Lost in the noise over the Trump administration’s policies at the border is the difference between illegal immigrants and people seeking legal asylum. Walther, who runs her own law firm in Minneapolis, is now organizing other attorneys to volunteer remotely, helping prepare legal briefs on behalf of asylum seekers, or to volunteer in the detention centers themselves. She’s also handling pro bono the asylum case of a Honduran family she met at Karnes. They recently moved to Minneapolis with the help of a sponsor family after being released—Walther met them on her plane home.

Walther is one of a growing number of lawyers, interpreters and other professionals across the U.S. claimed as members of Lawyers for Good Government, a nonprofit whose founder says it’s nonpartisan, but progressive. (The group said that 10 percent to 15 percent of its 125,000 Facebook followers are active members, by either volunteering or donating.) Little known outside legal circles, the organization was launched as a Facebook group the day after Donald Trump was elected president. L4GG screens attorneys such as Walther—who heads the group’s Minnesota chapter—and funnels them to legal services groups. “L4GG has people who identify as independents, Republicans, Democrats—it’s all across the spectrum,” she said.

After the first Trump administration ban on travel to the U.S. from Muslim-majority countries, the group directed hundreds of lawyers via the web to airports across the nation, coordinated volunteers with legal services groups and had international members hand out know-your-rights flyers in more than 20 languages at airports around the world. L4GG also runs programs in areas including prevention of voter suppression and environmental protection. Adam Cohen, a Westchester, N.Y., attorney who joined L4GG’s board of directors last year, said there are a lot of attorneys out there “dying to do something, not just donate money.”

But showing up isn’t all that’s needed—many practitioners have little or no experience in these arenas. Full-time civil rights advocates such as Terri Burke, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, welcome the outpouring, with the caveat that volunteers need to be trained and managed to be effective.

It is one of five defamation lawsuits against Jones now working their way through the courts — three brought by Bankston in Jones’ home turf of Austin— that collectively threaten Jones’ long and enormously lucrative run as the nation’s premier conspiracy theorist, a formerly outsider role that has made Jones, in this topsy-turvy political moment, one of President Donald Trump’s most influential media allies and defenders.

If the Travis County Sandy Hook case makes it to trial, it could become an epic courtroom showdown, heading into Trump’s re-election campaign, over where to draw the line between free speech and libel in an era of competing claims of “fake news.”

Bankston and Dallas attorney Mark Enoch, representing Jones, will be in a Travis County courtroom Wednesday arguing over Enoch’s motion to dismiss the defamation case under the Texas Citizens Participation Act — a law unanimously passed by the Legislature in 2011 and signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry that was intended to protect citizens’ First Amendment rights from meritless claims intended to silence them. Bankston said the law is being invoked in this case as nothing more than a stalling tactic.

Enoch argues that the suit is a “strategic device” to silence Jones “as well as anyone else who refuses to accept what the mainstream media and government tell them, and prevent them from expressing any doubt or raising questions.”

With 12 franchises based in 11 cities across the U.S. and around the world, OWL boasts founding families such as the Krafts (New England Patriots), the Kroenkes (Los Angeles Rams) and the Wilpons (New York Mets).

Why did these American sports titans invest millions in a brand-new esports league? Because there had never been anything like the Overwatch League before. It is the most ambitious esports project ever attempted -- a truly global league whose success could transform the gaming landscape once and for all.

To pull this off, Blizzard aggressively recruited traditional sports owners like the Krafts, and now, on the first day of the Overwatch League finals at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, that investment will reach its zenith. Here's the inside story of how Blizzard convinced one of the most successful owners in sports to join its very new, very risky venture.,,,,

ctivision Blizzard officially announces the first seven Overwatch League franchises, based in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Shanghai and Seoul. Among the new owners are the Wilpon family, owners of the New York Mets, as well as endemic esports organizations like NRG Esports, Immortals and Misfits, who between them have investment from owners of the Sacramento Kings, Memphis Grizzlies and Miami Heat.

It’s hot and muggy outside, but fortunately this basketball game is indoors and the players all seem pretty locked in. The one they call “Boo” is particularly chatty, talking his team through an intense weekday scrimmage.

“Good ‘D’ there,” he calls out. “Got to get a stop. … All right, good board. … Yo, everybody stay home on your shots.” And so on.

Even as the score tightens and the players look winded, he never breaks a sweat. Austin “Boo” Painter plays basketball five days a week alongside his teammates, all lined up against one wall, all facing oversized screens and holding video-game controllers. Painter is the leading scorer for Wizards District Gaming, which is in the midst of its inaugural NBA 2K season, a fledgling league that’s backed by the NBA.

The upstart is trying to capitalize on the esports explosion — big-name investors are lining up to get involved in various teams and leagues, and even the International Olympic Committee has taken an interest — and in the process the new NBA 2K League has helped carve out unlikely career paths for sports gamers, perhaps few as improbable as Painter’s.

There had been trepidation in scheduling the championship at Barclays Center because, until now, all the teams had played the entire season in the 450-seat Blizzard Arena in Burbank, Calif. Could they really sell 20,000 tickets in New York, what one executive called “the capital of the universe?”

The crowd, announced as 11,000, might not have reached the desired number but their volume helped bridge the discrepancy. Spray-painted sidewalks alerted the unknowing that the Big Apple was at esports’ epicenter. Fans from Staten Island and California and Canada and South Korea flocked to Barclays. Jerseys in dark blue and light blue and orange and green dotted the streets and subway cars. For a 7 p.m. start, fans lined up at the door at about 2:30.