Double Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel says he will "come back stronger" from surgery after breaking multiple bones in a crash.

The 24-year-old Belgian sustained rib, shoulder blade and hand fractures in a crash during training in Belgium on Tuesday.

He also suffered lung contusions, dislocated his right clavicle and tore several ligaments after colliding with the open door of a postal vehicle.

"After a scary accident on training yesterday, I underwent surgery last night and everything went well," Evenepoel wrote on Instagram on Wednesday alongside a photo of him with his right arm in a sling.

"It's going to be a long journey but I'm fully focused on my recovery and I’m determined to come back stronger, step by step.

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A Manhattan federal judge in a long-running lawsuit against the city’s beleaguered Department of Correction said Wednesday that a third-party receiver should be appointed to oversee use-of-force and safety issues in the city’s jails.

Laura Taylor Swain, chief district judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, cited nine years of failed promises by jail officials in her 65-page decision.

“The glacial pace of reform can be explained by an unfortunate cycle demonstrated by DOC leadership, which has changed materially a number of times over the life of the Court’s orders, wherein initiatives are created, changed in some material way or abandoned, and then restarted,” she wrote.

She ruled that fining the city or taking other measures to force reforms would not be enough.

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The Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention got wild yesterday. As wild as a gathering of right-wing lawyers can get, anyway. Actually, I guess the wildest a gathering of right-wing lawyers can get was January 6, so this was just slightly less than the wildest a gathering of right-wing lawyers can get.

Fifth Circuit Judge Edith Jones took the opportunity of sitting next to Georgetown University Law Center Professor Steve Vladeck to go, I believe the technical term is “absolutely bonkers.” An eye-popping and eye-rolling meltdown from a federal judge.

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FDJ-Suez saw a major boost to its bold plan to win the Tour de France Femmes with Demi Vollering.

The French squad confirmed this week that co-backers FDJ and Suez both extended their financing commitments through 2028.

The long-term backing will give the team all the financial flex it needs in its mission to become a bone fide “super team” led by new-signed Dutch superstar Vollering.

It’s also expected that the squad will soon confirm it will switch to Specialized bikes for 2025.

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As bitter adversaries, the Trump administration and Maduro regime didn’t agree on, well, anything. Except for the fact that the US government wanted Maduro gone.

After that UN meeting, the Trump administration amped up its efforts around the world to isolate and depose the Venezuelan leader, including by levying additional punishing sanctions against his regime. Much of that diplomatic maneuvering played out in public. But the administration also put into motion another, very much secret prong to the US’s regime-change campaign: a covert CIA-run initiative to help overthrow the Venezuelan strongman.

That campaign would pull off at least one disruptive digital sabotage operation against the Maduro regime in 2019. But the CIA-led initiative—alongside the Trump administration’s wider efforts to get rid of Maduro—would fall well short of its ultimate goal. The story of that secret anti-Maduro effort also lays bare the tensions between an administration with hardliners laser-focused on deposing the Venezuelan autocrat and a CIA deeply reluctant, yet nevertheless obligated, to follow White House orders. It shows the limitations of covert, CIA-assisted regime change schemes, particularly when they are not aligned with larger US foreign policy objectives. And it provides new insights into how a second Trump administration—or a Harris presidency—might still try to dislodge the Venezuelan strongman, whose latest sham reelection in July 2024 has again thrust his country into chaos.

The details of that covert CIA-assisted campaign, told exclusively to WIRED by eight Trump administration and former agency officials with knowledge of the anti-Maduro operation, are reported here for the first time.

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They haven’t come close to fulfilling Gov. Kathy Hochul’s goal of helping 150 people victimized by the state’s old, racially biased drug laws enter the legal cannabis business — and some they have assisted fear their dispensary dreams are collapsing.

But the three managers of a public-private loan fund established to carry out the primary social mission of New York’s sweeping cannabis legalization program are doing just fine.

Records obtained by THE CITY show that they earned $1.7 million over the most recently tallied 12-month period and stand to make millions more in years to come, even though the New York Cannabis Social Equity Investment Fund has faced charges of predatory lending, secrecy and mission failure. By a conservative estimate computed by THE CITY, the managers’ longterm haul could easily come to $15 million over a decade.

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Starting  next month, those bright red buses with yellow accents will start disappearing from D.C. streets. After nearly 20 years, the D.C. Circulator will be completely gone by the end of the year. 

On a recent weekday morning, I rode three of the Circulator’s 6 bus routes across the city, from Dupont Circle to Rosslyn, from Georgetown to Union Station, and from Union Station to Congress Heights. Several riders told me that the end of the Circulator will add more time to their commutes. Kyle Parker, who uses the Circulator to get to to construction jobs around the city, says the Circulator gives him more options when wait times for Metrobus are too long. *“*The Circulator pretty much do a good job just being in between the routes,” says Parker.

 WMATA released a plan last week to expand Metrobus service to cover the gaps caused by the elimination. However, many riders, particularly those who rely on Circulator routes in the southern quadrants of the city, will still miss out.

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The Vessel in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards will officially begin welcoming visitors again Monday with enhanced safety measures, three years after it closed to the public in response to several suicides.

The 150-foot beehive-like structure now features floor-to-ceiling steel mesh barriers encasing several of its stairways and platforms, and the top level will remain closed. The barriers were designed to be cut-proof and weather-resistant, according to a spokesperson.

Built in 2019 for $200 million, the Vessel was a popular tourist attraction and photo spot in the center of Hudson Yards, until four people jumped to their deaths from its upper floors.

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NEW YORK — At long last, the New York Liberty are WNBA champions.

Sunday’s Game 5 between the Liberty and Minnesota Lynx was far from New York’s most aesthetically pleasing game of the season, but style points aren’t awarded in winner-take-all affairs. Instead, the only number that matters is the final margin — a 67-62 Liberty overtime win — in crowning a champion.

“One more (point) than the other team,” star New York guard Sabrina Ionescu said of what stat would be most important Sunday.

Jonquel Jones led the Liberty with 17 points en route to being crowned the finals MVP. Breanna Stewart added 13 points and 15 rebounds in a grinding affair and reserve center Nyara Sabally provided the most unexpected but necessary boost of all, playing a playoff career-high 17 minutes, scoring 13 points and hauling in seven rebounds.

With it all coming together just enough, New York took home its first-ever title, having lost its five prior appearances in the WNBA Finals.

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Days before the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen made a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence about her alleged affair with the Republican presidential candidate. It did not quite go as planned. When Trump was in the White House, Daniels’s claims about their relationship (which Trump denies) went public. Years later, in May 2024, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to the payoff.

Trump has been trying to get his conviction thrown out or at least delay his sentencing (maybe forever). But we’ve already learned plenty of lurid details about the alleged relationship. So why would Trump make a second attempt to silence Daniels ahead of the 2024 election?

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported on Wednesday that Trump’s attorney recently made another offer to Daniels. In 2018, years before the Manhattan DA brought charges against Trump, Daniels filed a defamation suit over a Trump tweet attacking her for claiming that she was threatened by a stranger to stay quiet about their affair. A federal judge dismissed the suit months later, and Daniels was ordered to pay Trump’s legal fees. As of this summer, the two camps were still haggling over the final amount: Team Trump had asked for $652,000 at one point, while Team Daniels said it should be closer to $600,000, per Maddow. Then in July, Trump’s lawyer sent a letter to Daniels’s representative saying that a payment of $620,000 was too low, but that they would agree to it if Daniels signed a nondisclosure agreement. According to MSNBC, the letter said this:

We disagree that a payment of $620,000.00 would be in full satisfaction of the three judgement. However, we can agree to settle these matters for $620,000.00, provided that your client agrees in writing to make no public or private statements related to any alleged past interactions with president Trump, or defamatory or disparaging statements about him, his businesses and/or any affiliates or his suitability as a candidate for President.

Daniels’s lawyer rejected the offer. Eventually, Trump’s attorney said that after speaking to “my client and co-counsel,” they would agree to $635,000 — with no mention of Daniels remaining silent. Daniels’s attorney said they eventually settled on $627,500 with no NDA.

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