Lily Chang, autor en Bean watcher

Mar

2024

Amid tragedy, one high school basketball team shows the power of sports

GRETNA, Neb. — This is not a story about high school basketball. It’s not about a treasured coach who died midway through a season. It’s not a story of redemption, sorrow or achievement.It’s about togetherness. This is a story about community and a team that has revealed, through its resilience and fight to honor a lost leader, what the best of sports looks like.Wednesday night at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Neb., Gretna High School will play a first-round game in the Class A boys state tournament against Millard North.Brad Feeken coached the Dragons to win. He coached them with…

Mar

2024

By Lily Chang

TikTok Prompts Users to Call Congress to Fight Possible Ban

Science and Technology

Washington lawmakers introduced a bill this week calling for TikTok to cut ties with its Chinese parent company or face a ban in the United States. When many users opened the popular app on Thursday, the company greeted them with a message to oppose the legislation, prompting a flood of phone calls to several Capitol Hill offices.“Stop a TikTok shutdown,” the message on the app read. It included a button for people to call their representatives, saying: “Let Congress know what TikTok means to you and tell them to vote NO.”By noon, the phone lines for members of Congress were…

Mar

2024

By Lily Chang

Brighter Economic Mood Isn’t Translating Into Support for Biden

Investments and Business

Economic vibes don’t necessarily predict electoral outcomes, though, and this campaign is different in many ways from those in the past. “We’re kind of in an unprecedented situation where we’re weighing two incumbents,” said Joanne Hsu, who runs the Michigan survey.Anthony Rice, a 54-year-old Democrat in eastern Indiana, and pretty much everyone he knows, he said, are doing well right now. Gas prices are down, jobs are plentiful, and Mr. Rice, a unionized dump-truck driver, is benefiting directly from the infrastructure law that Mr. Biden signed in 2021. Yet few people in the deep-red part of the country where he…

Mar

2024

By Lily Chang

Total Solar Eclipse of 2024: 31 Things to Do

Politics

Entertain the kidsIf you’re taking your children to see the eclipse, they will need distractions. What’s better than an indoor water park, like the one at the Great Wolf Lodge in Sandusky, Ohio? Near the centerline of the eclipse’s path, it’s well situated, and its viewing party will offer free wolf ears for the kids and moon pies for everyone. A family suite that includes unlimited access to the park averages nearly $330 a night. You can also find child-friendly activities if you’re willing to travel back in time. Kinmundy Log Cabin Village in Kinmundy, Ill., will open its grounds…