By ANDREW DESTIN

SEATTLE (AP) — As president of the WNBA’s players union, Seattle Storm forward Nneka Ogwumike has been asked time and again about the league’s collective bargaining agreement discussions.

The WNBA is bringing in more money than ever from sponsors and ticket sales, and will bring in much more from its 11-year media rights deal, worth around $200 million per year starting in 2026 — yet player salaries haven’t increased drastically in recent years. In light of other players around the WNBA speaking out, Ogwumike addressed the matter of player salaries following the Storm’s 89-79 win over the New York Liberty on Sunday.

“We have women out here who know the business. And we understand where our league has been and where it’s going,” Ogwumike said. “And, we’re prepared. We’re prepared. And we want to be able to come out here and represent ourselves and our value the same way we do on the court, in our contracts, in our facilities, in the standards of the resources that are available to us.”

Ogwumike said the players union received a response from the league, which she considered a “good” development. In October, WNBA players opted out of their collective bargaining agreement. The current CBA still covers the 2025 season.

The next step from the union’s standpoint is for contracts to be more representative of the league’s growth. The current collective bargaining agreement was signed before the 2020 season.

“Everybody wants to go to the same place. Everyone just has a different idea of how we get there,” Ogwumike said. “But it definitely starts with valuing the players in a way that makes sense for what we’re doing out here, and also makes sense for the people that follow us and the fans that are supporting us. We’ve seen a lot of growth recently, so we have to see that being reflected in how we’re compensated to continue to give you guys games like this every night.”

Ogwumike added that she is looking forward to whatever meeting between the WNBPA and the league is to come over the next 25 days. In the past, other players have said they are willing to sit out games if negotiations don’t lead to a pay structure they feel is fair.

Ogwumike is grateful for the support the players union has already received ahead of and amid these negotiations.

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“I’m appreciative to our player body, our player reps and the women that are speaking out about this,” Ogwumike said, “and our board of advisors and PA staff and what they’re doing for us to be able to get to a successful, collaborative negotiation with the league.”

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

By Daniel Miller, Los Angeles Times

Roozbeh Farahanipour sat in the blue-green glow of his Westwood restaurant’s 220-gallon saltwater aquarium and worried about Iran, his voice accented in anguish.

It was Sunday morning, and the homeland he fled a quarter-century ago had been bombed by the U.S. military, escalating a conflict that began nine days earlier when Israel sprang a surprise attack on its perennial Middle Eastern foe.

“Anger and hate for the Iranian regime — I have it, but I try to manage it,” said Farahanipour, owner of Delphi Greek restaurant and two other nearby eateries. “I don’t think that anything good will come out of this. If, for any reason, the regime is going to be changed, either we’re facing another Iraq or Afghanistan, or we’re going to see the Balkans situation. Iran is going to be split in pieces.”

Farahanipour, 53, who’d been a political activist before fleeing Iran, rattled off a series of questions as a gray-colored shark made lazy loops in the tank behind him. What might happen to civilians in Iran if the U.S. attack triggers a more widespread war? What about the potential loss of Israeli lives? And Americans, too? After wrestling with those weighty questions, he posed a more workaday one: “What’s gonna be the gas price tomorrow?”

Such is life for Iranian Americans in Los Angeles, a diaspora that comprises the largest Iranian community outside of Iran. Farahanipour, like other Iranian Americans interviewed by The Times, described “very mixed and complicated” feelings over the crisis in Iran, which escalated early Sunday when the U.S. struck three nuclear sites there, joining an Israeli effort to disrupt the country’s quest for an atomic weapon.

About 141,000 Iranian Americans live in L.A. County, according to the Iranian Data Dashboard, which is hosted by the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies. The epicenter of the community is Westwood, where the neighborhood’s namesake boulevard is speckled with storefronts covered in Persian script.

On Sunday morning, reaction to news of the conflict was muted in an area nicknamed “Tehrangeles” — a reference to Iran’s capital — after it welcomed Iranians who emigrated to L.A. during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. In some stores and restaurants, journalists from CNN, Spectrum News and other outlets outnumbered Iranian patrons. At Attari Sandwich Shop, known for its beef tongue sandwich, the pre-revolution Iranian flag hung near the cash register — but none of the diners wanted to give an interview.

“No thank you; [I’m] not really political,” one middle-aged guest said with a wry smile.

Kevan Harris, an associate professor of sociology at UCLA, said that any U.S. involvement in a military conflict with Iran is freighted with meaning, and has long been the subject of hand-wringing.

“This scenario — which seems almost fantastical in a way — is something that has been in the imagination: the United States is going to bomb Iran,” said Harris, an Iranian American who wrote the book “A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran.” “For 20 years, this is something that has been regularly discussed.”

Many emigres find themselves torn between deep dislike and resentment of the authoritarian government they fled, and concern about the family members left behind. Some in Westwood were willing to chat.

A woman who asked to be identified only as Mary, out of safety concerns for her family in Iran, said she had emigrated five years ago and was visiting L.A. with her husband. The Chicago resident said that the last week and a half have been very difficult, partly because many in her immediate family, including her parents, still live in Tehran. They recently left the city for another location in Iran due to the ongoing attacks by Israeli forces.

“I am talking to them every day,” said Mary, 35.

Standing outside Shater Abbass Bakery & Market — whose owner also has hung the pre-1979 Iranian flag — Mary said she was “hopeful and worried.”

“It’s a very confusing feeling,” she said. “Some people, they are happy because they don’t like the government — they hate the government.” Others, she said, are upset over the destruction of property and death of civilians.

Mary had been planning to visit her family in Iran in August, but that’s been scrambled. “Now, I don’t know what I should do,” she said.

Not far from Westwood, Beverly Hills’ prominent Iranian Jewish community was making its presence felt. On Sunday morning, Shahram Javidnia, 62, walked near a group of pro-Israel supporters who were staging a procession headed toward the city’s large “Beverly Hills” sign. One of them waved an Israeli flag.

Javidnia, an Iranian Jew who lives in Beverly Hills and opposes the government in Iran, said he monitors social media, TV and radio for news of the situation there.

“Now that they’re in a weak point,” he said of Iran’s authoritarian leadership, “that’s the time maybe for the Iranians to rise up and try to do what is right.”

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Javidnia came to the U.S. in 1978 as a teenager, a year before revolution would lead to the overthrow of the shah and establishment of the Islamic Republic. He settled in the L.A. area, and hasn’t been back since. He said returning is not something he even thinks about.

“The place that I spent my childhood is not there anymore,” he said. “It doesn’t exist.”

©2025 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By Bill Faries, Bloomberg News

The U.S. State Department issued a “Worldwide Caution” alert for American citizens, flagging the potential of travel disruptions and demonstrations following the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

“The conflict between Israel and Iran has resulted in disruptions to travel and periodic closure of airspace across the Middle East,” the State Department said in a statement. “There is the potential for demonstrations against U.S. citizens and interests abroad. The Department of State advises U.S. citizens worldwide to exercise increased caution.”

These global alerts from the U.S. are relatively rare — the last one was in October 2023, soon after Hamas’ attacks on Israel from Gaza sparked the latest conflict.

Iran has vowed to retaliate after the U.S. attacked its facilities over the weekend in a bid to derail the country’s nuclear program. Iran’s foreign minister has said it reserves all options to respond, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has signaled that U.S. military bases in the region could be targeted.

At the United Nations on Sunday, Iranian Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani told an emergency Security Council meeting that the “timing, nature and scale” of Tehran’s response “will be decided by its armed forces.”

The State Department recommends Americans review any country-specific security alerts on its travel site, which you can see here.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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By Josh Xiao and Yian Lee, Bloomberg News

China criticized the U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities and reiterated that it’s willing to join international efforts to restore peace in the Middle East.

Beijing “strongly” condemns the attacks on Iran, according to a four-sentence statement from the Foreign Ministry on Sunday.

“The U.S. move seriously violates the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter and international law and exacerbates tensions in the Middle East,” it said. “China calls on all parties to the conflict, especially Israel, to cease fire as soon as possible.”

On Monday, the state-run Global Times added to the criticism, saying the US’s use of bunker-buster bombs would push “the Iran-Israel conflict closer toward an uncontrollable state.”

President Donald Trump said American bombers struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites and threatened more attacks if Tehran doesn’t capitulate, pulling the U.S. directly into the country’s conflict with Israel despite his longtime promises to avoid new wars.

Beijing hasn’t yet offered substantial assistance to Tehran besides rhetorical support. President Xi Jinping last week outlined a four-point proposal for the Iran-Israel war in a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on China to speak to leaders in Iran about not closing the Strait of Hormuz — the waterway at the entrance to the Persian Gulf where about a fifth of the world’s crude output passes through.

“I encourage the Chinese government in Beijing to call them about that because they heavily depend on the Straits of Hormuz for their oil,” he told Fox News.

China is the nation most dependent on oil passing through the strait, where a third of its crude transits. Tehran could seek to retaliate for the U.S. attack by trying to close the chokepoint. Iran’s parliament has called for closing the waterway, according to Iranian state-run TV — a move that would need the explicit approval of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to proceed.

Iran has vowed not to back down, with its foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, saying the country “reserves all options to defend its sovereignty, interest, and people” and warning America’s move “will have everlasting consequences.”

While China buys some 90% of Iran’s oil exports in defiance of U.S. restrictions, the risks of secondary sanctions and the official stance against nuclear proliferation have prevented Beijing from intervening.

Some analysts have suggested that a distracted Washington might be good news for Beijing.

“If this results in a prolonged U.S. engagement in the Middle East, it would also mean less concentration on Beijing’s immediate neighborhood, both militarily and diplomatically,” said William Yang, senior analyst for North East Asia at International Crisis Group.

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(With assistance from Jon Herskovitz.)

©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.