Global Pulse

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  • All Blacks add three new caps for ‘greatest rivalry’ rugby tour to South Africa

    All Blacks add three new caps for ‘greatest rivalry’ rugby tour to South Africa

    WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand All Blacks head coach Dave Rennie has unveiled an expanded 44-player roster for an upcoming grueling eight-match tour that features a four-test showdown against world number one and defending Rugby World Cup champion South Africa Springboks, bringing a return to the classic multi-match touring format that defined rugby before the professional era.

    Rennie added 10 new players to the original 34-strong Nations Championship squad, retaining every member of the group that notched test victories over France, Italy and Ireland earlier this year to bulk up the roster for the demanding schedule. Three rookie players earn their first call-up to the senior national side: Hurricanes prop Siale Lauaki, Moana Pasifika backrower Semisi Tupou Ta’eiloa and Chiefs flyhalf Josh Jacomb. The other seven additions to the touring group are prop Ollie Norris, hooker George Bell, lock Fabian Holland, backrower Ethan Blackadder, centers Timoci Tavatavanawai and Rieko Ioane, and winger Emoni Narawa.

    The tour, which kicks off next month, will see the All Blacks play four non-test matches against South Africa’s top domestic franchises alongside four tests: three in South Africa and one final test in Baltimore, United States. The full schedule opens with a clash against the Stormers in Cape Town on August 8, followed by matches against the Sharks in Durban (August 12), Bulls in Pretoria (August 16), the first test against the Springboks in Johannesburg (August 23), a match against the Lions in Johannesburg (August 26), a second test in Cape Town (August 30), a third test in Johannesburg (September 6), and the final test in Baltimore on September 13.

    This tour revives the traditional pre-professional model of rugby touring, which combined both weekend test matches and midweek franchise fixtures — a structure that was common before rugby union turned professional in 1995. Billed as a renewal of rugby’s most storied and intense rivalry, the series pits the world’s top two ranked men’s teams against one another: the Springboks hold the number one world ranking, while the All Blacks sit close behind at number two.

    With eight matches crammed into just six weeks of travel and competition, Rennie admitted this will go down as one of the most challenging tours in modern rugby history. “This tour will challenge us and demand the very best of us,” Rennie told reporters. “We have selected a squad that we know is up to the challenge. It’s a balanced blend of experienced test players and a cohort of younger players who will be keen to work hard and showcase their skillset on tour.”

    He added that the coaching staff is excited to give young prospects the chance to earn their first senior caps, while welcoming back players who had previously been out of the national squad fold.

    Historically, the All Blacks have struggled to win a test series on South African soil: the only New Zealand side to claim a series win in South Africa was the 1996 tour, after five unsuccessful attempts across the 20th century. Across 110 test meetings between the two nations, New Zealand holds the edge with 63 wins to South Africa’s 43, alongside four drawn matches.

    “This would have to be the toughest tour in rugby,” Rennie said. “Every player will be required to play their part across this tour, whether it’s preparing to play or helping their mates prepare. It will be an intense seven weeks of touring but an excellent opportunity for us to pit ourselves against the current benchmark team in world rugby and to build connections with each other in a way that only a tour of this scale can do. What we learn about ourselves on and off-field will set us up well for the Rugby World Cup in 2027.”

    On the leadership front, Ardie Savea will retain the captaincy for all four test matches, but will not join the squad in South Africa until shortly before the first test. Rennie explained that the decision to give Savea an extended break comes after the skipper carried a heavy playing workload over the past two years, and the rest will leave him fresh to lead the side through the test series. Other senior squad members will step in to captain the side for the four non-test franchise matches, with multiple leaders set to get an opportunity to take charge.

  • As Indonesia cuts methane emissions, life atop a mountain of garbage begins to change

    As Indonesia cuts methane emissions, life atop a mountain of garbage begins to change

    In the pre-dawn darkness that hangs over Indonesia’s Bantargebang, the country’s largest landfill site on the eastern outskirts of Jakarta, thousands of waste pickers already scramble across towering heaps of garbage to hunt for recyclable and resalable materials before fresh waste buries their finds. Among them is 35-year-old Nur Wencih, a widow who has followed in her parents’ footsteps working at the site for 20 years. For Wencih, who lives alone in a small rented room near the landfill, sorting discarded cardboard, plastic bottles, and discarded toys has paid for daily food, rent, and the education of her two teenage daughters, who stay with relatives in a rural village. On a good day, she earns roughly $12, and occasional lucky finds of forgotten gold jewelry feel like winning the lottery, she told the Associated Press during a break from the sweltering July heat. But like thousands of her colleagues, Wencih now faces an uncertain future as Indonesia launches one of its most sweeping national waste management reforms in decades.

    Starting August 1, the Bantargebang site will end its current open dumping operations and transition to a controlled, sanitary landfill system. This shift is part of a national policy that will shut down open dumping at 343 of Indonesia’s 550 existing disposal sites nationwide. Under the new rules, all landfills will gradually shift to only accept non-recyclable, non-compostable residual waste — items such as soiled diapers, used paper towels, and adhesive stickers that cannot be processed for reuse. At the same time, Indonesian households will be required to sort organic and recyclable waste for separate processing, a large-scale practice that most of the population has never been trained to adopt.

    The core driver of this reform is climate action. Open, unmanaged landfills produce massive amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that traps 80 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over its first 20 years, and is responsible for roughly one-third of current global warming. Cutting methane emissions is widely recognized by global climate leaders, including U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, as one of the fastest, most effective ways to slow the pace of near-term global warming.

    Bantargebang itself has become a flashpoint for global methane reduction efforts. Originally opened in 1989 as a properly designed sanitary landfill with a working methane collection system, the site gradually shifted to full open dumping after a private sector management contract expired in 2016. Today, only 2 of its original 12 methane extraction wells still operate. Satellite data analyzed by UCLA’s STOP Methane initiative ranked Bantargebang as the world’s second-highest methane-emitting landfill in 2025, outranked only by a large site in Argentina. Covering 110 hectares (272 acres), the landfill has grown into a 60-meter-tall man-made mountain — as high as a 20-story building — that receives 7,500 tons of Jakarta’s waste every single day. In March, a landslide triggered by heavy rain at the site killed seven people, a tragedy that underscored the urgent risks of the site’s overloaded, unmanaged state. “Its carrying capacity is reaching, or even exceeding, its limits,” said Agung Pujo Winarko, head of the Bantargebang facility.

    Under the government’s rehabilitation plan, large sections of the Bantargebang site are already being covered with impermeable tarps to capture escaping methane, with the full overhaul estimated to cost up to $12 million. Dudi Gardesi Asikin, head of Jakarta’s Environment Agency, says the reform will deliver major public benefits: improved environmental health, reduced local pollution, and deep cuts in harmful methane emissions. It will also make daily work far safer for the people who sort waste here, he noted: currently, thousands of pickers race alongside heavy construction excavators to reach recyclable materials before they are buried, putting their lives at constant risk.

    But the reform also creates a pressing national dilemma: how to protect the livelihoods of roughly 600,000 informal waste pickers across Indonesia who depend on open dumps for their income. At Bantargebang alone, more than 4,000 registered waste pickers work the site every day, and their work supports an entire local ecosystem of recycling traders, rental housing, and food stalls that serve the worker community. “What worries me most is how I will feed my family,” Wencih said. Local community leader Bunin, a 53-year-old resident who lives near the site, added that while the landfill has brought severe pollution to the area, it has also created critical economic opportunities for low-income local families. “The landfill not only brings negative impacts, there are also economic benefits,” he said.

    Government officials say the reform will ultimately create better, more formal, safer jobs for waste pickers in the new recycling and composting sectors, and that pickers already receive basic social security and healthcare through national programs. But the transition remains fraught with uncertainty for the workers who have built their lives around Bantargebang, many of whom are third-generation waste pickers like Wencih, who hopes her own daughters will never have to work in the landfill.

    The success of the broader national reform also depends on changing decades-old waste habits across Jakarta, where residents have never been required to sort household waste before disposal. Many ordinary residents say the new rules have already created confusion, as public education campaigns have been slow to reach all communities. “All we know is to throw the trash in the bin, not to sort it,” said Rukasih Wanti, a resident of Central Jakarta. “The new rule is confusing us. It’s inconvenient, creates extra work and wastes our time.”

    Environmental advocates say the urgent need for this reform highlights decades of delay in updating Indonesia’s waste management infrastructure. Currently, only about 25 percent of the country’s daily waste is processed through formal waste systems, with the rest dumped, burned, or left unmanaged. David Sutasurya, executive director of Indonesian environmental organization YPBB, noted that up to 80 percent of Jakarta’s waste is either compostable or recyclable, meaning most waste currently going to landfills could be diverted with the right infrastructure. “We delayed transforming our waste-management system for too long, and only realized the problem when landfills were already close to full,” he said.

    Still, grassroots activists are working to build public support for the shift across the country. In a West Jakarta neighborhood, community organizer Monica T. Anggriani has spent more than a decade persuading neighbors to sort their household waste, building a community waste bank that now processes one ton of organic waste daily through composting, maggot cultivation, and urban farming. “Our generation was never taught to separate waste,” Anggriani said. “If we don’t start now, nothing will change in the future.”

  • Grounded Lonsdale sparks backlash after telling customers to switch off phones during AusAlert test

    Grounded Lonsdale sparks backlash after telling customers to switch off phones during AusAlert test

    A small Adelaide-based cafe has become the epicenter of a heated online debate after its anti-AusAlert policy pushed by conspiracy theories about the national emergency alert system ignited widespread public backlash.

  • Netanyahu accuses NYC Mayor Mamdani of ‘fomenting hate’ after arrest threat

    Netanyahu accuses NYC Mayor Mamdani of ‘fomenting hate’ after arrest threat

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has confirmed he intends to travel to New York City this fall to participate in the annual United Nations General Assembly, brushing off earlier threats of arrest from the city’s mayor over an International Criminal Court (ICC) war crimes warrant. The high-stakes standoff has reignited tensions over the ongoing Gaza conflict and the role of international justice on U.S. soil.

    The controversy first emerged when New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a vocal advocate for Palestinian statehood who centered his 2025 campaign on opposition to Israel’s military operation in Gaza, pledged to use city law enforcement to arrest Netanyahu upon his arrival. The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in 2024, accusing him of perpetrating war crimes during the military campaign in Gaza that began in October 2023.

    Last week, however, Mamdani backed away from his pledge after a legal review by his administration concluded that the city of New York lacks independent legal authority to enforce an international arrest warrant. Mamdani still maintained that “Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City”, and urged the U.S. federal government to act on the warrant and detain the Israeli prime minister during his planned visit. He has repeatedly labeled Netanyahu a war criminal for his leadership of the Gaza operation.

    Speaking to Fox News in an interview aired Sunday, Netanyahu said he is “not concerned” by Mamdani’s earlier threat, and accused the mayor of inciting intercommunal tension. “He’s supposed to be the mayor of all New Yorkers — Jews, Christians, Muslims, everyone — but he’s trying to turn one group against the other,” Netanyahu said.

    The Israeli prime minister tied Mamdani’s rhetoric to two recent targeted stabbings in New York that left a Jewish man and an Asian man injured. The attacks, carried out blocks apart just last Thursday, saw the suspect reportedly shout “Allahu akbar” during the assaults, according to responding law enforcement. The suspect has since been charged with hate crimes for both attacks, and both victims survived their injuries.

    The stabbings drew widespread condemnation from leaders of New York’s Jewish and Asian American communities, and Netanyahu argued that the climate of division fostered by anti-Israel rhetoric has left Jewish residents of the city frightened. “Jewish New Yorkers are afraid right now,” he said.

    As of Monday, Mamdani’s office had not issued a public response to Netanyahu’s comments, after declining an immediate request for comment over the weekend.

    The background to the current dispute stretches back to the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas-led militants, which killed approximately 1,200 people and saw 251 others taken hostage into Gaza. In response, Israel launched its large-scale military incursion into the Gaza Strip, which has resulted in more than 73,000 Palestinian fatalities according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. The United Nations has characterized the ministry’s casualty figures as reliable, with more than 21,000 of those killed being children.

    Israel has categorically rejected the ICC’s war crimes allegations, with Netanyahu describing the charges against him as “bogus”. The planned UNGA visit, now set against the backdrop of the arrest threat controversy, is expected to draw massive protests and renewed global scrutiny of both Israel’s military campaign and U.S. policy toward the conflict.

  • AFL 2026: St Kilda captain Callum Wilkie on Max King’s return and early exit

    AFL 2026: St Kilda captain Callum Wilkie on Max King’s return and early exit

    It has been two full seasons since star St Kilda Saints forward Max King last graced the field at the top-tier Australian Football League (AFL) level, and his highly anticipated comeback against North Melbourne at Marvel Stadium on Sunday ended in sudden disappointment. Ruled out mid-match due to what the club has described as hamstring tightness, King left the venue early before the traditional post-match team song, and is scheduled to undergo medical scans on Monday to assess the full extent of the new issue. Now, St Kilda captain Callum Wilkie, who has been teammates with King for eight years after the pair entered the league via the same draft, has publicly backed the club’s decision to bring the forward back to the senior side, and offered public support to the injury-plagued athlete.

    Speaking to sports outlet SEN, Wilkie refuted any claims that King was rushed back into AFL action. He explained that King’s prior hamstring injury, sustained earlier this year during a comeback stint in the lower-tier Victorian Football League (VFL), was always managed with a deliberate, conservative approach. “It’s not like we rushed him back,” Wilkie noted. “He did the hammy 12 weeks ago and it wasn’t a 12-week hammy, it was about a four-five week hammy. They took a very conservative approach with it and built his training loads and conditioning up over the last 12 weeks, but especially the last month or so when he was hitting game loads at training.”

    As someone who trained directly alongside King in the lead-up to Sunday’s match, Wilkie said he saw first-hand that the forward was fully prepared to return to senior competition. “I was playing [against him in intra-club training] and saw what he can do, he was ready to come back and it was great have him back out there playing with us,” Wilkie said. “The fans loved it, we loved it as players and he’ll be back very soon I imagine.”

    In Sunday’s match, King started each of the first three quarters on the interchange bench, entering the game roughly eight minutes into each term. He finished the short outing with just two disposals: a misaligned shot on goal and a quick handball, having taken a mark and attempted a score in the second quarter. After the match, head coach Ross Lyon defended King and the club’s selection call in a tense press conference, noting he prioritized preparing for the win over collecting immediate medical updates.

    Wilkie reached out to King after the match after the 24-year-old left the stadium early, and told reporters he reassured King that the setback would not change his standing within the club. “Yeah, well he left early so didn’t get a chance to see him in the rooms after but, you know, (I) messaged him saying we love him and are right behind him,” Wilkie said. “Whatever this is doesn’t change who he is and what he means to our football club. But, hammy tightness like Ross said, he’ll get a scan today and then the club will release a statement to the extent of what that actually is.”

    Wilkie also addressed the enormous public pressure King has faced amid his well-documented history of injuries, which has kept him sidelined from AFL competition for two full years. “I’ve been with Maxy for eight years – we got drafted together – and he’s obviously had a storied injury career that the media and everyone has addressed thoroughly,” Wilkie said. “There’s so much pressure on that young man’s shoulders, what’s it been, two years since he played an AFL game? He would’ve been rightfully frustrated and devastated and the club made that call that he was allowed to go home and we live by that.”

  • Lucas Museum to display unseen ‘Star Wars’ pieces, curator says

    Lucas Museum to display unseen ‘Star Wars’ pieces, curator says

    When the long-awaited Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens its doors to the public in Los Angeles on September 22, it will bring with it a trove of never-before-displayed treasures from the cultural phenomenon that is *Star Wars*, its lead curator has confirmed. Speaking exclusively to AFP on the sidelines of this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, curator Ryan Linkof shared new details about the institution, a passion project decades in the making from *Star Wars* creator George Lucas and his wife, business leader Mellody Hobson.

    Housed in a striking futuristic building spanning more than 9,200 square meters, the museum will distribute over 1,300 collected works across 33 dedicated galleries. While the institution’s collection spans the full breadth of narrative art — from iconic illustrations by Norman Rockwell, Jessie Willcox Smith, and N.C. Wyeth to fine art pieces by Frida Kahlo, Jacob Lawrence, Charles White, and Robert Colescott, and original cartoon works from legends including Winsor McCay, Jack Kirby, and Frank Frazetta — it is the unshown *Star Wars* material that is poised to captivate fans around the world.

    As the official home of the Lucas Archives and all Lucasfilm production materials, the museum will host a dedicated *Star Wars* exhibition featuring one-of-a-kind items that have never been put on public display before. Linkof noted that narrative art, the category the museum centers, is often overlooked by traditional cultural institutions, with few major art museums dedicating space to collecting or exhibiting this popular, accessible art form. As a result, much of the material set to go on display is extremely rare, making the museum a unique cultural destination.

    For many *Star Wars* fandom members, however, the Lucasfilm production archives will remain the crown jewel of the institution. Linkof also opened up about the challenges the project has faced over its decades-long development, including significant disruptions caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic. Despite these hurdles, the curator frames the museum as the culmination of Lucas’s celebrated 60-plus-year career, echoing Hobson’s framing that Lucas has two defining legacies: his first was creating *Star Wars*, and his second is building this museum to share his collection with the public.

    Now 82 years old, Lucas remains actively involved in every step of the project’s final preparations ahead of opening. Linkof confirmed that the legendary filmmaker is deeply pleased with how the institution has come together. Last year marked Lucas’s first ever visit to Comic-Con’s iconic Hall H, where he traveled specifically to share updates on the museum with pop culture fans. This year, Linkof took the stage at the convention alongside guests including actor Keke Palmer and DC Comics President Jim Lee to preview the coming attraction.

    Lee, who joined the museum’s panel at Comic-Con, shared his enthusiasm for the institution’s mission. “I think that if you go to this museum, you will see art that you will recognize and have seen your entire life, through commercials, through comic books, but you will see it in a different way that will hopefully enlighten and inspire you,” Lee said. “This is amazing art, we have it all around us, how lucky are we?”

  • UK’s Burnham to welcome Zelensky in first foreign leader visit

    UK’s Burnham to welcome Zelensky in first foreign leader visit

    Just one week after assuming office as the United Kingdom’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham is set to welcome Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to London on Monday, marking the first official meeting between Burnham and a foreign head of state since he took the role. This high-profile visit is designed to send a clear, unshakable message that London remains fully committed to its backing of Kyiv amid Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion.

    Downing Street made the official announcement of the meeting late Sunday, outlining that the two leaders will travel together to a British naval facility. During the visit, they will meet with military personnel from both countries who have been leading the training of Ukrainian service members preparing for frontline combat operations.

    Burnham will use the summit to reaffirm that the deep, unbreakable partnership between the UK and Ukraine will remain unchanged, a position he first communicated to Zelensky in an introductory phone call last Monday, within hours of his succession to the premiership from Keir Starmer. In an official statement released ahead of the meeting, Burnham stressed: “Britain stands with Ukraine, shoulder to shoulder, and our support remains unwavering. Russia should be in no doubt of our resolve, and we will not back down until we achieve long-lasting and just peace for Ukraine.”

    Alongside the diplomatic commitment, the UK government has unveiled a new major defense support measure: London will transfer full intellectual property rights for an advanced, battle-proven electronic jamming system codenamed “Stone Cloak” to Ukraine. According to Downing Street, the compact device is roughly the size of a standard tablet computer, designed to be mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles. Its core function is to disrupt Russian air defense systems, preventing them from tracking and engaging Ukrainian drones mid-flight, a capability that has already proven critical to protecting Kyiv’s drone operations.

    Officials noted that the development of Stone Cloak is a direct product of the rapid collaborative innovation between the two allied nations, carried out under the 100-year UK-Ukraine partnership pact signed in January of last year. Thousands of these jamming devices have already been delivered to Ukrainian armed forces to help sustain their drone operations, and following the transfer of intellectual property, Ukraine will be able to begin mass domestic production of the technology. Additionally, the UK will integrate the Stone Cloak system into its own next-generation deep-strike military capabilities.

    “This is the best of homegrown British innovation, proven on the frontline, and it will be vital to protecting our security in both our countries,” Burnham said of the technology.

    During the Monday visit, Burnham and Zelensky will also meet with around 200 Ukrainian military trainees and sailors who have spent the past three weeks in the UK participating in specialized maritime security and counter-mine exercises. The training program is designed to prepare Ukrainian forces for upcoming operational missions in the Black Sea, a key theater of the ongoing conflict.

    Downing Street also released updated figures on the UK’s cumulative support for Ukraine, noting that total assistance has now reached £25 billion (equivalent to $33 billion) since Russia launched its full-scale invasion more than four years ago. Of that total, £16 billion is allocated to direct military aid, making the UK one of Ukraine’s largest bilateral military supporters in Europe.

    Following his stop in the UK, Zelensky will travel to Washington, D.C. on Tuesday for scheduled talks with U.S. President Donald Trump, as confirmed by a White House official last week. The Ukrainian president is also expected to attend the funeral of former U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a longstanding vocal supporter of Ukraine who passed away earlier this month.

  • Pogacar looking to enjoy ‘small things’ after 5th Tour de France win

    Pogacar looking to enjoy ‘small things’ after 5th Tour de France win

    The 2024 Tour de France wrapped up on Sunday with two historic moments that will be remembered for years in cycling: Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar etched his name into the sport’s record books by securing his fifth overall title, while Dutch star Mathieu van der Poel pulled off a nail-biting victory on the iconic Champs-Élysées that capped a stunning turnaround for his team.

    Pogacar’s fifth Tour win puts him in an exclusive group of all-time cycling greats, joining legends Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain as the only riders to claim five overall titles at cycling’s most prestigious Grand Tour. But rather than dwelling on his place in history, the 25-year-old Slovenian said he is ready to step away from the pressure of competitive racing and savor quiet life after three weeks of grueling competition across France.

    “Right now I just want to enjoy the moment of winning the Tour,” Pogacar told reporters after crossing the finish line in Paris. “If it’s the fifth or the first, it doesn’t matter — it’s unbelievable to wear the yellow jersey and to cross the line in Paris winning it. I will just enjoy this moment, not thinking about any history, not thinking about joining any club. I just want to live this moment, come back home, relax, enjoy the small things of life.”

    Pogacar added that each of his five Tour victories holds a unique place in his heart, saying: “I’m really happy and proud to win a fifth Tour. Every single one has a different story, a different meaning, different emotions. Each one of them feels incredible and unbelievable for me.”

    While Pogacar took home the overall yellow jersey, the final stage belonged to van der Poel, a cobbled classics specialist who achieved a long-held career dream with his dramatic win on Paris’s most famous avenue. The 31-year-old broke away from the peloton alongside Pogacar on the Montmartre climb, where thousands of cheering fans packed the route to create a electric atmosphere. The two riders held off a chasing group of sprinters for 10 kilometers, pushing all out to hold their lead to the line.

    In the final 700 meters, van der Poel surged ahead alone as a fatigued Pogacar was unable to match his acceleration. In the end, the Dutchman held off the chasing pack by the thinnest of margins, forcing a photo finish that confirmed his win. “It was no words, no communication, we just both rode to the death, to the final and I ran out of gas,” Pogacar said of the final sprint. “I knew that we had to go all out, he knew we had to go all out, we both committed and he took a beautiful victory.”

    Van der Poel admitted he never expected to hold off the chasers all the way to the line, saying he spent the final 500 meters bracing for a rider to pass him. His Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Jasper Philipsen came the closest, with van der Poel only spotting the Belgian’s wheel alongside him in the final meters. “I thought we were going to get caught back, but then I was just thinking about this moment, and I just put my head down in the last 500 metres,” van der Poel said. “I just went as hard as I could, and I was just waiting until a wheel was coming past, and it didn’t happen… In the very end, I see a Pirelli tyre next to me, and it’s the one from Jasper.”

    The win marked a bright end to a difficult Tour for van der Poel and his team, a outcome he said proved the squad’s resilience. “It just shows that we never give up. Maybe the start of our Tour was not good, but I won on the Champs Elysees. I think it’s pretty good,” he said. When asked where he found the strength to hold on, van der Poel joked: “If there was one race I still wanted to win in my career, I have a few, of course, but this was one of them. We have a saying in Dutch that it has to come from your toes. I don’t know where this came from, but not from my toes!”

    Behind Pogacar in the overall classification, Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel secured the best result of his Tour de France career, finishing second overall with two stage wins including a victory in a high mountain stage. The performance silenced critics who had claimed Evenepoel, a renowned time trial specialist, was not built to contend for overall victory at three-week Grand Tours, even after he won the 2022 Vuelta a Espana. Evenepoel said the result proved he deserves to dream of winning the Tour one day.

    “Second place, for me was more like the fact to prove towards myself that I did well to not let go my dream of stepping on the podium of Grand Tours as much as possible and aiming to try to win them,” Evenepoel said. “Because that’s my career goal. After this result, I think I’ve shown towards myself, my team and also to the outside world that I deserve to dream and aim for that.”

  • Ex-president Hernandez returns to Honduras after Trump pardon

    Ex-president Hernandez returns to Honduras after Trump pardon

    Nearly eight months after former U.S. President Donald Trump issued a highly debated pardon that cut short a 45-year federal prison sentence for drug trafficking, ex-Honduran head of state Juan Orlando Hernandez has touched down back on his home soil. The former leader arrived via private aircraft at Palmerola International Airport, located just outside the Central American nation’s capital of Tegucigalpa, where a crowd of close family members and loyal supporters gathered to welcome his return, according to on-the-ground reporting from Agence France-Presse. Standing among the crowd holding a sign expressing gratitude to Trump, 56-year-old Hernandez supporter Eva Amador described the moment as one of overwhelming joy and excitement for the former president’s backers.

    Hernandez held the presidency of Honduras from 2014 to 2022, but his post-office trajectory took a sharp turn almost immediately after he left power. His left-leaning successor, current President Xiomara Castro, authorized his extradition to the United States to face a slate of federal drug trafficking charges shortly after taking office. In 2024, a U.S. jury found Hernandez guilty of facilitating the smuggling of hundreds of tons of illicit narcotics into American territory over the course of his political career, handing down a 45-year prison sentence that appeared to end his public life.

    The outcome shifted dramatically in the final days leading up to Honduras’ 2024 presidential election, when Trump made a surprise announcement: he had granted a full pardon to Hernandez. Alongside the pardon, the former U.S. president issued an explicit threat to cut off critical U.S. aid to Honduras if conservative candidate Nasry Asfura — a close political ally of Hernandez — failed to win the election. The unprecedented direct interference in Honduras’ domestic electoral process sparked immediate national outcry. Castro and her progressive allies condemned the move as blatant foreign meddling in the country’s sovereign democratic process, a claim that carried extra weight when vote counting concluded with Asfura claiming victory.

    The pardon also drew accusations of political hypocrisy within the United States, coming at the same time Trump was rolling out a high-profile, hardline military campaign targeting drug trafficking organizations across Latin America. The initiative has included U.S. military strikes on vessels suspected of being tied to major cartels, creating a stark contrast with Trump’s decision to clear a convicted drug trafficking facilitator just as he ramped up pressure on other regional actors linked to the drug trade. When he announced the pardon last year, Trump claimed without providing any verifiable evidence that Hernandez had been the victim of a political setup orchestrated by the administration of his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden.

    Now that Hernandez is back in Honduras, he faces a new set of legal challenges in his home country. He is scheduled to appear before a Honduran court on August 3 to respond to multiple long-standing corruption charges tied to his time in office. The former leader has repeatedly denied all allegations of wrongdoing, and has publicly stated that he has no plans to reenter electoral politics, saying he returns to Honduras without any personal political ambitions.

  • Aussie great McEvoy masters Commonwealth gold, Ramsay-Peaty hatches battle plan to bounce back

    Aussie great McEvoy masters Commonwealth gold, Ramsay-Peaty hatches battle plan to bounce back

    The 2026 Commonwealth Games continued to deliver thrilling competitive action across swimming and gymnastics on Sunday, with veteran athletes producing career-defining performances and young contenders pulling off major upsets against pre-race favourites.

    In the biggest headline of the day, 32-year-old Australian swimming icon Cameron McEvoy cemented his legacy at the multi-sport event by claiming his first ever individual Commonwealth Games gold medal in the men’s 50m freestyle. Not only did McEvoy dominate the race from start to finish after a blistering start off the starting blocks, he also smashed the existing Commonwealth Games record to secure a historic win that completed an Australian 1-2-3 podium sweep, with Flynn Southham taking silver and Jamie Jack claiming bronze.

    McEvoy’s long-awaited individual gold adds to his three previous Commonwealth Games gold medals won in relay events, capping a decades-long run of consistent podium finishes: he took silver and bronze in the same 50m freestyle event at the 2014 Glasgow Games and the 2018 Gold Coast Games held on home Australian soil. The iconic sprinter now holds an Olympic title in the 50m freestyle alongside his new Commonwealth individual crown.

    Elsewhere in the swimming pool, British superstar Adam Ramsay-Peaty has locked in his spot for the upcoming 50m breaststroke final after qualifying fifth fastest in the semi-finals, and he says he has a clear battle plan to bounce back after a disappointing third-place finish in the 100m breaststroke final that left him emotional. The 31-year-old is chasing a piece of history this Games, aiming to become the first English swimmer ever to claim Commonwealth gold at four different editions of the event. However, he will enter the final ranked third overall, trailing 100m breaststroke champion Sam Williamson and South Africa’s Michael Houlie in qualifying times.

    Reflecting on his recent disappointment, Ramsay-Peaty framed setbacks as an inevitable part of elite sport. “In sport, it’s not really about when you get beat down because it’s going to be inevitable. It’s actually how long it takes you to look at it, respect it, and turn it around,” he told reporters ahead of Monday’s final. “I’m really happy with that. I’ve got a great trajectory for tomorrow.”

    The day’s swimming schedule delivered no shortage of other standout results. Australian distance swimmer Lani Pallister claimed her second gold medal of the meet with a dominant performance in the women’s 1500m freestyle, while 20-year-old Australian underdog Iona Anderson pulled off a massive upset to edge pre-race favourite Kylie Masse of Canada in the women’s 100m backstroke. Australia also extended their perfect run in relay events, clinching another gold in the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay. After several days of overwhelming Australian dominance in the pool, Sunday’s competition brought more diversity to the podium, with multiple other nations locking in top finishes.

    South African swimmer Pieter Coetze added a 200m backstroke gold to his 50m backstroke title won on Saturday, while Canada’s Josh Liendo snatched a narrow one-hundredth of a second victory over Australia’s Matthew Temple to take gold in the men’s 100m butterfly. Host nation Scotland also earned a swimming gold, as Angharad Evans mounted a stunning late comeback to win the women’s 100m breaststroke.

    Gymnastics competition also delivered drama and historic moments for host Scotland and Canada. In the men’s all-around final, 21-year-old Scot Reuben Ward held off a late charge from Canada’s Felix Dolci to claim gold by just 0.200 points, with Australia’s Jesse Moore rounding out the podium. Ward called the win an almost unreal achievement, comparing the path to gold to climbing a mountain. “I knew I could do it, but to actually do it. When the score came through, it is just jubilation and joy,” he said. “Incredible! I’m so lucky to be in this position. I would not have been in this position without my family and my team-mates. It is like climbing a mountain.”

    Dolci, who already earned team gold with Canada earlier in the competition, overcame a disastrous start that saw him fall twice from the pommel horse in his first apparatus to mount a stunning comeback, turning in five near-perfect routines that nearly earned him the top spot. The Canadian said he was proud to showcase the value of resilience even when all odds seem stacked against an athlete. “I wanted to show that it’s never done until it’s done. That’s something I deeply value and I’m glad I was able to showcase that,” he said.

    Canada also earned gold in the women’s all-around final, where 30-year-old veteran Ellie Black outscored Australia’s Breanna Scott and 16-year-old Canadian teammate Lia-Monica Fontaine to take the top spot. Black said that entering the competition, her primary goal was just to get back to competing at a high level, making the gold an unexpected bonus. “I’m so proud. My goal was not to come in and win. It was to come in and compete again,” she said. “To come out on top, is the cherry on top. I love the Commonwealths, it’s so fun to be here.”

    Outside the pool and gym, netball pool stage action delivered two high-stakes matches, with Australia producing a dominant 66-47 win over England in the day’s biggest pool clash, while New Zealand earned a narrow 53-48 victory over Jamaica in the second key Pool B match.