The NWSL's Portland Thorns and the WNBA's Portland Fire have a luxe new training facility

HILLSBORO, Ore. (AP) — Near the foyer of the new joint training facility for the WNBA's Portland Fire and the NWSL's Portland Thorns is an expansive set of lighted shelves enclosed by glass.

It's the trophy case, “soon to be filled,” said Lisa Bhathal Merage, who owns both teams with her brother Alex Bhathal.

The $150 million performance center is the first purpose-built for a pair of professional women’s teams in different sports. The official ribbon-cutting is Saturday, but the teams got a look at the luxe facility earlier in the week.

The 12-acre campus includes two full-sized outdoor soccer fields and a 17,000-square-foot gymnasium that houses a pair of basketball courts, along with a weight room, locker rooms for both teams and conference rooms.

But the details make the facility unique. There are two nursing and changing rooms for players who are parents, and even a nursery fully stocked with toys and stuffed animals.

A meditation and massage area is dimly lit, with a ceiling painted to look like the forest. There's a Pilates and yoga studio. There's even an underwater treadmill for recovery.

A pair of paintings hung in the entry way are by a local artist, and Bhathal Merage said the plan is to rotate pieces as a showcase for local artisans.

“I was there Monday morning early when the players came in for the first time, and cut the ribbon on the locker room and just felt this beautiful space that had been created for them, and it’s great,” Fire President Clare Hamill said Friday.

The Fire and the Thorns are owned and operated by Raj Sports, led by Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal. They repurposed a former Nike office complex for the facility.

During a tour of the building, Bhathal Merage said the idea was to create a spa-like atmosphere. Thorns players Sophia Wilson and Morgan Weaver helped pick out some of the finishes.

“I texted Sophia, and I was like, ‘Hey, what kind of chair do you have for nursing?' And she told me, and I was like, ’Okay, we’re just gonna get that one,'” Bhathal Merage said. Wilson, who also plays for the U.S. national team, is the mom to daughter Gigi, born last year.

The opening of the Kaiser Permanente Performance Center was part of a celebration dubbed the Epicenter of Women's Sports, presented by Raj Sports and Nike.

As part of “Epicenter Week,” Nike hosted a Women’s Global Sport Summit. Among the speakers at the company's Beaverton headquarters were former U.S. national team player Tobin Heath, South Carolina women's basketball coach Dawn Staley and NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman.

The Thorns previously trained at their home stadium, downtown Portland’s Providence Park. The expansion Fire practiced at Portland State University.

“We had an opportunity to think beyond what exists today and build for where professional sports is going," Alex Bhathal said, "creating an enduring home for our athletes, teams and the Portland community that we believe can serve as a blueprint for the next generation of performance facilities.”

See AP’s full soccer coverage here

See AP’s full WNBA coverage here

The weight room in the new joint training facility for the NWSL’s Portland Thorns and the WNBA’s Portland Fire, in Hillsboro, Ore., Friday, Aug. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Anne M. Peterson)

Lisa Bhathal Merage, one of the owners of the NWSL’s Portland Thorns and the WNBA’s Portland Fire, shows off the nursery in the new joint training facility for the teams in Hillsboro, Ore., Friday, Aug. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Anne M. Peterson)

The locker room for the Portland Fire in the new joint training facility for the WNBA’s Fire and the NWSL’s Portland Thorns in Hillsboro, Ore., Friday, Aug. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Anne M. Peterson)

The new joint training facility for the NWSL’s Portland Thorns and the WNBA’s Portland Fire, is seen in Hillsboro, Ore., Friday, Aug. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Anne M. Peterson)

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A plane that crashed at a remote military site in western Alaska, killing all eight people on board, was making its second runway approach in heavy fog when it lost contact, authorities said Friday.

The Cessna's two pilots could not see the gravel airstrip and were flying solely by instruments when the plane crashed about midday Thursday, Clint Johnson, the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska region chief, told a virtual news conference.

Regulations required that they abort their first landing attempt because of the lack of visibility, he said, and the plane crashed on its second attempt, about one-third of a mile (0.5 kilometers) from the runway. The runway is surrounded by mountainous terrain on three sides, and the Federal Aviation Administration recommends pilots use GPS and other instruments when they land there.

On board were the pilots, two employees of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and four contractors. Two of the contractors were employees of Calista Brice, a collection of companies that perform construction, engineering, logistics and other work in remote areas. Calista Brice is a subsidiary of Calista Corp., an Alaska Native regional corporation.

The military has not said what work they were performing at the Cape Newenham Long Range Radar Site, about 450 miles (725 kilometers) west of Anchorage on Alaska's southwest coast.

NTSB investigators were traveling to the scene Friday.

The radar site was built in the 1950s as part of a network designed to provide early warning of a missile attack by the Soviet Union. Today, it monitors the skies off the coast in the direction of Russia, North Korea and China.

Those on board were “dedicated professionals carrying out a vital mission in a demanding environment," U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Robert Davis, commander of Alaskan Command, the Alaskan North American Aerospace Defense Command Region and Eleventh Air Force, said in a statement Thursday.

“This is a devastating loss for our military family and the communities we serve,” Davis said.

Johnson said search teams found the fragmented wreckage after the twin-engine Cessna 441, also known as a Cessna Conquest, lost contact. Its final flight path was captured by radar at the site, he said.

Weather conditions were changing Thursday as heavy fog rolled through the area. An automated observation system not far from the airport reported a low cloud ceiling, fog and visibility of about 10 miles (16 kilometers) in the minutes before the crash, but the next update about 15 minutes after it showed visibility of less than one-quarter mile (0.40 kilometers), according to Carrie Haisley, the meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service's Alaska sector operations center.

Mike O’Donnell, who oversaw airport safety programs and accident investigations for much of his 17 years at FAA, said it sounded as if weather conditions were bad enough that the pilots should have diverted and landed somewhere else.

The airstrip is at a private military site managed by the Pacific Air Forces Regional Support Center. It’s part of a network of remote radar sites that tracks aircraft operating in Alaska’s airspace and along its borders, a statement from Alaskan Command said.

The outpost at Cape Newenham closed in 1983 after a new radar was installed, and now the site is visited only occasionally by civilian contractors who perform maintenance on the system.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the two employees who died were part of a “project delivery team en route to a project site in support of the U.S. Air Force.” The statement did not provide additional details about the work.

Johnson said the flight was operated by Security Aviation based in Anchorage. The charter company did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

Associated Press writer Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report. Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska.

FILE - The National Transportation Safety Board logo and signage are seen at a news conference at NTSB headquarters in Washington, Dec. 18, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)