Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

LONDON (AP) — For weeks while back home in Warsaw last year, Iga Swiatek hung out with friends and made new ones, but didn’t dare tell them about a doping case that was hanging over her.“Obviously, in the back of my mind,” she said Saturday evening at the All England Club, “I had this thing.”There was more going on, too, and she only opened up to her family and her team. A coaching change. A long-for-her title drought. A ranking drop. Her grandfather’s passing. “It all (happened) together,” Swiatek said. “It wasn’t easy.” And so, in some ways, the Wimbledon…

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Just a week had remained before scientists in South Africa were to begin clinical trials of an HIV vaccine, and hopes were high for another step toward limiting one of history’s deadliest pandemics. Then the email arrived.Stop all work, it said. The United States under the Trump administration was withdrawing all its funding.The news devastated the researchers, who live and work in a region where more people live with HIV than anywhere else in the world. Their research project, called BRILLIANT, was meant to be the latest to draw on the region’s genetic diversity and deep expertise…

LONDON (AP) — Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz are meeting to decide the Wimbledon championship just five weeks after they played each other in an epic French Open final.Sunday’s matchup at Centre Court between the No. 1-ranked Sinner and No. 2 Alcaraz marks the first time the same two men faced off in the title matches on the clay at Roland-Garros and the grass at the All England Club in the same year since Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal did it in 2006, 2007 and 2008.Alcaraz, a 22-year-old from Spain, defeated Sinner, a 22-year-old from Italy, in five sets spread…

ATLANTA (AP) — Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes will start his second straight All-Star Game for the National League and Detroit’s Tarik Skubal will open for the American League on Tuesday night at Truist Park.Major League Baseball made the announcement Saturday night.Skenes will become the first pitcher to start consecutive All-Star Games since Washington’s Max Scherzer and Boston’s Chris Sale in 2017 and ’18. Sale started three in a row beginning in 2016.Skenes and Skubal are 1-2 in average four-seam fastball velocity among those with 1,500 or more pitches this season, Skenes at 98.2 mph and Skubal at 97.6 mph, according to…

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Lionel Messi extended his historic streak to five straight multi-goal games, and Inter Miami snapped Nashville SC’s 15-match unbeaten streak with a 2-1 win on Saturday night.Miami (11-3-5) won its fifth straight match and moved to fifth in the Supporter’s Shield standings as it aims to win the title for the second-straight season. Messi entered Saturday’s match as the only player in Major League Soccer history with four straight multi-goal games after scoring two in Miami’s win over the New England Revolution on Wednesday.And he wasn’t done.Messi opened the scoring Saturday on a free kick…

A research institute connected to the United Nations has created two AI-powered avatars designed to teach people about refugee issues. 404 Media wrote about an experiment conducted by a class at the United Nations University Center for Policy Research that resulted in the creation of two AI agents or avatars — Amina, a fictional woman who fled Sudan and is living in a refugee camp in Chad, and Abdalla, a fictional soldier with the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary force in Sudan. Users are supposed to be able to talk to Amina and Abdalla on the experiment’s website, though I…

An innocuous black stapler became public enemy No. 1 for some New York City-based gamers after it damaged a Nintendo Switch 2 at a local GameStop in June.Now, GameStop has turned that viral mishap into a marketing opportunity: That same stapler, and some additional items, are now selling on eBay for nearly $250,000 as part of a GameStop-organized charity auction.As of Saturday, there were almost 300 bids.”Let’s consider this GameStop’s version of ‘corporate accountability,'” a GameStop spokesperson told Business Insider. Bids for GameStop’s “staplegate” items have reached almost $250,000 as of Saturday. GameStop/eBay The saga — dubbed “staplegate” — began…

CHICAGO (AP) — White Sox great Paul Konerko got a present from one No. 14 to another in honor of the 20th anniversary of the 2005 World Series championship run — a jersey signed by noted Chicago fan Pope Leo XIV.Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, presented Konerko a jersey with the new pontiff’s signature on the back during a ceremony prior to the game against the Cleveland Guardians. It had the six-time All-Star’s last name and “Pope Leo” above the No. 14.“It’s kind of surreal,” he said. “I’m sure my mom will ask for dibs on it.”Konerko said…

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Shohei Ohtani pitched three scoreless innings against the San Francisco Giants on Saturday as the Dodgers star continues to work his way back from elbow surgery.Working as an opener for the fifth time this season after not pitching in all of 2024, Ohtani threw 36 pitches, 25 for strikes while serving as Los Angeles’ opener for the fifth time this season. He allowed one hit and struck out the side on 12 pitches in the first inning when his fastball was twice clocked at 99.9 mph.“Overall a very efficient outing,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “I…

In a series of posts on X, the AI chatbot Grok apologized for what it admitted was “horrific behavior.” The posts appear to be an official statement from xAI, the Elon Musk-led company behind Grok, as opposed to an AI-generated explanation for Grok’s posts. (xAI recently acquired X, where Grok is prominently featured.) Grok’s latest controversy comes after Musk had indicated he wanted to make the chatbot less “politically correct,” then declared on July 4 that the company had “improved @Grok significantly.” In short order, the chatbot was making posts criticizing Democrats and Hollywood’s “Jewish executives,” repeating antisemitic memes, and…