The Dictatorship

Paige Bueckers is the biggest star in the women’s Final Four. But there’s something missing.

Published

1 year ago

April 5, 2025

Paige Bueckers is the biggest star in the women’s Final Four. But there’s something missing.

If the basketball gods had been benevolent, then hoops fans would have been in for a treat in this year’s NCAA women’s basketball tournament. Had the dominoes fallen in the right places, the game’s two best players, University of Southern California guard JuJu Watkins and University of Connecticut guard Paige Bueckerswould have met in Friday’s Final Four. If Bueckers wins tonight, Sunday will be her last chance to win a national title.

The basketball gods weren’t kind, and the clash of the two college superstars wasn’t to be.

But the basketball gods weren’t kind, and the clash of the two college superstars wasn’t to be. First, USC and UConn were put in the same bracket, which made a Final Four matchup impossible. Then, on top of that, Watkins suffered a devastating, season-ending knee injury in USC’s second-round win against Mississippi State. USC and UConn did eventually meet in the Elite Eight round, but fans were robbed of what could have been a historic game if the USC star had been healthy. Not surprisingly, the Huskies beat the Trojans, 78-64, behind Bueckers’ 31 points.

Bueckers vs. Watkins would have been the most anticipated matchup in either the men’s or women’s bracket, a contest between the sport’s most recognizable stars. It would have meant all the more this year, which has not produced the kind of Cinderella run that gives casual fans — and those who haven’t filled out brackets — a reason to keep watching beyond the tournament’s first weekend.

We didn’t get March Madness this year as much as we got March predictability. In the men’s and women’s tournaments, there have been some good games but few surprises or upsets. With the UCLA Bruins, the South Carolina Gamecocks, the Texas Longhorns and the UConn Huskies, the women’s Final Four features three No. 1 seeds and one No. 2 seed. (Watkins’ Trojans were a No. 1 seed.) The men’s Final Four features four No. 1 seeds, the first time that’s happened since 2008.

As it has been for several seasons now, the women’s tournament is the one with the bigger star power and the better storylines. The women’s game features players who — partly because they stay in college longer — generally have more name recognition than their male counterparts. The women’s championship has set viewership records in the past two seasons by nearly doubling the number of fans who tuned in year over year. Almost 5 million people watched the women’s championship in 2022, 9.9 million watched in 2023 as Angel Reese’s LSU Tigers defeated Caitlin Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyesand 18.9 million watched the much-hyped battle in the 2024 championship when South Carolina avenged its 2023 Final Four loss against Clark’s team.

As it has been for several seasons now, the women’s tournament is the one with the bigger star power and the better storylines.

The semifinal games during those years have also garnered great ratings. If the growth of college basketball is measured by how rapidly the viewership increases, then there’s no question that the women’s game is having a cultural moment that the men’s game is not. Anyone asking why need look no further than what’s always driven fervent viewership of sports: the rivalries. One of the storylines of the previous two tournaments, for example, was whether Iowa’s Clark could best South Carolina’s Aliyah Boston or LSU’s Reese to win a title. Clark fell short each time.

Even though we didn’t get a Bueckers-Watkins matchup, there are still important matchups to watch. For example, can Gamecocks coach Dawn Staleythe first Black head coach of a Division 1 women’s college basketball team to win multiple NCAA women’s championships, win another championship at the expense of UConn coaching legend Geno Auriemma, who has won 11?

For better or worse, those storylines have fed the surge in interest in women’s college basketball. It’s also where many fans hoped this year’s tournament would land, with a Watkins-Bueckers battle to keep the streak of legendary rivalries going. The problem is that many of these “rivalries,” at least the idea that they’re bitter, are projected onto the athletes, who, despite being fierce competitors, don’t see themselves as foes. As sports fans, we all need something to root for, which often means we identify a heel who needs to be vanquished.

Enter Bueckers, who in her senior season is averaging 19 points per game, shooting 61.3% from the field and leading all NCAA women with 4.8 assists per game. She’s expected to be the first pick in the WNBA draft. She has won almost every award possible, from a Naismith to three AP All American honors. All she’s missing is the championship, and a foe to annihilate along the way.

That, perhaps, is as it should be. As much as fans enjoy rivalries and as interesting as they make the game, there’s a strong argument that women like Watkins, who won the AP Player of the Year awardand Bueckers, deserve to have their moments without being pitted against each other in fans’ imaginations.

Keith Reed

Keith Reed is an award-winning journalist and a past senior editor at ESPN. His work has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Root, Vibe, Essence and elsewhere.

The Dictatorship

Trump says pilots are fine after U.S. helicopter crashes near Strait of Hormuz

Published

1 hour ago

June 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump says pilots are fine after U.S. helicopter crashes near Strait of Hormuz

Jun. 9, 2026, 1:19 AM EDT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A U.S. Army Apache attack helicopter crashed near the Strait of Hormuz, with President Donald Trump saying the two crew members abroad were “fine” after the incident involving the strategic waterway, which remains under a chokehold by Iran.

What caused the crash remained unclear Tuesday morning in the Middle East, which was still reeling after Iran and Israel exchanged fire the previous day in the biggest blow yet to the straining ceasefire in the Iran war. Iranian state media, relying on foreign reporting, acknowledged the crash without elaborating.

Since the U.S. and Israel began striking Iran on Feb. 28, the war has shaken the global economydriven up energy prices around the world and made many basics, including foodmore expensive. Officials have been unable to turn the April ceasefireinto a deal to permanently end the conflict.

Trump, speaking to journalists at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York after watching the NBA Finals on Monday night, acknowledged the crash.

“The pilots are fine. Yeah,” Trump said. “Nobody injured. We are going to issue a report tomorrow. But the pilots are fine.”

The New York Times first reported that a U.S. Army Apache attack helicopter went down near the strait in unclear circumstances. The U.S. military’s Central Command and the Defense Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

Apache helicopters have been a key asset for the American military as it enforces a blockade on Iranian crude oil shipments and tankers, seeking to pressure Tehran into reaching a deal. The helicopters also have been used by the United Arab Emirates to shoot down Iranian drones during the Iran war.

Trump insists an Iran deal is coming

Trump also expressed renewed optimism over negotiations with Iran.

“We have a good chance” of signing a deal in “two or three days,” Trump said. But he didn’t provide any details on why there was reason for new optimism.

“We’re very close to having a very, very good, strong, powerful deal,” the president said. “If we go and bomb — which we could do very easily if we want, and we spend another two or three weeks bombing — they’ll have nothing left whatsoever. But you won’t have the strait open for months.”

He added: “If we do the bombing, you know, a lot of people are going to be killed. Who wants to do that? I don’t.”

Mediators, led predominantly by Pakistan, have been trying to weeks to get a deal across the line. However, both Iran and the U.S. have taken hard-line positions.

The U.S. wants to see Iran give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which is believed still to be entombed in the country after American airstrikes in the 12-day war in 2025. But Iran is refusing that and demanding relief from sanctions. It also wants the release of frozen assets even before a final agreement is in place, something rejected by Trump.

The Dictatorship

Trump says ‘not possible’ for Pratt to fall short in ‘rigged’ LA mayor’s race. He’s wrong.

Published

1 hour ago

June 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump says ‘not possible’ for Pratt to fall short in ‘rigged’ LA mayor’s race. He’s wrong.

Jun. 8, 2026, 9:15 PM EDT

UPDATE (June 8, 2026, 9:25 p.m. ET): Los Angeles Council member Nithya Raman will advance to the November general election in the mayoral race to face the incumbent, Karen Bass, after overtaking ex-reality TV star Spencer Pratt in the primary, The Associated Press projects.

President Donald Trump and some of his top allies are repeating a familiar but false refrain: An election is “rigged,” as evidenced by their preferred candidate’s poor performance.

This time, their focus is on ex-reality TV star and Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt.

On the night of the Tuesday primary, Pratt maintained a 9-point lead over his closest challenger, LA Council member Nithya Raman, leading his supporters to believe he would proceed to the November runoff against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass. But as mail-in ballots trickled in throughout the week, Pratt’s lead over Raman steadily narrowed, and by Sunday night, she had overtaken him by less than 1 point, with more than 80% of votes counted, according to The Associated Press. (The AP has not yet projected the second-place finisher to proceed to the runoff as of Monday afternoon.)

To Trump and his MAGA allies, a democratic socialist’s surge over a registered Republican with no political experience in a deep-blue city can only be indicative of one thing: fraud.

“No way this could have happened. Rigged Election!” Trump wrote on Truth Social early Monday morning.

A few hours later, Trump followed up with another Truth Social post.

“Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. 3rd World Nation. Rigged Elections!” he wrote.

Far-right activist Laura Loomer, a close ally of the president, told her 1.9 million followers on X on Saturday that the election “is being stolen from [Pratt] in real time!”

Benny Johnson and Elon Musk have also reposted several right-wing accounts suggesting Raman’s rise must be the result of fraud. Meghan McCain, who is a conservative commentator but also a frequent Trump critic, also injected doubt into the election results.

But election experts are not surprised by Raman’s slow rise as vote counting continues.

Why California vote counting takes so long

A poll released by the University of California, Berkeley, and the Los Angeles Times in late May suggested Pratt and Raman would be competing neck-and-neck to proceed to the runoff, and several strategists long predicted Pratt — a registered Republican backed by MAGA — would face an uphill battle in the blue city.

The mechanics of how Angelenos’ votes are counted also explain Raman’s rise: California elections officials have 30 days from Election Day to come up with the vote count, and mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day and received up to seven days after the election are eligible to be counted. (If mail-in ballots are missing signatures or have signatures that do not match those on file, state law requires election officials to contact voters to verify their signatures, adding more time to the process.)

Results posted on election night are based on in-person ballots cast at voting locations, both on Election Day and before, as well as mail-in ballots received before Election Day, according to the California secretary of state’s office. Subsequent counts include votes cast by provisional ballots, ballots from voters who registered and voted on the same day and the mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day and received within seven days of the election.

“This is not unusual,” Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, told MS NOW on Monday regarding the shifting results in the race.

Yaroslavsky pointed to the 2022 LA primary, when Republican turned centrist Democrat Rick Caruso was ahead of Bass on primary night before she pulled ahead a week later. In the November runoff, Bass ultimately beat Caruso by nearly 10 points. Nearly 85% of voters also voted by mail in that primary, contributing to the delay in Bass’s rise.

“It’s clear, it has always been the case, that Republicans and more conservative voters vote early, [and] working people, more progressive people vote late,” Yaroslavsky said.

And with more votes still to be counted, Yaroslavsky predicted Raman’s lead over Pratt would expand even further.

‘No evidence’ of cheating

Dean Logan, LA County’s registrar-recorder and county clerk, told CNN on Sunday that officials have “no evidence or examples” of cheating in the mayoral race.

“I think what we’re seeing, unfortunately, is carrying out of a narrative that has become the game play in national politics in the United States, and that is prior to the vote count being completed, take shots at the process, so if the outcome turns out different than what you want, you don’t accept that, you challenge the process,” Logan said.

Yaroslavsky agreed, telling MS NOW, “What the president is basically saying is, ‘When I win, it’s legit, when I don’t win, it’s fraud.’ That’s not the way it works.”

Logan told BLN the outcome would be clear within “days,” adding, “I know it’s frustrating, but this is really about making sure that every eligible ballot in this election is counted and counted correctly.”

In the meantime, other conspiracies are circulating, including some promoted by Pratt himself.

Pratt suggested on Sunday nightfor example, that the approximately 43,000 votes Raman gained between Tuesday and Sunday came from homeless people. In another social media post on Sunday, Pratt wrote: “They’re not the only ones who know where to find votes.”

Spokespeople for the Pratt campaign did not immediately respond to questions from MS NOW on Monday seeking clarification about the candidate’s claims.

Other conservative influencers have also falsely said Raman “conceded” the race at her primary night rally. But as MS NOW covered in real timeRaman did not concede the race. Instead, she warned her supporters that it would take time for the votes to be counted and that they may not get a favorable outcome.

“Tonight may not give us a final answer on this race. Many thousands of votes will be counted in the days ahead, and we may not get an answer we like,” she said.

In a statement provided to MS NOW on Monday, Raman said, “We are encouraged by the latest vote count and remain grateful to the thousands of Angelenos who have powered this campaign.”

Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.

The Dictatorship

Lawsuit seeks to stop the UFC fight on the White House South Lawn for Trump’s birthday

Published

5 hours ago

June 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Lawsuit seeks to stop the UFC fight on the White House South Lawn for Trump’s birthday

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal lawsuit seeks to halt the upcoming UFC fight card on the White House South Lawn in a mixed martial arts show timed for President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and part of the celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary.

The filing Saturday by the Public Integrity Project on behalf of two Virginia residents contends the Trump administration’s authorization of the June 14 event was unlawful. The lawsuit says such approval violated National Park Service regulations prohibiting sporting events on federal parklands, Congress did not consent to the towering arch overlooking the event space and no environmental review was conducted before the construction.

“This is fundamentally a private, commercial, corrupt use of our most sacred national monuments for private gain,” said Brendan Ballou, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. “And that is what is motivating this lawsuit.”

The White House said in a statement that the legal challenge was “an obstructionist, baseless, and dilatory” attempt to prevent Trump from hosting the fight and that the event was “no different than the various other White House-hosted events on the South Lawn and properly permitted events on the Ellipse and National Mall throughout the year.”

UFC did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.

Crews are erecting an octagon-shaped cage on the South Lawn. Trump has said the finished UFC project will feature “a 5,000-seat arena right outside the front door of the White House.” Additional large screens broadcasting the fights will be set up in a park at the nearby Ellipse, and the UFC has said it plans to issue as many as 85,000 free tickets to accommodate spectators at both locations.

The octagon and surrounding structures are the latest project in the White House building boom Trump is leading.