Updates from the second round at Royal Birkdale

Chatty American in his first Open likes English trains and, despite a second-round blip, likes the links tooDid you hear the one about the kid from Tampa who won the Open in his very first week playing the links? If you didn't, it'll be because neither did he. Right now it's still a maybe. Jackson Suber, 26, square jaw, slim hips, big swing, and very long odds, was two shots clear of the field at one point on Friday morning, and even after he dropped three shots in as many holes, he managed to reach the clubhouse in second place, on six under par. The general reaction was much the same as it had been the previous evening when he first shot to the top of the leaderboard. Suber who?You need to be a pretty close follower of the PGA Tour, or heavily invested in the University of Mississippi golf program to have any real idea. On Thursday evening everyone in the media centre was scurrying around to find out something worth knowing. The first stop is his Open biography, which reveals that he qualified for the championship by finishing in a tie for fourth in the Canadian Open, that this is his third major appearance after he played in the US Open in 2024 (73rd) and 2026 (missed the cut), and that he recently finished fourth in the Byron Nelson. Hmm. Continue reading...

Latest news before Sunday's World Cup 2026 final

Democrats and advocates sound alarm at Trump rehashing false claims about 2020 election in his primetime addressDemocrats and voting rights groups say Donald Trump's primetime speech making unverified claims of Chinese interference in the 2020 election are the clearest sign yet that the president is laying the groundwork to tamper with the results of November's midterms.The upcoming elections to decide the balance of power in Congress and many state legislatures will be a major test of Trump's appeal to voters two years after he resoundingly beat the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris to return to the White House. With polls showing that the president is disliked by majorities of voters and his Republican allies are at risk of losing their control of the House of Representatives, the president's Thursday evening speech rehashing allegations about the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden sparked fears he was already looking for ways to ensure November's results are in his favor. Continue reading...

Aircraft that transported team to match is same one used to deport dozens of Venezuelans to Cecot mega-prisonA plane used by the Portugal men's soccer team to fly to a World Cup match is the same one used daily for the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign, and brought dozens of Venezuelans to a Salvadoran mega-prison last year against a judge's orders.Video shows Portugal flying on a Global Crossing Airlines (GlobalX) aircraft en route to Dallas on 4 July ahead of their match against Spain, with the plane's tail number, N837VA, clearly visible. A review of flight records for that Airbus shows it flew removal-related flights both the day before and after flying the Portuguese athletes. Continue reading...

109 million people face another day of poor air quality as smoke from blazes in Ontario drifts over the US

Illness surging in Michigan and other US states is rarely life-threatening, CDC says - but it can have severe effects

Aid workers are first known people to quarantine at facility, which sparked huge opposition in KenyaSeven American aid workers who had been in Congo to fight the Ebola outbreak are quarantining at a new isolation facility in Kenya after the US government introduced travel restrictions, the head of a US charity employing them told Reuters.The aid workers are the first known people to quarantine at the facility, which has sparked huge opposition in Kenya and is at the heart of a legal case in which a court has ordered the work to be suspended. Construction continued however, according to US officials and satellite imagery reviewed by Reuters. Continue reading...

Shopping local ensures a future for cultures and communities, says Caroline Weaver, creator of the Locavore Guide digital directoryWhen I signed the lease for my new apartment in Brooklyn, the relief of having survived the brutal New York City real estate market was short-lived when my next task became clear: I needed to furnish the place.My first instinct was to check everything off my list by shopping online. But the thought of waiting for deliveries and unboxing an endless mountain of packages seemed exhausting. And, I was moving to New York, where the streets are lined with a seemingly infinite number of stores. Continue reading...

Meta touts safety features - but for women, the dangers of these recording devices are obviousImagine if every time you left the house, you couldn't be sure that the stranger you met at a bar - or even the person walking by you in the street - wasn't secretly recording you. It sounds like something out of a Black Mirror episode, but let's face it, the era of wearable technology is fully upon us as everyday accessories have been developed to help track health and fitness data, receive smartphone notifications, and provide hands-free accessibility.So when Meta announced their AI glasses a few years ago, it wasn't too surprising that one of the biggest (and most embattled) tech companies on earth had begun cashing in on our obsession with watching others. And their AI glasses have already raised serious concerns over privacy, personal safety and even our sense of agency. Continue reading...

The debate about how old is too old to serve in public office has resurfaced this week after the shock death of the Republican senator Lindsey Graham and the surprise return of Mitch McConnell, the 84-year-old senator who published a photo of himself in hospital after a long absence from the spotlight.With rumours continuing to swirl around Donald Trump's health, why is it US politicians seem to cling on to power for so long?Jonathan Freedland speaks to Alexis Coe, a presidential historian and columnist for the New York Times Book review, about whether the US is becoming a gerontocracy - and what can be done about it Continue reading...

The annual World Eskimo Indian Olympics draw hundreds of Indigenous athletes to partake in traditional games and celebrate their heritageAs Nicole Johnson prepared to compete in the Alaska sports arena, she visualized propelling into the air and kicking the ball with both of her feet simultaneously. The Inupiaq athlete was partaking in the Arctic game of two-foot high kick, long practiced by her community of northern Alaska Natives. When she kicked the ball made of seal skin that dangled from a kickstand, the crowd erupted in cheers. That day in July 1989 at the World Eskimo Indian Olympics (WEIO), Johnson set the women's world record in the sport by striking the target at 6ft 6in.For this year's event, at age 57, she will compete in the dene stick pull, where she and another participant will hold on to the center of a stick covered in grease and attempt to wrest the object from their opponent. Continue reading...

Attorneys general from 12 states are suing to block the Paramount-Warner Bros deal they say violates antitrust lawA last-ditch effort to block the merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) is heading to court as 12 Democratic state attorneys general attempt to stop the $111bn deal they say violates antitrust law and reduces competition in both the film and cable television industries.The lawsuit, which was filed on Monday, faces a crucial hearing on Friday to determine if a judge will temporarily pause the deal or allow it to continue toward approval. The merger was already approved by the Department of Justice in June. Continue reading...

Ex-Concacaf executive Mel Brennan reflects on the Fifa corruption scandal, missed reforms and why football's governance remains stubbornly opaqueMel Brennan has seen every level of world football. I know what the World Cup looks like from the 17th floor of Trump Tower ... I know what it looks like from a grass-strewn field in Trinidad where children cannot play because money that was supposed to maintain it went somewhere else entirely," he says.Brennan worked as an executive at Concacaf during the corrupt reign of its infamous former president Jack Warner and the late general secretary Chuck Blazer, who once helped run the organization from Trump Tower.This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Continue reading...

Move would allow Wall Street trading firms and other institutions to potentially profit from seeing president's posts firstDonald Trump's media company is planning to charge for special high-speed access to Truth Social posts, including possibly his own, affecting national security and financial markets.The move announced on Thursday would allow Wall Street trading firms and other institutions to get news first from top Truth Social contributors so they could profit off subsequent moves in stocks, bonds and interest rates. Continue reading...

Opponents say president's address about 2020 election loss is attempt to sow confusion ahead of midterms that could deliver big losses for RepublicansDonald Trump accused China of interfering with the 2020 election in a primetime televised address that laid bare his continuing obsession with his defeat to Joe Biden, but which opponents warned was a smokescreen for him to meddle in the forthcoming congressional midterms.In a 25-minute speech on Thursday that had been hyped by Trump himself, the US president cast extraordinary doubts on the integrity of the US electoral process, saying it was catastrophically" short of standards of fairness and trust, and vulnerable to trespassing by foreign powers. Continue reading...

Two of the top four chess nations will go head to head in Miami on 27-28 JulyThe USA and Uzbekistan are among the world's current four best chess teams, along with India and China, so the announcement that the pair will meet at Miami on 27-28 July in an all-play-all rapid and blitz Scheveningen format is sure to create interest as a guide to what may happen when the 200-nation classical Olympiad takes place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, from 15-27 September. Full details of the forthcoming matchare here.The two teams in Miami will both be at virtually full strength. The USA will field the world Nos 2 and 3, Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura, plus the world No 7, Wesley So, and the world Nos 17 and 22, Leinier Dominguez and Levon Aronian. Only the world No 19, Hans Niemann, might have made it stronger. Continue reading...

The broadcaster's tournament coverage was a mix of flat and fizz. It could also have been a long farewell with World Cup rights up for grabsGoodbye, then, to Fox, to its band of upbeat Brits and grown men dressed in suits and sneakers. Goodbye to constant cutaways to Gianni Infantino in the stands, his eyebrows a mournful tipi, his nude head sprinkling under the summer sun. Goodbye to Landon Donovan and his special gift for announcing every celebrity sighting (And there's Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz") as if delivering the results of a colonoscopy. Goodbye to Rebecca Lowe saying OK, OK" whenever she's needed one of her on-set personalities to zip it so she can throw to a break. Goodbye to the momentum graph, which only flashed on screen when a match's momentum needed no explanation; goodbye to no golden goal" on the scorebug during extra time, referencing a rule that has not been in force at a World Cup for 24 years; goodbye to the connected ball, which never seemed connected when we needed connection most.Goodbye to Geoff Shreeves, Fox's middle-aged Oliver Twist chirruping on the sideline for the approval of his American masters. Goodbye to Tom Rinaldi, to his pocket squares and his lyrical" meditations on balls and planets and stars or whatever. Goodbye to Chef Nick, now forced to rein in the extravagance of his early contributions (kangaroo corndogs, fufu chicken tikka masala) in the face of the tournament's gastronomically subdued final four. And goodbye to Jameis Winston, the Fox fan correspondent, whose distressingly antic and sweaty stadium dispatches gave him the unvarying appearance of a man being electrocuted in the middle of a baptism. Continue reading...

US president using office and intelligence agencies to try to undermine confidence in elections before midtermsDonald Trump used the imprimatur of the presidency and United States intelligence agencies to try to undermine confidence in American elections in a presidential address on Thursday that seemed bluntly aimed at laying the groundwork for further destabilizing the electoral system before November's midterm elections.In his address from the East Room at the White House, Trump attempted to give the impression that his administration had uncovered new bombshell findings about vulnerabilities in the US's election system. China, he claimed, had illicitly acquired voter information on 220 million Americans (many states allow anyone to buy voter roll information; Trump did not say the means by which the nation acquired the data). He claimed that China interfered in other ways to undermine his 2020 campaign and that the information had been suppressed by intelligence officials. Continue reading...

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NBC and CNN stayed away from White House speech, while Fox News, MS Now, CBS and some ABC affiliates aired itThe US's largest television stations split on whether to air Donald Trump's White House address live on Thursday night, which was heavy on unproven accusations about the integrity of the 2020 election won by Joe Biden.While CNN, ABC and NBC chose not to air the speech live, CBS, Fox News and MS Now (formerly MSNBC) aired at least large portions of the speech live. ABC did not air the speech as a must-run broadcast, but some station affiliates - including the Washington DC station owned by right-leaning broadcaster Sinclair - chose to air the speech. Continue reading...

Businesses and traffic in West Hollywood doused after century-old pipe bursts belowgroundA century-old water pipe buried below a bustling boulevard in a Los Angeles county city burst early Thursday, sending a shock of water spewing into the streets and snarling traffic as several major roads shut down.The 36in riveted steel pipe's rupture left a protruding sinkhole and cracked pavement in West Hollywood. Images of the aftermath showed local metro buses partially submerged in murky brown water. Continue reading...

Taylor Farms reportedly linked to outbreak thought to be in Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky

We're now closing this blog. Please join us on our new live blog covering Donald Trump's speech to the nation tonight.

Updates from the first-round action at Royal Birkdale

His comments come after 103 House Democrats backed an unsuccessful bid to halt billions in military aid to Israel

More than 100 Democrats voted to cut military aid to Israel as US public opinion shifts - Republicans are noticing tooSomewhere in the days before Wednesday's vote, Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, sat down and wrote his caucus a letter urging Democrats to reject an amendment that would strip security assistance to Israel. For most of his tenure as Democratic leader, that kind of internal whipping operation would have been unnecessary, because the outcome would have been assumed.His own second-in-command voted the other way anyway. Continue reading...

Fair housing complaints accuse Greystar of refusing to take tenants who use federal rent vouchersGreystar, the largest owner and manager of apartments in the US, systematically flouts local laws designed to make housing affordable to the poor, according to civil rights complaints filed with authorities in six states and the District of Columbia.The complaints - filed this week with government agencies in California, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Virginia and Washington DC - accuse Greystar of 114 violations of state and DC fair housing laws. They allege that the company refuses to accept federal housing choice vouchers (also known as Section 8) in places that require landlords to accept them. Continue reading...

Mike Collins' son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II, has shared antisemitic conspiracies and Nazi imagery online

There was a sense of deja vu as Argentina came from behind to win an intense semi-final. But the players also gave the nation some memorable highsHistorically, English football-supporting culture has had a well-known darker side. But in recent decades, as the England men's team's trophy drought has continued, some of its unofficial anthems have acquired an endearingly melancholy quality. It was nearly complete, it was nearly so sweet", as the ThreeLions song had it in the 1990s, when England exited a World Cup and a European Championship at thesemi-final stage.This summer, Oasis's Wonderwall has been the soundtrack as Harry Kane and co progressed to Wednesday's climactic semi-final showdown with Argentina. This is a song which, very wisely in an England context, puts a heavy emphasis on the idea of maybe". In the end it turned out to be maybe not. Continue reading...

All the reaction from England's semi-final defeat, as the UK government calls for Fifa to investigate Argentina over a Falklands banner displayed after the gameThomas Tuchel had already shown this week he's not someone who is prone to mere pleasantries after a game. The head coach shouldered the blame for England becoming too passive after taking the lead against Argentina, but at the same time said he had no regrets".I don't believe so much in an English thing and a curse or whatever. It's repeating itself in different moments. It's different coaches, different players, different situations.What cost us today was that we were not active enough in any structure. I can understand these discussions are out there and of course a million coaches after the game know it better. You can discuss this with a million coaches. I have to make a decision on the pitch. It's how I analyse the match and I take the responsibility. Continue reading...

Rachel Menitoff praised for her professionalism as giant insect lands on her during on-camera reportViewers of a now-viral video are sharing their amazement at a TV reporter who maintained her composure during a live broadcast after a huge flying cockroach unexpectedly landed on her mid-report.Rachel Menitoff, a reporter for Los Angeles station KTLA News, was covering dangerous conditions caused by extreme heat from Sherman Oaks, California, on Wednesday during an evening live shot. Her report took an unexpected turn when a giant insect interrupted the segment. Continue reading...

The tournament's mascot came to herald the ubiquitous, commercial aims of a growing international spectacleDeep within a dark warehouse in Hillsborough, North Carolina, there sits a severed head. Encased in plastic, perfectly preserved and seemingly begging to be reanimated, it belongs to an American soccer legend.For a seismic summer 32 years ago, Striker the dog was more ubiquitous than any of World Cup 94's players, plastered all over billboards, Coke cans, key chains, caps and hundreds of other items. Kids carried around Striker dolls. Grown men played Striker-themed pinball machines and Super Nintendo games and posed for photos with the pup in stadiums. Continue reading...

Roger Rogoff's was selected by panel of judges for top prosecutor job after interim US attorney's term ended

Fracking billionaire Harold Hamm is co-chair of a non-profit that has aggressively pushed for US energy dominanceTycoon Harold Hamm is one of the US's most successful oilmen, the son of Oklahoma sharecroppers who hit it rich as a wildcatter" and pioneered fracking techniques that drove the shale boom in 2008 that reversed declining US oil production. Donald Trump describes him as a long time" friend and is said to have called him his original oil guy" behind closed doors.The Continental Resources founder has also faced scrutiny from climate advocates and groups and some Democratic lawmakers over his influence on Trump and role in pushing him to go all in on planet-heating fossil fuels and gut climate rules. Continue reading...

Backlash at Yale to its negotiations with Trump shine a light on the danger of smaller authoritarian structures in civil societyAs news started to spread of Yale's leadership negotiating a deal with the Trump administration, the university's faculty, students and alumni sprang into action to oppose any settlement. What the president and lawyers intend remains unclear. In the case of Harvard, it appears that Trumpists - and Trump himself, for that matter - might have been leaking about concessions being imminent partly to put pressure on the university. What is clear is that the Trump administration has embarked on a wide-ranging investigation of Yale, accusing it of discriminating against white and Asian students. But in any case, the battle over Yale's response reveals a troubling pattern. Many of us had thought that the US possessed a robust civil society that could act as a counterweight to an overbearing government and resist authoritarian encroachments. What few reckoned with: its institutions themselves can be run in a fairly authoritarian fashion - universities being a prime example, with deleterious consequences for democracy as a whole.The argument for the freedom-preserving role of civil society has been known at least since a French aristocrat travelled the US in the early 19th century in order to uncover why American mass democracy, unlike democracy in his native country, appeared stable and peaceful. Alexis de Tocqueville ended up singing the praises of how Americans are always associating with each other to discover and, if necessary, defend common interests. That wisdom still resonates in lived experience today, starting with birdwatchers and the PTA.Jan-Werner Muller is a Guardian US columnist and a professor of politics at Princeton University Continue reading...

US renews blockade of Iranian ports, while Iran attacks sites in Bahrain and Kuwait. Plus, legendary director John Waters on 60 years of screen carnage Don't already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up hereGood morning. The US has fired on an oil tanker attempting to reach Kharg Island in the strait of Hormuz as part of its blockade on Iranian ports. The US targeted coastal defences and missile sites, as well as targets farther north, with state media reporting strikes for the first time on the country's capital, Tehran.The US also said it had disabled the unladen oil tanker, firing Hellfire missiles into the ship's smokestack after it ignored multiple warnings.What other developments have happened in the region? Donald Trump said Iran had released a US citizen detained since 2024, identified as Dena Karari, a dual US-Iranian citizen. Meanwhile, the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, told the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, that Israel was determined to keep its forces in security zones" in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.What did the man's family say? Arenas-Silva's sister and immigrants' rights groups in Georgia said in a press statement that ICE did not provide him with necessary medications during his time in detention for an unnamed condition, despite his family's pleas that he take the medications during his arrest last week.How is the crisis becoming more international? Mexico has formally requested that US state attorneys general criminally investigate cases of immigrants who have died in ICE custody or during raids, the Mexican government has said. Since the beginning of Donald Trump's second term, 17 Mexican immigrants have died during immigration enforcement, 14 in ICE custody and three in agency operations. Continue reading...

The defense secretary has announced a screening program for troops. Get ready for a high-T Department of WarOne day perhaps Pete Hegseth will make the news for doing something worthwhile, something that makes his mother proud. One day perhaps we'll see a headline about the defense secretary that doesn't involve allegations of sexual misconduct or bigotry, claims about past drinking on the job, possible war crimes, Christian nationalism, or his weird fixation on male facial hair.Alas, today is not that day. Rather, we are gathered here today because Hegseth is very het up about testosterone. On Wednesday, the defense secretary proudly announced a new screening program for war fighters" 30 and older that would ensure they had the right testosterone levels". In a video posted on X, captioned the High-T Department of War", Hegseth explains: By addressing these health markers early, we're keeping you on the leading edge of lethality."Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Last year the federal government downgraded active surveillance for this parasite. Now thousands are sickA patient arrives after two weeks of relentless watery diarrhea, sometimes 20 episodes a day. She has lost weight and cannot keep fluids down. Her stool tests come back negative. Unless someone thinks to order an assay that includes Cyclospora cayetanensis, she may leave without a diagnosis and stay ill for weeks longer.Cyclospora is easy to miss in a clinic. Many routine stool tests do not include it, so a clinician must consider the parasite before the laboratory will look for it. You find it on purpose, or you do not find it.Robert B Shpiner is a clinical professor of medicine in pulmonary and critical care at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA Continue reading...

The league is back in play after a six-week pause for the World Cup. We spotlight seven players to watch after their stints with their national teamsThe 2026 MLS season resumes Thursday, cleverly holding its return on the days between the World Cup semi-finals and third-place game. Fans of any of the league's 30 teams will be trying to recall the state of affairs after a six-week pause, with more than half of the regular season still to be played and the Leagues Cup further congesting the schedule.The league was curiously absent from the World Cup, only cited during the broadcasts viewed by millions if a commentator named an involved player's club and whose reach largely depended on the in-market efforts of its franchises. And yet, through the quarter-finals, MLS ranked sixth in total minutes by its players, the highest of any league outside Europe's big five. Twenty-two of MLS's 30 clubs had at least one man make a tournament squad. Continue reading...

Marco Rubio has offered nonsensical rationale in attacking the court. The Trump administration's real goal is impunityWith the pointless war of choice in Iran going poorly, the Trump administration has declared a virtual war on the international criminal court (ICC). Secretary of state, Marco Rubio, vowed on Monday to dismantle" the court as a supposed threat to US sovereignty. His rationale is laced with sophistry. The administration's real goal is to secure impunity for war crimes, even those committed on the territory of ICC member states.In a Wall Street Journal op-ed and a video posted on X, Rubio conjures up a dystopia in which local American officials such as police officers or border patrol agents could be dragged before an international court, tried by judges from random countries across the globe, found guilty under international laws we neither consent to nor control, and then imprisoned thousands of miles from America". Continue reading...

Trade office cites investigation of Brazilian trade practices while Marco Rubio says Lula's policies bad for Americans and bad for Brazilians'Brazil has condemned the US decision to impose 25% tariffs on certain Brazilian products, after the Trump administration found a range of what it deemed unfair trade practices by the South American country.The Brazilian government repudiates the decision announced today by the United States government regarding the imposition of 25 percent tariffs on Brazilian products," the office of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said in a statement on X, denying it had engaged in unfair trade practices. Continue reading...

The R&B singer was found guilty of racketeering, sex trafficking and producing child abuse images, with his lawyer lobbying the US president for more than a yearR Kelly has formally appealed to the US president, Donald Trump, for a reduction of his 31-year prison sentence for racketeering, sex trafficking and child abuse images, in a filing to the Department of Justice.The 59-year-old R&B singer, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, was found guilty in 2021 of leading a criminal enterprise that recruited women and underage girls for illegal sexual activity and pornography, for which he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. In 2022 he was found guilty on three counts of child abuse images and three counts of child enticement and sentenced to 20 years in prison, which he is serving nearly entirely concurrently but for one additional year.Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organizations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 802 9999. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html Continue reading...

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Journalists who had reported on security concerns around the new Air Force One, a gift from Qatar, received summonsThe New York Times on Wednesday filed a motion to quash subpoenas the justice department served journalists who reported on security concerns involving the new Air Force One, a gift from Qatar, teeing up a significant court fight over press freedom and the government's ability to force reporters to identify sources.As we set out in our motion, these subpoenas are brought in bad faith to punish the Times for its coverage. They violate the constitutional rights of the Times and its journalists. We are going to court to defend our journalists' rights to report freely on the administration and to provide the public with stories that matter," David McCraw, the newspaper's senior vice-president and deputy general counsel, said in a statement. Continue reading...