The Real Jurgen Klopp, part five: The manager who made Liverpool believe again
Sports

The Real Jurgen Klopp, part five: The manager who made Liverpool believe again

After almost nine years in charge and seven major trophies, Jurgen Klopp is leaving Liverpool.He has been one of the most transformative managers in the club’s history and in English football’s modern era.To mark his departure, The Athletic is bringing you the Real Jurgen Klopp, a series of pieces building the definitive portrait of one of football’s most famous figures.For part five, James Pearce spoke to more than a dozen current and former players, staff members and executives to reveal his managerial secrets.Read the rest of the series here:Pep Lijnders takes his time as he ponders how best to sum up the scale of Klopp’s contribution to Liverpool.What a vantage point he’s had. The Dutchman was there to greet Klopp when he first arrived in 2015 and has been beside him almost every step ...
Inside OpenAI’s Library – The New York Times
Technology

Inside OpenAI’s Library – The New York Times

The two-story library has Oriental rugs, shaded lamps dotting its desks and rows of hardbacks lining its walls. It is the architectural centerpiece of the offices of OpenAI, the start-up whose online chatbot, ChatGPT, showed the world that machines can instantly generate their own poetry and prose.The building, which was once a mayonnaise factory, looks like a typical tech office, with its communal work spaces, well-stocked micro-kitchens and private nap rooms spread across three floors in San Francisco’s Mission District.But then there is that library, with the ambience of a Victorian Era reading room. Its shelves offer everything from Homer’s “The Iliad” to David Deutsch’s “The Beginning of Infinity,” a favorite of Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive.Built at Mr. Altman’s request and st...
A Loss at Mercedes-Benz Slows U.A.W.’s Southern Campaign
Economy

A Loss at Mercedes-Benz Slows U.A.W.’s Southern Campaign

After suffering a setback at two Mercedes-Benz plants in Alabama on Friday, the United Automobile Workers union’s efforts to organize other auto factories in the South are likely to slow and could struggle to make headway.About 56 percent of the Mercedes workers who voted rejected the U.A.W. in an election after the union chalked up two major wins this year. In April, workers at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee voted to join the union, the first large nonunion auto plant in the South to do so. Weeks later, the union negotiated a new contract bringing significant pay and benefit improvements for its members at several North Carolina factories owned by Daimler Truck.“Losing at Mercedes is not death for the union,” said Arthur Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University School of ...
Rex Murphy, a Dominant Pundit on the Right in Canada, Dies at 77
News

Rex Murphy, a Dominant Pundit on the Right in Canada, Dies at 77

Rex Murphy, a Canadian newspaper, radio and television commentator who delighted his country’s conservatives with sharp attacks on environmentalists, liberal politicians and what he called their “woke politics,” died on May 9 in Toronto. He was 77.His death, from cancer, was announced on the front page of The National Post, the widely read daily newspaper for which he wrote a column, one of several he had over the years in Canadian papers, including The Globe and Mail in Toronto. His editor at The National Post, Kevin Libin, said Mr. Murphy died in a hospital.In his heyday, in the 1990s, Mr. Murphy was the rare political commentator who commanded a countrywide audience, skewering Canada’s elites as well as its sometimes fragile sense of nationhood. His roots in Canada’s youngest province, ...
Study Suggests Waiting Longer Before Withdrawing Life Support
Health

Study Suggests Waiting Longer Before Withdrawing Life Support

When a patient with a severe traumatic brain injury is comatose, in intensive care, unresponsive and hooked up to a ventilator, but not brain-dead, when is the time to withdraw life support? A small study on the fates of people in such situations suggests that doctors and patients’ families may make better decisions if they wait even a few days longer than usual.Often, a doctor sits down with family members within 72 hours of the patient’s admission to intensive care to discuss the patient’s prognosis, and whether they want to keep their loved one alive, or to remove life support.Experts say that many doctors would describe the outlook as grim — most likely death or severe disability. Reported outcomes of patients who had severe traumatic brain injuries show that most times the decision is...
Could MLB nationalize its media rights? Why some clubs are pushing to end local TV deals
Sports

Could MLB nationalize its media rights? Why some clubs are pushing to end local TV deals

Sixty years ago, baseball commissioner Ford Frick received a telegram from a Wisconsin congressman. Rep. Henry Reuss was worried the Milwaukee Braves would defect to Atlanta for the promise of a richer television contract, and proposed a fix: if all the Major League Baseball teams would share their television money, then the Braves might stay.According to the Associated Press, Frick replied in that summer of 1964 that “… a plan to pool all television receipts would not be feasible or acceptable at this time,” but would be “worthy of future consideration.”Now, in 2024, that conversation has arrived. Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred and some of the sport’s owners are more seriously talking about nationalizing baseball’s TV rights than ever before. Not because of relocation, but...
Why TikTok Users Are Blocking Celebrities
Technology

Why TikTok Users Are Blocking Celebrities

As protests over the war in Gaza unfolded blocks away, last week’s Met Gala was largely devoid of political statements on the red carpet. That the organizers of fashion’s most powerful annual spectacle (one for which tickets cost $75,000 this year) achieved this proved surprising to many observers. Less than two weeks later, though, a fast-growing online protest movement is taking shape. At least, it is on TikTok, the social media platform that was a sponsor of the Met event.Blockout 2024, also referred to as Operation Blockout or Celebrity Block Party, targets high-profile figures who participants feel are not using their profiles and platforms to speak out about the Israel-Hamas war and wider humanitarian crises. Here’s what has happened so far, what supporters hope to achieve and why it...
China Says It Will Start Buying Apartments as Housing Slump Worsens
Economy

China Says It Will Start Buying Apartments as Housing Slump Worsens

In a housing crisis that shows no end, the Chinese government is stepping in as a buyer of last resort.Chinese officials on Friday took their boldest step yet, unveiling a nationwide plan to buy up some of the vast housing stock languishing on the market. They also loosened rules for mortgages. The central bank said it would provide $41.5 billion in cheap loans to help state-owned enterprises buy housing built but not sold.The flurry of activity occurred just hours after new economic data revealed a hard truth: No one wants to buy houses right now.Policymakers have tried dozens of measures to entice home buyers and reverse a steep decline in the property market, which has shown few signs of recovering soon.On Friday, authorities from across China dialed in to a video conference to discuss ...
Aid Starts Entering Gaza Through U.S.-Built Pier, but Officials Say It Isn’t Enough
News

Aid Starts Entering Gaza Through U.S.-Built Pier, but Officials Say It Isn’t Enough

Trucks of humanitarian aid began moving ashore into Gaza early Friday via a temporary pier built by the U.S. military, the first supplies of aid to be sent into the enclave by sea in two months. But the new shipments of food and other supplies fall far short of what humanitarian groups say is needed to meet the staggering levels of hunger and deprivation in Gaza.A day earlier, the U.S. military said it had anchored the floating pier and causeway to the beach in Gaza, a key step in completing a maritime corridor that the Pentagon announced in March. U.S. officials and international aid groups have said that sea shipments can only supplement deliveries through land crossings, not replace them.No U.S. troops entered Gaza on Friday, the U.S. military said, emphasizing that it was providing onl...
How to Talk About Sex With Your Partner
Health

How to Talk About Sex With Your Partner

As a reporter who covers sex and intimacy, I spend a lot of time listening to experts extol the virtues of open, honest communication. To have good sex — and to keep having good sex over time — couples must be willing to talk about it, they say.But some people would rather leave their relationships than have those conversations, said Jeffrey Chernin, a marriage and family therapist and the author of “Achieving Intimacy: How to Have a Loving Relationship That Lasts” — especially if things in the bedroom aren’t going particularly well.“One of the things I often say to couples who are having trouble is: ‘I wish there was another way through this,’” he said. “But the only way I know to have a better sex life, or to resume your sex life, is to discuss it.”Dr. Chernin acknowledged how stressful ...