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  • The flight hours and miles of World Cup travels of FIFA’s Infantino in numbers

    The flight hours and miles of World Cup travels of FIFA’s Infantino in numbers

    The 2026 FIFA World Cup, the most geographically dispersed edition in the tournament’s 96-year history, has required a staggering level of travel from the body’s top leader — a new analysis from the Associated Press finds that FIFA President Gianni Infantino has accumulated nearly 60,000 miles of flight time across more than 100 hours aloft during the tournament, a distance large enough to circle the Earth two and a half times.

    Hosted across 16 cities, three North American countries and four separate time zones, the 2026 tournament will wrap up Sunday with the final match in New Jersey, where either Argentina or Spain will claim the world championship. To map the full scope of Infantino’s travel during the tournament, AP reporters cross-referenced private flight logs for the jet he has used in recent years, on-the-ground photos from AP photojournalists, and public social media posts shared by both FIFA and Infantino himself on Instagram.

    The Gulfstream G650 jet used for all of Infantino’s tournament travel is owned by the Qatari government and operated by the private charter division of Qatar Airways, which is an official sponsor of the 2026 World Cup. According to data from flight tracking service FlightAware, the aircraft has averaged more than one flight per day since Infantino’s pre-tournament journey from Los Angeles to Mexico City on June 9, with multiple days seeing three or more separate takeoffs and landings.

    Infantino’s itinerary stretched far beyond match attendance, too. He made stops in New York for a live interview on Fox & Friends, traveled to Miami for a global FIFA summit that brought together representatives from the governing body’s 211 member associations, and even made a round-trip detour to Doha to attend the funeral of Qatar’s former emir, returning to North America in time for the tournament’s semifinal round. FIFA declined multiple requests for comment from the AP regarding Infantino’s travel schedule and private jet arrangements.

    A breakdown of the travel numbers reveals the unprecedented scope of the journey. By the eve of Sunday’s final, Infantino had already attended 43 of the tournament’s record 104 matches, and he has visited all 16 host stadiums at least once — with Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium, where he attended five games, topping his list of most-visited venues. Thirteen days during the tournament saw Infantino attend two matches, often held at venues hundreds of miles apart. The jet has used 21 different airports across North America, leaning on major international airports in host cities most of the time, but occasionally using smaller general aviation airports for quicker access, including Atlanta’s Fulton County Executive Airport and Miami’s Opa Locka Executive Airport. Through the semifinal round, the jet had already made 23 international border crossings between the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

    Excluding the 29 hours of travel for the Doha funeral detour and empty repositioning flights, the Gulfstream has logged 115 total flight hours during the tournament — the equivalent of five full straight days in the air, or enough for a commercial airliner to fly from New York to Los Angeles 20 times. The longest single flight (excluding the Doha trip) clocked in at 5 hours and 44 minutes, a journey from Miami to Seattle for the June 15 Belgium-Egypt match — a duration equal to three full World Cup matches from kickoff to final whistle. The shortest flight was just 28 minutes, a quick hop from Seattle to Vancouver on July 6, about the length of a commercial broadcast episode of a sitcom like *Friends* including advertisements. That day, Infantino attended the U.S.-Belgium match in Seattle before moving on to watch Switzerland face Colombia in Vancouver the next morning.

    By the AP’s calculation, the jet traveled 59,281 miles during the core tournament, excluding the Doha funeral trip. That total is greater than the combined distance of a round-trip flight from New York to Singapore, a round-trip from Los Angeles to Doha, and a round-trip from London to Perth, Australia. The busiest single day for travel was June 26, when the jet covered 5,772 miles: it began with an early morning flight from Miami to Dallas, flew on to Seattle for Infantino to attend the Egypt-Iran match, then departed Seattle late that night for an overnight flight back to Miami, where Infantino watched Colombia take on Portugal the next morning. The only scheduled match Infantino missed was the third-place match between England and France, when thunderstorms across the New York City region grounded all outbound flights from the area Saturday, per Federal Aviation Administration records.

    The massive travel footprint comes amid growing scrutiny of the 2026 World Cup’s carbon footprint. FIFA has publicly committed to cutting carbon emissions from World Cup operations and related activities by 50% by 2030, and aims to reach net-zero emissions by 2040, pledges that are laid out in the organization’s 2026 World Cup sustainability and human rights strategy. However, climate researchers and environmental advocacy groups have warned that the expanded three-nation format, which requires extensive air travel for teams, fans, officials and other event staff, will likely produce more greenhouse gas emissions than any previous World Cup in history, making it the most carbon-intensive tournament to date.

    Associated Press journalist Graham Dunbar in Geneva, Switzerland contributed reporting to this analysis.

  • Nigerian children pay the price for the Iran war as malnutrition and poverty surge

    Nigerian children pay the price for the Iran war as malnutrition and poverty surge

    In the quiet Sokoto State town of Kware, northwestern Nigeria, Maryam Aminu felt a familiar mix of grief and frustration when her 18-month-old toddler became the second of her six children to relapse into acute malnutrition this April. For months, the family has struggled to put consistent, nutrient-dense meals on the table, a hardship that intensified sharply in February after her husband Shehu lost his job as a taxi driver, a casualty of skyrocketing petrol prices triggered by the ongoing war in Iran.

    “Even though I suspected what the diagnosis would be, I was heartbroken and angry because I knew exactly why this happened,” Aminu explained from the plain living area of her family’s two-bedroom home, where coal stove ash drifted through the small space. “Meals are irregular, and we can barely afford enough to eat, let alone food that keeps children healthy.”

    Child malnutrition relapse is no longer an isolated case in Sokoto or across northern Nigeria, local health workers and international aid officials confirm. The ripple effects of the Middle East conflict have piled a new crisis onto a region already reeling from extreme poverty and a years-long insurgency that has displaced thousands and cut off many farming communities from their land. Now, the global fuel shock sparked by the war has pushed food insecurity to catastrophic levels for millions of impoverished people, with children bearing the brunt of the harm.

    This growing crisis comes as Nigeria is already grappling with sustained economic volatility sparked by President Bola Tinubu’s sweeping economic reforms, which included the elimination of national fuel subsidies and currency devaluation three years ago. New data from the World Bank released this week underscores the scale of deprivation: more than 139 million Nigerians now live below the poverty line or are classified as vulnerable to falling into poverty.

    The global spillover of the conflict reaches far beyond the Middle East, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned in a new report published this week. If hostilities continue through the end of 2024, an additional 23.4 million children worldwide will fall into monetary poverty, defined as lacking sufficient income to cover basic needs. Eighty percent of these newly vulnerable children will live across Africa and Asia, the agency estimates.

    “Children are paying the heaviest price for the escalating conflict in the Middle East, even children thousands of miles from the fighting,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said during a visit to Sokoto this week. “The longer hostilities continue, the more devastating the long-term consequences will be for a generation of children.”

    The disruption to global energy supplies stems from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the critical chokepoint that carried one-fifth of the world’s total oil and gas trade before the outbreak of war. The shutdown triggered a cascading global fuel crisis that drove up prices for nearly every essential good, from household groceries and gasoline to agricultural fertilizer and commercial travel. In Nigeria, retail petrol prices jumped nearly 75% between February and April, surging from 800 naira ($0.58) per liter to 1,400 naira ($1.02) per liter, passing higher costs directly to low-income households that already spend most of their income on food.

    For months, U.S. President Donald Trump has pursued a range of strategies to force Iran to reopen the strait, including targeted airstrikes, naval blockades, negotiations, and public threats, but the waterway remains closed to commercial traffic.

    At public health facilities across Sokoto, frontline workers say they have seen a sharp and steady rise in the number of children returning for repeat malnutrition treatment this year. Unofficial hospital records shared with the Associated Press show nearly 40 children who had previously recovered from malnutrition after February are now back in care for a second diagnosis — a figure that does not include the many families who cannot afford to travel to facilities for treatment.

    “I’m worried, and often angry, about how quickly these numbers are growing,” said Halimah Muhammad, a community health worker based in Sokoto.

    Beyond the immediate threat to child health, soaring prices and persistent economic hardship are setting the stage for long-term developmental harm, Russell warned. Children growing up in chronically food-insecure households face far higher rates of stunting, which irreversibly impacts physical and cognitive growth. Financial stress also pushes more children to drop out of school to support their families, locking intergenerational poverty in place for decades.

    “Their long-term development will be compromised, and many will not be able to stay in school because their parents face such extreme financial pressure,” Russell said. “The long-term implications for these children are absolutely terrible.”

    The conflict has also disrupted global fertilizer supplies and sent prices soaring, compounding risks for northern Nigeria’s majority farming communities. Many of these communities are already unable to access their farmlands regularly due to ongoing violence by armed insurgent and bandit groups, and higher input costs have made this year’s planting season far more precarious, threatening future harvests and deepening the food crisis.

    Shehu Aminu, Maryam’s husband, says the erosion of purchasing power has been overwhelming. “Two years ago, 2,000 naira could buy a nutritious meal for my whole family. Now that same basket of food costs 5,000 naira,” he said. Most days, the family only eats pap, a cheap corn pudding, and plain rice. “There is simply no way to give our children the food they need to grow. I wake up every morning unhappy, because I can no longer provide for the people I love.”

    Communities across northwestern Nigeria are already caught between overlapping security crises: routine attacks by bandit groups that specialize in kidnapping for ransom, and expanding territorial control by Islamist insurgent groups. The distant war in Iran has only multiplied existing vulnerabilities, analysts say.

    “This distant conflict offers no reprieve for the north’s most vulnerable populations, it only makes every existing crisis worse,” said Ikemesit Effiong, a partner at SBM Intelligence, a Lagos-based geopolitical risk advisory firm.

    The pattern of repeated child malnutrition seen in Maryam Aminu’s family plays out across hundreds of households in the region. Larai Malami, a 35-year-old mother of 10, gave birth to her youngest child last December, and the infant has already been diagnosed with malnutrition twice. Her husband lost his job as a motorcycle taxi rider last year, and crossed the border into neighboring Niger to search for work, leaving Malami to care for their children alone.

    Skyrocketing fuel prices keep food costs unaffordable and keep her husband from being able to afford to return home, Malami says. “I worry that my child will never get fully healthy,” she said.

    It is a fear Maryam Aminu shares. For her 18-month-old daughter, she says, “I just wish she were excited and full of life, like a toddler should be.”

  • A centuries-old festival in Japan brings Shinto traditions and towering floats to the streets

    A centuries-old festival in Japan brings Shinto traditions and towering floats to the streets

    In the heart of Kyoto, Japan’s former imperial capital, a 1,000-year-old tradition draws thousands of visitors each July, blending ancient spiritual belief, centuries of religious evolution, and tight-knit community bonding. This is the Gion Matsuri, a festival born from a desperate plea to ward off deadly disease that endures today as one of the country’s most iconic cultural events.

    For participants like Katsushi Horikawa, who rides atop one of the procession’s towering, hand-built floats, the experience is inherently sacred. The 12-ton wooden structures, pulled through Kyoto’s crowded streets by teams of organizers, create an unmatched feeling of closeness to the divine. “I am conscious of [the gods] when I’m riding on top,” Horikawa says. “When we’re assembling it as well, but I think the main time is when I’m riding on it.”

    Many casual visitors see the Gion Matsuri as a vibrant public celebration, filled with traditional dance, folk music, and street performances. But religious scholars emphasize the festival’s core purpose remains deeply spiritual, not recreational. “Those performances are not meant primarily for the entertainment of people,” explains Fabio Rambelli, a religious studies professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “They are offerings to the gods.”

    Rooted in the late 9th century, the festival originated as a Shinto ritual to appease supernatural spirits believed to cause devastating epidemics. It takes its name from Kyoto’s historic Gion District, with “matsuri” being the Japanese word for festival. At its center is the Yasaka Shrine, a religious site whose history traces centuries of overlapping religious change in Japan. Until 150 years ago, the site operated as a Buddhist temple, a reflection of the long-standing syncretism, or blending, of Shinto and Buddhist traditions that shaped Japanese religious life for millennia.

    In its earliest forms, the shrine centered worship of Gozu Tennō, an ox-headed syncretic deity thought to hold power over epidemics, able to either spread or halt disease. Scholars note the deity drew influences from Indian religious traditions, Korean belief, and local Japanese folklore, a common trait for many Japanese gods that emerged from centuries of cultural exchange. Early processions carried the deity’s image through Kyoto’s streets to demonstrate divine protection from evil forces — a practice that evolved into the parades seen today.

    Japan’s dramatic religious restructuring in the 19th century reshaped the shrine and the festival permanently. In 1868, during the Meiji Restoration, the national government formally separated Shinto and Buddhism, bringing Shinto shrines under state control and centering the emperor — believed to be a direct descendant of the Shinto sun goddess — as the core of Japan’s new national identity. “Because the emperor was the direct descendant of the goddess of the sun, they purified the whole system creating what now we see as Shinto,” says Andrea De Antoni, professor of anthropology and religious studies at the University of Kyoto. The policy sparked a widespread anti-Buddhist movement that saw thousands of Buddhist temples, artworks, and statues destroyed across the country. While Shinto was formally separated from state control after World War II, its modern institutional form still carries the marks of this 19th century restructuring. Today, Shinto is organized around worship of kami, or deities and spirits, a belief system rooted in ancient animist traditions shared with many indigenous cultures across Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

    Beyond its religious history, the Gion Matsuri remains a vital force for bringing Kyoto’s neighborhood communities together, even for long-time foreign residents. Jacques Garrigues, a French resident of Kyoto who has lived in the city for 30 years, attended the 2024 procession with his son, calling it a unifying experience for local residents. “This is the festival of all the people in the neighborhood,” Garrigues explains. “We also come together through a certain sense of religion, although the religious significance is not the same as in France.”

    Many core traditions remain unchanged after centuries. One key custom selects a young boy to serve as a sacred messenger to the gods; during the parade, he sits atop a float with his feet never touching the ground, a sign of his sacred status. Neighborhood teams spend months building and preparing their floats, with many participants holding the belief that the structures ward off evil spirits. Atsushi Matono, who is tasked with installing the shingi — a sacred tree placed at the top of a float, believed to be the point where a deity descends to join the procession — shares the same sense of divine presence felt by riders like Horikawa. “I always carry out my work with great care and respect,” Matono says. “Feeling the presence of the gods.”

  • What to know about the challenges Andy Burnham will face as UK prime minister

    What to know about the challenges Andy Burnham will face as UK prime minister

    LONDON – When Andy Burnham crosses the threshold of 10 Downing Street on Monday, he will carry high public expectations into office, while also inheriting a daunting pile of domestic and international crises that mirror the unenviable challenges that forced his predecessor out of Downing Street.

    After nearly a decade serving as Mayor of Greater Manchester in northwest England, and a surprise win in a recent parliamentary by-election that cleared his path back to national politics, Burnham was confirmed as the new leader of the Labour Party last week, and is set to be sworn in as the United Kingdom’s new prime minister. For the regional leader who has spent his career governing a population of just 3 million, steering a national government serving 67 million people across four nations will be a step up of unprecedented scale, bringing with it complex issues he has never before had to address at a national level.

    Below is a breakdown of the most pressing issues facing Burnham’s new administration, and early indications of how he may approach them:

    ### Reviving the Sluggish Economy and Decentralizing Power
    Burnham has so far kept his policy details vague, but has pledged to release a full roadmap this week outlining how he will fund his domestic agenda, which centers on jumpstarting stalled UK economic growth, upgrading public services, and raising household living standards.

    “This change today is the most significant turning point for our politics in 40 years,” Burnham remarked Friday as he officially took the Labour Party reins. “It will lead us to a country where life becomes more affordable, and every person and every region can lift themselves up from where they stand now.”

    The economy Burnham inherits was showing tentative signs of improvement until the outbreak of the Iran war upended global forecasts. Economists now widely predict sharp growth slowdown across 2026 alongside renewed upward pressure on inflation, leaving little room for major new spending commitments.

    A core ideological priority for Burnham is closing the opportunity gap between London and the wider UK, primarily through widespread government decentralization: channeling more funding directly to local authorities, and renationalizing a number of public services that were privatized during the 1980s. His model of business-friendly progressive governance, dubbed “Manchesterism,” seeks to combine private and public investment to upgrade transport, housing and national infrastructure. This ambitious structural reshaping of the UK state could take years to fully implement, however.

    Joshi Herrmann, founder of the independent Manchester-based news outlet The Mill, who has covered Burnham’s career for more than a decade, noted that Burnham may be able to ease financial pressure for struggling households. But, he added: “If the core question facing the country is who can deliver sustained economic growth and reshape the UK economy for the post-Brexit, post-financial crash era, I’d be very surprised if Andy Burnham is that answer.”

    Constrained by tight public finances, Burnham has very little room to increase overall public spending. He is taking over from Keir Starmer, who won power on a manifesto that ruled out increases to the UK’s major tax rates, locking Burnham into that fiscal framework unless he chooses to break those campaign pledges. Burnham has declined to rule out introducing a new wealth tax, telling former footballer and broadcaster Gary Lineker on the Goalhanger podcast last week that the government “might be having to ask for a little more” from the country’s wealthiest citizens.

    ### Navigating Foreign Policy and US Relations With Donald Trump
    One of Burnham’s biggest gaps in experience is on the global stage, but he has already made clear he will maintain the UK’s longstanding commitments to NATO and the country’s independent nuclear deterrent. He has also reaffirmed that Britain will remain a staunch backer of Ukraine in its war against Russian invasion and a reliable ally to the United States.

    The future of US-UK relations will largely hinge on how Burnham handles unpredictable US President Donald Trump, who initially praised Starmer before turning on him over Starmer’s refusal to back the US war with Iran. Burnham has publicly criticized Trump in the past, but says he will treat the US president with respect, just as he treats other political leaders, while being willing to stand his ground on points of disagreement.

    “I like to think I’ve got some personality myself and I’ll just, you know, I’ll deal with him very upfront in the same way,” he told Lineker. “Where you disagree, do it, but do it in a way that is kind of meeting him where he’s at.”

    Trump has repeatedly pressured NATO member states to dramatically increase their military spending, putting Burnham under pressure to go further than the defense spending targets set by Starmer’s government. Starmer’s existing 15 billion pound ($20 billion) defense spending boost is far smaller than what UK military leaders have demanded, and critics have pointed out the plan lacks full funding within the current national budget.

    ### Navigating Sensitive Political Terrain Over the Israel-Hamas War
    Burnham has openly criticized Starmer’s approach to the Israel-Hamas war and the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza. He condemned the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on southern Israel that killed roughly 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, but has argued the previous UK government waited far too long to call for a permanent ceasefire.

    According to the Gaza Health Ministry, which is run by the Hamas-led administration but staffed by medical professionals that maintain detailed records generally deemed reliable by UN agencies and independent experts, more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of Israeli operations. Burnham has said his government will consider adding new sanctions against Israeli individuals involved in violence in Gaza and the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

    The conflict is deeply sensitive for the Labour Party: the party was plagued by accusations of systemic antisemitism before Starmer took leadership, and it also relies heavily on electoral support from the UK’s large Muslim population. Burnham’s stance on the war has already drawn backlash from UK Jewish groups, while pro-Palestinian activists have criticized him for refusing to classify Israel’s bombardment of Gaza as genocide.

    ### Tackling the Politically Thorny Issue of Migration
    Notably, Burnham made no mention of migration in his acceptance speech as Labour leader on Friday, despite the issue ranking as a top priority for a large share of UK voters. Like many wealthy European and Western nations, the UK has seen a sharp rise in arrivals of migrants fleeing war, famine, climate-driven disasters, political persecution and poverty in their home countries.

    Public anger over rising numbers of dangerous small boat crossings of the English Channel has fueled the rise of the anti-immigration Reform UK party, which notched a series of key local and regional election wins that ultimately led to Labour’s decision to oust Starmer and install Burnham as party leader.

    Burnham has said he will largely stick to the outgoing Labour government’s existing framework on migration, which has already overseen a drop in net migration from a peak of more than 900,000 in 2023 to 171,000 in 2025. Data shows small boat crossings this year are already down 40% compared to the same period in 2025. Burnham has committed to continuing the downward trend in net migration, and previously voted in favor of a bill designed to further cut Channel crossings and redirect migrants to safer, legal migration pathways.

    Associated Press writers Pan Pylas and Jill Lawless contributed reporting to this article.

  • 1 killed, 8 injured in an overnight Russian attack on Kyiv

    1 killed, 8 injured in an overnight Russian attack on Kyiv

    KYIV, Ukraine — A deadly overnight assault involving Russian ballistic missiles has left one civilian dead and eight more wounded, according to local Ukrainian officials, marking the latest large-scale bombardment of the country’s capital amid ongoing regional conflict.

    The assault began shortly after 1:30 a.m. local time, with the wave of strikes stretching across multiple hours. Deafening explosions resonated across every quarter of Kyiv, jolting residents awake and triggering widespread emergency responses. Ukraine’s State Emergency Service confirmed that the strikes ignited destructive blazes across five of the capital’s districts, leaving a trail of damage that spans civilian and infrastructure sites: residential apartment blocks, private homes, commercial office spaces, industrial facilities, a student dormitory, and dozens of civilian vehicles were all hit in the attack.

    Emergency rescue teams worked through the night to extract trapped civilians from burning structures. In the Sviatoshynskyi district, crews pulled four people from a decimated private home that had caught fire. Over in the Shevchenkivskyi district, responders evacuated residents from a three-story residential building that was fully engulfed in flames. Firefighters also successfully contained a large blaze at a non-residential commercial structure in the area, where the body of the deceased victim was later recovered. Additional fire response teams were deployed to blazes across the Solomyanskyi, Desnianskyi and Dnipro districts, bringing the total number of affected administrative areas to five.

    The attack is part of a recent uptick in large-scale Russian strikes targeting Kyiv, coming at a critical moment where Ukrainian defense forces face a crippling shortage of Patriot air defense missiles — the most capable interceptor system Ukraine currently has to shoot down incoming Russian ballistic missiles before they reach their targets. In a recent development that could shift Kyiv’s defensive capabilities, former U.S. President Donald Trump announced that his administration is prepared to issue manufacturing licenses that would allow Ukraine to produce its own Patriot interceptor missiles domestically. If implemented, the move could significantly strengthen Ukraine’s ability to fend off ongoing Russian ballistic missile attacks. To date, however, no concrete details have been released about the scope of the agreement or a clear timeline for rolling out the domestic production program, leaving the future of this defensive boost uncertain for Ukrainian forces.

  • Man killed in waterfront crash at Eastern Beach, Geelong

    Man killed in waterfront crash at Eastern Beach, Geelong

    A tragic single-vehicle crash at one of Victoria, Australia’s most visited coastal tourist destinations has claimed the life of one man, leaving local communities shocked and investigators working to piece together what led to the incident. Emergency response teams were dispatched to the site on Eastern Beach Road in Geelong shortly after 6:30 a.m. local time on Sunday, following dozens of emergency calls from early morning beachgoers and commuters.

    Upon arrival at the scene, first responders confirmed the male driver had died at the location. As of Sunday afternoon, authorities have not released the identity of the deceased, pending next-of-kin notification. The crash left the involved vehicle with catastrophic structural damage, and scattered debris spread across a wide section of the busy road, which runs parallel to the popular waterfront.

    Multiple witnesses who were in the area early Sunday have described the incident as deeply unsettling. One local resident who arrived moments after the crash told the Geelong Advertiser the scene was “very distressing”, while another early morning walker said she was blocks away when she heard the loud impact of the crash. In a statement released shortly after the incident, Victoria Police confirmed that no pedestrians or other motorists were injured in the event, easing fears of further casualties at the crowded weekend spot.

    Local authorities confirmed that official investigations into the cause of the crash remain active and ongoing, with forensic crash units expected to complete a full examination of the site and vehicle this week. No further details about the circumstances leading up to the crash, including whether speed, alcohol, or mechanical failure were contributing factors, have been released to the public as the investigation progresses.

  • Liberal senator rejects Tony Abbott’s claim multiculturalism has ‘failed’

    Liberal senator rejects Tony Abbott’s claim multiculturalism has ‘failed’

    A public clash over Australia’s multicultural policy has erupted within the country’s Liberal Party, after former prime minister and current party president Tony Abbott claimed the decades-long framework of multiculturalism has failed, citing last year’s deadly terrorist attack at Bondi Beach as his evidence.

    In a speech circulated on social media earlier this week, Abbott argued that Australia has incorrectly opened its doors to immigrants who refuse to endorse the core values enshrined in the country’s citizenship oath. He went further, claiming that key tenets of the Islamic faith are fundamentally incompatible with the norms of Western liberal democracies, specifically calling out the Bondi attacker for disregarding Australia’s longstanding commitment to religious freedom.

    “Plainly, multiculturalism has failed and diversity is not our strength when two individuals have so rejected our national ideals,” Abbott stated in his remarks.

    The controversial claim drew an immediate public rebuke from one of the party’s senior frontbench senators, Andrew Bragg, who pushed back against Abbott’s assertion on Sunday, saying he strongly disagrees with the former leader’s assessment. Bragg emphasized that Abbott’s comments run counter to the Liberal Party’s own long historical legacy of advancing inclusive immigration and multicultural policy in Australia.

    “I don’t agree with that,” Bragg told public broadcaster ABC. He went on to explain that liberal ideology itself laid the groundwork for modern Australian multiculturalism by establishing the foundational legal and social framework that protects freedom of religion, freedom of thought, and freedom of individual conscience for all residents.

    Bragg walked through the Liberal Party’s decades-long track record of advancing inclusive policy to underscore his point: “The Liberal Party built modern Australia – if you look at the Menzies government opening up immigration after the war, the Holt government abolishing key parts of the White Australia policy, and then of course Malcolm Fraser’s actions to promote multiculturalism and introduce iconic institutions like the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). So we have a very proud record to stand on, and I think it’s very important that we’re clear about that.”

    While Abbott’s current role as party president is officially classified as administrative, political observers note he still holds significant sway over the direction of the party’s federal campaign messaging. Bragg stressed that parliamentary party leaders have a responsibility to clearly articulate the party’s stance on what multiculturalism actually represents, and how the policy aligns with both liberal values and the needs of 21st-century Australia.

    He added that any concerns over illegal activities, from terrorism to forced marriage, are often misattributed to multicultural policy. “If people have concerns about certain things in Australia, whether that be around terrorism, forced marriages, other things like that, those are things which are illegal under Australian laws, and those things are not multiculturalism,” Bragg said. “The great thing about multiculturalism is that you can subscribe to the Australian nation, its laws, and its culture, but you can engage in your own cultural practices as well.”

    When asked whether senior party figures should pressure Abbott to retract his comments or stop making similar public statements, Bragg stopped short of calling for censorship, noting that as a former prime minister, Abbott retains the right to hold and express his own personal views, even as they diverge from the party’s historical position. “He’s a former prime minister. He’s entitled to his views. And I strongly disagree with them,” Bragg summarized.

  • Rescuers in China search the rubble for survivors of landslide that killed 8 and left 34 missing

    Rescuers in China search the rubble for survivors of landslide that killed 8 and left 34 missing

    On a rainy Friday morning in Pengshui County, a mountainous suburban district of southwest China’s Chongqing municipality, a catastrophic natural disaster unfolded: a massive landslide, carrying roughly 18,000 cubic meters of rock, soil and debris including a single 3,000-cubic-meter boulder, surged down a steep slope along the Wujiang River, completely burying more than 10 residential structures. As of Sunday, the disaster has been confirmed to have claimed at least eight lives, left 34 people unaccounted for, and left local emergency response teams working around the clock to locate any remaining survivors trapped under the rubble.

    By Sunday, heavy machinery including excavators had been brought in to systematically clear debris at the disaster site, with search and rescue teams methodically combing through broken concrete and shifted earth. Witnesses at the scene observed a team of nine rescuers carrying a sealed orange body bag away from the active search zone, though official confirmation of the bag’s contents had not been released as of Sunday afternoon.

    In a statement released via Chinese social platform WeChat on Sunday, Chongqing municipal authorities outlined proactive safety measures taken after the landslide. All residents from 21 at-risk buildings within a 1-kilometer radius of the disaster site, including structures on unstable adjacent slopes and low-lying flood and landslide-prone areas, have been successfully evacuated, relocating more than 1,100 local residents to safer temporary accommodation to protect them from potential secondary disasters.

    Ten people have already been pulled alive from the rubble since the disaster struck. Officials confirmed that one of those rescued has already been discharged from medical care, while the remaining nine survivors remain in stable condition as they receive treatment for their injuries.

    Just a day prior on Saturday, search teams working with trained sniffer dogs and specialized life detection equipment picked up clear signs of life under the debris, confirming at least one person was still alive and trapped in the rubble. Rescue commanders noted that work had to proceed with extreme caution, as hasty or reckless excavation could dislodge the massive boulders scattered across the site and trigger a secondary landslide that would put both trapped survivors and rescue personnel at greater risk.

    More than 120 technical experts have been deployed to the disaster zone to support rescue efforts, providing geological assessment, search planning and engineering guidance to emergency response teams. The landslide was confirmed to have been triggered by sustained rainfall, striking a river-adjacent stretch of karst mountain terrain crisscrossed by small rural towns and agricultural terraces, in Pengshui County which borders China’s Hubei and Guizhou provinces. Reporting for this story was contributed by Leung from Hong Kong, with additional support from Associated Press video producer Wu Jia.

  • Trump celebrates the World Cup as a US victory as he prepares to present trophy to the winning team

    Trump celebrates the World Cup as a US victory as he prepares to present trophy to the winning team

    As tens of millions of soccer fans around the globe prepare to watch the 2026 FIFA World Cup final between Argentina and Spain this Sunday, all eyes will also be on U.S. President Donald Trump, who is set to step onto the pitch to present the iconic tournament trophy to the winning side. For the sitting president, however, the real victory of this month-long event is not on the line between the two competing nations — he argues it has already been claimed by the United States.

    Speaking Friday at a FIFA-hosted reception held at his Manhattan Trump Tower property, Trump emphasized that the 2026 tournament has cemented the U.S. status as a global soccer powerhouse. “It turned out we were a soccer country, and I think it’s going to remain,” he told attendees. “This has really brought the world together.”

    Sunday’s final marks the end of more than 18 months of high-stakes logistical and political navigation for the White House, which has overseen preparations for the largest World Cup in history alongside co-hosts Canada and Mexico. The planning process was fraught with challenges from the start: the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies barred entry to fans from several countries that participated in World Cup qualifying, drawing sharp criticism from human rights organizations. Fans across the globe also pushed back against exorbitant official ticket prices. For months, Trump openly floated the idea of relocating matches from cities that refused to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, and just weeks before the tournament kicked off, local officials clashed with FIFA over inflated transit costs, further escalating pre-tournament tensions.

    Even as teams arrived for their opening matches, the administration remained under intense global scrutiny over controversial visa decisions. Most notably, a highly decorated Somali referee was denied entry to the country ahead of the tournament. Tensions rose further after the Trump administration launched a military conflict with Iran, which forced the entire Iranian national team to base itself across the U.S. border in Tijuana, Mexico, after most of its support staff and fans were barred from entering the U.S.

    But in the end, the narrative of the tournament shifted dramatically away from political friction. Social media platforms have been flooded with viral content showing fans from every corner of the world embracing American food and cultural traditions, from craft beer to the ubiquitous ranch dressing. Many of the most widely circulated pre-tournament fears, including rumors that federal immigration authorities would conduct targeted raids near match venues, never came to fruition.

    Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House FIFA Task Force, told the Associated Press that the tournament has exceeded expectations. “One of the things that we talked about beforehand was, if we’re talking about what happened on the pitch, then we’ve done our job,” Giuliani explained. “But I think it’s even better than that. We’re not just talking about only the incredible, athletic feats on the pitch, but we’re talking about all these incredible, incredible cultural moments.”

    The tournament has not been without its share of political controversy, however. Earlier this month, Trump sparked outcry after placing a phone call to FIFA President Gianni Infantino to request a review of a controversial red card issued to U.S. star forward Folarin Balogun during a group stage match against Bosnia and Herzegovina. The original ruling would have sidelined Balogun for the team’s subsequent match against Belgium. Infantino, who has already faced widespread backlash for his close ties to Trump, ultimately reversed the call. At Friday’s reception, Trump praised Infantino for the decision, saying “you made another great decision, if you think about it” — even with the U.S. falling to Belgium 4-1 in the match.

    Giuliani defended the administration’s intervention, saying the White House had a “duty” to raise concerns about officiating, which had come under scrutiny after the red card was issued following a slow-motion video review. He noted that the Trump administration had allocated billions in federal funding to ensure the World Cup was “not just a safe and secure event, not just where we welcomed the world, but an event that was filled with integrity.”

    The administration faced particularly high pressure to deliver a successful tournament, as the U.S. is already scheduled to host the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and the 2034 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The country is also widely expected to be awarded hosting rights for the 2031 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Giuliani made clear in his interview that the administration’s stance on transgender participation in women’s sports would shape that bid, noting that securing hosting duties requires “ensuring that, in fact, women and only women will play in that 2031 Women’s World Cup.”

    Democratic Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey, whose home state is hosting Sunday’s final and describes himself as a lifelong World Cup superfan, acknowledged that minor logistical hiccups — most notably around transit to match venues — popped up over the course of the tournament. Still, he said the overall positive energy of the event has far outweighed any setbacks. “Overall, just the joy that people have, the excitement that they have, has dramatically outweighed” any downsides, Kim said, adding he has enjoyed watching matches over the past month with his two young sons.

    Bilateral tensions have also simmered between the U.S. and its co-hosts throughout the tournament. Shortly after returning to the White House, Trump implemented steep new tariffs on both Canada and Mexico and declined to renew the tri-national trade agreement between the three countries, launching a period of tense new negotiations. Just this Friday, Trump threatened additional tariffs on Canada over wildfire smoke that has worsened air quality in parts of the U.S., including northern New Jersey, where Sunday’s final will take place. He even joked during the reception that the U.S. should host the World Cup again soon, adding “this time, we’ll leave Mexico and Canada out.”

    Despite the friction, both Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney have accepted Trump’s invitation to attend Sunday’s final, a powerful sign that global soccer diplomacy can cut through geopolitical gridlock. “I received an invitation from President Trump to attend the World Cup final on Sunday, and I decided to go because it’s a direct invitation from the President of the United States,” Sheinbaum confirmed to reporters. “Prime Minister Carney will also be there.”

    While Trump will fulfill the traditional duty of the host nation’s head of state by handing the trophy to the winning captain, he has not publicly revealed which side he is rooting for. That said, his administration’s geopolitical stances have made his preferences clear: Spain has long been a point of friction for Trump, due to its failure to meet NATO defense spending targets and its refusal to allow the U.S. to launch strikes against Iran from Spanish military bases. Conversely, Argentine President Javier Milei is a staunch ally of the Trump administration, with Trump even threatening to cut U.S. aid to Argentina if Milei’s coalition did not win recent legislative elections. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will attend Sunday’s match in person, while Milei will stay home in Argentina, citing soccer superstition around watching national team matches in person.

  • Spain and Argentina brace for World Cup final

    Spain and Argentina brace for World Cup final

    The historic first 48-team FIFA World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, Mexico, and Canada, is set to reach its thrilling climax this Sunday, with two global football powerhouses — Lionel Messi’s Argentina and Spain — set to clash in the hotly anticipated final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. For Argentina, Sunday’s match carries a unique chance to make football history: the South American side is vying to become the first men’s national team to win consecutive World Cup titles since Brazil’s legendary 1962 squad. Spain, meanwhile, enters the final hunting its second ever World Cup crown, 16 years after the nation claimed its maiden title in 2010.

    Beyond the race for the trophy, the final is widely expected to mark the last World Cup appearance for Messi, the 39-year-old Argentine icon universally regarded as the greatest player to ever step onto a football pitch. Argentina head coach Lionel Scaloni has urged fans traveling to the stadium to savor every moment of seeing the generational talent lead his nation out onto the pitch. “He has made history. He is a legend,” Scaloni said of the former Barcelona star, who steered Argentina to World Cup glory in Qatar four years prior. Throughout the 2026 tournament, Argentina has earned a reputation for its relentless, never-say-die fighting spirit: the side pulled off a dramatic comeback from a 2-0 deficit late in its round of 16 match against Egypt, before notching another last-gasp victory over England in the semi-finals to secure its spot in the final.

    In stark contrast to Argentina’s dramatic path to the final, Spain’s campaign has been near-perfect. La Roja has conceded just one single goal across seven matches heading into Sunday, and earned a dominant semi-final win over France to book its place in the title decider. Spanish captain Rodri has warned his side to prepare for a physically intense battle, saying the team is ready to adapt its style of play to whatever challenges the match brings. “It will be a more physical one, and we must be prepared,” the midfielder noted. “But I believe that if we are known for something in this national team, it is that we know how to play different games based on the moment.”

    A day before the final, the tournament’s bronze medal match delivered its own blockbuster entertainment, with England edging out France 6-4 in a high-scoring thriller to claim third place — England’s best finish at the World Cup since the side won the tournament on home soil in 1966. The match also saw Kylian Mbappe of France claim the record for most all-time goals in World Cup history, notching his 22nd goal to move one ahead of Messi. Mbappe currently leads the 2026 tournament’s Golden Boot race with 10 goals, two ahead of Messi, who can retake both the all-time scoring record and the top scorer title with a strong performance on Sunday. Despite the personal milestone, Mbappe made clear he would have traded the record for a spot in the final: “I would have preferred not to be the all-time top scorer and to be playing tomorrow’s match,” he said.

    As the two finalists put the finishing touches on their preparations, an ongoing environmental disruption has made its presence felt across the eastern United States: thick, acrid smoke from rampant wildfires in Canada has drifted across the border, creating choking smog that has pushed air quality to dangerous levels across the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest. On Saturday, New York City briefly ranked as the most polluted major city on Earth, though meteorologists expect air quality conditions to improve significantly by the time the final kicks off.

    Sunday’s final will draw a high-profile crowd of attendees, with US President Donald Trump set to be among the 80,000 fans packed into MetLife Stadium, marking his first match attendance of the entire tournament. He will be joined by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, meaning the leaders of all three co-hosting nations will be present for the historic occasion. The match will also feature a star-studded entertainment lineup unprecedented in World Cup history: Tom Cruise will feature in the pre-game closing ceremony, while global music superstars Madonna and Shakira will headline the first official halftime show in World Cup history.

    In remarks ahead of the match, Trump hailed the 2026 tournament as an unprecedented success during a New York reception with FIFA President Gianni Infantino, calling it “the most successful sporting event, maybe in the history of the world.” Infantino echoed the praise, leaning into hyperbole to describe the expanded 48-team tournament, saying the event had “exceeded all expectations.” “This has not just been and is not just the greatest World Cup of all times,” Infantino said. “It is the greatest human, social, and cultural event that mankind has ever witnessed.”