Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
WASHINGTON (AP) — Manager Dave Martinez and general manager Mike Rizzo were fired by the Washington Nationals on Sunday in moves that were surprising for their timing, even if the club is more than halfway through its sixth consecutive losing season since winning the 2019 World Series.The team announced the changes just hours after Washington’s 6-4 loss at home completed a sweep by the Boston Red Sox. The Nationals are 37-53 and last in the NL East; the only National League club with a worse record is the Colorado Rockies.But the amateur draft is just a week away, and Washington…
NEW YORK (AP) — Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw was picked for his 11th All-Star Game and Paul Skenes, James Wood and Elly De La Cruz boosted the 23-and-under group to five when they were picked Sunday for the July 15 showcase at Atlanta’s Truist Park.Wood at 22 is the youngest of the 65 All-Stars, while Skenes, De La Cruz and fan-elected starters Pete Crow-Armstrong and Jacob Wilson are all 23.Cal Raleigh and Yoshinobu Yamamoto joined Wood, Wilson and Crow-Armstrong among 19 first-time All-Stars. Wood was acquired by Washington in the August 2022 trade that sent outfielder Juan Soto to San…
CHICAGO (AP) — Shane van Gisbergen burned out his tires in celebration, sending white smoke into the air. He signed a rugby ball and punted it into the stands in downtown Chicago.It was a familiar scene.Van Gisbergen completed a Windy City sweep Sunday, winning the NASCAR Cup Series race on the tricky street course in downtown Chicago.“Epic weekend for us. I’m a lucky guy,” van Gisbergen said.A talented one, too.The 36-year-old New Zealand native became the second driver to sweep the Xfinity and Cup races in a single weekend from the pole, joining Kyle Busch at Indianapolis in 2016. With…
“The Lord of the Rings,” or LotR to those in the know, isn’t just standard reading among those in the tech industry.It also inspires their ventures.Billionaire PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel, for instance, has started several companies inspired by the J.R.R. Tolkien series.The fantasy trilogy, a sequel to 1937’s “The Hobbit,” was first published in the mid-1950s. It follows an unlikely hero, Frodo Baggins, as he and a team of allies adventure across Middle Earth to destroy a powerful ring that could bring darkness to the world if it fell into the hands of Sauron, the dark lord.On Halloween in 2018,…
Academics may be leaning on a novel strategy to influence peer review of their research papers — adding hidden prompts designed to coax AI tools to deliver positive feedback. Nikkei Asia reports that when examining English-language preprint papers available on the website arXiv, it found 17 papers that included some form of hidden AI prompt. The paper’s authors were affiliated with 14 academic institutions in eight countries, including Japan’s Waseda University and South Korea’s KAIST, as well as Columbia University and the University of Washington in the United States. The papers were usually related to computer science, with prompts that…
Kevin Durant’s trade to the Houston Rockets is official and officially record-setting.The deal got approved by the NBA on Sunday as part of a seven-team transaction, one in which a slew of other trade agreements got folded into one massive package.“Kevin impacts the game on both ends of the court and is one of the most efficient scorers in the history of basketball,” Rockets general manager Rafael Stone said. “We liked the growth our team showed last season and believe Kevin’s skill set will integrate seamlessly.”Involved in the deal: Phoenix, Houston, Atlanta, Minnesota, Golden State, Brooklyn and the Los Angeles…
Companies have struggled to adopt the right AI tools as the technology evolves at a far faster pace than their slow sales cycles. Corporate credit card company Brex is no different. The startup found itself facing the same issue as its enterprise counterparts. The upshot: Brex completely changed its approach to software procurement to ensure they wouldn’t get left behind. Brex CTO James Reggio told TechCrunch, at the HumanX AI conference in March, the company initially tried to assess these software tools through their usual procurement strategy. The startup quickly discovered its months-long piloting process was just not going to…
NEW YORK (AP) — Kayla Thornton, Gabby Williams, Kiki Iriafen and Sonia Citron will be making their All-Star debuts in Indianapolis later this month as they were all chosen on Sunday as reserves for the game.Thornton has been in the league for nine years and finally is getting her chance to play in the exhibition game. She was selected in the expansion draft by Golden State last year from New York and has helped the expansion team get off to a good start.“It would be such a reward for her,” said New York’s Sandy Brondello, who will be one of…
LONDON (AP) — A ball that clearly landed long in a match at Centre Court wasn’t called out Sunday because the electronic system that replaced line judges at Wimbledon this year was shut off.And, because the replay review procedure that used to be in place also has been scrapped, the chair umpire called for a do-over on the point at 4-all in the first set — much to the dismay of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the player who would have won the game if the proper call had been made originally.Pavlyuchenkova wound up getting broken there to trail Sonay Kartal of Britain,…
A small-town grandmother who disappeared on her way to work. A beloved director of a Texas summer camp for girls. An Alabama elementary student away from home. These are a few of the dozens of victims lost in devastating flooding in Texas. The flooding in central Texas originated from the fast-moving waters on the Guadalupe River on Friday, killing at least 82 people. Authorities say search and rescue efforts are still underway, including for campers missing from a summer camp for girls. Tanya Burwick The last time Tanya Burwick’s family heard from her was a frantic phone call about the…