Alanna Smith blocked Rachel Banham’s potential game-tying 3-point attempt with nine ticks to play in Minnesota’s game against Chicago on Sunday.

Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier celebrates her three-point basket against the Phoenix Mercury in the fourth quarter of Game 2 of a WNBA basketball first-round playoff game Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, in Minneapolis. (Bruce Kluckhohn / Associated Press)

Napheesa Collier grabbed the loose ball and was immediately fouled by Banham.

Ballgame.

Sure, Collier still had to hit at least one free throw with eight seconds to play to extend the Lynx’s lead to two possessions. But at this point, that was all but a formality.

Of course, she hit both to secure Minnesota’s 80-75 victory.

That’s what Collier does, on top of literally everything else.

Those made free throws were Collier’s 44th and 45th in a row, setting a new franchise record. The previous mark was 44, set by Candice Wiggins 15 years ago.

“Don’t jinx it,” Lynx wing Diamond Miller told the media when the subject was broached after the Chicago game.

As if something like that could stop Collier.

The player who’s sound in everything she does has now seemingly mastered one of the games most basic fundamentals that is so frequently the difference between winning and losing.

After hovering around the 80% mark – a strong number in its own right – Collier is hitting 95.4% of her attempts this season.

“That’s what Phee been doing all season long for us,” Lynx guard Courtney Williams said. “We’re confident when she be stepping up to the line.”

Collier and Kayla McBride alike. McBride was on her own personal streak, hitting 36 straight free-throws prior to missing two on Sunday.

Minnesota is armed with two of the lethalist free-throw shooters in the WNBA. Entering Tuesday’s action, 32 players had shot 50-plus times from the stripe this season. Collier is first among them in free-throw percentage, while McBride is second (94.1).

“Yeah, it’s like first to raise their hand to get the tech foul (shots) and all that,” Collier joked.

Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve noted she has no role in those discussions. Whichever of their two sharpshooters have the ball at the stripe late in tight games, Minnesota knows it’s in a good position to close out yet another victory.

“They’re our closers,” Williams said. “Either one of them step up to that line, we’re all confident they’re going to step their game up.”

 

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By MELISSA GOLDIN

As authorities search for victims of the flash floods in Texas that killed more than 100 people over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, social media users are spreading false claims that the devastation was caused by weather modification.

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Many pointed to one process in particular, blaming cloud seeding performed on July 2 by a California-based company for the tragedy.

But officials say there is no evidence that the floods are the result of cloud seeding and experts agree that cloud seeding would not result in precipitation of this magnitude.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

CLAIM: A July 2 cloud seeding operation by Rainmaker Technology Corporation caused flash floods in the Texas Hill Country over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

THE FACTS: This is false. It is not possible that cloud seeding generated the floods, according to experts, as the process can only produce limited precipitation using clouds that already exist. Forecasts predicted rain for that weekend prior to July 2 in an area that was already prone to flooding.

“The claim that cloud seeding played a role in this tragic event is complete nonsense,” said Andrew Dessler, director of Texas A&M University’s Texas Center for Extreme Weather.

Dev Niyogi, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies extreme weather, said it is “extremely unlikely” cloud seeding played a role in the floods. He cited weather factors as the reason: “the moisture flow coming into the area and the widespread rains the system had, as well as the forecast of very heavy rains over the wider area.”

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said at a press briefing on Monday that “to the best of my knowledge, there is zero evidence of anything related to anything like weather modification” when asked about such speculation. He added: “The internet is a strange place. People can come up with all sorts of crazy theories.”

Nonetheless, social media users questioned whether Rainmaker’s operations could be connected to the disaster in Texas.

“Well … this is weird … A company called Rainmaker, conducted a cloud seeding mission on July 2 over Texas Hill Country,” reads one X post. “2 days later, the worst flood in their history occurred … in the exact same area that the Rainmaker flights were. The entire goal of Rainmaker is to increase the precipitation of existing clouds. Why do we let these corporations f — k with the weather?”

Many posts also noted Rainmaker’s connection to Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, who cofounded the data-mining outfit Palantir Technologies, a secretive company that has long relied on spies, police, and the military as its customers. The Thiel Foundation awarded Rainmaker founder and CEO Augustus Doricko $100,000 in 2024 as part of its fellowship program.

Cloud seeding utilizes an artificial material — typically silver iodide — to induce precipitation or clear fog. The practice is an imprecise undertaking with mixed results.

Dessler explained that “cloud seeding can work in certain limited situations and produce very modest increases in precipitation,” but often delivers nothing.”

Regardless, the process cannot create storms out of thin air. Ken Leppert, an associate professor of atmospheric science at the University of Louisiana Monroe, said it “had absolutely nothing” to do with the flash floods in Texas.

“Cloud seeding works by adding aerosols to existing clouds,” he said. “It doesn’t work by helping to create a cloud/storm that doesn’t already exist. The storms that produced the rainfall and flooding in Texas were not in existence two days before the event.”

The Texas Hill Country, in the central part of the state, is naturally prone to flash flooding due to the dry, dirt-packed areas where the soil lets rain skid along the surface of the landscape instead of soaking it up.

After a flood watch notice was issued midday on July 3, the National Weather Service issued an urgent warning overnight for at least 30,000 people. The July 4 flash floods started with a particularly bad storm that dropped most of its 12 inches of rain in the dark early morning hours. There was so much rain that the Guadalupe River rose higher than it has in 93 years by almost a foot, according to local reports.

“The natural disaster in the Texan Hill Country is a tragedy. My prayers are with Texas,” Doricko, the Rainmaker CEO, wrote as part of a series of X posts. “Rainmaker did not operate in the affected area on the 3rd or 4th or contribute to the floods that occurred over the region.”

He said Rainmaker’s last cloud seeding operation prior to the floods occurred in the early afternoon on July 2 over eastern portions of south-central Texas. Two clouds were seeded and remained in the sky for about two hours before dissipating. Rainmaker suspended its cloud seeding operations indefinitely the same day in response to “unusually high moisture content.”

Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

By MARYCLAIRE DALE and TASSANEE VEJPONGSA

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — As trash and tempers heat up across Philadelphia on Day 8 of a strike by blue-collar city workers Tuesday, some residents and small business owners are hiring pop-up hauling services to clear their blocks of garbage, even as they broadly support the union’s quest for higher pay.

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Mayor Cherelle Parker, a Democrat, is standing firm in her offer of raises of about 3% per year over a three-year contract, which comes on top of a 5% raise she gave as an olive branch to all four major city unions after taking office last year.

“I do believe that the mayor has made a gross mistake,” said Jody Sweitzer, who has watched her East Passyunk neighborhood in South Philadelphia gentrify in her 26 years there, leading to higher rents and less diversity. Sweitzer owns a popular downtown bar called Dirty Frank’s.

“Forty thousand dollars cannot cut it in Philadelphia, you know,” she said, referring to striking workers’ pay. “You can barely rent an apartment with that kind of money. So I feel as a resident of Philadelphia that she’s doing injustice to those (workers) who actually live here.”

The strike by District Council 33 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees involves nearly 10,000 workers, although judges have sided with the city in ordering some critical employees back to work at the city’s 911 centers, water department and airport. Judges have also decreed a temporary halt on evictions.

The two sides have met only intermittently since the strike began, but there was hope they would return to the bargaining table on Tuesday. In the summer of 1986, a citywide trash strike went on for three weeks, leaving 45,000 tons of rotting garbage in the streets.

Trash is cleaned up at a drop-off site in Philadelphia as thousands of city workers remained on strike Tuesday, July 8, 2025. (WPVI-TV via AP)

Terrill Haigler, 35, a former sanitation worker who now does private hauling under the handle “Ya Fav Trashman,” said stress was on the rise Tuesday along with the 94-degree temperature.

“It’s like Gotham City with water ice,” he said, referencing a local treat that is famously mispronounced “wooder ice” by natives.

“We support District Council 33 100%,” Haigler said. “They deserve everything that they’re asking for, but we also have to think about the residents on the other side. There are some people — elderly, mothers who have children — who can’t let the trash sit for five, six, seven and eight days.”

A shop owner on Sweitzer’s street hired Haigler to clear the block Tuesday. In turn, he hired two teenagers to help him while he drove a rental truck down the narrow, one-way street that ends at Pat’s King of Steaks.

”Our goal is to hopefully relieve some of that tension by cleaning as many blocks as we can, picking up as much trash as we can for customers, just to give some ease and some peace,” Haigler said.

The city has designated about 60 sites as drop-off centers for residential trash, but some are overflowing, while striking workers on hand ask residents not to cross the picket line. Most libraries across the city are also closed, with support workers and security guards off the job.

While Sweitzer hoped the strike would encourage more people to cut down on their trash through composting, city officials said other residents were taking advantage of the situation and discarding mattresses and other bulk items. Offenders in the city’s northeast even put out rotten chicken and cooking oil. The chicken tossers were arrested and face $5,000 fines, according to Carlton Williams, director of the city’s Office of Clean and Green Initiatives.

“This is not a free pass for illegal dumping around the city of Philadelphia,” Williams said Monday.

Rob Dillingham was rolling in January. The rookie point guard was getting more opportunities and taking advantage of them on a night to night basis, flashing his abilities to score and make plays.

Finally, after a 19-point, eight-assist showing in a win over Utah at the end of the month, Timberwolves television analyst Jim Petersen asked the teenager: “Is the game easy for you, Rob?”

“It is pretty easy,” Dillingham said with a big smile, “I’m not gonna lie.”

Then basketball did to Dillingham what it tends to do to players, particularly early in their professional careers – it humbled him.

In February, the guard shot just 36% from the field and 11% from distance. He looked like a different player from one month to the next.

What happened?

“It’s just a mental thing,” Dillingham said. “There was no difference from January to February – other than how I’m thinking about it.”

When he first got his opportunity in January after watching much of the first two-plus months of the season from the bench, Dillingham entered the situation thinking, “What do I have to lose?” He played free, and he delivered some of his best basketball because of it.

But as the calendar flipped, Dillingham noted he started to think about the imminent returns of injured players. Suddenly, every time he’d rise up for a shot, he’d think “Oh, I’ve got to make this to keep playing.”

That mindset rarely works in your favor. Even in the moment, Dillingham was able to attribute some of his struggles to his thought process. But it’s one thing to diagnose it, and it’s another to be able to actually correct course amid the grind that is the NBA season.

“That’s what I’ve learned, for real,” said Dillingham, who will open his second Summer League season on Thursday. “You just have to keep your mentals steady.”

It’s a lesson he partially learned from plane rides sitting by Nickeil Alexander-Walker. The guard, who departed to Atlanta via a sign-and-trade deal this offseason, was previously in a similar spot as Dillingham – coming off the bench, unsure of how many minutes he’d play or what his role would be. It’s a situation most players find themselves in early in their NBA careers.

Alexander-Walker often spoke of the mental challenges that came with the job, particularly the pressure you put on yourself to not mess up, for fear of losing playing time.

How do you deal with the anxiety of knowing a missed shot can lead to a spot on the pine?

“How he fixed it was just to keep doing it,” Dillingham said. “If you mess up, you mess up. What is there to lose, for real?”

Trust in the work. Trust in yourself. The now 20-year-old has buried himself in the gym this offseason. He has put an emphasis on doing what the Timberwolves need from him to be successful. He has taken every opportunity to work on his ability to “run a team” from the point guard spot.

Defense will always be a question mark for the guard, but Wolves Summer League head coach Kevin Hanson was impressed by the way Dillingham dug in on that end, even as a rookie.

Any shortcomings from Dillingham won’t be due to a lack of effort. He can control that.

“It’s not a lot of things you can fully control. When you try to control things, it don’t go your way,” Dillingham said. “When I get an opportunity, try my best and go as hard (as I can). I feel like when you’re scared of failure, that’s when you don’t even exert what you know you’ve got.”

Dillingham admits last season was difficult. He was a teenager who moved to a different part of the country and had to adjust to a new team, a new home and a new lifestyle – one that suddenly included less time playing competitive basketball.

“I’ve been doing this my whole life,” Dillingham said. “Imagine you’ve been doing something your whole life, and then it just stops. You’re still doing it, but (not in the same way). That’s a terrible feeling sometimes.”

And there are very few familiar things around you to provide comfort.

“Obviously it’s hard, stressful,” Dillingham said. “You don’t know what to think sometimes. It makes you angry.”

But Dillingham hit a point where his perspective shifted. He started to view the situation as a challenge from God. He realized such challenges were a part of life that would aid in his elevation. How he handled it would determine his trajectory.

“I try to do my best every day. Obviously, I fall back into negative patterns sometimes. But humans do that. If you’re human, you’re going to mess up,”  Dillingham said. “Just keep going. No matter what we’re going to go through, you’ve just got to keep going and keep going, keep going. That’s how I look at it.”

And, eventually, you’ll come out on the other side. That’s where Dillingham may be now. He’s set up with a real opportunity to earn consistent playing time next season for the Timberwolves after leading the Summer League team this month as his comfortable, confident self.

“That’s really the main thing I’m focused on,” Dillingham said. “I’ve been working hard, and I feel like I do feel like a chance is coming. So it’s up to me to make the most of it.”

Minnesota Timberwolves guard Rob Dillingham (4) shoots over Denver Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon, center left, during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)