married and improve her life.”

Rowell says she always understood her role as “so much bigger” than an acting job. She recalls meeting with the then-editor of Soap Opera Digest to advocate for a cover featuring the Black cast members — and it ended up happening.Rowell’s tenure with the show, though, has been up and down. She has only glowing things to say about Bell, who died in 2005. But

after she says she pushed for the casting of more Black actors and wasn’t hired back on the soap as a result. They later settled. After “Beyond the Gates” was announced, Rowell says she received a letter from CBS acknowledging her place in the show’s DNA.

“I have been contacted with great respect from the powers that be at CBS, thanking me for all of my hard work, recognizing the work that I have done that has influenced this moment and I appreciate that,” she said.The Thunder have had long breaks between games during the playoffs the past two years, with mixed results.

They swept the New Orleans Pelicans in last year’s first round, thenin Game 1 of the conference semifinals after waiting eight days between games. The Thunder eventually lost that series 4-2.

After this year’s series against Memphis, the Thunder were in a similar situation. Denver’s first-round series against the Los Angeles Clippers went seven games, so Daigneault gave the players some extra rest since there were nine days between games. The focus for the team was less on an opponent at first and more on fine-tuning his team’s issues.“I mean, really just reinforcement of fundamentals,” he said heading into the Denver series. “The game defensively is going to come down to transition D (defense), it’s going to come down to individual D, help D, coverage, communication, closeouts, rebounding. So we’re looking at the series through that lens. And then offensively, (we’ll take) all the fundamentals on that end of the floor that transcend each coverage and pull it up.”