Day four of the Paris Olympics included a bronze medal for USA's women's rugby sevens team, a silver medal for the internet's new favorite person ever, sharpshooter Kim Ye-ji, more bad news about the Seine, and whole lot of cheating. Allegedly. Spy drones, crooked officials, and bad calls: cheating at the Paris OlympicsCheating is an Olympic tradition that dates back at least to the 67 CE Olympic Games when Emperor Nero rode a 10-horse chariot in the four-horse chariot race, fell off during the race, and was still declared the winner. In keeping with this example of the ancient games, here are some of the cheating scandals and accusations at the Paris 2024 games. Canadian soccer team allegedly used spy drones. The Canadian women's soccer team is doing better than expected at this year's games, but the team's accomplishments are being overshadowed by underhanded help they may have had. On July 22, New Zealand's soccer team called the police over a suspicious drone hovering around their practice field. French authorities traced the drone to Joseph Lombardi, a staff member of Canada Soccer. Canada admitted they were spying. Lombardi and an assistant coach were sent back to Canada and FIFA is investigating. How the Olympic authorities will respond if Canada wins a medal isn't known, but it's not unheard of for medals to be taken back long after they're awarded. USA fencing's alleged crooked officials. I find the rules of fencing to be incomprehensible, so how one would go cheat them is even harder to understand, but here's the gist: A lot of referees in the USA's Olympic qualifying contests have been accused of fixing results so that specific fencers will make the Olympic team. Two referees at an Olympics qualifying tournament were suspended for allegedly working together to fix matches so fencer Tatiana Nazlymov would make the U.S. Olympic team. Two other referees were accused of making calls that favored fencer Mitchell Saron. Disgruntled fencing fans allege that fixing results to help specific athletes is rampant in fencing, a sport that's doesn't seem to have a particularly powerful oversight body. The only saving grace of this scandal is that "helping" unqualified people make a fencing team isn't cheating in a way that hurts our competitors. It just hurts us! The USA! Basketball refs allegedly hate The Lakers. The star of Japan's Olympic basketball team is LA Laker Rui Hachimura. In a game against France today, Hachimura was ejected from the game after a second unsportsmanlike conduct foul that many basketball fans are calling sus. Basketball twitter is chalking the ejection up to the refs hating The Lakers, which seems farfetched. But still, it was a very weak foul. Was it simply bad officiating? A cultural difference in how fouls are called in International competition vs. the NBA? Unconscious bias on the part of the refs? Could be a little of each or none of the above. U.S. Womens Rugby takes home the bronze Credit: USA Rugby/X I told you yesterday that it was a good time to get into womens rugby, and I hope you listened, because today in the bronze medal match for women's sevens, the underdog U.S. team pulled out a last-second victory against rugby powerhouse Australia with an all-time Olympic highlights play. Down 12 to 7 with only eight seconds left and backed way up to the opposing line, USAs Alex Spiff Sedrick caught a pass, found a hole in Australias defense, and sprinted down the entire field. With no time left on the clock, Spiff crossed the line and snatched a historic victory for USA, the first medal the USA has ever won in any Olympic rugby competition. Oh, and New Zealand won the gold, beating second-place finisher Canada. The Seine is still unsuitable for swimmingAs predicted, Olympic officials pulled the plug on the swimming portion of the triathlon today, pushing it back until Wednesday, dependent on whether the levels of E. coli are low enough for the water to be safe. A Wednesday race seems unlikely too, though. Rain is on the forecast Tuesday night through Thursday, which will likely dump more E. coli into the Seine. If the swim can't happen on Wednesday, officials say it will be held on Friday; surely the river won't be polluted on Friday, right?Triathlete Seth Rider came up with his own (foul) strategy for dealing with bacteria. He told the New York Times, "I just try to increase my E. coli threshold by exposing myself to a bit of E. coli in your day-to-day life, Rider said. And its actually backed by science. Proven methods. Just little things throughout your day, like not washing your hands after you go to the bathroom. Note to self: Do not shake hands with Seth Rider.Paris sharpshooter wins the internet's heart Credit: @WomenPostingWs/Twitter I love the cool personalities that bubble to the surface during the Olympics. This year, South Korean sharpshooter Kim Ye-ji has captured the world's imagination. She took home the silver medal in 10m shooting today, but she won multiple gold medal in looking like a complete badass. Check out the video of Kim setting a world record a few months ago. She has pure ice water in her veins. Her black outfit, tactical specs, and that stance, with one hand casually in her pocket? Come on.

Yesterday, X user Avi Schiffman announced a new AI-powered device called simply "Friend." His post about it quickly went viralprobably not because people were excited about the technology on display, but because the video he used to promote it presents a depressing vision of our AI future that only a tech bro could find appealing. The video shows off the wearable pendant that purportedly listens to everything you say and responds to you "conversationally" via a chat window on your phone. You can speak directly to your Friend by hitting a button, but it's apparently always listening anyway, and it will comment, unprompted, on the goings-on in your life, like a Tamagotchi that spies on you, or a real person you'd get a restraining order against.Is the Friend even a real thing?My first instinct was that the whole thing is bullshit vaporware. It smells like an online hoax, like the air umbrella or those bonzai kittens. It's such a viscerally creepy idea that I figured it had to be some an attempt at social commentary, or joke, or an ad for next season of Black Mirror. The announcement video plays like a parody, and it didn't help that the official friend.com website was flagged as a "suspicious site" by my ISP: Credit: Stephen Johnson But on further investigation, it appears I was wrong: The Friend is still just as stupid seeming, but it's actually real. Wired says they've seen one and spoken to the creator, who has the right kind of background to have developed something like this. Twenty-one-year-old Avi Schiffman was named a Webby person of the year and was a guest at the 2020 WIRED 25 conference, among other accomplishmentsincluding spending $1.8 million of his company's $2.5 million in seed money to acquire the friend.com URL.How much does the Friend cost (and how does it work)?You can preorder the Friend right now for $99. Wired reports that will get you a pendant that's powered by Claude AI and connects to your phone via Bluetooth, has a battery life of around 15 hours, doesn't require a subscription fee (yet), and will ship sometime in 2025.Unlike multifunctional AI devices like the Humane Ai pin and Rabbit R1, Friend doesn't seem to do anything except have LLM-powered conversations with youit's not designed for productivity, just companionship, like an AI girlfriend you wear around your neck. Productivity is over, no one cares, Schiffmann told Wired. No one is going to beat Apple or OpenAI or all these companies that are building Jarvis. The most important things in your life really are people.The device's creator said the goal is for Friend to develop a personality that "complements the user" and that it could eventually become your best friend. I feel like I have a closer relationship with this fucking pendant around my neck than I do with these literal friends in front of me, Schiffmann said, which seems normal.Why is the Friend so creepy?I mean, did you watch the commercial? I'm not exactly sure why the mere idea of the Friend makes my skin crawl. It's not that different from the Rabbit AI or a Tamagotchi, but those have a reason to exist beyond providing a simulacra of another person to talk to. No one fell in love with their Tamagotchi; it was just a game. This is something else. It gives me the same sinking feeling as those Japanese robot companions. There's just something wrong about the concept that a machinewhether a robot or a LLMcan or should stand in for actual human companionship.Does anyone want this?People inventing tech gadgets to replace (as opposed to enhance) human connection feels like a line we shouldn't cross. It feels like evidence that things are going in a very wrong direction. Picture a world where The Friend catches on (it won't), in which people walk around talking to their AI friends all day, and ignoring all the real people they pass. It makes me want to buy a one-way ticket to someplace where no one has ever heard of AI.

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Kamala Harris has a uniform. Most days, youll find her in a boxy, broad-shouldered suit that mirrors the one worn by her opponent. Her sartorial choice makes sense. Harris is auditioning for a job that has been held for the past 248 years by 44 white men and one Black man. All of these presidents spent their days in prim, dark suitsthe garment Western men have worn for centuries to project power and respectability.Over the past decade, women vying for the presidency have overwhelmingly chosen to co-opt the suit. But if Harris wins the election and becomes the nations first-ever woman president, shell be in a position to radically transform our collective imagination of what power can look like. Of course, as a woman of South Asian and Jamaican descent, her face alone will stand apart from all the men who came before her. But she will also have the opportunity to use clothing strategically to emphasize other aspects of her identity. She could, if she wanted, show up in clothes that project even more femininity or even reflect the cultures of her immigrant parents.While Harriss fashion decisions might seem insignificant at a time when the future of democracy is at stake, visuals matter mightily in politics. The image of power she projects could help rewrite the norms about who is allowed to ascend into high office in this country. And she could help clear the path for other minorities, making them more electable in years to come.Jill Biden (L) and Hillary Clinton, 2023 [Photo: The White House]Hillary and Her Rainbow-Colored SuitsBefore Harris, the closest any woman came to the presidency was Hillary Clinton. And Clinton did a great deal to push the boundaries of what political women could wear. In the 80s, as women were beginning to enter the workforce in large numbers, many chose to wear the power suit with exaggerated shoulder pads. By wearing what had been a traditionally male garment, women were telegraphing that they could take on historically male jobs and serve the role of breadwinner.And yet, women in the political arena still felt pressure to wear skirts. Throughout the 80s, female lawmakers who dared to wear pants on the floor were often castigated for not sticking to the unspoken dress code. During the years when Clinton was supporting her husbands campaign for the White House and then his presidency, she often wore female-coded outfits, like dresses and headbands.Bill and Hillary Clinton, 1992 [Photo: Getty Images]It wasnt until 1993 that a trio of female senatorsBarbara Mikulski, Nancy Kassebaum and Carol Moseley Brauncollectively defied the dress code by wearing trousers on the Senate floor. This prompted Congress to create an official guide that allowed women to wear coordinated pantsuits for the first time.A decade later, in the early 2000s, Clinton began to take on political positions of her own, first as Senator in 2001 and then as Secretary of State in 2009. In these new roles, she was instrumental in shaping the way a woman in power could look. Clinton became famous for wearing boxy pantsuits. At first, she stuck with dark solid colors, like black and blue, allowing her to fit in seamlessly in the rooms full of men wearing similar outfits. This was a strategic move. In her decades in the public eye, the media constantly dissected her clothing choices, often unkindly. But by wearing the identical outfit as her male counterparts, she shut down much of this gossip, allowing the media to focus on her skills and policy choices.[Photo: The White House]But then, in the 2010s, Clinton seemed to make the deliberate decision to go beyond the dark suit. She began showing up in suits that had more texture and color. She showed up at the United Nations in 2012 and the Council on Foreign Relations in 2013 wearing tweed suits that took a page from Chanel. In 2013, the day President Barack Obama signed a presidential memo Clinton had helped draft that promoted the empowerment of women and girls globally, she was beside him, wearing a textured suit in a bright shade of teal.This new sartorial direction seemed designed to suggest a contrast between Clinton and the men in her political orbit who largely wore dark suits. (Indeed, when Obama wore a tan suit to a press conference in 2014, it caused a stir, with Republicans calling him unpresidential. He quickly reverted to wearing dark suits.) Clinton was subtly reintroducing femininity and self-expression into her clothing, making the case that women can show up in positions of power as themselves. They didnt need to cosplay male politicians.By the time Clinton was running against Trump in 2016, she was famous for her rainbow of pantsuits. In side-by-side photos of the two candidates, Clintons clothes were distinctly brighter and more colorful, sometimes veering into pinks and yellows. She often accessorized with bold earrings and scarves. Clinton didnt want voters to ignore her gender; she invited them to embrace it. The only problem was, she didnt win.[Photo: Getty Images]Can Harris Rewrite the Playbook Again?This is the sartorial universe that Harris steps into as the presumptive Democratic candidate for President. The current generation of female up-and-comers in the Democratic partyincluding Gretchen Whitmer and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezhave all taken a page from Clintons fashion playbook of colorful, textured suits. Harris is no exception.Harris has embraced the pantsuit, but she also opts for more color than men tend to wear. At recent rallies in Atlanta and Philadelphia, she wore a light blue suit. In Dallas, she wore a pink suit to speak with sorority sisters. Even when she wears dark suits, she accessorizes with pearls. The point is not to ignore the fact that shes a woman. The point is to convince America that a woman can govern.The question behind this entire campaign whether Americans are ready for a female president. Theres reason to believe things could go differently for Harris than they did for Clinton in 2015. The country has evolved over the last decade. Many young voters and female voters are excited about being part of the movement to elect a woman to the White House. [Photo: The White House]If Harris does become President, she will be in a position to rewrite the playbook for women in power. Clinton worked hard to find ways to bring her personality into her clothing choices, without going beyond the boundaries of what most Americans would consider presidential. If she wanted, Harris could push those limits even further. Over the years, weve seen glimpses of Harris doing this. She loves Converse sneakers, which shes worn consistently over the years, paired with skinny trousers and a blazer. In 2019, she had an iconic fashion moment when she showed up at the San Francisco pride parade wearing a bedazzled Levis jean jacket with a rainbow on it. Shes known for choosing stylish sunglasses, from Biden-style aviators to fabulous yellow rimmed frames.Imagine what else she could bring to her look when the election is behind her. When she stops worrying about winning over voters, she could turn her attention to helping Americans rethink what power looks like. Perhaps she could pay homage to the cultures of her parents. Imagine if Harris showed up one day in a suit made of sari fabric, or a scarf made of Caribbean textiles? This would be more than just a form of self-expression. It would be a testament to Americas boundless opportunity that a child of immigrants could ascend into the highest office of the land.

Its been a challenging year so far for prospective home buyers, but Friday offered a glimmer of hope.According to Mortgage News Daily, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate dropped 22 basis points to 6.4%, while the 15-year fixed rate fell to 5.89%. They are the lowest levels since April 2023, and May 2023, respectively.Mortgage rates have a substantial impact on how much home-owners end up paying each month. With home prices surging in many states, interest rates can make or break a prospective buyers plans.Between [Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome] Powells equivocal openness to multiple cuts in 2024 on Wednesday and this mornings sharply weaker jobs report (something Powell didnt even know about on Wednesday), the more aggressive rate cut narrative is quickly coming into focus, Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily, wrote in a news update.Mortgage rates shift daily, following the economythings like inflation and job growth. But while falling rates are good for house-hunters, it can actually be a sign that the economy is worsening. And weaker-than-expected monthly employment report were also released Friday.Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows an addition of 114,000 jobs in July, which was below both analysts expectations, as well as below the average of monthly gain over the past year (215,000 jobs). The unemployment rate has risen for three consecutive months, as well, which experts say has historically been a sign of a recession.In addition to the cooling mortgage rate, home prices have also taken a long-coming dip, too. The national median list price went from $445,000 in June to $439,950 in July, per a report by Realtor.com. However, thats in contrast to the housing supply, which increased by 36.6%.Mortgage applications, which have been down by about 15% from last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, could finally start trending upward. With far more houses on the market than are being bought up, that would be welcomed news for the sellers of 2024.

Americans have giant concerns around how stable their social security safety net may be.A new report shows that a staggering number of individuals believe the system simply has to change. According to the 11th edition of Nationwide Retirement Institutes annual Social Security survey by Nationwide and Harris Poll, four (79%) are ready for an overhaul.For many older Americans, social security is an utter necessity. But according to analysts, if something doesnt change and soon, the system will be defunded in less than a decade. Americans seem well aware of just how fragile the current system is, too. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of adults surveyed were worried it would run out of funding in their lifetime. Millennials are the most likely to feel this way (79%), followed closely by Gen Xers (77%). Only 66% of Gen Z and boomers+ are concerned.Across the board, it seems theres no shortage of individuals who believe social security may soon be a thing of the past, but many believe that they wont see any of the benefits theyve earned whatsoever. 23% say they are likely not to see any money at all from the precarious system.Those concerns are certainly weighty, and they could end up being a big factor in the 2024 presidential election, too. The survey demonstrated that aspect of the issue, as well, as more than two-thirds of participants (69%) said that the candidates stance on social security will sway their vote in November.When it comes to revamping the system, the survey asked participants how to best achieve a better outlook. 66% of Americans surveyed said they support increasing the minimum eligibility age from 62 to 64. And more than two-thirds (68%) said the social security payroll tax rate should be increased from 6.2% to 7.2%, and the cap on social security taxes paid by workers making over $400,000/yearly should be removed.Nearly half (47%) believe the way to revamp the program is to raise taxes on the rich, something the Biden Administration supports, and it seems likely that Kamala Harris would continue supporting. Harris also cosponsored Senator Bernie Sanderss 2019 Social Security Expansion Act, which wouldve required wealthy Americans to pay more and increase benefits for many. However, 40% believe that lowering taxes on benefits could help solve the issuea proposal Donald Trump has been pitching recently. Just this week, the former president and GOP candidate addressed the issue on Truth Social, writing, SENIORS SHOULD NOT PAY TAX ON SOCIAL SECURITY!It certainly makes sense that Americans are worried about social security, given more and more workers are retiring later in life or not at all due to financial woes. Still, theres a lot of people who dont know about the program. Overall, according to the survey, people had less knowledge about the benefits of social security than they did in 2015. 33% didnt know what age they were eligible for retirement.That could be, in part, because so many who plan to file for social security early, say they will continue working34% answered that they either strongly agree or somewhat agree with that statement. Therefore, the current system doesnt feel, to many, like it can be relied upon fully in order to retire. So, why worry over the details?