WNBA Draft grades: Fever earn A for picking Clark, Sky receive C+ even with Angel Reese
Sports

WNBA Draft grades: Fever earn A for picking Clark, Sky receive C+ even with Angel Reese

The most anticipated WNBA Draft in recent memory has come and gone. Once again, it was a franchise-changing day for the Indiana Fever, who drafted Caitlin Clark. Meanwhile, several teams made meaningful investments in their futures while others fine-tuned in their pursuit of a championship in the near term.Let’s take a look at how well each team accomplished its goals in the 2024 WNBA Draft. The grades are a little bit higher across the board than last year, but this was a better pool of players. I’m allowing for some optimism.Nyadiew Puoch (12), Isabel Borlase (20), Matilde Villa (32)The Dream made three international selections, all of whom are 19 years old, and none of whom project to play in the WNBA during the 2024 season. As such, it’s hard to say if Atlanta addressed any of its need...
Apple Says It Was Ordered to Pull WhatsApp From China App Store
Technology

Apple Says It Was Ordered to Pull WhatsApp From China App Store

Apple said it pulled the Meta-owned apps WhatsApp and Threads from its app store in China on Friday on government orders, potentially escalating the war over technology between the United States and China.The iPhone maker said that China’s internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration, ordered the removal of WhatsApp and Threads from its app store because of national security concerns. Apple said that it complied because “we are obligated to follow the laws in the countries where we operate, even when we disagree.”A Meta spokesman directed requests for comment to Apple. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported Apple’s removal of the apps.A person briefed on the situation said the Chinese government had found content on WhatsApp and Threads about China’s president, Xi Jinping, that was ...
Chinese Exports Are Threatening Biden’s Industrial Agenda
Economy

Chinese Exports Are Threatening Biden’s Industrial Agenda

President Biden’s trillion-dollar effort to invigorate American manufacturing and speed a transition to cleaner energy sources is colliding with a surge of cheap exports from China, threatening to wipe out the investment and jobs that are central to Mr. Biden’s economic agenda.Mr. Biden is weighing new measures to protect nascent industries like electric-vehicle production and solar-panel manufacturing from Chinese competition. On Wednesday in Pittsburgh, the president called for higher tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum products and announced a new trade investigation into China’s heavily subsidized shipbuilding industry.“I’m not looking for a fight with China,” Mr. Biden said. “I’m looking for competition — and fair competition.”Unions, manufacturing groups and some economists say the...
In Mexico, the Maya Train Will Get You to All of Yucatán’s Best Spots. But Not Yet.
News

In Mexico, the Maya Train Will Get You to All of Yucatán’s Best Spots. But Not Yet.

I stepped off the platform at the gleaming new Maxcanú train station, eager to see the magnificent Maya archaeological site of Uxmal. All I needed was a taxi to take me there, a trip of about 30 miles away.There are no taxis, said the stationmaster, as we stood on the polished limestone floors of the high-ceilinged station, which was cool and breezy despite the brilliant late-morning sun outside. And I was the third person in two weeks to get off at Maxcanú expecting to reach Uxmal, he said.I was midway through a five-day trip to explore the brand-new Maya Train and several of its destinations in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. Designed to run 965 miles (1,554 kilometers) around a loop of 34 stations when completed, the train will whisk passengers in cool comfort through colonial cities, ...
Women Talk Through Their Abortions on TikTok
Health

Women Talk Through Their Abortions on TikTok

“Have an abortion with me,” a single mother from Brooklyn named Sunni says as she twirls around her kitchen to light jazzy piano, before walking TikTok viewers through the steps she took to end her pregnancy at home.With states expanding restrictions on abortion and the issue likely to be at the forefront of the presidential election, women are creating videos on social media describing their own abortions and sharing practical information on how to obtain one.Sunni explained to viewers that she was craving information when she was planning her abortion. “This is the video I was looking for,” she said.The reaction to her video, which has been viewed more than 400,000 times and has drawn comments of both commiseration and condemnation, shows how deeply personal and divisive the issue remain...
The Paris Olympics are 100 days away – Venues ready but questions over opening ceremony and security
Sports

The Paris Olympics are 100 days away – Venues ready but questions over opening ceremony and security

Follow The Athletic’s Olympics coverage here.In 100 days, Paris will host the most famous sporting jamboree on the planet: the summer Olympic Games.There will be action across 32 sports watched by millions of visitors, as well as an unprecedented opening ceremony set to take place on the River Seine, which runs through the city’s heart. At least, that is plan A, anyway — Emmanuel Macron, the French president, confirmed an off-river contingency for the first time on Monday.Excitement has not quite taken hold in Paris yet. Decorations around the city remain discrete for a Games awarded to the French capital in September 2017. The City Hall has been plastered with Olympic regalia, but the focus of messaging has primarily been on practicality — “anticiper les jeux” (anticipate the Games), as p...
Tesla Seeks to Revive Musk’s $47 Billion Pay Deal With New Shareholder Vote
Technology

Tesla Seeks to Revive Musk’s $47 Billion Pay Deal With New Shareholder Vote

Facing criticism that it is overly beholden to Elon Musk, Tesla’s board of directors said on Wednesday that it would essentially give him everything he wanted, including the biggest pay package in corporate history.If setbacks in court and the car market have induced any soul searching among Tesla’s board, there was no sign of it in the latest announcement. If anything, the board doubled down on backing Mr. Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, risking riling up activist investors and more litigation.The board’s decision to ask shareholders to endorse a compensation plan for Mr. Musk that is worth about $47 billion came less than three months after a Delaware judge voided the same 10-year pay package. The judge said that it was excessive and that the company had failed to properly disclose detail...
The Global Turn Away From Free-Market Policies Worries Economists
Economy

The Global Turn Away From Free-Market Policies Worries Economists

Meeting outside Paris last week, top officials from France, Germany and Italy pledged to pursue a coordinated economic policy to counter stepped-up efforts by Washington and Beijing to protect their own homegrown businesses.The three European countries have joined the parade of others that are enthusiastically embracing industrial policies — the catchall term for a variety of measures like targeted subsidies, tax incentives, regulations and trade restrictions — meant to steer an economy.More than 2,500 industrial policies were introduced last year, roughly three times the number in 2019, according to a new study. And most were imposed by the richest, most advanced economies — many of which could previously be counted on to criticize such tactics.The measures are generally popular at home, ...
Colorado Bill Aims to Protect Consumer Brain Data
News

Colorado Bill Aims to Protect Consumer Brain Data

Consumers have grown accustomed to the prospect that their personal data, such as email addresses, social contacts, browsing history and genetic ancestry, are being collected and often resold by the apps and the digital services they use.With the advent of consumer neurotechnologies, the data being collected is becoming ever more intimate. One headband serves as a personal meditation coach by monitoring the user’s brain activity. Another purports to help treat anxiety and symptoms of depression. Another reads and interprets brain signals while the user scrolls through dating apps, presumably to provide better matches. (“‘Listen to your heart’ is not enough,” the manufacturer says on its website.)The companies behind such technologies have access to the records of the users’ brain activity ...
Long-Acting Drugs May Revolutionize H.I.V. Prevention and Treatment
Health

Long-Acting Drugs May Revolutionize H.I.V. Prevention and Treatment

A pill taken once a week. A shot administered at home once a month. Even a jab given at a clinic every six months.In the next five to 10 years, these options may be available to prevent or treat H.I.V. Instead of drugs that must be taken daily, scientists are closing in on longer-acting alternatives — perhaps even a future in which H.I.V. may require attention just twice a year, inconceivable in the darkest decades of the epidemic.“This period is the next wave of innovation, newer products meeting the needs of people, particularly in prevention, in ways that we didn’t ever have before,” said Mitchell Warren, executive director of the H.I.V. prevention organization AVAC.Long-acting therapies may obviate the need to remember to take a daily pill to prevent or treat H.I.V. And for some patien...