The WNBA changed its media policy to allow teams to exempt players from media availability in certain situations.All players were previously obligated to speak with journalists after morning shootaround sessions several hours before their game. However, it has been reported that teams are now allowed to exempt two players from media availability at that time.Chicago sports reporter Josh Frydman noted on X that WNBA team Chicago Sky noted that they would immediately use the new rule to exempt star rookie Angel Reese along with Brazilian Kamilla Cardoso."The Sky weekly media availability comes with this note: 'Per a change in the WNBA Media Season Access policy, two players from each team can be exempt from all shootaround media availabilities. Angel Reese & Kamilla Cardoso are exempt.'"Frydman later clarified that the players are still available before the game."Reese and Cardoso are exempt from game day shootaround interviews, but can still be made available pregame on the court (usually 90 minutes before tip)." — (@) 'I know how y'all like to twist my words ... I can't trust any of y'all.'Reese was fined in early June 2024 for breaking media availability rules. She was supposed to be available to in-person media outside the locker room, according to CBS, and was likely avoiding questions surrounding her team's aggressive play toward the league's new superstar Caitlin Clark.Fellow Sky player Chennedy Carter was also being asked repeatedly about a flagrant foul she committed on Clark:"It happened ... it's over with, I don't know why we're dragging it," Carter said at a June 3 press conference.That foul was seen as heinous by fans, even resulting in Republican Congressman Jim Banks sending a letter to the commissioner of the WNBA asking what steps the league was taking to curb "excessive physical targeting" of players.Later that same month, Reese told media members that she didn't trust reporters."I know how y'all like to twist my words, so I'm just keeping it short and sweet," Reese said, according to Outkick. "I can't trust any of y'all, so I'm just letting you know — short and sweet," she added.. Clark has faced consistent pushes from media members during shootaround to condemn racism and misogyny, and she simply stated that she didn't like the idea of anyone using her name to push narratives.Other players have theorized that young white women in the league receive more positive attention because they are more "feminine."The Mirror noted that while a WNBA official confirmed "pregame and postgame media availability stays the same," the pregame interviews are usually in group situations as opposed to one-on-one. The outlet also reported that it has experienced inconsistent implementation of pregame media accessibility guidelines when players who were allegedly set to appear for media questions did not show up.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The Democratic National Committee has shelled out millions of dollars to two law firms with ties to some of the lawfare cases against former President Donald Trump, an exclusive report from the Daily Caller says.According to the outlet, the DNC has paid $2 million to Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP and "several" millions to Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, all just in the last three years. The DNC claimed these payments were for "legal services," according to its FEC filings.'There is now clear and explosive evidence that the Biden DNC is paying Democrat law firms to engage in in this unprecedented lawfare and election interference against President Trump.'Prior to 2021, the DNC had no relationship with Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP, which was founded in 2017 with the mission of establishing a law firm "rooted in principles of equity, integrity, and justice." Then, about a year ago, founding partner Roberta A. Kaplan represented E. Jean Carroll in a civil case in which Carroll accused the former president of sexually assaulting her in department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. Last May, as Blaze News previously reported, a Manhattan jury took just three hours to determine that Trump had sexually abused and defamed Carroll, though it declined to say he had raped her. In total, Trump was ordered to pay Carroll nearly $90 million for defamation. At a hearing in January, Kaplan had argued that "an unusually high punitive award" was necessary to keep Trump from calling her client a liar and a "wack job."Another Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP partner, Joshua Matz, represented the House Judiciary Committee in Trump's first impeachment trial, the Daily Caller reported. Matz also participated in the second Trump impeachment. Yet when the Republican-controlled House voted in January to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of the Biden administration, Matz suddenly changed his tune and lamented that congressional impeachment powers had been weaponized as an extra-electoral means of affecting political outcomes. "As a practical matter, there's a good reason why the impeachment power has never functioned in any worthwhile way when it comes to the Cabinet," Matz said at the time."They're struggling to come up with the votes to impeach President Biden. One thing they can all agree on is to impeach Mayorkas, because they believe immigration is a popular and salient issue in the presidential election."In addition to Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP, the DNC likewise gave several million to Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP for "legal services" in the past three years, more than $2 million between 2021 and 2022 alone, FEC filings show. Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP has filed multiple amicus briefs in the federal case against Trump regarding the 2020 election and January 6.The Daily Caller also noted that several former Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP members, including Secretary Mayorkas and Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar, have since become high-profile members of the Biden administration. Former special counsel Robert Mueller was also once a part of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, which has partnered with the DNC "for a long time," according to ABC News."There is now clear and explosive evidence that the Biden DNC is paying Democrat law firms to engage in in this unprecedented lawfare and election interference against President Trump," said Mike Davis, a legal adviser to Trump and the founder and president of the Article III Project.The DNC did not respond to the Daily Caller's request for comment about its payments to the two law firms. In response to questions about who paid for Joe Biden's legal bills during special counsel Robert Hur's investigation, DNC spokesperson Alex Floyd said: "The DNC does not spend a single penny of grassroots donors’ money on legal bills."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

More than 400 illegal aliens were smuggled into the United States by an ISIS-affiliated network, and many were released by the Biden administration’s Customs and Border Protection, according to a recent report from NBC News.U.S. officials told the news outlet that the Department of Homeland Security identified hundreds of illegal foreign nationals from Central Asia and elsewhere who were unlawfully brought into the country by a smuggling group linked to ISIS.'Scrambling to locate these individuals.'Many of the 400 individuals were detained by CBP after illegally crossing the southern border and subsequently released into the interior of the country after they did not appear on the government’s terrorism watch list, officials told NBC News. More than 150 individuals have been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some of those individuals were previously deported, officials said.The whereabouts of 50 “subjects of concern” remain unknown, the news outlet reported. Former FBI counterterrorism section chief Christopher O’Leary told NBC News, “The fact that the whereabouts were unknown is clearly alarming.”“I believe the [U.S.] is scrambling to locate these individuals, and using the immigration charges is not uncommon,” O’Leary stated. “They are in violation of that law. And if you need to take somebody off the street, that’s a good approach to do it.”A senior Biden administration official told NBC News, “In this case, it was the information that suggested a potential tie to ISIS because of some of the individuals involved in [smuggling migrants to the border] that led us to want to take extra care.”“And out of an abundance of caution make sure that we exercised our authority in the most expansive and appropriate way to mitigate risk because of this potential connection being made,” the official stated.The official noted that no information has emerged tying the illegal immigrants to any national security threats. Some of the “subjects of concern” have been charged with immigration violations; none have received terrorism-related charges.Recent terrorist attacks in Russia have prompted the DHS to “look[] more closely” at foreign nationals from countries where ISIS has been active, NBC News reported.A June report from the DHS’ Office of Inspector General found that ICE released more than 11,000 “high flight risk” illegal aliens into the U.S. from fiscal year 2022 through 2023, Blaze News previously reported. Over 300 of those individuals were considered to be a “high risk to public safety.”Another recent report from the inspector general revealed that the DHS’ vetting procedures for illegal immigrants need improvement and “were not fully effective to screen and vet noncitizens applying for admission into the United States or asylum seekers whose asylum applications were pending for an extended period.”Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Hot off the heels of its latest free update, Total War Warhammer 3 has big plans for the future. Developer Creative Assembly is already working on what’s next, with some heavy-hitting names on the cards for the Ogre Kingdoms, Khorne, and the Orcs and Goblins. Crucially, this next set of updates will lean in exclusively on the game’s most-popular mode, Immortal Empires, rather than featuring new campaigns for the Realm of Chaos. Continue reading The new Total War Warhammer 3 DLC is an Immortal Empires exclusive MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Total War: Warhammer 3 DLC, Total War: Warhammer 3 races, Total War: Warhammer 3 review

If I were in a zombie apocalypse scenario, I would simply not go to a mall filled with thousands of the undead waiting to tear my body to pieces. Not so for photographer Frank West, a man who’s drawn to zombies like a moth to a flame. Dead Rising introduced us to everyone’s favorite picture snapper and now 18 years after launch it’s getting remastered with a brand new version. Continue reading Teaser trailer reveals Dead Rising remaster with new Frank West

Sen. Mike Lee's Thread Recounts 2020 Classified Briefing When Intel 'Flat-Out Lied to Us'

NEW: Team Biden Hunts for More Than 50 Illegals Delivered by Smugglers With Tie to Islamic Jihad Network

Photo by Daniel Golson for The Verge I’ll admit, I was too distracted by Rivian’s surprise announcement of a $5 billion deal with Volkswagen to develop software and electric vehicles to notice that the buzzy California company was also planning an investor day event on June 27th. So when I woke up on Wednesday to see this shareholder letter — thanks to InsideEVs with an assist from BloombergNEF’s Corey Cantor on Threads — I was pretty surprised to see Rivian was essentially taking a page from Tesla by teasing us with some shroud-covered mystery vehicles. Screenshot: Rivian It’s already been a pretty jam-packed 2024 for Rivian: the introduction of the more affordable R2, starting at $45,000; the surprise reveal of the R3 and R3X, which briefly broke... Continue reading…

Image: Figma Figma is announcing a bunch of new features at its Config conference today, including a major UI redesign, new generative AI tools to help people more easily make projects, and built-in slideshow functionality. Let’s start with the redesign, which is intended to “lay the foundation for the next decade,” according to a blog post. You’ll see things like a new toolbar, rounded corners, and 200 new icons. As part of the design refresh, the company wants to “focus the canvas less on our UI and more on your work” and make something that’s approachable to new users while still being useful to Figma experts. Image: Figma Figma’s “UI3.” Figma says this is the company’s third “significant redesign” since Figma’s closed... Continue reading…

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Here’s our coverage from the Summer Games. Continue reading…