🏎️ It's Wednesday. And that emoji is us, speeding through the rest of the work week.

🌤️ Today's weather: Mostly sunny with highs around 70, lows near 60.

🎧 Sounds like: "Judy Staring at the Sun" by Catherine Wheel.

Today's newsletter is 825 words — a 3-minute read.

San Francisco will host the 2027 WNBA All-Star Game, adding to the city’s growing roster of major sporting events.

State of play: Yesterday's announcement comes a day after the Golden State Valkyries secured their second straight playoff berth, beating the Dallas Wings 78-70.

• Just two seasons in, the Valkyries have made the playoffs both years — an unprecedented start for a WNBA expansion team — while becoming the world's most valuable women's sports franchise, valued at $1 billion by CNBC this year.

Driving the news: The city's first WNBA All-Star Game will be played July 31, 2027, at the Chase Center, with the 3-point contest the night before and other events planned across the Bay Area.

The big picture: Women’s sports in the region are booming. The Valkyries broke the WNBA's attendance record during their inaugural season, Bay FC is in its third season and new pro hockey and volleyball teams are expanding the region’s women’s sports footprint.

• That momentum extends beyond the arena: Rikki's, which opened last year in the Castro, serves as a hub for Valkyries fans and the city's first women's sports bar — another sign of growing local demand.

Between the lines: The Valkyries expansion has quickly become one of the biggest success stories in women’s sports, helping turn San Francisco into a model for how women’s basketball can thrive in a new market, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said during Tuesday's announcement.

• "Successful expansion is about much more than putting a team in a new city and selling tickets, it's about building something that feels authentic to that community," she said.

Zoom out: The WNBA announcement extends a remarkable run of big-ticket sporting events for the Bay Area, coming just days after MLB awarded the 2028 All-Star Game to Oracle Park.

• Landing sports and entertainment events has become a key piece of Mayor Lurie's economic recovery strategy to change the post-pandemic narrative about San Francisco.
• The region recently hosted NBA All-Star Weekend, the 2026 Super Bowl and FIFA World Cup matches, with San Francisco serving as a base for fan events.

What's next: The WNBA will announce ticket information and a full lineup of All-Star events in the coming months. For now, the Valkyries have a playoff run to make.

• The Valkyries face off against the Minnesota Lynx tonight at 7.

💜 Go Valks!

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OpenAI unveiled its long-expected teen experience for ChatGPT yesterday featuring parental controls, efforts to encourage real-world relationships and a focus on learning rather than serving up answers.

Why it matters: The move is likely to rekindle debate over whether teens should be using chatbots at all.

State of play: "ChatGPT for Teens" new features include:

📚 Learning, not shortcuts: Users will be steered toward working through schoolwork via a "Study Mode" feature and new "responsible homework reminders" that detect when a teen appears to be trying to shortcut an assignment.

🛡️ Stronger content safeguards: Teen accounts will have more protections around self-harm, eating disorders, violence, dangerous activities and sexually explicit or graphic content.

🤖 Clearer AI boundaries: The chatbot won't use romantic language or terms of endearment with teens and will avoid implying it has real feelings, consciousness, or emotions.

⏸️ More nudges: Teens will get more break reminders that they are interacting with AI and warnings before sharing private or sensitive images.

How it works: 13 to 17 year-old users — and those OpenAI's age-prediction system estimates are under 18 — will automatically be placed into the teen experience.

The big picture: The new chatbot comes as OpenAI faces legal scrutiny over teen safety, including a lawsuit from the family of a 16-year-old who died by suicide after lengthy ChatGPT interactions.

• The company pledged last year to increase safeguards for younger users and those in crisis and added parental controls in September.

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🛒 Gus's Community Market is expanding beyond San Francisco for the first time with a new, 18,000-square-foot store opening in Los Gatos next spring. (SFGATE)

An ex-Condor Club employee was sentenced to one year in county jail for being an accessory after the fact to the murder of the strip club's longtime general manager. (SF Chronicle)

💔 SF Camerawork, the city's pioneering photography institution since 1974, will close at the end of August after more than 50 years. (SFGATE)

A car crashed into the historic Judson Pacific-Murphy building in Potrero Hill this week, injuring one person. (SF Chronicle)

It's another beautiful day in San Francisco, where the views of Twin Peaks remain considerably easier to acquire than the real estate.

📸 Not a bad backdrop for a Wednesday.

🎬 Nadia is watching "Buffet Infinity."

This newsletter was edited by Geoff Ziezulewicz.