8

The Los Angeles Sparks didn’t seal the victory against the Dallas Wings in a game full of intensity and dramatic swings, falling 84-83 for their fourth loss of the season. Despite a dramatic fourth-quarter recovery, the Sparks couldn’t hang on to their advantage in the game’s waning seconds.

The Sparks started the game extremely cold, missing numerous shots that they normally make. Cameron Brink seized charge offensively, scoring five straight points, including a three-pointer, but both teams remained tied throughout the first quarter. The Wings pulled ahead by three, but Dearica Hamby’s three-pointer knotted the game. After a brief advantage by LA, the quarter ended with the teams knotted again.

In the second quarter, the Wings found their groove, hitting shots at a higher rate and pushing ahead by seven. Brink’s shooting kept the Sparks in the game, while the Wings’ size and length tested the Sparks’ defense. Despite Yueru Li’s late effort, the Wings led 49-42 at halftime.

Rickea Jackson replaced Layshia Clarendon in the starting lineup during the third quarter due to a head injury. Although the Sparks cut the gap to four at one point, the Wings rallied by expanding their lead to ten. Hamby continued to dominate the boards, capturing 11 by the end of the third, but the Sparks trailed by seven heading into the fourth.

The fourth quarter was a turning point for the Sparks. Their offense took off, with Yueru Li and Hamby leading the charge, trimming the score to three. Aari McDonald’s long-range shot and Yueru’s three-point play tied the game, and the Sparks led for the first time since the first quarter.

However, the final minutes were suspenseful as the Wings regained their one-point lead. Maddy Siegrist’s layup made it three and after missed opportunities by Brink and Hamby, Arike Ogunbowale’s free throw secured the win for the Wings. Lexie Brown’s last-second three-pointer was insufficient, as the Sparks lost by a single point.

Cameron Brink was a star, scoring 21 points on 7-12 shooting, including three 3-pointers, while also grabbing two rebounds, three assists, and three blocked shots. Brink and A’ja Wilson are the only WNBA players to score 12 or more points and block two or more shots in the first quarter of a game. She tied Brittney Griner and Elena Baranova for the most blocks (16) through five WNBA games.

Dearica Hamby also had a standout effort, finishing with 19 points, 13 rebounds, and four assists, making her the fourth player in WNBA history to reach 100 points, 65 rebounds, and 15 assists in five games. Li Yueru had her finest game of the season, tallying 10 points and nine rebounds. Kia Nurse achieved a career milestone with her 300th WNBA assist.

The Sparks bench made a major contribution, scoring 27 points in total. Despite the setback, the Sparks showed persistence and the ability to make great comebacks. They will try to rebound in their next game against the Indiana Fever on Tuesday at 4:00 PM PT.

Watch the Los Angeles Sparks vs. Dallas Wings Highlights Below!

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COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho (AP) — A jury has awarded more than $1.1 million to an Idaho drag performer who accused a far-right blogger of defaming him when she falsely claimed that he exposed himself to a crowd, including children, during a Pride event in June 2022.

The Kootenai County District Court jury unanimously found Friday that Summer Bushnell defamed Post Falls resident Eric Posey when she posted a doctored video of his performance with a blurred spot that she claimed covered his “fully exposed genitals,” the Coeur D’Alene Press reported.

In reality the unedited video showed no indecent exposure, and prosecutors declined to file charges.

“The judicial system did what needed to be done,” Posey said after the verdict.

Jurors awarded Posey $926,000 in compensatory damages for defamation. Because Posey proved that Bushnell knew her allegations were false when she made them or that she made the accusations with reckless disregard for the truth, the jury awarded $250,000 in additional punitive damages.

Posey, who uses the stage name Mona Liza Million, performed three times at the Pride in the Park celebration wearing a long-sleeve leotard, black shorts and tights, with a shiny metallic boa around his waist. He did not remove clothing.

The Pride event made national news at the time — not because of Posey’s performances, but because 31 members of a white supremacist group called Patriot Front were arrested nearby and charged with conspiracy to riot.

Bushnell posted a video that day of herself discussing the mass arrest as well as footage from Posey’s performance.

“Why did no one arrest the man in a dress who flashed his genitalia to minors and people in the crowd?” she said. “No one said anything about it, and there’s video. I’m going to put up a blurred video to prove it.”

The next day Bushnell published the edited version of the video, which she obtained from a local videographer. It garnered many thousands of views, sparking national news coverage and a police investigation. She suggested he had committed a felony and urged people to call police and have him arrested.

Bushnell was expressionless as she hurried out of the courtroom Friday.

Her attorney, Colton Boyles, told jurors that his client’s allegations were “close to the line” but not defamatory. He maintained that Bushnell’s “honest belief” was that Posey exposed himself, though she admitted on the witness stand that she never saw the “fully exposed genitals” she described to others.

After hearing the verdict, Posey burst into tears and embraced his lawyers and friends.

“The jury’s verdict demonstrates a clear message to this community that you have to be truthful,” said Wendy J. Olson, one of his attorneys.

Posey said he has faced death threats and harassment, and the edited images became the symbol of a national movement against drag. Experts have warned that false rhetoric against drag queens and LGBTQ+ people may inflame extremists.

Posey said he has been helped by support from his friends.

“Imagine being in a dark hole where you have nobody and you felt the whole world turn their back on you,” he said in court Thursday. “But somehow, you were surrounded by warriors, true people of Idaho — not transplants, true people of this soil. I am fortunate to say I have people like that around me, people that lifted me up.”

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The jury deliberated for about three and a half hours Friday after a five-day trial. Before returning the verdict, jurors asked the court if they could direct Bushnell to take down her posts about Posey and publicly apologize to him. First District Judge Ross Pittman, who presided over the trial, indicated they could not do so.

As of Friday evening, the videos remained on Bushnell’s website and Facebook page, the Coeur D’Alene press reported.

Following the verdict, jurors approached Posey outside the courthouse to shake his hand or hug him.

“I’m so sorry you went through this,” one told him.

In a statement the North Idaho Pride Alliance, which organized the event where Posey performed, expressed gratitude to the jurors and affirmed its commitment to “ensuring the safety and well-being” of North Idaho’s LGBTQ+ community.

16

Johnny Wactor, known for his beloved role on “General Hospital,” was tragically killed in downtown Los Angeles early Saturday morning. The 37-year-old actor was with a coworker when they encountered three men tampering with his car, according to TMZ.

The incident took place around 3 AM PT, with police describing it as an attempted catalytic converter theft. Despite not confronting the men or attempting to fight them, Wactor was shot and the assailants fled the scene. His mother, Scarlett, shared these details with TMZ, highlighting her son’s non-confrontational stance during the fatal encounter.

Paramedics were called to the scene and Wactor was rushed to a nearby hospital. Despite their best efforts, he was pronounced dead shortly after arrival.

The entertainment community is in shock and mourning the loss of Wactor, whose career in “General Hospital” garnered him a significant fanbase and admiration from his colleagues. Tributes have begun pouring in from fans and fellow actors, remembering him for his talent, kindness, and professionalism.

Authorities are currently investigating the incident and seeking any information that may lead to the apprehension of the suspects involved in this senseless act of violence.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ‘s conservative majority on Thursday preserved a Republican-held South Carolina congressional district, rejecting a lower-court ruling that said the district discriminated against Black voters.

In dissent, liberal justices warned that the court was insulating states from claims of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.

In a 6-3 decision, the court held that South Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature did nothing wrong during redistricting when it strengthened Rep. Nancy Mace’s hold on the coastal district by moving 30,000 Democratic-leaning Black residents of Charleston out of the district.

“I’m very disturbed about the outcome. It’s as if we don’t matter. But we do matter and our voices deserve to be heard,” said Taiwan Scott, a Black voter who sued over the redistricting.

President Joe Biden, whose administration backed Scott and the other plaintiffs at the Supreme Court, also criticized the ruling. “The Supreme Court’s decision today undermines the basic principle that voting practices should not discriminate on account of race and that is wrong,” Biden said in a statement.

Mace, reacting to the decision, said, “It reaffirms everything everyone in South Carolina already knows, which is that the line wasn’t based on race.”

The case presented the court with the tricky issue of how to distinguish race from politics. The state argued that partisan politics, not race, and a population boom in coastal areas explain the congressional map. Moving voters based on their politics is OK, the Supreme Court has held.

A lower court had ordered South Carolina to redraw the district after it found that the state used race as a proxy for partisan affiliation in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Thursday’s decision won’t have a direct effect on the 2024 election. The lower court had previously ordered the state to use the challenged map in the November vote, which could help Republicans as they try to hold on to their narrow majority in the House of Representatives.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, criticized lower-court judges for their “misguided approach” that refused to presume that lawmakers acted in good faith and gave too much credit to the challengers.

Alito wrote that one weakness of the Black voters’ case was that they did not produce an alternative map, which he called an “implicit concession” that they couldn’t have drawn one. “The District Court’s conclusions are clearly erroneous because it did not follow this basic logic,” he wrote.

Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the three liberals, said her conservative colleagues ignored the work of the lower court that found the district had been gerrymandered by race.

“Perhaps most dispiriting,” Kagan wrote, the court adopted “special rules to specially disadvantage suits to remedy race-based redistricting.”

Richard Hasen, an election expert at the University of California at Los Angeles law school, agreed with Kagan, writing in a blog post that the decision “makes it easier for Republican states to engage in redistricting to help white Republicans maximize their political power.”

Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said in a statement, “The highest court in our land greenlit racial discrimination in South Carolina’s redistricting process, denied Black voters the right to be free from the race-based sorting and sent a message that facts, process, and precedent will not protect the Black vote.”

However, Sen. Thomas Alexander, the president of the South Carolina Senate, praised the ruling. “As I have said throughout this process, our plan was meticulously crafted to comply with statutory and constitutional requirements, and I was completely confident we would prevail,” Alexander said.

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The Supreme Court in 2019 ruled that partisan gerrymandering cases could be not be brought in federal courts. Justice Clarence Thomas, who was part of the conservative majority five years ago, wrote separately Thursday to say federal courts should similarly get out of the business of refereeing racial gerrymandering disputes.

“It is well past time for the Court to return these political issues where they belong — the political branches,” Thomas wrote. No other justice signed on.

When Mace first won election in 2020, she edged Democratic incumbent Rep. Joe Cunningham by 1%, under 5,400 votes. In 2022, following redistricting driven by the 2020 census results, Mace won reelection by 14%. She is among eight Republicans who voted in October to oust Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as House speaker.

The case differed from one in Alabama in which the court ruled last year that Republican lawmakers diluted Black voters’ political power under the landmark Voting Rights Act by drawing just one district with a majority Black population. The court’s decision led to new maps in Alabama and Louisiana with a second district where Democratic-leaning Black voters comprise a substantial portion of the electorate.

In South Carolina, Black voters wouldn’t have been as numerous in a redrawn district. But combined with a substantial set of Democratic-leaning white voters, Democrats might have been competitive in the reconfigured district.

The high court left open one part of the case about whether the map intentionally sought to dilute the votes of Black residents.

43

Elle Brooke and Paige VanZant battled to a split decision draw in an exciting main event that kept fans on the edge of their seats. The judges scored the battle 48-46 for Brooke, 48-46 for VanZant, and 47-47 for a draw.

Paige VanZant considers this outcome to be a significant milestone, especially given the challenges she endured early in the bout. Brooke felled VanZant in the first round with a strong shot, demonstrating Brooke’s rising proficiency in the ring. However, VanZant’s tenacity and perseverance enabled her to recover and make a great comeback, earning her a rematch with Brooke.

Elle Brooke’s performance further demonstrated her rapid progress as a boxer. Despite the bout ending in a draw, her ability to drive VanZant to the brink and dominate early rounds demonstrates her development and potential in the sport.

The judge’s decision has provoked heated debate among fans and critics alike. Some say that Brooke’s early domination should have assured her victory, while others believe VanZant’s comeback deserves credit. Regardless, the outcome ensures that both competitors will get another chance to settle the score in what promises to be a highly anticipated rematch.

Poor Paige Van Zant @paigevanzant this girl has been screwed over by judges at least 2 or 3 times now since leaving the UFC. She was robbed in BKFC at least once. And she was robbed of a clear victory tonight. impossible for any judge to give it to Elle Brooke 48-46 that’s a joke

— Jᴇssᴇ Jᴀᴍᴇs (@NotoriousJesse) May 26, 2024

I definitely agree with a draw

Elle Brooke won round 1 (with a knockdown so it’s 10-8) and round 3

Paige Vanzant won’t rounds 2,4 and 5

Good judging 👍 #Xseries15

— Prabh (@PrabhhSingh) May 26, 2024

Watch Elle Brooke vs. Paige VanZant’s full fight highlights below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GEhIhKnFFg

Do you agree with the judges’ decision?

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PARIS (AP) — The big news in Naomi Osaka’s life has nothing to do with the French Open or clay-court tennis: Her 10-month-old daughter, Shai, is taking her first steps.

“Yesterday, she walked for the first time, so I was really happy about that,” Osaka said at Roland Garros on Saturday, a day before the tournament begins. “We’re going to practice some more when I get back. But it’s really cool to have her here, just to see how much she’s grown and how many things she’s doing differently. It’s kind of surreal.”

As any parent knows, being distant from kids while on the road for work is not easy. Especially when the child is as little as Shai is — she will turn 1 in July.

“I mean, being away from her was really tough, but I called her every day,” said Osaka, a former No. 1-ranked player and four-time Grand Slam champion. “I saw how well she was doing and I saw how happy she was, so that made me happy, too.”

The European clay circuit began more than a month ago for Osaka in Rouen, France, then took her to Madrid and Rome. She lost her opener in Rouen, and her second match in Madrid.

But it was at the Italian Open that Osaka showed signs of having made serious strides on the slow, red surface that is not necessarily kind to her powerful strokes because it slows balls down. She had never won a match on clay against a player ranked in the top 20 until doing so twice there, getting past Marta Kostyuk and Daria Kasatkina along the way to reaching the fourth round.

“I have made a significant amount of progress, and I feel like people can kind of see that throughout the tournaments that I have played,” Osaka said. “I feel like I have dedicated a lot of time to learning about clay.”

Her major titles came in 2018-21 and all on hard courts, two apiece at the U.S. Open and Australian Open. She has yet to make it past the third round in Paris or on grass at Wimbledon.

Repeated questions about difficulty on clay contributed to the anxiety and depression Osaka talked about experiencing when she declined to participate in news conferences at the 2021 French Open before withdrawing from the event. That was followed by a series of mental health breaks.

She took more time away while she was pregnant, before returning to Grand Slam action at the Australian Open this January with a first-round loss.

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After getting past her opening match on Sunday at Court Philippe Chartrier against Lucia Bronzetti, up next could be what amounts to the toughest task these days in women’s tennis: taking on No. 1 Iga Swiatek in the second round.

Swiatek is eyeing a third consecutive trophy at Roland Garros.

Osaka isn’t quite there on clay herself, but she does say she is much more at ease these days.

“Honestly, at this point, I feel pretty comfortable on clay, to the point where I don’t know if I’ll be a little confused my first day back on hard,” she joked.

“Clay is fun. You get to slide around. You get to see how strong you are, in and out of corners,” she said. “For me, there is a lot of really valuable lessons that I’m learning from clay-court tennis.”

13

A heartbreaking incident occurred at The Kids Nest Learning Center in Brunswick, Georgia, where a 16-month-old boy tragically lost his life after choking on a piece of watermelon. The incident, reported by WSBTV, has left the community in shock and grief.

The family of the toddler alleges that he was not adequately supervised while eating a large piece of watermelon provided as a snack. The young child began choking on the fruit and was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Surveillance footage from the daycare reveals that three employees were engaged in conversation, neglecting their duty to monitor the children. When the toddler began choking, the staff failed to administer CPR, a critical lifesaving procedure. Instead, they repeatedly patted the child on the back, a method not recommended for choking emergencies.

The daycare center has been shut down following the tragic incident. The closure comes amid calls for accountability and increased scrutiny over the daycare’s practices and supervision protocols.

Local authorities and childcare regulatory bodies are expected to conduct thorough investigations to ensure such a tragedy does not occur again. The community mourns the loss of the young child and extends its deepest condolences to the grieving family.

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