NEW YORK (AP) — The WNBA players union has decided to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement, two years before its expiration. The league and players union had the option to do so before Nov. 1.
The early opt-out marks a crucial juncture for the league. The WNBA signed a historic 11-year media rights deal worth $200 million a year.
The league had record attendance and viewership this year that culminated in the WNBA Finals that saw New York beat Minnesota in overtime on Sunday in a decisive fifth game.
“This is a defining moment not just for the WNBA, but for all of us who believe in progress," WNBPA President Nneka Ogwumike said Monday. "The world has evolved since 2020 and we cannot afford to stand still. If we stay in the current agreement, we fall behind. This is a new era and we are ready to lead transformational change.”
The league has been skyrocketing, with 2024 marking a huge breakthrough after years of significant and sustained growth. ESPN had huge increases in ratings with viewership in the regular season going up 170%, according to the union.
The current CBA will still cover the 2025 season so the two sides have a year to negotiate a new agreement.
“With the historic 2024 WNBA season now in the books, we look forward to working together with the players and the WNBAPA on a new CBA that is fair for all and lays the foundation for growth and success for years to come,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said.
Engelbert said at her state-of-the-league address before Game 1 of the Finals that with the new media rights deal in place and many more corporate partners the strength of the league is in a great spot. She also went on to say that the players have been getting a lot more marketing deals, making them into household names.
The union said it was hoping for a new economic model that transforms the current system, which imposes arbitrary and restrictive caps on the value and benefits of players. The players want an equity-based model that grows and evolves with the league’s increased business success.
Other areas that the union would like to see improved include: salaries, retirement benefits, better child care and family planning benefits.
“This isn’t some sudden wake-up call. It’s the culmination of what we’ve been driving for over the last several seasons,” WNBPA vice president Kelsey Plum said. “We’ve played a key role in the league’s historic growth and now we’re breaking free from the current system to demand full transparency and an equitable stake in the business we’ve helped build.”
AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball
The New York Liberty hold up the championship trophy after defeating the Minnesota Lynx in Game 5 of the WNBA basketball final series, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
BEIRUT (AP) — Israel said late Monday it planned to carry out more strikes in Lebanon against a Hezbollah-run financial institution that it targeted the night before and which it says uses customers' deposits to finance attacks against Israel.
At least 15 branches of Al-Qard Al-Hassan were hit late Sunday in the southern neighborhoods of Beirut, across southern Lebanon and in the eastern Bekaa Valley, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. One strike flattened a nine-story building in Beirut with a branch inside it. Smoke rose from several locations on Monday.
The Israeli military issued evacuation warnings ahead of the strikes. There were no reports of casualties.
Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said late Monday that Israel planned more strikes in the coming hours.
Israeli ground forces invaded Lebanon earlier this month. The military said it aims to push Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon so that Israelis can return to their homes nearby after more than a year of cross-border rocket and drone attacks. Israeli airstrikes have pounded large areas of Lebanon for weeks, forcing over a million people to flee their homes.
Hezbollah has been launching rockets into Israel nearly every day since Hamas' deadly raid into Israel last year that sparked the war in Gaza.
The United States is hoping to revive diplomatic efforts to resolve both conflicts after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week, but so far all sides appear to be digging in.
The Arabic language spokesman for the Israeli military, Avichay Adraee, said Hezbollah stores hundreds of millions of dollars in the branches of Al-Qard Al-Hassan, without providing evidence, and that the money is used to purchase arms and pay fighters. The strikes were aimed at preventing the group from rearming, he said.
The institution, which has more than 30 branches across Lebanon, tried to reassure customers, saying it had evacuated all branches and relocated gold and other deposits to safe areas.
Many customers are civilians unaffiliated with Hezbollah. Al-Qard Al-Hassan, which is sanctioned by the United States and Saudi Arabia, has long served as an alternative to Lebanon's banks, which have imposed restrictions since a severe financial crisis that began in 2019.
Bulldozers cleared mounds of rubble at the site of one strike. Clothes, furniture and the remains of a beauty salon were seen in the debris. Al-Qard al-Hassan documents were scattered across the area, but there was no sign of cash or other valuables.
Hagari, the Israeli military spokesperson, said Iran funds Hezbollah by sending cash and gold to the Iranian embassy in Beirut, though he did not provide any evidence.
Hagari also said, without providing evidence, that Israeli intelligence had discovered a bunker belonging to former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah now being used as a finance vault under a hospital in southern Beirut, and that it held millions of dollars of gold and cash.
A member of Lebanon’s parliament who is the director of the hospital, Fadi Alameh, denied the claim, and said the hospital has underground operation rooms. Alameh said the hospital was being evacuated in anticipation of strikes.
Hagari said Israeli strikes in Beirut in early October and in Syria on Monday had also killed people responsible for transferring money between Iran and Hezbollah. Syrian state media said an Israeli airstrike hit a car in the capital of Damascus, killing two people and wounding three.
Israeli airstrikes killed 17 people in Lebanon on Monday, including four first responders, according to the country's health ministry.
U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein, who has spent much of the past year trying to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, was back in Lebanon on Monday for talks with senior officials.
He said U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, was “no longer enough” to ensure peace and a new mechanism was needed to enforce it.
The resolution called for Hezbollah to withdraw from the border with Israel and for U.N. peacekeepers and the Lebanese army to control southern Lebanon, without any Hezbollah or Israeli presence.
Israel says the resolution was never implemented and that Hezbollah built up extensive military infrastructure right up to the border. Lebanon has long accused Israel of violating its airspace and failing to abide by other provisions of the resolution.
“1701 was successful at ending the war in 2006, but we must be honest that nobody did anything to implement it,” Hochstein said after meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a political ally of Hezbollah who is involved in cease-fire talks.
The United States has expressed hope that last week's killing of Hamas leader Sinwar could give new impetus for a cease-fire in Gaza, which would give a major boost to parallel efforts to halt the fighting in Lebanon.
The head of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, Ronen Bar, visited Egypt for the second time in less than a week and met with Egyptian officials on Sunday, according to an Egyptian official who was not authorized to brief media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official said Egypt, a key mediator between Israel and Hamas, remains opposed to any Israeli presence along the Gaza-Egypt border, a key sticking point in talks that sputtered to a halt in August.
Hamas has said its demands remain unchanged after the killing of Sinwar. The militant group has said it will only release dozens of Israeli hostages in return for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a lasting cease-fire and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and recover all the captives, and says Israel must maintain an open-ended security presence in Gaza to keep Hamas from re-arming.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Around 100 captives are still being held in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who don’t distinguish combatants from civilians but say most of the dead were women and children. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Julia Frankel in Jerusalem, Bassem Mroue in Beirut, and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
A truck driver walks between trucks carrying humanitarian aid just before they cross into the Gaza Strip at Erez crossing in southern Israel, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
An Israeli soldier waves from a moving tank near the Israeli-Gaza border in southern Israel, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein, center, arrives at the government house ahead of a meeting with Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A destroyed apartment is seen in ruins at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Documents of Hezbollah-run al-Qard al-Hassan are scattered at the site of an Israeli airstrike on Sunday night in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Rescue workers use a bulldozer to remove rubble of destroyed buildings at the site of an Israeli airstrike on Sunday night that hit several branches of the Hezbollah-run al-Qard al-Hassan in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Residents check destroyed buildings at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Rescue workers use a skid loader to remove rubble at the site of an Israeli airstrike that hit several branches of the Hezbollah-run al-Qard al-Hassan in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A bust of late Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, stands in front of a destroyed branch of the Hezbollah-run Qard al-Hassan at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A man checks his destroyed car at the site of an Israeli airstrike that hit several branches of the Hezbollah-run al-Qard al-Hassan in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A destroyed apartment at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A destroyed apartment at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Rescue workers use a bulldozer to remove rubble of destroyed buildings at the site of an Israeli airstrike that hit several branches of the Hezbollah-run al-Qard al-Hassan in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Documents of Hezbollah-run al-Qard al-Hassan are scattered at the site of an Israeli airstrike on Sunday night in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Documents of Hezbollah-run al-Qard al-Hassan are scattered at the site of an Israeli airstrike on Sunday night in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Documents of Hezbollah-run al-Qard al-Hassan are scattered at the site of an Israeli airstrike on Sunday night in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Documents of Hezbollah-run al-Qard al-Hassan are scattered at the site of an Israeli airstrike on Sunday night in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Rescue workers use a bulldozer to remove rubble of destroyed buildings at the site of an Israeli airstrike on Sunday night that hit several branches of the Hezbollah-run al-Qard al-Hassan in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Rescue workers use a bulldozer to remove rubble of destroyed buildings at the site of an Israeli airstrike on Sunday night that hit several branches of the Hezbollah-run Qard al-Hassan Association in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Rescue workers use a bulldozer to remove rubble of destroyed buildings at the site of an Israeli airstrike on Sunday night that hit several branches of the Hezbollah-run al-Qard al-Hassan in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Rescue workers use a bulldozer to remove rubble of destroyed buildings at the site of an Israeli airstrike on Sunday night that hit several branches of the Hezbollah-run al-Qard al-Hassan in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Flames and smoke rise form an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Rescue workers use a bulldozer to remove rubble of destroyed buildings at the site of an Israeli airstrike on Sunday night that hit several branches of the Hezbollah-run al-Qard al-Hassan in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
