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LeBron James has moved back to the Eastern Conference, but the Lakers remain a major box office draw for the NBA.

With an almost brand new rotation after a busy offseason that elevated Luka Doncic to the team’s unquestioned leader, the Lakers have the maximum amount of nationally televised games in the NBA this season with 34, according to the league schedule released Thursday. The Lakers open the season against the Golden State Warriors on Oct. 21 on ESPN.

The slate is highlighted by a much-anticipated Christmas Day reunion with James that will be televised at 2 p.m. on ABC. The matchup at Crypto.com Arena will be James’ return to L.A. after the four-time NBA champion signed with the Philadelphia 76ers this summer following eight seasons with the Lakers. James will play on Christmas Day for the 21st time in his 24-season career, and the Lakers will play on the holiday for the 28th consecutive time.

The Lakers don’t meet James in his new home until March 4, when they finish a four-game trip in Philadelphia.

The Lakers have a frantic start to the season, playing 13 games in the first four weeks. They have three back-to-back sets during the busy stretch from the opener to the end of a three-game trip in Milwaukee on Nov. 11.

The Lakers have 14 sets of back-to-backs, the same as last season, and eight of the sets require travel between the games. Two require time changes: The Lakers play at Minnesota on Dec. 18 before gaining an hour while traveling to Denver to play Dec. 19, then lose an hour between Chicago on Jan. 2 and Toronto on Jan. 3.

The traditional Grammys trip begins in Indiana on Jan. 28 followed by a back-to-back set in New York (Jan. 30) and Charlotte (Jan. 31). The Lakers then continue the seven-game trip by circling back north from Charlotte to Boston (Feb. 2) and Brooklyn (Jan. 4), then heading West with stops in San Antonio (Feb. 6) and Phoenix (Feb. 8).

The reigning NBA champion New York Knicks, Western Conference champion San Antonio Spurs and James’ 76ers each have 34 nationally televised games. The national broadcast appearances are spread throughout the NBA’s broadcast partners: ABC/ESPN, NBC/Peacock and Amazon Prime.

The final two games of the 82-game season will be determined in December as the NBA Cup midseason tournament plays out.

The Lakers were placed into Group C, which includes the Warriors, Spurs, Portland Trailblazers and Sacramento Kings. The group stage begins at Golden State on Oct. 30 followed by home games against Portland (Nov. 6) and Sacramento (Nov. 20). The final group game is Nov. 27 at San Antonio.

LAKERS’ 2026-27 SCHEDULE

October
21: vs. Golden State, 7 p.m.
23: vs. Clippers, 7 p.m.
25: at Utah, 2 p.m.
27: vs. Portland, 8 p.m.
28: at Clippers, 7:30 p.m.
30: at Golden State, 7 p.m.

November
1: vs. Toronto, 6 p.m.
2: vs. Miami, 7 p.m.
4: at Sacramento, 7 p.m.
6: vs. Portland, 7 p.m.
8: at Detroit, 3 p.m.
9: at Atlanta, 4 p.m.
11: at Milwaukee, 5 p.m.
15: at Phoenix, 1 p.m.
17: vs. Charlotte, 7 p.m.
18: vs. Utah, 7 p.m.
20: vs. Sacramento, 7 p.m.
23: vs. Utah, 7 p.m.
27: at San Antonio, 6:30 p.m.
29: at Memphis, 1 p.m.
30: at Houston, 4:30 p.m.

December
2: at New Orleans, 5 p.m.
14: vs. New Orleans, 7 p.m.
16: at Minnesota, 6:30 p.m.
18: at Minnesota, 5 p.m.
19: at Denver, 6 p.m.
21: vs. Indiana, 7 p.m.
23: vs. Denver, 7 p.m.
25: vs. Philadelphia, 2 p.m.
27: vs. Memphis, 6 p.m.
29: vs. Houston, 7 p.m.
31: at New Orleans, 5 p.m.

January
2: at Chicago, 5 p.m.
3: at Toronto, 4 p.m.
5: at Washington, 4 p.m.
7: vs. Boston, 7 p.m.
8: vs. Detroit, 7 p.m.
11: at Clippers, 7 p.m.
13: at Portland, 7 p.m.
14: vs. Orlando, 7 p.m.
17: vs. Milwaukee, 6 p.m.
19: at Sacramento, 7 p.m.
21: at Golden State, 7 p.m.
22: vs. Sacramento, 7 p.m.
24: vs. Washington, 1 p.m.
26: vs Oklahoma City, 8 p.m.
28: at Indiana, 4 p.m.
30: at New York, 5:30 p.m.
31: at Charlotte, 4 p.m.

February
2: at Boston, 5 p.m.
4: at Brooklyn, 4 p.m.
6: at San Antonio, 5:30 p.m.
8: at Phoenix, 6:30 p.m.
10: vs. Clippers, 7 p.m.
12: vs. Denver, 7 p.m.
16: vs. Chicago, 7 p.m.
18: vs. Houston, 7 p.m.
26: at Denver, 7 p.m.
28: at Dallas, 12:30 p.m.

March
2: at Orlando, 4 p.m.
4: at Philadelphia, 4 p.m.
6: vs. Oklahoma City, 5:30 p.m.
7: vs. Brooklyn, 7:30 p.m.
11: vs. New York, 7 p.m.
12 vs. Cleveland, 7 p.m.
14: vs. Golden State, 7 p.m.
16: at Portland, 7 p.m.
17: vs. Phoenix, 7 p.m.
19: vs. Atlanta, 7 p.m.
21: vs. Dallas, 7 p.m.
23: at Miami, 5 p.m.
25: at Cleveland, 4 p.m.
28: at Houston, noon
30: at Memphis, 5 p.m.

April
1: at Oklahoma City, 6:30 p.m.
4: vs. San Antonio, 7 p.m.
6: vs. Dallas, 7 p.m.
7: vs. Minnesota, 7 p.m.
9: vs. Minnesota, 7 p.m.
11: vs. Phoenix, 5:30 p.m.

All times Pacific

Jaylen Brown and Giannis Antetokounmpo will play homecoming games a week apart in January.

The 2026-27 NBA schedule was released Thursday, setting the dates for the two former NBA Finals MVPs to return to face the teams that traded them this summer.

The schedules for opening night and Christmas already were unveiled this week, so those two games were among the most intriguing matchups not yet known. Brown, who was dealt from the Celtics to the rival Philadelphia 76ers in a stunning move, will play his first game back in Boston on Jan. 21.

Antetokounmpo was expected to be traded by Milwaukee this offseason — at one point speculation was that he might be swapped for Brown — and eventually was dealt to Miami. The Heat will travel to face the Bucks for the first time on Jan. 28.

Both of those games, which will be on Thursday nights, will stream on Prime Video.

Other details about the schedule:

From start to finish

The season will open Oct. 20 with a tripleheader, highlighted by LeBron James, Brown and the 76ers visiting the New York Knicks, who will receive their rings after winning the franchise’s first championship since 1973.

The regular season ends April 11. All-Star weekend is set for Feb. 19-21 in Phoenix.

Busy nights and nights off

Every team will play on Monday, Nov. 2, and there will then be no games the following night, which is election day in the U.S. The league is leaving that first Tuesday in November as an open day in hopes that fans and members of the NBA community will participate in the voting process.

No teams will play on Saturday, April 10, the second-to-last day of the regular season. Every team is then in action on the final day, with all the games matching Eastern Conference teams and the one interconference matchup scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. EDT. The games involving West teams are set for 8:30 p.m.

Where to watch the games

There will be 90 regular-season games televised nationally on ABC or NBC, up from 79 last season. Every team will be scheduled to appear on national TV at least twice.

Throughout the season, games will stream on Peacock on Monday nights, be shown on NBC and Peacock on Tuesdays, be televised by ESPN on Wednesdays, and stream on Prime Video on Fridays.

Saturday night primetime games on ABC begin Dec. 12 with the Knicks visiting the Heat, while NBC’s “Sunday Night Basketball” returns Jan. 24 with Oklahoma City visiting Golden State.

Prime Video will begin streaming Thursday night doubleheaders in January and some Saturday afternoon games starting Feb. 6 with Portland at Memphis, when Ja Morant returns to face the Grizzlies for the first time.

A lot of TV time

The NBA champion Knicks have the most appearances on ABC with six, while the Lakers, 76ers, San Antonio Spurs and Minnesota Timberwolves all are featured on ESPN eight times.

The Knicks, Spurs, 76ers, Thunder, Warriors, Lakers, Denver Nuggets and Houston Rockets all get the maximum 11 appearances on NBC.

Back-to-backs and schedule breaks

Teams will average 14.2 sets of back-to-back games, the lowest total since the NBA Cup was added to the schedule, and no team will have more than 16. No team will play eight games in 12 nights, or 18 in 30.

There are 59 back-to-back games involving at least 750 miles of travel, down from 74 last season.

No team will be scheduled to play the night before games in the NBA Cup, or if they are in nationally televised games on Christmas Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents Day, Sunday nights on NBC or Saturday nights on ABC.

Milestone moments

If Kevin Durant averages 26 points, as he did in his first season in Houston, he could move past Kobe Bryant into fourth place on the career scoring list sometime around Jan. 16, when the Rockets would be at the midpoint of their schedule.

Indiana’s Rick Carlisle is set to become the eighth man to coach 2,000 NBA games on March 8.

Newsreaders in bitter row as ITV star Charlene White accuses BBC’s Jan Leeming of ‘disrespect’

Charlene White has hit back after veteran newsreader Jan Leeming described her presenting style as ‘condescending’, sparking a bizarre social media row.

The 46-year-old is regularly seen on both Loose Women and ITV News, however, former BBC News host Jan, 84, suggested that she didn’t “hack it” on the latter, and wasn’t as good as co-star Mary Nightingale.

Taking to Twitter earlier today, she penned: “Wish ITV’s Charlene would stop addressing us as if we were children. She has such a condescending style.

“Don’t know whether or not she is a an excellent journalist but don’t think she hacks it as a newsreader. It may look an easy job but not all are as good as @nightingaleitv [sic].”

Hitting back, Charlene quoted Jan’s tweet and added: “Very surprising to see a presenter I admired as a kid deciding to slate me on social media.

“In an industry where women, especially black women, have had to work incredibly hard to get ahead, this type of disrespect from a fellow female journo feels like s’thing from a bygone era.”

In response, the broadcaster added: “I said I didn’t know how good you are as a journalist but I find your delivery condescending. It has nothing to do with colour.

“Actually I believe it is far easier these days for BAME people to get ahead in all walks of life. It was only an opinion and my apologies to you.”

While the ITV panellist has yet to reply, many were quick to lash out at Jan’s post, branding her most recent comments ‘brain dead’.

“Double down Jan – this is a brain dead response. Assume you don’t have PR these days,” one said, as another agreed: “Jan you haven’t been a newsreader for 30yrs or more and styles have changed making this randomly b****y comment just makes you look bitter, very nasty.”

A commenter said: “OMG, Jan. No. Should have started with that “apology” and left it there rather than bury it under some truly questionable takes. Just a guess that @CharleneWhite is much more of an expert in the experiences of Black women in the industry than you. This is really disappointing.”

As an unimpressed fan added: “Actually I believe it is far easier these days for BAME people to get ahead in all walks of life.” Looooooooooooooool? [sic].”

Charlene has been a staple of our screens for decades, and began her broadcast career at BBC, with stints at BBC News, Look East and 5Live. In 2008, she made the move to ITN and worked at ITV News and GMTV.

In April 2014, she became the first Black woman to present ITV News At Ten, and went on to become a regular on Loose Women, following Andrea McLean’s exit.

She previously spoke to the Mirror about how important it is to champion diversity in society, and particularly at work.

“I talk a lot about diversity because I believe, working in broadcasting and the media, what happens in front of the camera and behind the camera should reflect society,” she told us.

“All views matter, all opinions matter. That’s the only way the industry can survive.”

Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota prosecutors announced Monday that they have obtained key evidence in their ongoing investigations into fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during pitched protests against a federal immigration enforcement crackdown in the state earlier this year.

“Through the cooperation of our federal partners we have obtained the hard drives of previously withheld evidence in the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and the shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said. “We have also obtained some of the physical evidence that was previously withheld, including Renee Good’s car.”

Statements, police body camera video and other evidence had previously been withheld by federal officials in the killings.

She said state and local investigators now also have in their possession Good’s damaged car.

Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot and killed in her car while leaving an anti-immigration enforcement protest in Minneapolis on Jan. 7 as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents surged through the region.

Her death and that of Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse shot and killed by federal officers just weeks later during a Jan. 24 protest, sparked outrage across the country and calls to rein in immigration enforcement.

“The wonderful thing now is we have all the evidence,” Moriarty said.

Investigators are going through all the evidence, including hard drives with statements, hours of video recorded by body-worn cameras and the car, Moriarty said.

“We need transparency. We need cooperation. Our community needs it,” she said. “Our democracy requires it.”

At the end of June, Minnesota Atty. Gen. Keith Ellison and Moriarty asked a federal judge to push out the deadlines in their lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice because they said they were in the midst of recently reinitiated “ongoing discussions” with the FBI about information sharing.

Those ongoing discussions with the FBI about information sharing are likely to affect Minnesota’s request for summary judgment in the case, Ellison and Moriarty wrote in their motion to the court.

The attorneys representing the federal government signed onto the motion.

Ellison said he remains “deeply troubled that the federal government spent more than half a year attempting to conceal this evidence from state investigators.”

“It should never have taken this long for Minnesota law enforcement to gain access to the federal government’s evidence,” he said in a statement. “I hope that this is the beginning of a major course correction on the part of the federal government.”

There have been at least eight deaths since the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign began last year, but nobody has been charged in connection with them.

A Minneapolis resident, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, was also shot and injured in his home while ICE agents were in pursuit of another man.

In May, Christian Castro, an ICE agent, was arrested and charged with assault as well as falsely reporting a crime in connection with that Jan. 14 nonfatal shooting.

Prosecutors say Castro, 52, fired through a home’s front door and shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh.

In April, Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr., another ICE agent, was charged with pointing his gun at a motorist and passenger on a Minneapolis highway.

Prosecutors said at the time it was the first criminal case against a federal officer involved in the Minnesota immigration crackdown.

On Monday, ICE was involved in the fatal shooting in Maine, according to state House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, a Democrat.

Details of what transpired in Biddeford, a coastal city of about 23,000 people roughly 15 miles southwest of Portland, remain unclear.

Last week, an ICE agent in Houston fatally shot a Mexican national who had lived in the U.S. for decades as the homebuilder drove his construction crew to a job site.

The federal Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has acknowledged officers were looking for someone else when they attempted to stop Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s vehicle. The agency maintains Salgado Araujo rammed an ICE vehicle, prompting an officer to open fire in self-defense.

Marcelo and Boone write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — After the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, Sen. Lindsey Graham said he had finally had enough of the man who was championed by the mob that stormed the pillar of American democracy: President Trump.

“Trump and I, we’ve had a hell of a journey. I hate it to end this way. Oh, my God, I hate it. From my point of view, he’s been a consequential president,” an emotional Graham said once authorities cleared the rioters and allowed senators to reclaim their chamber to certify Joe Biden’s election win. “All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough.”

It wasn’t, of course.

Graham, the South Carolina Republican who died unexpectedly Saturday night at 71, realized that his party’s future was inextricably tied to Trump and quickly reverted back to being a staunch defender. The shift made what had once seemed like a final rupture into just another twist in the topsy-turvy relationship between the powerful senator and the president who came to dominate their party.

“Can we move forward without President Trump? The answer is no,” Graham said in May 2021, just four months after the Jan. 6 insurrection. “I’ve determined we can’t grow without him.”

Trump, who called Graham a “true American Patriot” in a social media post Sunday, appeared shocked by the senator’s sudden death.

“I just can’t believe it,” the president said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “He was like a member of the family.”

Graham often advised Trump on foreign affairs, particularly on matters pertaining to Israel, Ukraine and Iran. He was a frequent visitor at the White House.

“At the end of a particularly thrilling and rollicking meeting in the Oval Office, Lindsey Graham turned to the room and said: ‘I’ve never had this much fun in my life,’” Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote on X. He said such gatherings “were filled with camaraderie, kinship and uproarious laughter.”

Trump recalled that during his last conversation with Graham, he told his friend, “We’ll see you soon, come over anytime you want.”

‘Unfit for office’

The senator and Trump first clashed while competing for the 2016 presidential nomination.

Graham described Trump as “unfit for office,” and was angered when Trump denigrated the military service of Graham’s close friend Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Trump, while talking about McCain’s years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said, “I like people that weren’t captured.”

Trump got mad enough at Graham to release the senator’s personal cellphone number. That prompted a viral video in which the senator dramatically destroyed a series of flip phones. He smashed one with a meat cleaver and another with a golf club, then used lighter fluid, a blender and toaster oven to pulverize others before tossing one off the roof.

Graham eventually likened Trump’s winning the nomination to “being shot in the head” and said he refused to vote for Trump that November. But the pair later bonded over golf and what Graham described as a mutual and irreverent sense of humor.

Trump and Graham began so frequently hitting the links together that the senator started seeing it as something of a career builder, leaning heavily into the kind of over-the-top flattery Trump relishes. In 2017, Graham joked that Trump had beaten him “like a drum” on the course, even worse than in the presidential primary.

“Their true friendship could only be seen behind the curtain,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said on ABC’s “This Week.” Scott said that relationship was forged as political adversaries but was strengthened by spending 100-plus hours golfing together.

During Trump’s first term, Graham helped advance Trump’s nominees to the Supreme Court, lent credibility to the White House’s legislative agenda and even at times became part of the president’s inner circle. He frequently said Trump was maturing in politics and growing on the job.

Graham’s political divergence with McCain, who died in 2018, was never more clear than in 2017, when McCain voted against a Trump-backed plan to overturn the Affordable Care Act, former President Obama’s signature healthcare law. The effort had been co-sponsored by Graham.

A short-lived split, an alliance reignited

In his floor speech after the Capitol attack, Graham said that “he’d never been so humiliated and embarrassed for the country.” But the break with Trump ended quickly.

Weeks later, Trump invited Graham for golf and dinner at the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, reigniting their alliance. During Trump’s 2024 campaign, Graham was a frequent Trump surrogate on television, promoting U.S. military strength that he said would advance “America first” policies.

Graham never shed his more traditional Republican foreign policy views, including outspoken support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion — even as Trump frequently wavered in supporting Kyiv, sometimes castigating Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky and praising Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

The senator was also a leading voice pushing the White House to more fully embrace Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and take a harder line against Iran, and he was a leading advocate of Trump’s ongoing war with Iran. After the U.S. and Israel attacked in February, Graham staunchly defended the action and working to counter many among Trump’s “Make America Great Again” base who supported the president’s longtime assertions that “America first” meant avoiding such military conflicts.

“To those who say Iran is stronger now than before, that is an insult to the American military and it is delusional thinking because the Iranian economy is in shambles,” Graham posted on social media June 19.

Graham’s admiration for Trump went far beyond Iran. When the senator clinched the South Carolina Republican primary last month, he suggested the president was just short of a deity.

“I want to start with a bunch of thank yous. I want to thank the big guy, God. Trump comes later,” Graham laughed. “Mr. President, you’re not far behind God, but we’re gonna start with him.”

Weissert writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has dismissed the remnants of the government’s landmark case against far-right Proud Boys members who were convicted of seditious conspiracy for plotting to attack the Capitol to keep President Trump in the White House after he lost his reelection bid more than five years ago.

The case’s dismissal late Friday became a foregone conclusion when Trump last year used his pardon powers to erase every case that the government prosecuted after a mob of his supporters stormed the building on Jan. 6, 2021. The judge who presided over the Proud Boys leaders’ trial saw no basis to preserve the convictions after Trump’s sweeping act of clemency last year.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, whom Trump nominated during his first term, said there is “little mystery” about why the second Trump administration decided to abandon this case and every other Jan. 6 riot case.

“President Trump’s views about the prosecution of those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6 — whether those views are based on fact or fiction — are well known, as is his intention to extend clemency to them,” Kelly wrote.

The judge stressed that his order should not be mistaken as an endorsement of the Department of Justice’s decision to abandon the case. He referred to the Capitol riot as “a perilous event” and an assault on the constitutional imperative for a peaceful transfer of power between presidents.

“Moving forward, if this Nation’s experiment in self-government is to last another 250 years, the American people — no matter their partisan preferences — will have to act together to preserve, protect and defend that miracle through our constitutional framework,” Kelly wrote.

Juries in the nation’s capital separately convicted leaders of the Proud Boys and another extremist group, the antigovernment Oath Keepers, of orchestrating violent plots to keep Trump in power after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden.

A different judge has not ruled yet on the Justice Department’s related request to throw out Oath Keepers’ seditious conspiracy convictions.

Friday’s ruling applied to four of five Proud Boys members who were convicted after a jury trial: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. Trump commuted their prison sentences, but they were not covered by the president’s mass pardons.

Former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio was convicted at the same trial but received a pardon from Trump. Kelly had sentenced Tarrio to 22 years, the longest prison term in any Capitol riot case.

Kunzelman and Durkin Richer write for the Associated Press.

July 11 (UPI) — Top members of the far-right group Proud Boys had their convictions dismissed on Friday, ending the federal case against the men accused of leading the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly granted a request by the Department of Justice to wipe out the seditious conspiracy charges against Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl, Dominic Pezzola and Joseph Biggs.

President Trump pardoned more than 1,500 of the rioters who stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

But he had only commuted the sentence of the four Proud Boys leaders, leaving them out of jail but still convicted.

Trump’s DOJ in April asked a federal court to fully dismiss the charges against the four men.

Kelly, a Trump appointee, granted the request but added, “No one should mistake the court’s granting of the government’s motion for its agreement with those decisions.”

“In light of fundamental separation of powers principles … the proper course here is for the court simply to grant the motion in full,” Kelly said, according to Politico.

The attack on the Capitol resulted in injuries to more than 140 police officers and caused $3 million in damage.

“As the court has said many times, the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 was a perilous event,” Kelly wrote in his decision, as reported by The Washington Post.

“It was an attack on people, including police officers, many of whom were injured,” he added. “It was an attack on a coordinate branch of government — Congress — that the founders saw fit to give a place of primacy in Article I of the Constitution. And it was an attack on the Constitution’s mechanism to facilitate the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next.”

Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio saw the dismissal as vindication.

“We took the worst they threw at us — the raids, the solitary, the lies, and we stood tall,” he wrote on X after the ruling. “Trump dropped the pardons and now the rest is crumbling. Justice is SERVED!”

“Proud Boys don’t lose,” Tarrio added. “We WIN. This is OUR victory.”

Fox News declined to broadcast an ad Sunday about the violence that law-enforcement members faced as they tried to stop the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to the creators of the political commercial.

“We couldn’t have fathomed in our wildest imaginations that even a Fox News would reject an ad that simply condemns the insurrection, and condemns people who support the insurrection,” said Ben Meiselas, one of the co-founders of MeidasTouch, the liberal Political Action Committee that created the 60-second ad. “What Fox has really become is a fascist echo chamber gatekeeper for their base.”

Broadcast and cable networks have discretion in refusing to air ads by political campaigns and advocacy groups. A Fox News spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

Meiselas and his two brothers, Brett and Jordan, said they placed the ad buy as they have in the past, but were informed over the phone on Friday that the cable network would not air the ad and were not given a reason. Fox News has never before refused to air one of their ads without offering suggestions for edits, they said.

The commercial features law-enforcement officers testifying in Congress and speaking to the media about their experiences during the insurrection, including getting sprayed with bear mace, engaging in hand-to-hand combat and being called “traitors.”

“It’s been very difficult seeing elected officials and other individuals whitewash the events of that day or downplay what happened,” DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone says in a clip from a CNN interview as images of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other GOP elected officials are shown on screen.

The ad ends with block letters that say” “The GOP Betrayed America. We Will Never Forget.”

The ad has gone viral on social media, racking up more than 1 million views on Twitter.

Fox News is the target of multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuits by voting system and software makers over its coverage of the integrity of the 2020 presidential election. Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic accused Fox News of irresponsibly broadcasting falsehoods that their technology and equipment were used to rig the election. The fraud claims are among the factors that led to the insurrection as lawmakers were voting to certify the election results.

Fanone, who suffered a heart attack after rioters beat him with a flagpole and repeatedly stunned with him with his Taser gun on Jan. 6, is among the law-enforcement members who have been vocal critics of Republican lawmakers who blocked the creation of a commission to study what happened that day.

The House of Representatives approved a plan to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the insurrection on a 252-175 vote; but in the Senate, it received 54 votes in late May, six shy of the number required to bring the proposal up for debate.

A spokeswoman for President Biden on Thursday ruled out creating a presidential commission to study the matter, aligning the White House with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the belief that such an inquiry needed to be instigated by Congress.

MeidasTouch booked nearly $185,000 of air time to play the ad on Fox News between June 6 and 15, starting with Chris Wallace’s Sunday show and continuing for seven days on “Fox and Friends” as well as two spots on daytime programs and one more on Wallace’s show next weekend.

Brett Meiselas noted that many shows on the network routinely talk about “cancel culture.”

“The fact they want to cancel and censor the voices of law enforcement who bravely guarded the Capitol. It’s the height of hypocrisy, and it’s un-American,” he said.

MeidasTouch is a liberal political action committee formed in 2020 by the three brothers, who have notable ties to Hollywood. Their father is a prominent attorney who represents musicians including Lady Gaga.

Ben Meiselas is a lawyer whose clients include former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Brett Meiselas was an editor on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show. Jordan Meiselas, a former marketer, is now working full time on the PAC.

The PAC made anti-Trump videos during the 2020 presidential race and supported Democrats during the special Georgia Senate races earlier this year. The PAC did not receive as much attention as anti-Trump groups such as the Lincoln Project; it spent about $4.2 million last year.

Tottenham Hotspur have agreed a £52m deal with Brighton for Dutch defender Jan Paul van Hecke.

The 26-year-old started in his country’s 2-2 draw with Japan on Sunday at the World Cup.

Van Hecke has a year left on his current Brighton contract and showed no inclination to extend the deal.

Brighton had already turned down one offer for a player who joined them from NAC Breda in 2020.

However, they have now accepted Tottenham’s offer, which should clear the way to Van Hecke rejoining former Brighton boss Roberto de Zerbi in north London.

The deal also includes a significant sell-on clause with Brighton profiting further should Spurs sell the player.

Van Hecke made 131 appearances for the Seagulls and started 36 out of 38 Premier League games for Fabian Hurzeler’s side last season as they secured an eighth-place finish. That secured European qualification for only the second time in the club’s history.

Tottenham have already strengthened De Zerbi’s squad in an effort to improve markedly on successive 17th-placed finishes.

Scotland defender Andy Robertson has already signed from Liverpool, with Argentinian centre-half Marcos Senesi agreeing a move from Bournemouth.

WASHINGTON — David Johnston was a licensed attorney when he illegally entered the U.S. Capitol with a mob of President Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. More than five years later, the South Carolina man is offering to help fellow “J6ers” apply for payouts from the Trump administration’s nearly $1.8-billion fund for people claiming to be victims of a “weaponized” government.

He’ll do it for a 10% cut of any award, capped at $5,000 apiece.

“I think the narrative is changing” about how the history of that day is being told, Johnston said in a video he posted to social media. “I think good things are happening for us.”

Hundreds of Trump loyalists pleaded guilty to storming the Capitol, admitting under oath that they broke the law. Some were convicted of sedition, and many attacked police officers while trying to overturn Trump’s election loss. Now pardoned by Trump, many hope to capitalize on their crimes by tapping into the $1.776-billion settlement fund designed to compensate the president’s allies who claim they were politically prosecuted.

A bipartisan backlash to the fund and a legal roadblock have not dimmed the celebratory response from Jan. 6 rioters clamoring for a share of the taxpayer money. Some are staking claims even though the government has not established an application process and a judge has frozen the fund’s formation, at least temporarily.

Seeking payouts

The fund’s critics see it as another vehicle for Trump and his allies to whitewash the events of Jan. 6, retroactively justify the mob’s assault on a pillar of American democracy and reward some of Trump’s most loyal followers.

Jason Riddle, a military veteran from New Hampshire who was sentenced to 90 days behind bars after pleading guilty to riot charges, publicly rejected a pardon from Trump. Likewise, he said it would be “ridiculous” for him or any other Jan. 6 rioter to get government compensation.

“I’d love money, but I can’t accept that. That would bother me for the rest of my life,” he said. “We weren’t innocently persecuted just because of who we are or who we vote for. We were persecuted for committing criminal behavior in the Capitol of the United States.”

Plenty of other “J6ers” do not share Riddle’s reluctance.

A Florida man who posed for photos with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s stolen lectern argued on social media that he deserves to be compensated for the cost of his infamy. A rioter from New Jersey described by prosecutors as a Nazi sympathizer hailed the fund as “good news not just for J6ers but all victims of weaponization.” A Texas man who received a seven-year prison sentence for storming the Capitol with a metal tomahawk celebrated the fund as “payback” for “victims of Biden’s tyranny,” referring to President Biden.

Oregon resident Pamela Hemphill, sentenced to 60 days in jail for her conviction, rejected a pardon from Trump but has drafted a written claim for compensation from the fund. Unlike scores of rioters who claim to be victims of a government weaponized by Democrats, Hemphill blames Trump for her legal troubles. Her claims letter says she is seeking $5 million in compensation.

“I wouldn’t have been through all of this if Trump hadn’t lied about the election being stolen,” she said during a telephone interview. “It’s a direct result of his lies that I was even there that day.”

Legal and political challenges

It is an open question whether anyone convicted of a Capitol riot-related crime could be eligible for payments from a fund created to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns.

Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche has not ruled out that possibility. Blanche said there are no limits on who can apply, but he noted that the fund’s five commissioners — all yet to be named — will decide who deserves to be compensated and why, based on factors such as “what the person did, his sentence, how much time he was in jail.”

“That’s up to the commissioners,” Blanche told the Associated Press on Thursday when asked about his position on whether violent Jan. 6 defendants should be eligible for payments.

“You have to define something and then stick to it. That’s something I’ve been hesitant to try to do, because it’s very fact-intensive,” Blanche said. ”Me sitting here and talking in hypotheticals is something that I don’t think is fair to the process.”

It is unclear whether Congress would block payments to Jan. 6 defendants. Senate Republicans who are angry about the settlement have said they want to place parameters on the fund as part of a Department of Homeland Security spending bill. They abruptly left town this month after a tense meeting with Blanche and will return Monday with the situation unresolved.

A federal judge in Virginia has frozen the fund’s establishment and temporarily blocked any processing or paying of claims. The judge issued that ruling Friday in one of at least three lawsuits challenging the fund.

Brendan Ballou, a former prosecutor who tried several Jan. 6 cases before leaving the Department of Justice last year, sued on behalf of two police officers who helped defend the Capitol from the mob. Ballou views the fund’s creation as part of a broader Trump campaign to undermine democratic institutions and rewrite the history of Jan. 6.

“And if the president is successful in that effort, if he’s able to get people to either forget or condone that day, he knows that he can get people to accept any attack on democracy,” Ballou said.

‘I want vengeance’

Nearly 1,600 people were charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. More than 1,200 were convicted and sentenced before Trump issued mass pardons and ordered the dismissal of all pending Jan. 6 cases upon his return to the White House last year. Trump also freed far-right extremist group members who were imprisoned for plotting to attack the Capitol to keep Trump in office after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Biden.

The self-described “J6 community” isn’t the only pro-Trump constituency angling for cuts of the money after being charged with or convicted of crimes.

Meshawn Maddock, who was charged as being a fake elector for Trump in Michigan before a judge dismissed the case last year, said she and her husband, state Rep. Matt Maddock, “absolutely” plan on making a claim. She believes the fund’s use of taxpayer money is justified because it “paid for the prosecution and investigation of the years that I was being hunted down.”

“I want vengeance and I want retribution,” Maddock said.

Trump’s campaign to recast the violence of Jan. 6 as a peaceful protest seems to have emboldened many convicted rioters.

Johnston’s eagerness to help other Capitol rioters with claims contrasts with his remorse he expressed at his sentencing in 2022. He apologized for his “terrible lapse in judgment” before a judge sentenced him to three weeks in jail and three months of home detention. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor trespassing charge.

“It was a dumb, dumb thing to do,” Johnston told the judge. “I am 100% responsible for what I did that day.”

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Jamie Stengle, Mary Claire Jalonick and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.