Ahead of Game 4 of the WNBA Finals against the New York Liberty, star Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier spoke of another passion beyond the basketball court.

Collier is an outspoken advocate for reproductive rights. She’s carrying a message of supporting women’s right to choose and recently partnered with the country’s first over-the-counter birth control pill.

It’s not lost on her that the WNBA playoffs is coinciding with an unprecedented, overdue spotlight on women’s sports, particularly in professional basketball, but also in the political arena as the country decides whether to elect its first woman president.

“I feel like women’s sports is a reflection of society,” Collier said in an exclusive pregame interview Friday. “You see us growing, you see women in society getting more powerful. … Women are just on such a rise as a whole. So it’s really fun to be a part of that in a small way. Obviously, this is a game, things much bigger are happening. But to be a part of it anyway, it’s really exciting.”

Collier, 28, who is balancing her WNBA career with motherhood, explained why she has been so vocal on the issue of reproductive rights. “Because so many of our rights feel like they’re getting rolled back, and they are in danger of that happening. So we have to be able to vote accordingly.”

KFF surveyed 678 female voters Sept. 12 through Oct. 1. The follow-up survey group was supplemented with 29 Black women to ensure an adequate sample size of that group. Abortion is the “most important issue” for more than one in four Black women voters, the survey found.

It’s long been a key political issue, but has grown since 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, opening the door for states to impose abortion bans.

A Ramsey County jury acquitted a former St. Thomas student and track athlete of sexual assault after he was accused of raping a freshman female track athlete at a house party where other members of the men’s track team lived.

Jack S. Osborne, 25, of St. Paul, was found not guilty on one count of third-degree sexual assault Friday after being charged with the crime in March 2023. Jurors deliberated for 90 minutes before delivering their verdict. The trial lasted 11 days.

Attorney Nicole Kettwick, who represented Osborne, said her office hired independent investigators who spoke with several witnesses who were at the party on March 5, 2022, in the 2100 block of Lincoln Avenue in St. Paul.

“From our perspective, it’s a shame that the state doesn’t have more resources to investigate these cases in the first place,” Kettwick said.

She said the party had “40 or 50 people, many witnesses at it. I think state investigators talked to five or six people.” She said private investigators also went through text messages and social media posts that helped build Osborne’s defense.

Ramsey County Attorney’s Office spokesman Dennis Gerhardstein said in a statement that, “While we are disappointed in the jury’s decision, we respect their verdict. Taking on these difficult cases starts with a willingness to believe victims who report sexual violence. We felt we held true to that commitment despite today’s outcome.”

Police met with the accuser two days after the party in 2022. She reported she blacked out and awoke to find Osborne raping her at the house where Osborne and other St. Thomas track athletes lived. The woman, not old to enough to drink alcohol, and others on the women’s track team went to a initiation party at about 7:30 p.m. that night and were served liquor. She said she drank a vodka cranberry cocktail and three hard seltzers. After that, the women’s team went to the house party.

Osborne was arrested, told police he did nothing wrong and said nothing further.

During his service, he was well-liked in his role as a medic, and in one incident saved another soldier’s hand after an injury, wrote Lance Owens, who said he served with Covert.

Covert had a difficult time transitioning to civilian life, his friends and family said. He told friends that while he was in Afghanistan, he saw a pregnant woman who had been torn apart by a bomb, and had seen a friend die, said Janet Wigfield, who said she knows him through his aunt, in a court filing.

Over the summer, one of Covert’s close friends died in a freak accident, a loss that he took especially hard, Owens and Johnson said in their letters.

Court filings show Covert had numerous run-ins with the police over the summer. On Aug. 1, Edina police said they responded to a disturbance in which Covert was overheard yelling that he had been contacted by Satan, and that Christians were under attack.

Five days later, Edina police said they were called to Our Lady of Grace Church after a report that Covert wanted to kill himself. Officers said they found Covert in a nearby park, and that he had told them he was a veteran and had recently lost a friend.

On Aug. 28, police said they received two calls about a possible suicide in Redwood Falls’ sprawling Ramsey Park around 9:43 p.m. There, police said they found a car registered to Covert and inside were camping supplies, a Bible and a crucifix. As police and a search dog scoured the 256-acre park and its miles of hiking trails and rocky outcroppings, they called out into the darkness, “Christopher, it’s the police, we are here to help you!”