highlights

Azerbaijan side Sabah fight back from 4-2 down on aggregate to beat Hapoel Be’er Sheva of Israel 6-4 on aggregate to secure their place in the main draw of the Champions League for the first time in their history.

WATCH MORE: When is the Champions League draw?

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Leidos (LDOS) on Tuesday highlighted a Navy contract worth as much as $56.7 million to study psychological health and operational readiness among U.S. military personnel.

The award isn’t new. The Department of Defense originally announced it on July 10, 2025, identifying it

Cole Palmer scores a goal and provides an assist as Joao Pedro and Morgan Rogers also get on the scoresheet to secure Chelsea’s win over Fulham at Craven Cottage. With both Xabi Alonso and Alvaro Arbeloa making their Premier League managerial debuts, the Blues hold on against a spirited Fulham to give Alonso a winning start.

MATCH REPORT: Fulham 2-3 Chelsea

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Final voting for the 78th Emmys is now underway, which means The Envelope is bidding adieu to the TV awards season — and already gearing up for the film one.

This year, I’ll be in Venice while columnist Glenn Whipp heads to Telluride and movies editor Joshua Rothkopf leads our team at the Toronto International Film Festival. You can catch a daily roundup of our TIFF coverage, including exclusive photo and video highlights from our studio activation, right here in the Envelope Sept. 11-14.

Until then, enjoy highlights from this week’s issue below, and Glenn’s last newsletter of Emmy season on Friday.

Digital cover: Dakota Fanning

(David Urbanke / For The Times)

This week’s digital coverline is inspired by Dakota Fanning’s busy, busy schedule — with two Emmy-nominated shows, a film with sister Elle in the can, an Apple TV thriller in production and more — and, among her many credits, the one fans still bring up to her the most: “Man on Fire.”

“When people ask, ‘Do you even remember doing “Man on Fire”?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, of course I do. What do you mean?’” she tells contributor Kara Warner of Tony Scott’s 2004 thriller, starring Denzel Washington as the bodyguard to Fanning’s 9-year-old kidnapping target. “I think about the memories with Denzel and with Tony, and getting to live in Mexico City for six months when you’re 9 years old is pretty spectacular.”

‘The Comeback’

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

For those of us who’ve been following the peaks and valleys of Valerie Cherish’s career since 2005, the end of “The Comeback” is bittersweet at best: While the series has achieved greatness by adhering to the old showbiz adage “always leave them wanting more,” I’d be happy to visit with the fictional actress for another two decades (or more).

There’s some solace, I suppose, in knowing creators Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King feel the same way. In a moving essay for The Envelope, the pair share how the spirit of Robert Michael Morris, who played Valerie’s friend and hairdresser Mickey in Seasons 1 and 2, aided them during a crucial moment in production on Season 3. RIP, Mickey — and “The Comeback.” You are, and will be, sorely missed.

Viva Las Vegas!

Perhaps even more than Hollywood — and thanks in large part to Hollywood — Las Vegas is subject to cliched depictions in popular culture. But a new wave of Emmy-nominated series are showing a different side of Sin City,” writes contributor Whitney Friedlander.

“The Vegas we wanted to show and explore was Shyanne’s Vegas, which is so specific to her,” “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” director of photography Tari Segal tells Friedlander, referring to Michelle Pfeiffer’s character. “It would have that more aged, timeless quality of downtown Vegas, [and] it would have the income bracket of a Vegas that she would be comfortable in.”

More stories from our Aug. 20 issue

BBC Sport looks back at one of the Premier League’s best ever games as Newcastle, then managed by Kevin Keegan, lost a thriller to Liverpool.

Both clubs will pay tribute to Keegan before their Premier League opener at St James’ Park.

READ MORE: Newcastle & Liverpool plan Keegan tribute at season opener

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The aircraft carrier USS George Washington transited the Arabian Sea today after arriving in the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) region yesterday, the command announced via X. The move was designed to relieve the overworked USS Abraham Lincoln and comes as the U.S. continues to maintain a naval blockade of Iranian ports amid ongoing tensions with Tehran. However, the deployment also leaves the U.S. bereft of aircraft carriers in the western Pacific, at least for the moment, highlighting the strain on one of its most important assets for American power projection. Extended deployments across multiple carriers is putting extreme stress on the carrier force and could have major cascading effects as maintenance required to reset these ships after deployments draws on longer than originally planned. At the same time, delays in carrier production could also exacerbate the future availability of the force.

The need to redeploy the Washington from Yokosuka, Japan, where it is based, to the CENTCOM region was sparked by concerns about the condition of the crew of the Lincoln. That carrier reportedly endured grueling conditions amid round-the-clock operations without any liberty port calls since deploying last year. The issue sparked outrage from those worried about the mental and physical health of the sailors and Marines aboard, as well as pushback from U.S. officials who claimed the media was blowing the situation out of proportion.

The addition of the Washington comes as the Lincoln has departed. That means there are now two carriers in the Middle East at the moment. The USS George H.W. Bush arrived in the region on April 23.

While the U.S. and Iran have stopped firing at each other, the region remains a tinderbox. Both Washington and Tehran are claiming control over the Strait of Hormuz, and negotiations to end hostilities have broken down. 

With the ongoing blockade, as well as CENTCOM’s efforts to move millions of barrels of oil through its preferred southern route close to Oman, there is still a need for the aviation assets provided by carriers and the strike and defensive missile capabilities provided by their escort ships. This is especially true for contingency operations, deterring Iran, and pressuring them to conform to Washington’s demands.

As we noted earlier in this story, all this leaves Adm. Samuel Paparo, the commander of U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), with no carrier coverage in theater to deter or counter potential PRC or DPRK aggression. Carrier gaps in the Pacific were rare up until 2024, which marked the first time in decades that the U.S. had no flattops in Asia. Though the U.S. military has been largely focused on the Middle East, the PACOM region remains the top concern among many within the national security apparatus, as China is America’s top pacing threat and North Korea remains unpredictable and dangerous. Russian operations in the Pacific are another issue, among a slew of others.

The extended deployment of the Lincoln, and the need to replace it, didn’t just create an issue, albeit temporary, for PACOM. Typical carrier deployments last about six to seven months, a period designed to ensure the ships can maintain readiness and the crews do not get worn out. When that doesn’t happen, it creates a cascading series of problems that affect not just the ships and crews, but the facilities that have scheduled repairs and lined up workers to make them happen.

The bottom line is that the longer these vessels stay out on cruise, the longer they have to stay in on deep maintenance, and past a certain point, the magnitude of this relationship skyrockets. Extra days out can turn into extra weeks in the yard, and so on. With yard facilities at a premium, especially those capable of dealing with a supercarrier, critical schedules can quickly implode, with work stacking up across multiple vessels, resulting in them being sidelined much longer than planned. You can read all about this in our past feature linked here.

For instance, after returning from a historic 11-month deployment, USS Gerald R. Ford transited to Pier 5N at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in July to begin its first post-deployment Planned Incremental Availability (PIA). Ford’s PIA will take longer than initially expected due to the stress from its journey, including a fire the laundry room that raged for more than 30 hours and will require an additional, concurrent availability. This will likely extend its time in dry dock, a situation experienced by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower after it had an epic deployment. Of note is that the damage to the Ford meant it had to depart the CENTCOM region in March at the height of the war on Iran. That left just one carrier on station, which, ironically, was the Lincoln.

There are several other issues being faced by the carrier force as the Navy has had to juggle maintenance schedules to make up for construction delays.

The future Ford class USS John F. Kennedy is not scheduled for delivery until March 2027. JFK just completed Acceptance Trials Aug. 15, following a four-day underway period off the Atlantic Coast. The Navy had originally planned to take delivery of the Kennedy in 2022, but that was delayed until March 2027 “to support completion of Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) certification and continued Advanced Weapons Elevator (AWE) work,” according to the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget request. To offset that, the decommissioning of the USS Nimitz was pushed back.

The entire Ford class program has been running years behind schedule and now the U.S. Navy is reportedly evaluating changes to the Ford class that could add further delays. This includes moving the island superstructure further forward on the flight deck and abandoning the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) catapults and Advanced Weapons Elevators (AWE) on the Ford class, starting with the future USS Doris Miller.

As for what carrier capacity is actually available today, four are currently offline or waiting to enter maintenance availabilities.

The USS John C. Stennis moved to complete a Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH) period at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia in May 2021. When the contract was awarded to Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) in February 2021, work was expected to be completed by October 2025, and the downstream effects of the extended delay have rippled across the fleet.

Nimitz class aircraft carriers typically complete RCOH, a lengthy modernization and maintenance period that includes a nuclear refuel, at the halfway point of their expected 50-year service life. The Navy is rethinking its approach to speed up future such overhauls and cut down on labor requirements, beginning with USS Harry S. Truman.

Truman is pierside in Norfolk, Virginia, waiting to enter RCOH following the Stennis, as only one shipyard on the East Coast is capable of conducting such invasive maintenance.

USS Ronald Reagan is the only carrier on the West Coast that is unavailable to deploy today. It was previously forward-deployed to Yokosuka, Japan, completed a hull swap with USS George Washington in mid-2025 and is currently in dry dock at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Bremerton, Washington. When the contract for the Drydocking PIA (DPIA) was awarded in 2025, work was expected to be completed by August 2026, and the timeline appears to be on schedule. According to Stars & Stripes, Ronald Reagan is expected to wrap up the 17-month DPIA and return to service by the end of the month.

This leaves three carriers that could be pushed toward the Pacific in an emergency, one of which is largely ready for deployment. The USS Theodore Roosevelt, USS Carl Vinson, and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, are in various states of readiness and working up in preparation for future deployments. Theodore Roosevelt, which completed COMPTUEX in May before participating in large-scale exercise RIMPAC 2026 over the summer, is expected to deploy in the very near term, and is the most likely to be sent to the Pacific. Also homeported out of San Diego, Carl Vinson pulled out of port on August 10 and is underway training off the West Coast. As of publication. Dwight D. Eisenhower finished a 16-month post-deployment PIA and completed sea trials in April, and most recently returned home on July 27 after conducting an ammo onload with dry cargo/ammo ship USNS Medgar Evers.

Lincoln, as we noted earlier in this piece, is heading home to San Diego after leaving the CENTCOM region, but when it will return to service is unknown. There is an upcoming DPIA scheduled for the carrier, according to Fiscal Year 2027 budget documents, but the timeline is unclear. Based on the history of other lengthy carrier deployments, that could be delayed as well.

So, it’s likely another carrier strike group will be heading toward the West Pacific soon and the gap won’t be a prolonged one, but after multiple prolonged deployments, America’s carrier force may be set up for a larger availability crisis down the line.

Contact the authors: howard@twz.com; ian.ellis-jones@recurrent.io

Last season’s Champions League fairytale side Bodo/Glimt look set to qualify for this year’s edition of the competition after winning 3-1 away at NEC Nijmegen of the Netherlands.

READ MORE: UEFA Champions League on BBC Sport

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Ollie Robinson and Josh Tongue both took five-wicket hauls to put England in early control of the opening Test against Pakistan at Headingley, as the home side closed on 112-2 at stumps on day one, just 59 runs behind the tourists’ first-innings total of 171.

READ MORE: Robinson & Tongue give Root an ideal start to England’s new era

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Trent Rockets overcome a woeful start to their innings, losing three wickets with only 10 runs, to defeat Southern Brave at Trent Bridge, confirming their place in the final of The Hundred while their opponents enter the eliminator.

MATCH REPORT: Sciver-Brunt cameo helps Rockets into Hundred final

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Dorsey High’s 1982 City Section football championship team walked onto the stage with a youthful swagger. Though it has been decades since they celebrated within the halls of the school, it was like they had never left that courtyard.

Alumni and family cheered and danced alongside them at Dorsey’s first full athletics reunion. Soon after, the cheerleaders for the 1976 championship basketball team came out to perform. The up and coming sports teams for the 2026-27 school year came out with their families, as hundreds of people celebrated the legacy and the future of the school.

But Dorsey has undergone a lot of changes since the turn of the century.

In 25 years, it has gone from a well-attended school with a successful athletics program to one that has faded into the background of Los Angeles.

The last football championship came in 2001. The next year, Dorsey enrolled 2,211 students, the most in school history, according to Public School Review. Now, enrollment is hitting a low with 792 students, according to US News, and the athletic teams are trying to find that powerhouse status again.

Enter former football head coach Paul Knox. He had a solution — or at least an idea. Bring together the athletics alumni of Dorsey for a day of celebration, with a look ahead to the future.

On Saturday, hundreds of current and former Dorsey Dons came to the school for the reunion. There were a lot of stories, old photos, laughter and love being passed around from people who haven’t touched the campus in four decades. Alumni from all the way back in the 1950s came. Knox gave tours of the renovations the school has undertaken, and the event also highlighted the soon-to-be football stadium and new basketball gym.

Later in the day, the current teams were introduced to everybody in attendance as was the 1976 City championship basketball team. The chance to showcase both the past and present is what inspired Knox, who hasn’t coached at Dorsey since 2014, to put on this event.

“The atmosphere that is here, the pride that everybody has in the school in general … it’s one of the most passionate alumni that you are going to have,” Knox said.

Dorsey’s enrollment struggles are not unique. Across California, public school enrollment is down. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, enrollment dropped over 16,000 in the past year. Private and charter schools are on the up in both academics and athletics, leaving places such as Dorsey — that dominated for so long — behind.

Dorsey High alum and former major leaguer Don Buford sits under a towering ficus tree on campus Saturday during the school’s all-sports reunion.

(Caleb Otte / For The Times)

Dorsey has a long history of sending athletes to the professional leagues. Former major leaguer Don Buford, who graduated in 1955, was present at the event. He barely had a moment to himself as multiple other alumni wanted to chat and grab photos with him, and Buford was happy to exchange excited, reminiscent anecdotes.

Buford was sitting in front of a massive ficus tree, with roots the size of a 5-year-old child coming up out of the ground. He took a moment to look back when talking to a class of 1958 alumni, noticing the size of the plant.

“When I went here, this was just a little tree,” he said.

Eighty years of students coming through the halls of Dorsey watched the small seedling sprout into a towering, beautiful beast.

Knox, and the administration of the school, are treating this reunion as the initial seed for the rehabilitation of the athletics program and hopefully the entire school.

“The passion is there,” Knox said. “We’re really hoping to inspire the teams now, to show them that there’s depth behind the things they do.”

Beyond the prime directive of the event, it simply served as a way for the Dorsey community to experience joy. So many former players caught up with their coaches. People were introducing themselves to legendary alumni that they hoped to meet. Finding a face without a smile would’ve been a Herculean task.

The day also served as a chance to show the current students at Dorsey what opportunities are out there for them, whether that be from sports or otherwise. Former champions were highlighted alongside what Dorsey hopes are their future champions.

Baseball alumni all wore shirts that said “Legacy of Greatness … Five Rings, One Legacy.” Their most recent championship was in 2014. Little signs like that permeated the day, as did a big one displaying every Dorsey championship.

The idea that the school has a history of success, and they want to get back there, was the cornerstone of the event — without it being explicitly stated.

“Once you go here, you get that feeling,” Knox said.

Even with all the fanfare, the man giving out raffle tickets at the front entrance encapsulated it perfectly.

“It’s a great day to be a Don.”

Richa Ghosh scores a quickfire half-century, before Mady Villiers takes three wickets as Manchester Super Giants beat Southern Brave by 27 runs to boost their chances of reaching the knockout stages of The Hundred women’s competition.

WATCH MORE: ‘She’s really going for it’ – Ghosh hits quick fifty for Super Giants

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Trent Rockets’ continued their excellent form as they comfortably beat Birmingham Phoenix by seven wickets to move four points clear at the top of the men’s Hundred table, with two matches to go in the league phase.

READ MORE: The Hundred: Who needs what to progress from group stages?

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Welsh Fire claim their fourth win in five matches in this season’s Hundred as a well-crafted half-century from Matt Short helps them defeat Southern Brave by six wickets in Cardiff.

MATCH REPORT: Superb Short half-century guides Fire past Brave

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During a long-endurance trek across the Pacific, a small uncrewed surface vessel (USV) owned by a California company had an encounter with a Chinese guided missile destroyer near the Philippines. The Lightfish USV, owned by Seasats, came close enough to the Type 052D guided missile destroyer that it was able to capture the warship on video. Reuters was the first to report about this event.

The incident highlights the growing presence of USVs, and especially in some of the world’s most contentious locales. The USV coming so close to the Chinese surface combatant also underscores the potential danger USVs can pose even to an advanced warship, a fact TWZ has frequently reported on. It also raises questions about the rules of engagement navies, and even some merchant vessels in troubled areas, will have to adopt for when they happen upon USVs that come close without explanation or clear intent.

The incident in question took place about 73 miles northwest of the Philippine island of Luzon, Seasats CEO Mike Flanigan told TWZ. The Luzon Strait is one of the world’s most strategic waterways and a potential flashpoint. It sits south of Taiwan and north of the Philippines, in a channel that provides access from the greater Pacific to the South China Sea and vice-versa. This is an area that is highly trafficked in the air, sea and undersea by major military players in the region and commercial shipping. If a conflict were to break out over Taiwan, this area would be turned into a super weapons engagement zone. In a future war, due to its unique littoral geography and importance, it would be a prime hunting ground for USVs of many kinds.

The encounter involved a Lightfish USV, a 12-foot-long, 305-pound USV that can travel great distances for up to six months with the help of its solar power panels paired with its hybrid powertrain, according to the company. Lightfish is not a speed boat. It prioritizes extreme endurance over anything else, so it couldn’t have ‘chased down’ the warship in question, but many other USVs are very capable of doing just that.

“The Lightfish tracked the Chinese vessel on radar from a range of ~10 nm and visually to a minimum range of several hundred meters,” Flanigan explained in an email. “It took place in the evening Pacific time on June 15th and our team was alerted to it immediately by our watch team that monitors vessel traffic in the vicinity of our deployed USV fleets.”

The Chinese destroyer spotted the Lightfish and took evasive action.

“We don’t know the intent, but we were able to observe the vessel altering course and generally observing the Lightfish USV,” Flanigan noted.

The company discussed it with the U.S. military after the event, but Flanigan declined to offer any details.

The company shared with us two videos of the Lightfish’s view of the Chinese warship. In it, the destroyer appears to be moving very slowly if at all.

The videos are eerily reminiscent of scores of videos released by the Ukrainian military showing its USVs attacking Russian warships, although in this case, the Lightfish had no such capability or intent.

You can see one of those Ukrainian videos below.

As we have reported extensively, Ukraine has demonstrated the devastating potential of USVs against the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The Magura family of drone boats, among others, has been central to that campaign, and has taken on a wide variety of roles. Repeated successful strikes against Black Sea Fleet vessels and naval infrastructure forced Russia to relocate much of its fleet from occupied Crimea to the relative safety of bases in mainland Russia.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels were at the forefront of employing kamikaze USVs operationally prior to Ukraine. We first reported on the capability in January 2017, after an explosive-laden Houthi drone boat struck a Saudi frigate. The modern version of this concept traces back to Iran, which developed a variety of rudimentary one-way attack USVs before transferring the capability to its Houthi proxies, who became the first to use them successfully in the Red Sea in 2017. They have since used them repeatedly, targeting shipping during their intervention following the events of October 7th and Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

Fast forward to the present, with the U.S. military employing USVs as offensive strike weapons in combat for the first time on July 12. The strikes, which involved Saronic-built Corsair USVs, occurred amid an escalating exchange of attacks between the United States and Iran centered on the Strait of Hormuz. Among the targets of the drone boat attacks was an Iranian Ghadir class diesel-electric midget submarine.

The following video captures some of those strikes.

Yesterday, using multiple one-way attack surface drones, CENTCOM forces successfully struck a submarine and ship maintenance facility in Iran. Three Corsair unmanned surface vessels hit the port at Bandar Abbas Naval Base, marking the first time American forces have employed sea… pic.twitter.com/bOM2kmgRxz

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 13, 2026

More recently, the U.S. Navy showed off the danger its USVs present to potential enemy warships when one of its Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft (GARC) USVs took part in its first live-fire training exercise. The kamikaze drone boat was employed during RIMPAC 2026, attacking the ex-USS Peleliu in one of the operation’s high-profile sinking exercises (SINKEX). You can read more about that here. The highly-publicized inaugural drone boat strike against Iran’s port and the use during SINKEX at RIMPAC clearly sends a message that the U.S. Navy is now aggressively pursuing this new form of kinetic surface attack. 

Amazing Footage from USV’s as they Attack the USS Peleliu (LHA 5)

These lessons are not lost on Seasats.

“The Ukrainians have definitively proven the threat that small USVs pose to surface ships,” Flanigan proffered. “With the Lightfish’s range — 8,000+ nm — we’re showing that the entire ocean is ‘in range’ for small USVs and that they aren’t just limited to coastal/littoral assets.”

The June 15 encounter was one of several Seasats USVs have had with Chinese warships. In May, the Lightfish came upon a Chinese Type 056 Corvette while transiting the Taiwan Strait earlier on this journey, Flanigan said. 

“This isn’t our vessel’s first run-in with a Chinese warship,” he noted in a company media release at the time. “But the location and timing make this encounter notable. It’s generally understood that the PLAN aggressively projects its vessels into the sovereign waters of smaller neighbors, but the opportunity to capture and share geolocated photographic evidence of it is unique.”

None of these incidents have resulted in China firing upon the drone boat. Still, these close encounters at sea raise questions about how warships should respond to such sightings, especially given what has taken place in the Black Sea, Red Sea, and more recently, near the Strait of Hormuz.

“This would be a better question for a military end user,” Flanigan answered when we asked him what the rules of engagement should be for these encounters. “I’d imagine it’d depend on the context and region (eg in the Black Sea presumably all USVs are assumed armed and dangerous). For commercial mariners, USVs would probably be treated with caution similar to other maritime hazards, with the level of caution depending on how well and predictably they (the USVs) are signaling their behavior.”

This is important, given the frequency of Lightfish sightings. 

“We have commercial shipping encounters on a nearly daily basis,” Flanigan said. “They happen so often that mariners don’t notice, or if they do, they are curious.”

This is especially true for fishing vessels, he pointed out.

Seasats Lightfish – Autonomous Drone Carrier

“Generally we follow two rules of thought” when it comes to other vessels, Flanigan stated.

The first is that “robotic systems should all fall secondary to human-piloted vessels. Meaning USVs should always avoid human vessels, and safety at sea rules should also bias towards giving right of way and safety of navigation to a piloted vessel,” Flanigan suggested.

The second is that “USVs should comply with COLREGs [International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea] and general navigational policies wherever possible,” he added.

Still, these are not crewed ships with people onboard that can communicate in some fashion. AIS identification is not proof of anything. And there is no way of knowing for certain if a curious USV belongs to a friend or foe. Hanging a flag onboard and painting a service name on the drone boat’s hull is in no way a definitive signal. How much risk will sailors take as the potential threat posed by these systems rapidly evolves and is already firmly in the hands of non-state actors?

It’s also worth noting that destroying a clearly uncrewed drone boat is a much lower threshold of escalation than doing so with a manned vessel, obviously. We have seen this reality played out repeatedly in the air, where an adversary will take a shot at a drone but not a crewed platform during times of tension but not outright war. Regardless of the international norms, taking out a drone boat that gets too close to a warship could become common place based on these factors, as well as the threat picture in the region and the status and proliferation of the technology.

Once again, in this case, the slow and small Lightfish may have been recognized as not a major danger to the destroyer, but as USVs become more common place in all forms, and especially in arsenals of militaries and potential nefarious actors alike, this equation will become more complex.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

As Wrexham unveiled their new 2026-27 home shirt while ringing the Nasdaq bell in New York’s iconic Times Square, there was little doubt that the club’s stock has never been higher.

Icons from the past such as Mickey Thomas, Steven Fletcher, Ben Tozer and Ben Foster were among those in The Big Apple proudly adorning the club’s red jersey.

It formed part of the launch of their new home kit, complete with their newest sponsor – yet another global brand.

Which is all in keeping with their cross-Atlantic profile, one unlike any other in the Championship or even many in the Premier League.

“Each time Wrexham has come to the U.S., we’ve been blown away by the reception,” co-owners Rob Mac and Ryan Reynolds told Sports Illustrated, external.

“The support has continued to grow, and it felt important to come back and connect with those fans in person.”

The Red Dragons are more than halfway through their pre-season tour of the United States, the third time in four summers they have travelled across the Atlantic.

It is a far cry from the summer of 2021 – Phil Parkinson’s first pre-season in north Wales – when Wrexham faced the likes of Burnley’s Under-23s, Tamworth, a Fleetwood Town XI, Spennymoor Town and Curzon Ashton.

Smriti Mandhana’s 88-run innings off 50 balls, including four sixes, gives Manchester Super Giants a four-wicket win over Sunrisers Leeds in The Hundred at Headingley.

MATCH REPORT: Classy Mandhana helps Super Giants beat Sunrisers

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Lauren Bell restricts MI London to six runs in the final over to give Southern Brave a nervy one-run victory in the 2026 Women’s Hundred at the Utilita Bowl in Southampton.

MATCH REPORT: Bell stays cool as Brave win last-ball thriller

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Nadine de Klerk hits an unbeaten 41 to guide London Spirit to a thrilling five-wicket victory over Trent Rockets with three balls to spare. The win at Trent Bridge secures Spirit’s first win of their 2026 women’s Hundred campaign and marks the highest successful run chase in the team’s history.

READ MORE: De Klerk holds nerve as Spirit edge past Rockets

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Jos Buttler stars with 90 off 50 balls as Manchester Super Giants ease past Birmingham Phoenix at Old Trafford – with the home side winning by 87 runs to make it two wins from two in the men’s Hundred.

READ MORE: Buttler brilliance as Super Giants thump Phoenix

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Welsh Fire put on a dominant display in Cardiff to make light work of MI London, as captain Sophie Devine’s excellent all-round performance leads her side to a 60-run victory. The result leaves the visitors winless in their opening two matches of The Hundred.

MATCH REPORT: Devine inspires Fire to dominant win over MI London

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