eliminate

Mateo Chavez opened the scoring in the 55th minute, and Julian Quinones scored his second goal of the tournament in the 61st.

Mateo Chavez and Julian Quinones scored goals in the span of six minutes early in the second half, and Mexico beat Czechia 3-0 to win all three of its World Cup group-stage matches for the first time.

The 22-year-old Chavez, in his first World Cup, opened the scoring in the 55th minute, and Quinones scored his second goal of the tournament in the 61st. Alvaro Fidalgo added a goal in second-half stoppage time on Wednesday night.

Mexico’s previous best group-stage performance was two wins and one draw, achieved in 1986 and 2002, both featuring Javier Aguirre, the first as a midfielder and the second as El Tri’s coach.

Already the winner of Group A, Mexico will play again at Azteca Stadium on Tuesday in a round-of-32 match against an opponent to be determined.

Czechia were eliminated, finishing with one point in three games.

The match included nods to Mexico’s past and future. Gilberto Mora became the youngest Mexico player to start in a World Cup at age 17.

And 40-year-old goalkeeper Guillermo “Memo” Ochoa entered in the 77th minute, joining Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo as one of the only players to appear in six World Cups.

Homophobic chant returns in Azteca Stadium

Fans at the game chanted a slur that has previously led to fines and other sanctions against Mexico’s Football Federation.

The slur, which literally means “male prostitute” in Spanish, could be heard at the Azteca Stadium towards the end of the first half when Czech goalkeeper Matej Kovar took a goal kick, according to The Associated Press news agency.

The chant has cost Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines levied by FIFA. It rose to popularity roughly 25 years ago and is used to intimidate goalkeepers when they take goal kicks.

It went viral in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, and was heard again in Russia during the 2018 World Cup, and then again four years later in Qatar. It has persisted despite attempts by the Mexican Football Federation to stop it.

Croatia are third in Group L, with England and Ghana on four points each, heading into the last round of matches.

Half-time substitute Ante Budimir scored in the 54th minute as Croatia eliminated Panama from World Cup contention with a tightly fought 1-0 victory at Toronto Stadium.

The Group L clash on Tuesday saw 34-year-old Budimir score his first World Cup goal and fifth in a competitive fixture for his country.

Croatia remain third in the group with three points heading into the final match day, but they can guarantee a top-two finish with a victory over Ghana in their final match on Saturday in Philadelphia.

Panama are still seeking their first point, five matches into their World Cup history, having also lost 1-0 to Ghana in their 2026 opener in Toronto last week.

However, despite playing the first two matches without injured talisman Adalberto Carrasquilla, Los Canaleros have a goal difference six better than at this stage in their first World Cup appearance in 2018.

Budimir put Croatia in front on what was easily their best attack of the match to that point on Tuesday.

Josip Stanisic combined with Marco Pasalic to get down the right, and then struck a well-weighted cross to the top of the 6-yard box.

Panama goalkeeper Orlando Mosquera dived to try and intercept the service but couldn’t reach it, and Budimir showed up at the back post to guide in a composed finish into an open goal.

With that, the match erupted for about 15 minutes.

Three minutes after the goal, Croatia captain Luka Modric played Pasalic in alone on goal from his own half. Mosquera sized up Pasalic and charged from his line at the right time to smother the initial attempt, and Pasalic fired wide from a poor angle on the rebound.

Panama responded to force Dominik Livakovic into three stops inside of a minute. The third was probably the best, as Livakovic leapt to deny Carlos Harvey’s header from a corner lofted to the back post.

The second-half hydration break followed that sequence, and perhaps disrupted Panama’s momentum, with Livakovic unthreatened in the final stages.

The Central Americans will now look to play spoilers against England in their finale on Saturday in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Earlier on Tuesday, England and Ghana settled for a 0-0 draw, with both having four points.

BATON ROUGE, La. — Republican senators in Louisiana advanced a plan Wednesday to eliminate one of two majority-Black, Democratic-held congressional seats following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down the state’s U.S. House map as an illegal racial gerrymander.

The early morning Senate committee vote came after hours of impassioned testimony from Black residents and Democrats opposed to the move. Republicans opted not to pursue a more aggressive approach, which could have targeted both Democratic seats for elimination.

The Supreme Court’s recent ruling weakening federal Voting Rights Act protections for minorities has prompted Republicans in several Southern states to try to eliminate House districts with large minority populations that have elected Democrats. Tennessee and Alabama already have acted to implement different House maps that could help Republicans win an additional seat. But a similar effort fizzled Tuesday in the South Carolina Senate.

The redistricting efforts to undo minority districts are the latest variation in a 10-month-long national redistricting battle that already has involved about one-third of the states. It gained steam when President Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw House districts in an attempt to win more seats in the midterm elections. Democrats in California responded with their own new districts. Numerous Republican states have redistricted since then.

Republicans think they could gain as many as 15 seats so far from new House maps in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama. Democrats, meanwhile, think they could gain six seats from new maps in California and Utah. The Virginia Supreme Court last week struck down a redistricting effort that could have yielded four more winnable seats for Democrats.

Brook and Lieb write for the Associated Press. Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Mo.