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Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
More WNBA games interrupted by sex toys thrown onto the court
The WNBA is still struggling with a string of sex-toy disturbances. In the past week and a half, sex toys have been thrown on court during games in Atlanta on July 29, Chicago on Aug. 1, Los Angeles on Aug. 5 and Chicago again on Thursday night, with the most recent object hitting the court in the closing seconds of the Atlanta Dream's victory over the Sky. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] The sex toy that landed on the court in Los Angeles nearly hit Fever guard Sophie Cunningham during Indiana's game against the Sparks. Sex toys were also thrown at games in New York and Phoenix last Tuesday but didn't reach the court. Police say another toy was thrown at a game in Atlanta on Aug. 1, although it's unclear if that one reached the court. The distractions have created unexpected challenges for the league, the teams and the players, but also for arena security. Here's what to know. A man was arrested Saturday in College Park, Georgia, after he was accused of throwing a sex toy onto the court during the Atlanta Dream's July 29 matchup with the Golden State Valkyries, according to a police report. The report said he threw another sex toy during the Dream's Aug. 1 game against the Phoenix Mercury, but that instance did not seem to result in a delay of play. He is charged with disorderly conduct, criminal trespassing, public indecency and indecent exposure. All four charges are misdemeanors in the state of Georgia, meaning that if he is convicted, the punishment for each can be a fine of up to $1,000 or jail time of up to 12 months. A misdemeanor for public indecency and indecent exposure may also require registration on the state's sex offender list. The report said the man told police 'this was supposed to be a joke and the joke (was) supposed to go viral.'` Another man in Phoenix was arrested after police say he threw a sex toy in the crowd at a Mercury game on Tuesday. Police say the 18-year-old pulled the sex toy from his sweater pocket and threw it toward seats in front of him, striking a spectator in the back. The man later told police it was a prank that had been trending on social media and that he bought the toy a day earlier to take to the game. He was later tackled by a volunteer at the arena who had witnessed the incident and began following him as the man tried to leave the arena. Police say the man was arrested on suspicion of assault, disorderly conduct and publicly displaying explicit sexual material. The New York Liberty told The Associated Press on Thursday night that there is an ongoing investigation into the throwing in New York and the team is cooperating with law enforcement. The types of sex toys being thrown onto the court generally do not include metal elements, meaning that arena metal detectors are not able to sense them. When carried on a spectator's body, they become even more difficult to detect. Arena security teams face challenges in catching these items, according to Ty Richmond, the president of the event services division at Allied Universal Security, a company that provides security services to certain NBA, WNBA, NFL, MLB and MLS arenas across the country. 'Not all stadiums are using a screening process that's consistent and can detect (the sex toys) because of what it would require — pat down searches, opening the bags, prohibiting bags,' he said. 'The conflict of expediency, of getting fans into the arena and into the venue, which is an important issue, and security and safety.' The limits of arena security make legal action one of the strongest deterrents for this kind of behavior, Richmond said. 'The decision to prosecute and show examples of how people are being handled is very important,' he said. 'Without a doubt, I think it will make a difference. The application of it is important, and publicizing that is important.' There have not been any arrests made yet for the in Los Angeles and Chicago. In a statement to the AP, the Sparks said they are 'working with arena personnel to identify the individual responsible and ensure appropriate action is taken.' The WNBA has said that any spectators throwing objects onto the court will face a minimum one-year ban and prosecution from law enforcement. As the disturbances pile up, those on the court have become increasingly frustrated. 'Everyone is trying to make sure the W is not a joke and it's taken seriously, and then that happens,' Cunningham said on her podcast after nearly being hit by one of the sex toys on Tuesday. 'I'm like, 'How are we ever going to get taken seriously?'' No other professional sports leagues have faced sex toy disturbances like this. It has started a conversation online about the perpetrators' choices to throw them during games in a women's league and a league with a high-profile amount of lesbian and queer players. 'This has been going on for centuries, the sexualization of women. This is the latest version of that. It's not funny. It should not be the butt of jokes,' said Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve Thursday. 'The sexualization of women is what's used to hold women down, and this is no different.' Despite the criminal behavior leading to arrests, at least one crypto-based predictions market is offering trades essentially allowing users to wager on whether sex toys will be thrown at future WNBA games. Players have also been sounding off on social media, echoing concerns about arena security protocols. Liberty forward Isabelle Harrison posted on X last week, saying 'ARENA SECURITY?! Hello??! Please do better. It's not funny. Never was funny. Throwing ANYTHING on the court is so dangerous.' [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
The Hill
25 minutes ago
- The Hill
GOP's FBI talk on Texas sparks firestorm with Democrats
Claims by Texas Republicans that the FBI is getting involved in efforts to track down and possibly detain Democratic state lawmakers who fled Texas to stop a partisan redistricting effort is getting strong pushback from Democrats in Congress. Democratic lawmakers are investigating how involved the FBI is in the Texas redistricting battle, but lawmakers who have weighed in on the matter say that FBI intervention would be an egregious politicization of the nation's top law enforcement agency. Claims that FBI Director Kash Patel is helping to track down state-level Texas Democrats come after Senate Democrats received information that the Justice Department ordered 1,000 FBI personnel to come through 100,000 Jeffrey Epstein-related documents in March to flag mentions of President Trump. Democrats say that if Patel is taking sides in the Texas redistricting fight, it would be a misuse and politicization of the FBI — something they warned about during Patel's Senate confirmation proceedings earlier this year. 'Shouldn't the FBI be tracking down terrorists, drug traffickers and child predators? The Trump administration continues to weaponize law enforcement to target political adversaries,' House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) said in a statement on social media. Responding to a claim by Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) that the FB I will help find Texas Democratic lawmakers who fled the Lone Star State, Jeffries said: 'These extremists don't give a damn about public safety.' 'We will not be intimidated,' he declared. Jeffries said in a Thursday interview with ABC News Live that the FBI lacks the legal authority to intervene in a state-level political dispute. 'There would be no authority for the FBI to target Democrats from the Texas legislature in connection with an act that Democrats have taken that is authorized by the Texas Constitution,' he said. He said the redistricting effort in Texas is 'a clear power grab because Donald Trump and House Republicans are desperate to try to hold on to their thin majority in the House of Representatives.' The FBI declined to comment on Republican claims that the agency was assisting Texas law enforcement in tracking down Democratic state lawmakers who have taken refuge in Illinois and other states. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called out the Trump administration for abusing its power and misusing law enforcement personnel. 'This ridiculous misuse of federal law enforcement for political ends should be rejected by any fair-minded person,' Whitehouse said. Whitehouse, the ranking member of the Judiciary panel's Federal Courts Subcommittee, said in December that there was 'a lot of quiet concern about Kash Patel' and how he would lead the FBI. 'You really don't want an FBI director who wants to use that position to try to direct, intimidate and control the American media, and you really don't want one who comes in with an enemies list of his own that he wants to pursue without justification,' Whitehouse told MSNBC in an interview at the time. Democratic lawmakers warned the FBI to step back from the Texas redistricting fight after Cornyn, the senior Republican senator from Texas, who faces a tough primary fight against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton next year, urged Patel to help track down Texas Democrats and investigate them for the potential crimes. 'I am proud to announce that Director Kash Patel has approved my request for the FBI to assist state and local law enforcement in locating runaway Texas House Democrats,' Cornyn said in a statement Thursday morning. 'I thank President Trump and Director Patel for supporting and swiftly acting on my call for the federal government to hold these supposed lawmakers accountable for fleeing Texas,' Cornyn said. Democrats called the development a potentially 'dangerous' politicization of the FBI. 'The FBI should be working to keep our communities safe, not getting involved in the political thuggery of Texas Republicans. What legal grounds they could possibly have to play a role in this escapes me – but if they were to get involved, it would certainly set a dangerous precedent for the politicization of the Bureau,' Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told The Hill. Van Hollen sponsored an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2026 that would have blocked the Trump administration from spending money to relocate the FBI headquarters to anyplace other than Greenbelt, Maryland, the site chosen by the General Services Administration in 2023. The amendment was initially adopted to the spending bill but then stripped on a party-line Republican vote. Democratic sources say the growing politicization of the FBI will likely become an issue in the upcoming September government funding negotiations. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) kept the Commerce, Justice, Science spending bill out of a three-bill appropriations package that passed the Senate on Friday after Democrats objected. Thune was doing events in South Dakota on Thursday and did not comment on the latest partisan back-and-forth of the FBI's involvement in the Texas redistricting battle. Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-La.) office did not respond to a request for comment. Cornyn, who faces a tough fight with Paxton that will decide the future of his long Senate career, has spearheaded the push to bring the FBI into the political food fight over Texas redistricting. Democrats suspect Cornyn is jumping into the fray to win points with the Republican base ahead of next year's primary at a time that some polls show him trailing Paxton. Cornyn sent a letter to Patel Tuesday to 'encourage' the FBI to 'take any appropriate steps to aid in Texas state law enforcement efforts to locate or arrest potential lawbreakers who have fled the state.' He argued the departure of state lawmakers from Texas was designed to 'avoid legislative responsibilities' and a 'violation of their oath of office.' Cornyn said he is specifically 'concerned' that Democratic legislators 'solicited or accepted funds to aid in their efforts to avoid their legislative duties' and 'may be guilty of bribery or other public corruption offenses.' Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said on Thursday that 'Texas DPS and the FBI are tracking down derelict Democrats.' 'They will be taken directly to the Texas Capitol,' he wrote in a social media post on X. Not Above the Law, a coalition of left-of-center activist groups, said that Cornyn's efforts to push the FBI into the Texas political fight threatened political rights and freedoms 'core to our democracy. 'Federal law enforcement must never be weaponized as a political tool of the president or manipulated by state-level politicians to serve partisan agendas. Using federal agents to encroach on state matters sets a dangerous precedent that threatens the rights and freedoms of every Americans,' the group said in a statement. The signatories to the statement include Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, Praveen Fernandes, vice president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, Kelsey Herbert, campaign director at MoveOn, and Brett Edkins, managing director for policy and political affairs at Stand Up America.
New York Post
25 minutes ago
- New York Post
NY POSTcast Daily Debrief — August 8, 2025
Here is a brief recap of all the great stories you'll find in today's NY POSTcast. But there are so many MORE details in the pod (and even more headlines!) Click the links below to listen or subscribe where you get your podcasts! National Guard to help control DC youth crime The National Guard, as well as other federal law enforcement like the FBI and DHS, is being called to the nation's capital after President Trump threatened to put Washington DC under federal control to control 'youth' crime. The fresh boots on the ground could hit the streets as early as today. Netanyahu: 'We don't want to keep' Gaza Advertisement Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is offering his own details on Israel's plan for total control of Gaza saying 'we don't want to keep it'. The plan includes securing a perimeter and getting rid of Hamas before turning the strip over to 'arab forces' to govern. Diddy eyes career comeback Rap mogul Sean 'Diddy' Combs is planning a big career comeback after he, eventually, leaves jail according to his lawyer. If you want to hear the details on his big plans and the hurdles (a.k.a. the aforementioned incarceration) subscribe to the NY POSTcast! Hosted by acclaimed Emmy-winning journalist Caitlyn Becker, the NY POSTcast sets you up to tackle your weekdays with insight into the biggest news stories impacting your life all in one neat little podcast your day with the news only the New York Post can deliver. You'll get the headlines you need and the stories you want. Every episode includes a deep dive into a headline impacting your world plus, the Post's signature mix of politics, business, pop culture, true crime, and everything in between. It's smart, it's fast, and it's fearless. Your daily news download from the New York Post — keeping you informed AND entertained. Find the NY POSTcast wherever you get your podcasts.
