Axios

The State Department will brief the Phoenix Mercury on the Brittney Griner case while the team is in Washington D.C. this weekend, coach Vanessa Nygaard said at a press conference on Thursday.

The big picture: Griner, who has played for the Mercury since 2013, has been detained in Russia since March.

The inaugural LIV season runs from June 9 through Oct. 30 and doesn't conflict with any current majors. Five events are based in the U.S. and two are at courses owned by former President Trump.

State of play: LIV is highly controversial, partly due to conflicts with the PGA Tour and partly because of where the money is coming from: the Saudi Arabian government.

The PGA Tour has suspended 17 golfers who are playing in the debut LIV Golf event in London, it announced on Thursday.

Driving the news: LIV is highly controversial, partly due to conflicts with the PGA Tour and partly because it is funded by the Saudi Arabian government, Axios' Kendall Baker writes.

After months of speculation, LIV Golf finally tees off Thursday in London. Across the Atlantic, the PGA Tour continues its season in Ontario.

Why it matters: We may be witnessing the dawn of a new era, or maybe just the early days of a well-funded startup doomed to fail. Either way, men's professional golf has changed forever, and there's no going back.

Enes Kanter Freedom told conservative House members at a lunch Wednesday at the Capitol that "Wall Street, think tanks, academia, Hollywood, the sports ... all of them is pretty much run by the Chinese government in some form."

• "The more pressure you put on them, the more we hold them accountable," said the free agent and former center for the Boston Celtics.

Driving the news: The Muslim athlete, an outspoken critic of China's abuse of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang — and of the NBA's relations with China — flew in from Canada to attend the Republican Study Committee lunch at the behest of the group's chair, Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.)