Need to know: The top national and international stories for June 21, 2021.
Supreme Court Rules Against NCAA
The Supreme Court voted unanimously on Monday against the NCAA and their treatment of college athletes. The ruling allows for more money to go to college athletes rather than the billion-dollar industry. From college sports games, ticket sales, merchandise, and other avenues, the college sports industry has risen to the top and garners about $1.1 billion every year.
However, a tiny portion of money and benefits go to the actual players. In his statement, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the NCAA is acting “above the law” in their treatment of their athletes, deeming them unconstitutional. He continued, “nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate.” Some benefits that college athletes are now entitled to are compensation related to and unrelated to education, such as annual payments of up to $6000 if they achieve “academic eligibility.” This decision will forever change the college sports industry and how young athletes are treated by their employers and institutions nationwide.
What We Know About The NYC Mayoral Race
The Democratic primary for New York City Mayor is tomorrow, Tuesday, June 22. This is an important one, not only because of a new mayor who can potentially change the city, but it is also their first test of ranked-choice voting. This allows voters to rank the 5 Democratic candidates from their favorite to least favorite and is a substantial desire of the Democrats to decrease the inconsistency of voting and the “majority wins” notion. This formatting is quite controversial among the candidates.
Leading candidate Eric Adam called into question the “integrity” of the election after the alliance of candidates Andrew Yang and Kathryn Garcia, claiming it can result in voter suppression of Black voters. However, Garcia stated their joint appearance on Sunday was not an endorsement but a ploy for Yang voters to rank her second on the ballot, which is legal and does not contribute to “voter suppression,” as Adams suggested.
Former counsel to past NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, Maya D. Wiley, condemned the accusations of Adams. She stated, “At a time when this country is seeing real voter suppression laws being enacted, using racism charges to undermine confidence in Ranked Choice Voting is cynical, self-interested and dangerous.” Adams has faced controversy and complications throughout his campaign and has decreased significantly in the polls, along with candidate Yang, resulting in Garcia rising to the top.
Another rumor about the election is that the winner will not be announced for some time. On Tuesday, according to the polls and statistics, we may look into who is leading, but the winner of New York City Mayor can take weeks to come in. Due to the nine days of early voting and tens of thousands of absentee ballots, it is seemingly impossible to count all the votes in one day. A similar problem occurred in the 2020 Presidential Election and primaries, in which the results took several days to be announced due to early voting during the pandemic. This election follows a ranked-choice model, so it will take even longer to estimate New York City’s top candidate.
Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, stated, “Democracy takes time, and every vote counts…accurate and fair election results are worth waiting for.”
2021 Olympics In Tokyo Are Allowing Spectators
Due to the global pandemic, many experts and even fans advocated for the postponement of the 2021 Olympics held in Tokyo, Japan. However, due to the quick vaccine rollout and distribution, Tokyo has announced they are still holding the games, but with restrictions. One of the significant restrictions is that only domestic residents of Japan are allowed to attend the games. The games have been delayed a year, and the speculation of no live audience was widespread, but the President of the games announced that there would be an audience for the athletes.
The games are scheduled to begin on July 23 through August 8, and the President of the games announced the crowd is allowed to take up 50% of the capacity – meaning up to 10,000 Japanese residents are permitted to attend. However, they are still monitoring the situation and severity of Covid, and changes can still be made to this rule.
This decision was highly controversial, as results from May show that 83% of people in Japan disapproved of hosting the Olympic games this summer. However, Olympic officials stated that over 80% of athletes had been vaccinated, and other attendees, such as journalists and volunteers, will also get vaccinated.
Some rules for the audience include wearing a mask, a ban on shouting, and social distancing and guidelines to travel safely from venues and locations to avoid transmission of the virus.