LAS VEGAS -- Miesha Tate has never appreciated questions about Ronda Rousey before. But this one was different.
Asked in an interview earlier this week with CBS Sports whether Rousey"s absence, and the fact women"s mixed martial arts is currently driven by narratives that have nothing to do with her, is good for the sport, Tate sounded eager and excited to give an answer.
This was her kind of Ronda Rousey question.
"We always got criticized for not having enough depth," she said. "And I think having the belt change a couple times is the best thing that could have happened. Instead of singling out one female that has to carry the entire sport, we have to disperse and make more stars, which helps legitimize the sport of women"s MMA."
And that was before happenstance put Tate on a course to be the top fight Saturday at UFC 200. She has an opportunity push women"s MMA markedly forward, all despite holding a belt without ever having defeated Rousey herself.
First, Holly Holm stunned the sport at UFC 193 with a win over Rousey. Then, in Holm"s first title defense at UFC 196, it was Tate who made sure the women"s bantamweight title again changed hands.
Now, it"s Jon Jones and his failed drug test who can be thanked for giving the women a shot at further establishing themselves in a sport that was male-dominated for far too long. Tate"s title defense against Amanda Nunes has been promoted to the top of UFC 200 by president Dana White. It is a seminal moment for women, a touchstone that shows how far they have come in being treated as equals in one of the world"s most violent sports.
"This really proves there is depth and that"s exactly why I"ve been saying Amanda is dangerous," Tate said. "Just as they underestimated me with Holly, and Holly with Ronda, the mistake I don"t want to make is follow suit in that."
Still, the fact that UFC 200"s top fight features two women -- neither named Ronda Rousey -- speaks to a sea change. Unseen depth is one thing. But now that depth is front and center being called upon to protect what -- for White and the UFC -- was turning into an epic disaster.
Let"s not pretend otherwise: Women"s sports have always played a distant second fiddle to their men"s counterparts. The WNBA does not remotely approach the NBA in terms of relevance. Women"s golf is, at best, an afterthought. Same for women"s college hoops. Even women"s tennis, with Serena Williams still active as one of the sport"s all-time players, has not broken through the way it should. Williams herself correctly pointed out at Wimbledon this year that she and other women are too often relegated to less glamorous courts while the top men routinely play on Centre Court.
The only time, outside UFC 200 this weekend, that women"s sports otherwise get top billing is the Olympics. And that"s mostly amateur sports, every two years, and due as much to nationalism as sporting fervor.
On the surface, UFC does not seem like the place for the women to make a major breakthrough. It is a b****y and violent combat sport, and as such, it leans heavily on notions of strength, masculinity and the celebration of violence. Women can compete in these spheres, of course, but fans embracing them doing so is a whole other thing. See: boxing.
But thanks largely to Rousey, the women"s end of MMA has become mainstream. She came onto the scene as glamorous, talented, unrelenting, charismatic, biting and above all else a brutal and gifted fighter -- all things that would power a man to stardom. UFC, with a fan base that recognized greatness and tactical skill, bought in. And a crossover star was born.
Then, after Holm proved Rousey was beatable, Tate helped turn the women"s end of the sport into a sensation even with Rousey out of the picture. I was at UFC 196, and her battle with and takedown of Holm was thrilling and wonderful to watch. Not for a woman"s sport, not with some sexist asterisk -- just as a spectacle of two competitors battling for greatness while fans like me reveled in the thrill of the battle.
"You feel more -- I guess that best way I can describe it is "primal,"" Tate said of being in the Octagon. "You think of the primal days when you had to fight for what was yours. There"s no law, no guardian, nothing protecting me and what I have except for my own skill and my own defense and my own will and determination. It"s so raw and pure that it"s just me and her. All the pressure falls on my shoulders to defend what"s mine."
Yes, that is at stake: Tate trying to prove she is no one-hit wonder, no one-time champ, no chump. At Friday"s weigh in, she and Nunes locked arms, tussled, ratcheted up the disrespect and anger. They are both fighting not just against each other but for their places in the sport.
But together, they are fighting for more. Now atop the UFC 200 card, a great fight -- another thrilling match, regardless of who actually wins -- will further cement women"s MMA as a crucial and captivating part of one of the country"s fastest growing sports.
CNN Student News - 06/03/16 The suspected Dallas sniper who killed five police officers has been identified as Micah Xavier Johnson, a 25-year-old from Mesquite, Texas. The Dallas shootings, like the one carried out last year by Dylann Roof on a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, that left nine people dead, were politically motivated.
Roof said he wanted to start a "race war," officials said, and he posted racist screeds on a white supremacist site.
Johnson "wanted to kill officers, and he expressed killing white people, he expressed killing white officers, he expressed anger for Black Lives Matter," Dallas police Chief David Brown said.
On his Facebook page, Johnson poses with a clenched fist as if delivering a Black Power salute.
Terrorism is generally understood to be acts of violence conducted against civilians for political purposes. Killing white police officers who are guarding a peaceful demonstration certainly qualifies as terrorism, in the same way that Roof"s attack on black churchgoers does.
The Dallas attack is the first instance of deadly terrorism seemingly motivated by extreme left-wing ideology in the post-9/11 era. Brown called it a "a well-planned, well-thought out, evil tragedy."There have been anti-police attacks in which the perpetrators linked their actions to jihadist ideology. In October 2014, Zale Thompson, 32, who, police said became radicalized by reading ISIS-related material, attacked officers in Queens, New York, with a hatchet, critically injuring one of them. He was shot to death by police. In January, Edward Archer, a 30-year-old, shot and wounded a police officer in Philadelphia, and authorities said he told them he did it for ISIS. There have also been deadly anti-police terrorist attacks by far-right militants. On June 8, 2014, Jerad Miller and Amanda Miller killed two police officers in an ambush at a pizza restaurant in Las Vegas before committing suicide. The couple left a note referencing revolution and Jerad Miller had a history of anti-government posts online and had traveled to Cliven Bundy"s ranch in Nevada during the early 2014 standoff between armed ranchers allied with anti-government militias and the police. But there hasn"t been a case of lethal terrorism emanating from the left for more than a decade and a half. In the post-9/11 era, left-wing plots have tended to target property. The FBI considers militant animal rights and eco-terrorism groups as a top domestic terrorism priority, though their violence has resulted in no deaths. During the 1970s, terrorist attacks by leftists were far more common. The Black Panthers and their splinter groups carried out a number of bombings and assaults. So too did the Weather Underground and its splinter groups.
These leftist militant groups largely disappeared in the 1980s, and since then lethal domestic terrorist attacks, such as the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, have either been carried out by far-right or by jihadist terrorists, as we saw last month in Orlando and in December in San Bernardino, California.
Now law enforcement must focus, once again, on the possibility that far-left militants may carry out lethal attacks.
Peter Bergen is CNN"s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of "United States of Jihad: Investigating America"s Homegrown Terrorists." David Sterman is a senior program associate at New America"s International Security Program and holds a master"s degree from Georgetown University"s Center for Security Studies.
Rudy Giuliani: No Evidence Clinton Intended To Violate Law - Fox News 7/5/16
The House overwhelmingly approved a pair of measures Thursday aimed at blocking Boeing from selling aircraft to Iran, amid fears the deal could end up benefiting the countrys military as well as terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
"To give these types of planes to the Iranian regime, which still is the world"s largest state sponsor of terror, is to give them a product that can be used for a military purpose," said Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., who sponsored the measures.
The amendments to a separate spending bill are aimed at the agreement struck last month between the Chicago-based company and Iran Air.The deal is estimated to involve roughly 100 aircraft, consisting of 777s and 737s, and be worth up to $25 billion.
The controversial agreement -- along with another involving Boeing"sEuropean rival, Airbus -- was made possible by the easing of trade sanctions under the Iran nuclear deal. Lawmakers had raised objections even before the deal was signed in late June, and quickly scrambled to move legislation.
One of the Roskam-sponsored amendments would prohibit the Office of Foreign Assets Control from using funds to authorize a license for aircraft to be sold to Iran Boeing would need such a license to make the sales.
The other amendment would block Iran from receiving loans from U.S. financial institutions to purchase military-fungible aircraft. A spokesman for Roskam told FoxNews.com that while Iran has not announced how it would secure financing, there are very few financial institutions outside the U.S. big enough to handle such a transaction.
Both amendments passed by voice vote in the House and were added to a financial services spending bill that passed 239-185. The bill must be reconciled with the Senate version before it can reach President Obamas desk.
However, even if the Iran measures end up in the final bill, Obama would likely veto the package if he thinks the measures would undermine the nuclear deal itself.
The administration has not officially objected to the Boeing-Iran deal at this stage.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said last month the sale and any possible future deals depend on Iran"s good behavior and said the U.S. could revoke the license for the deal if planes, parts or services are "used for purposes other than exclusively civil aviation end-use" or if aircraft are transferred to individuals or companies on a U.S. terrorism blacklist.
Any suggestion "that we would or will turn a blind eye to Iran"s state sponsorship of terrorism or their terrorist-supporting activities is completely without merit," Kirby said.
Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment from FoxNews.com.
The company issued a statement to The Associated Press after the agreement was signed last month, saying it went ahead "under authorizations from the U.S. government following a determination that Iran had met its obligations under the nuclear accord reached last summer."
Roskam, though, warned the aircraft could be used by Irans Revolutionary Guard.
"To give these types of planes to the Iranian regime, which still is the world"s largest state sponsor of terror, is to give them a product that can be used for a military purpose," Roskam said, claiming the aircraft could be reconfigured to carry 100 ballistic missiles or 15,000 rocket-propelled grenades.
Roskam, along with Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, wrote to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg in June expressing concern that the planes could also be used to help terrorist groups.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) systematically uses commercial aircraft to transport troops, weapons, military-related parts, rockets, and missiles to hostile actors around the world, including, but not limited to, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Houthi Rebels in Yemen, and the Bashar Al-Assad Regime in Syria," they wrote.
These terrorist groups and rogue regimes have American blood on their hands. Your potential customers do as well, the lawmakers wrote.
While the amendments gained significant bipartisan support, Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., opposed the measure saying it was part of a Republican plan to make the nuclear agreement, and the Obama administration, look bad.
FoxNews.coms Adam Shaw and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Gilbert Arenas My NBA Contract"s the Worst In History Yeah, I Can See That
Gilbert Arenas couldnt find any NBA team who wanted him, so he went over to Nick Youngs house to cause some trouble after the L.A. Laker broke up with his Aussie girlfriend Iggy Azalea.
In videos you can see above and below, Agent Zero a.k.a. Hibachi crashes Nick Youngs crib to f**k with his kid, throw the childs toys off the couch and toss the young boys scooter across the lawn. Nick Young is heard yelling at Gilbert multiple times.
He asks Nick where the b*****s are at, paints over Iggys name in the crib, and makes fun of Swaggy P for not getting any playing time despite having a basketball court in his backyard.
The internet seems to be loving all this, but earlier this week Iggy sent a message to Nick Young and his baby mother, who he was apparently cheating with long after getting engaged to Azalea. When approached by TMZ in the airport, Iggy just flipped the finger, then clarified that it was meant for her ex.
Gilbert Arenas Sneaks into Nick Young House and Clowns him over losing Iggy Azalea.
Gilbert Arenas couldnt find any NBA team who wanted him, so he went over to Nick Youngs house to cause some trouble after the L.A. Laker broke up with his Aussie girlfriend Iggy Azalea.
In videos you can see above and below, Agent Zero a.k.a. Hibachi crashes Nick Youngs crib to f**k with his kid, throw the childs toys off the couch and toss the young boys scooter across the lawn. Nick Young is heard yelling at Gilbert multiple times.
He asks Nick where the b*****s are at, paints over Iggys name in the crib, and makes fun of Swaggy P for not getting any playing time despite having a basketball court in his backyard.
The internet seems to be loving all this, but earlier this week Iggy sent a message to Nick Young and his baby mother, who he was apparently cheating with long after getting engaged to Azalea. When approached by TMZ in the airport, Iggy just flipped the finger, then clarified that it was meant for her ex.
The protesters were angry, but they were peaceful. Even the uniformed police officers walking and taking pictures with them symbols of the system they were denouncing remarked how smoothly the Thursday evening march through downtown Dallas was going.
But nearby, someone far angrier was about to take aim.
The marchers were about 800 strong blacks and whites, adults and children, veteran activists and regular citizens venting their frustration with the recent killings of black men by cops in Louisiana and Minnesota. They streamed through the sticky heat with chants of "Enough is enough" and "Hands up, don"t shoot."
People rally in Dallas, Texas, on Thursday, July 7, 2016 to protest the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. LAURA BUCKMAN / AFP - Getty Images
At the front of the procession, near the intersection of Commerce Street and Austin Street, organizer Jeff Hood carried a 10-foot cross and chatted with a sergeant. The rally was winding down. It was 8:58 p.m.
"All of a sudden: pow-pow. Pow-pow-pow-pow. Pow-pow," Hood recalled. He looked up and saw what he believed was two officers drop. He felt his body to make sure he hadn"t been hit. He called out to anyone who could hear: "Run, run!" Holding his cross high, he tried to lead the way.
"We were all wondering how something so beautiful could turn so evil so quickly," Hood said later.
The scene lurched into pandemonium, marchers screaming and scrambling for cover, grabbing kids.
"It was chaotic. People were trying to find shelter. No one knows who"s shooting, or where the shots are coming from," the Rev. Michael Waters said. "Individuals were with me gathered behind a pillar. And as individuals continued to run in our direction, I felt unsafe and began to move individuals with me to another location where we could get out of the way of the gunfire."
The shooting continued in bursts, echoing off the downtown high-rises. To Carlos Harris, the rhythm of the gunfire made it sound strategic. "It was tap, tap, pause. Tap, tap pause," he told the Dallas Morning News.
It was clear to anyone there who was being targeted. "I didn"t see anybody else get shot, just the cops. I saw cops getting shot, right there in plain sight," Cortney Washington told NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.
But others got hit. Shetamia Taylor, who"d brought her four sons to the march, was shot in her right calf, and immediately threw herself over one of her boys, her sister said. The other three darted for cover.
Dallas Police respond to gunfire. Reuters
Officers ran to their fallen colleagues. Others pulled their guns and searched for the source of the gunfire. More patrol cars rushed to the scene, sirens blaring. The air began to reek of gunpowder.
In the chaos it was impossible to tell how many people were firing on them. Officers began ordering suspicious looking people down on the ground, but it was unclear that they were involved.
"Shots fired. Officer down. Assist officer," one barked over the police radio.
A man raises his hands as he walks near a law enforcement officer, following the shootings Thursday of several police officers in downtown Dallas, early on July 8. LM Otero / AP
Gunfire cracked in the background. An officer called out, "Get over here."
A bit later: "Yo, we got a guy with a long rifle, but we don"t where the h**l he"s at."
Witnesses spotted him, dressed in what appeared to be khaki military gear near the entrance of a building at El Centro College on Lamar Street. One man told a local television station that he"d watched as the gunman pulled on a tactical vest and opened fire on a passing police car.
In a confrontation captured by a witness" video camera from above, a police officer rushed at the gunman, shooting while taking cover from behind a pillar. The gunman turned on the officer and shot him down.
People kept scattering, not sure where to go. Parents lost track of their children, wives of their husbands.
Police investigate the ambush scene. Mark Mulligan / AP
"The most terrifying part was us being separated and not knowing where the bullets were coming from and seeing an officer just drop in front of you," said Earnest Walker III, a pastor who"d brought his college-age son, also named Earnest, to the march.
"They were there to support us," Walker said.
"They were helping us," his son said.
The young man added, "This was supposed to be a good thing. Everyone was working together."
Officers and a protester at Belo Garden Park in Dallas, before the ambush. Dallas Police Department
At some point, the gunman, later identified by a senior law enforcement official as 25-year-old Army veteran Micah Xavier Johnson, entered an El Centro College parking garage, where police cornered him. Over the next few hours, officers spoke with him. He told them he was upset about the Black Lives Matter movement, and about this week"s police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota, and about white people. "The suspect stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers," Dallas Police Chief David Brown said.
The gunman also told officers he wasn"t connected to any groups and was acting alone, Brown said. He warned that he"d placed bombs nearby.
A clerk looks at broke windows shot out at a store in downtown Dallas. LM Otero / AP
Finally, in Friday"s early morning hours, negotiations broke down, and a shootout erupted, police said. Police sent in a bomb robot, armed with explosives, aimed it at the gunman and detonated it. Johnson was killed.
Senior U.S. law enforcement officials told NBC News that the investigation has led them to believe that Johnson was the lone gunman, although that conclusion could change. And authorities are still trying to determine if any others helped him. Three people were taken into custody prior to his death, police said, but they had not been identified as suspects.
The gunfire"s final toll: 12 police officers shot, five fatally, and two civilians injured.
The long night ended at Baylor Medical Center, were some of the injured were taken. In the predawn quiet, officers waiting outside snapped to attention. They saluted as two bodies were carried outside and placed into a medical examiner"s van. A police escort arrived, and led the van away.
