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WASHINGTON — Stewart McLaurin knew it was coming.

An entire wing of the White House, a building he calls “the most special, important building on the planet,” was going to be replaced to make way for a ballroom that President Trump wants to add to the building.

But when McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Assn., saw the first images of backhoes tearing into the East Wing, it still came as a bit of a shock.

“When the reality of things happen, they strike us a little bit differently than the theory of things happening, so it was a bit of a jarring moment,” McLaurin told the Associated Press in an interview Tuesday.

McLaurin, who has led the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization for more than a decade, did not take a position on the changes. It’s not his job. “Ours is not to make happen, or to keep from happening — but to document what does happen, what happens in this great home that we call the White House,” he said.

But he said he sees a silver lining from the “jarring” images: They have piqued public interest in White House history.

“What has happened since then is so amazing in that in the past two weeks, more people have been talking about White House history, focused on White House history, learning what is an East Wing, what is the West Wing … what are these spaces in this building that we simply call the White House,” McLaurin said.

Trump demolishes the East Wing

The general public became aware of the demolition work on Oct. 20 after photos of construction equipment ripping into the building began to circulate online, prompting an outcry from Democrats, preservationists and others.

In a matter of days, the entire two-story East Wing — the traditional base of operations for first ladies and their staffs — was gone. The demolition included a covered walkway between the White House, the family movie theater and a garden dedicated to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

Trump had talked about building a ballroom for years and pushed ahead with his vision when he returned to office in January. His proposal calls for a 90,000-square-foot structure, almost twice the size of the 55,000-square-foot White House itself and able to accommodate 1,000 people. The plan also includes building a more modern East Wing, officials said.

The president ordered the demolition despite not yet having sign-off for the ballroom construction from the National Capital Planning Commission, one of several entities with a role in approving additions to federal buildings and property. The White House has yet to submit the ballroom plans for the commission’s review because it is closed during the government shutdown.

Trump appointed loyalists to the planning commission in July. On Tuesday he also fired the six members of the Commission of Fine Arts, a group of architectural experts that advises the federal government on historic preservation and public buildings. A new slate of members who are more aligned with Trump’s policies will be named, a White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on personnel decisions. The Washington Post was first to report the firings.

East Wing art and furnishings preserved

It was the job of the White House curator and their staff to carefully remove, catalog and store the art, the official portraits of former first ladies, and furnishings from the East Wing, McLaurin said.

The White House Historical Assn. does not have a decision-making role in the construction. But it has been working with the White House to prepare for the changes.

“We had known since late summer that the staff of the East Wing had moved out. I actually made my last visit on the last day of tours on August the 28th,” McLaurin said.

Working with the curator and chief usher, the association used 3D scanning technology “so that every room, space, nook and cranny of the East Wing, whether it was molding or hinges or door knobs or whatever it was, was captured to the nth degree” to be digitally recreated as an exhibit or to teach the history of that space, McLaurin said.

A photographer also documented the building as it was being taken apart. It will be a while before any images are available, but McLaurin said items were found when flooring was pulled up and when wall coverings were pulled back that “no living person remembered were there. So those will be lessons in history.”

White House has grown over the years

Trump’s aides have responded to criticism of the demolition by arguing that other presidents have made changes to the White House too. Trump said the White House needs a bigger entertaining space.

McLaurin said the building continues to evolve from what it looked like when it was built in 1792.

“There is a need to modernize and to grow,” he said, noting that White House social secretaries for generations chafed at the space limitations for entertaining. “But how it’s done and how it’s accomplished and what results is really the vision of the president who undertakes that project.”

What the White House Historical Assn. does

Jacqueline Kennedy created the historical association in 1961 to help preserve the museum quality of the interior of the White House and educate the public. It receives no government funding and raises money mostly through private donations and sales of retail merchandise.

It is not the mission of the association to take a position on construction, McLaurin said. Its primary mandate is preserving the State Floor and some of the historic bedrooms upstairs in the private living quarters, and teaching the history of the White House, which is an accredited museum. The State Floor is made up of the Green, Blue and Red Rooms, the East Room and State Dining Room, the Cross Hall and Grand Foyer.

“Ours is not to support — or to not support,” McLaurin said. “Ours is to understand, to get the details.”

Since the demolition, McLaurin said he has seen attendance spike at a free educational center the association opened in September 2024 a block from the White House. “The People’s House: A White House Experience” is open seven days a week — including during the shutdown.

The educational center had its busiest days the weekend of Oct. 17-19, with about 1,500 daily visitors, up from a previous average of 900, he said.

Superville writes for the Associated Press.

Oct. 28 (UPI) — Two people were killed and at least one was injured Tuesday in an underground blast at a silver mine in New South Wales, Australian authorities said.

NSW Police, in a news update, said the body of a man had been recovered from the mine near Cobar, 450 miles northwest of Sydney, and an injured woman who was rescued subsequently died. A second injured woman who was brought to the surface was airlifted to a hospital.

The police department said it had launched an investigation.

Superintendent Gerard Lawson said the three victims were working the night shift at the mine, which is owned by Polymetals Resources.

“It is tragic for the families and our employees and the Cobar community and the wider Polymetals family,” said executive chairman Dave Sproule, who added that about 30 people were working when the blast occurred in the early hours, local time.

The incident was the first fatal mine blast in the country in 10 years.

NSW Resources, the watchdog for the state’s mining sector, said operations had been suspended at the facility, which also mines zinc and lead, pending its own full investigation.

The state’s natural resources minister, Courtney Houssos, said the regulator had dispatched inspectors and investigators to the scene, calling it a “heartbreaking day” for Cobar and the mining industry.

“While safety protocols and procedures have greatly improved in mining, these deaths are a sobering reminder of why we need to always remain vigilant to protect workers,” she said.

Cobar Mayor Jarrod Marsden said the tragedy would impact the entire community.

“The most valuable thing to come out of a mine are the miners, and two families don’t get to see their loved ones anymore. Cobar is a small mining community. It’s very tight-knit and I’m sure everyone’s going to be thinking of their families today,” said Marsden.

Reports in Australian media said the accident was caused by explosives that had been set at the rockface detonating before they were supposed to.

Bob Timbs, president of the local branch of the Mining and Energy Union, said it was a “catastrophic failure” in the explosion system.

“In this day and age, that type of accident just should not have happened. We will do everything in our power — once we’ve dealt with and supported the families and mine workers in the community — to find out what happened and make sure that it never happens again.”

At the request of Polymetals, trading in the firm’s shares on the Australian Securities Exchange in Sydney was paused and then halted through the start of Thursday’s trading session, or pending an announcement from the company, ASX said in a notice.

I may be revealing a secret cherished by columnists the world over, but I admit that among the columns we relish writing the most fall into the “I told you so” genre.

Case in point: In April last year, in a column about the gambling mess ensnaring Shohei Ohtani’s then-interpreter, I warned that the pro sports leagues’ enthusiastic embrace of betting would inevitably produce a major scandal.

“It might not surface in the next months or even years,” I wrote, “but it will happen.”

The calendar, as it turned out, ticked over at 19 months. Last Thursday, federal prosecutors charged National Basketball Assn. player Terry Rozier and former NBA player and assistant coach Damon Jones with fraud and money laundering in connection with a scheme to fix bets on NBA games. Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups was charged in a separate indictment linking him to a Mafia scheme to fix poker games; Jones was also named in that indictment.

The NBA has placed Billups and Rozier on leave. They’re both due to appear in federal court in Brooklyn over the next few weeks to enter pleas, though both have asserted their innocence.

It may not be easy for the league to wash its hands of this mess. All the professional sports leagues spent years shunning gambling as a threat to their public image of integrity before embracing the siren call of big-time sports betting, bringing gambling companies and their ever-increasing customer base into their tents. But the NBA was ahead of the crowd.

In a 2014 op-ed, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver effectively cried “uncle” in the league’s battle against gambling.

“For more than two decades,” he wrote, “the National Basketball Association has opposed the expansion of legal sports betting, as have the other major professional sports leagues in the United States.” The leagues supported a 1992 federal law prohibiting sports betting except in grandfathered venues, such as Las Vegas.

They took a stern position against players and personnel caught betting on their games and their sports, dating to 1919 and the so-called Black Sox scandal, in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the World Series for the benefit of a gambling ring. Major League Baseball hired an austere federal judge, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, as its commissioner and gave him unchecked authority to clean up the game. He banned the eight players from baseball forever.

In recent times, Silver observed in his op-ed, the American appetite for sports betting has only risen. Accordingly, he called for legalizing the practice so it could be “brought out of the underground and into the sunlight where it can be appropriately monitored and regulated.”

(The 1992 law was overturned by the Supreme Court, and legalized sports betting spread coast to coast.)

Given the subsequent developments, one can tag Silver for his childlike innocence in counting on the government to regulate an industry collecting billions of dollars a year from millions of users while operating with a legal imprimatur.

Silver wrote that among his “most important responsibilities as commissioner of the N.B.A. is to protect the integrity of professional basketball and preserve public confidence in the league and our sport.”

When I asked the NBA if Silver has had second thoughts about his 2014 op-ed, the league replied, “We continue to believe that a legal, regulated, and monitored sports betting market is far superior to an illegal one operating underground,” and suggested that a single federal regulator would be preferable to the existing state-by-state patchwork, though the activities alleged in the federal indictments almost surely would be crimes in any state. Silver did say during a broadcast interview Friday that the case gave him “a pit in my stomach.”

The league’s ability to monitor the behavior of its own people is questionable. Consider a March 23, 2024, Charlotte Hornets game against the New Orleans Pelicans. According to the indictment, Rozier let the gambling conspirators know that he would take himself out of the game early, allowing them to profit from bets that his stats would fall short of bookmakers’ expectations.

The NBA, alerted by sports wagering companies to “aberrational behavior” involving Rozier in the game, investigated but later said it could find any “violation of NBA rules.”

The NBA can hardly claim to have been blindsided by the new indictments. Only last year, another federal gambling case erupted involving NBA games.

In that case, prosecutors alleged that a gambler named Ammar Awawdeh forced then-Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter to take himself out of a game early. That led gamblers who knew of the arrangement to bet that his stats for the game would fall short of expectations; those insiders made more than $100,000 on their bets, the prosecutors charged.

According to text messages filed with the 2024 indictments, Awawdeh acknowledged “forcing” Porter to participate in the scheme to help clear some of his gambling debts.

Awawdeh engaged in plea negotiations in the case, but the outcome couldn’t be determined. Porter pleaded guilty to related federal fraud charges, and is scheduled to be sentenced in December. The NBA has banned Porter for life.

Awawdeh was also named in last week’s indictment over the alleged poker scam.

In recent years, the pro leagues have cozied up to the gambling industry, claiming that their interest is merely “fan engagement” — that is, keeping TV viewers in front of their sets even during blowout games.

Only 11 states bar sports gambling today. They include the customary anti-gambling holdouts Utah and Hawaii, and California, where ballot measures to legalize sports gambling were defeated in 2022. As I mentioned in 2024, the perils of this expansion are manifest.

They’ve created a new underclass of gambling addicts while largely failing to fulfill their advocates’ assurances that state-sponsored and regulated gambling would produce a new, risk-free revenue stream for state and local budgets. The outcomes of some games have come under suspicion even where no evidence of fixing has been found.

The leagues have gone beyond just tolerating gambling; they’ve made partnership and sponsorship deals with the major sports gambling companies. The two leading companies, FanDuel and DraftKings, are official corporate gambling partners of the NBA, National Football League and Major League Baseball.

During broadcasts and steaming of games, it’s common to see in-game statistical projections on-screen — what are the chances of this hitter striking out, or hitting a home run, for instance.

During the seventh inning of Game 2 Saturday, Fox flashed a projection that there was a 36% chance that Yoshinobu Yamamoto would pitch 9+ innings. (He went the distance.)

The only reason to offer such projections is to feed the appetite for in-game proposition, or “prop,” bets. These are fundamentally bookmakers’ estimates. They don’t tell ordinary viewers anything they need to know to enjoy the coming innings, but do give bettors something to chew on before putting money down on the proposition “will Yamamoto pitch a complete game?”

In-game prop bets, as it happens, are like heroin to the vulnerable, offering instant gratification (or dismay). They “may be associated with risky gambling behavior,” according to the National Council on Problem Gaming. Draftkings heavily promotes prop bets on its sportsbook web page.

In a memo issued Monday, the NBA singled out prop bets as trouble spots: “In particular,” the memo says, “proposition bets on individual player performance involve heightened integrity concerns and require additional scrutiny.”

The major gaming companies have rolled out new ways to keep bettors betting. Smartphone apps, for example. In the old days no one could place a legal sports bet without traveling to Las Vegas, a built-in curb on problem gambling. Today, anyone with a smartphone can place a bet, often without certifying their age or financial resources.

“The advent of smartphones in 2007 and the Supreme Court decision in 2018 opened the door to fully frictionless, 24/7 legal gambling,” problem gambling experts Jonathan D. Cohen and Isaac Rose-Berman wrote recently.

I asked FanDuel and DraftKings if they accepted any responsibility for problem gaming in the U.S. DraftKings didn’t reply. A spokesman for FanDuel told me by email that the company “takes problem gambling seriously and continually works to identify at-risk behavior … including when a customer attempts to deposit significantly more than what they typically do,” or “excessive time on site, chasing losses or signals from customer service interactions.” In those cases, the company sometimes imposes deposit limits or timeouts or can exclude the user entirely.

That brings us to the latest indictments. The feds identified seven NBA games in 2023 and 2024, including the 2023 game in which Rozier allegedly tipped confederates to his decision to bench himself.

Among the others were a 2023 Trail Blazers game in which gamblers were tipped that the team would sit its best players so it would lose, thereby acquiring a better position in the upcoming NBA draft; and two Lakers games in which Jones allegedly tipped gamblers that star LeBron James, a friend since they played together on the Cleveland Cavaliers, was hurt and wouldn’t be playing.

“Get a big bet on Milwaukee tonight,” Jones allegedly told a contact before the first game, against the Milwaukee Bucks. James sat it out and the Lakers lost. James isn’t identified by name in the indictment, but its description of his roles helped identify him. James hasn’t made a public comment about the case, but he hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing.

Can anything stem this tide? The smart bet at this moment is “no.” There’s just too much money riding on the continued expansion of sports betting: DraftKings has more than doubled its revenue since 2022, reaching $4.8 billion last year, and nearly doubling its monthly average users to 3.7 million. FanDuel is owned by a British gambling conglomerate, so its U.S. sports revenue is difficult to parse.

That’s a lot of money to be thrown around promoting more sports gambling, making it harder for governments to regulate and for sports leagues to turn up their noses at the income. Keeping their image for integrity intact in this world of greedy and needy players and voracious gamblers is only going to get harder.

Great Britain’s Anna Morris leaps from sixth to second after the final sprint for the line to take silver in the women’s points race at the World Track Cycling Championships.

SEE MORE: GB’s Archibald & Leech win madison gold

Available to UK users only.

Montana’s Libertarian candidate for Senate has turned blue from drinking a silver solution that he believed would protect him from disease.

Stan Jones, a 63-year-old business consultant and part-time college instructor, said he started taking colloidal silver in 1999 for fear that Y2K disruptions might lead to a shortage of antibiotics.

His skin began turning blue-gray a year ago.

He does not take the supplement any longer, but the skin condition, called argyria, is permanent. The condition is generally not serious.

Britain’s Kat Matthews claimed silver at the World Ironman Championship, but compatriot Lucy Charles-Barclay was forced to pull out while leading as competitors battled sweltering conditions in Kona, Hawaiʻi.

Matthews benefited from the late withdrawals of Charles-Barclay and American Taylor Knibb to finish second behind Norway’s Solveig Lovseth, who claimed her first Ironman world title.

Charles-Barclay was leading after 10 miles of the marathon but visibly began to struggle as temperatures pushed 28C with 70% humidity.

She eventually pulled out with about nine miles remaining after consulting with her husband at the side of the road.

That seemingly left the path clear for Knibb to take the title, but the 27-year-old withdrew with four miles left, sitting down on the tarmac as Lovseth and Matthews ran past her.

Matthews finished strongly and completed the marathon in a course record two hours, 47 minutes, but it was not enough to reel in Lovseth.

The Norwegian crossed the line in a time of eight hours, 28 minutes and 27 seconds, with Matthews just 35 seconds behind for her third Ironman silver medal. Germany’s Laura Philipp was more than eight minutes further back in third.

“I worked really hard and I’m very proud of my finish,” said Matthews. “I’m happy for Solveig, she was incredible to watch. I had a very up and down day.”

The Ironman course consists of a 2.4-mile (3.8 km) swim, 112 miles (180 km) cycling and the final marathon, which is 26.2 miles (42.2 km), for a total distance of 140.6 miles.

Meanwhile, the men’s and women’s World Championships will reunify in 2026 after three years as separate events.

The Championships were split in 2023 to ease entry back-logs caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

British Olympic silver medallist Ben Whittaker has signed a long-term deal with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing.

The 28-year-old won light-heavyweight silver at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics before turning professional in 2022.

He has an unbeaten 9-0-1 record in his professional career, with six of those wins within the distance.

“I think things happen for a reason. I’m at the right stage in my career now to pick the right platform and go for the right fights. So this move just made sense,” said Whittaker.

Hearn described Whittaker as a ” generational talent” who has “the world at his feet”.

“This long-term deal will propel Ben to global superstardom, solidifying his reputation as a household name and steering him towards future world titles. He will be number one,” added Hearn.

Whittaker’s last match was a second-round stoppage of Liam Cameron in their light-heavyweight rematch in April.

The first bout in October 2024 ended in a controversial draw, when both men fell over the ropes and Whittaker was unable to continue because of an injury.

There are a whirlwind of things happening around Tesla (TSLA -1.41%) right now, both good and bad. On the one hand, the company is dealing with a talent exodus with multiple executives leaving, consumer backlash at CEO Elon Musk’s political antics, declining global sales, and an aging vehicle lineup, just to name a few.

On the other hand, the company believes it can be the most valuable company in the world as it transitions from vehicle production to a company based on artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and driverless vehicles. The question remains: Where will Tesla’s stock trade during all of this madness?

Falling behind?

One of the biggest developments for Tesla investors over the summer happened in Austin, Texas, where the company launched its robotaxi pilot. However, three months into its robotaxi pilot with a small number of Model Ys operating, it still requires a safety driver just in case, and it still only operates with invite-only passengers.

Image source: Tesla.

Sure, it was a step forward after the company had long promised such a service, but Tesla is still behind its primary rival, Waymo, which is moving into new cities and doesn’t require a safety driver to supervise its driverless vehicle.

While the slower and smaller initial test may have made investors cautious, Musk remains ambitious. During Tesla’s July 23 earnings call, he noted that the autonomous ride-hailing service would reach across most of the country and “probably” address half the U.S. population by the end of 2025 — lofty targets, to be sure.

No small matter

Make no mistake, this is a huge development for investors and the stakes are high. Tesla’s slow rollout has some onlookers pumping the brakes.

“It’s an acknowledgment that their software isn’t as mature as they thought it was and they’re going to need more time with a safety driver,” said Carnegie Mellon professor Philip Koopman, an expert in autonomous vehicle safety, according to Automotive News. “That’s OK for everyone except the people who invested thinking there’d be a million of these cars on the road by the end of the year,” he said. 

Investors looking for a silver lining might have to squint to see it more clearly, but it’s there. One reason Tesla remains a serious threat to its rivals such as Waymo is because once the autonomous technology and robotaxi become fully autonomous, the automaker can easily produce tons of vehicles from its factories in California and Texas.

Long term, Tesla’s gigafactory production is an advantage. But the company also has a cost advantage over its rivals as it only uses cameras for its self-driving technology, rather than more expensive sensors such as radar and lidar.

Investors also have to keep in mind Tesla may be behind at the moment, but at the same time could make progress faster than its competitors. In fact, if Tesla can change to no safety driver in the next 12 months, that’ll be faster than any other robotaxi company that’s accomplished the feat. For context, Waymo tested for years with safety drivers before going fully autonomous, but that was back in 2020.

What it all means

Tesla’s progress with autonomous vehicles has been slower than desired, but investors should focus on if the company can do it without sensors, and do it effectively. At this point doing it right is much more valuable than doing it faster — that battle may already be over. That said, Tesla has seemingly gone all-in on its future transition from only producing vehicles to becoming an AI, robotics, and robotaxi service company, which could be lucrative if it’s all achieved.

Until then, investors are going to need plenty of patience, especially considering the third quarter is likely to be strong — remember the end of the $7,500 tax credit pulled demand into the third quarter. That should be followed by several rather bumpy quarters for not only Tesla but the broader electric vehicle industry.

Sept. 29 (UPI) — Electronic Arts has been sold to private investors in the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners in an all-cash deal worth $55 billion.

Stockholders will be paid $210 per share.

EA stock rose about 15% Friday, closing at $193.35, after the Wall Street Journal said the company was about to go private. This morning, the stock was at $202.80.

The all-cash purchase is valued at about $55 billion.

“The transaction positions EA to accelerate innovation and growth to build the future of entertainment,” a press release said.

“Electronic Arts ​is ​an ​extraordinary ​company with a ​world-class ​management ​team and a bold vision ​for ​the ​future. ​I’ve admired their ​ability to create iconic, lasting experiences, ​and ​as ​someone ​who ​grew up playing their ​games — and now enjoys them with his ​kids — I couldn’t be ​more ​excited about ​what’s ​ahead,” said Jared Kushner, Affinity Partners CEO and son-in-law of President Donald Trump, in a statement.

Under the terms of the agreement, the consortium of investors will acquire EA, with PIF rolling over its existing 9.9% stake in the company. The $210 per share purchase price represents a 25% premium to EA’s unaffected share price of $168.32 at market close on Friday, the last fully unaffected trading day, and a premium to EA’s unaffected all-time high of $179.01 at market close on Aug. 14, the press release said.

EA will remain headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., and Andrew Wilson will stay on as CEO. The deal is set to close in the first quarter of fiscal year 2027.

EA makes games such as Battlefield, The Sims and Madden NFL games. It will be the largest leveraged buyout in Wall Street history, CNBC reported

In a note to employees, Wilson said he is “excited to continue as CEO.”

“Our new partners bring deep experience across sports, gaming, and entertainment,” CNBC reported he wrote. “They are committed with conviction to EA — they believe in our people, our leadership, and the long-term vision we are now building together.”

Lauren Henry said she was “sad” to miss out on a first ever women’s single sculls gold for Great Britain after being edged out by Ireland’s Fiona Murtagh in a photo finish on the final day of the World Rowing Championships in Shanghai.

Henry’s silver medal was Britain’s eighth of the championships, the most of any competing nation, with a total of three golds, four silver and one bronze.

Only the Netherlands finished with more gold medals – with four.

Henry, 23, had won a medal in every international race she competed in this year, while 30-year-old Murtagh had never before won a major regatta.

But after opening a big lead with a blistering start, Murtagh hung on as Henry reeled her in in the final 500m, with the Briton eventually losing by just 0.03 seconds.

“Obviously, I’m really pleased to come away with a medal, but it is disappointing,” said Henry.

“I said I was coming here for the gold and it’s sad to miss out by less than a centimetre.

“I’m going to use this during the winter and come back better and stronger next season. Hopefully I can win that elusive women’s single sculling gold for Great Britain at a World Championships.”

O’Connor has enjoyed the best year of her career in 2025.

European Indoor bronze, World Indoor silver, World University Games gold and now a World Championships silver medal.

As she alluded to in the build-up, O’Connor’s success was made possible by a mindset shift after finishing 14th at last year’s Paris Olympics.

“After Paris I genuinely did have a chat with myself. I felt like I know the athlete that I can be and I had to turn to my dad and ask him did he think that himself and the team that we had around me would be able to bring me to where I wanted to get myself to,” she explained.

“I suppose we had a pretty tough conversation where I kind of set out my goals to him and told him that I was ready to put my head down and work really hard towards them, but I needed everybody else to also be there with me.

“We had to make a few changes where I felt like if the coaches were expecting more of me, I would expect more of myself, so I made sure that I was hitting these really high standards that my coaches are setting for me.”

Going into the World Championships in Tokyo, she aimed to surpass 6,500 points.

She cleared that mark by some distance, with five personal bests helping her reach 6,714 points to come second behind gold medallist Anna Hall of the United States (6,888).

And O’Connor still believes there is more to come as she builds towards the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

“That’s one of the most exciting things for me is that I just scored 6,700 points and there’s so much there right now.

“So, what can I do with another winter behind me and another year behind me and another two years? Then obviously get to the Olympics, which will be another three.

“I don’t think I’ve reached my limit at any of the events.”

Wightman has endured a long road to return to the position of fighting for the sport’s biggest prizes since his crowning moment three years ago.

But he has always maintained his belief that he would get there.

Wightman was accepting that the injury which kept him out of Budapest two years ago was a consequence of the demands of winning world, European and Commonwealth medals in an intense 33-day period in 2022.

But his hopes of returning to the global stage at last summer’s Olympics were cruelly ended by a hamstring tear just one week out.

By that point, he had already been wearing the team’s kit at their final training camp in St Moritz.

He sought a refresh this year, making the difficult decision to end his coaching partnership with father Geoff, who was commentating inside the stadium when Wightman outlasted Jakob Ingebrigtsen to win gold in Eugene.

In what has been a year of significant change away from the track, Wightman began working with his partner Georgie’s father, John Hartigan, and relocated to Manchester to be closer to his physiotherapist.

The only major change in terms of his training, he says, has been to respect his body more.

“Honestly, it has been a very, very bleak couple of years for me. A lot of times I doubted if could make it back to this level,” Wightman said.

“I have made some huge changes in my life this year. Moving to Manchester, getting a new coach, and I hoped they were for the best and hope that the big stage is here, I stepped up.

“I want to thank my coaching team and my Dad for getting me to this point in the first place. He did all the hard work bringing me to this level.

“It will take a while to process this. I’m a big believer that you get what you put in at some point. I’m just very, very happy that all the persistence has been worth it.

“I felt like I had another gear through the rounds. I did not know what would happen but I nearly got there.

“For me this is a gold. Just getting on the start line is a gold.”

NBA commissioner Adam Silver on Wednesday pulled back the reins as allegations swirled about the Clippers circumventing the salary cap by orchestrating an endorsement deal for star forward Kawhi Leonard.

Silver, speaking to the media after a previously scheduled meeting of all 30 team owners in New York, said an NBA investigation would need to uncover clear evidence that the Clippers violated rules for owner Steve Ballmer to be punished.

“The burden is on the league if we are going to discipline a team, an owner, a player or any constituent members of the league,” Silver said. “I think, as with any process that requires a fundamental sense of fairness, the burden should be on the party that is, in essence, bringing those charges. …

“I think as a matter of fundamental fairness, I would be reluctant to act if there was sort of a mere appearance of impropriety.”

The Clippers and Ballmer are under league investigation after it was alleged last week on the podcast of Pablo Torre that Leonard was paid $28 million for a do-nothing endorsement role by Aspiration, a sustainability firm that had agreed to a $330-million sponsorship deal with the Clippers and had offered $1 billion for naming rights to the arena that instead became the Intuit Dome.

Aspiration turned out to be a fraudulent company, and co-founder Joseph Sanberg has agreed to plead guilty to defrauding multiple investors and lenders.

Silver said he would hesitate to take action against the Clippers if even a shred of doubt about the situation remains following the investigation, which will be conducted by a law firm experienced in probing wrongdoing by sports franchises, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz.

“Bringing in a firm that specializes in internal investigations adds a level of expertise and creates separation between the league and the investigation of a team,” said Michael McCann, a sports law expert and a visiting professor at Harvard. “The investigators have a background in prosecutorial work, insight into what documents to request and questions to ask.”

McCann and other legal experts said the investigation would center on whether Ballmer’s $50-million investment into Aspiration was a quid pro quo for the firm to turn around and give Leonard $28 million in cash and $20 million in Aspiration stock to essentially do nothing.

Ballmer is embarrassed by the allegations and about his apparent infatuation with Aspiration — which entered into a $330-million sponsorship arrangement with the Clippers and was nearly awarded naming rights to what became the Intuit Dome, only to be revealed as a fraudulent company run by scam artists.

McCann said the investigation would need to uncover concrete evidence that Ballmer or someone else representing the Clippers directed Aspiration to make the deal with Leonard. The only evidence presented on Torre’s podcast was hearsay — an audio clip of an anonymous former Aspiration employee saying that someone else in the company told them the endorsement deal “was to circumvent the salary cap, LOL. There was lots of LOL when things were shared.”

LOL typically is used in written communication, so if the allegation was made in an email or text, the next step for investigators would be to interview the person who wrote it and determine whether Ballmer was involved.

The investigation presumably will examine all of this. Silver tends to be methodical when conducting a probe and is expected to act on what can be proved, not on the perception of wrongdoing. But he also is charged with protecting and growing franchise values. Anything that could damage the integrity of the league would be a huge concern to him and team owners.

“Silver has quite a few very interesting relationships to protect and to nurture: other owners, his corporate sponsors, the media networks that are distributing the content,” said David Carter, a USC professor of sports business and principal of the Sports Business Group. “Everybody attached to the league is interested in getting to the bottom of this. So he has to balance different stakeholder interests and he is very good at doing that.

“So I have a feeling he will — working with the law firm — get to the bottom of it and then decide to what extent if any punishment is warranted. He’ll do that with the intent of making sure he’s protecting the interests of the other owners.”

Leonard joined the Clippers in July 2019 on a three-year, $103-million contract after leading the Toronto Raptors to the NBA title. The 6-foot-7 forward from Moreno Valley signed a four-year, $176.3-million extension in 2021, when Aspiration made its sponsorship deal with the Clippers and Ballmer invested and became a minority owner in the company.

After signing a three-year, $153-million extension a year ago, Leonard will have been paid or is under contract for $375 million in career salary over 14 years with three teams.

The NBA looked into allegations that the Clippers paid Leonard or his representative and uncle, Dennis Robertson, a side deal when he first joined the team in 2019. No wrongdoing was found, although this week the Toronto Star reported that Robertson made demands of the Raptors in 2019 “that line up almost perfectly with what Leonard reportedly got from Aspiration.”

The Star reported that Robertson demanded $10 million a year in sponsorship income but that Leonard didn’t want to do anything for the money. The Raptors rejected the demand, and Leonard signed with the Clippers.

Should the Clippers be found guilty of circumventing the salary cap, they could be forced to forfeit draft picks and be fined heavily. Ballmer and other team executives could be suspended, and perhaps Leonard’s contract could be voided.

Silver will proceed carefully.

“The goal of a full investigation is to find out if there really was impropriety,” he said. “In a public-facing sport, the public at times reaches conclusions that later turn out to be completely false. I’d want anyone else in the situation Mr. Ballmer is in now, or Kawhi Leonard for that matter, to be treated the same way I would want to be treated if people were making allegations against me.”

NEW YORK — The NBA will not rush to any judgment in its probe of whether a business relationship between Kawhi Leonard and a California company was legitimate or merely a way for the Clippers to circumvent salary cap rules, Commissioner Adam Silver said Wednesday.

Silver spoke after a board of governors meeting in New York — one that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer attended — and said the league will wait to see the report from the outside firm it has hired to run its investigation before taking next steps.

“We’re constantly learning in the league office and again, I’m reserving judgment because I don’t know the facts here,” Silver said. “I don’t know what Kawhi was paid. I don’t know what he did or didn’t do. We’ll leave all that for the investigation.”

The NBA opened its investigation last week into whether a $28 million endorsement contract between Leonard and sustainability services company Aspiration Fund Adviser, LLC — one that filed for bankruptcy earlier this year — broke league rules, following a report by journalist Pablo Torre.

The Clippers have strongly denied that any rules were broken and said they welcomed the league’s investigation.

“I think as a matter of fundamental fairness, I would be reluctant to act if there was a mere appearance of impropriety,” Silver said. “I think the goal of a full investigation is to find if there really was impropriety. … I would want anybody else in the situation that Mr. Ballmer is in now or Kawhi Leonard for that matter, to be treated the same way I would want to be treated if people were making allegations against me.”

Ballmer made a $50-million investment in Aspiration, and the company and the team announced a $300-million partnership in September 2021. That was about a month after Leonard signed a four-year, $176-million extension with the Clippers.

The team ended its relationship with Aspiration after two years, saying the contract was in default. Aspiration’s co-founder, Joseph Sanberg, agreed to plead guilty last month after facing federal charges of wire fraud. Prosecutors said he defrauded investors and lenders out of $248 million, adding that “Aspiration’s financial statements were inaccurate and reflected much higher revenue than the company in fact received.”

The league — which previously looked into claims that Leonard’s representatives asked for certain things that would be considered cap circumventions when he was a free agent several years ago — can issue stiff penalties if cap rules are found to have been broken by a team, including a fine of up to $7.5 million, the voiding of contracts and the forfeiture of future draft picks.

“I’m a big believer in due process and fairness and you need to now let the investigation run its course,” Silver said, adding that he has “very broad powers” when determining penalties if wrongdoing is found.

SAN DIEGO — Over the years, Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con has built a reputation — and an expectation — as the room where Hollywood juggernauts in attendance at the annual pop culture extravaganza unveil exclusive footage, break news and share behind-the-scenes stories with devoted fans, who often spend hours in line just for a chance to make it through the doors.

It’s not surprising, then, that headlines going into this year’s Comic-Con, which concludes Sunday, carried an air of disappointment about the absence of Marvel and other major film studios from Hall H’s programming schedule — even if 2025 is not the first time Marvel and others have sat out Comic-Con for one reason or another.

But for many fans in attendance, the news merited little more than a shrug.

Hector Guzman, who along with his friend Joaquin Horas made the trip from Los Angeles, acknowledged that the Hall H slate “felt a little bit different this year” with no Marvel Studios panel.

But “there’s still a wide presence of Marvel,” he added. “The ‘Fantastic Four’ movie that just came out — we’ve been seeing a heavy push on that this year.”

Guzman and Horas had spent a little over an hour in the Hall H line Friday afternoon trying to make it to the “Tron: Ares” panel before bailing, but they said that in their three years of attending the event, Hall H usually isn’t on their itinerary.

“If it’s interesting to us, we’ll give it a shot, and if it’s not, then there’s always plenty of other events and stuff going around [the convention],” said Horas. He and Guzman explained that they are generally more interested in exclusive merchandise, custom works by artists and getting together with their friends in cosplay.

Other attendees like Jennifer Moore and Sam Moore of British Columbia, Canada, took advantage of the absence of popular Hall H mainstays to get into Friday presentations they were excited about, including for “Alien: Earth” and “The Long Walk.”

“Last year was my first time [in Hall H],” said Jennifer Moore, who said they’d been attending the event for 10 years.

“Now [that] there’s no Marvel thing or DC thing, it’s pretty easy to get in,” said Sam Moore. “We’ve just been doing walk-ins [for Hall H] this year.”

That’s not to say Hall H was entirely without spectacle: Highlights included an ensemble of bagpipers performing “Scotland the Brave,” a dazzling laser light show, the world premiere of the “Alien” franchise’s first ever television series and an appearance by “Star Wars” filmmaker George Lucas to promote the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

A look inside the “Tron: Ares” Hall H panel at Comic-Con.

(Richard Shotwell / Invision / AP)

And although the Comic-Con experience has grown beyond the walls of the San Diego Convention Center, with immersive experiences and pop-ups spilling into the city’s Gaslamp Quarter and the Embarcadero, Hall H remains a venerated programming space for panelists and attendees alike.

“I want to give people the experience that they bought their tickets for to come here,” said Noah Hawley, the creator of “Alien: Earth” before the upcoming FX series’ Hall H presentation on Friday. “I was surprised the first time I came to Comic-Con, how emotional it is for the people who attend. There’s a lot of people for whom [361] days a year, they have to pretend to be somebody else. These [four] days of the year, they get to be who they really feel like they are on the inside.”

The Moores were among those who were able to make it into Hall H without much of a wait on Friday morning. But by Friday afternoon, the line had grown much longer in anticipation for later panels, which included capacity crowds. Other big draws included anime franchise entry “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle” and DC Studios co-chief James Gunn, who received an ovation for the success of his recent “Superman” reboot while presenting the second season of the John Cena series “Peacemaker.”

Even those who were attending Comic-Con to promote their own projects couldn’t hold in their excitement for anime juggernaut “Demon Slayer.” Besides the Hall H, panel ads promoting the upcoming movie — which has already broken attendance records in Japan — adorned a nearby hotel and the trains of the Trolley.

“There is a part of me that just wants to be out with the fans in my Tanjiro outfit with the earrings with my daughter,” said actor Babou Ceesay of “Alien: Earth,” referencing the young warrior with a gentle heart at the center of “Demon Slayer.”

The growth of anime and animation programming at Comic-Con and inside Hall H is a reminder that the convention is best understood as a reflection of ongoing shifts in nerd culture and fandom. Having evolved from a gathering primarily for comic book collectors to a broader celebration of pop culture where blockbuster movies once had a stranglehold, Comic-Con may now be witnessing the loosening of comic book superhero films’ grip on the zeitgeist as a whole. Indeed, television has steadily increased its Comic-Con footprint for years. Studios and streamers have also been organizing their own promotional events, such as Disney’s D23 and Netflix’s Tudum, to build up buzz on their terms, too.

Plus, as fan Robbie Weber of Los Angeles reiterated, Comic-Con is more than just what happens in Hall H. When he first attended the event 11 years ago he was among those that camped out overnight in order to get into the hall, but this time around he skipped it, opting to explore activations and other panels instead.

“We saw [comic book writer] Jonathan Hickman [on Thursday],” said Weber. “We saw a friend on the “Primitive War” panel [on Friday], which was really cool. It was the first time I’ve been able to see a friend do something like that.”

For many, Comic-Con’s main draw remains how fans can freely celebrate their passions.

“Alien: Earth” actor Alex Lawther said it was nice to hear the excitement of the people around him on his San Diego-bound train as they reminisced about their past experiences and shared photos of their cosplay.

“I really get that intense enjoyment of something to the point where you want to walk down the street wearing the costumes,” he said.

When Janie and Stephanie Ellingwood went to a local brewery one night to watch a U.S. Women’s National Team soccer game with some friends, they didn’t think it would be a big deal to ask the staff to turn on the sound.

The bartenders had always been friendly to the married couple, who frequented the bar at least a few times a week. And they were the only patrons in the small room, situated away from the main viewing area where the volume was on full blast. So they were surprised when the staff curtly shot down their request without any explanation.

Opened in early June to coincide with Pride Month, Untamed Spirits is the first women’s sports bar in the city of Los Angeles.

(Alyson Aliano / For The Times)

The Ellingwoods continued watching the nail-biting game with subtitles, but as it got more and more exciting, customers began spilling over to their side of the bar. Before long, the small room was packed.

“We were all cheering,” says Janie. “We all gave each other high-fives.”

The wife-and-wife duo took over another sports bar in Silver Lake and turned it into Untamed Spirits, the first women’s sports bar in L.A.

(Alyson Aliano / For The Times)

Still, the staff refused to turn up the volume.

The experience left the Ellingwoods, who are diehard fans of the L.A. Sparks and season-ticket holders for Angel City Football Club, wondering why there weren’t any bars in Los Angeles where they could comfortably watch women’s sports without feeling ostracized. So they decided to create their own.

After months of searching for a location, the wife-and-wife duo took over another sports bar in Silver Lake — formerly known as Trophy Wife — and turned it into Untamed Spirits, the first women’s sports bar in the city of L.A.

Opened in early June to coincide with Pride Month, Untamed Spirits joins a short list of bars in the U.S. dedicated to women’s sports, including Portland’s Sports Bra, which is expanding to four new cities including Las Vegas and Boston; Rough & Tumble in Seattle; Minnesota’s A Bar of Their Own; and Rikki’s in San Francisco. Long Beach’s Watch Me! Sports Bar, which opened its doors last July, was the first in California.

Stephanie, 37, who played professional golf for a few years, felt that L.A. needed something like this. “Something that’s a little bit classier, that isn’t sticky when you put your arms on the bar,” she describes.

“For once, I want to watch a game at the bar with sound on instead of some random spot in the corner,” Janie, 34, adds.

The bar is sleek and modern — a neon pink sign reads “Welcome to the Untamed Era,” and whimsical black and white illustrations cover a few of the walls.

(Alyson Aliano / For The Times)

On a recent Tuesday night, Janie was behind the counter pouring drinks, including their signature Angel City pink punch, for patrons sitting at the bar, which was adorned with rainbow flags and an Angel City Football Club flag. Meanwhile, Stephanie was floating around the space, checking on customers. The couple, who met while playing volleyball together at La Quinta High School, also run a made-to-order croissant bakery based in Orange County and remodel and manage residential properties throughout Southern California.

The bar is sleek and modern — a neon pink sign reads “Welcome to the Untamed Era,” and whimsical black and white illustrations cover a few of the walls. Menstrual products are displayed on the bathroom counter. The spacious patio is filled with plants and a sign that says “Watch Women’s Sports Here.” (There’s a TV in nearly every corner, so there’s no bad seat.) Although Untamed Spirits specializes in women’s sports of all kinds — even the more niche ones like kayaking, Janie says — the bar also plays men’s sports.

“Some people might call it a trend, but it’s not a trend,” Janie says. “I believe it’s a movement.”

(Alyson Aliano / For The Times)

Sitting at a table with a date and two friends, Marina Sobreviñas, 31, says she’s found that queer bars like Hi Tops in Los Feliz are more likely to play women’s sports, but she felt that “it’s about time” there is a spot dedicated to them. She recalls her experience trying to watch the FIFA Women’s World Cup at a bar.

Untamed Spirits offers bar food with an international twist with dishes like kimchi fried rice.

(Alyson Aliano / For The Times)

Untamed Spirits sells nonalcoholic and alcoholic drinks including margaritas and a signature Angel City pink punch.

(Alyson Aliano / For The Times)

“There was like, one World Cup TV out of the 10 TVs they had going, and it was sort of fascinating,” she says. “Like, ‘Am I’m the only one wearing a jersey today? OK, no problem.’”

Sobreviñas says that women’s sports are just as exciting as men’s sports.

Lisa Marie Ornelas, 30, agrees. “Women [athletes], in a way, have a little bit more to prove,” she says.

Untamed Spirits arrives in L.A. at a time when interest in women’s sports is expanding at a “meteoric pace” across the globe, according to Nielsen. The 2024 NCAA women’s basketball tournament averaged nearly 19 million viewers (with a peak of 24 million viewers for the final game between Iowa and South Carolina), an 89% bump from the previous year. The WNBA draft audience jumped 511%, and overall interest in the league grew 29% between 2023 and 2024. The National Women’s Soccer League saw a 17% boost in interest between 2023 and 2024. With the heightened interest, ad spending also increased: In 2024, TV advertisers spent $244 million on women’s sports, a year-over-year increase of 139%, according to TV marketing firm EDO.

Untamed Spirits has indoor seating and a spacious patio where patrons can enjoy sports of all kinds.

(Alyson Aliano / For The Times)

“Women in general have been playing great sports for a long time,” says Stephanie. “I just think the right people who have the ability to put them in the spotlight are finally noticing.”

More women’s sports bars are expected to open throughout the country. Jax Diener, who opened Watch Me! Sports Bar in Long Beach with her wife about a year ago, recalls when women’s sports weren’t aired on TV at all. She went to the first WNBA game at the Forum in 1997.

Untamed Spirits recently became an official bar partner of the Angel City Football Club.

(Alyson Aliano / For The Times)

“We used to come home after those games that were so exciting and turn on the sports that night to see the replays, and they weren’t even mentioned,” says Diener. “It was as if the league didn’t even exist.”

Diener says she was excited when she heard about another women’s sports bar opening in Southern California. “To me, it was really important for them to know that we’re in this together,” she says, adding that she has a text thread with other women’s sports bar owners where they share advice. “This is not a competition. This is women supporting women.”

Untamed Spirits recently became an official bar partner of the Angel City Football Club, which has a majority female-led ownership group that includes Natalie Portman, Abby Wambach and America Ferrera. The Ellingwoods will host their first watch party on Sept. 7 when the ACFC takes on Gotham FC.

Janie and Stephanie, who’ve been at the bar every day since it opened, say they are excited to eventually distill their own spirits, host more events and watch parties in the space and foster community among women’s sports lovers.

“Some people might call it a trend, but it’s not a trend,” Janie says. “I believe it’s a movement.”

Janie, left, and Stephanie Ellingwood say they are excited to eventually distill their own spirits, host more events and watch parties in the space and foster community among women’s sports lovers.

(Alyson Aliano / For The Times)

Florida-based Silver Airways has abruptly ceased all operations.

The struggling airline has been in bankruptcy proceedings and agreed to sell its assets to another aviation company.

That holding company ‘unfortunately has determined to not continue Silver’s flight operations in Florida, the Bahamas and the Caribbean,’ it said.

It left passengers with tickets stranded, with no advance warning of its imminent closure.

“Please do not go to the airport,” Silver Airways said in a message to booked passengers.

“All credit card purchases should be refunded through your credit card company or your travel agency.”

All other scheduled flights will be canceled.

Silver Airways operated Florida flights and to the Bahamas and Caribbean.

It filed for bankruptcy in December and canceled all services at Orlando in March.

It had since reduced its fleet size by half to cut costs.

The airline, which launched in 2011, was more than $100 million in debt.

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