Author: INDEPENDENT

Sign up to Miguel Delaney’s Reading the Game newsletter sent straight to your inbox for freeSign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter Six and out. Cristiano Ronaldo’s sixth and last European Championships came to an end as Portugal paid for an impotence that stemmed from affording their captain privileged status. They went out on penalties, Joao Felix rolling his spot kick against the foot of the post as everyone else scored, but after a second successive stalemate, after 364 minutes without scoring.If it is an equally damning statistic that no France player has scored for them in open play…

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekdayYour briefing on the latest headlines from across the USA 900-acre fire is burning through Mariposa County, California, near Yosemite National Park, prompting evacuations and forcing a local hospital to shelter in place. The French Fire began just after 6 pm on Thursday. It was 15 percent contained as of Friday evening, and some 3,100 people are without power in the county, according to PowerOutage.us. Cal Fire is mobilizing ground units and a helicopter to quell the blaze. 1,100 people were ordered to evacuate after…

Sign up to Miguel Delaney’s Reading the Game newsletter sent straight to your inbox for freeSign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter There’s no second summer fairytale for Germany, as it’s instead Spain who have the happy ending. For now. Mikel Merino ensured they rose above it all, with a brilliant header in the 119th minute. The big question as to whether they go and actually win Euro 2024 is what the cost of this 2-1 victory over the hosts will be. Toni Kroos didn’t get his grand farewell, either, as he instead contributed to a match that often…

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington emailOne week after a debate performance that was so disastrous it has prompted calls for his exit from the presidential race, President Joe Biden attributed his lack of coherence and disturbing appearance to exhaustion and illness but called it a limited episode that shouldn’t disqualify him from running for a second term.Speaking to ABC anchor George Stephanolpolous in his first television interview since the debate debacle, Biden called his poor showing against former president Donald Trump “a bad…

Sign up to Miguel Delaney’s Reading the Game newsletter sent straight to your inbox for freeSign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter Gareth Southgate feels it is a “common-sense” decision not to suspend Jude Bellingham for his crotch-grabbing celebration against Slovakia and insisted the midfielder shows great maturity in how he reacts to his eventful life.The midfielder was found guilty of “violating the basic rules of decent conduct” by Uefa and was fined €30,000 and given a one-match ban, which is suspended for a year, so he will be allowed to play in England football team’s Euro 2024 quarter-final…

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekdayYour briefing on the latest headlines from across the USAs Hurricane Beryl approached Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula this week, officials scrambled to evacuate an especially vulnerable group – sea turtle eggs.Mexican officials moved to save the eggs on Wednesday ahead of the storm, which made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane near Tulum early Friday. Officials relocated the eggs using sand-filled coolers and helped insulate their nests along the beach, the Associated Press reported. Storm surge and rises in sea level — conditions which Beryl and…

Sign up to Miguel Delaney’s Reading the Game newsletter sent straight to your inbox for freeSign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter England manager Gareth Southgate says Luke Shaw is available to start Saturday’s European Championship quarter-final against Switzerland.The Euro 2020 final goalscorer was selected for the tournament in Germany despite being out since mid-February with hamstring issues.Shaw was the only out-and-out left-back named in England’s 26-man squad, with Southgate admitting it was a calculated gamble on a player he had hoped would be available for the second group game.The 28-year-old has yet to feature in Germany and was…

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington emailDonald Trump wants to distance himself from Project 2025, the blueprint for his administration drawn up by his former officials and backed by an influential Republican-aligned think tank.Project 2025’s 900-page manifesto for nearly every detail of a second Trump presidency was drawn up by more than a dozen former Trump administration officials and advisers, who have planned to “integrate” the document into the campaign’s platform in the coming months.But on Friday, as his Democratic rivals use Project 2025…

(Nick Potts/PA Wire)Sign up to Miguel Delaney’s Reading the Game newsletter sent straight to your inbox for freeSign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter Euro 2024’s second quarter-final is another blockbuster tie which pits 2018 World Cup winners France against 2016 European Champions Portugal. Didier Deschamps’ men have managed to reach the last-eight without scoring a goal from open play. Two own goals and a Kylian Mbappe penalty have been enough to get them through testing matches against Austria, the Netherlands, Poland and Belgium. Their narrow win over Belgium in the last-16 lacked quality and excitement though the French…

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekdayYour briefing on the latest headlines from across the USAn off-color joke by a senior regional manager at Red Roof Inn about “pimps and hos” became a key piece of evidence against the hotel chain at a historic sex trafficking trial in Atlanta.Red Roof Inn, one of the nation’s largest budget hotel chains, is facing dozens of lawsuits from victims of sex trafficking who accuse the company of ignoring obvious signs of their abuse at its hotels.One of those lawsuits, filed by 11 women who…