Good morning. OpenAI disclosed more incidents of concerning behavior from its A.I agents. Canada has a new relationship with the European Union. And the Federal Reserve decided to raise interest rates. President Trump’s not happy. We’ve got all of that, and more, below. But before we get to it, let’s talk about the mess in college sports.
MoneyballWere college sports more enjoyable when the athletes weren’t paid? Maybe for those of us at home. There was something thrilling about seeing the teenage Landon Collins commit to Alabama’s football program in 2012, live on television, his mom sitting beside him wearing L.S.U. purple, and thinking he’d roll Tide for the following four years. (Even though he turned pro after three, it was a good bet that Collins wouldn’t move to Miami for a big payday in his sophomore year.) Fans root for teams made up of players who want to be on them. Back then, anyway. And never mind the fans. Today the happiest beneficiaries of college sports are the people who play them. And it’s hard to be mad about that: Revenue-sharing and endorsement deals have let them enjoy the economic fruits of their considerable physical labor over the past few years. They have agency, too. If they don’t like their deal, they can transfer schools as often as they like. Universities make a lot of money on sports. The current system gives some of it to the students who play them. What does that look like in practice, though? Chaos, to some: Players jump all over the country, making like professional athletes in a largely unregulated bazaar. Colleges try to outbid one another, spending more and more on sports.
Now the government aims to do something about it. In a lopsided vote this week, senators from both parties decided to debate a piece of legislation, the Protect College Sports Act, that would limit the ability of athletes to switch schools. The bill would allow one college transfer and dictate that athletes who make a second move would have to sit out a year, with a few exceptions. Athletes would retain the right to compensation for their “name, image and likeness.” And the bill would limit midseason coaching moves and set a five-year window for athletic eligibility. “Right now, it is the Wild West,” Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas and a chief author of the bill, told Carl Hulse, who reports on Congress. Cruz worked on the bill with Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington. He said it would help make certain that college sports “remain strong and vibrant for decades to come.” That is not how some opponents see the legislation, which they say places restrictions on players that don’t exist for coaches — or regular workers out in the world. They say it preserves the financial interests of the N.C.A.A. “What this bill does at its core is to protect a system of exploitation,” said Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut and a chief opponent. Civil rights groups largely concurred. “Sharecropping is over,” Derrick Johnson, the president of the N.A.A.C.P., said this week. “We should not ask athletes, particularly Black athletes, to generate revenue on the football field or basketball court and they share in none of the revenue.” The bill could reach a final Senate floor vote in the middle of next week. Email us at themorning@nytimes.com and tell us how you feel about it. Related: The Athletic’s college football staff looked into 68 teams to determine how much their rosters cost. Top teams can spend around $50 million a year. See their full report, along with 10 takeaways.
What does the Fed’s decision to raise the interest rate by a quarter of a point mean for you? The rise in the benchmark rate, however small, means your borrowing costs are probably going to go up — in your credit card bills, for instance, and for any new loans (say, for cars or houses) you take out in coming months. They’re all tied to the Fed’s interest rate. On the other hand, if you have savings accounts, you’ll probably start to see a better return on your savings. The economy takes and gives. That’s why folks bet on it.
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Brittany Wagner’s father, a construction worker, fell 35 feet on a job and then endured 18 years of chronic pain. Eventually, he died by suicide. She says what killed him was his struggle to get help. Click the video above to watch. Would an A.I. slowdown in the United States allow China to pull ahead? Ezra Klein’s podcast guest, an expert in Chinese A.I., is skeptical. Introducing the Shows tab. A new place to find and follow podcasts in audio and video. Explore Shows in The Times app.
Annie Dillard walked into the woods and came out with a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on the wonders and horrors of creation, the modern classic “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.” Reviewers (including Eudora Welty, who assessed it for The Times) were quick to understand the book as a 20th-century analogue to Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden.” It made her a star of American literature at just 28. In the years to follow, Dillard published essays, meditations on religion, poems, a theory of literature, two novels, journalism, a best-selling autobiography and another best seller, “The Writing Life.” She gave herself to that life, telling her students that if you choose to be a writer, “you can’t be anything else. You must go at your life with a broadax.” She died at 81. Read three of her essays, written early in career but published for the first time in 2016 in The New York Times Magazine.
107,677— That’s how many people in Japan are at least 100 years old, according to new data from the country’s health ministry. It’s an increase of nearly 8,000 since last year. The oldest woman is 114, and the oldest man is 112.
Soccer: Cavan Sullivan, a 16-year-old American soccer prodigy, has been called up to the U.S. men’s national team. N.F.L.: The league fined the Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair for writing the name of a Palestinian girl killed by Israeli forces on his face. College sports: Arizona State’s hockey coach was determined to toughen up his program. What happened next left one player on life support. Read our exclusive investigation.
I’m not here to deliver faint praise. Ham El-Waylly’s recipe for kung pao tofu is fantastic, and worth making often enough that you learn its contours by heart. Tonight it could take you an hour, top to bottom. Make it four times and you’ll cut that time considerably. I rate it 10/10, with one note: I sometimes use cashews in place of the peanuts.
Here’s a lovely passage from Alexis Soloski’s glittery profile of the actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus: “As an actress, she specializes in need, so naked and desperate that it makes the women she plays indelible. I can defend almost no choice her characters make. But their wanting is undeniable, as is the demented pleasure she conveys when a want is satisfied.” Think about her in “Seinfeld,” in “The New Adventures of Old Christine,” in “Veep.” True, no? Now Louis-Dreyfus has a new desire. It’s to return to the theater for the first time in more than four decades. She’ll make her Broadway debut this fall in a revival of Jon Robin Baitz’s drama “Other Desert Cities.” “It’s very delicious for me to consider chomping on,” she said. The whole thing’s a pleasure to read. More on culture
Eat sardines. They’re good for your bones, your heart, your blood. Plus, they’re delicious. Subscribe to The New York Times. I make the suggestion because a subscription is the best way to ensure that this work continues, every day, across the world. We’ve got a good deal going. Replace the comforter that the dog who’s not allowed on the bed managed to shred. The coziness experts at Wirecutter found the best ones.
Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was pinewood. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Crossplay and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times and me. See you tomorrow. — Sam Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.
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