Today is Friday, May 16, the 136th day of 2025. There are 229 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On May 16, 1966, the Chinese Communist Party issued the May 16 Notification, a document that criticized “counterrevolutionary revisionists” within the party and marked the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.

Also on this date:

In 1770, Marie Antoinette, age 14, married the future King Louis XVI of France, who was 15.

Related Articles

Today in History: May 15, police kill two students during Jackson State protests

How ancient reptile footprints are rewriting the history of when animals evolved to live on land

Today in History: May 14, Jamestown becomes North America’s first English settlement

Today in History: May 13, Pope John Paul II shot and wounded

Today in History: May 12, tens of thousands die in Sichuan earthquake

In 1868, having already been impeached by the House of Representatives, President Andrew Johnson narrowly avoided impeachment by the Senate, which voted 35-19 in favor of impeachment—one vote shy of the required two-thirds majority.

In 1929, the first Academy Awards were presented. “Wings” won the award for Outstanding Picture, while Emil Jannings and Janet Gaynor were named Best Actor and Best Actress.

In 1943, the nearly monthlong Warsaw Ghetto Uprising came to an end as German forces crushed the Jewish resistance and blew up the city’s Great Synagogue.

In 1960, the first working laser was demonstrated at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California, by physicist Theodore Maiman.

In 1975, Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

In 1997, President Bill Clinton publicly apologized for the notorious 40-year Tuskegee Experiment, in which government scientists deliberately allowed Black men to weaken and die of treatable syphilis.

In 2018, officials at Michigan State University said they had agreed to pay $500 million to settle claims from more than 300 women and girls who said they were assaulted by sports doctor Larry Nassar.

In 2022, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 reached 1 million.

Today’s Birthdays:

Actor Danny Trejo is 81.
Actor Pierce Brosnan is 72.
Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Olga Korbut is 70.
Baseball Hall of Famer Jack Morris is 70.
Actor Debra Winger is 70.
Olympic marathon gold medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson is 68.
Actor Mare Winningham is 66.
Rock musician Krist Novoselic (Nirvana) is 60.
Singer Janet Jackson is 59.
Football Hall of Famer Thurman Thomas is 59.
Singer Ralph Tresvant (New Edition) is 57.
Actor David Boreanaz is 56.
Political commentator Tucker Carlson is 56.
Tennis Hall of Famer Gabriela Sabatini is 55.
Actor Tori Spelling is 52.
Actor Melanie Lynskey is 48.
Actor Megan Fox is 39.
Actor Thomas Brodie-Sangster is 35.

The Lynx play Dallas on Friday at 6:30 p.m. on ION.

There’s a lot of excitement and buzz around the WNBA as its set to tip off its 29th season Friday night thanks in large part to last season’s rookie class led by Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese.

The league may have its most anticipated year ahead with the two second year players leading the way. The duo, who helped the league to record ratings and attendance. Their two teams — the Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky — will face each other Saturday for the first of five matchups this season.

The league is coming off a thrilling finals that saw the New York Liberty beat the Minnesota Lynx in a decisive Game 5. Both teams are poised to try and get back to the championship round which will now be a best-of-7 format for the first time this year. Standing in their way could be the Las Vegas Aces, who won the title in back-to-back years in 2022-23.

Clark’s Fever made a huge splash in the offseason, bolstering their roster with the additions of DeWanna Bonner, Natasha Howard and Sophie Cunningham. They also added a new coach in former Fever leader Stephanie White.

One of the teams playing Friday night will be the expansion Golden State Valkyries, who are the first expansion team in the league since the Atlanta Dream joined in 2008. With the new squad, the league expanded its schedule to 44 games this year.

Here are a few other things to look for this upcoming season:

Promoting respect online and at games

The WNBA launched “No Space for Hate”, a multi-dimensional platform designed to combat hate and promote respect across all WNBA spaces both online and in-arena.

The league is focused on four key areas: enhanced technological features to detect hateful comments online; increased emphasis on team, arena, and league security measures; reinforcing mental health resources; and alignment of core against hate.

“As the WNBA continues to grow in popularity and influence, we’re proud to launch ‘No Space for Hate’ — a league-wide initiative to better protect players, preserve the spirit of the game, and affirm the values of our league,” said WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert. “We want our arenas, and our social platforms filled with energy and fandom — not hate and vitriol.”

Staying put this summer

Several European players have said publicly that they will forego playing in the Eurobasket this summer, opting to stay and play in the WNBA during that tournament. Seattle’s Gabby Williams and Dominique Malonga said they won’t play for France at the tournament. Fellow French star Carla Leite also has decided to stay with the Valkyries. The Eurobasket, which starts late next month, is a qualifier for next year’s FIBA World Cup that will be played in Germany. The WNBA allows players to go compete for their national teams in major tournaments like the Eurobasket without it violating the league’s prioritization rules.

Predictions for the season

The Liberty, Lynx and Aces are the top three teams with Indiana right behind as chosen by a 15-member national media panel that does a weekly power poll. The group also chose Minnesota star Napheesa Collier as its preseason MVP and Paige Bueckers of Hopkins as the top candidate for Rookie of the Year.

Rookie class impressing

Bueckers is one of 19 rookies to make opening day rosters in the WNBA, six more than last season. That includes two third round picks — JJ Quinerly (Dallas) and Taylor Thierry (Atlanta). Bueckers, the No. 1 pick in the draft, will try and help revitalize the Dallas franchise. She was the most efficient player in college on the offensive end and capped off her career helping UConn win its 12th national championship.

Related Articles

Paige Bueckers is WNBA’s top draft pick, heading to Dallas

A federal judge has ordered the immediate release of Aditya Harsono, the 34-year-old Marshall, Minn., man who was detained by immigration authorities in late March for allegedly overstaying his student visa.

“The Court finds that Mr. H has shown that he is in custody in violation of the First Amendment,” Judge Katherine Menendez’s order reads, “and is entitled to a writ of habeas corpus for his immediate release.”

Menendez also ordered that Harsono be released within 48 hours. Harsono’s attorney, Sarah Gad, said her client’s family posted the $5,000 bond.

Aditya Harsono, left, stands next to his wife, Peyton Harsono, who holds their infant daughter Adalet. The 33-year-old Marshall, Minn. man was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement days after his student F-1 visa was revoked on March 23, 2025. Harsono is currently being held at the Kandiyohi County Jail in Willmar, Minn. (Courtesy of Peyton Harsono)

“The federal judge agreed with us — me and my co-counsel — that his detention was unlawful in order that he’d be released,” Gad said. “So, we’re trying to get everything in gear to make that happen as soon as possible.”

Harsono petitioned for his release, stating his detainment was unconstitutional.

Harsono, who came to the United States from Indonesia, told MPR News he believed his arrest was in retaliation for his participation in protests after the 2021 police killing of Daunte Wright in Minneapolis.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested Harsono in March at his job at a Marshall hospital, days after his student visa was revoked without his knowledge. He has been in custody for nearly two months at the Kandiyohi County Jail in southwestern Minnesota.

Gad stated that Harsono’s I-130 form that was expedited had been approved last Friday. The I-130 form is used to petition for a green card by U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents for those wishing to immigrate and is considered the first step in the process for many family-based green card applications.

“I’m just so grateful for my co-counsel,” Gad said. “We’ve been working day and night on this federal habeas petition and our reply brief, and just like … it’s incredibly rewarding and I’m just, I’m so happy for them.”

Related Articles

Missing hiker found safe after surviving weeks in snowy California mountains

Why was Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok preoccupied with South Africa’s racial politics?

US lost business travelers in April as economic anxiety and border detentions cooled demand

A boy likely died from drinking too much olive brine. A Colorado county tried to make the suspicious case disappear

Cassie forced to read aloud explicit messages with Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs at his sex trafficking trial

The U.S. and China are calling a 90-day truce in their trade war, temporarily lowering tariffs on each other from eye-wateringly high levels.

The sharp climb-down well exceeded market expectations, with investors rushing back into Hong Kong and New York-listed stocks. U.S. levies on most Chinese imports will be reduced to 30% from 145%, while the 125% Chinese duties on US goods will drop to 10%. “Neither side wants to decouple,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday after a weekend of negotiations in Geneva.

It’s a huge relief for small businesses and millions of workers on both sides of the Pacific. But it’s also a sign that despite their strongmen image, President Donald Trump and his counterpart Xi Jinping are not without common sense. With prohibitive levies that would essentially lead to a complete embargo, the world’s two biggest economies are hurting.

In China, while people support Xi’s hardline stance to “fight to the end” on trade, many are genuinely worried about how to make a decent living in an already weak economy. Apparel, for instance, is the third-largest category of US imports from China, after communication devices and electronic equipment. This sector happens to be labor intensive. About 16 million jobs could be at risk thanks to Trump’s tariffs, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates.

How to help those that might fall out of work is becoming a big fiscal and social issue. The government’s unemployment insurance covers about 244 million. In the first quarter — even before Trump ignited his second trade war — payouts to the jobless rose by a whopping 22.4% to 46.5 billion yuan ($6.4 billion). In a sign of more trouble to come, the April PMI reading on new export orders plummeted to a three-year low.

Relocating these low-skilled manufacturing workers into services won’t be easy. Some of the popular gigs are already getting crowded. Last year, the number of ride-hailing drivers jumped by 27% to 38 million, while their compensation fell. In other words, China’s entire 425-million-strong blue-collar class will feel the heat regardless of whether their line of work is directly exposed to trade wars.

The future for many American workers also looks grim. For a president who boasts about creating millions of jobs, Trump is steadily destroying a healthy labor market with his maximalist approach on tariffs. In the US, small businesses account for almost 80% of job openings. Unlike big corporations such as Apple Inc., they have fewer operational levers to pull, often relying on a handful of overseas suppliers. For them, switching production to other countries such as India is an impossible ordeal. As such, if Trump’s 145% tariff lingered, they would have to lay off workers.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that this 90-day truce can hold. A mercurial Trump could change his tone at anytime, to stage manage the exceptionally tough-on-China image he fostered on the campaign trail. Meanwhile, a stubborn Xi might dig his heels in, having vowed to “never kneel down.”

Related Articles

Mihir Sharma: How the US gave India and Pakistan an excuse to stand down

Matthew Yglesias: If your commute is a nightmare, blame Congress

Timothy Shriver: If you want to solve problems, lose the contempt

Veronique de Rugy: Trump’s budget would lock in big-government spending and deficits

David French: Trump is no longer the most important American

But the fact that there’s an agreement of this scale after just a weekend of face-to-face talks shows that both sides want an off-ramp. Trump does seem to heed negative public opinion polls, despite calling them fake news. And Xi may not want to remind citizens of the last time he refused to budge: As the iron-fisted politician who locked down Chinese cities despite public outcries against the government’s unscientific COVID-Zero policy.

This 90-day truce is a good start.

Shuli Ren is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian markets. A former investment banker, she was a markets reporter for Barron’s. She is a CFA charterholder.