Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A’ja Wilson scored 22 points and became the fastest player in WNBA history to 5,000 points as the Las Vegas Aces beat the Connecticut Sun 85-59 on Wednesday night. Wilson made a driving left-hand layup with about four minutes left in the first quarter to top the 5,000-point plateau in just 238 games. She has 5,015 career points. Breanna Stewart needed 242 games to score 5,000.Connecticut (2-13) has lost seven in a row overall and six straight to the Aces, who beat the Sun 87-62 on May 20. Jackie Young scored 20 points for the Aces…

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has hired an anti-vaccine advocate and longtime ally to a position at the Health and Human Services Department, a person familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News.Lyn Redwood served for years as president of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization founded by Kennedy. Her exact role at HHS is unclear.Andrew Nixon, a department spokesman, told ABC News he had no comment.Meanwhile, Redwood is expected to deliver a presentation at the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meeting on Thursday using a report on thimerosal that is currently available online, which contains misleading information…

A federal judge sided with Meta on Wednesday in a lawsuit brought against the company by 13 book authors, including Sarah Silverman, that alleged the company had illegally trained its AI models on their copyrighted works. Federal Judge Vince Chhabria issued a summary judgment — meaning the judge was able to decide on the case without sending it to a jury — in favor of Meta, finding that the company’s training of AI models on copyrighted books in this case fell under the “fair use” doctrine of copyright law and thus was legal. The decision comes just a few days…

BALTIMORE (AP) — When Jacob deGrom is at his best, the Texas Rangers believe he’s the best pitcher on the planet. The two-time Cy Young Award winner certainly is looking like his old self. DeGrom flirted with a perfect game through six innings and a no-hitter through seven Wednesday night in another dominating performance in his return from Tommy John surgery in June 2023.He threw 89 pitches, getting pulled after giving up his only hit to Colton Cowser leading off the eighth. The Rangers finished off a 7-0 win over the Baltimore Orioles as deGrom tied his career-best streak of…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee wrapped up the first day of its meeting since Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed the entire panel and appointed his own hand-selected members.The Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) met on Wednesday to discuss possible recommendations for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines and antibody shots, as well as COVID-19 vaccine recommendations to be further reviewed at a later date.Martin Kulldorff, the ACIP’s new chair, said two new work groups would be established, one focusing on the cumulative effects of children and adolescents receiving all recommended vaccines on the…

The measles outbreaks that have sickened at least 1,227 people across 36 states may be hitting a plateau, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said Wednesday, June 25.The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met for the first time on June 25 after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. fired all 17 original members on June 9, replacing them with members that critics have called unqualified. Some of the members, like Kennedy, have a history of anti-vaccine sentiments, prompting backlash that had experts and organizations calling for a delay in the meeting.The new ACIP met anyway on Wednesday…

NEW YORK (AP) — It was mother’s day at the NBA draft Wednesday night.The moms of the NBA draftees took centerstage, receiving hugs and wiping away tears as they heard their offspring’s names called.Kelly Flagg, whose son Cooper went first to the Dallas Mavericks, was a strong player in her own right. She starred for the University of Maine in the late 1990s. The 1998-99 team she was on made school history when it won the program’s first NCAA Tournament game, upsetting Stanford.Asked what she helped instill in her son, Kelly Flagg said: “I just hoped that he loved the…

Amazon is promoting rival streamers as it aims to make Prime Video a one-stop entertainment destination ahead of Netflix and YouTube.Amazon has built a big business by letting people easily subscribe to a wide array of streamers from HBO Max to Hallmark+ — via its “channels” program — and it’s leaning into it as it seeks to beat other tech giants in becoming the default destination for TV watching.Execs at Amazon underscored the point Wednesday at Prime Video Engage, an annual gathering it created last year to court its channel partners. Notably for the usually press-shy Amazon, it also invited…

An influential panel of CDC advisers is slated to vote on a little-used preservative called thimerosal — a move that has left many vaccine scientists scratching their heads.Thimerosal is an ingredient that helps keep vaccines pathogen free. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted vaccine skeptic, has falsely stated the ingredient is a contributing factor in causing autism. In recent decades, the preservative largely has been phased out of vaccines, even as autism rates continue to climb.On Thursday, a panel of eight CDC advisers hand-picked by Kennedy is slated to vote on whether the ingredient should…

From the moment OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stepped onstage, it was clear this was not going to be a normal interview. Altman and his chief operating officer, Brad Lightcap, stood awkwardly toward the back of the stage at a jam-packed San Francisco venue that typically hosts jazz concerts. Hundreds of people filled steep theatre-style seating on Tuesday night to watch Kevin Roose, a columnist with The New York Times, and Platformer’s Casey Newton record a live episode of their popular technology podcast, Hard Fork. Altman and Lightcap were the main event, but they’d walked out too early. Roose explained that…