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Corporate earnings this week featured a high-stakes lineup of reports from 12 notable companies across the consumer discretionary, consumer staples, information technology, industrials, and financials sectors.

Earnings Roundup:

• Bottom Line: All 12 reporting companies beat consensus earnings estimates, with 11 delivering

Recently revealed evidence from government investigators and court filings renewed questions about Southern California Edison’s claim that it operated its electrical grid safely before last year’s deadly Eaton fire.

Most records surrounding the fire’s cause have been sealed at the request of Edison and plaintiff attorneys. Yet new details revealed in court show that critical fire prevention equipment needed repair before the blaze and that vegetation under the tower where it ignited hadn’t been trimmed for years.

Los Angeles County and state fire investigators cited eight violations, including three of California’s criminal code, in their report released on Aug. 4. The details were blacked out as the district attorney continues an investigation into the devastating fire.

“We don’t believe there is a basis for criminal liability and we will cooperate with any review,” said Kathleen Dunleavy, an Edison spokeswoman.

The investigators said in the report that the Jan. 7, 2025 inferno, which killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,000 homes and other structures, was caused by electrical arcing on an out-of-service transmission line in Eaton Canyon, which caused hot metal fragments to fall into the dried vegetation below.

Here are key takeaways from the investigative report and recent court filings by lawyers representing fire victims:

Edison didn’t turn off power on its Eaton Canyon transmission lines, despite emergency conditions.

Before the fire, the National Weather Service predicted a “life-threatening” windstorm, investigators wrote in their report released Aug. 4. Santa Ana wind gusts were forecast to reach speeds of 60 to 80 miles per hour, with peak gusts of 90 miles per hour in the mountains.

Earlier that day, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency because of an out-of-control fire that was burning homes in Pacific Palisades.

Despite those conditions, Edison kept power flowing through its high-voltage transmission lines built in the mountains above Altadena. Investigators noted that wind gusts at a weather station about a half-mile from the Edison tower where the fire started recorded gusts up to 68 miles per hour just before the first flames at 6:11 p.m. By 7, gusts were up to 85 miles per hour.

Dunleavy said the conditions did not meet the company’s internal standards for shutting off the lines.

“SCE was actively monitoring the transmission lines in Eaton Canyon on Jan. 7 and none of these lines met our de-energization criteria,” Dunleavy said.

Safety equipment on the out-of-service line was damaged before the fire but not fixed.

Edison had installed safety equipment at both ends of the out-of-service, unconnected transmission line in Eaton Canyon, including at the pylon known as Tower 208 where the fire ignited. But on the night of the fire, the equipment was broken, according to a June court filing.

The equipment was designed to send any unexpected power on the out-of-service line safely into the earth. The grounding equipment was necessary because the idle Mesa-Sylmar line ran parallel to 12 energized high-voltage lines, creating the danger of induction.

Induction happens when electromagnetic fields cause power on energized lines to jump to nearby idle equipment.

At Tower 208, a component known as a compression paddle was not securely bonded to the pylon, allowing debris to form and creating a dangerous air pocket, the filing said. The paddle was meant to be secured with four bolts, but only one bolt was used.

Government fire investigators also found broken equipment at one of the Mesa-Sylmar towers during a tour of the site with Edison after the fire. According to their report, investigators observed “the center conductor dangling free from the bridge section of the tower; it appeared that the remaining two conductors were not bored down to the tower bridge.”

The investigators said they discussed the equipment “abnormalities” with an Edison lineman and lawyer on the tour. “The Lineman said that they were not new and were like this last year; he was also unsure why they were not corrected when it was inspected,” the investigators wrote.

Asked why the equipment was not fixed, Dunleavy said, “We’re looking into that.”

She said the company strives to have a strong maintenance and inspection program and still was performing post-fire examinations and testing.

Edison kept the century-old, out-of-service Mesa-Sylmar line in place for decades, despite knowing idle lines could reenergize and spark fires.

Utilities have known for decades that unused lines can become energized from nearby electrified equipment through the induction process.

To teach employees about the danger, Edison created a training video featuring a 2007 incident in which a line known as the Kramer-Coolwater circuit was de-energized to allow work by a crew. The line became reenergerized while laying on the ground and started several fires, according to a retelling of the video in a July court filing by lawyers representing victims. Later that day, the crew’s foreman was injured when he touched the line.

Eleven years later, the Kramer-Coolwater circuit was unconnected from the grid, similar to the line in Eaton Canyon. Yet the line was electrified by induction from adjacent lines again in 2018, electrocuting a lineman who touched the conductor, the court filing said.

The company has said it kept the line in place even though it hadn’t carried power since 1971 because executives believed it could be used in the future.

Dunleavy said the induction event in the training video was different from what appears to have happened on Jan. 7 with the Eaton Canyon transmission lines.

“We had never seen an idle, de-energized transmission line cause an ignition,” she said.

Edison failed to clear vegetation below the tower where the fire ignited.

The investigators’ report said the fire ignited when electrical arcing on the idle line caused hot metal particles to fall into “the receptive fuel beds consisting of dry vegetation” below the tower.

The June court filing includes details from Google Earth images showing that the vegetation under Tower 208 had not been trimmed since at least 2021. Leaving the brush to grow violated Edison’s safety standard for “structure brushing,” the filing said.

Edison explained structure brushing in an article last year, describing how it cleared all vegetation around certain equipment, creating a 10-foot barrier to reduce the fire risk.

Asked why Edison let brush grow below the idle line, Dunleavy said, “We inspect and maintain all our equipment according to existing regulations and laws.”

Edison has sued L.A. County and other public entities, saying that their failures, including not clearing brush and delayed evacuation warnings, increased the fire’s destruction.

A fight over accountability

The first jury trial looking at whether Edison acted negligently in igniting the fire is scheduled to begin Jan. 25.

Later, state regulators will evaluate whether the company acted “prudently” in its actions related to the fire’s start.

Under a 2019 law brought by Newsom to protect utilities from bankruptcy, the companies automatically are deemed to have acted prudently if regulators sign off on their wildfire prevention plan.

Newsom’s safety regulators approved Edison’s plan just before the Eaton fire. That means Edison will be fully reimbursed for the billions of dollars in Eaton fire damages by a state fund that Newsom’s legislation created unless outside parties can prove Edison acted imprudently, negligently or worse.

“We continue to believe we will make a good faith showing of prudency,” Dunleavy said.

Newsom is working behind closed doors on legislation to further protect Edison and the state’s two other big for-profit electric utilities from the cost of wildfires caused by their equipment, the Times reported this year.

The three companies’ equipment ignited at least seven of the state’s 20 most destructive wildfires, according to CalFire. The Eaton fire was the state’s second-most destructive fire after the 2018 Camp fire, which killed 85 people and destroyed most of the town of Paradise. That fire, according to investigators, was ignited by an old transmission line owned by Pacific Gas & Electric.

The survivors of Eaton and other fires are fighting Newsom’s plan, saying it would leave California more vulnerable to utility-sparked fires.

“The real danger is what will happen to Californians if we further strip away these corporations’ financial incentives to prevent catastrophic fires,” Joy Chen, executive director of Every Fire Survivor’s Network, wrote in an analysis sent to state lawmakers this week.

“These are not innocent companies overtaken by climate change, nor is this an abstract problem of ‘wildfire liability,’” she wrote. “It is a continuing pattern of catastrophic corporate failure.”

The U.S. Navy’s Ford class aircraft carriers have been very much in the news in the past week, with huge changes to the core design now potentially on the horizon. Whether or not radical changes to the catapults, weapons elevators, and island superstructure on future ships in the class actually materialize remains to be seen. However, the design has already been changing in various other ways. This includes adding back in a feature that had been found on all Nimitz class carriers and other Cold War-era flattops before it – dedicated radar illuminators to guide surface-to-air missiles.

The illuminators are used to guide the RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (ESSMs). The need to add this feature is intertwined with a decision to integrate a replacement for the complex and troublesome Dual Band Radar (DBR) on all forthcoming carriers in the class after the USS Gerald R. Ford. The future USS John F. Kennedy is the first of those ships.

The Mk 95 radar illuminators on John F. Kennedy were particularly visible in pictures released last week of the ship leaving port in Newport News, Virginia, to begin acceptance sea trials. The carrier, also known by its hull number CVN 79, made its maiden voyage in January, and the Navy hopes to take formal delivery of the ship before the end of the year.

The Mk 95 traces back to the 1970s and was originally designed to support the employment of surface-launched RIM-7 variants of the Sparrow missile. All versions of the RIM-7 use semi-active radar guidance, which requires the launch platform to ‘illuminate’ the target.

As an example of the mode of operation for the RIM-7, if a ship were to detect an incoming cruise missile or some other kind of aerial threat, it would cue the missile in the right direction, fire it, and then use illuminators like the Mk 95 to ‘paint’ the target in radar energy. The missile’s seeker would then passively home in on the reflected radar energy through the terminal phase of flight.

When it was first introduced, the Mk 95 was part of a larger fire control suite that also brought an important new level of automation compared to previously available capabilities. Some earlier illuminators on Navy ships even had to be manually operated by sailors on deck.

Today, Mk 95s are found on a variety of U.S. and foreign naval vessels, including the Navy’s Nimitz class carriers. Some versions of the illuminators have camera systems to further help spot and track incoming threats, which have also been upgraded over the years. Improvements in associated combat systems also mean they have become better able to manage available illuminators to allow for as many engagements simultaneously as possible.

The RIM-7 family has since been supplanted in U.S. Navy service with the improved RIM-162 ESSM. Block 1 variants of the ESSM also use semi-active radar guidance and have the same general mode of operation as their predecessors. New Block 2 versions, which began entering service in the early 2020s, have semi-active and active modes, the latter of which does not require any illumination in the terminal phase. In addition, the new missiles feature a data link, allowing them to receive targeting updates after launch, helping cue them to the target area, which further reduces the need for an illuminator in the initial phases of flight. It is also very valuable for longer-range engagements beyond the horizon, especially against low-flying cruise missiles.

At present, the defensive armament suite on Ford class aircraft carriers includes two 21-round launchers for RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles (RAM), three Mk 15 Phalanx Close-In Weapon Systems (CIWS) armed with 20mm Vulcan cannons, four 25mm cannons on Mk 38 mounts, and various small arms. There are also two eight-cell Mk 29 launchers, a design that also dates back to the 1970s and was originally designed to fire RIM-7 Sparrows. The Mk 29 has since been adapted to fire Block 1 ESSMs, but there were issues in integrating Block 2 versions owing to the increased weight of those missiles, at least in the past.

“CVN 79 and follow-on Ford class ships will be upgraded to a mix of new RAM variants Block 2A and 2B, plus a mix of ESSM Block 1 and Block 2,” according to an annual report from the Pentagon’s Office of the Director of Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) covering work on the program during the 2025 Fiscal Year.

The Navy’s most recent annual budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2026 does note work to modify the Mk 29 launchers to support Block 2 ESSM capability, but the current state of those efforts is unclear. The service is also pursuing an entirely new launcher to replace the aging and increasingly unsupportable Mk 29, as well as a follow-on to the Block 2 ESSM.

Mk-29 Sea Sparrow Missile Launcher – RIM-162 ESSM & RIM-7P During Sea Trials

Even with integration of the Block 2 ESSM, Ford class carriers will still have to provide ‘illumination’ in order to employ Block 1 versions of the missile, which remain in active Navy inventory. As noted, Block 2 variants can be employed in a semi-active radar homing mode, as well.

This all brings us to the matter of the DBR, which was intended to be the main radar on all members of the Ford class. The DBR consists of two distinct radar systems, the AN/SPY-3, an X-band active electronically scanned array (AESA) type, and the AN/SPY-4, an S-band phased array. On paper, this was set to be a powerful combination. In a defensive scenario, the SPY-3 would be used for horizon search, generating high-fidelity target tracks, and otherwise helping direct interceptors like the ESSM to their targets. The volume search SPY-4 would provide additional long-range search and tracking functionality. Being able to fuse all that data for the dual arrays together, while also leveraging the specific capabilities of the quick-scanning AESA SPY-3, would only offer even greater benefits.

As part of the original Ford design, DBR also serves as host of other functions, including helping to provide air traffic control in support of flight operations. This also allowed the Navy to pare down the total number of distinct radars on the ship compared to the Nimitz class. This, in turn, directly factored into the design of a smaller and more angular flight deck island on the Ford class. Just this week, TWZ published a separate detailed piece on the island, and the reasons for its location so far back on the flight deck. This followed reports this past weekend that President Donald Trump is pushing the Navy to reposition the structure on future ships in this class on aesthetic grounds.

Despite the promised benefits, and its deep integration into the Ford class design, the DBR has proved to be extremely complicated and unreliable.

“Here’s the one thing that I think I screwed up. I think I’m responsible for at least a billion-dollar cost of overrun because I wanted to reduce the number of radars,” retired Navy Capt. Tal Manvel, who served for a time as Program Manager for Future Carriers, said during a presentation at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum in 2015. “I did not appreciate that the complexity of that is not just increasing scale like with a mechanical system, like in the propulsion plant, but the complexity of the software-hardware interface.

“That’s my fault. I screwed up on that because I thought that this would be significant,” Manvel continued. “It turns out to be a big cost driver up front, and that’s one of the reasons why the Ford has this challenge of cost.”

You can watch Tal Manvel’s full 2015 presentation below.

Shifley Lecture: USS Ford-class carrier design

The Navy has since made the decision to replace the DBR on Ford class carriers primarily with the AN/SPY-6(V)3, also known as the fixed-face version of Raytheon’s Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR). The AN/SPY-6(V)3 has three antenna arrays compared to the DBR’s six. John F. Kennedy and future ships in the class will also feature an AN/SPQ-9B horizon search radar and the Mk 9 Tracker Illuminator System – which includes the Mk 95 illuminators – to provide additional functionality that was originally supposed to come from the DBR.

As an aside, the DBR was originally a core component of the Zumwalt class stealthy destroyer design, and was to be deeply integrated with the ship’s unique combat system, but suffered from similar technical and reliability issues in that setting, as well. The Navy subsequently decided to eliminate the S-band arrays on those ships as a cost-cutting measure. As it stands now, the USS Gerald R. Ford is the only ship the service expects to operate with the full DBR. The Navy has plans to eventually replace the DBR on that carrier with the EASR and other radars, too. Several variants of the AN/SPY-6 are also increasingly being integrated onto a host of different Navy ships, as seen in the graphic below.

The need for the Mk 95 illuminators on the Ford class could evolve further over time, including as the Block 2 ESSM enters more widespread service and with the development of the planned follow-on missile. TWZ has previously noted that the total number of Mk 95s has been reduced on at least some Nimitz class carriers for reasons that are still not entirely clear.

John F. Kennedy is also expected to bring along other important, but less visible improvements, which are set to be carried over to future ships in the class. This includes upgrades to the ship’s combat management system and a Block II version of the Navy’s Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) networked sensor architecture.

The Ford class program, overall, continues to face major delays and cost growth due to a host of technical issues and other factors that go well beyond problems with the DBR. The Navy had originally hoped to receive John F. Kennedy in 2022. Work on the next two ships in the class, the future USS Enterprise and USS Doris Miller, is also running behind schedule.

The Navy has said it is working to mitigate these ongoing issues and incorporate lessons learned in the construction of future ships in the class. The USS Gerald R. Ford has also now supported real combat operations, mostly recently as part of the conflict with Iran.

As highlighted in John F. Kennedy‘s recent sea trials, the Ford class design is already evolving in notable ways, particularly when it comes to the radar suite.

Special thanks to user @lfx160219 on X for bringing the Mk 95 radar illuminators on the future John F. Kennedy to our attention.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Does Guimaraes complete the midfield? Can Arsenal finally win the Champions League? And who is set for a breakout season?

Arsenal begin their first Premier League title defence in 22 years on Friday with a home game against newly promoted Coventry.

The Gunners, who lost in the Champions League final on penalties last season, are also hoping this is the season they can finally be crowned champions of Europe.

So the English champions face plenty of key talking points before the season – here are the five key ones.

Can Arsenal successfully defend title for the first time in 90 years?

With major rivals City and Liverpool rebuilding under Enzo Maresca and Andoni Iraola respectively, Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta’s methods are tested and trusted after ⁠nearly seven years at the helm.

His well-established side will be confident they can defy history and win back-to-back titles for the first time since 1935.

They have also strengthened their squad with a few key signings – not least bringing in Bruno Guimaraes to bolster the midfield and replacing the outgoing Leandro Trossard with a likely upgrade in Greek winger Christos Tzolis.

But centre-back William Saliba’s long-term back injury will be a big blow for a side that won the league while conceding just 27 goals.

And the Gunners’ reliance on set-pieces may face more scrutiny from referees this season after some rule changes and some contentious flashpoints last season.

“Now, we have to show that we belong to this level and we want to increase and take this football club to a different dimension,” Arteta said.

His side were certainly impressive in their first competitive game of the season, sending a clear message of intent to their rivals as they cruised to a 3-0 win over Manchester City in the Community Shield on Sunday.

Can Arsenal finally win the Champions League?

Arsenal are the club with the most European Cup/Champions League appearances in history without ever lifting the trophy – 226 games and counting – and last season’s final loss to PSG on penalties in Budapest will sting for a long time.

They had built the run to Budapest on defensive resilience, conceding only six goals in 14 European matches, and led through Kai Havertz inside six minutes. However, PSG equalised from the penalty spot and eventually won the shootout 4-3, with Gabriel Magalhaes missing the decisive kick.

PSG are now back-to-back champions chasing a three-peat, and Bayern Munich ran PSG very close in their semifinal. But Arteta’s side have shown they can compete with anyone in Europe – they just need to find that extra gear.

Does Guimaraes complete the midfield?

Arsenal’s marquee signing of the transfer window was Guimaraes from Newcastle for 75 million pounds ($101.5m). The versatile Brazilian captained his previous club and brings all-round quality and leadership to the Arsenal midfield, easing some of the pressure on Declan Rice, who struggled with injuries during the end of the season and at the World Cup.

Arteta seems to have little doubt that Guimaraes can adapt quickly to a title-defending side. He certainly slotted in well during the Community Shield win over City, impressing with some key tackles and spraying around some beautiful passes.

“He’s a warrior with a tremendous quality as well and intuition and leadership and charisma that is going to help us, that is going to really ignite something different in the team,” ‌Arteta said.

“He’s going to push everybody inside the team as well and that’s the type of player that we need.”

Can Gyokeres set up a level?

Arsenal fans were hoping that Viktor Gyokeres would be the club’s first reliable number nine for many years.

But while his first season delivered 14 Premier League goals and 21 in all competitions, it was a solid if unspectacular return.

With Arsenal having strengthened around him rather than bringing in competition up front, the pressure is on Gyokeres to kick on from a decent debut year into a prolific one.

Is Max Dowman set for a breakthrough season?

Dowman turned 16 in December, and the attacking midfielder scored a sensational stoppage-time winner against Everton in March to become the youngest scorer in Premier League history.

Arteta has been careful to strike a balance between exposure and protection, pointing to school commitments and workload management as much as footballing readiness in limiting Dowman’s appearances.

The youngster is likely to feature more in cup competitions this season, but if he performs to his apparent potential, Arteta may even feel compelled to play him in some of the biggest games of the season.

The Mirror’s Stephen Jones and his wife Charlotte have a lot of tips to pass on to other news parents after taking their newborn babies on holiday for the first time to the TUI Blue Orquidea in Gran Canaria

‘That’s it,’ my friends said, when I told them we were expecting twins. ‘Wave goodbye to your nice holidays, you’ll never have another,’ they warned.

Could it be true, that I would never relax in sunshine again? Never have I been determined to prove anyone so wrong. And never have I wanted a holiday more after the exhausting first few months of keeping two newborns alive, we needed a break.

A week-long trip with our TWO four month old babies to the fabulous all inclusive TUI Blue Orquidea in Gran Canaria (flying time: four-and-a-half hours) seemed an apt test. Whether you think we were brave, foolhardy or naive, I am pleased to say we not only survived, but we enjoyed it! Here’s what we learned.

1. It pays to prepare

We did our research and bought a lot of decent equipment in advance. Our rule was to pack half a suitcase each for ourselves while each baby had the other half. Pushing a suitcase and a pram each at the same time proved an acquired skill but was made easier with the two Bugaboo Butterfly 2 which can stow in overhead lockers. And we sensibly booked a night at a London Gatwick hotel to ease the stress of our 5am check-in time.

Having two babies sat on your laps for the whole flight once you have factored in feeding and sleeps isn’t too bad; having bottles prepped for both take off and landing is essential. We bought Alpine Muffy ear defender-style headphones to protect their precious ears, and Jellycat cloth books to keep them entertained. Changing a nappy in the cramped toilet is a challenge but doable. As the wheels touched down I breathed a sigh of relief the flight hadn’t been as bad as I expected and I felt buoyed by the sense of achievement.

Booking a private transfer from the airport to the hotel 20 minutes away in Bahia Feliz with two baby car seats was a luxurious extra which proved worth every penny and we will do again.

It meant we avoided queues at check-in and after our warm welcome, we were pleased to discover our room was spacious enough to accommodate two travel cots and the balcony provided a quiet post-bedtime drink spot.

We can highly recommend following travel journalist mums like Emma Cooke (@petite.blondine) on TikTok and Instagram for useful tips like bringing an inflatable chair for bathtime and collapsible bucket for sterilising bottles.

2. It doesn’t matter how much noise your children make

The one thing I really feared before our holiday was the embarrassment of our babies crying. I soon discovered the truth is most people are too busy worrying about their own children to care what yours are up to. The reassuring sight of so many other families trying to do exactly what we were trying to do spurred us on.

Even when our kids did cry in the restaurant, it was too noisy for anyone more than five metres away to really hear, and not once did anyone look bothered. The hotel’s buffet-style set up had a huge variety of choice but importantly meant we could take it in turns to get food while one of us stayed with the babies. A highlight of our stay was an evening out at the Orquidea’s scrummy a-la-carte restaurant La Taverna where they thankfully behaved.

The one time one of our babies did have a meltdown (in a queue on a day trip), people were sympathetic not judgmental. We soon realised the joy our babies bring others far outweighs any panic.

3. Plan, plan, plan

When you have babies you have to slow down your itinerary. Aim to only do one or two significant things a day. We soon learned to always make up bottles for the next feed straight after the current one; the next comes around pretty quick!

When you have fed them, you have a gap of max three hours to do an activity before they get grouchy, so try to already have something planned or booked in advance. Before our trip ,we hadn’t really appreciated how well set up for kids aged under three years old this family friendly resort was. One of the best things we did all week was a visit to the baby spa put on by the TUI baby and tots club staff, a sensory led experience where both babies delighted in being pampered.

Most days followed a pleasantly simple rhythm: breakfast, play time, lunch, naps, swimming, dinner and sleep. And repeat. When I have since been asked what the best thing about our holiday was, I’ve replied: ‘Being able to take the kids swimming every day’. Getting them used to being in water daily in the calm surroundings of the toddler pool, kicking their little legs and grinning while we held them, is a precious memory. We planned a lot of our feeds around these dips.

4. Hotel staff will help you out and people are kinder than you imagine

We were overwhelmed by the generosity of people who on seeing we had twin babies were only too happy to allow us to push in front of a queue or be served before them.

That said, travelling with babies is never completely stress-free. There were often moments when one twin decided nap time was optional or both babies demanded attention simultaneously. And we never left our room without extra nappies and wipes (having restocked at the nearby Spar) ready for any unexpected drama.

But somehow everything felt manageable. There was a godsend of Baby Lounge with aircon next to the pools we used every day to change nappies or just quiet time (the staff organise playdates for kids and their parents here too).

There’s tonnes for kids of all ages to do on a TUI holiday but it’s worth stressing they have trained staff who will take your babies off your hands for a couple of hours while you go and enjoy a peaceful lie by the pool or trip to the luxurious spa or gym (I pleased to say I made it to both more than once).

Indeed, the TUI staff couldn’t do enough to ensure we enjoyed the best possible trip – while we were staying at the busy Grupotel Orquidea, they recommended we check out their more sedate sister hotel, the Playa Feliz next door. This was a tip that made our trip as that’s where we ended up spending most of our time (the staff hold Little Splashers sessions for babies here as well).

5. Once you’ve done it once you will want to do it again

Now we have done it – and survived – I almost can’t remember what we were worrying about in the first place.

One of the other highlights of our trip was a day out to the village of Mogan – a picturesque fishing village on the coast known affectionally as ‘Little Venice – which you access via ferry.

I was 50/50 about booking a boat trip with babies but there was nothing remotely difficult about ditching our prams for slings. Our Ergobaby Omni baby carriers’ mesh design coped well in the heat as we explored the village’s quaint streets and waterways by foot.

Mogan has a pretty, sandy beach where we were able to dip the kids’ toes in the sea for the first time, a memory I will never forget. It was at that point I realised that’s the point of holidays, a chance to make those kind of long lasting memories. And when I started to think where we could go next.

Book the holiday

• TUI offers seven-night holidays to Gran Canaria, Spain staying at the 4T TUI BLUE Orquídea on an all-inclusive basis from £900pp, based on 2 adults and 1 child sharing a twin room, flying from London Luton in August, and 23kg luggage per person and transfers included. tui.co.uk
• TUI Musement offers a Gran Canaria’s ‘Little Venice’ – visit Puerto de Mogan by boat from £45 per adult, £28 per child (3-12 years old) and children (0-2) go free. tuimusement.com/uk

EXPLAINER

Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea all have new faces in the dugout as Arsenal attempt to defend title for first time in 90 years.

The 2026/27 Premier League season is set to kick off on August 21 as champions Arsenal host newly promoted Coventry.

It has been a busy preseason for many clubs, albeit truncated for some by the World Cup, and as always there are a number of tantalising questions as the new season begins in all its hope and anticipation.

Al Jazeera outlines the five most compelling storylines ahead of the opening game.

Arsenal defend Premier League title for first time since 2005

The Gunners go into the campaign as Premier League champions for the first time since their Invincibles era, bringing a different kind of pressure for Mikel Arteta’s squad. The last time the Gunners retained a league title was in 1935.

They will also be looking to go one better in Europe after reaching the Champions League final for the first time in 20 years last season, only to lose to PSG.

While Leandro Trossard has left for Besiktas, Arsenal have generally kept their squad intact and added to it with some promising signings – buying Bruno Guimaraes from Newcastle, Christos Tzolis from Club Brugge, Illan Meslier on a free transfer, and making Piero Hincapie’s loan permanent. Guimaraes captained Newcastle and adds real leadership, steel and depth to the middle of the pitch.

Arsenal had the best defence in the league last year and the best record from set pieces – maintaining these attributes will be key.

Perhaps one area of uncertainty remains up front, where a convincing out-and-out striker remains elusive, despite the flashes of promise shown by Viktor Gyokeres and Gabriel Jesus.

New faces in the dugouts

Manchester City have appointed Enzo Maresca to replace Pep Guardiola, ending a glittering decade under the Catalan. Maresca previously worked as Guardiola’s assistant during City’s treble-winning season and now inherits the job of reinventing a team built entirely around one man’s philosophy. His fortunes may depend significantly on whether City can hold on to key midfielder Rodri amid interest from Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Maresca left Chelsea mid-season back in January, and the Blues have since turned to Xabi Alonso, a talented manager with a point to prove after he was sacked by Real Madrid last season. Whether Chelsea’s unpredictable owners give Alonso the freedom he needs to work could be a big factor in whether he succeeds at Stamford Bridge. He’s already made some interesting signings, such as bringing in Morgan Rogers from Aston Villa and the 35-year-old Danny Welbeck from Brighton.

Liverpool, meanwhile, go into the season under new boss Andoni Iraola after a wretched title defence under Arne Slot. The Spaniard will be tasked with making a coherent side out of the very talented but unsettled collection of individuals at Anfield, while also rebuilding after the departure of long-term stalwarts such as Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson.

Newcastle have appointed 38-year-old German coach Matthias Jaissle following Eddie Howe’s departure after nearly five years in charge. He inherits a squad that’s lost much of its spine over the preseason, with Guimaraes, Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali and Kieran Trippier all leaving.

Iraola’s move to Liverpool left a vacancy at Bournemouth, where the club has turned to Marco Rose, a former Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig coach.

World Cup hangover looms over the league

With the Premier League season starting just 33 days after the World Cup final, several of the league’s biggest clubs face a rough turnaround from international duty straight into a title race.

Manchester City sent 19 players to the tournament across 12 nations – the heaviest World Cup workload in the league – while Arsenal had 16 involved, raising questions about squad freshness for two of the sides most likely to be challenging for the title.

New rules target time-wasting and holding but ease up on hair-pulling

The Premier League has confirmed a set of new rules for 2026-27, targeting time-wasting and improving consistency around some of last season’s biggest flashpoints.

Players receiving on-field treatment must now stay off the pitch for a full minute, double the previous 30 seconds, while referees will apply a five-second countdown on delayed throw-ins and goal kicks – time-wasting beyond that means possession or a corner will be awarded to the opposition.

Holding and grappling at corners will also draw closer scrutiny, with penalties now more likely for defenders who impede attackers.

There’s a notable softening on hair-pulling too after three straight red cards for it last season – now deliberate pulls without “excessive force or brutality” will only merit a yellow.

Can Sunderland maintain their remarkable form?

Three years after playing in English football’s third tier, Sunderland finished seventh in the Premier League last season – qualifying for the Europa League.

It is an astonishing achievement for a club that spent close to a decade outside the top flight, with most newly promoted clubs battling for survival at the other end of the table.

Manager Regis Le Bris has built a talented squad, but sustaining this level of performance alongside the demands of European football is going to be tough – indeed, Sunderland are again among the favourites to go down.

The last time Real Madrid went two consecutive seasons without a major trophy (2008-2010), they eschewed Galacticos and brought in Jose Mourinho who built the team from the back.

So after the last two trophyless seasons, they brought Mourinho back.

That means ultra-conservative tactics, plus a slew of central defenders and outside backs, not something that would normally excite Madridistas.

But even a superstar-studded attack does not work without a solid, veteran back line.

Welcome, then, Marc Cucurella, Denzel Dumfries, Ibrahima Konate. But Real Madrid President Florentino Perez did not forget about scoring goals.

He also added Yan Diomande and Bernardo Silva to an attack featuring Jude Bellingham, Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior, along with Brahim Diaz, Endrick, Arda Guler and Rodrygo.

Recent failures aside, Real Madrid remains ambitious. Los Blancos expect to compete for both the Champions League title and La Liga.

Perez is not going to easily give in to Paris Saint-Germain’s newfound Champions League pre-eminence, or Barcelona’s attempt at a La Liga three-peat.

Real Madrid tops the Champions League charts with 15 titles, and has won La Liga 36 times, seven more than Barca.

Al Jazeera takes a look at the key questions before the new season for Real Madrid.

Second time a charm at Real Madrid for Jose Mourinho?

Mourinho’s first Real Madrid stint followed a two-year trophy drought, and the solution worked, sort of. The Portuguese won La Liga once and reached three Champions League semifinals from 2011-13.

Improvement, but not what the Merengues were looking for when Mourinho arrived on the heels of capturing the 2010 Champions League with Inter Milan.

These days, Mourinho’s stock has not exactly risen, and he is still looking for another Champions League success. But after last season’s coaching fiasco – Xavi Alonso being replaced by Alvaro Arbeloa mid-season – Perez is apparently hoping conservatism and discipline will bring out the best in the most expensive roster in La Liga.

The preseason presented a preview of Mourinho-ball, with Real Madrid winning the Trofeo Teresa Herrera last week. So, Los Blancos carried off a rather bulky trophy, though not a major one.

And the 1-0 victory over Deportivo A Coruna was classified as a preseason friendly, complete with 19 substitutions. They were, though, playing to win at all costs, judging by Antonio Rudiger’s first-half hip-check that sent Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang flying.

Good transfer business for Real Madrid?

Madridistas expected the arrival of a high-profile transfer, such as Alessandro Bastoni, Achraf Hakimi, Michael Olise, or Vitinha – not to mention Rodri. That did not happen, but the newcomers provide upgrades that could make a difference.

Cucurella, replacing Ferland Mendy, brings guile and tactical savvy, supporting Vinicius Junior on the left. He also happens to be Real Madrid’s only World Cup winner with Spain’s national team.

Dumfries might not compare with Hakimi, but he presents an alternative to Trent Alexander-Arnold. The Dutch defender is a dependable, physical right back, who captured two Serie A scudetti and reached two Champions League finals with Inter.

Silva contributes composure, and his ability to settle the midfield fills a need lacking since the departure of Luka Modric. Konate provides physicality and recovery ability in central defence, and could challenge Dean Huijsen and Rudiger for a starting spot.

Diomande burst onto the scene with Red Bull Leipzig and starred for Ivory Coast in the World Cup. Diomande was “discovered” in northern Florida in the United States by Leganes last year, after being passed over in Major League Soccer tryouts.

He earned a 125 million euro ($144.5m) transfer that could be considered excessive, as rival suitors dropped from the scene, leaving Real Madrid to essentially bid against itself. Real Madrid will hope the investment in Diomande pays dividends, as he resembles a dynamic, younger version of Vinicius Junior, and can perform on either wing.

A number 9 for Real Madrid, anybody?

Endrick wears the number 9, but does not fit the profile of a hold-up striker. Nor does Mbappe, though he has made the position his own. Endrick, 20, failed to meet expectations after arriving on a 47.5 million euro ($54.9m) transfer from Palmeiras. He ended up on loan to Olympique Lyon, scoring five times, including a hat-trick against Metz.

At 6-foot-4-inches, Carlos Espi represents Mourinho’s conception of the number-9 role. The 21-year-old lacks experience but showed promise with Levante, converting 11 goals last season.

Perez, though, is sticking with his investment in Endrick. Last year, he let Nico Paz go to Como, and, this year, Gonzalo Garcia to Fulham.

Two go-to guys, but not enough goals?

Few can match Mbappe’s ability to stretch defences and finish.

Last season, Mbappe totalled 42 goals, plus another 10 for France in the World Cup. But should Mbappe be a lone striker, or should he be breaking down defences on the wing?

As for Vinicius Junior, his effectiveness on the left wing is unquestioned. The problem has been capitalising on the talent of Mbappe and Vinicius Junior. Despite Mbappe’s goal explosion, Real Madrid’s La Liga totals declined from 87 in 2023-24 to 78 the next season and 77 last season.

In the past, Mourinho’s forwards have sacrificed scoring to concentrate on defending. Not exactly what Mbappe or Vinicius Junior signed up for, but Mbappe indicated he is ready to go along with the programme in an interview with Real Madrid TV. Mourinho, Mbappe said, “is a coach that knows how to win.”

Time for Bellingham to go on the offensive?

As a 20-year-old, just arrived from Borussia Dortmund, Bellingham converted 10 goals in his first 12 La Liga games in 2023. Bellingham’s scoring tailed off after that, and he’s fallen into a complementary role in midfield. But after a breakout World Cup, maybe Bellingham will reassert himself as an attacking midfielder.

Performing for England, Bellingham ignited the offence, driving through the midfield, setting up teammates, and also converting seven goals. He also displayed leadership qualities, rallying the team in difficult conditions in Mexico City and leading a comeback against Norway.

Bellingham has plenty of midfield support at Real Madrid, playing alongside Aurelien Tchouameni and Federico Valverde. But will Mourinho allow Bellingham to go forward at will, as he did prior to the arrival of Mbappe, or have him thinking defence first?

What about Arda Guler?

Guler was a regular from last season’s opener on; his 51 appearances were second on the team to Vinicius Junior’s 53. And Guler is expected to be a sure starter this season. The arrival of Silva, though, could create a squeeze for playing time.

Mourinho favours experienced players, and also appears to be on a wavelength with Silva, partly because of their Portuguese backgrounds. Guler can be spectacular, breaking past opponents on the dribble, sparking the attack. But the threat of a reduced role has led to reports that Guler is considering a return to Fenerbahce.

WASHINGTON — In another major test of how far left Democratic voters in swing states are willing to go, moderate David Crowley narrowly defeated democratic socialist Francesca Hong to become the Democratic nominee for governor of Wisconsin.

The surprise result in Tuesday’s primary — in a closely watched swing state seen as a possible bellwether of Democratic sentiment — came after polls had shown Hong leading the field by double digits. With 95% of the vote counted, Crowley clinched the nomination early Wednesday by just 3,000 votes.

It was the second purple-state race between Democrats in two weeks to have an extremely narrow result, following the slim win by progressive Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate primary last week. Polling also overestimated progressive performance in that race.

In the November general election, Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive, will face Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany, who was endorsed by President Trump. If Crowley were to defeat Tiffany, he would become the first Black governor in the state’s history.

The race had been closely watched as an example of the national fissure between progressive and establishment Democrats.

“Hong’s candidacy is a sign of the broader trends in the party, with outspoken progressives and socialists emerging in some primaries and having real sway in the party,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Barry Burden. “With Crowley, he has a more conciliatory approach … that probably sits better with the average independent voter or moderate in the state who’s just looking to get some problems addressed.”

Crowley and his backers had undertaken an intense late-July sprint to persuade Democrats to coalesce around him. He suspended his campaign amid low poll numbers, then rejoined the race with less than a month before election day after establishment frontrunner Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez dropped out.

“It was fast and furious very late in the campaign to try to build a movement in the party behind Crowley as the establishment candidate who is presumably more likely to win in a general election,” Burden said.

In another upper Midwest contest highlighting the choices confronting Democratic voters, progressive Lt. Gov. Penny Flanagan defeated center-left Rep. Angie Craig. Flanagan will face former television sports reporter Michele Tofoya, a Republican, in November for the seat held by Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, who is retiring.

As Democrats grapple with creating a party identity that will draw swing voters away from President Trump’s Republican Party in November and in 2028, a fierce debate has taken hold between the party’s factions — progressives who argue their approach is the key to the party’s fresh path forward, and moderates who fear that a far-left presidential candidate could cost Democrats the presidency in 2028.

Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong waves to supporters on Tuesday night.

(Nam Y. Huh / Associated Press)

Progressive candidates so far have fared well in blue strongholds such as Denver, New York and Minnesota this cycle, but they have struggled in Missouri and Wisconsin.

“Democrats of all ilk are winning elections all across the country,” said strategist Hyma Moore on Wednesday on CBS News, “and it’s very specific to what that state or that district needs.”

Moore said Hong’s loss was not “a setback for progressives,” arguing that she was a weaker political candidate than Crowley regardless of her ideology.

In his victory remarks Wednesday morning, Crowley rejected the framing of an intra-party conflict.

“We may not agree on every policy, we may not use the same labels, but we all want safe communities, strong schools, affordable healthcare, good-paying jobs and a brighter future for all of our children,” Crowley said.

Hong, a member of the state Assembly, ran into controversy late in the campaign with resurfaced social media posts in which she called for defunding the police and shared her negative opinions on Thanksgiving. Although she sought to retract or revise many of those comments in televised interviews, moderates and centrists seized on these points to argue against her electability.

“She had a whole smorgasbord of positions that were perfectly designed to repel voters in the middle that Democrats have to win,” said Kate deGruyter of the centrist Democratic group Third Way, which is funneling money into an effort to discredit democratic socialism ahead of the 2028 presidential election.

The race remained exceedingly tight until early Wednesday, when the Associated Press projected Crowley as the winner. In counties where Crowley was expected to dominate, such as Milwaukee, Hong performed better than expected. While Hong won the city of Madison and areas with University of Wisconsin satellite campuses. the margin was too small to push her past Crowley, according to AP election data.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) chose to publicly back Hong, but she was unable to secure key national endorsements from the two most prominent progressives in Congress, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Hong told her supporters Tuesday night, hours before she conceded, that regardless of the result, progressive politics would have to be reckoned with in Wisconsin’s electoral future.

“We have built something that will change politics forever,” she said. “I am so deeply grateful, to my core, for how hard you have all fought, and for what this fight, our movement, means for all of Wisconsin.”

Times staff writer Justine McDaniel in Washington contributed to this report.

South Korea plans to upgrade a key Army battle tank and an anti-ship missile program for the Navy in an effort to boost military capabilities against evolving enemy threats, the arms agency said Tuesday.

It will launch a 3.43 trillion-won (US$2.43 billion) project to upgrade the K2 main battle tank to be equipped with an active protection system (APS) to intercept anti-tank missiles and drones, a drone and improvised explosive device (IED) jammer and a remote-controlled weapons station (RCWS), the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said.

The APS system is dubbed a smart shield system that uses radar to automatically spot incoming enemy missiles or drones and attack them.

The drone and IED jammer blocks enemy radio signals and the RCWS enables the crew to safely aim and fire from inside the armored vehicle.

The K2 upgrade program will run from 2028 through 2046, with the new tanks expected to enter into service in 2033, DAPA said.

The agency will launch another upgrade project for the new Haeseong-II long-range anti-ship missile, aiming to double its strike range, backed by a more powerful turbofan engine.

With a budget of around 1.63 trillion won, the military aims to complete the development by 2033 and start mass production in 2034.

The upgraded Haeseong-II missiles are expected to be mounted on South Korea’s next-generation KDDX destroyer, a source familiar with the matter said. The government recently signed a formal contract with Hanwha to build its lead ship.

The upgrade plans were approved during DAPA’s key decision-making meeting on Tuesday.

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More than 3 million Brits travel there every year

UK travellers should be prepared for the risk of strike action over the next few weeks in a popular holiday hotspot. Millions of UK holidaymakers will be travelling abroad in the weeks ahead.

And France is one spot that will be popular with Brits. More than 17 million UK people travel there every year, according to the UK Foreign Office.

Now the new threat of industrial action has broken out – and it runs throughout the remainder of the summer holiday period. EasyJet cabin crew in France could walk out in strike action expected to run until September 2. Flight attendants there have complained about rota arrangements and working conditions.

French media report that three unions representing cabin crew at EasyJet France have issued strike notice covering the period from 7 August to 2 September. They have complained of a “continuing deterioration” in working conditions, according to a joint statement released this week.

What should you do if your flight is cancelled? For those planning to travel with the airline in the coming weeks, passengers whose flights are disrupted by cancellations or delays will be given 48 hours’ notice. Simply head to the ‘Booking’ tab in the EasyJet app to access the relevant information.

Should your flight be cancelled, you can request either a refund or a ticket change directly from the airline. If the replacement departure is scheduled for the following day, EasyJet may foot the bill for a hotel and a taxi to the airport.

The airports facing strike action include Lyon, Nice, Paris Orly, Bordeaux and Paris Charles de Gaulle. A spokesperson for ⁠easyJet said the company was disappointed and had made an offer of changes to tackle their concerns. ⁠They said: “Given we have planned negotiations in September, we call on the unions to call off this ⁠counterproductive action at this important time of the year for our customers”.

French news site RTL reports that workers are denouncing what they describe as “a vicious circle that has been going on for a year now”, with the SNPNC-FO, UNAC-CFE-CGC and UNPNC-CFDT trade unions condemning “the chronic instability of timetables, last-minute changes, imposed ‘trippings’ (a series of flights over several days, ed.), particularly gruelling rotas and a total lack of protective measures”.

“The notice period has been deliberately left open to cover the entire period,” the trade unions stress, adding that “key dates” for industrial action will be confirmed “48 hours in advance”.

The unions have accused management, whom they claim to have been warning “for nearly a year”, of failing to provide “concrete and binding” solutions to their concerns. Luckily for travellers, a previous strike call at EasyJet on Easter Monday in April had only a minimal impact on air traffic.

Local media say that as France’s second-largest airline by passenger numbers after Air France, British carrier EasyJet predominantly operates short- and medium-haul routes. The airline employs several thousand staff in France, a considerable proportion of whom work as cabin crew.

Gaël Leloup, a union representative for the Union of Civil Aviation Cabin Crew (UNAC), told RTL that “scheduling instability” has gradually become “the company’s normal way of operating”: “It’s normal to change people’s schedules once, twice, three or four times in the same day. And dozens of times a month, too. You might be moved from morning to evening shifts, or sent to another base in Europe for three or four days.”

The union representatives say they are fully aware of the disruption this strike action will cause to passengers’ travel plans, with another hectic weekend of holiday traffic on the horizon. “The sad thing is that it’s our passengers who will bear the brunt of it,” laments Gaël Leloup.

But with talks between staff and management having ground to a halt, workers feel they have been left with little choice: “After a year of discussions and still no solution, we have no option but to take major industrial action.”

For its part, EasyJet’s management said this week it is urging trade unions to withdraw the strike notice. The trade unions say they remain “open to negotiation” to call off the strike notice, provided that management “puts forward clear, concrete and binding solutions”.

Parkinson has added full-back Danny Imray and central midfielder Ben Whiteman to his ranks ahead of the trip to the Riverside Stadium.

Imray – who signed a four-year deal with Wrexham after leaving Crystal Palace – made his debut in the 1-0 pre-season loss to Sunderland on Sunday.

Midfielder Whiteman officially completed his move to north Wales from Preston North End on Tuesday night.

“I’m very pleased, two really good players,” Parkinson said of his newest recruits.

“Danny came out on the tour with us which was good for him.

“Ben’s just joined us this week, it’s been a bit of a crazy week for him to join because he hasn’t seen much of the lads, but he was training fully today.

“He’s a really experienced Championship player, he’s got great leadership qualities and I’m looking forward to working with him and Danny.”

Parkinson remains eager to further bolster his options before the 23:00 BST transfer deadline on Tuesday, 1 September.

And the experienced manager – who has guided Wrexham to three promotions since taking charge of the club in 2021 – believes his side still have plenty of work to do in the market.

“We feel we’re not where we need to be yet and we know that,” he added.

“We’re working, as ever, to make sure that the squad is as strong as it needs to be in what is going to be an incredibly competitive division.

“We’re under no illusions about that. We’ve got to make this squad so strong and we are working tirelessly to bring those extra players in to give everybody a boost.”

USC coach Lincoln Riley said he is glad to have the Trojans’ annual rivalry game with Notre Dame back without compromising the Trojans’ biggest need.

The schools announced they agreed to a four-year series starting in 2030 during Week 1 of the season at the Coliseum. The following year the teams will play in Week 1 at Notre Dame Stadium. The 2032 and 2033 games will be played during Week 1-3 of the season.

“We felt like the best thing for our program was to play this game early in the season,” Riley said. “As I’ve said publicly, we’re a part of a conference. We have a conference schedule to answer to. We don’t make our own schedule, we don’t choose our own kickoff times. And so with that, we have much less flexibility and so it made more sense for us to play this game in a traditional nonconference window.”

Riley, who took many jabs locally and nationally for letting one of college football’s most prestigious rivalry series expire, has been steadfast in noting the inequity between USC playing Notre Dame amid a grueling Big Ten schedule and independent Notre Dame’s ability to surround the contest with less taxing matchups to aid its College Football Playoff push.

Ultimately, both schools said they valued the rivalry and they found a way to reach an agreement announced Monday.

USC owns a 37-53-5 all-time record against Notre Dame, excluding the Trojans’ 2005 victory, which was later vacated due to NCAA sanctions (original record: 38-53-5). Riley is 1-3 during his Trojans tenure against the Irish. The teams battle for the Jeweled Shillelagh.

“I think this benefits everyone,” Riley said. “I think this benefits USC. I think this benefits Notre Dame. I think this benefits college football. This is important. We know its important to our fan base, we know it’s important to alumni, we know it’s important to former players and coaches.”

WASHINGTON — The nation is set to have its least competitive congressional election cycle in years by some measures, with California partly driving the shift.

The redistricting carried out in California and nine other states since 2024 has left the nation with an unusually low number of truly competitive districts, narrowing the battle for U.S. House control in this year’s historically consequential midterms cycle to a few dozen races at best.

In California, that looks like a paradox: The state has both a shrinking number of political battlegrounds and a handful of critical races that could help decide which party controls the House. Both are a result of Proposition 50, the Democratic-led, voter-passed redistricting effort designed to offset new maps drawn by Republicans in Texas and other states.

Only three California races are rated as competitive by Cook Political Report, the nonpartisan analyst, compared with 12 races in 2024 and nine in 2022, according to a Times analysis of Cook data.

California was also the biggest driver in the nationwide decline of competitive seats, according to a separate Cook analysis released Wednesday. Six of the 14 U.S. House seats that dropped out of the swing-seat zone in 2026 were in the Golden State.

“There’s no question that we’re seeing the consequence” of the state’s redistricting, “of having fewer competitive districts,” said Michael Latner, a professor of political science at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

That doesn’t dilute the key role California is expected to play in Democrats’ effort to win the House majority, however. The new map made some blue seats safer and gave the party the chance to flip up to five red seats.

“The path to the House majority still runs through California,” said Anna Elsasser, spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who said the party is investing heavily to flip those seats.

‘Not backing off’

The fight for the majority at the halfway point of President Trump’s second term is fierce. Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress, face headwinds fueled by voters’ feelings on the economy and the war in Iran. Democrats have built their campaigns around Americans’ economic frustration in an attempt to win the House majority and regain some power in Trump’s Washington.

Having more safe seats positions California to have a greater effect on the election, said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego, and in Congress afterward, where the state is expected to have a large blue delegation.

The less-competitive map is a return to the 2000s for California, when the state’s two parties agreed on a congressional map that created safe districts for both, Kousser said.

That decade saw fewer competitive House races before new maps created more battleground areas in 2010 and 2020, the result of regular redistricting that occurs every decade after the U.S. census.

The shift in the state’s competitive seats caused by Proposition 50’s partisan redistricting was so acute because the existing 2020 map was relatively neutral, Cook senior editor David Wasserman said in the report. In Florida, Missouri and Texas, by contrast, the maps Republicans replaced were already partisan, making the shifts less extreme.

Three of the seats Democrats targeted with Proposition 50 are rated as solidly blue, while two present fights: the Central Valley seat held by Republican David Valadao, the state’s only toss-up race per Cook, and the seat being vacated by retiring Republican Darrell Issa in the San Diego area, where the redrawn district now slightly favors Democrats.

Just one seat Republicans hope to flip is rated competitively by Cook, that of Democrat Adam Gray in the Central Valley. Democrats are slightly more favored there under the new map, but it presents a challenge for both parties.

Both parties view California’s three most competitive races as key to win, and each is putting resources toward a few additional contests.

“We’re not backing off a single seat in California,” said Christian Martinez, spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “We’re on offense.”

Shrinking battlegrounds nationwide

This year’s push by Republicans to redo state maps ahead of the November election — and California’s move to respond in kind — was without precedent. Ten states approved new maps; before this year, only two states had voluntarily redrawn maps between censuses for partisan advantage since 1970, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.

It was partly enabled by a spring Supreme Court decision that cleared the way for states to redraw their election maps to eliminate voting districts that were drawn with race as a consideration.

The 10 new maps supercharged an ongoing national trend of polarization that has seen the number of competitive seats shrink over the last 30 years. The country used to see election cycles with as many as 50 seats rated as toss-ups, said Erin Covey, who leads the Cook Political Report’s U.S. House coverage, something that has not happened since 2010. As of this week, just 18 of 435 House districts are rated as toss-ups by Cook.

California is not alone in having fewer battlegrounds; no state has a high concentration of competitive seats this cycle. Michigan had four under Cook’s ratings, and Pennsylvania, Iowa, New York and Texas each had three as of this week.

That could be unhealthy for democracy, experts said. Voters can feel as though their votes matter less, and it may contribute to negative public opinion about how the electoral system functions, Latner said.

“The very premise of a free republic is that you are going to have differences in views,” Latner said. “The way those differences get resolved is through electoral competition.”

The erosion of “free and fair competition … is a threat to all voters, regardless of their partisanship,” he added.

Eyes on key races

In California’s most competitive race, Valadao is being challenged in the redrawn 22nd District by progressive college professor Randy Villegas. Republicans are bullish about their chances to retain the seat.

In the neighboring 13th District, which the new map aimed to make safer for Democrats, Gray faces former Stockton mayor and Marine veteran Kevin Lincoln. Also important for both parties is the battle for the 48th District, the seat vacated by Issa. Republican Jim Desmond, a San Diego County supervisor, faces Democrat Marni von Wilpert, a San Diego City Council member.

Republicans have also targeted Rep. Derek Tran’s Democratic seat in the 45th District, another former battleground that Proposition 50 made safer for Democrats, and three other seats that Cook rates as solidly Democratic.

Democrats’ safer flips target Northern California’s 1st and Sacramento County’s 6th districts. They also expect to gain a seat in the new 41st District, which now covers parts of Los Angeles and Orange counties. The new map gave Democrats a Democratic voter registration edge there and forced Republican incumbent Ken Calvert to run in the newly drawn 40th District against fellow Republican Rep. Young Kim.

Nearly eight decades after the establishment of Israel, the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state remains the defining question of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Wars have been fought, peace treaties signed and diplomatic initiatives launched, yet this central strategic issue remains unresolved.

Today, Saudi Arabia is at the forefront of the efforts to establish a Palestinian state and deliver a lasting peace arrangement with Israel. Its commitment to the issue is made clear by its decision to cosponsor the creation of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution in 2024, which is currently meeting in Rome.

King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are following in the footsteps of successive Saudi monarchs. For more than half a century, the kingdom has maintained a remarkably consistent position. The question has never been whether peace with Israel is possible, but whether the political conditions required to make such a peace comprehensive, legitimate and irreversible were present.

Within that framework, recognition of Israel and the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state are parallel components of a single settlement. Neither is intended to precede the other.

That doctrine originated under King Faisal, who made Palestinian self-determination a central pillar of Saudi national security policy. His successors preserved the principle while adapting its diplomatic expression to changing regional realities. The objective remained constant even as the diplomatic environment evolved.

The Fahd Plan of 1981 – named after King Fahd – translated that doctrine into a formal peace proposal calling for Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab territories and recognition of Palestinian national rights. Two decades later, the Crown Prince and later King Abdullah expanded the same strategic logic through the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. Israel was offered comprehensive peace and normal relations with the Arab world in return for withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967 and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

The current Saudi leadership therefore inherits an established strategic doctrine rather than an unresolved policy debate. Their responsibility is to determine whether today’s diplomatic environment can finally satisfy conditions that have remained fundamentally unchanged for decades.

That continuity also reflects a broader question of state legitimacy. For the Saudi monarchy, support for Palestinian statehood has never been solely a matter of foreign policy. It has become one of the enduring pillars of the kingdom’s political and religious legitimacy, rooted in the monarch’s role as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and reinforced by the kingdom’s longstanding position within both the Arab and Islamic worlds.

The significance of that continuity became clearer after the Abraham Accords of 2020. By establishing diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, later joined by Morocco and Sudan, the accords demonstrated that Arab-Israeli normalisation could advance without progress on Palestinian statehood. They reshaped regional diplomacy, but they neither resolved the Palestinian question nor completed the wider peace process.

Successive US administrations have regarded Saudi participation as the decisive missing element. The Abraham Accords could expand without Riyadh, but they could not acquire their full strategic significance without the kingdom’s participation.

The Trump administration has once again placed Saudi-Israeli normalisation at the centre of its regional diplomacy. But this diplomatic push has to be evaluated in the larger post-October 7 context.

The war in Gaza created an entirely new diplomatic environment. The subsequent ceasefire initiative and the establishment of the Board of Peace introduced a framework intended to end the conflict, stabilise the territory and begin reconstruction. Their significance lies not in replacing a political settlement, but in creating conditions under which one might become possible.

For the kingdom, however, the essential political requirement remains unchanged: the actual and irreversible establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.

That position rests upon mutually reinforcing political, religious and economic foundations. The monarch governs not only as head of state but also as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, a responsibility carrying religious authority throughout the Islamic world. Any decision concerning recognition of Israel would therefore require both political approval and broad religious legitimacy. Such legitimacy could not credibly rest upon promises of future negotiations. It would require the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.

The kingdom’s wider influence reinforces that position. It is by far the Arab world’s largest economy, representing about one-third of total Arab economic output. The kingdom is the only regional member of the G20, one of the world’s leading energy superpowers and the world’s leading crude oil exporter. It is also the Middle East’s principal economic engine. Combined with its religious standing, these factors give Saudi decisions consequences extending far beyond bilateral diplomacy.

The implications would reach well beyond the kingdom itself. Several major Arab states, including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Algeria, have not recognised Israel. Their decisions are sovereign, but a Saudi-Israeli settlement founded upon Palestinian statehood would nevertheless transform the political environment in which those decisions are made.

Lebanon illustrates the point. Washington is encouraging Beirut to move towards formal relations with Israel as part of a broader effort to stabilise the Israeli-Lebanese frontier. The domestic political cost of such a decision, however, would look fundamentally different after a Saudi-backed settlement based upon Palestinian statehood than before one.

The same logic extends across the wider Muslim world. Major influential countries such as Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Malaysia have withheld recognition of Israel because the Palestinian question remains unresolved. A settlement accepted by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and accompanied by the establishment of a Palestinian state would compel those governments to follow. It would remove the principal political and religious obstacles to reconsidering their positions.

This is what ultimately distinguishes Saudi Arabia from the earlier Abraham Accords. Saudi Arabia’s participation would be different in kind, not merely in scale, carrying political, economic and religious significance across the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Whether the current diplomatic process can ultimately reach that point remains uncertain. Israel, the Palestinians, the United States, the European Union and certain regional governments all have indispensable roles to play. The final Saudi decision, however, rests with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Within the strategic framework they have inherited, Palestinian statehood and recognition of Israel are not sequential steps but parallel obligations. Neither can acquire lasting legitimacy without the other.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Sunrisers Leeds fall from 111-0 to 112-3 as Adil Rashid takes three wickets in five balls to bring his Southern Brave side right back in the match in the men’s Hundred.

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In his first speech in Downing Street, Burnham announced he would “end rough sleeping in our country”.

This was swiftly followed by a No 10 press release promising an extra £340m for the task over the next five years.

He also promised a new 10-year plan for Britain – to be unveiled later this year – and to build a new economy, putting “life’s essentials back under public control”.

But arguing that people also needed “breathing space now”, he said announcements on tackling the cost of living would start on Tuesday.

Other changes he promised included changing the education system to help young people into work, building more council homes, and honouring commitments to fund defence while sticking to the UK’s spending and debt rules.

Research shows language barriers on holiday are among the biggest obstacles when falling ill abroad — but a new service aims to help Brits in need.

Just one in three holidaymakers feel confident they could adequately describe a medical problem to a doctor while overseas. A survey of 2,000 adults revealed that language remains one of the most significant obstacles when falling ill on holiday.

A mere 28% are confident they could comprehend medical advice given to them, and 13% have delayed seeking help for a medical issue while abroad because of issues with the language, or a lack of knowledge on how to get help in a different country.

Two thirds of travellers couldn’t request a new prescription if they urgently needed one, and wouldn’t know how to communicate that they were suffering an allergic reaction or had been bitten or stung.

Despite most holidaymakers being perfectly capable of ordering a drink or locating the nearest loo, a mere 5% bother to learn essential medical phrases before jetting off.

The research was commissioned by the Staysure, to launch its free 24/7 Travel Doctor service.

The service will enable travellers to speak to an English-speaking doctor or dentist in many worldwide locations via video call, arrange prescriptions, or make an in-person appointment at a clinic or at their hotel when they need medical assistance abroad.

Spokesperson Simon McCulloch said: “I’m not surprised to see, in true British style, most of us would be able to order a beer in another language when we’re on holiday.

“But while we hope we never need to deal with a health issue while we’re away, the research shows a third of people have had to seek medical advice and come up against language barriers.

“While it’s good to be able to order a drink or ask for the bill in other languages, it’s arguably more important that travellers feel confident they can get the right medical assistance quickly if they’re ill or injured.

“We can’t be prepared for every single eventuality but knowing a few key phrases can help especially if you require fast care, have a medical condition or take medication.

“But the thought of speaking with a pharmacist or doctor abroad can be a worrying and daunting experience especially with language barriers.

“In fact, we’ve already seen 50% of those who use the service opt for a video consultation with an English-speaking doctor taking that stress away.”

Can you tell the difference between ordering a coffee and a cry for medical help? Take the quiz now to find out.

The study found when it comes to communicating abroad, 59% assume they’ll be able to get by in English when travelling to a non-English speaking country. While 37% simply rely on translation tools, and 12% would ask AI to understand.

Others admit they would turn to alternative ways to communicate, including using hand signals or gestures (70%), speaking English slowly (10%) or asking someone else to translate (nine%). With 39% even admitting to putting on a foreign accent to try and communicate better.

But these tactics don’t always pay off, with 39% ending up in an embarrassing or difficult situation due to language mix-ups.

Simon McCulloch, from Staysure, added: “When we travel, we don’t ever imagine we are going to end up needing medical help, but there are many occasions where we do.

“That’s why we launched the free 24/7 service, providing travellers with that extra layer of confidence. Our research also found that 79% of respondents said they would be inclined to use the service”.

United States President Donald Trump has delivered an extraordinary primetime speech, alleging government “cover-ups” and “vulnerability” in the nation’s electoral system.

But experts were quick to point out that Trump failed to present any conclusive evidence that past presidential elections had been swayed by malfeasance.

In many ways, Trump’s speech on Thursday revisited any themes familiar to the Republican leader.

He made broad accusations about a “deep state” conspiracy involving his Democratic predecessors, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and he lashed out at familiar foes, including the news media and China.

For years, Trump has spread baseless claims that his loss in the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” and “stolen”.

Trump stopped short of repeating his false claim that he had, in fact, won that race. But in his remarks, he sought to raise suspicion about the election’s outcome, pointing to declassified government documents.

Those files, however, painted a more nuanced picture than Trump portrayed, and they failed to substantiate his claims of a conspiracy.

After the speech, Democrats criticised Trump for attempting to mislead the public and reduce confidence in US electoral systems, with months to go until the November midterm election.

Here are the key takeaways from his address:

Trump claims China compromised election data

One of the biggest accusations of the night was levied against China, the US’s geopolitical rival.

“Starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People’s Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history,” Trump said near the outset of his speech.

He claimed that Beijing, through “illicit” means, had acquired 220 million US voter files, including names, addresses and party preferences.

“Think of that: Tens of millions of voters’ data in 18 states have been bought, stolen or hacked by China,” Trump said.

A spokesperson for China’s embassy denied such claims, saying the country “has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the US”.

Trump, however, did not say that the information had been used to influence any election.

But critics pointed out that such voter information is already publicly available. Some states even sell that public data, for prices ranging from $0 to $37,000, as the US Election Assistance Commission explained in a 2020 report.

The documents declassified by the White House also appeared to indicate Beijing was, at least in part, drawing from publicly available data. It did, however, express curiosity at China’s increasing interest in such information.

“While the PRC [People’s Republic of China] government has historically demonstrated interest in US elections, this is a newly-identified interest for this individual actor,” a heavily redacted assessment said.

“The US voter registration information is available for public download, with 2021 voter registration information available for some states.”

Trump claims a ‘deep state’ cover-up, vows retribution

In Thursday’s speech, Trump returned to a conspiracy theory that helped define his first successful bid for public office in 2016: that so-called “deep state” actors had sought to undermine his presidency.

He claimed there was a “shadow government” with “rogue bureaucrats” who attempted to cover up Chinese efforts to influence the 2020 vote.

They even sought to suppress information from his daily presidential brief, Trump alleged.

“ These were briefings I would get almost every day. Everything was kept out that was of importance,” he said.

Experts, however, have noted that presidential briefs are usually heavily curated to contain intelligence perceived to be of high importance.

An intelligence community report compiled in January 2021 assessed with “high confidence” that China had considered launching an influence campaign in 2020 — but that it eventually decided against it.

The report was declassified in March 2021. It contained a minority opinion that indicated China “took at least some steps” to undermine Trump’s re-election chances “primarily through social media and official public statements and media”.

The publication of the report would appear to contradict Trump’s claims of a “cover-up”.

Still, in his speech, Trump said he had instructed his top law enforcement officials to “fire those involved in the cover-up and to file criminal charges, if appropriate, against these people”.

Trump says public ‘blatantly lied to’ about election security

Critics had warned that Trump could use Thursday’s speech to undermine confidence in US elections by spreading falsehoods.

Some television news outlets, including ABC, NBC and CNN, even opted not to air the speech in full on their main broadcast channels.

The timing of the speech is significant, as it comes less four months ahead of the midterm elections, which decide control of Congress.

Trump did indeed spend part of his speech voicing allegations that American voters had been deceived by the same “deep state” actors he accused of targeting him.

“For many years, Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure, including voting machines and ballot counting systems,” Trump said.

“They’re vulnerable, and they’re easily compromised, and people within our government knew that.”

But the declassified documents released by the White House did not appear to contain any major revelations about such claims. Potential vulnerabilities have long been known, and local and federal officials have sought to address them.

The fact that elections are administered on the state and local level has also been cited as a barrier against any widespread tampering.

Given the decentralised nature of US election administration, the US intelligence community has long assessed that large-scale voting manipulation would be all but impossible.

After Trump’s speech, Democrats dismissed Trump’s remarks as distortions designed to disincentivise voters from participating in elections.

“President Donald Trump continues to lie, distort the truth to try to sow doubt and suppress the 2026 election,” US Representative Jason Crow said in a video statement. “He doesn’t want Americans to vote. He doesn’t want their voice to be heard.”

Trump rehashes Michigan investigation

Trump made a gesture at unity in Thursday’s speech, arguing that election security should not be a “partisan issue”.

“It should cause to unite us, not to divide us,” he said at one point.

But the Republican leader fired off dubious claims against targets big and small.

He called for broadcasters that did not air his speech to lose their licenses. He berated California as “worse than any third world country”. And he rehashed a incident in the swing state of Michigan that took place well before the 2020 election.

The case involved allegations of fake voter registration forms. But the forms were not processed and did not have any bearing on that year’s election; they were flagged months before the vote took place.

The state Attorney General’s Office probed the incident, as did the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Neither found evidence that fraud had been successfully committed. It is believed that the forms were not part of an election scam but rather an attempt to meet workplace quotas.

Still, Trump portrayed the incident as a significant breach in Thursday’s speech.

“It was pay, play, and cheat,” he alleged, proceeding to blame former President Biden for failing to pursue the case. “The Biden Department of Justice slow-walked the investigation and killed it.”

He added that he had instructed the FBI to re-open its investigation, although the declassified documents the White House released did not appear to provide new evidence in the case.

Speech sought to cast doubt, but contained few revelations

Trump’s speech had been hyped as a major moment in the president’s second term.

On Tuesday, when the primetime address was first announced, Trump said it would contain “really big news”. His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, warned reporters earlier in the day that the speech would “shock”.

But Democrats and election experts have argued that the speech was underwhelming — and would mostly serve to fire up Trump’s Republican base.

Indeed, Trump opened his remarks on Thursday with a resume of his second-term accomplishments, from border security to efforts to combat crime.

And he closed his speech with an appeal to pass the SAVE America Act, a piece of legislation he has repeatedly championed to heighten voter requirements.

The bill would increase voter identification standards, requiring proof of citizenship in the form of documents like birth certificates and passports that some US citizens may not have.

Rights groups have argued the requirements could disenfranchise some citizens.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, political analyst Eric Ham said the speech was yet another push in Trump’s effort to bring elections under federal control.

“This is something that the president has had an ambition of doing for quite some time, and I think what we saw tonight was another shot across the bow at trying to fundamentally change elections,” Ham said.

Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, also decried the speech as a distraction from Trump’s political woes ahead of the midterms.

“Donald Trump is a feeble, unhinged conspiracy-peddling 80-year old failed President,” Jeffries wrote on social media. “The economy is a disaster under this guy and the American people know it.”

Fit-again wing Robert Baloucoune returns to the Ireland line-up for Saturday’s much-anticipated Nations Championship game against New Zealand in Auckland.

Baloucoune, who won the Six Nations Rising Player award after starring in Ireland’s Triple Crown campaign earlier this year, missed the wins over Australia and Japan with a hamstring issue.

Head coach Andy Farrell recalls a host of key players after fielding a heavily rotated in last week’s 36-20 victory over Japan, with the return of captain Dan Sheehan, prop Tadhg Furlong and fly-half Sam Prendergast among nine changes.

Tom O’Toole, Tadhg Beirne, James Ryan, Jack Conan, Stuart McCloskey and Jimmy O’Brien are the six players retained in the line-up.

Having beaten the Wallabies and Brave Blossoms, Ireland aim to round out the southern hemisphere leg of their Nations Championship campaign with a statement win at Eden Park (08:10 BST).

The All Blacks, who beat France and Italy in their first two games, have not lost at the Auckland venue since 1994, a run of 52 Tests.

July 13 (UPI) — Scientists have discovered erythrulose, a type of sugar also found in raspberries, in a gas cloud near the center of the Milky Way, the galaxy that also includes our solar system.

This is the first time that researchers have discovered this sugar outside our solar system, although they have found other sugars, including ribose and glucose, in meteorites and asteroids. The study was published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Along with water and carbon, sugars are a key ingredient in life as we know it. They help to provide energy and serve other important purposes, researchers said.

“We were able to achieve this detection thanks to the combination of exceptionally sensitive observations, extensive frequency coverage and highly accurate laboratory spectroscopic data,” said Dr. Izaskun Jiménez-Serra, study co-author and staff researcher at the Spanish National Research Council. “In addition, our astronomical target is one of the richest chemical inventories in the galaxy, which enhances the probabilities of detection.”

Jiménez-Serra said erythrulose is “particularly relevant for the field of origins of life.”

Erythrulose is made up of four carbon atoms. It was confirmed by use of the Yebes 40-meter telescope and IRAM 30-meter telescopes in Spain, the study said.

The discovery is notable in part because it shows researchers that erythrulose could be found in the interstellar medium before finding its way into rocky planets such as Earth when they first formed, rather than later developing on the young planet. Lab experiments had shown that not enough of the sugar could have formed on pre-life Earth.

“The findings suggest that erythrulose can be made from simpler molecules on dust grains in space, and may then become part of more complex chemical systems,” researchers said.

Erythrulose is important because it changes the makeup of threose, another sugar, which in turn may be part of the origin of the nucleic acids that became RNA and DNA.

Spain-France clash is filled with superstars like Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele and Lamine Yamal, among others.

European giants France and Spain will compete for a place in the World Cup final on Tuesday, as the first semifinal kicks off in Dallas.

Both sides have some star names among their ranks, with the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Michael Olise and Lamine Yamal set to play a key role in securing their country’s place in Sunday’s final.

Here’s a closer look at some of the key players who will decide Tuesday’s first semifinal.

Kylian Mbappe

World Cup 2026 statistics:

• Goals: 8
• Assists: 3
• Minutes played: 563

The French captain has been in remarkable form at this World Cup, breaking numerous records along the way.

After bagging four goals in the group stages, Mbappe has now scored in every knockout round so far, and he has also provided a number of assists.

The Real Madrid forward is in the form of his life and is the biggest threat in a star-studded Les Bleus XI.

After scoring a hat-trick in a World Cup final loss to Argentina in Qatar, Mbappe will be determined to go one step further this year.

Michael Olise

World Cup 2026 statistics:

• Goals: 0
• Assists: 5
• Minutes played: 488

Michael Olise may not have got himself on the scoresheet at this World Cup so far, but he is the player that has provided the most assists.

He has set up five goals for France, and his partnership with Mbappe has been a highlight of the tournament.

The Bayern Munich midfielder has the technical ability to unlock defences, and he will be a key attacking threat in the semifinal with Spain.

Ousmane Dembele

World Cup 2026 statistics:

• Goals: 5
• Assists: 2
• Minutes played: 492

The dynamic Paris-Saint Germain (PSG) forward came into this tournament looking for his first-ever World Cup goal. He now has five of them.

He scored a first-half hat-trick in a group game with Norway and also bagged the second in France’s 2-0 win over Morocco in the quarterfinals.

Les Bleus have been having their own Golden Boot competition, with Dembele pushing Mbappe all the way.

The pair have now scored 13 goals between them at this World Cup, a feat that has not been achieved by two players from the same country since Brazil’s Ronaldo and Rivaldo in 2002.

Lamine Yamal

World Cup 2026 statistics:

• Goals: 1
• Assists: 0
• Minutes played: 405

At a tournament where stars like Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Harry Kane have been prolific, 18-year-old Lamine Yamal has just one goal to date, in a routine 4-0 group drubbing of Saudi Arabia.

Despite this, the Barcelona teenage sensation remains a key attacking threat for La Roja and scored against France in the semifinals of Euro 2024.

He was awarded player of the match for his performance in Spain’s quarterfinal win over Belgium, and he has also recorded the most successful dribbles at the tournament so far.

“I know I can contribute even if I don’t score. I know my movements draw in many opponents, so I do everything I can to help the team,” Yamal said after Spain’s victory over Belgium.

Mikel Oyarzabal

World Cup 2026 statistics:

• Goals: 4
• Assists: 1
• Minutes played: 519

The Real Sociedad forward is Spain’s top scorer at this World Cup, and he will be La Roja’s biggest hope for goals in Tuesday’s semifinal.

He scored six goals in six games during World Cup qualification and has followed that up with four goals at the tournament proper.

Oyarzabal also has experience of scoring crucial goals at the business end of tournaments. He bagged an 86th-minute winner against England in the Euro 2024 final, proving he can perform under pressure on the biggest stage.

La Roja will hope for more of the same this week.

Mikel Merino

World Cup 2026 statistics:

• Goals: 2
• Assists: 0
• Minutes played: 180

If Spain need a goal against France in the closing stages of the semifinal, then Luis de la Fuente will be turning to one man on his bench.

Mikel Merino has twice played the role of super-sub at this World Cup, coming off the bench to score late winners against Portugal and Belgium.

The Arsenal midfielder is unlikely to start against Les Bleus on Tuesday, but he remains a key part of Spain’s squad and will pose a real threat against tired legs towards the end of the match.