WNBA All-Stars dazzle fans with stunning fashion on the Orange Carpet

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The WNBA All-Stars tipped off the weekend by showing off their best fashion fits Thursday, turning the orange carpet into their own catwalk.

They walked across a stage at the Indianapolis convention center with hundreds of adoring fans cheering them. It was a fun new wrinkle to the WNBA All-Star weekend, showing off for the fans on stage.

“This was definitely a lot of fun,” said Los Angeles Sparks guard Kelsey Plum, who wore a shiny long-sleeved red dress and heels.

Indiana Fever star Aliyah Boston, who wore a long, dark gown and heels, agreed.

“I think it just kind of gets the fans a little bit more excited about seeing all the outfits,” she said.

WNBA players have been amping up their clothes game over the past few seasons, garnering attention off the court for their pregame fashion choices. Tunnel Fits — as the players arrival to the arena is called — is not new to the league, but it has risen to a whole new level of fashion.

Angel Reese of the Chicago Sky wowed the crowd in a leopard print coat and stylish sunglasses.

“I missed this last year because of flight issues, but was so glad to be here this year for it,” Reese said.

Reigning league MVP A’ja Wilson, of the Las Vegas Aces, wore a Di Petsa-designed maroon sleeveless gown that exposed her left leg from the hip and sported stunning gold Saint Laurent earrings.

The New York Liberty's Natasha Cloud, who will compete in the skills competition on Friday night, admitted she was a little intimidated walking across the stage.

“It took me out of my comfort zone,” she said, sticking with pants and shirt.

Napheesa Collier of the Minnesota Lynx loved the chance to walk across the stage, but as a mom of a young daughter, wished she knew that there was going to be kids in the audience, as she might have chosen a different, less revealing outfit, she said.

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Los Angeles Sparks's Kelsey Plum poses on the orange carpet for WNBA All Star basketball events, Thursday, July 17, 2025, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Atlanta Dream's Rhyne Howard and Los Angeles Sparks's Kelsey Plum, from left, pose on the orange carpet for WNBA All Star basketball events, Thursday, July 17, 2025, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

New York Liberty's Sabrina Ionescu poses on the orange carpet for WNBA All Star basketball events, Thursday, July 17, 2025, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Chicago Sky's Angel Reese poses on the orange carpet for WNBA All Star basketball events, Thursday, July 17, 2025, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Dallas Wings' Paige Bueckers poses on the orange carpet for WNBA All Star basketball events, Thursday, July 17, 2025, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Over two dozen families from one of the few remaining Palestinian Bedouin villages in the central West Bank have packed up and fled their homes in recent days, saying harassment by Jewish settlers living in unauthorized outposts nearby has grown unbearable.

The village, Ras Ein el-Auja, was originally home to some 700 people from more than 100 families that have lived there for decades.

Twenty-six families already left on Thursday, scattering across the territory in search of safer ground, say rights groups. Several other families were packing up and leaving on Sunday.

“We have been suffering greatly from the settlers. Every day, they come on foot, or on tractors, or on horseback with their sheep into our homes. They enter people’s homes daily,” said Nayef Zayed, a resident, as neighbors took down sheep pens and tin structures.

Israel's military and the local settler governing body in the area did not respond to requests for comment.

Other residents pledged to stay put for the time being. That makes them some of the last Palestinians left in the area, said Sarit Michaeli, international director at B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group helping the residents.

She said that mounting settler violence has already emptied neighboring Palestinian hamlets in the dusty corridor of land stretching from Ramallah in the West to Jericho, along the Jordanian border, in the east.

The area is part of the 60% of the West Bank that has remained under full Israeli control under interim peace accords signed in the 1990s. Since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in October 2023, over 2,000 Palestinians — at least 44 entire communities — have been expelled by settler violence in the area, B'Tselem says.

The turning point for the village came in December, when settlers put up an outpost about 50 meters (yards) from Palestinian homes on the northwestern flank of the village, said Michaeli and Sam Stein, an activist who has been living in the village for a month.

Settlers strolled easily through the village at night. Sheep and laundry went missing. International activists had to begin escorting children to school to keep them safe.

“The settlers attack us day and night, they have displaced us, they harass us in every way” said Eyad Isaac, another resident. “They intimidate the children and women.”

Michaeli said she’s witnessed settlers walk around the village at night, going into homes to film women and children and tampering with the village’s electricity.

The residents said they call the police frequently to ask for help — but it seldom arrives. Settlement expansion has been promoted by successive Israeli governments over nearly six decades. But Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, which has placed settler leaders in senior positions, has made it a top priority.

That growth has been accompanied by a spike in settler violence, much of it carried out by residents of unauthorized outposts. These outposts often begin with small farms or shepherding that are used to seize land, say Palestinians and anti-settlement activists. United Nations officials warn the trend is changing the map of the West Bank, entrenching Israeli presence in the area.

Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank since Israel captured the territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. Their presence is viewed by most of the international community as illegal and a major obstacle to peace. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state.

For now, displaced families of the village have dispersed between other villages near the city of Jericho and near Hebron further south, said residents. Some sold their sheep and are trying to move into the cities.

Others are just dismantling their structures without knowing where to go.

"Where will we go? There’s nowhere. We’re scattered,” said Zayed, the resident, “People’s situation is bad. Very bad.”

An Israeli settler herds his flock near his outpost beside the Palestinian village of Ras Ein al-Auja in the West Bank, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

A Palestinian resident of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank burns trash, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian children play in the West Bank village of Ras Ein al-Auja, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)