Carolina avoids further infamy, and a CFP battle heats up
Good morning! Don't throw your college pitcher too long today.
Finally, for a night, there is peace in Carolina. A 3-1 series deficit isn't ideal, sure, but gone are the Hurricanes from a strange, ignominious place in the sports world — losing 15 straight conference final games.
Quickly:
Now comes the harder part: doing it again, especially against a Panthers team that has steamrolled everyone in front of it during this postseason run. Game 5 is tomorrow.
Big playoff night tonight, too. More on that in a bit. Let's keep moving:
Osaka, Fritz lose
Naomi Osaka and Taylor Fritz, two of the biggest names in the French Open, are already heading home after first-round defeats yesterday. Osaka fell to No. 10 seed Paula Badosa in a loss that left her near tears. Fritz, the world No. 4 and top American men's seed in this tourney, came up short against Germany's Daniel Altmaier. Fritz has already had a great year, but clay isn't his best surface.
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Fight over CFP intensifies
The fabric of college football is changing by the day, as the College Football Playoff — freshly expanded to 12 teams this past year — could move to 14 or even 16 in the near future, and the power conferences continue to squabble over the overall number of teams and automatic bids assigned to each conference. From the outside, it appears a 14-team format would mostly benefit the Big Ten and SEC, while 16 teams could even odds a bit. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said yesterday his members are intrigued by a 16-team format. It's a mess.
Clark out 2 weeks
Caitlin Clark suffered a strained quadriceps and will miss at least two weeks, the Fever announced yesterday. It's tough for Clark, an MVP favorite, and Indiana, who most expect to make the playoffs this year. If she misses the prescribed two weeks, it'll only be four games lost, though. Stay tuned.
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As the NBA and NHL playoffs inch closer to a conclusion, the summer's most prominent sport — baseball — continues a slow burn in the background.
I want to talk about two things (three players, really), based on our fresh Power Rankings published this morning:
Baseball season is incredibly long, yes, but barring unforeseen circumstances I suspect we'll be talking about all three of these guys in September.
See the full Power Rankings here. Almost finished:
📺 NBA: Knicks at Pacers
8 p.m. ET on TNT/Max
I mean, yes. This has been an incredible series. I have no idea what will happen. Just don't turn it off if someone goes up by 20. Huge news, too: Tyrese Haliburton's dad will be allowed in the building.
📺 NHL: Stars at Oilers
8 p.m. ET on ESPN
Another great series! Edmonton appears in control here, but that's more of a gut feeling than anything. Or maybe it's because Connor McDavid is scoring again.
Get tickets to games like these here.
Keith Law penned a fiery, must-read column on a new problem emerging in the baseball ecosystem: College coaches cannot be trusted with their pitchers' arms. Read it here.
Jaelan Phillips was going to be a superstar in the NFL. Then he missed most of the last two seasons with injuries. How did he cope? As Dan Pompei writes today, it was mostly music … and fantasy novels, and his cat. Great story.
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Novak Djokovic said he hopes to have a similar sendoff to Rafael Nadal's warm goodbye at the French Open this week. I thought his comments were interesting.
Laurie Whitwell published an incredible account of Manchester United's disaster season. There is already tremendous pressure on next season.
Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: Our story on Nadal's emotional farewell to the French Open and Roland Garros. Read it if you missed it.
Most-read on the website yesterday: The live blog from Thunder-Timberwolves.
Ticketing links in this article are provided by partners of The Athletic. Restrictions may apply. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.
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Atlantic
15 minutes ago
- Atlantic
Censorship for Citizenship
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Not that long ago, believe it or not, Donald Trump ran for president as the candidate who would defend the First Amendment. He warned that a 'sinister group of Deep State bureaucrats, Silicon Valley tyrants, left-wing activists, and depraved corporate news media' was 'conspiring to manipulate and silence the American people,' and promised that 'by restoring free speech, we will begin to reclaim our democracy, and save our nation.' On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order affirming the 'right of the American people to engage in constitutionally protected speech.' If anyone believed him at the time, they should be disabused by now. One of his most brazen attacks on freedom of speech thus far came this past weekend, when the president said that he was thinking about stripping a comedian of her citizenship—for no apparent reason other than that she regularly criticizes him. 'Because of the fact that Rosie O'Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship. She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her,' he posted on Truth Social. This must have been exhilarating to O'Donnell, who received a brief new grant of relevance and told the Irish broadcaster RTE, 'I am very proud to be opposed to every single thing he says and does and represents.' But once the exhilaration subsides, the fundamental idea is very disturbing: Trump appears to view both free speech and U.S. citizenship as conditional, things he can revoke based on his own whims. Writing off the threat to O'Donnell as just another instance of Trumpian trolling—or an attempt to distract from fatal flooding in Texas, dozens of incomplete trade deals, or intramural MAGA battles over Jeffrey Epstein —is tempting. And the odds that Trump would actually successfully strip O'Donnell of her passport seem slim. But that doesn't mean the threat is irrelevant. What in particular set Trump off here is unclear—he and O'Donnell have been feuding for years—but by all indications, the answer is simply that she has exercised her freedom of speech to jab him. Perhaps this should go without saying, but native-born American citizens like O'Donnell generally cannot be stripped of their citizenship. (Citizens can, however, choose to relinquish their citizenship—something that has become a somewhat popular option for people wishing to avoid U.S. taxes, including former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a New York native.) A president can't just decide that he wants to take it away. In other recent cases where the Trump administration has attempted to suppress speech, officials have at least claimed that they have evidence of criminality (though that's not to say even that was a legitimate standard; such accusations are also dangerous, and judges have dismissed them). With O'Donnell, Trump isn't even pretending she has crossed some sort of criminal line. He's also not (yet) taking action, but Trump often uses initially brash and outlandish threats as a way to acclimate the populace to his overreaching, as I wrote in the January 2024 issue of The Atlantic: 'When a second-term President Trump directs the Justice Department to lock up Democratic politicians or generals or reporters or activists on flimsy or no grounds at all, people will wring their hands, but they'll also shrug and wonder why he didn't do it sooner. After all, he's been promising to do it forever, right?' I wish this argument had aged worse. Trump has begun talking more frequently about revoking citizenship as a means of punishing political speech. He has mused about using the tool against political opponents, including the New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, alleging potential fraud, and his former buddy Elon Musk, who had the temerity to insult him. Both of these men are naturalized, which makes their citizenship marginally easier to remove—though, again, not for simple speech. The administration has also been pursuing denaturalizations of citizens whom it believes it can prove lied on their application, which is an established legal basis for stripping their legal status. Even if Trump doesn't normalize taking away citizenship, he is continuing to entrench the idea that the government—or, really, just the president on his own—can punish citizens who criticize it, or him. That's been one of the most prominent themes of his term so far: He has banished the Associated Press from some White House spaces simply for refusing to adopt his preferred terminology, extorted law firms that employed lawyers involved in the criminal cases against him, and demanded huge payouts from news organizations. He'll continue as long as he's successful. 'If we don't have free speech, then we just don't have a free country,' Trump said in a campaign video posted in 2022. 'It's as simple as that. If this most fundamental right is allowed to perish, then the rest of our rights and liberties will topple just like dominos one by one. They'll go down.' Here are three new stories from The Atlantic: Today's News President Donald Trump announced a new weapons-transfer plan for Ukraine and threatened to impose high tariffs on Russia if a peace deal is not reached in 50 days. The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to move forward with dismantling the Education Department and firing nearly 1,400 workers. Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration for withholding more than $6.8 billion in education funding, which helps pay for free or low-cost after-school programs and assistance for students learning English. Dispatches Evening Read The AI Mirage By Ian Bogost 'I'm not going to respond to that,' Siri responded. I had just cursed at it, and this was my passive-aggressive chastisement. The cursing was, in my view, warranted. I was in my car, running errands, and had found myself in an unfamiliar part of town. I requested 'directions to Lowe's,' hoping to get routed to the big-box hardware store without taking my eyes off the road. But apparently Siri didn't understand. 'Which Lowe?' it asked, before displaying a list of people with the surname Lowe in my address book … The latest version of Siri has 'better conversational context'—the sort of thing that should help the software know when I'm asking to be guided to the home-improvement store rather than to a guy called Lowe. But my iPhone apparently isn't new enough for this update. I would need cutting-edge artificial intelligence to get directions to Lowe's. More From The Atlantic Read. Alert the incels! The rest of us love Pamela Anderson, and we will always love her, Caitlin Flanagan writes. Let go. And let your kid climb that tree, Henry Abbott writes. It could actually make them safer. Play our daily crossword.
Hamilton Spectator
23 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
To Whom it May Concern: Trump's tariff letters cause a stir among world leaders
Ninety trade deals in 90 days didn't happen early in President Donald Trump's second term. 'Liberation Day' panicked the financial markets in April. And bespoke trade agreements with dozens of countries, he has said, takes too much time. 'There's 200 countries,'' the president acknowledged. 'You can't talk to all of them.'' So Trump repackaged his plan to slap tariffs on almost every nation in a series of unusual presidential letters to foreign leaders that set new thresholds not just for trade negotiations — but also for diplomatic style, tone and delivery. Most are fill-in-the-blank form letters that include leaders' names and a tariff rate. Words are capitalized using Trump's distinct social media style. A few typos and formatting issues appear throughout. They generally include an opening flourish of salutation, a grievance, the threat of a big jump in tariffs, a new deadline and an escape ramp allowing that 'we will, perhaps, consider an adjustment to this letter' if certain conditions are met. Rather than typical diplomatic talk of things like enduring mutual respect, Trump closes with, 'Thank you for your attention to this matter!' and 'Best wishes,' followed by his signature of three long strokes linked by and about 14 short ones. He appears to have paid special attention to his letters to Canada , with which he's been fighting and taunting for months, and Brazil , which he singled out for 50% tariffs apparently based on a personal grudge rather than economics. A negotiation tactic The good news for the leaders of foreign countries, Trump suggested, is that if he sent you a letter, he wants to negotiate. 'A letter means a deal,' he said during a Cabinet meeting. 'We can't meet with 200 countries.' But he's also managed to make his erratic trade policy baffling for American trading partners eager to negotiate a way to dodge his wrath. The president escalated a conflict he started with America's second-biggest trading partner and longstanding ally, raising the tariff — effectively a tax — on many Canadian imports to 35% effective Aug. 1. On Saturday, Trump announced more tariffs still, this time on two of the United States' biggest trade partners: the European Union and Mexico , at 30% each. And it's far from clear that these tariffs would benefit Americans' bottom lines. Trump's threat to boost import taxes by 50% on Brazilian goods could drive up the cost of breakfast in the United States by making staples of the American diet, such as coffee and orange juice, more expensive. Reception has been ... spotty The response to the letters, which the White House says will also be mailed, has been mixed. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's office issued a mild statement acknowledging the new Aug. 1 deadline and suggesting he would stay the course 'steadfastly defend(ing) our workers and businesses.' Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, meanwhile, vowed retaliatory tariffs and ordered his diplomats to return Trump's letter if it ever physically arrives at the presidential palace in Brasilia. 'Respect is good,' Lula told TV Record. 'I like to offer mine, and I like to receive it.' Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
San Francisco Chronicle
35 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
How Trump plans to dismantle the Education Department after Supreme Court ruling
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the Trump administration to continue unwinding the Education Department, allowing it to move ahead with mass layoffs and a plan to outsource the department's operations to other agencies. The justices paused a lower court order that had halted nearly 1,400 layoffs and had called into question the legality of President Donald Trump's plan to dismantle the department. Now, Trump and his education secretary, Linda McMahon, are free to execute the layoffs and break up the department's work among other federal agencies. Trump had campaigned on closing the department, and McMahon has said the department has one "final mission' to turn over its power to the states. 'The U.S. Department of Education will now deliver on its mandate to restore excellence in American education,' McMahon said Monday in a statement. McMahon is expected to move quickly — department lawyers have already previewed the plans in court filings. What happens with student loans, civil rights cases Trump and McMahon have acknowledged only Congress has authority to close the Education Department fully, but both have suggested its core functions could be parceled out to different federal agencies. Among the most important decisions is where to put management of federal student loans, a $1.6 trillion portfolio affecting nearly 43 million borrowers. Trump in March suggested the Small Business Administration would take on federal student loans, but a June court filing indicated the Treasury Department is expected to take over the work. The Education Department said it had been negotiating a contract with Treasury but paused discussions when the court intervened. That work is now expected to proceed in coming days. Under a separate arrangement, nine Education Department workers already have been detailed to Treasury, according to court filing. The department had also recently struck a deal to outsource the management of several grant programs for workforce training and adult education to the Department of Labor. The Education Department agreed to send $2.6 billion to Labor to oversee grants, which are distributed to states to be passed down to schools and colleges. Combining workforce training programs at Education and Labor would 'provide a coordinated federal education and workforce system,' according to the agreement. Additional agreements are expected to follow with other agencies. At her Senate confirmation hearing, McMahon suggested that enforcement of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act could be handled by the Department of Health and Human Services. Civil rights work could be managed by the Justice Department, she said. Democracy Forward, which represents plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said it will pursue 'every legal option' to fight for children. 'No court in the nation — not even the Supreme Court — has found that what the administration is doing is lawful,' said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of the group, in a statement. Laying off staff Trump campaigned on a promise to close the agency, and in March ordered it to be wound down 'to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.' McMahon had already started a dramatic downsizing, laying off about 1,400 workers. Education Department employees targeted by the layoffs have been on paid leave since March, according to a union that represents some of the agency's staff. The lower court order had prevented the department from fully terminating them, though none had been allowed to return to work, according to the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252. Without the lower court order, the workers would have been terminated in early June. The Education Department had said earlier in June that it was 'actively assessing how to reintegrate' the employees if courts did not rule in Trump's favor. ___ The Associated Press' education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
