Clark first rookie to make All-WNBA 1st team since 2008, joined by unanimous choices Wilson, Collier

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Rookie guard Caitlin Clark added another accolade to her outstanding first season, earning All-WNBA honors Wednesday.

The Indiana Fever guard became the first rookie to make the team since Candace Parker did it in 2008. She's the fifth rookie ever to have that honor, joining Sue Bird, Tamika Catchings and Diana Taurasi.

Las Vegas Aces forward A'ja Wilson and Minnesota's Napheesa Collier were unanimous first-team selections. Breanna Stewart of New York and Alyssa Thomas of Connecticut rounded out the positionless five-person team.

Wilson, the league's unanimous choice as MVP, earned a spot on the first team for the third consecutive season and fourth time overall. Collier, a three-time All-WNBA team selection, was voted to the first team for the second straight year.

Clark earned 52 first-team votes and was on 66 of the 67 ballots that were submitted by a national media panel. She averaged a league-high 8.4 assists per game in addition to 19.2 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game. She made 122 3-pointers to lead the league and helped the Fever make the playoffs for the first time since 2016.

New York had three of the 10 players on the two teams with Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones earning second-team honors. They were joined by Phoenix's Kahleah Copper, Seattle's Nneka Ogwumike and Dallas' Arike Ogunbowale.

AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

New York Liberty's Leonie Fiebich, left, dribbles against Minnesota Lynx's Napheesa Collier, right, during the first half in Game 2 of a WNBA basketball final playoff series, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)

Clark first rookie to make All-WNBA 1st team since 2008, joined by unanimous choices Wilson, Collier

Clark first rookie to make All-WNBA 1st team since 2008, joined by unanimous choices Wilson, Collier

Las Vegas Aces center A'ja Wilson reacts after her team is called for a foul during the second half of a WNBA Semifinal basketball game against the New York Liberty, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Ian Maule)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday the Pentagon will not publicly release unedited video of a U.S. military strike that killed two survivors of an initial attack on a boat allegedly carrying cocaine in the Caribbean, as questions mounted in Congress about the incident and the overall buildup of U.S. military forces near Venezuela.

President Donald Trump further ramped up the pressure late Tuesday by announcing a blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers into Venezuela, which has long relied on oil revenue as the lifeblood of its economy.

Hegseth said members of the Armed Services Committee in the House and Senate would have an opportunity this week to review the attack video, but did not say whether all members of Congress would be allowed to see it as well.

“Of course we're not going to release a top secret, full, unedited video of that to the general public,” Hegseth told reporters as he exited a closed-door briefing with senators.

Trump's Cabinet members overseeing national security were on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to defend a campaign that has killed at least 95 people in 25 known strikes on vessels in international waters in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Overall, they defended the campaign as a success, saying it has prevented drugs from reaching American shores, and they pushed back on concerns that it is stretching the bounds of lawful warfare.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters the campaign is a “counter-drug mission” that is “focused on dismantling the infrastructure of these terrorist organizations that are are operating in our hemisphere, undermining the security of Americans, killing Americans, poisoning Americans.”

Lawmakers have been focused on the Sept. 2 attack on two survivors as they sift through the rationale for a broader U.S. military buildup in the region. On the eve of the briefings, the U.S. military said it attacked three more boats believed to have been smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing eight people.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Hegseth had come “empty handed” to the briefing, without a pledge to more broadly release the video of the Sept. 2 strike.

“If they can’t be transparent on this, how can you trust their transparency on all the other issues swirling about in the Caribbean?” the New York Democrat said.

Senators on both sides of the aisle said the officials left them in the dark about Trump's goals when it comes to President Nicolás Maduro or sending U.S. forces directly to the South American nation.

“I want to address the question, is it the goal to take him out? If it’s not the goal to take him out, you’re making a mistake,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who defended the legality of the campaign and said he wanted to see Maduro removed from power.

The U.S. has deployed warships, flown fighter jets near Venezuelan airspace and seized an oil tanker as part of its campaign against Maduro, who has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from office. Maduro said on a weekly state television show Monday that his government still does not know the whereabouts of the tanker’s crew. He criticized the United Nations for not speaking out against what he described as an “act of piracy” against “a private ship carrying Venezuelan oil.”

Maduro's government for years has evaded U.S. oil sanctions by smuggling its crude into global supply chains on a shadow fleet of unflagged tankers.

Trump's Republican administration has not sought any authorization from Congress for action against Venezuela. The go-it-alone approach, experts say, has led to problematic military actions, none more so than the strike that killed two people who had climbed on top of part of a boat that had been partially destroyed in an initial attack.

“If it’s not a war against Venezuela, then we’re using armed force against civilians who are just committing crimes,” said John Yoo, a Berkeley Law professor who helped craft the George W. Bush administration's legal arguments and justification for aggressive interrogation after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “Then this question, this worry, becomes really pronounced. You know, you’re shooting civilians. There’s no military purpose for it."

Yet for the first several months, Congress received little more than a trickle of information about why or how the U.S. military was conducting the operations. At times, lawmakers have learned of strikes from social media after the Pentagon posted videos of boats bursting into flames.

Hegseth now faces language included in an annual military policy bill that threatens to withhold a quarter of his travel budget if the Pentagon does not provide unedited video of the strikes to the House and Senate Committees on Armed Services.

For some, the controversy over the footage demonstrates the flawed rationale behind the entire campaign.

“The American public ought to see it. I think shooting unarmed people floundering in the water, clinging to wreckage, is not who we are as a people," said Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who has been an outspoken critic of the campaign.

But senators were told the Trump administration won’t release all of the Sept. 2 attack footage because it would reveal U.S. military practices on intelligence gathering, said Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. She said the reasoning ignores that the military has already released footage of the initial attack.

“They just don’t want to reveal the part that suggests war crimes,” she said.

Some GOP lawmakers are determined to dig into the details of the Sept. 2 attack. Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who ordered the second strike, was expected back on Capitol Hill on Wednesday for classified briefings with the Senate and House Armed Services committees. The committees would also review video of the Sept. 2 strikes, Hegseth said.

Still, many Republicans emerged from the briefings backing the campaign, defending their legality and praising the “exquisite intelligence” that is used to identify targets. House Speaker Mike Johnson called the strike “certainly appropriate” and “necessary to protect the United States and our interests.”

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Associated Press writer Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed reporting.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., departs a briefing on military strikes near Venezuela, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Air Force Gen. Dan Caine arrives to brief members of Congress on military strikes near Venezuela, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives to brief members of Congress on military strikes near Venezuela, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives to brief members of Congress on military strikes near Venezuela, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth departs the Capitol after briefing members of Congress on military strikes near Venezuela, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives to brief members of Congress on military strikes near Venezuela, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio walks to a secure room in the basement of the Capitol to brief senators on military strikes near Venezuela, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth walks to the auditorium to brief members of congress on military strikes near Venezuela at the Capitol, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

A runner jogs past the U.S. Capitol shortly after sunrise, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, accompanied by Paraguay's Foreign Minister Rubén Ramírez Lezcano, speaks during the signing ceremony of the United States-Paraguay Status of Forces Agreement at the State Department in Washington, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

President Donald Trump speaks during a Mexican Border Defense Medal presentation in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Washington, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, looks on. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a Mexican Border Defense Medal presentation in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)