CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - JULY 25: WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert speaks to the media during a press conference prior to the 2026 AT&T WNBA All-Star Game between Team Coop and Team Spoon at the United Center on July 25, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Sage Zipeto/Getty Images)
Amid the excitement of the 2026 WNBA All-Star celebrations, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced the launch of a Replay Center beginning with the 2027 season, a move intended to address concerns about officiating and on-court safety raised by players, coaches and fans.
"This is one of the most significant investments we've ever made in our basketball operations," said Engelbert during the All-Star pregame press conference on Saturday. "This investment of tens of millions of dollars will help bring greater consistency, efficiency, and transparency to our officiating process, while continuing to improve the quality of the game."
Engelbert shared few details about the project but said that the WNBA will center operations alongside the NBA Replay Center in Secaucus, N.J., where officials will have access to additional camera angles and replay footage to help them make better-informed decisions.
Los Angeles Sparks forward and WNBPA president Nneka Ogwumike welcomed the move, emphasizing the positive impact it can have on the relationship between players and the league.

#user

FIRST ON FOX: A Republican firebrand is pushing legislation to abolish some of the most influential Democratic groups in Congress.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., introduced a resolution Thursday barring the formation of House caucuses organized around race, ethnicity or national origin.
If adopted, the measure would effectively force the dissolution of Democrat-aligned groups, including the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.
The proposal could also affect GOP-affiliated organizations, including the Black Republican Congressional Staff ***** ociation, the GOP Latino Staff ***** ociation and the Republican Asian American Staff ***** ociation.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., departs the U.S. Capitol after a series of House votes on March 5, 2026, in Washington, D.C.

#congressional #caucus #staff #asian

Lauren Gardner's run in Secaucus is over.
The MLB and NHL Network host announced on social media Friday that she and her husband, Patrick, had decided to return to Colorado to be closer to family as they begin a new chapter together.
"Lauren's been a fantastic colleague and friend to us all throughout her eight years here in Secaucus," the networks said, confirming her departure in a joint statement to Awful Announcing. "We thank her for the wonderful contributions she's given across our platforms and projects, and we wish her nothing but the absolute best as she heads back home to Colorado."
Gardner first arrived in Secaucus in March 2019 for DAZN's baseball coverage, which was co-produced by MLB Network out of its own studios in Secaucus. The move capped a long, unconventional climb chronicled the same month by The Athletic's Ryan S. Clark, who profiled Gardner as she prepared to leave behind the Colorado sports scene for what ended up being seven years in New York/New Jersey.
A Denver native, Gardner had spent that stretch working the Avalanche and Nuggets beats for Altitude Sports, but her path there ran through nearly every odd job the local sports world had to offer. She interned at Mile High Sports Magazine at 19, cheered for the Broncos, spent two years as the on-camera face of the Champ Car racing series, and pieced together a living through sideline reporting for the Colorado Eagles and Mammoth while working day jobs in commercial real estate and condo sales just to keep the broadcasting dream alive. Gardner told Clark the decision to leave for the Tri-state area arrived almost like a premonition, recalling a specific drive down Colorado Boulevard, right where the road crests and the mountains come into view, when she suddenly knew, without any real explanation, that she was about to move east.

#secaucus

The House passed its $1.15 trillion annual defense policy bill Wednesday after a bipartisan revolt over a provision expanding U.S.-Israel defense technology cooperation.
The fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act passed 216-212, with Republicans largely supporting and Democrats mostly opposing the measure.
The annual bill, which sets Pentagon policy and typically draws broad bipartisan support, received only six Democratic votes as much of the caucus objected to Section 219 and Republican-backed amendments restricting transgender care and easing access to personal guns on military bases.
House Democrats Fracture Badly Over Massie Amendment To Cut $3.3B In U.s. Aid To Israel
Opposition came from a coalition of progressive Democrats and Republican skeptics of U.S. support for Israel, who accused congressional leaders of shielding the provision from scrutiny after lawmakers were denied a separate vote to remove it.

#policy #bill

Infighting has erupted within the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) about the selection of its pick for U.S. president, as the group's influence continues to grow on the national stage and speculation swirls about a 2028 presidential run by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
The infighting reveals fractures in the roughly 120,000-member group, which has emerged as the preeminent socialist group in America. The division also sheds light on how some Democratic Socialists of America members believe the group can gain a permanent foothold in American politics and deliver on its socialist ideals on a national scale.
Some Democratic Socialists of America leaders have been pushing for an earlier presidential endorsement in place of the group's normal practice of selecting endorsements at its biennial national convention, which is set for summer 2027.
One faction known as the "Groundwork" caucus is pushing strongly for the group to conduct a national member poll and "endorse AOC on day one." The caucus believes an early endorsement will help DSA hold a more influential early role in 2028 presidential politics and "build power for socialism."
Democratic Socialists Of America Leader Says 'Many' In Group Would Be 'Thrilled' At Aoc In 2028

Steven Olikara
There is an industry that profits every time you come to hate your neighbor a little more. Steven Olikara calls it the "division industrial complex" — "a collection of algorithms, polarized media, and hyper-partisan political operatives that make money on making us hate each other all the time." It is a multibillion-dollar machine, he argues, mirroring the military-industrial complex it rhymes with, and it has convinced most of us that the people on the other side want to destroy everything we hold dear. The strangest part, he says, is that it's mostly a lie. "We end up having a lot more in common than we realize. Just our discourse doesn't reflect that."
Olikara's response was to go where the lie is manufactured. He runs Bridge Entertainment Labs, what he describes as the first Hollywood office built to combat toxic polarization and grow a culture of pluralism in America. It advises filmmakers and studios from Disney to Paramount on how to tell stories that make Americans see each other as human again. He came to it the long way: a decade in politics, and before that, a kid at a piano in a segregated city, learning that the people who aren't supposed to share a room can still build something together.
That kid grew up in Milwaukee, one of the most racially and socioeconomically segregated metros in the country, a place where, as he puts it, "not a lot of people looked like me or shared my background." Music was his way across. What he loved most was when his bands would draw and infuse different influences across genres and cultures — the collision that made the art, in his words, "so much more dynamic, exciting, and creative." Jazz in particular taught him how. "You have to listen before you can play," his instructor used to say — a discipline of presence and call-and-response he came to see as a model for how a fractured country might talk to itself. In the right kind of creative, open and dignified **** es, he says, people "can add up to something that's larger than the sum of our parts" — not a least common denominator, but "something totally new and evolutionary together."
Olikara spent that decade chasing the idea into politics, founding Future Caucus, now the largest movement of young elected officials working across partisan lines on issues from gun violence prevention to criminal justice reform. The wins were real. But he kept circling a harder problem. Passing reforms in statehouses was one thing; convincing the friends he grew up with that a better discourse was even possible was another. "That's hard to believe if you're not seeing it in our media, you're not seeing it in the stories we tell," he says. The question that followed reframed his whole mission: for the people with media platforms, "which stories do we choose to tell and which ones do you choose to ignore?" That question launched the Bridge Entertainment Labs chapter. As the country approaches its 250th year, he frames the stakes in one line: "Can we cre

As I watched highlights from the recent opening of the Obama Presidential Center, I couldn't help but remember the night I first heard then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) make his pitch to Iowa caucusgoers in 2008.
It was at that moment I understood something truly profound was happening. Obama was charting a new direction in presidential politics. I wanted to be aboard his ship.
Lucky for me, I had two chances to meet Obama before he was elected president. The first was in June 2007, when I spent 45 minutes introducing him to a gathering of 30 prominent Democrats in Orange County. The second was the month before he traveled to Denver to accept the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 2008. That's when Obama stopped by the Balboa Bay Club for a major fundraiser.
When it was my turn to have my picture taken with him, he warmly greeted me by saying, "I remember you from last year." I was both thrilled and momentarily speechless.
After the photos were taken, I moved away from Obama's right shoulder, but not before turning back and saying to him, "Senator, we're all counting on you."

The World Cup is expensive. The World Cup is snarled roadways. The World Cup is $98 NJ Transit tickets, and bickering with our New York neighbors, and five weeks with our regularly scheduled lives thrown into a blender. Or, at least, that’s how I felt at 6:01 p.m. on Monday when a man from Norway grabbed me in the MetLife Stadium parking lot and unofficially changed my citizenship.
“You are one of US now!” he announced.
We had just watched a few hundred of his — er, our — fellow countrymen sit near the muddy backstretch of the Meadowlands Racetrack to row an imaginary boat in the pouring rain. This is something Norway fans have done on escalators, in Times Square, even on one of our unglamorous commuter trains from Secaucus. As cool as the social media videos look, the vibe is much, much wilder in person.
“RO!” they yelled in unison after the bang of a drum, with the cadence quickening after a few pulls of their invisible oars.
“RO! ...... RO! ...... RO!”

Sen. Brian Schatz, who many believe will take over the No. 2 role in the Democratic caucus next year, has a warning for President Donald Trump: He could be dealing with a very different Washington if Democrats achieve the electoral gains they're hoping for this fall.
"The quality of the nominees would immediately have to go up, because they're not going to get people like Bill Pulte or RFK Jr. or Pete Hegseth through the United States Senate if the Democrats run that," he told CNN's Manu Raju, listing some of the president's more controversial administration picks, who have received no votes of confidence from Democrats.
After two years of Republicans fighting to push Trump's agenda through Congress with their narrow majorities, Democrats hope the president's dwindling approval numbers will help them secure control over both chambers and usher in a new wave of leaders on Capitol Hill.
Though Schatz superstitiously knocks on wood when his potential ascent is mentioned, he is widely viewed as the likely choice to succeed retiring Sen. **** Durbin as Democratic whip next year.
In a wide-ranging interview for "Inside Politics Sunday," the Hawaii Democrat laid out an aggressive, yet pragmatic, approach for taking on Trump if he secures the No. 2 role in a Democratic majority in January.