The deeper he wades into the conversation, the deeper Al Michaels is transported back in time, 35 years doing nothing to dull the memory of that warm Sunday afternoon in Anaheim, where the Angels and Boston Red Sox staged one of the most thrilling and head-spinning 75 minutes of October baseball ever.
“To this day, man, I can still feel everything,” Michaels, now 76, said in a recent phone interview. “That freaking game … I mean, the drama from the top of the ninth inning through the bottom of the 11th was just insane.”
Dave Henderson watches the flight of his ninth-inning homer that put Boston ahead of the Angels, 6-5 in Anaheim, Oct. 12, 1986.
(Jim Gerberich / Associated Press)
The Angels rallied to tie it in the bottom of the ninth and had the bases loaded with one out, needing only a sacrifice fly or well-placed grounder to restore the full-throated roar to an Anaheim Stadium crowd of 64,223. Two of their top hitters, Doug DeCinces and Bobby Grich, failed to bring home the winning run.
Boston left fielder Jim Rice made a game-saving catch of a Gary Pettis drive at the wall to end the 10th inning, and Henderson’s bases-loaded sacrifice fly in the 11th gave the Red Sox a 7-6 comeback victory.
The shellshocked Angels barely put up a fight in Games 6 and 7 losses in Fenway Park. Three-and-a-half decades later, however, it’s Game 5 that still eats at the left-hander who got the final out in the top of the 11th inning but had been bypassed for another southpaw for a key at-bat in the ninth.
“You can’t get any closer,” former Angels pitcher Chuck Finley said. “You almost feel like you can touch it. When you have something in your hands, it’s almost like you were pick-pocketed.”
Tuesday, Oct. 12, marks the 35th anniversary of the most devastating loss in Angels history, 3 hours and 54 minutes of twists and turns that played out like a Shakespearean tragedy.
This is a look back at Game 5 through the eyes of a 23-year-old rookie reliever on that team and a Hall-of-Fame broadcaster who ranks the game just behind the “Miracle on Ice,” the U.S. hockey team’s upset of the Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics, on his list of greatest sporting events he’s called.
PROLOGUE
The 1986 Angels, managed by 60-year-old Gene Mauch, were an eclectic mix of crusty veterans, eager youngsters and a sprinkling of players in their prime.
Don Sutton (41) was the dean of a rotation that included 25-year-old right-handers Mike Witt and Kirk McCaskill. Terry Forster (34) was the elder in the bullpen. Finley was called up from Class-A Quad Cities in late May and saw a blend of personalities and temperaments that was borderline toxic.
Chuck Finley of the Angels pitches during a game circa 1988 in Anaheim, California.
(Rick Stewart/Getty Images)
“It was almost like a Desperate Housewives for Men the whole year,” said Finley, who lives in Newport Beach and does charity work for the team. “That clubhouse was a mess. Guys were just fighting all the time. There was so much pressure on Gene just to keep that team together.”
Finley recalled the team bus ride in which Moore, angered after being told Mauch had called a workout for an off day, hurled a piece of fruit at the skipper, only to have it splatter on the windshield of the bus. Players could be prickly with the media. And each other.
“It was a mixed bag of nuts,” Finley said. “It was like going to a bar and they give you that bowl. Some are a little sweet, some are a little sour, some are a little salty, but you just keep putting your hands in there and eating it, you know?”
“It was almost like a Desperate Housewives for Men. That clubhouse was a mess.”
— -Chuck Finley
The clubhouse tension, however, did not affect their performance. The Angels went 23-25 in April and May but caught fire in June, going 69-45 over the final four months to finish at 92-70. They sealed the division title with a 21-5 run from Aug. 24 through Sept. 22.
Joyner (.290, 22 homers, 100 RBIs), DeCinces (.256, 26, 96) and Downing (.267, 20, 95) paced the offense. Witt (18-10, 2.84 ERA, 208 strikeouts), McCaskill (17-10, 3.36, 202) and Sutton (15-11, 3.74) led the rotation.
Angels relief pitcher Donnie Moore.
(Charles Bernhardt / Allsport)
Moore fought through shoulder and rib-cage injuries to go 4-5 with a 2.97 ERA and 21 saves in 49 games, and Doug Corbett (4-2, 3.66 ERA in 46 games), Forster (4-1, 3.15 in 41 games) and left-hander Gary Lucas (4-1, 3.15 in 27 games) were reliable in relief.
“Man, once that national anthem was played, it was just true professionalism,” said Finley, who went 3-1 with a 3.30 ERA in 25 games after his summer call-up. “Those guys knew how to win.”
PENNANT FEVER
The Angels closed the season at Texas and flew to Boston to start the ALCS. Two sloppy, half-well-pitched games yielded two lopsided scores. Witt threw a complete game in an 8-1 Game 1 victory, and Red Sox left-hander Bruce Hurst threw one in Boston’s 9-2 Game 2 win.
The series shifted to Anaheim, where the Angels scored three seventh-inning runs in a 5-3 Game 3 victory and rallied in Game 4 for three ninth-inning runs off Roger Clemens, with DeCinces (homer) and Pettis (RBI double) providing the big blows, in a 4-3, 11-inning win.
The Angels were up 3-1 in the series.
A sense of anticipation filled Anaheim Stadium the next day when the teams met at high noon under sunny, 80-degree skies. The Angels started Witt, their best pitcher. Hurst started for the Red Sox on three days’ rest.
But across the 57 Freeway in a St. Joseph’s Hospital bed sat Joyner, the Angels’ rookie-of-the-year candidate who had a staph infection in his right shin and would watch the game on a 19-inch TV. (That was a fairly big size in those days, kids.)
Grich moved from second base to first, and Burleson started at second. The Red Sox took a 2-0 lead when Rich Gedman, their left-handed-hitting catcher, lined a two-run homer just inside the right-field foul pole in the second inning. Boone’s solo shot to left made it 2-1 in the third.
Grich followed DeCinces’ two-out double in the sixth with a drive to deep center, where Henderson, who had replaced injured starter Tony Armas in the fifth, nearly made a leaping catch on the warning track.
But Henderson’s momentum sent him smashing into the fence, and his left arm hit the top of the wall. The ball squirted out of his glove and over the fence for a two-run homer and a 3-2 Angels lead, which Anaheim increased to 5-2 in the seventh on Rob Wilfong’s pinch-hit RBI double and Downing’s sacrifice fly off reliever Bob Stanley.
Witt, meanwhile, was cruising. He took a six-hitter into the ninth with three of the hits — the second-inning homer, a fifth-inning double and seventh-inning single — coming off the bat of Gedman, who was due up fifth in the inning. With that in mind, Mauch had Lucas warming up alongside Moore as the inning began. Lucas had struck out Gedman twice during the season and again the night before.
An interview platform was constructed in the Angels clubhouse. Clear plastic wrapping was draped over each locker to protect against the anticipated fusillade of champagne. Officers on horseback gathered in the bullpen. California Highway Patrol officers manned the dugouts.
In a 1987 story about the game, former Times staff writer Mike Penner wrote that Jackson walked over to congratulate Mauch, who was on the verge of finally shedding his reputation as the best manager to never win a pennant. But Mauch kept staring ahead from the third-base dugout, watching Witt warm up for the ninth.
“It isn’t over yet,” Mauch said quietly.
“It had merely begun,” Penner wrote.
HEARTBREAK HILL
Bill Buckner opened the ninth with a ground-ball single to center, just beyond the reach of a diving Schofield. Dave Stapleton came on to pinch-run. Rice struck out looking.
Up stepped Don Baylor, the former Angels designated hitter who led the team to its first two playoff appearances in 1979 and 1982. Witt thought he struck out Baylor with a 2-and-2 curve on the inside corner, but umpire Rocky Roe called it a ball.
Witt’s full-count offering was another breaking ball, this one down and away, a pitch Witt later said he “would throw him 100 out of 100 times, and I guarantee you he wouldn’t hit a home run.” Baylor yanked it over the left-field fence for a two-run homer to cut the lead to 5-4.
Dwight Evans popped out to third for the second out. Pitching coach Marcel Lachemann went to the mound and raised his left arm to summon Lucas. The crowd groaned. So did a few Angels players.
“When they took Witt out, it was like, ‘Wow,’ ” Finley said. “He was dominating that game. I know Gedman had decent numbers against him, but I thought Witt was on a roll and he’d figure out a way to get through this.”
Lucas had not hit a batter in four seasons. His first pitch rode up and in and hit Gedman on the right hand.
Out came Lachemann again to summon Moore to face Henderson, who hit .196 with one homer and three RBIs in 36 games for Boston after an August trade from Seattle.
Henderson fouled off a pair of 2-and-2 pitches, a split-fingered pitch and fastball. Moore, whose shoulder was so sore he took a cortisone injection after the game, threw another splitter on the outer half, but this one tumbled instead of breaking sharply toward the dirt.
Henderson reached out and swatted a high fly to left. Four steps out of the box, he leaped high into the air. Finley, from the right-field bullpen, had a perfect view of the ball’s flight. He knew from the sound of the bat, the arc of the ball and the atmospheric conditions, this was not good.
“I watched it come off the bat and went, ‘Oh, sh–,’ because it was a day game and the ball flies,” Finley said. “Then I saw [Henderson] jump and went, ‘Uh-oh.’ We’re one strike away from going to the World Series and boom, that ball goes flying out, and that stadium went silent.”
“To this day, man, I can still feel everything,”
— -Al Michaels
Michaels called Henderson’s homer “unbelievable” and “astonishing” on the broadcast. Henderson floated around the bases and was greeted by jubilant teammates in the dugout.
Dave Henderson, left, and Rich Gedman of the Red Sox cheer after Henderson’s ninth-inning homer gave Boston a one-run lead in Game 5 of the 1986 ALCS against the Angels.
(Reed Saxon / Associated Press)
“Anaheim Stadium was a strike away from turning into Fantasyland,” Michaels said on the air, “and now the Red Sox lead 6-5!”
Moore got Ed Romero to fly to right to end the inning. A stoic Mauch stood in the dugout, arms folded across his chest, a blank look on his face.
“He looked frozen in time,” Michaels said.
PUSH BACK
The Angels clawed back in the bottom of the ninth. Boone singled and was replaced by pinch-runner Ruppert Jones and was bunted to second by Pettis.
Red Sox manager John McNamara summoned left-hander Joe Sambito to face Wilfong, who singled sharply to right. Jones beat a one-hop throw from the strong-armed Evans with a head-first slide to the back of the plate to tie the score 6-6 and re-spark pandemonium in the stadium.
Angels baserunner Rupert Jones slides safely into home plate under the eyes of Boston Red Sox catcher Rich Gedman in the ninth inning.
(Lennox McLendon / Associated Press)
Wilfong should have advanced on the throw home but froze at first. Right-hander Steve Crawford replaced Sambito and gave up a single to right to Schofield, moving Wilfong to third. Had Wilfong taken second on the play at the plate, he likely would have scored on Schofield’s hit.
Downing was intentionally walked to load the bases to set up a force play at home. That brought DeCinces to the plate. Crawford, who was making his first appearance of the series, was so nervous he couldn’t produce any saliva to spit.
“If there was a toilet on the mound,” Crawford said after the game, “I would have used it.”
Instead, the Angels flushed an opportunity down the drain. DeCinces swung at a first-pitch fastball and flied to shallow right, Wilfong holding at third. Grich hit a soft liner that Crawford snagged to end the inning.
“I got no place to sleep tonight,” Mauch quipped after the game. “I bet my house that DeCinces would get that run in from third.”
Moore escaped a first-and-third, one-out jam in the 10th by getting Rice to ground into a double play. Crawford walked Jerry Narron with two outs in the bottom of the 10th, and the switch-hitting Pettis, with Narron running on a full-count pitch, drove a pitch to deep left.
Pettis had hit a similar ball over Rice’s head during the big ninth-inning rally the previous night, so Rice took a few steps back for this Pettis at-bat. That allowed him to make a leaping, two-hand catch near the top of the wall to rob Pettis of a game-winning double.
“He had to look in his glove to make sure he caught it,” Michaels said. “Narron was running with the 3-2 pitch, and he scores easily if Rice doesn’t catch it.”
Michaels recalled the stadium becoming “eerily quiet” as the 11th inning started.
“If there was a toilet on the mound, I would have used it.”
— Red Sox reliever Steve Crawford
“I remember saying on the air that the crowd is wrung out,” Michaels said. “They had been screaming for 45 minutes and were just wrung out.”
Moore hit Baylor with a pitch to open the 11th. Evans singled to center. Gedman, the unsung hero of the game, popped up a sacrifice-bunt attempt that fell in front of DeCinces for a single to load the bases with no outs.
Henderson’s sacrifice fly to center scored Baylor to give Boston a 7-6 lead. Downing made a leaping catch of Romero’s drive before slamming face-first into the wall for the second out, saving a run, maybe two. Finley replaced Moore and got Wade Boggs to ground out to second to end the inning.
Red Sox closer Calvin Schiraldi struck out Wilfong and Schofield to open the bottom of the 11th, and Downing lofted a fly ball into foul territory near first.
“Popped up … here comes Stapleton,” Michaels said on the broadcast. “Next plane to Boston!”
POSTSCRIPT
The Angels’ team flight to Boston was funereal. “It was mute,” Finley said. “Everybody was staring out the windows going, ‘What happened?’ ”
Angels pitching coach Marcel Lachemann, right, consoles relief pitcher Donnie Moore in the locker room at Fenway Park on Oct. 15, 1986. The Angels lost to the Boston Red Sox in the final game of the ALCS.
(Bob Child / Associated Press)
Run-scoring doubles by Jackson and DeCinces in the first inning of Game 6 provided some hope, which was dashed when Boston scored twice in the bottom of the first and five runs in the third in an eventual 10-4 win.
The Red Sox steamrolled the Angels 8-1 in Game 7 to reach the World Series, where they suffered their own one-strike-away collapse against the New York Mets, when Mookie Wilson’s 10th-inning grounder in Game 6 famously rolled through Buckner’s legs to allow the winning run to score. The Mets won Game 7 two nights later.
The career of Moore, who had a history of alcohol abuse and domestic violence, spiraled in the wake of Game 5. He struggled in two more injury-marred seasons with the Angels and was released by the Royals in 1989.
In July 1989, Moore had an argument with his wife, Tonya, and shot her three times with a .45 pistol in their Anaheim Hills home. While the couple’s 17-year-old daughter drove Tonya to the hospital — she survived — Moore, with two younger sons in the house, put the gun to his head and committed suicide. He was 35.
“He was a great guy, he just had some demons he couldn’t tame,” Finley said of Moore. “It’s sad the way it ended up and the way Donnie’s life ended.”
Orange County Coroner personnel remove the body of former Angels pitcher Donnie Moore from his home in Anaheim on July 18, 1989. Moore shot his wife several times, critically wounding her before turning the gun on himself.
(Alan Greth / Associated Press)
Finley can’t help but wonder if he could have ended Game 5 in the top of the ninth had he been summoned instead of fellow lefty Lucas.
“I think about it all the time,” Finley said. “I don’t know if I would have gotten Gedman out, but I’d like to have had the chance to try. Gary was kind of thumbing it. He was a finesse guy, and I was throwing pretty hard back then. But Gene wanted to go with veterans, so he made what he thought was the book move.”
Finley went on to have a stellar 17-year career, going 200-173 with a 3.85 ERA in 524 games and making five All-Star teams. But he left the Angels to sign with Cleveland in 2000, hoping for a chance to win a championship, two years before the Angels won their only World Series title in 2002.
Finley made seven playoff appearances for the Indians and St. Louis Cardinals in 2001-02 but never reached the World Series.
The closest he would come, it turned out, was with the Angels in 1986.
“I was 23, up from A-ball and one strike away from the World Series — you think it would happen every year,” Finley said. “Then you have a 17-year drought, you’re retired and you don’t have a ring … man, you get that close, it makes you appreciate how hard it is to win one.”
The personal information of all South Korean diplomats is believed to have been leaked due to a data breach at the Korean National Diplomatic Academy, officials said Tuesday. The academy, in southern Seoul, is seen here Tuesday. Photo by Yonhap
Personal information of all South Korean diplomats was presumed to be leaked due to a data breach at an online education system run by an institution affiliated with the foreign ministry, officials said Tuesday.
The ministry disclosed Monday it had been notified by a relevant government agency in early February about suspicious access to the online education system of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy (KNDA). Upon the notification, the ministry shut down the system, which has remained offline since. An investigation is under way.
The data breach was presumed to affect all ministry personnel, including retirees, an official at the foreign ministry said, noting the system held approximately 10,000 records of personal data.
An unidentified hacker is believed to have gained access to the server sometime between April and May last year, and maintained that access until February.
The compromised server is believed to have stored educational videos and information on trainees, including their names, user IDs, positions, email addresses and encrypted passwords. Officials from other government agencies who had been deployed to South Korea’s overseas missions may also be among those affected, given that they occasionally use the system.
No “sensitive personal data,” such as identification numbers, mobile phone numbers or home addresses, appeared to be affected, the ministry official said, noting that there may be some overlap among the individuals whose information was compromised.
The official said the ministry could not yet confirm whether all the data stored in the system had been compromised, adding that the 10,000 figure represents the maximum possible number of cases affected.
The ministry currently lacks the technical analysis needed to identify the attacker, the official said.
“We do not rule out any possibility, including involvement by overseas hacker groups,” the official added. “We regard this as a situation with implications for national security.”
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Andy Burnham has officially begun his tenure as Britain’s prime minister with something few of his recent predecessors enjoyed: breathing room. After replacing Keir Starmer as Labour leader and becoming the United Kingdom’s seventh prime minister in just a decade, Burnham inherits an economy burdened by weak growth, strained public services and persistent cost-of-living pressures. Yet, unlike the turbulent starts experienced by previous leaders, financial markets have greeted his arrival with surprising calm.
That early confidence may prove one of Burnham’s greatest assets—or one of his greatest tests.
A Different Kind of Labour Leader
Burnham enters Downing Street with a political identity distinct from his predecessor. During his time as Mayor of Greater Manchester, he cultivated an image as a champion of regional development and public investment, earning the nickname “King of the North.”
Unlike Starmer’s cautious approach to fiscal management, Burnham has promised to “rewire Britain” through greater devolution, investment in public services, re-industrialisation and stronger local government.
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Such promises normally raise concerns among investors wary of higher public spending. Yet markets have remained remarkably composed.
British government bond yields have stayed close to 5%, while sterling has strengthened against the euro since Burnham emerged as Labour’s preferred successor. Investors appear reassured by his commitment to maintaining Britain’s existing fiscal rules rather than pursuing aggressive borrowing.
Why Markets Are Staying Calm
Several factors explain why investors have not reacted negatively.
First, Burnham has avoided announcing sweeping fiscal changes during his first days in office. Instead, he has focused on politically popular issues such as healthcare, homelessness, defence and regional economic development.
Second, his appointment of former Defence Secretary John Healey as Chancellor suggests continuity rather than confrontation with financial markets.
More importantly, many economists believe economic policy will remain closely directed by Downing Street rather than being driven independently by the Treasury, reducing uncertainty over Britain’s fiscal direction.
This perception matters because markets today are extremely sensitive to fiscal credibility.
The Shadow of Liz Truss
Any discussion of British economic policy inevitably returns to September 2022.
Former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s unfunded tax-cutting budget triggered one of the worst government bond sell-offs in modern British history. Pension funds came under severe pressure, forcing the Bank of England to intervene to stabilise markets.
That episode fundamentally changed how investors assess UK fiscal policy.
The International Monetary Fund recently concluded that the crisis permanently increased the risk premium investors demand for holding British government debt. In other words, markets now react far more aggressively to any sign of fiscal irresponsibility.
Burnham understands this reality.
His repeated commitment to existing borrowing rules appears designed to reassure investors that Labour will not repeat past mistakes.
The Economic Tailwinds
Burnham also benefits from several favourable developments that could buy his government valuable time.
Inflation has moderated compared with previous years, reducing immediate pressure on the Bank of England to tighten monetary policy further.
Energy prices have also eased relative to their crisis peaks, while upcoming regulatory adjustments may further reduce household energy costs.
Another important advantage comes from the fiscal restraint maintained under former Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Her adherence to strict borrowing limits has substantially reduced planned government debt issuance this year, giving Burnham more flexibility to adjust spending priorities without immediately alarming financial markets.
In effect, Burnham inherits a stronger fiscal starting position than many expected.
The Difficult Choices Ahead
Those advantages, however, are unlikely to last indefinitely.
Britain still faces sluggish productivity, weak investment, deteriorating public infrastructure and mounting demands for higher defence spending.
Burnham has also hinted at broader reforms that could eventually test investor confidence, including:
Greater public control over utilities.
Property tax reform.
Increased defence spending.
Adjustments to frozen income tax thresholds.
Possible changes to National Insurance contributions.
Expanded regional investment programmes.
Each proposal carries fiscal implications.
Delivering meaningful improvements in living standards while maintaining market confidence will require careful balancing.
The Reform UK Factor
Politics may ultimately shape economic policy more than economics itself.
Although Labour has changed leaders, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK continues to perform strongly in opinion polls.
If Burnham adopts an overly cautious approach that fails to improve public services or living standards, Reform could continue gaining political momentum.
That creates a dilemma.
Markets generally favour fiscal discipline, but voters increasingly demand visible economic change.
Burnham must therefore find a middle ground: ambitious enough to convince voters Labour can improve daily life, yet disciplined enough to convince investors Britain’s finances remain under control.
Why It Matters
Burnham’s premiership begins at a pivotal moment for Britain.
Economic growth remains weak, public confidence in government is fragile, and geopolitical uncertainty—from rising defence commitments to global trade disruptions—continues to weigh on the outlook.
Unlike many of his predecessors, Burnham enjoys a brief window of goodwill from financial markets. Whether he can convert that goodwill into lasting economic reform without unsettling investors may determine not only Labour’s electoral fortunes but also Britain’s broader economic trajectory.
Analysis
The first major test will come with Burnham’s autumn budget.
Investors will closely examine whether his government maintains fiscal discipline while introducing the reforms needed to revive growth and address Britain’s long-standing structural problems.
Markets will also monitor whether Labour can improve economic conditions quickly enough to halt the rise of Reform UK. If opinion polls continue shifting toward Nigel Farage’s party, investors may begin pricing in greater political uncertainty, reviving memories of the volatility seen during the Liz Truss government.
For now, Burnham has been handed two valuable gifts: investor patience and fiscal breathing space. Whether those advantages become the foundation of a successful premiership or simply a temporary reprieve will depend on the difficult choices his government makes over the coming months.
MUNICH, Germany — Nicholas Brownlee had just fallen in love with opera and was eager to see if his emerging bass-baritone voice could handle Richard Wagner’s music. It did not go well.
“I kept reading how you have to wait to sing this big repertoire,” Brownlee said. But there was one bit of Wagner — Wolfram’s “Song to the Evening Star” from “Tannhäuser” — that’s “a little bit lighter. I figured it was more appropriate.”
So he brought it to his teacher, Thomas Rowell, at the University of South Alabama and asked what he thought.
“I just laughed at him and told him to go away,” Rowell recalled. “He knew that big voice was there, and he was so eager to try on the clothes, but they didn’t fit for a while. It was still a very young instrument.”
Reminded of that exchange nearly 20 years later, Brownlee smiles. “I was a bit ambitious,” he said. “But this was just me.”
Now that ambition — what he calls “a fire in my belly that burns brighter every day,” — has helped propel Brownlee to the very top of his profession at age 37. And he’s done it by singing a lot of Wagner.
Brownlee recently made his debut as Wotan, embattled king of the gods, in “Die Walküre” at the Bavarian State Opera House, part two of a complete “Ring” cycle directed by Tobias Kratzer. He had previously sung the role in “Das Rheingold,” the opera that opens the cycle.
The critics reached for superlatives. “A heroic baritone straight out of a textbook,” wrote Markus Thiel in Merkur, “with a powerful, resonant voice, a force of nature.” Carlota Moseguí in Platea Magazine praised his voice and said Brownlee “possesses all the qualities to become the definitive Wotan of his generation.”
Next, Brownlee heads to the Wagner shrine in Bayreuth, Germany, where he will star as the title character in “Der Fliegende Holländer” (“The Flying Dutchman.”) And his upcoming season is one Wotan after another.
“It’ll be ‘Siegfried’ time in Munich, then ‘Walküre’ time in Buenos Aires, then ‘Rheingold’ time in Barcelona,” he said. Add to that two of the “Ring” operas in Frankfurt and then two complete cycles next summer back in Munich.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing to have a student who goes that far, especially from a small regional state university like ours,” said Rowell, who remains close friends with Brownlee and officiated his wedding to mezzo-soprano Jennifer Feinstein. “I have to pinch myself. I’m enjoying it vicariously.”
Does Brownlee worry at all about damaging his voice from so much heavy singing?
“I don’t think you’re supposed to say this, but no, not really,” he replied. “We like to put this big stamp on Wagner and say ‘Be Careful!’” But he said he finds the demands of each opera different enough to help him avoid burnout.
Still, he promises that his roles the following season will be more varied, including a return to one of his favorites — Baron Scarpia in Puccini’s “Tosca.” And down the road are two Verdi roles — the villainous Iago in “Otello” and the comic Falstaff.
Of the latter, he said, “I want to flex a different muscle. I talk fast, I’m a bubbly, fun guy, but what I do on stage is so serious all the time. Boy it would be fun to just be a jolly fat guy!”
Just how did a boy from a working-class family in a small town outside Mobile, Ala., become one of a handful of go-to singers in the world for these demanding roles?
His first success as a vocalist actually came as the youngest grandchild in a large extended family, performing Conway Twitty imitations to grab attention. Classical music had to wait until he fell under the spell of his high school choral director.
When he went to college, he planned to study conducting, but Rowell heard him sing and cajoled him into joining the Mobile Opera chorus.
“I went in the first day and I hated it,” Brownlee recalled. “I said, this is in Italian, who cares? That’s for stuffy elite people, not for us blue-collar fellas.”
Still, his curiosity made him determined to figure out why some people loved the art form. So he sat by the side of the stage one night to watch the emotional final scene of Verdi’s “La Traviata,” when the heroine dies after being reunited with her lover.
“When she said, ‘O, gioia!’ and she fell into his arms, and now she’s dead, Alfredo’s weeping over her, and Germont is feeling half-responsible, I was weeping uncontrollably,” he said. “And I didn’t even know what they were saying.”
That’s when he started taking voice lessons, and from there followed years of study and apprenticeships both in the U.S. and later in Germany. Along the way he competed twice in the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions.
The first time, still in his early 20s, he made it to the semifinals in New York. “I did not go on to the finals, which was absolutely correct,” he said. “Failure is a great lesson.” (Coincidentally, one of the winners that year was Ryan Speedo Green, who performed Wotan in May at Walt Disney Hall and will bein the Met’s upcoming “Ring” cycle.)
Brownlee returned in 2015, and this time he took home one of the top prizes. Other awards have followed, including in 2025, best male singer at the International Opera Awards and the Richard Tucker Award for most promising American singer.
Yet this American singer is still barely known to most opera audiences in his native country. Brownlee’s career has so far been largely in Germany, where he and Feinstein are raising their two daughters and are currently applying for dual citizenship.
“I can perform anywhere in Europe and be home in two hours to see my girls,” he said. “In America that’s just not something you can do.”
He may be rooted in Europe for now, but major U.S. houses are beckoning with increasing urgency.
When he appeared at Chicago’s Lyric Opera this past spring as the prophet Jochanaan in Richard Strauss’ “Salome,” general director John Mangum called his performance “absolutely thrilling.” He said Brownlee is “definitely going be at the top of our list” as the company charts its future Wagner performances.
And Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, who heard him sing a major role for the first time during the Munich run of “Walküre,” said “I was blown away. … We’ll definitely be offering him big roles at the Met in upcoming seasons.”
Airports have warned that kids could be forced to leave the items behind
09:19, 21 Jul 2026Updated 09:19, 21 Jul 2026
Squishy toys could easily raise a red flag at airport security this summer (stock image)(Image: Getty)
Parents are being told to leave certain children’s toys at home. If kids bring them to the airport, they may be taken from them at security. There is a high chance that items like NeeDoh cubes and other popular ‘squishy’ toys could be flagged and confiscated.
Even at airports using advanced scanners, gel-filled toys look highly unusual on security screens. This frequently triggers a manual bag check, causing travel delays, and some staff will not take the risk with these items going any further into the airport.
Travel specialist Kate Donnelly (@Thedonnelllyedit) said: “From my own personal experience, [squishy toys] do tend to come under closer scrutiny when passing through airport security. My top tip for parents this summer, pack these items in your whole luggage.
“There is a high chance that if you put these in your hand luggage, they will get confiscated. There are absolutely no markings on them to let you know exactly how much liquid is contained within them, and therefore, they are very easily removed.
“This means that you have upset children and you will have to pay out for a whole new load of toys when you get to your destination.” She suggested that the best thing to do is to pack toys safely in your main suitcase that gets checked into the hold, as this allows more liquids than hand luggage does, helping you avoid delays and reduce the risk of them being confiscated.
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Posting online, Luton Airport confirms that any squishy toys, including NeeDoh cubes, that contain a gel or liquid must comply with the strict liquid rule when packed in hand luggage. The airport said: “As the quantity of gel contained within these items cannot be accurately verified during the screening process, they are not permitted through security in hand luggage.”
Manchester Airport also said: “Things like squishy toys contain liquid – this includes NeeDohs, which use malt syrup. Smaller versions of the toy are under 100mls, but larger versions are not.
“The problem is that, as they don’t have measurements printed on them, security staff have to estimate their size. Our advice is that all but very small squishy toys should be placed in hold baggage.”
As a result, kids could be forced to bin their favourite toys before going on holiday. The issue is that there is often no way to verify exactly how much ‘liquid’ is inside one of these objects.
Not all UK airports follow the same rules about liquids in 2026 due to a staggered rollout of new high-tech 3D CT security scanners that allow the 100ml rule to be relaxed. Different locations are at different stages of upgrading, with a pause currently in effect this summer to avoid disruption over peak travel times.
Below is a list of what airports are following the new (2000ml) rules. At the airports accepting two litres in hand luggage, the scanners also mean people do not need to empty their bags, as scanners are powerful enough to detect these items, as well as electronics:
Belfast City
Belfast International
Birmingham
Bristol
Edinburgh
London Gatwick
London Heathrow (All terminals)
Teesside International
These airports are still following the original (100ml) rule:
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The largest, longest and most complex World Cup in history came to a close Sunday, with Spain beating Argentina 1-0 in extra time. But FIFA president Gianni Infantino didn’t bother waiting for the final result before passing judgment on the tournament.
“By all means this World Cup has exceeded all expectations,” he said during a reception at Trump Tower two days before the final kicked off. “This has not just been the greatest FIFA World Cup of all time. It is the greatest human social and cultural event that mankind has ever witnessed.”
No, but it was pretty good, with FIFA emerging as the World Cup’s biggest winner, allowing Infantino to reportedly shore up support within the organization despite a number of norm-shattering decisions during the tournament.
Attendance topped 6.8 million, a World Cup record averaging more than 65,000 fans a game. FIFA estimated the cumulative global TV audience topped 5 billion people across linear television, digital streaming and social platforms while more than 1.8 billion people were expected to watch the final, according to the BusinessStats website, making it the most-viewed sporting event in history.
Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez reacts as Spain’s Ferran Torres scores during the World Cup final in East Rutherford, N.J., on Sunday.
(Julio Cortez / Ap Photo/julio Cortez)
Exact figures won’t be known for a few days.
Revenue for the four-year World Cup cycle is anticipated to reach $13 billion, making it the first $10-billion sporting event in history — bolstering Infantino’s case for reelection as FIFA’s president next year.
The final was among the most expensive U.S. sporting events of all time, with the get-in asking price for a single ticket on the secondary market peaking at about $7,400 three hours before kickoff and the average purchase price topping $10,800. One seat sold for $32,502, which is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on whether you’re buying the ticket or selling it.
Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium hosted eight games, including two of the U.S. team’s three group-stage games and Spain’s quarterfinal win over Belgium. The matches had a total attendance of 561,656 people, about 99.6% of capacity — that’s more than each of the first three World Cups drew for the entire tournaments.
U.S. and Paraguay oversized flags are featured on the pitch before a World Cup group stage match at SoFi Stadium on June 12.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Weather disrupted just a handful of matches, not the dozen or more that were feared, and the logistical nightmares of staging the 39-day tournament across three countries for the first time — the U.S. co-hosted the event with Mexico and Canada — never materialized. The expansion to 48 teams and 104 games, meanwhile, made room for a number of surprises that gave the tournament its life and sparkle.
Tiny Cape Verde, the second-smallest country to qualify for a World Cup, made a memorable debut, playing Spain to a scoreless draw in its opener, then taking Argentina to extra time before falling in the cruelest way possible, on an own goal, in the knockout rounds.
Norway, playing in the tournament for the first time this century, made it to the quarterfinals behind its hulking striker Erling Haaland, who quickly became a fan favorite while the team’s supporters saw their synchronized “Viking Row” celebration go viral.
Canada and Egypt both won World Cup games for the first time, advancing to the Round of 16, with Egypt becoming one of nine African teams to make it to the knockout rounds. Of FIFA’s six continental confederations, only UEFA, representing Europe, did better than Africa, sending 13 teams beyond the group stage.
Argentina’s Lionel Messi erased any doubt that he’s the greatest player in World Cup history — if not soccer history — by willing his team to the final and winning the Silver Ball, runner-up for the tournament’s most outstanding player. On Sunday, Messi was thwarted in his attempt to win a second straight World Cup and third Golden Ball, but he walked off the field at MetLife Stadium as only the second man to play in three World Cup finals.
And he finished his record-setting sixth tournament as the all-time leader in games (34), assists (12) and goal contributions (33), more than standing the test of time. Two of the players Spain started against Argentina in the final hadn’t even been born when Messi, 39, made his World Cup debut in 2006.
But if those were the highlights, there were also lowlights.
This was by far the most political World Cup in history and the first in which a host country, the U.S., was actively at war with a participating one, Iran.
Iran defender Ramin Rezaeian celebrates with teammates after scoring during a World Cup match against New Zealand at SoFi Stadium on June 15.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
That had all kinds of ramifications, starting with the State Department’s refusal to grant visas to more than a dozen members of Iran’s official delegation. Iran was also forced to move its base camp from Tucson to Tijuana, and though it played all its games in the U.S., it was denied permission to remain in the country after each match, an option granted to every other team.
Despite the harassment, Iran did not lose a game, playing to three draws despite having three goals — any of which would have sent it to the knockout rounds — erased by video reviews.
The State Department also denied entry to Omar Abdulkadir Artan, a decorated Somali referee, turning him away at Miami International Airport in June, citing “vetting concerns.” Artan, named Africa’s top referee last year, had a valid entry visa and was selected by FIFA to work the tournament last April.
Iran wasn’t the only team to have its World Cup ended early by technology. Although the video assistant referee (VAR) system was adopted primarily to alert the head official to potential clear and obvious errors or serious missed incidents, in this tournament it became intrusive, eliminating Croatia on evidence from a NASA-level ball sensor and costing Egypt what would have been a game-winning score for a perceived foul that took place nearly 100 yards from the goal.
Coaches and players are still allowed to make mistakes, but the technology now has referees making calls on things that are imperceptible to the naked eye, something critics say has removed any sense of judgment or nuance, robbing the game of much of its drama.
“Football is an art. That’s why we love it,” said Christina Unkel, a former FIFA referee and a rules of the game analyst for multiple TV networks. “When you do pursue black and white — objectivity is what they’re trying to get to, and I get it; they want to eliminate as much subjectivity as possible — what everyone is hating is this perfection thing.”
Then there was the official’s call that President Trump took credit for overruling from 2,800 miles away.
When striker Folarin Balogun, the U.S. team’s leading scorer, was given a red card in the second half of his team’s Round of 32 win over Bosnia-Herzegovina, he was immediately suspended from the Americans’ next elimination game with Belgium. But Trump admitted he phoned Infantino three times, lobbying for the suspension to be rescinded.
U.S. forward Folarin Balogun stepped on Bosnia-Herzegovina defender Tarik Muharemovic’s foot during a World Cup match and received a red card at Levi’s Stadium on July 1.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Less than 30 hours before the Belgium game, the card penalty was suspended and Balogun was placed on one year’s probation by FIFA’s disciplinary committee, marking just the second time in World Cup history that a player who received a red card was allowed to play in his team’s next game. The international uproar that followed overwhelmed the U.S. team, which played its worst game of the tournament against Belgium.
Trump, who was booed as he saluted the national anthem Sunday from a luxury box before the game, was booed again by the crowd of 80,663 when he strode onto the pitch for the awards ceremony afterward.
UEFA, the FIFA confederation in which Belgium plays, protested the decision to let Balogun play, saying it had “crossed a red line.” It was far from the only bright red line Infantino crossed in this tournament. And some of that line crossing could set dangerous precedents.
Allowing the U.S. to turn away the Somali official and limit the Iranian team’s time in the country, for example, could embolden future World Cup hosts to do the same. What’s to stop Morocco, co-host of the 2030 tournament, from banning officials and players from Algeria over the two countries’ territorial dispute in the Western Sahara? And if a red card is handed to a player from Spain, another 2030 co-host, would the Spanish prime minister call Infantino to try to get it rescinded? Despite FIFA’s insistence that the disciplinary committee works independently, many believe Trump’s meddling worked.
But as always with FIFA, money speaks the loudest, so Infantino’s norm-shattering behavior over the last year doesn’t seem to have cost him much support. The Guardian reported last week that as the World Cup neared its successful conclusion, nearly 200 of FIFA’s 211 member associations are endorsing Infantino’s bid for reelection to a fourth term as president next March.
Which is why Spain wasn’t the only winner in this tournament.
Argentina were beaten 1-0 in the final by Spain in what has been rumoured to be Lionel Messi’s final World Cup game.
Published On 21 Jul 202621 Jul 2026
After what may have been his final World Cup match, Lionel Messi was in tears on the field on Sunday in East Rutherford, New Jersey, ruing a missed chance to win a second consecutive title for Argentina.
Messi, without hinting whether his World Cup career was officially through, congratulated Spain, who beat Argentina 1-0 in the final, and said the memories would last, in an Instagram post on Monday evening.
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“The pain is immense, and this wound will take time to heal,” Messi wrote in his native Spanish alongside a photo of him bearing a silver medal.
“But I also hold onto all the good things… The matches we turned around by giving it our all – moments that will remain in our memories forever – and the support of an entire country which, combined with this group’s hard work and effort, brought us back among the world’s elite once again.
“It is hard to fully appreciate our achievement right now, but this group reached two consecutive World Cup finals.”
Argentina defeated France on penalty kicks following a 3-3 draw in the 2022 final in Qatar, earning the last piece of major hardware Messi had yet to win in his illustrious career.
Argentina were once again one of the best teams in the 2026 tournament in North America. They rallied past England in the semifinal before coming up against a Spanish defence that held them without a shot on goal.
Messi turned 39 during the tournament and will turn 43 during the 2030 World Cup, which will be held in Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart for every greeting and message,” Messi wrote. “Once again, we managed to unite as a country and stand together, sharing the immense pride of being Argentine.
“I also want to congratulate Spain on winning the championship.”
Messi broke Miroslav Klose’s record of 16 all-time World Cup goals early in the tournament, and he finished with 21, though he was caught and surpassed by Kylian Mbappe (22).
ESPN reported on Monday that Messi and his national team and club teammate Rodrigo De Paul will not play the next two regular-season matches for Inter Miami, nor participate in the MLS All-Star Game, as they rest and recover from the World Cup.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
As renewed hostilities between Iran and the U.S. and its allies enter a 10th day, the Houthi rebels of Yemen say they are imposing an embargo on Saudi oil shipments passing through the Bab el-Mandeb (BAM) Strait. The move threatens to add further pressure on oil exports from the Middle East, already drastically affected by the Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the resumption of the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports. Saudi Arabia has diverted millions of barrels of oil per day through pipelines to its Yanbu port on the Red Sea in an effort to minimize the energy shortages due to the hostilities in the Persian Gulf. This also raises the specter of the U.S. having to get as involved as it did during the previous Houthi campaign against shipping that ended last September, which could pull resources away from Iranian-focused operations.
BREAKING: Houthis of Yemen announce a a “maritime embargo” against Saudi Arabia, “effective immediately.”
Saudi Arabia has until now exported ~4.5m b/d from Yanbu in the Red Sea, most of it heading South throughout the Bab al-Mandab Strait between Yemen and Djibouti-Eritrea pic.twitter.com/c96Apzh9As
On Monday, Kuwait said it came under Iranian fire again.
“Kuwaiti air defenses are currently engaging hostile missile and drone attacks following the heinous Iranian aggression,” the Kuwaiti Defense Ministry stated on X. “The General Staff of the Army notes that any sounds of explosions heard are a result of air defense systems intercepting hostile attacks. Everyone is urged to adhere to the security and safety instructions issued by the relevant authorities.”
Hours earlier, Bahrain said it too had come under a new wave of Iranian attacks.
“The General Command of the Bahrain Defense Force (BDF) announces that Iran is continuing its systematic hostility approach through its sinister attacks targeting civilians in the Kingdom of Bahrain,” BDF posted on X. “The General Command clarifies that, with strong will and high combat readiness, the air defense systems attacked, intercepted and destroyed a number of treacherous Iranian air strikes today, Monday, July 20, 2026.”
The extent of the damage in either Kuwait or Bahrain is unclear at the moment. These most recent attacks came after U.S. Central Command on Sunday night said it wrapped up a ninth straight day of strikes on Iranian assets, targeting “military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks to further diminish Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz,” the command stated on X.
Amid this kinetic activity, as we noted earlier in this story, the Iranian-backed Houthis say they will no longer permit Saudi Arabian ships passage through from the Red Sea into the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces declare a maritime embargo against the criminal Saudi enemy, based on the equation of an ‘eye for an eye,’ effective immediately upon the issuance of this statement,” the Houthis stated on Monday, according to the official Houthi SABA media outlet. The move follows increased tensions between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia as well as a request by Iran “to stand ready to close the Red Sea oil route if the United States strikes Iranian power infrastructure,” Reuters reported last week. “The idea has been discussed within the Islamic Republic’s leadership, and the message has been conveyed to Iran’s Houthi allies.”
⚡️BREAKING: Yemen’s Houthis have announced a Naval Blockade on Saudi Arabia from the Red Sea
This move essentially Cuts OFF Saudi oil exports through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait pic.twitter.com/gqV8E5hfq1
Houthi forces on Monday reportedly began issuing warnings on open maritime frequencies near Yemen that the BAM is closed to Saudi shipping and its vessels are subject to attack.
Houthi forces are reportedly issuing warnings on open maritime frequencies near Yemen that the Bab al-Mandab Strait is closed to Saudi shipping. pic.twitter.com/MD0KhmTmJ5
A Houthi shut down of the Bab el-Mandeb (BAM) Strait, a narrow stretch of water between Yemen and Djibouti, would choke off the flow of oil exports from Saudi Arabia, exacerbating the above-mentioned impingement on the flow of oil from the closed Strait of Hormuz.
Having both straits closed at once is something of a ‘sum of all fears’ scenario for the global energy marketplace.
“The full closure of the BAM would cut global oil supply by 7% as it would leave most Saudi oil exports unable to leave the region,” Reuters noted on Monday. “The disruption would add to the massive cut to global oil flows from the war in the Gulf, which has already reduced shipments by 10% of global supply.”
You can read more about the effects of both straits being closed at once in our story about that here.
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is a strategic chokepoint where the Houthis declared they have imposed an embargo on Saudi shipping. (Google Earth) The Bab al-Mandab Strait between Yemen and Djibouti has become a dangerous chokepoint of Houthi attacks. (Google Earth image)
Beyond affecting the flow of oil, a Houthi blockade on the BAM threatens to open a new front in this conflict.
The Houthis carried out a campaign against shipping in November 2023 in solidarity with Palestinians over the latest war between Israel and Gaza. However, while it was ostensibly aimed at only Israeli connected ships, numerous commercial vessels with no clear Israeli ties were attacked as were several U.S. and allied warships. The campaign stretched into the summer of 2025, forcing some vessels to avoid the Suez Canal for a far longer route around Africa, boosting shipping costs by nearly $200 billion at the time.
The Houthi attacks also forced the U.S. and allies to deploy many warships, including the Eisenhower and Truman Carrier Strike Groups (CSG) to both defend against Houthi attacks and strike targets in Yemen. These operations resulted in a large expenditure of air defense and strike munitions.
You can see video of some of those encounters below.
WATCH: CENTCOM releases footage as US HAMMERS Iran
The possibility exists that a new wave of Houthi attacks — especially if non-Saudi ships are targeted — could drag in U.S. forces already in heavy use in the Persian Gulf region battling the Iranians. This sets up a major showdown as Saudi oil is a lifeline to Asian supplies hobbled by conflict in the Persian Gulf. We reached out to CENTCOM for comment and will update this story with any pertinent details shared.
Earlier on Monday, the head of the European-led task force providing maritime security in the Red Sea region told us the Houthis remain a threat to navigation despite not having attacked any merchant vessels since September 2025.
“The security situation in the Bab el-Mandeb remains fragile and is highly sensitive to regional escalation,” Rear Admiral Vasileios Gryparis, Commander of EUNAVFOR ASPIDES, told TWZ. “On the rhetorical level, the Houthis’ leadership reiterated several times their alignment with the broader Axis of Resistance.”
Gryparis’s comments, in response to a query from last week about Iran’s outreach to the Houthis, came before the Yemeni group’s embargo declaration.
“From an operational standpoint, we assess that the Houthis pose a threat and are capable of rapidly escalating,” the ASPIDES commander told us. “We maintain a frequent presence at sea, monitor the situation, and adjust our actions when needed. In the event of a resumption of Houthi attacks on merchant vessels, which remains a possibility, we are present and ready to implement our mandate, within our means and capabilities. ASPIDES remains ready, within its defensive mandate, to adapt to evolving operational requirements.”
A French destroyer operating under EUNAVFOR ASPIDES provided support to a commercial vessel transiting the Red Sea region. (ASPIDES)
Being drawn into defending against a new Houthi campaign on shipping in the Red Sea region would exacerbate the strain on U.S. forces already under tremendous pressure from Iran. In addition to defending against ongoing barrages, the U.S. has committed about 20 U.S. warships, along with hundreds of aircraft dispersed across various bases, vessels, and forward arming and refueling points in the Middle East, to maintaining the newly reimposed blockade on Iranian ports. Moving these assets to another prologned shooting match in the Red Sea would degrade those capabilities and the ability to support a war effort should it fully erupt. It’s a capacity issue.
Expanding the fight against Iran is already in discussion by the Trump administration.
“The U.S. is planning for a wider war,” a U.S. official familiar with internal administration discussions told The Washington Post.
But the official cautioned that “the expansion of U.S. operations will be limited by dwindling stockpiles of air defense and long-range munitions and constraints on the ability to surge more troops and aircraft into the area because of battle damage,” the newspaper continued.
“We do not have enough to safely sustain operations, and I don’t think the White House is aware of that,” the Post said the official added.
One notable detail from The Washington Post’s reporting: even as the Pentagon prepares for the possibility of a broader conflict with Iran, one U.S. official warned that the campaign could be constrained by dwindling stocks of air defense interceptors and long-range munitions,… https://t.co/Xo9A6yNFnppic.twitter.com/dKEN3IGNUr
All this comes as there are increasing signs of damage at U.S. facilities in the Middle East from Iranian barrages. Though largely spared in the initial phases of Epic Fury due to robust air defenses, the airfield at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan has taken the brunt of recent attacks, while several other installations have been hit as well.
The air base has long been a major regional hub for U.S. operations, and is being very actively utilized in the current conflict. It hosts the greatest concentration of U.S. tactical aircraft in the region, and thus is an extremely important target, where, as we pointed out, even one ballistic missile landing on an apron could destroy multiple prized aircraft and take the lives of U.S. service members or cause injuries.
Satellite imagery has emerged on social media purporting to show the extent of the damage at MSAB. The following shows what is claimed to be before and after views of strikes on aircraft hangars and containerized housing units. The imagery is provided by Iran and, because U.S. satellite firms do not collect over American facilities, we cannot independently confirm what is being depicted.
Before-and-after imagery shows at least two dozen containerized living units housing U.S. troops completely destroyed by Iranian strikes at 31°49′57″N, 36°47′47″E.
Two U.S. service members were killed at this site, while a third remains missing. pic.twitter.com/sqPOxhGTLr
Beyond damage, the number of troops killed and injured in Iranian attacks is rising. On Monday, the Pentagon identified two soldiers killed in action.
“1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, was killed in action on July 18, 2026, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, was killed in action on July 17, 2026, during an enemy attack on July 17, 2026, at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, Jordan,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “The incident is under investigation.”
Both soldiers worked for air defense units. Feehan was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 55th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 32nd Army Air Missile Defense Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Gonzales was assigned to 1st Battalion, 57th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 52nd Air Defense Artillery Brigade, 10th Army Air Missile Defense Command, Ansbach, Germany.
BREAKING: The Pentagon has identified the soldiers killed in action from Iranian attacks in Jordan as 19-year-old Pvt. Isabella Gonzales and 25-year-old 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan.
1st Lt. Feehan was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 55th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 32nd Army Air… pic.twitter.com/3PFpnMcOVZ
Today’s identifications came after CENTCOM on Saturday reported that two U.S. service members in Jordan were killed in action on July 17. Additionally, the command said one service member was currently missing, but later said unidentified remains were found.
CENTCOM also reported on Sunday that “a U.S. service member in northern Iraq was killed in action July 18 during a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone. A second service member was wounded and continues to receive medical treatment for a minor injury.”
We have asked CENTCOM and the Army to confirm that Feehan was the soldier killed in Iraq during the controlled detonation or if he was killed in another incident.
It should be noted that in announcing the identities of Feehan and Gonzales, the Pentagon said they died in support of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), which is the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. We asked the Pentagon for clarity and they deferred us to CENTCOM, which has yet to respond.
“In the week leading up to the Iranian attack on Friday that killed two U.S. soldiers and left one service member missing in Jordan, Iran carried out three other strikes against U.S. forces in the country,” the paper explained. “Those attacks injured dozens of U.S. service members and damaged several helicopters, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. But the Pentagon did not disclose the earlier strikes, nor the casualties and damage they inflicted.”
The episode “is the latest example during the Iran conflict of the tension between what the Pentagon says is the need for operational security and the government’s obligation to inform the public about the conduct of the war,” the Times proffered.
The Pentagon pushed back on that claim, rejecting it as “baseless and malicious.”
The Department of War rejects these baseless and malicious accusations of hiding injury numbers as outright lies from partisan hacks at the New York Times who are desperate to smear America’s military and its leadership.
Still, despite the increasing violence, both the U.S. and Iran have suggested that further diplomacy to end the fighting is possible. This is even as both sides declared the ceasefire over and Iranians last week said they would no longer negotiate a Memorandum of Understanding on a possible peace deal.
“You can’t have an MOU that’s alive if they’re violating the terms,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters. “The U.S. always remains open to a diplomatic solution. We’ve tried multiple times with Iran and we’ll continue to try… but their behavior is what we’re responding to — and their behavior is they’re launching missiles and drones against ships.”
.@SecRubio: “You can’t have an MOU that’s alive if they’re violating the terms… The U.S. always remains open to a diplomatic solution. We’ve tried multiple times with Iran and we’ll continue to try… but their behavior is what we’re responding to — and their behavior is… https://t.co/SIYaJOeAHKpic.twitter.com/qv4THvFqRg
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 20, 2026
“Proposals were put forward by the mediators, we were informed of them, and we received them,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said during a press conference. “However, let me not go into details right now. The gist of the matter is that the diplomatic mission has been actively working these days, and some ideas from a number of mediators have reached us—yes, this is confirmed.”
FM Spox: Peace is not a luxury item stored away in the vault of int’l relations, waiting to be handed over. Rather, it is something that must be fought for. Peace comes at an exceptionally high price particularly in our region, where war is being normalized and forced upon us. pic.twitter.com/Ulpt2hPfl4
Still, Trump threatened to continue striking Iran should more U.S. forces be killed.
“Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!” the president proclaimed on Truth Social. “This directive has been passed on to Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Daniel Caine, and every Leader in the Military.”
There are no new peace talks scheduled and it remains unclear if they will be. Meanwhile, the new Houthi blockade could deeply complicate an already highly-precarious situation in the Middle East.
UPDATE: 4:50 PM EDT –
CENTCOM announced the start of the 10th consecutive day of strikes on Iranian targets.
“Today at 4 p.m. ET, U.S. forces began a new round of strikes against Iran at the Commander in Chief’s direction,” the command stated on X. “The strikes are designed to further degrade Iranian military capabilities used to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.”
Today at 4 p.m. ET, U.S. forces began a new round of strikes against Iran at the Commander in Chief’s direction. The strikes are designed to further degrade Iranian military capabilities used to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
“U.S. forces struck Iranian military command centers, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and air defense systems to degrade Iran’s ability to continue attacking commercial vessels flowing through the Strait of Hormuz,” the command stated on X. “Commercial vessel transits through the vital international maritime corridor continue. Since early May, CENTCOM forces have helped facilitate the transit of approximately 900 commercial vessels and 450 million barrels of crude oil.”
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced it concluded another round of strikes against Iran at 9:00 p.m. ET on July 20, targeting military command centers, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and air defense systems for the tenth consecutive night intending to… https://t.co/e6VYmo3vt6pic.twitter.com/A6b0lMqn4B
Freelance writer and editor Lucy Schiller bumped up against the issues of aging, eldercare and loneliness through her grandmothers. When the family pulled her maternal grandmother, Mary Ann, from assisted living during the pandemic, Schiller became her primary caregiver. Her paternal grandmother, Anita, was less fortunate; she contracted COVID-19 from a home healthcare aide and died in a hospital.
Book Review
Aging Out: An Exploration of Caregiving, Community, and How Americans Grow Old
By Lucy Schiller Flatiron Books: 272 pages, $30
If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.
As she relates in “Aging Out,” the shock of Anita’s death was a factor in Schiller’s abrupt relocation from a central New York college town to Pittsburgh, where she knew no one. Schiller calls the move “a half-desperate plan to simply change the background scenery of my life for the millionth time.”
While grieving, scrambling to make a living, taking long walks with her dog and wrestling with her chosen solitude, Schiller embarks on a quest to understand the institutions and attitudes that shape old age in America. “What was the relationship between personal fear of oldness and the ways in which oldness was structured in society?” she asks.
The resulting book, a deliberately meandering account of her Steel City sojourn, weds memoir, travelogue, philosophical rumination and journalistic investigation. Schiller, an MFA graduate of the University of Iowa and now an assistant professor of nonfiction at Texas Tech University, is a fluid writer. But most of what she covers is well-trod ground.
It’s worth asking whom she envisions as her audience. Most older readers know this territory; younger ones have other, more pressing concerns, including how to afford life in the here-and-now.
Perhaps Schiller, a millennial in her 30s, hopes they will identify with her personal struggles. But her loneliness seems largely self-imposed, perhaps compounded by what she describes as “a severe strain” of obsessive-compulsive disorder. “It turns out, laughably, that an interest in privacy, and staying quiet about internal feelings, are hallmarks of this condition,” she writes, offering a partial explanation for her wariness of company.
Pondering the American way of aging, Schiller initially adopts a posture of ignorance and naivete so extreme that it seems like a pose. She puzzles out the distinctions among nursing homes, assisted living facilities and continuing care retirement communities, as well as home healthcare. And she underlines the fact that, when it comes to long-term care in the United States, only the relatively well-off have good choices. This isn’t exactly news.
Another Schiller inquiry involves the familiar complexities of Medicare. She notes that, as a public program for seniors, it is so inadequate that it requires private options, such as Medigap and Medicare Advantage, to paper over coverage gaps. Picking the best plan for one’s needs can be a daunting option, requiring trained help or careful study. Schiller attends an informational seminar by a broker for Medicare Advantage plans and decides, unhelpfully, that they are neither “a solution or a problem.”
Schiller’s reporting methods rely, to some extent, on serendipity. “I tended toward … a kind of diffuse sallying through the world, staying open to the coincidence, digression, and movement,” she writes. She calls the method “antinarrative.”
All that sallying takes her down some unexpected byways. She returns to a western Pennsylvania town called Harmony, where she once had “a horrible, endless date over crepes,” to investigate a strike over pay and working conditions at a troubled nursing home. That leads to a long discussion of the use of restraints on the elderly.
At one point, Schiller finds a company called Papa that employs younger “Pals” to assist older adults. With the backing of health insurance companies, the Pals provide companionship, transportation, housecleaning services and more. Schiller tries something similar as a volunteer for a health insurance company, reaching out to an elderly Black woman by phone. They stumble over time into an unlikely friendship.
One problem with all these efforts to mitigate old-age loneliness, Schiller notes, is that the loneliest generation is actually Gen Z. And the loneliness surveys themselves, she suggests, may be suspect.
Schiller delves, inevitably, into the history of AARP, an organization that even in its earliest days was entangled with the health insurance industry. And consumer advocate Ralph Nader, for whom she does some editing work, tips her to the story of activist Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Gray Panthers.
Kuhn, Schiller writes, understood “the tension between the social so-called nothingness of old age and its vibrant realities.” Which brings Schiller to the intersection of aging and disability, and to Programs for All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), which provide community-based care as an alternative to nursing homes.
In the end, Schiller has a go at parsing her own motivations. “I had descended into the strange subterranean structures of aging, almost as a way to avoid the contemporary world … ,” she writes. “Age … was a helpful distancing tool: older people’s vulnerabilities, including those of my own grandparents, helped to distract me from my own present and future. … I still did not know how to seal over the gaping wound of the pandemic, how to move forward.”
For all her verbiage, she can find no easy fix, nor even a complicated one. “It was not possible for me to imagine a solution to the level of fragmentation, pain, and dysfunction I saw,” she writes, leaving readers without much justification for having followed her rambling, idiosyncratic quest.
Klein, a cultural reporter and critic in Philadelphia, has been a three-time finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing.
Vaughn Grissom drove in the tying run with a one-out double in the ninth inning and Jo Adell was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to give the Angels a 3-2 comeback win over the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday night.
Nolan Schanuel, batting .367 since June 21, sparked the late rally with a one-out single off All-Star closer Riley O’Brien, who is tied for the National League lead with 25 saves.
Jorge Soler was hit by a pitch and Grissom sent a line drive off the right-field wall that eluded a leaping Jordan Walker. Pinch-runner Oswald Peraza scored from second base and pinch-runner Jose Siri reached third.
Josh Lowe was walked intentionally to load the bases. Adell, who homered in the third inning, took three straight balls from O’Brien (3-4) before getting plunked by the next pitch to force in the winning run.
Angels reliever José Fermín (3-1) struck out two in a scoreless ninth.
O’Brien’s fifth blown save laid to waste a strong start by St. Louis right-hander Kyle Leahy, who gave up one run and three hits in six innings. He struck out four and walked none.
Angels starter José Soriano threw his best game since early May, giving up two runs and four hits in seven innings while striking out seven and walking one.
The right-hander, who went 3-6 with a 5.15 ERA in his previous 14 starts, retired the side in order five times and became the first Angels starter to get an out in the seventh since June 16.
Walker sparked the Cardinals’ second-inning rally with a leadoff double over Lowe’s head in left field. He went to third on Lars Nootbaar’s single and scored on Nathan Church’s one-out single for a 1-0 lead.
Blaze Jordan followed with a potential inning-ending, double-play grounder to third base, but Denzer Guzman bobbled the ball and his only play was to first as Nootbaar scored for a 2-0 lead.
The Angels cut the deficit to 2-1 in the third when Adell, mired in an 0-for-24 slump that dropped his batting average to .237 entering the game, led off with his 14th homer of the season.
Up next: Cardinals LHP Matthew Liberatore (5-6, 5.00 ERA) faces Angels RHP Walbert Ureña (5-7, 2.88) on Tuesday night.
1 of 3 | On July 21, 1925, the so-called Monkey Trial, which pitted Clarence Darrow against William Jennings Bryan in Dayton, Tenn., in one of the great confrontations in legal history, ended with John Thomas Scopes convicted and fined $100 for teaching evolution in violation of state law. UPI File Photo
July 21 (UPI) — On this date in history:
In 1861, the first major military engagement of the Civil War occurred at Bull Run Creek, Va.
In 1918, a German U-boat fired on the town of Orleans, Mass., on Cape Cod peninsula, damaging a tug boat and sinking four barges, and severely injuring one man. It was the only place in the United States to receive an enemy attack during World War I.
In 1925, the so-called Monkey Trial, which pitted Clarence Darrow against William Jennings Bryan in Dayton, Tenn., in one of the great confrontations in legal history, ended with John Thomas Scopes convicted and fined $100 for teaching evolution in violation of state law.
In 1969, U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, lifted off from the moon in the Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle and docked with the command module Columbia piloted by Michael Collins.
In 1970, after 11 years of construction, the massive Aswan High Dam across the Nile River in Egypt was completed, ending the cycle of flood and drought in the Nile River region but triggering an environmental controversy.
In 2000, a report from special counsel John Danforth cleared U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and the government of wrongdoing in the April 19, 1993, fire that ended the Branch Davidian siege near Waco, Texas.
In 2011, Greece continued efforts to climb out of a financial chasm with a second bailout pledge from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund worth $157 billion. Earlier, the nation dealt with its debt crisis with the help of a $146 billion loan package.
In 2024, President Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid in the 2024 presidential race, formally endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris. Former President Donald Trump defeated Harris in November 2024 to win his second term in office.
In 2025, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee announced that it plans to follow U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender women from women’s sports.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
X-Bow Systems, a company that made its name making solid rocket motors and small space-launch vehicles, has unveiled a new low-cost drone interceptor, named Buckler. The interceptor promises high-speed and a unit cost of less than $100,000, a price point that has only been approached by drone-like systems, not modern supersonic missiles.
The Buckler — named after a small shield of the Medieval and Renaissance eras — is designed to defeat Group 3 drones. As we have explained before, under the U.S. military categorization system, Group 3 is a very broad middle tier of drones that covers designs that weigh anywhere from 56 to 1,320 pounds and can fly at up to 18,000 feet, at speeds of 250 knots or less.
Iran’s now-infamous Shahed-136 long-range one-way attack drone, variants and derivatives of which are now in service in Russia and with several Iranian-backed proxies, falls into the Group 3 category.
A view inside a Russian factory producing versions of the Shahed-136 kamikaze drone. Russian state media
While optimized for bringing down drones, the Buckler can also engage other aerial threats, including subsonic cruise missiles, under certain conditions. This is especially relevant as newer Shahed-derived designs, and many other long-range one-way attack munitions, increasingly blur the line between drones and low-end cruise missiles through the adoption of jet propulsion and higher-altitude flight profiles. Then there is the emerging group of low-cost cruise missiles being adopted in the United States and potential adversaries, as well as existing, more advanced types. Low-flying aircraft and helicopters would also likely be on the menu for this missile, even as a secondary capability.
The high speed of the missile also means that a single Buckler battery can engage targets more rapidly and respond faster over a given range. It also makes it possible for follow-up shots to be taken if an effector misses within a given timeframe.
The Buckler is one of the growing number of responses to the increasing threat of drone-and-missile barrages, which are exposing the limits of legacy air defense models. In conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, most notably, costly surface-to-air missile effectors are routinely expended, in significant quantities, against far cheaper incoming threats.
“This is our answer to the call from the U.S. and its allies: affordable capability at scale,” X-Bow Systems’ CEO Jason Hundley toldAxios.
“You can’t win a war of attrition trading million-dollar interceptors against thousand-dollar threats,” Hundley added.
The company is relying upon its own solid-rocket motor and propellant, allied with an airframe that’s also made in-house, which it says will bring down costs.
X-Bow Systems recently notched a successful flight test for the Buckler, the company says, demonstrating its propulsion system and flight characteristics after completing motor static-fire and igniter testing.
According to Axios, the Pentagon has also requested a briefing on the interceptor.
X-Bow is entering one of the fastest-growing segments of the defense industry. The company is already well established as a producer of solid rocket motors and, last year, secured a $105 million investment from Lockheed Martin to expand production and provide propulsion systems and related services.
The startup will now be hoping that the Buckler’s eye-catching price point of less than $100,000 per copy will set it apart among drone interceptors.
By way of comparison, the combat-proven RaytheonCoyote, in its Block 2 configuration, also primarily intended for the counter-drone mission, has a unit price of around $100,000, based on past reports. AeroVironment’s Freedom Eagle-1 (FE-1), which the U.S. Army picked last year to provide an additional layer of defense against longer-range one-way attack drones and other similarly sized uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), has a target unit cost of between $150,000 and $200,000. These are also notably slower and less responsive systems than the Buckler.
Freedom Eagle (FE-1) Next Gen C-UAS Missile
Toward the higher end of the scale, the cost of a Stinger short-range surface-to-air missile has historically been put at between $100,000 and $120,000, but reports in recent years have said that current-generation versions, including ones optimized for use against drones, can run up to $400,000.
As for the kinds of threats that these effectors are intended to destroy, Shahed-type drones are typically understood to have a unit cost range measured in tens of thousands of dollars.
The Buckler is also intended to bring benefits in terms of speed and scalability of production. This should ensure that production facilities are able to ramp up quickly and, in response to demand, be able to increase the output accordingly. Applying the vertical integration approach, the company says it can address the “industrial-base bottleneck defense leaders cite as the top constraint on scaling interceptors.”
As demand for advanced missile propulsion accelerates, traditional production can’t keep up. Discover how X-Bow is delivering scalable, rapid solutions for urgent national security needs. #TechThisOut with @waltmacpic.twitter.com/nzSbikCz7X
Whether Buckler can deliver on its promised combination of performance, affordability, and production scale remains to be seen. But with militaries around the world urgently seeking cheaper ways to counter drones and cruise missiles that are appearing in greater numbers, X-Bow is entering the market at a particularly opportune moment.
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This month, “Cool Machine,” a riff on 1980s New York in the form of a tightly plotted crime novel, arrives from Colson Whitehead. It concludes his Harlem trilogy, they say. If you’d told readers two decades ago that Whitehead would become a bestselling crime novelist, they might have thought you were kidding. He started out writing innovative novels with such intellectual and stylistic punch that the MacArthur Foundation gave him a fellowship in 2002.
His written output is fun, fearless and fantastic. Where to start? Here’s a cheat sheet.
For N.Y. lovers
With “Harlem Shuffle,” Whitehead begins his crime trilogy in the 1960s in a furniture store with stylish midcentury stock whose owner, Ray Carney, is trying not to be a fence. Love the evocation of Harlem as a place with a cool interconnected community. Worry about that cousin who’s always trouble. The follow-up, “Crook Manifesto,” is set in the 1970s. All of New York City is at a nadir; Ray is on the straight and narrow, but needs an influx of cash (for Jackson Five tickets for his daughter). Then comes “Cool Machine,” secrets to be revealed when it hit shelves this week . And as a bonus, his essay collection “The Colossus of New York,” which is vivid, episodic and yet still a story: “Talking about New York is talking about the world.”
To break your heart
The novel “The Underground Railroad” comes from an imagined misunderstanding, logical for anyone who grew up riding subways: that the path to freedom for enslaved people that we call The Underground Railroad was in fact underground. In Whitehead’s hands, that imagining takes us through both time and place while making visceral the horrors of enslavement. The book won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize and was adapted by Barry Jenkins into a limited series.
In a rare feat, Whitehead won the Pulitzer Prize a second time for his novel “The Nickel Boys,” another work of historical fiction dealing with the devastating effects of American racism. Based on the true story of a reform school where Black boys went missing, the novel pairs the stories of two teens, one a troublemaker and the other caught up by mistake. Barack Obama called it “a necessary read.” Cleverly structured, it seemed difficult to adapt, but director RaMell Ross made it into a brilliant film.
To blow your mind
In Whitehead’s debut novel, the not-realistic “The Intuitionist,” a Black female elevator inspector faces powerful forces aligned against her. Inflected with Thomas Pynchon-like wordplay and situations, it’s both ambitious and funny. So is “John Henry Days,” mixing narrative forms while telling the story of a Black journalist around the year 2000 going to every press junket he can, unmaking the myth of John Henry all the while. And “Apex Hides the Hurt” is a comic novel about the conflicts that arise in a small town when they hire a name consultant for a possible rebranding.
To eat your mind
Just around the time they started staggering onto TV, Colson Whitehead published a zombie novel. “Zone One” is a smart take on the shuffling hordes and pandemic survivors who try to take Manhattan back.
To beat the odds
Whitehead, an enthusiastic amateur poker player, wrote the nonfiction book “The Noble Hustle” about his entry into the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. It was a luxurious time in media, circa 2011, when ESPN’s Grantland paid his $10,000 entry fee and said he could keep his winnings. The book, expanded from what he wrote for them, includes his training, pending divorce, joking asides and playing for high stakes.
To take to the beach
“Sag Harbor,” set in the mostly Black, affluent beach community in the Hamptons, is the closest Whitehead has come to writing a coming-of-age story. Taking place during the summer of 1985, Benji and his teenage friends banter about culture and get their first taste of freedom.
Victoria Vigors’ holiday of a lifetime was left in tatters at the airport
Victoria, Roxie and Riley before their ill-fated ‘holiday of a lifetime’(Image: Jam Press)
A family’s dream holiday costing £6,500 was left in tatters after they were turned away at the boarding gate. Victoria Vigors, 41, arrived at Gatwick Airport ready for their all-inclusive two-week break to Hurghada, Egypt.
Victoria, who was with children Riley, 15, and Roxie, nine, checked in online for their easyJet flight. But problems emerged when staff scanned their boarding passes at the gate and noticed Roxie’s passport didn’t meet Egypt’s entry requirements for remaining validity.
“My stomach dropped, and I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach,” Victoria, from Kent, told creatorzine.com.
“The kids crumpled and I burst into tears. I begged the staff but there was nothing they could do. We had to be escorted back to get our luggage off the flight. It was so embarrassing.
“The kids were devastated, Roxie kept saying it was her fault and we were so disappointed. It was a really bad day.”
Victoria had saved up for two years for the trip, which she described as the “holiday of a lifetime”. The 41-year-old said it would have been their first two-week trip abroad together, and their first time staying at an all-inclusive resort.
Roxie’s passport expires on January 4, 2027. However, Victoria said she hadn’t realised that could still prevent travel. UK government foreign travel advice states British passport holders must have at least six months’ validity remaining from the date they arrive in Egypt.
Because Roxie’s passport did not meet that threshold, Victoria said the airline refused to let them board. She said she hadn’t known the rules and believed everything was in order.
“I wasn’t aware of the rules. I was given her passport the day before we flew by her dad. In my head, it was six months anyway, so I didn’t think there’d be an issue. For people like me who don’t always travel and it’s the first time with my children, I wasn’t to know.
“I would have thought when I put her passport details in to check in that would tell me it wasn’t valid. That would be a simple system to install so save this agony and heartbreak. It’s crazy.”
Victoria said the family is now trying to secure an emergency passport in the hope they can still get away for at least the final days of the trip, after being told they can’t get a refund.
“I’d been saving up for two years. We were incredibly excited as we’d never had a two-week holiday abroad together or been to a resort like this. It was going to be the holiday of a lifetime.”
Many white evangelical Christians view Donald Trump as chosen by God to lead despite not seeing him as personally devout. A recent study suggests 60 percent of them believe Trump has pushed the US closer to Christian principles, blurring the line between church and state.
For the full segment, watch Al Jazeera’s ‘This is America’.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
Here’s TWZ’s weekly carrier tracker monitoring America’s flattop fleet, including deployed Carrier Strike Groups (CSG) and Amphibious Ready Groups (ARG), using publicly available open-source information. Check out last week’s report here.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced the end of a weekend wave of air strikes yesterday, the ninth consecutive night of precision strikes “further degrading Iranian military capabilities,” and the beginning of a new, tenth round today. As the blockade approaches the one-week mark, CENTCOM forces have redirected seven commercial vessels and disabled one kinetically, firing AGM-114 Hellfire missiles into the smokestack of an unladen oil tanker heading toward Kharg Island, since reinstating the blockade on July 14.
U.S. forces enforce naval blockade measures against Iran, July 15, by disabling an unladen oil tanker attempting to sail toward an Iranian port. U.S. Central Command
Over 20 U.S. Navy warships are operating in the Arabian Sea and broader Indian Ocean, which we covered extensively last week, and naval force posture has not changed since. Two CSGs, led by USS Abraham Lincoln and USS George H.W. Bush, plus an ARG, centered on USS Boxer, are the primary naval assets supporting Blockade 2.0 and the renewed strike campaign, alongside some 14 guided-missile destroyers and a mix of other surface ships. The video below released by CENTCOM shows F/A-18 Super Hornets armed with AIM-9X, GBU-31, and GBU-54 launching during the campaign.
U.S. forces launching aircraft and precision munitions against Iranian military targets. U.S. Central Command
Moving east, USS George Washington is operating in the Western Pacific. The flattop was spotted conducting a fueling-at-sea with USNS Earl Warren and a replenishment-at-sea with USNS Charles Drewlast week in the Philippine Sea. 1st Lt. Arren Halfacre, serving aboard Washington, said the complex operation with Warren, which involved three fuel lines simultaneously, was a “rarely done evolution” that included roughly 150 Sailors and Merchant Mariners.
USS George Washington (CVN 73) during a fueling-at-sea evolution in the Philippine Sea. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Tyler Crowley Petty Officer 2nd Class Tyler Crowley
Also in the Pacific, USS Theodore Roosevelt is well into the sea phase of exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2026 and underway in the Hawaiian Islands Operating Area. RIMPAC 2026 is the world’s largest international maritime exercise and the 30th iteration in a series that started in the early 1970s. Participating units have been operating over the past week south of Oahu, to the west of the Big Island, with AIS transponders broadcasting publicly. Roosevelt welcomed the acting Secretary of the Navy, Hung Cao, who observed flight operations, met with senior brass, and took photos with the crew on July 18.
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) during Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC). U.S. Navy photo by Seaman Apprentice Tyler Harstad
Back in the continental United States, USS Nimitz is at Naval Station Norfolk, her final homeport before a deactivation that was delayed until next year, moored at Pier 14N. A couple of piers down, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower is berthed at Pier 11S. And, further south along the Elizabeth River, USS Gerald R. Ford moved to Pier 5N at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in advance of her first Planned Incremental Availability. On the west coast, USS Carl Vinson, the only carrier currently in San Diego, moored at Kilo Pier on July 17 after a weeklong underway completing flight deck certifications and carrier qualifications with Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2.
Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) arrives to Naval Station Norfolk, July 9, 2026. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Oscar Pichardo
Overall, three U.S. carriers are deployed, three are training or in port in various states of readiness, four are in maintenance, and one is being used primarily for training. Two amphibious ready groups are deployed, four are training or in port, and three are in maintenance.
Note: Positions are general approximations. Non-deployed LHA/LHD amphibious warships are not shown.
Contact the author: ian.ellis-jones@teamrecurrent.io
Colson Whitehead’s latest foray into the bent world of “reluctant fence” Ray Carney — “Cool Machine,” the third and final installment of his Harlem Trilogy — is an American epic disguised as a heist novel. It’s a dizzyingly brilliant measure of the versatility and depth of the acclaimed author’s literary talent.
Book Review
Cool Machine
By Colson Whitehead Doubleday: 368 pages, $30
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After writing two books dealing with monstrous historical trauma and institutional abuse — “The Underground Railroad” and “The Nickel Boys,” for which he won two successive Pulitzers — Whitehead pivots to an entirely new genre, subverting it, toying with it, making it wholly his own. And while the Harlem novels, too, have a great deal to say about serious subjects such as systemic racism, corruption, and crimes and misdemeanors of various proportions, they often lean on humor to get the message across.
In fact, it’s easy to envision the author at his laptop, as exhilarated as his prose, cracking himself up over how he bends language, employs slang, and forges descriptions like this one about a bar where Carney and a partner in crime conspire over how to fence a stolen diamond necklace: “He met Flinch Wilson at the Marlin, a narrow dive on 110th and Broadway with a decor inspired by an old leather shoe that lived in a drainage pipe.” Or this about a rival who has it out for Carney and his cohorts: “Buzz struck him as a plumber, one who comes back when you aren’t home to strangle your parakeet if you stiff him on the bill.”
“Cool Machine” is set in the 1980s, and Carney is still in the picture. It’s the Reagan era, and predatory capitalism rules, as does Mayor Giuliani, who’s waged war on the mafia and the homeless. What Whitehead dubs the “churn” roils the city and his protagonist. It’s that “churn” that beckons Carney to break his promise to himself and once again divert from his legit furniture store business. The excuse this time is that his wife Elizabeth wants to open her own travel agency, and can’t get a bank loan. Despite the couple’s closeness, for all these years her husband has managed to conceal that he’s a part-time crook. He desires respectability, but savors the buzz, the camaraderie — the honor among thieves. Carney falls in with criminal mastermind Uncle Rich and signs on to his outrageous plan to break into the Waldorf Astoria; the goal is to liberate Jesse Owens’ Olympic gold medal from those who forced him to cash it in.
The intricacy with which Whitehead details the planning and execution of this caper marks him as a top-tier researcher — he’s drawn on many primary sources to ground this work of fiction in historical fact. (There’s also his obsessive use of Pinterest.) The scenes set in the bowels of Grand Central, where there’s a secret train track leading to the Waldorf, are thrilling enough to read for their action, but the atmospheric descriptions are equally delectable: “Track 23’s next departure pulled into the station. One commuter joined Carney and Uncle Rich on the platform, a deflated man in a pinstripe suit with shiny elbows, then another businessman who sagged on one side, as if his briefcase was filled with lead weights.” One of the marvels of this novel is how effortlessly such sentences land, despite being honed to perfection. It would be a spoiler to say anything further about whether the thieves’ mission impossible yields their reward.
Part two of the novel shifts downtown, into the heart of the ’80s East Village art scene. A preoccupation of Whitehead’s — Jean-Michel Basquiat — is the inspiration for a fictional graffiti artist whose omnipresent scrawls capture the pretensions of the burgeoning wheelers and dealers, who, like uptown crooks, are relentless strivers, albeit with sleeker facades. Their snobbery is juxtaposed with Carney’s friend and colleague Pepper’s unsettling bluntness and eyeball to eyeball stare. He’s on the trail of a psychopath-for-hire dubbed “the Melancholy Hitman,” while battling stomach issues that have him downing Pepto-Bismol and coughing up blood in random bathrooms. In this section, Carney plays a supporting role to Pepper’s lead; “Escape from New York” is the enveloping soundtrack.
In the novel’s final act, Carney reemerges from straight life and Pepper from retirement in Delaware to rescue Carney’s nephew, Robert, who’s on the mob’s hit list for a murder he witnessed. Political corruption is rampant, and the revelation of who’s on the take has rattled a lot of cages. Robert is unwittingly entrapped, and has absconded with something mob bigwig Lombardi wants revenge for. Carney dons his best furniture salesman hat to make the pitch of a lifetime, a deal that could save Robert’s life, or take Carney’s. As Carney drives to the meet-up, he reflects on New York’s evolution: “Crime transformed the city by degrees. He thought of what John [his son] told him about rap music, where it came from. Rap was part of the New York environment now, barging from boom boxes and windows. They created something new from the spoils, the theft of turntables from record shops, the rip-off of a musical line or riff from another song — a crooked art.”
For those who enjoy knowing how an author’s inspiration arrives, it’s amusing to note that in the case of the trilogy that kicked off in 2021 with “Harlem Shuffle,” Whitehead told the New Yorker: “I was staring off into space and thinking about how much I like heist films and how much fun it would be to write a heist.” That sounds simple enough, but “Harlem Shuffle” turned out to be years in the making. The idea initially came to him around the same time he was writing “The Underground Railroad,” which was published in 2016. It wasn’t until after the release of that book, and then “Nickel Boys,” that Whitehead decided to lighten the mood by composing a crime novel set in New York City in the 1960s. And while he usually avoids staying on the same topic or voice from book to book, in the midst of writing “Harlem Shuffle,” Whitehead found he was still imagining further escapades for his main character, this time in the 1970s, with the city on the verge of bankruptcy, and incendiary conflagrations between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army trending. As he envisioned what would become “Crook Manifesto,” Whitehead thought: “Why not make it three?”
Carney is part poet. Part crook. Part salesman. Part philosopher. To my knowledge, Carney’s creator is neither crook nor salesman, but Whitehead can lay claim to those other two mantles. His vocabulary appears boundless, as does his apparent love for the city he grew up in, where he still lives. “Cool Machine” is a modern masterpiece and an ode to New York, no matter that rats skitter and cockroaches scamper underfoot. When Carney has the chance to move anywhere in the world he wants, he ponders the appeal of fresh air. “Fresh was nice,” he reflects, “but so was other stuff. Noise, dirt, and struggle.” After escaping Manhattan, he wonders, “Where do you go? There’s no place else. It was like going on the lam from yourself.”
Whether or not New York is your jam, or a place you have escaped from or to, Whitehead’s Harlem Trilogy is destined to live on as an American classic. Never mind the rats and cockroaches — it’s the churn.
Haber is a writer, editor and publishing strategist, and co-founder of the Ink Book Club on Substack. She was director of Oprah’s Book Club and books editor for O, the Oprah Magazine.
A year ago, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US President Donald Trump struck a trade deal in Turnberry, Scotland, shaking hands under the spotlight of the world’s media after weeks of trade disputes.
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Defended by the Commission as the best deal it could secure, the agreement imposed 15 percent US tariffs on imports from the EU, while the EU committed to removing its duties on most US industrial products.
The Europeans also pledged to invest €520 billion in the US and purchase €700 billion in US energy by 2028, including liquefied natural gas (LNG), oil and nuclear energy products.
The Turnberry agreement was supposed to draw a line under the dispute. Instead, it opened a new chapter.
Over the past year, Trump has repeatedly threatened the EU with new tariffs, slowing the implementation of the agreement on the European side, where lawmakers froze its ratification. Following negotiations between the EU’s co-legislators, the bloc eventually removed its tariffs on 1 July.
On the US side, the process has been no smoother. The White House had to adopt new tariffs after the US Supreme Court ruled in February 2026 that the duties imposed on US trading partners in 2025 were illegal.
The new tariffs, introduced under a different legal basis, are set to expire at the end of this week, on 24 July, unless Congress extends them – a prospect considered unlikely with the midterm elections approaching.
As the Turnberry deal marks its first anniversary, here are four things to know about the state of transatlantic trade relations.
1. Trade with the US increased in 2025
Despite the tariff war, transatlantic trade has not shrunk. Quite the opposite: EU-US goods and services trade rose by 4.5 percent to €1.8 trillion in 2025, as companies rushed shipments ahead of Trump’s tariffs, offsetting the slowdown later in the year.
Since January 2025, US importers have had to pay around €31 billion in additional duties, compared with €7 billion in pre-tariff years.
Following the Supreme Court ruling, however, some have already been refunded. US data released in mid-July shows that $81 billion was paid back for tariffs imposed globally on the country’s trading partners.
2. Europe is on track to meet its investment pledges
According to the European Commission, the EU will keep its promise to invest massively in the US. In early 2025, it reported that EU companies had pledged €242 billion in investments across various US sectors, including cars, IT, chemicals and food.
Regarding energy investments, an EU senior official said the €700 billion target will be exceeded. The Commission said that, in 2025 alone, EU buyers imported energy products and signed deals worth more than $250 billion.
As the Iran war broke out and the EU phased out Russian gas supplies, purchases of US LNG and oil reached record levels. New nuclear projects will also be carried out in cooperation with US partners.
3. Negotiations continue on exemptions, steel and aluminium
The EU-US trade saga is far from over. Brussels and Washington have started negotiating new tariff exemptions for EU goods. The Turnberry agreement referred to these future discussions, but the White House wanted the EU to implement its side of the agreement before talks could begin.
Last autumn, the Commission, together with European businesses, drew up a list of hundreds of products for which it hopes to restore pre-existing tariff levels. The list, recently transmitted to the US side, covers around €150 billion worth of EU exports and includes iconic products such as Roquefort, olive oil, wines and spirits.
The Europeans also hope to make progress on steel and aluminium. The US still imposes 50 percent tariffs on imports from trading partners worldwide. However, the Commission expects the discussions to be challenging, as the White House wants to bring production back to the US while also dealing with massive Chinese overcapacity.
4. The US is preparing new tariffs
Following the Supreme Court ruling, the White House had to rely on a new legal basis to impose tariffs reaching the 15 percent ceiling set by the Turnberry agreement. But those tariffs expire on Friday, and the US is already looking for new ways to impose additional duties.
European officials therefore expect the White House to introduce new tariffs targeting forced labour and overcapacity following investigations launched under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. The forced labour tariffs have already been announced and are expected to come first, despite the EU arguing that it already has legislation banning forced labour.
“Of course we do not agree with the findings on forced labour, and we’ve made that very clear to our United States counterparts,” an EU senior official said. “But the main objective is to make sure that the agreement is respected and that our companies can benefit from the stability and predictability that was set out there.”
So as long as those future tariffs don’t exceed the 15 percent cap, the EU will not go against them.
The Commission is also closely monitoring a US investigation into German drug pricing under Section 301, which could also lead to punitive tariffs if the US Trade Department finds that “persistent underpayment for innovative pharmaceutical products by Germany is unreasonable or discriminatory and burdens or restricts US commerce”.
‘Can you hear that?” my guide Andrea Wellmeyer asks as I sink a little deeper into the wet ground, cold mud seeping between my toes. When the wind drops, I detect a faint but distinct crackling, similar to the rustle of a sweet wrapper or the bubbling of sparkling water. “That’s the Wattknistern,” she says, “a natural phenomenon caused by the tens of thousands of mud shrimp that live here.”
We’re standing in the Wadden Sea mudflats on Norderney, an island just off Germany’s North Sea coast. It’s Friday evening at low tide. In the town centre, bars are pumping with music, but here, just 15 minutes along the southern edge of the island, it’s a completely different story.
“A lot of the flora and fauna is found under the surface,” Andrea says, showing me the tree-like tops of sand mason worm casings and the tips of marsh samphire growing upwards like tiny asparagus. Flipping over a cluster of wild oysters, she startles a crab that raises its pincers in the air before wriggling out of sight once more. Orange-beaked oystercatchers scurry back and forth on the exposed seabed and a pair of spoonbills wade gracefully through the shallow water beyond.
A beach in Osterhook on the island of Langeoog. Photograph: Tasfoto/Alamy
Norderney is one of the seven inhabited islands that make up the East Frisian islands (Ostfriesische Inseln)in Germany. The others are Borkum, Juist, Baltrum, Langeoog, Spiekeroog and Wangerooge. Stretching more than 50 miles from west to east, they are a popular holiday destination, known for their unique coastal landscapes and diverse wildlife, from grey seals and migrating birds to the creatures found in the mud.
Each island has its own identity, from upmarket Juist with its horse-drawn transport to the historic red brick houses of sleepy Spiekeroog; but all have vast sandy beaches, grassy dunes and tidal mudflats. The islands belong to the larger Wadden Sea Unesco world heritage site and have been part of the Lower Saxon Wadden Sea national park since its formation in 1986.
Norderney was one of the first German seaside resorts in the North Sea. Today, historic seaside villas and retreats founded on the health benefits of briny sea air sit next to modern hotels and restaurants, such as Inselloft Norderney and Michelin-recommended Oktopussy, where summer scallops come with a caramelised miso-cauliflower purée. My favourite spot quickly becomes Marienhöhe, a dune-top pavilion built more than 100 years ago, where I eat delicately battered fish with warm potato salad.
Despite being one of only two East Frisian islands where cars are permitted, the best way to explore Norderney is by bike. Leaving the town in the west, I zoom along the bike lanes that run through the dunes, stopping at a popular stretch of beach called Weiße Düne, before heading south towards the island’s tallest building, a lighthouse constructed between 1872 and 1874.
Wild oysters in the Wadden Sea. Photograph: Ron Giling/Alamy
Soon after, roughly halfway across the island, I reach a sign that says I can’t go any further on my bike. This is a Ruhezone (quiet/restricted zone), a highly protected area where you can only walk on a couple of marked footpaths. A rusty shipwreck lies on the sand and seals bask in the sun at the far end.
There are strict rules governing access in several sections of the island, part of a quest to let nature be nature. Heading out with an official guide helps you see and learn more. Alongside Wattwanderungen (mudflat hikes), you can also book salt marsh walks, birding excursions and boat trips to see the seals. The newly renovated visitor centre at Norderney harbour also has extensive information about the local ecosystems.
My next stops are Spiekeroog and Langeoog, two calmer, car-free islands to the east. On Langeoog, I join a tour to learn more about the birds I have spotted over the last few days. “Many species need the Wadden Sea as the focal point of their migration, as a place to rest,” national park guide Fiona Wettstein says. “When they first arrive, they have completely burned through their fat reserves and practically drop down here.”
Greylag geese with chicks on Langeoog. Photograph: Image Professionals/Alamy
Setting off with bikes and binoculars, we spot red knots, redshanks, avocets and sandpipers, as well as squeaking lapwings with long crests and a short-eared owl swooping through the grasses. Geese with fluffy chicks in tow strut around the island, hissing loudly if you get too close. More than 10 million birds make a pit stop in the Wadden Sea every year, with spring and autumn the best time to see them. The shoulder season is also a good time to visit to avoid the summer holiday crowds.
I stay at Silt & Sand, a bright and airy design hotel just behind the dunes that opened last year. The expansive (almost 9-mile-long) beach on the other side is dotted with Strandkörbe, traditional hooded wicker armchairs found on beaches along the German coast.
Despite the chain layout of the islands and their close proximity to one another, it isn’t possible to “hop” between them. Instead, you have to return to the mainland and make your way along the coast to a different ferry terminal each time, the exception being Juist and Norderney, which have a shared departure point in Norddeich. It is possible to walk from the mainland to some of the islands at low tide, but only with a certified guide.
A hotel room at Silt & Sand on Langeoog.
After my first few hours on Norderney, I give up on the weather forecast and start operating on a cloud by cloud basis instead, dark moody skies moving on as quickly as they appear. More reliable is the wind, churning the sea, bending the trees and blowing a fine mist of sand over the compact layer below. Having biked eastwards with ease, I’m met by a roaring resistance on my return, a fierce gust wrapping around my hat and prising it off.
“This connection to the elements is part of the experience,” says Andrea. “Your entire system is challenged and pushed out of its comfort zone, something that doesn’t happen so often these days,” she adds as we make our way back to the familiarity and ease of the town.
Ben Earl has called for a change to the Nations Championship format after England’s “brutal” schedule in the summer leg of the inaugural competition.
England had to play three Tests in three different continents on successive weekends and accumulated 25,000 miles of travel.
Victory over Argentina on Saturday keeps Steve Borthwick’s team in the hunt for a place in the final on 29 November at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium.
However, four long haul and four short haul flights in the past four weeks have contributed to players losing sleep and a reduced training schedule.
“It’s been brutal, there’s no two ways about it,” England number 8 Earl said.
“We’ve been speaking about it – why would we not all be playing in one country? So you just don’t travel, you go to one nation and have that festival feel.
“I’m not paid to make those decisions but it has been tough. It’s been tough coming at the end of what’s been quite a long season anyway for most of us.
“It’s been back and forth, coming back to England, seeing your families and then going away again.
“It has seemed a bit weird but it’s just something we’re going to have to get used to because I think it’s just the beginning.”
The competition resumes later in the year for the autumn leg with England next in action against Australia on 8 November.
July 20 (UPI) — The Philippine military accused China of beating and injuring a Philippine Navy sailor with a wooden baton in the latest seaborne confrontation between the two nations over a submerged reef in the disputed South China Sea.
The incident occurred Monday morning near the BRP Sierra Madre, a derelict warship the Philippines intentionally grounded on the Second Thomas Shoal, a reef both countries lay claim to and which the Philippines calls Ayungin Shoal and China, Ren’ai Jiao.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines said in a statement that a China Coast Guard rigid-hull inflatable boat with eight people on board unlawfully approached the BRP Sierra Madre and took pictures and video of it.
While two AFP rubber boats drove it away, China Coast Guard personnel on the boat struck a Philippine Navy sailor on his head with a wooden baton. The man suffered a deep gash on his scalp, according to a picture shared online by Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela.
Video of the incident posted online by Tarriela shows some China Coast Guard members aboard a larger boat swinging long sticks down upon members of the Philippine Navy in a smaller rubber boat.
“Striking an unarmed sailor on the head with a baton — inside our own exclusive economic zone — is not law enforcement. It is unlawful aggression, plain and simple,” Tarriela said in a statement.
If there is any party here that provokes and escalates tension, it is only the unruly and barbaric China Coast Guard personnel who clearly do not understand UNCLOS.
China has rejected the accusation, accusing the Philippines of instigating the incident.
“The Philippine personnel first launched malicious attacks on Chinese law enforcement officers using oars, long poles and other tools,” the China Coast Guard said in a statement published online by China’s Embassy in Manila.
“The Chinese side, acting in full compliance with laws and regulations, employed measures such as verbal warnings, evasive maneuvering and proportionate countermeasures to stabilize the situation on site, while exercising the utmost rationality and restraint.”
At roughly 105 nautical miles west of Palawan, the Second Thomas Shoal is well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. The Philippines beached its Sierra Madre warship on the disputed submerged reef in 1999, which it has manned since in an effort to protect its maritime claims.
However, China lays claim to the Second Thomas Shoal and much of the South China Sea via its Nine-Dash-Line map, which has been rejected by several nations, including the United States. The Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration also rejected China’s sweeping maritime claims in a landmark 2016 ruling in a case brought by Manila. Beijing rejects the ruling.
Following the incident, the China Coast Guard said in a statement that it would continue to “carry out rights protection and law enforcement activities” and “firmly safeguard China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests.”
The U.S. State Department late Monday issued a statement in support of the Philippines, condemning “China’s dangerous and aggressive actions against Philippine navy personnel.”
State Department spokesperson Thomas Pigott said the United States calls on China to “immediately cease its destabilizing conduct.”
“China’s troubling pattern of provocation against lawful Philippine maritime operations undermines regional peace and stability and directly contradicts China’s repeated commitments to resolve disputes peacefully,” he said.
“We stand with our ally, the Philippines, and commend the professionalism and restraint shown by the Philippine navy personnel in this incident.”
Pigott added that the United States reaffirms the 2016 tribunal ruling as final and legally binding on both China and the Philippines.
Customers inspect various wind chimes during the opening day of the Furin-Ichi wind chimes market at the Kawasaki Daishi Heikenji Temple in Kawasaki, Kanagawa-Prefecture in Japan, on July 17, 2026. Photo by Keizo Mori/UPI | License Photo
