This should be a golden age for the WNBA. The Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark helped push the league to new heights of popularity, and players are making more money than ever. But controversies are plaguing the league, Clark has become an unwilling symbol of racial polarization, and GOP members of Congress are entering the fray.

‘Losing control of its story’
The House Republican Study Committee this month asked the WNBA to “investigate the on-court treatment” of Clark, said The Hill. The popular player has been “hip-checked, poked in the eye and struck in the throat” by other players in game action that has gone “far beyond routine physical play,” said Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) in a letter to league officials, following a controversial flagrant foul on Clark by the Phoenix Mercury’s Alyssa Thomas.

It was the latest in a series of conservative complaints that “many WNBA players, particularly Black players,” are hostile to Clark, said Bobby Burack at Fox News. Clark has resisted being cast as an avatar in the culture wars. “People should not be using my name to push those agendas,” she said to reporters in 2024, per ESPN.

The WNBA is “losing control of its own story” to “right-wing grifters” who have taken hold of the narrative surrounding its most popular player, said Seerat Sohi at The Ringer. The league has become “fertile ground for these types of shenanigans” because it surged into popularity at the same moment the country became “embroiled in a cultural, political and legal fight over the role of women in society.” 

‘Political football’
“This isn’t fun,” said Candace Buckner at The Athletic. Clark’s ascendance was supposed to be “magic” for sports fans “watching, celebrating and obsessing over women’s sports.” The “justifiable anger” over the foul sparked “racial attacks” and death threats against Thomas, set off a new round of controversy over WNBA officiating, and even prompted commentary from President Donald Trump. It’s all a lot for basketball fans who “just want a little fun.”

It’s “incredibly unfair” that Clark has become a “bit of a political football,” said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver yesterday at the Game Plan Summit, per ESPN. The upside is that Clark has helped “significantly increase” the league’s popularity, said the outlet. The downside is that “race, officiating and politics” are dominating the conversation.

Until the 1980s, Old Masters, paintings typically completed before 1850, “ruled the art world,” said The Economist. But then collectors began to see the “centuries-spanning” category as “too old-timey,” turning instead to more modern and Impressionist art. But now art experts are noticing a rise in Old Masters’ sales again and dramatic changes in the attitudes of collectors and artists alike.

‘Primed to connect’
Old Masters have had “new life breathed into them,” said The Economist. In 2025, global sales of the paintings reached $1.2 billion, “30% higher than a year earlier.” And it’s younger buyers who are “showing more enthusiasm.”

The contemporary art market has been showing “signs of volatility,” causing collectors to turn to Old Masters that are more “stable and significantly less expensive,” said The Economist. There’s also an element of “scarcity” that makes them more attractive, as higher numbers of the older paintings enter museum collections with each passing year.

Portraits and figurative art are particularly “in vogue” because they are so “Instagrammable,” said The Economist. People are drawn to what appears to be a “simpler life (if you ignore the revolutions, plagues and awful dentistry of past eras).” And they are so used to seeing pictures of people online that observers are “primed to connect to painted ones.”

‘Embraced’ by emerging artists
In the past, lesser-known artists would imitate bigger names — in effect, “art historical name-dropping” — to improve the “gravity and market confidence” of their works, said J. Cabelle Ahn at Artnet. Cynics would call the modern-day evoking of the Old Masters style a form of “reference-baiting.” 

But one of the main reasons for this “trans-historical escalation” is “technological unease,” said Ahn. Not only do artists fear being eclipsed by AI, but there’s also a movement to explore “foundational concepts like meaning and originality in the endless sea of information.”

In addition to being “back in a big way” for collectors, figurative painting is being “embraced” by large numbers of emerging artists “keen to demonstrate their skills,” said Chloe Stead at the Financial Times. This could be guided by materials and neglected older techniques, appearing “new.” Oil paint became popular in the Netherlands in the 12th century, and now for artists seeking to create realistic images, there’s “no better alternative.”

Utility repair workers stand near a sinkhole on Los Angeles’ Sunset Boulevard after a broken water main flooded the surrounding streets in West Hollywood, California. The incident sent thousands of gallons of water rushing down streets in the early morning hours.
Mario Tama / Getty Images

The messy, confusing, glorious process of becoming an adult has been the backbone of countless wonderful movies, with some of them, like the underrated 1986 drama “Lucas,” currently lost to the streaming world. While everyone surely has their favorite, these beautiful films capture the highs and lows of moving from one phase of life to the next.

‘The Breakfast Club’ (1985)
In this classic movie (pictured above), a group of suburban Chicago high school malcontents from rival cliques are forced to spend a long Saturday detention together. Director John Hughes’ “simple one-location talkie” brings Generation X’s “submerged angst to the surface” in a movie that’s “still the definitive ’80s teen movie,” said Simon Crook at Empire. (Netflix)

‘Pariah’ (2011)
Adepero Oduye is Alike, a 17-year-old girl whose conservative parents’ marriage is falling apart around her in their Brooklyn apartment. Alike knows she’s a lesbian but hasn’t told anyone. A tremendous turn from the then-unknown Oduye helps carry this quietly powerful film. It’s a “tender, sporadically goofy, yet candid examination of emergent identity,” making it the “finest coming-of-age movie I have seen in years,” said Ella Taylor at NPR. (Netflix)

‘Boyhood’ (2014)
There may never be another film like director Richard Linklater’s stunning ‘Boyhood.” Linklater followed the same group of actors over the course of 12 years, with a total of just 39 days of filming. Through its unique structure, this “beautiful, simple and ambitious” movie lovingly “creates the closest thing to a real experience as few motion pictures ever have,” said Brian Eggert at Deep Focus Review. (Netflix)