Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

NYON, Switzerland (AP) — Titleholder Arsenal will start its Women’s Champions League defense with games against record eight-time winner OL Lyonnes, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid in the new league-phase format.Barcelona, which reached the past five finals and won three, got a slate of six opponents including Chelsea — which it beat in the 2021 final — and Bayern in the expanded 18-team draw made Friday.Though Barcelona has retained star players Aitana Bonmati and Alexia Putellas, there was an offseason exodus of players in fallout from financial problems in the men’s team.Bayern was drawn with both Arsenal and Barcelona from…

TOKYO (AP) — Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone holds the world record in the 400-meter hurdles and took a giant step closer to setting it in the 400 sprint at world championships. Would she ever consider racing in both if the schedule allowed? “Yeah, there’s been a lot of talk of doubles,” she said Friday, after receiving the gold medal for her 47.78-second run in the 400 finals at world championships. “Is it possible is one thing, do I want to do it is another.”The schedule at worlds this year made it unrealistic, but Olympic organizers have been known to make accommodations for…

LONDON (AP) — Arsenal announced the surprise departure of vice chairman Tim Lewis on Friday as part of a major reshuffle of the club’s board to inject “fresh thinking and energy” in its pursuit of trophies.Arsenal hasn’t won any major silverware since 2020 and spent approximately 250 million pounds ($335 million) in the summer transfer window on new players, including Viktor Gyokeres, Eberechi Eze and Martin Zubimendi, to strengthen the squad.The 62-year-old Lewis played a key role alongside manager Mikel Arteta and sporting director Andrea Berta in overseeing that spending spree.Lewis has advised Arsenal’s ownership, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, since…

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Barcelona’s upcoming Champions League match against Paris Saint-Germain will be played at the Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium, its home for the previous two seasons, the Spanish club said Friday.Barcelona had hoped to return to a newly renovated Camp Nou at the start of this season, but delays in construction have forced it to play elsewhere.The club has decided that it will host PSG at the 55,000-seat Olympic Stadium after it had been forced to face Valencia in its first home game of the Spanish league season at its tiny Estadi Johan Cruyff, which only seats 6,000…

Meta’s chief technology officer has some answers about what went wrong on Wednesday night.In a series of Instagram stories, Andrew Bosworth spoke about what led to two instances of live product demo glitches at the company’s annual Meta Connect.At the event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to the stage to reveal the second-generation Meta Ray-Bans, a neural wristband, Meta Ray-Bans Display with heads-up display, and sports-centered glasses with Oakley. Announcements were followed up by various live demos.’We Ddosed ourselves’In the first awkward glitch of the night, Zuckerberg connected food content creator Jack Mancuso to the big screen for a live demo…

Days after Meagan Brazil-Sheehan’s 6-year-old son was diagnosed with leukemia, they were walking down the halls of UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center when they ran into Robin the Robot.“Luca, how are you?” it asked in a high-pitched voice programmed to sound like a 7-year-old girl. “It’s been awhile.”Brazil-Sheehan said they had only met the 4-foot-tall (1.2-meter-tall) robot with a large screen displaying cartoonlike features once before after they were admitted several days earlier.“His face lit up,” she said about the interaction in June in Worcester, Massachusetts. “It was so special because she remembered him.”Robin is an artificial intelligence -powered therapeutic…

There’s good news for daters — AI might make it easier to find the one.In an interview with Fast Company released on Thursday, Hinge founder and CEO Justin McLeod said that AI could allow for much more personalized matching and spare users from endless swiping.”Three to five years from now, probably sooner than that, honestly, it will feel relatively arcane to feel like you had to go through hundreds of profiles, if not more, in order to get out on a date,” McLeod said.Hinge is owned by Match Group, which also operates dating apps like Tinder and OKCupid. In 2018,…

The NFL said in a training video to officials that the Philadelphia Eagles should have been penalized for at least one false start when they used the tush push against the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 2.Ramon George, the NFL’s vice president of officiating training and development, highlighted a missed false start by Eagles right guard Tyler Steen on a third-and-1 with 5:34 left in the third quarter and Philadelphia leading 20-10. The Eagles won the Super Bowl rematch 20-17.“Prior to the snap, looks like we have movement by the right guard. We also have movement coming across from the…

A closely watched advisory panel to the CDC voted Thursday to tweak recommendations for a measles vaccine that includes protection against the varicella, or chickenpox, virus.The new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) suggests the vaccine, called MMRV, shouldn’t be recommended for children under age 4 because of a small risk for febrile seizures in that age group. The seizures can be prompted by fevers associated with viruses or, sometimes, vaccines. They usually last for a few minutes and, while they are scary for parents to witness, are generally harmless, doctors…

GENEVA (AP) — A major cycling race in Spain was disrupted by protests against an Israeli team. A basketball game in Poland was preceded by fans booing the Israeli national anthem. And several European countries are threatening to boycott a signature entertainment event if Israel takes part.The global backlash against Israel over the humanitarian toll of the war in Gaza has spread into the arenas of sports and culture. Israel’s critics say it should be sidelined from international events just like Russia has been since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Unlike Russia, which faced widespread condemnation and Western…