negotiation

The WNBA and its players union will not agree to another extension of the collective bargaining agreement after the deadline passes Friday night, WNBPA vice president Breanna Stewart said.

That does not mean players will strike or the league will lock them out. Stewart told reporters Thursday at a practice for the Unrivaled three-on-three league that players would continue to negotiate in good faith.

With the deadline just before midnight Friday, the league wouldn’t confirm that the sides won’t reach an extension. A spokesman did say the league would “continue to negotiate in good faith with the goal of reaching a deal as quickly as possible.”

“Our focus remains on reaching an agreement that significantly increases player compensation while ensuring the long-term growth of the business,” a spokesperson said.

The league and the players had two previous extensions and met several times this week. Any stalled negotiations could delay the start of the season. The last CBA was announced in the middle of January 2020, a month after it had been agreed to.

It easily could take two months from when a new CBA is reached to get to the start of free agency, which was supposed to begin this month.

While a strike or lockout isn’t imminent, both sides could change their viewpoints.

Stewart said calling a strike is “not something that we’re going to do right this second, but we have that in our back pocket.” The league hasn’t been considering a lockout, according to a person familiar with the decision. The person spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the negotiations.

As of Thursday, the sides remained far apart on many key issues, including salary and revenue sharing, and it seems unlikely a deal could be reached before Friday’s deadline.

Revenue sharing a sticking point in talks

The league’s most recent offer last month would guarantee a maximum base salary of $1 million that could reach $1.3 million through revenue sharing. That’s up from the current $249,000 and could grow to nearly $2 million over the life of the agreement, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told AP. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the negotiations.

Under the proposal, players would receive in excess of 70% of net revenue — though that would be their take of the profits after expenses are paid. Those expenses would include upgraded facilities, charter flights, five-star hotels, medical services, security and arenas.

The average salary this year would be more than $530,000, up from its current $120,000, and grow to more than $770,000 over the life of the agreement. The minimum salary would grow from its current $67,000 to approximately $250,000 in the first year, the person told the AP.

The proposal also would pay young stars like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers, who are all still on their rookie contracts, nearly double the league minimum.

The union’s counter proposal to the league would give players around 30% of the gross revenue. The players’ percentage would be from money generated before expenses for the first year and teams would have a $10.5-million salary cap to sign players. Under the union’s proposal, the revenue sharing percent would go up slightly each year.

Union wants expansion fees included; league saying no

The union feels that the $750 million in expansion fees that the league just received with the addition of franchises in Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia by 2030 should be considered revenue and included in projections. The league says that the money actually goes to all the current teams to make up for the future money they’ll be losing by dividing the total revenue by more franchises.

Other major sports leagues like the NBA, NHL and NFL don’t include expansion fees in their revenue-sharing structures. Major League Baseball’s salary structure is not tied to its revenue, so expansion fees don’t matter.

League wants players to pay for own housing

With the potential new minimum salary at approximately $250,000, the WNBA has said that like most every other pro league, players should pay for their own housing.
The union’s stance is that teams should continue to pay for players’ housing.

Why stalled negotiations could delay the season

An extended delay in getting a deal done could cause a number of problems, specifically getting the season started on time or even played for several reasons. There are several factors that indicate that time is near:

• Free agency: With nearly all the veterans free agents this offseason, this will be the biggest year in the league’s history as far as potential movement. Free agency was supposed to start this month. However, once a new CBA is reached, it could take both parties two months to get free agency started.
• Revenue-generating events could be delayed: The release of the schedule has been delayed. In the past the league tried to get it out before the holidays so teams could sell tickets. With so many players potentially changing teams as free agents, new merchandise wouldn’t be able to be sold.
• Expansion draft: With Portland and Toronto entering the league this year, an expansion draft has to be held. Last year when Golden State came into the WNBA, a draft was held in December. Teams need to figure out who they will be protecting from being selected in the draft, and that is made more complicated because of all the free agents.

WASHINGTON — Standing alongside President Trump at his Palm Beach estate, Volodymyr Zelensky could only smirk and grimace without overtly offending his host. “Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed,” Trump told reporters, shocking the Ukrainian president before claiming that Vladimir Putin is genuine in his desire for peace.

It was just the latest example of the American president sympathizing with Moscow in its war of conquest in Europe. Yet Zelensky emerged from the meeting Sunday ensuring once again that Ukraine may fight another day, maintaining critical if uneasy support from Washington.

Few signs of progress toward a peace agreement materialized from the meeting at Mar-a-Lago, where Zelensky traveled with significant compromises — including a plan to put territorial concessions to Russia before the Ukrainian people for a vote — in order to appease the U.S. president.

But Zelensky won concessions of his own from Trump, who had for weeks been pushing for a ceasefire by Christmas, or else threatening to cut off Ukraine from U.S. intelligence that would leave Kyiv blind on the battlefield. “I don’t have deadlines,” Trump said Sunday.

Over the course of Trump’s first year in office, Zelensky and other European leaders have repeatedly worked to convince Trump that Russia’s President Putin is, in fact, an aggressor opposed to peace, responsible for an unprovoked invasion that launched the deadliest conflict in Europe since the Second World War.

Each time, Trump has come around, even going as far over the summer as to question whether Ukraine could win back the territories it has lost on the battlefield to Russia — and vowing to North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, “we’re with them all they way.”

Yet, each time, Trump has changed course within a matter of days or weeks, reverting to an embrace of Putin and Russia’s worldview, including a proposal that Ukraine preemptively cede sovereign territories that Russia has sought but failed to occupy by force.

Zelensky’s willingness to offer concessions in his latest meeting with Trump has, at least temporarily, “managed to keep President Trump from tilting further towards the Russian position,” said Kyle Balzer, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “But Trump’s position — his repeated insistence that a deal is necessary now because time is not on Ukraine’s side — continues to favor Putin’s line and negotiating tactics.”

U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Putin’s revanchist war aims — to conquer all of Ukraine and, beyond, to reclaim parts of Europe that once were part of the Soviet empire — remain unchanged.

Yet Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, whose own sympathies toward Russia have been scrutinized for years, recently dismissed the assessments as products of “deep state” “warmongers” within the intelligence community.

On Monday, hours after speaking with Trump, Putin ordered the Russian military to push toward Zaporizhzhia, a city of 700,000 before the war began. The city lies far outside the Donbas region that Moscow claims would satisfy its war aims in a negotiated settlement.

“Trump’s instincts are to favor Putin and Russia,” said Brian Taylor, director of the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs at Syracuse University. “Ukraine and its European partners still hope to convince Trump of the obvious fact that Putin is not interested in a deal that doesn’t amount to a Ukrainian surrender.

“If Trump was convinced of Putin’s intransigence, he might further tighten sanctions on Russia and provide more assistance to Ukraine to try to pressure Putin into a deal,” Taylor added. “It’s an uphill battle, one might even say Sisyphean, but Zelensky and European leaders have to keep trying. So far, nearly a year into Trump’s second term, it’s been worth it.”

On Monday, Moscow claims that Ukraine orchestrated a massive drone attack targeting Putin’s residence that would force it to reconsider its stance in negotiations. Kyiv denied an attack took place.

“Given the final degeneration of the criminal Kyiv regime, which has switched to a policy of state terrorism, Russia’s negotiating position will be revised,” Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister since 2004, said in a Telegram post.

Another senior Russian official said the reported attack shocked and infuriated Trump. But Zelensky, responding on social media, said that Russia was “at it again, using dangerous statements to undermine all achievements of our shared diplomatic efforts with President Trump’s team.”

“We keep working together to bring peace closer,” Zelensky said. “This alleged ‘residence strike’ story is a complete fabrication intended to justify additional attacks against Ukraine, including Kyiv, as well as Russia’s own refusal to take necessary steps to end the war.”

“Ukraine does not take steps that can undermine diplomacy. To the contrary, Russia always takes such steps,” he added. “It is critical that the world doesn’t stay silent now. We cannot allow Russia to undermine the work on achieving a lasting peace.”

Frederick Kagan, director of the Critical Threats Project, which collaborates with the Institute for the Study of War to produce daily battlefield assessments on the conflict, said that the meeting did not appear to fundamentally shift Trump’s position on the conflict — a potential win for Kyiv in and of itself, he said.

“U.S.-Ukraine negotiations appear to be continuing as before, which is positive, since those negotiations seem to be getting into the real details of what would be required for a meaningful set of security guarantees and long-term agreements to ensure that any peace settlement will be enduring,” Kagan said.

Gaps still remain between Kyiv and the Trump administration in negotiations over security guarantees. While Trump has offered a 15-year agreement, Ukraine is seeking guarantees for 50 years, Zelensky said Monday.

“As Trump continues to say, there’s no deal until there’s a deal,” Kagan added. “We’ll have to see how things go.”

Comments come days after PM Kamil Idris presented a plan to end the country’s nearly three-year war.

A senior official in Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council (TSC) has ruled out any negotiations with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as fighting continues to devastate the country.

“There is no truce and no negotiation with an occupier, and that the just peace that Sudan desires will be achieved through the roadmap and vision of its people and government,” Malik Agar Ayyir, deputy chairman of TSC, said in a statement on Thursday posted by the Ministry of Culture, Media and Tourism.

Speaking to ministers and state officials in Port Sudan, the eastern city where the government is based, he dismissed the narrative that the war is aimed at achieving “democracy”. Instead, he described the war as a “conflict over resources and a desire to change Sudan’s demographics” and emphasised an opportunity to strengthen national unity.

This comes days after Sudan’s Prime Minister Kamil Idris presented a plan to end the country’s nearly three-year war before the United Nations Security Council.

Consistent with the Sudanese army and the government’s position, the plan stipulates that RSF fighters must withdraw from vast areas of land that they have taken by force in the western and central parts of Sudan.

They would then have to be placed in camps and disarmed, before those who are not implicated in war crimes can be reintegrated into society.

The RSF has repeatedly rejected the idea of giving up territory, with Al-Basha Tibiq, a top adviser to commander Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, describing it as “closer to fantasy than to politics”.

RSF reports gains

The war, which has forcibly displaced about 14 million people, shows no signs of stopping as the RSF consolidates its hold over captured territory and expands attacks.

RSF fighters have continued to commit mass killings, systematic sexual violence, and the burying and burning of bodies in Darfur to cover up the evidence of war crimes over the past several months, according to international aid agencies working on the ground.

The humanitarian situation on the ground has only turned more disastrous after the capture of el-Fasher, capital of North Darfur state, in October.

The RSF announced on Thursday that its forces established control over the Abu Qumra region in North Darfur.

They “have continued their successful advancement to the Um Buru area, where they have completely liberated these areas”, the group claimed in a statement.

Despite the mounting evidence of widespread atrocities committed in western Sudan, the RSF claimed that the primary duty of its fighters is to “protect civilians and end the presence of remnants of armed pockets and mercenary movements”.

The group also released footage of its armed fighters, who claimed they were making advances towards el-Obeid, a strategic city in North Kordofan state.

“South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who this summer landed one of the richest TV deals ever, are being called Scrooges by performers at their Casa Bonita restaurant near Denver.

In late October, the performers, including the famed cliff divers, went on a three-day strike, citing unsafe working conditions and stalled negotiations over their first contract. The performers voted unanimously to unionize with Actors’ Equity Assn. a year ago.

The strike ended when the restaurant’s management agreed to bring in a mediator to assist in the negotiations.

But the standoff has continued, prompting Actors’ Equity to take out an ad in the Denver Post this week that depicts a “South Park” cartoon-like Parker and Stone awash in hundred-dollar bills while their staff, including a gorilla and a person clad in a swimsuit, shivers outside in the Colorado cold.

The union said its goal is to prod the star producers to resolve the labor tensions by giving about 60 Casa Bonita performers, including magicians and puppeteers, a pay increase and other benefits along with their first contract.

A full page ad is running in the Denver Post on Dec 24.

(Actors’ Equity Association)

Other Casa Bonita workers voted earlier this month to join the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 7.

“At Casa Bonita, we value all of our team members and their well being,” the restaurant management said in a statement. “We are negotiating in good faith with our unionized team members in the hopes of concluding fair collective bargaining agreements.”

Parker and Stone declined to comment through a spokesperson.

The pair, who also created the hit Broadway play “The Book of Mormon,” rescued the kitschy, bright-pink Mexican-themed eatery in Lakewood, Colo., from bankruptcy in 2021 and have since plowed more than $40 million into the restaurant to upgrade and correct unsafe electrical, plumbing and structural issues after the facility had fallen into disrepair.

For “South Park” super-fans, the venue has become something of a mecca since first being featured in the seventh season of the long-running Comedy Central cartoon.

In that episode, Cartman flips out when Kyle invites Stan, Kenny and Butters Stotch to his birthday party at Casa Bonita (not Cartman), where they are serenaded by the restaurant’s ubiquitous mariachi bands.

Along with legions of other kids who grew up in Colorado, Parker and Stone fondly remember making the trek to the Casa Bonita of their 1980s youth. Restoring the restaurant has become a passion project for the writers, a journey that became grist for a documentary, “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!,” which streams on Paramount+.

In July, Paramount managers were eager to tie up loose ends to facilitate the company’s sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media and RedBird Capital Partners. The incoming management team also became involved in the protracted negotiations to strike a new deal with Parker and Stone’s production company, Park County, to avoid having the situation unravel, possibly tripping up their corporate takeover.

Paramount ultimately agreed to extend the overall deal for Park County as well as lock up the show’s exclusive global streaming rights for $300 million a year over five years. Until this year, the show streamed exclusively on HBO Max.

The overall deal is slated to bring Parker and Stone’s firm $1.25 billion through 2030.

As part of the pact, the team agreed to create 50 new “South Park” episodes for Paramount. The series has enjoyed a ratings bounce and increased cultural resonance this year as it routinely roasts President Trump.

Actors’ Equity, which also represents Broadway performers, is seeking pay raises for its members at Casa Bonita. Union representatives said performers’ wages there average $21 to $26 an hour.

“Matt and Trey have become fabulously wealthy by pointing out the hypocrisy of rich and powerful people,” said David Levy, communications director for Actors’ Equity. “And now they are behaving exactly like the people they like to take down.”