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After further discussions with members of the players’ union, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert’s new plan to start the 2020 season now includes paying players 100 percent of their salaries, reported ESPN’s Mechelle Voepel. The news comes three days after The Next reported that many players were unhappy with the league’s original proposal, which stipulated that players would only get paid 60 percent of their normal salaries.

The current proposal is for the WNBA to hold a shortened 22-game regular season at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida beginning July 24. The 2020 season was set to start on May 15 and consists of 36 regular season games, but Engelbert was forced to suspend play in early April due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The playoff format, which includes single-elimination first and second-round games and then five-game series for the semifinals and finals, will reportedly stay the same and end in October as usual if the shortened season is accepted.

The original proposal, which ESPN first reported on June 4, did not include details of COVID-19 testing procedures or housing. However, The Next’s Arielle Chambers reported that the original plan included boxed lunches and shared hotel rooms with no guests allowed, two issues that concerned players. Former Los Angeles Sparks GM Penny Toler also spoke out against the original proposal, arguing that players should get paid in full for the many risks and sacrifices they’d be taking in order to bring basketball back.

The WNBA’s most recent proposal is similar to the NWSL’s approved plan, which also includes guaranteed salaries, housing, and accommodations for player with children. The NWSL is set to be the first American sports league to return when its Challenge Cup kicks off June 27 in Utah.

Players will reportedly be able to opt out of the WNBA’s season, although those who choose to do so but are not certified as high-risk for COVID-19 will not get paid. In terms of testing protocol, Voepel reported that “players, coaches and team personnel would be tested for the coronavirus upon arrival to the site, and testing would continue throughout their stay.” Additionally, while players with children would be allowed to bring them to the bubble site, only players with at least five years’ experience would be able to bring a “plus-one” — a spouse or significant other — for the entire season, but a source told ESPN “they will need to pay for that person’s lodging, testing and meals, which could amount to approximately $4,000 per month.” Once the playoffs reach the semifinals, all players would be allowed to have a plus-one.

According to Voepel, the players will vote on the new proposal over the next two days and a formal announcement could come as soon as Monday.

WWE has had a working relationship with Philadephia-based indie promotion Evolve Wrestling for some time now. Back in the good old days when live wrestling events were still happening in front of live audiences, WWE would frequently let NXT Superstars go there for matches. Last summer, in fact, the WWE Network ran Evolve’s 10 Anniversary Show live, the first and, to date, only time the Network has featured an indie wrestling event like that. WWE has also been known to recruit a lot of talent from Evolve, including Austin Theory and Shotzi Blackheart, who were both featured in the aforementioned Anniversary event and have debuted for NXT in the year since (and already moved to Raw, in Theory’s case.

Today there are reports, courtesy of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, that WWE may soon own Evolve outright. According to WON, Evolve is in serious financial trouble. Like other indie promotions, they had to cancel their planned Wrestlemania week shows that were expected to bring in a bunch of money, and that lack of income has been “catastrophic” for them. It sounds like things have only gotten worse since then, as the Pandemic has dragged on and there’ve yet to be anymore live shows, and now they’re considering selling “pretty much everything” to WWE, including their tape library.

So far, neither WWE nor Evolve has commented, but we’ll let you know if more comes out about this.

Most people grow up going to schools where people are of a similar social status. Lower-income people tend to grow up with people in the same situation and affluent people usually grow up around people who are rich as well.

But things can change dramatically in college. People who are from completely different sides of the socioeconomic spectrum attend class together and sometimes wind up sharing the same dorm room.

One student can be there on a scholarship and have a part-time job to make ends meet. The other may be on a massive allowance from their parents who pay full tuition without batting an eye.

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What exacerbates the issue is that many people go through college being dirt poor. If they have a job, it’s often low-paying, they can’t work many hours and they aren’t old enough to have accumulated any wealth.

So seeing someone one of your peers wasting other people’s hard-earned money can be downright stupefying.

It can also seem highly immoral for some to have so much and not appreciate it when others are struggling to get by.

College is also a time when people begin to learn about income inequality and why it exists.

Freelance journalist Jake Bittle started a fun conversation of Twitter where people shared stories of some of the insanely rich kids they knew in college. Many of the responses came from people who went to the University of Chicago.

Bittle’s story started with seeing a girl open her laptop to revel a ton of money in her bank account while they were taking a class on Marxism. The tweet inspired people to share stories of the insanely rich kids they met in college and how some of them were terribly wasteful with their money.

(Jake has since deleted his original tweet.)

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Social distancing continues this weekend amid the global pandemic, and several new TV seasons are here for the binging. If nothing here suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

The King Of Staten Island (VOD) — Judd Apatow’s upcoming comedy starring Pete Davidson (in a role that takes inspiration from his pre-SNL life) comes straight to your living from from Universal Pictures. Both Davidson and Bill Burr are fantastic in this movie that also stars Marisa Tomei and Steve Buscemi.

Da 5 Bloods (Netflix film) — The New Joint from Spike Lee can be found nowhere else but the streaming giant. The movie looks to put an unusual twist on the standard war epic movie in a few ways. We’ve got a split timeline that flashes between the past with Chadwick Boseman’s character, a fallen squad leader, and the present, which sees four of his charges go back to Vietnam, where buried treasure taunts them, along with a quest for their leader’s remains.

Knives Out (Streaming on Amazon Prime) — Not only is Rian Johnson’s stellar, star-studded whodunnit streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime this month, but it’s also free to Prime users. This gem’s got Smug Chris Evans and many more delightfully eccentric players, and it builds to a masterful crescendo, so do pencil it into your schedule.

Artemis Fowl (Disney+ film) — Five years after Disney announced plans to adapt the Artemis Fowl book series, the 12-year-old genius comes to life, even if the film might be a muddled mess. Fowl descends from a family of criminal masterminds, and he must battle a fairy race that may have engineered the kidnapping of his father. Kenneth Branagh directs and Judy Dench narrates.

Crossing Swords (Hulu series) — This adult-oriented animal series (from Robot Chicken producers John Harvatine IV and Tom Root) pulls out the visual stops with some of the finest stop-motion animation techniques. Sadly, those beautifully crafted visuals get lost in a sea of gratuitous vulgarity.

F is for Family: Season 4 (Netflix series) — Comedian Bill Burr is having quite a weekend, and the latest season of his latest animated comedy series continues in the 1970s with the voices of Burr, Laura Dern, Justin Long, Sam Rockwell and more.

Jo Koy: In His Elements: (Netflix comedy special) — Koy heads to the Philippines in this special that celebrates his heritage with jokes about Manila’s culture and his experience as a Filipino-American.

Here’s the rest of this weekend’s notable programming:

Friday Night In with The Morgans (Friday, AMC 10:00 p.m.) — Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Hilarie Burton are back, hopefully with more insight into The Walking Dead.

Billions (Sunday, Showtime 9:00 p.m.) — Axe finds inspiration in unlikely sources while Wendy attempts to maneuver through some rocky situations, one involving Niko the artist, as Chuck’s attempting to exploit someone again for his own ends.

Quiz (Sunday, AMC 9:00 p.m.) — Part three puts a bow on this limited series, in which the Ingrams have been accused of a million-pound game show heist. As the jury learns, everything is not cut and dried.

Snowpiercer (Sunday, TNT 9:00 p.m.) — Melanie stages a trial for the train’s murderer while class tensions continue to come to a boil.

I Know This Much Is True (Sunday, HBO 9:00 p.m.) — Finally, Mark Ruffalo’s (well-acted) portrayal of two identical twins with a troubled, miserable relationship (between themselves and to the world) comes to an end.

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels (Sunday, Showtime 10:00 p.m.) — Linda receives an asylum visit, a dangerous outing goes down for Townsend and Kurt, and Frank gets down the business of terror.

Insecure (Sunday, HBO 10:00 p.m.) — Issa’s still searching for happiness in the season finale, and a distressing phone call arrives while Molly and Andrew have issues.

I May Destroy You (Sunday, HBO 10:30 p.m.) — Michaela Coel’s newest series is a fiery and fearless exploration of sexual consent. This week, Arabella starts to mull over that fateful night’s hazy events and pieces moments together with help from friends.

Along with visuals, audio, hardware, controllers, and literally every other attribute, a pivotal way video games have improved over the decades is in terms of accessibility and ease of use. The first home consoles took games out of arcades and brought them to people’s living rooms. Eventually, online shopping (and later digital downloads) made it so gamers didn’t even have to leave their homes to add new games to their libraries, a necessary luxury these days.

Now, it’s 2020, and Spotify and Apple Music have made streaming music easily the most convenient way to access your favorite songs. Netflix, Hulu, and similar platforms have done the same for TV and movies. It only makes sense to call for access to top-rate games to be as instant and effortless as this. While one can argue that video games do not fit into the streaming picture the same way as music and film, but at the moment, the answer to that question is still being written.

The idea behind playing a streaming game is easy to understand: In essence, instead of owning a beefy console or PC, players see live video of the game they’re playing over the cloud and send inputs in real time. The burden of processing power is placed on some server somewhere else, not the player’s hardware. In this reality, players don’t have to play at arcades, leave the house to buy new games, or even wait for downloads.

In the abstract, this is an alluring idea. With streaming video games, there’s no need to have up-to-date and potentially expensive technology in your home. As long as you have some sort of screen with a machine that can handle streaming video, you can play the latest big-time games and still achieve the best possible quality, both in terms of visuals and gameplay.

At least, this was what Google Stadia promised, but the platform hasn’t exactly made streaming video games the new way to play. Why not? Well, for starters, there’s Google’s flawed rollout strategy. The idea behind the platform, or at least one of its primary appeals, is to make streaming gaming accessible with tech people already had in their homes. Yet, when Stadia launched in November of 2019, it was only available via the $130 “Premiere” and “Founder’s Edition,” which came with a Stadia controller and a Chromecast Ultra. They only just made their free tier available in April, nearly five months after its launch.

So, instead of instant and convenient gameplay on equipment you already have, Stadia launched with a paywall and the need for proprietary equipment. That hasn’t exactly torn gamers away from the PS4 and Xbox One (more on consoles in a moment) they didn’t have any real issues with in the first place. Stadia didn’t offer a better experience, so why bother with it?

Additionally, Stadia is not a Netflix-style subscription service that gives players access to a huge library of games without an additional charge. That sort of thing is what consumers have come to expect now when they hear something called a “streaming” service. Players still have to buy individual games, and on launch, only a dozen games that many gamers already owned on other platforms were available. One only needs so many copies of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

While most reviewers have praised the overall quality of Stadia games played through an ethernet connection, most players will likely default to a less cumbersome Wi-Fi setup. At least in the near future, this is a problem: Ars Technica noted that when playing over Wi-Fi, they found the experience to be “inconsistent to the point of aggravation.” Home Wi-Fi speeds are already prone to dragging with phones, laptops, smart TVs, smart watches, door bells, refrigerators, blenders, juicers, and other devices hogging bandwidth. Imagine adding streaming games to that already-crowded internet usage environment, especially when many of us already struggle playing YouTube videos without buffering sometimes.

And for the most part for most folks, that’s just at 1080p: Stadia promises gameplay in 4K.The internet speeds and bandwidth people have in their homes now are only just starting to catch up to its gluttonous technological needs, and 4K video is a relatively new concept in terms of widespread adoption at a user level. It doesn’t feel like the platform is there yet for 4K video plus the real-time interactivity cloud gaming requires, a sentiment to which critics can attest.

Ultimately, Google failed to make their experimental new service easily accessible, immediately attractive, and properly functional. They introduced it poorly, and the tech isn’t ready. Therefore, Stadia has yet to become a household name. The same goes for its competitors, like GeForce Now, Shadow, and others you probably haven’t heard of.

That doesn’t mean they won’t ever be, though. After all, Nintendo was a company for 94 years before they released their first Mario game. Patience is, has often been noted, a virtue.

One competitor in this space that hasn’t been mentioned yet, though, is one that everybody knows: Sony. Their PlayStation 5 is set to launch in time for the holiday season, and it looks like the PS4 successor could radically change streaming gaming. Thursday’s PS5 reveal event didn’t address this, but in a report from last year, Sony CEO Jim Ryan described “a massively enhanced PlayStation community where enriched and shared PlayStation experiences can be seamlessly enjoyed independent of time and place — with or without a console.”

Additionally, Microsoft’s xCloud is on the way, so the cloud gaming platform could bring similar functionality and flexibility to the upcoming Xbox Series X and/or the Xbox ecosystem more broadly.

If these visions end up implemented as stated (or rather, as I’m interpreting them) in the new PlayStation and Xbox consoles, the next generation of gaming could offer the best of both the console and cloud-based worlds. Are you at home? Just play on your PlayStation/Xbox and don’t fret about the potential connectivity pitfalls of streaming. Elsewhere? Access your games library in a way that — in ideal conditions, at least — mirrors the experience of playing on console.

As Stadia has proven, though, big promises are easy to make. Similarly to the famous Seinfeld car rental incident, making a claim is effortless. It’s the keeping of the promise that’s the important part. So, how can Sony and Microsoft avoid the problems Google has faced?

I have a non-expert idea: Maybe a small portion of essential and regularly accessed game data is hosted locally, while the rest is delivered over the cloud, as a way of limiting what users need to store themselves. For the tech-aware, try thinking about it like the solid-state hybrid drives (SSHDs) that were popular a few years ago. Mechanical hard drives had big storage capacities, but were slow and on the way out. Meanwhile, solid-state drives (SSDs) were fast, but it cost multiple arms and legs to get one with any serious amount of storage. So, the SSHD was, as is obvious based on the name, a hybrid of the old and the new, and they were a wonderful resource to have during that transitional period.

Even if that idea doesn’t actually make sense on a technical level or isn’t applicable to streaming games, it illustrates the core of what I’m getting at: Maybe we’re diving straight into cloud gaming too quickly. Maybe console gaming and cloud gaming are two islands, and what we need now is a bridge. If that’s not the case, we don’t know everything about Sony and Microsoft’s cloud gaming solutions yet, so maybe they’ve figured something out that Google hasn’t, something they’ll be ready to show the world soon.

Regardless of which of these possible futures will be the one, for now, they are all just that: the future. That said, consumer technology feels really close to being ready for streaming gaming. At the very least, it appears to be a few months away, assuming that all the promises that have been made are fulfilled.

Until then, though, it seems Stadia, PS5, Xbox Series X, and the rest may be more of a preview of our gaming future than its arrival. Regardless, we’ve come a long way from the arcade.

While news coverage has been saturated with stories of protests and pandemics, some of the Trump administration’s recent actions have gone under the radar. At the beginning of Pride Month, the Trump administration effectively pushed to allow religious adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples and deny them permission to adopt. Openly queer indie rocker Lucy Dacus fought back against the news by sharing her own adoption story.

The Department of Justice recently filed a briefing in the Supreme Court case Fulton v. City of Philadelphia that dates back to 2018, in which the City of Philadelphia ended a contract with Catholic Social Services upon learning they had discriminated against LGBTQ folks and refused to allow same-sex couples to adopt children. According to NBC News, the DOJ’s brief argued that “Philadelphia has impermissibly discriminated against religious exercise,” and that the city’s actions “reflect unconstitutional hostility toward Catholic Social Services’ religious beliefs.” The brief was also completely voluntary, as the federal government is not a party in the case.

Dacus spoke out against news of the briefing. Retweeting a pair of screenshots from an article that covered Trump’s attempted ban, Dacus said it’s not the first time he has tried to do this. “I’m adopted, my mom was adopted, & if I ever have a kid I’ll probably adopt them,” Dacus wrote. “My experience has been marked by love, generosity, & respect. Ofc gay people should be able to adopt.”

Check out Dacus’ statement above.

Sometimes the best new R&B can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm and blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week. So that R&B heads can focus on listening to what they really love in its true form, we’ll be offering a digest of the best new R&B music that fans of the genre should hear every Friday.

This week, R&B sisters Chloe x Halle released their sophomore debut Ungodly Hour, Partynextdoor dropped a visual for his Partymobile track “Savage Anthem” and Jorja Smith emerged with her jazzy cut “Rose Rouge.” Check out the rest of the best new R&B this week below.

Chloe x Halle — Ungodly Hour

R&B duo Chloe and Halle Bailey, known worldwide as Chloe x Halle, are coming full-force with their second studio album Ungodly Hour, the follow-up to 2018’s The Kids Are Alright. The sisters have quite a few triumphs under their belt (besides being mentored by the one and only Beyoncé since teenagers), and among them include a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist and a performance of “America The Beautiful” at the 2019 Super Bowl. Chloe and Halle’s dualistic energy is mesmerizing on the supremely polished Ungodly Hour and their voices are a smooth blend of captivating high-note sorcery. The 13-song album includes “Forgive Me” and their viral TikTok hit “Do It.”

PartyNextDoor — “Savage Anthem”

PartyNextDoor‘s music is vulnerable on the surface but his recently released album Partymobile goes even deeper into the psyche of the OVO Sound singer. His track “Savage Anthem” is pure evidence of this as he shares his side of what happened in a past relationship with an animated visual. “Me being faithful is the issue,” he croons. Some fans have long suspected the song is about his ex-girlfriend Kehlani, however, she has denied that there’s any truth to that sentiment.

Jorja Smith — “Rose Rouge”

Jorja Smith‘s reimagination of St Germaine’s “Rose Rouge” is insanely beautiful. The song is expected to live on Blue Note Records’ Blue Note Re:imagined, a compilation album of Jazz covers from contemporary acts. Helmed by softened high-hats and brass instruments, Jorja’s take on “Rose Rouge” is just as calming as it is smooth. The project is slated for release on September 25.

RMR — Drug Dealing Is A Lost Art

Melodic outlaw RMR is redefining the musical matrix with his debut project Drug Dealing Is A Lost Art. The project is an exploration of emotions and has a lot more to offer than the mysterious singer’s viral cut “Rascal.” He taps Future and Lil Baby for the remix to his track “Dealer,” Westside Gunn is perfectly placed on the album’s opening cut “Welfare,” and he links with the legendary Timbaland for “I’m Not Over You.” RMR’s Drug Dealing Is A Lost Art effectively shows there’s more to him than what’s on the surface.

TeaMarrr — Before I Spill Myself

Raedio artist TeaMarrr has delivered her debut project Before I Spill Myself and it includes features from SiR, D. Smoke, and Rapsody. “Before I Spill Myself is a bawdy of work that touches the beginning, middle, and end of what sharing yourself with someone NEW romantically feels like,” the “Kinda Love” singer wrote on Instagram about the collection of 10 songs. TeaMarrr’s Before I Spill Myself is truly a sonic healing brew of vibes.

Leon Bridges — “Sweeter” Feat. Terrace Martin

Grammy Award-winning musicians Leon Bridges and Terrace Martin came together for the dulcet “Sweeter.” Filled with the rich sounds of Martin’s expertise, Leon vocalizes what it feels like to be Black in America and the pain he feels following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. “The death of George Floyd was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me,” he said in press release. “It was the first time I wept for a man I never met. I am George Floyd, my brothers are George Floyd, and my sisters are George Floyd. I cannot and will not be silent any longer.”

Pink Sweats — “Cadillac Drive” Feat. Price

Off the Insecure Soundtrack from season four, Pink Sweats blesses fans with the romantic visual “Cadillac Drive” featuring Price. Though his forthcoming album Pink Planet is currently still in the works, the rising R&B singer continues to consistently release quality love songs such as the nostaligic “17.”

Baby Rose — “Show You (Remix)” Feat. Q

Baby Rose‘s “Show You” featuring Q landed on season four of Insecure and is a modern jazz dream. Rose’s contralto reverberates amongst the various brass instruments, sketching out her vulnerability and emotions. Nevertheless, the 25-year-old DC native continues to impress and her debut album To Myself is a hypnotizing showcase of her unique sound that should be heard by everyone.

Pierre Da Silva — “Tell Me”

London-based R&B singer Pierre Da Silva‘s “Tell Me” is an introspective, uptempo ballad that is a complete mood. In a world where love is more ego-driven and inundated with exhausting mind games, Pierre sings of letting go of all inhibitions simply by communicating all thoughts, feelings, and insecurities. “Tell Me” is the follow-up to his previously released single, “Never Again.”

Malachiae — “Get To The Bag”

Burgeoning Motown singer Malachiae upholds traditional R&B values with his latest release “Get To The Bag.” Produced by Sangria, “Get to the bag is an inspirational love song about leveling up in life and sharing the experience and everything with the people who love and support you,” the Atlanta-based artist expressed in a press release. Malachiae is just getting started so there’s more to come from her.

Kaash Paige — “Jaded”

Dallas’ own R&B topliner Kaash Paige is getting ready to follow-up 2019’s Parked Car Convo‘s with her debut album Teenage Fever. Her recent sultry release “Jaded” is just a taste of what’s to come. This follows a string of drops Kaash has blessed fans with this year including “Frank Ocean” and “Sobriety.”

Check out this week’s R&B picks, plus more on Uproxx’s Spotify playlist below.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Eleven-time Grammy winner and EGOT recipient John Legend is unfolding a new era of music. After sharing his powerful track “Bigger Love” back in April, Legend shares his eponymous album’s cover art, tracklist, and release date.

Based on his tracklist, the singer’s upcoming album boasts features from big-name artists like Jhene Aiko and Gary Clark Jr. In a statement alongside his Bigger Love announcement, Legend detailed his album’s inspirations:

“The songs are inspired by the loves of my life: my wife, my family and the rich tradition of black music that has made me the artist I am.

All of these songs were created prior to the world being rocked by a pandemic, prior to the latest police killings in the U.S. that sent so many to the streets in protest. During these painful times, some of us may wonder if it’s ok to laugh or dance or be romantic. Lately, the images of black people in the media have been showing us with knees on our necks, in mourning, or expressing our collective outrage. We feel all those emotions.

But It’s important for us to continue to show the world the fullness of what it is to be black and human. Through our art, we are able to do that. This album is a celebration of love, joy, sensuality, hope, and resilience, the things that make our culture so beautiful and influential.

I’m under no illusion that music can save the world or solve the world’s problems, but I’ve always turned to music to help me through tough times and I know many of you have done the same. That’s why I couldn’t wait to release this album to the world. I debuted in 2004 with an album called Get Lifted. And now, as we enter the summer of 2020, I hope this new album can get you lifted again, fill your hearts with love and inspiration, give you something to dance to, something to hold hands to, something to make love to.”

Check out Legend’s Bigger Love cover art and tracklist below.

1. “Ooh Laa”
2. “Actions”
3. “I Do”
4. “One Life”
5. “Wild” Feat. Gary Clark Jr.
6. “Bigger Love”
7. “U Move, I Move” Feat. Jhene Aiko
8. “Favorite Place”
9. “Slow Cooker”
10. “Focused”
11. “Conversations In The Dark”
12. “Don’t Walk Away” Feat. Coffee
13. “Remember Us” Feat. Rapsody
14. “I’m Ready” Feat. Camper
15. “Always”
16. “Never Break”

Bigger Love is out 6/19 via Columbia. Pre-order it here.