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An unusual alliance of Republican lawmakers and animal rights advocates, together with others, is creating storm clouds for a plan to protect one threatened owl by killing a more common one.

Last August, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved a plan to shoot roughly 450,000 barred owls in California, Oregon and Washington over three decades. The barred owls have been out-competing imperiled northern spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest, as well as California spotted owls, pushing them out of their territory.

Supporters of the approach — including conservation groups and prominent scientists — believe the cull is necessary to avert disastrous consequences for the spotted owls.

But the coalition argues the effort is too expensive, unworkable and inhumane. They’re urging the Trump administration to cancel it and lawmakers could pursue a reversal through special congressional action.

Last month, The Times has found, federal officials canceled three owl-related grants to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife totaling roughly $1.1 million, including one study that would remove barred owls from over 192,000 acres in Mendocino and Sonoma counties.

A female barred owl sits on a branch in the wooded hills, Dec. 13, 2017, outside Philomath, Ore.

(Don Ryan / Associated Press)

Two were nixed before federal funding was allocated and never got off the ground, Peter Tira, a spokesperson for the state wildlife agency, said. Another, a collaboration with University of Maryland biologists to better understand barred owl dispersal patterns in western forests, was nearly complete when terminated.

“Under President Donald J. Trump’s leadership, we are eliminating wasteful programs, cutting unnecessary costs and ensuring every dollar serves a clear purpose,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement when asked whether the grants had been terminated.

Another lever would be for Congress to overturn the owl-kill plan altogether using the Congressional Review Act.

The Government Accountability Office concluded in a late-May decision that the plan is subject to that act, sometimes used by new presidential administrations to reverse rules issued by federal agencies in the final months of prior administrations. Both chambers of Congress would need to pass a joint resolution to undo it.

In the months leading up to the GAO determination, bipartisan groups of U.S. House members wrote two letters to the secretary of the Interior laying out reasons why the owl-cull plan should not move forward. In total, 19 Republicans and 18 Democrats signed the letters, including seven lawmakers from California — David Valadao (R-Hanford), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles), Gil Cisneros (D-Covina), Josh Harder (D-Tracy), Linda T. Sánchez (D-Whittier), Jim Costa (D-Fresno) and Adam Gray (D-Merced).

Rep. Troy E. Nehls (R-Texas), an ardent Trump supporter, signed the initial letter, and is “currently exploring other options to end this unnecessary plan, which prioritizes one species of owls over another, and wastes Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars,” communications director Emily Matthews said.

Kamlager-Dove said also said earlier this year that she objected to killing one species to preserve another. “And as an animal lover, I cannot support the widespread slaughter of these beautiful creatures,” she said.

If a resolution is introduced, passed and signed by President Trump, the plan will be over. The Fish and Wildlife Service would not be allowed to bring forward a similar rule, unless explicitly authorized by Congress.

Tom Wheeler, executive director of the Environmental Protection Information Center, which supports reducing the barred owl population, called the specter of the Congressional Review Act “very scary.”

It’s “an intrusion by Congress into areas where we’re relying on high agency expertise and scientific understanding,” he said. “It’s vibes versus science.”

A California spotted owl is shown inside the Tahoe National Forest in California on July 12, 2004.

(Debra Reid / Associated Press)

Wheeler said he believed it was more likely the program would be deprioritized amid budget cuts than eliminated through the Act.

“If we don’t move forward with barred owl removal, it will mean the extinction of the northern spotted owl, and it will likely mean the extinction of the California spotted owl as well,” he said.

Science is on its side, he said. A long-term field experiment showed that where barred owls were killed, the population of spotted owls stabilized.

For animal welfare activist Wayne Pacelle, who has galvanized opposition to the owl-cull plan, it’s a hopeful turn of events.

“Even if they had full funding for this, we don’t think it could possibly succeed,” said Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy. The land area where the barred owls need to be controlled is just too vast, he said. And barred owls from elsewhere, he said, will simply fly in and replace those that are felled.

As few as 3,000 northern spotted owls are left on federal lands. The brown raptors with white spots are listed as threatened under both the California and federal Endangered Species Act.

California spotted owls are also in decline, and federal wildlife officials have proposed endangered species protections for two populations.

The two sides of the fierce debate agree that barred and spotted owls compete for nesting sites and food — such as woodrats and northern flying squirrels.

Barred owls and spotted owls are similar in appearance and can even interbreed. But barred owls are more aggressive and slightly larger, in addition to being more generalist when it comes to what they’ll eat and where they’ll live, allowing them to muscle out their fellow raptors.

Federal wildlife officials and some conservationists consider barred owls invasive.

As Europeans settled the Great Plains, they suppressed fire and planted trees, allowing barred owls to expand westward from their origin in eastern North America, biologists believe.

“I would call this an invasion, and I would call these non-native species,” Wheeler said.

On the flip side, some see the owl arrival along the West Coast as natural range expansion.

There are also conflicting views of the cost of exterminating so many owls.

Opponents estimate it will cost about $1.35 billion, extrapolated from a $4.5-million contract awarded to a Northern California Native American tribe last year to hunt about 1,500 barred owls over four years.

A 2024 research paper, however, concluded that barred owl removal in the range of the northern spotted owl would cost from $4.5 million to $12 million per year in its initial stages, and would likely decrease over time. At $12 million a year, the 30-year plan would run $360 million.

Pacelle’s Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy have also sued the Fish and Wildlife Service in U.S. District Court in Washington state over the plan. Friends of Animals, another animal welfare group, filed suit in Oregon.

Wheeler’s Environmental Protection Information Center has intervened in the suits in defense of the plan, and those cases continue to advance.

While the loss to Fiji was damaging to Scotland, a loss to Samoa would have been unthinkable. However, Ashman’s early score eased any jitters.

The Australia-bound hooker latched on to a driving maul to put Scotland in the lead after seven minutes, but in those early stages they’d had to stand up to some surging Samoa attack.

But after they landed the first blow, the backline kicked into gear. Stafford McDowall kicked through for Hutchinson to collect with the Northampton man darting over for Scotland’s only central score of the first half.

The next one was much wider, as the impressive Jamie Dobie looped a long miss pass out to the scampering Reed to dot down in the corner.

Five minutes later, they had their fourth. Dobie, Fergus Burke and Rowe all timed passes to perfection, with Steyn cantering in untouched.

They started the second-half in equally clinical fashion. Pounding at the Samoan barricades, the battering ram of Gilchrist eventually broke through to timber over for only his second international score.

Any hope of shutting out the hosts was soon snuffed out as replacement George Horne threw a blind pass on his own five-metre while being bundled into touch. Samoan lock Nee-Nee was on hand to intercept, gleeful at such an opportunity being handed to him.

Scotland responded immediately. From a scrum they went left, then right, then left again. Andy Onyeama-Christie carried hard, as did Matt Fagerson, but it was Burke’s pop-up offload from the deck which gave Rowe the chance to leap into the corner and touch down.

Toulon centre Paia’aua was able to get one back for Samoa, spinning out of the hands of two Scotland tacklers, but Turner got the seventh from the back of a driving maul.

The scoreline could have been far more comfortable, but Burke forgot his kicking boots and could only land one of his four conversion attempts. It was a greasy surface, in fairness to the Scotland newbee.

A young woman emerged from the dark into a green and bushy clearing. Under the faux moonlight, she wandered the stage, speaking to herself. “Where’s my camera? I can’t believe I lost it. All my memories were there,” she said with a pang of panic in her voice.

Moments later, a young man surfaced from the same spot. His eyes scanned the area as well, with a pained look on his face. “Have you seen my drums?” When he plays his drums his heart races, he explained; his people feel joy, and the living, the dead and even the stars dance. “It’s like all our memories are there too,” he said.

With this poignant intro, Bad Bunny kicked off the “locals only” opening night of his 30-show residency in San Juan — which, for the first three weekends, will only be accessible to those who can show proof of their residence in Puerto Rico.

Taking place each weekend at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum, affectionately referred to as El Choli by locals, the concert series revolves around his latest album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” and was advertised with name “No me quiero ir de aquí,” which translates to “I don’t want to leave here.” It’s a refrain that’s been associated with the artist since he used it as a lyric in his 2022 ode to his homeland, “El Apagón,” and he considers it still resonant today.

A celebration of Puerto Rican identity, a fighting spirit shaped indelibly by its music and history, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” also urges its listeners that time is not to be taken for granted, and the past, present and future are not just distinct phases but one whole, inextricably tied together.

(Lorenzo Lagares/For Los Angeles Times)

Fans that flocked to the opening weekend concerts were treated to Benito at the apex of his talents, not to mention his stamina. For three hours and over 35 songs, he danced, strutted and sang to the approving roar of over 15,000 in attendance. The show opened with rumbles of bomba y plena, and an unreleased track that got the crowd buzzing — followed by popular recent bangers like “Ketu Tecré,” “El Clúb” and “Pitorro de Coco.” He then regaled the crowd with a catwalk performance of “Kloufrens” and “Weltita,” which featured an appearance by Chuwi, the beloved tropical jazz quartet from Isabela.

The two stages were grandiose, both in size and production quality. The main stage was a reproduction of a hill, made to approximate the lush foliage found in Puerto Rico’s rainforest and central hillside towns. On one side, you could spy the two iconic Monobloc chairs from the album’s cover, and on the other, a flamboyán tree blossoming with red flowers. On the opposite end of the coliseum’s arena was a pristine pink vacation home, built to mirror the one from the short film that debuted along with the album.

That film introduced the characters of Old Man, played by acclaimed Puerto Rican filmmaker Jacobo Morales, and Concho, the sweet-natured Puerto Rican crested toad voiced by Kenneth Canales, which was brought to life by the stop-motion work of Quique Rivera. The two unlikely housemates returned in two new vignettes shown at the concert, in which they live in a cabin in the middle of snowy woods. Concho misses the Caribbean warmth, and feels very far away from home. A kind Morales reminds him: “We’re Puerto Rican no matter where we are, and even from afar we defend what’s ours.”

Remember, he says while looking straight at the camera, Puerto Rico is “the real calentón.” This cued a barrage of images that flashed across the screen, showing photos of historic protests and civil disobedience carried out over the decades by revolutionary Puerto Ricans.

(Lorenzo Lagares/For Los Angeles Times)

Benito reappeared under the flamboyán tree, where he was joined by guitarist Antonio Caraballo. Here, we got some of his lovelorn “Sad Bunny” persona as they reinterpreted acoustic versions of older hits like “Si Estuviésemos Juntos,” “Ni Bien Ni Mal” and “Amorfoda” before ending with “Turista.” All the while, Benito waxed philosophically to the audience, commiserating about matters of the heart.

From here, the action swiftly moved from the countryside to the pink house which suddenly filled with dancers in club wear — and Benito’s longtime tour DJ Orma. Those craving a rowdy perreo party got their wish, as his salsa-dembow hybrid track “Nuevayol” launched a 16-song stretch of frenzied, sweaty reggaeton and trap bops. Bouncing feverishly from “Titi Me Preguntó” and “La Jumpa” to “Yo Perreo Sola” and “Efecto,” Benito transformed the coliseum into a nightclub.

Among the guests that night were none other than basketball legend LeBron James, Golden State champion Draymond Green and UnitedMasters CEO (and one of the most influential men in Black culture and business) Steve Stoute.

James and Benito have a friendship going back several years, and it’s hard to blame the superstar for wanting to hang with his pal — even if said pal is an American — during a concert by an artist who is not really vibing with the United States right now. But then again, if the home we see on stage is supposed to represent an Airbnb owned by non-Puerto Ricans — which is what was narratively implied — Benito might as well flex and bring in some elite gringos. Chants of “MVP! MVP!” rang out at one point, provoking the four-time NBA champion to throw up a hand heart gesture to the crowd. It’s all love.

That being said: “LeBron James sat on an air conditioner and danced while Bad Bunny sang ‘Safaera’” is a ridiculous Mad Libs sentence that actually happened.

As he paced from side to side on the house’s rooftop, Benito would again touch on the topic of time. “You get so caught up in the euphoria of the moment that you forget to appreciate the present,” he said. He asked the crowd to put their phones away and focus on the next song, and on whoever is accompanying them, or even someone across the aisle who has caught their eye. “This is the moment to act,” he added, and ask them for a dance, just before the thrust of “Eoo,” made famous from his sensual Calvin Klein underwear ad, got the whole building quaking.

Puerto Rican plena ensemble Los Pleneros de la Cresta appeared to interpret “Café Con Ron,” as well as one of their own songs, “Ábreme Paso,” which gave way to a second video vignette. It showed Morales’ Old Man leaving the cabin and trudging through a snowstorm, until he ran into Benito’s musical director Julito Gastón — the young man from the opening skit — sitting behind his drum. As they lock eyes, Morales leaves him with a word of advice that’s not just about the music, but the core of his being: “Never stop playing your drums.”

(Lorenzo Lagares/For Los Angeles Times)

Bad Bunny resurfaced, looking a bit more subdued. He spoke softly, but sternly, about Puerto Rico and its struggle against gentrification and government neglect. “We have to protect this land,” he said. “We have to protect what’s ours if we want our children to make a life here.” He followed it up by crooning “Lo Que Le Pasó A Hawaii,” the solemn décima all about how the archipelago is being threatened existentially.

An animated crash course in salsa history, narrated by Néstor Galán, set the scene for Benito’s touring live band, Los Sobrinos to assemble. Dressed in a vintage ‘70s garb of a Fania bandleader, Benito led the group into the last and most rousing part of the concert: a salsa reimagining of “Callaíta,” which gave way to to “Baile Inolvidable” and “Dtmf.” The crowd leapt to their feet, twirling and stepping to the rhythms.

Before he launched into the opening freestyle of “La Mudanza” he paused to gather himself; he took off his sunglasses to reveal his eyes had welled up with tears and gratefulness. As the image of a giant Puerto Rican flag graced the ceiling, he motioned for everyone to sing and scream the final lyrics in unison: “Nobody’s taking me from here, I’m not moving anywhere, tell ‘em this is my home, where my grandfather was born, I’m from P f—in’ R!”

In the lead-up to last year’s gubernatorial elections, Bad Bunny spent hundreds of thousands of his own money buying ad space on billboards across Puerto Rico urging its citizens to not vote for the ruling party, accusing them of being the main culprits of the island’s woes. The ads consisted of a simple, white text on a black background. In the end, the same party that has led since 2017 won reelection; and since then, the current governor, Republican Party member Jenniffer González-Colón, has only continued to be mired in controversy.

When entering the concert area, the large screens over the main stage showed one message with white letters on a black background: “Yo Te Lo Dije,” or “I Told You So.” When the show was over and everyone began to trickle out, a new message appeared, recognizable to all: “No Me Quiero Ir De Aquí.”

With his residency, Bad Bunny issues a rallying cry for Puerto Ricans: Act now. Change the future, so that you don’t regret the past. And most importantly, never stop playing your drums.

Twenty-one years before Uruguay lifted the first Fifa World Cup, there was another attempt to create a global football tournament, with clubs rather than countries.

Sir Thomas Lipton, philanthropist and creator of Lipton Ice Tea, created a football competition that saw Europe’s elite face off against each other.

With the competition set to be held in Turin, Italy, invitations were sent to the football associations of England, Germany, Italy and Switzerland – the predominant powerhouses of the game – with all but the English FA accepting the offer to send one of their best teams to take part.

Germany and Switzerland sent their respective champions, Stuttgart and Winterthur, while Italy sent a combined Turin and Piemonte side.

Not wanting to see England go unrepresented at the tournament, Lipton turned his attention to the Northern League and West Auckland Town.

Why exactly the amateur outfit were chosen is a much speculated subject but, according to local historian Martin Connolly, there are a couple of possible scenarios.

“The myth was that Sir Thomas Lipton had asked for Woolwich Arsenal Football Club, WAFC, and his secretary made a mistake, but my research shows that is not correct,” he told BBC Real Time in 2014.

“The Northern League was one of the oldest leagues in England with fantastic teams and it’s thought that Bishop Auckland might have been the target – but, in fact, West Auckland got the invite.”

Mistake or not, amateur side West Auckland duly accepted the invitation and the stage was set for the first World Cup, or, by its official and very creative name, the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy.

“Who can turn the world on with her smile?” It’s Mary Tyler Moore, of course, and you should know it.

To be precise, it’s Mary Richards, a person Moore played. But the smile was her own, and it worked magic across two situation comedies that described their time in a way that some might have regarded as ahead of their time. Although Moore proved herself as an actress of depth and range and peerless comic timing again and again, on the small and big screen and onstage, “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” made her a star, and incidentally a cultural figurehead, and are the reason we have a splendid new documentary, “Being Mary Tyler Moore,” premiering Friday on HBO. Were it titled simply “Being Mary,” there’d be little doubt who was meant.

Moore was driven to perform from an early age, which she relates to wanting to impress her father — though that seems too simple. She trained as a dancer, and right out of high school played a pixie, Happy Hotpoint, in a series of appliance commercials. (A visible pregnancy ended that job.) She played a faceless switchboard operator on “Richard Diamond, Private Detective,” from which she was bounced when she asked for more money, and a typical assortment of starlet roles in television and movies. A failed audition to play the older daughter on “The Danny Thomas Show” led to her being called for “Van Dyke,” of which Thomas was an executive producer. Creator Carl Reiner remembers, “I read about 60 girls, and I read the whole script with them. She read three lines, three simple lines. There was such a ping in it, an excitement, a reality to it.” They soon discovered her gift for comedy.

“The Dick Van Dyke Show,” in which Moore played Laura Petrie to Van Dyke’s Rob, came into the world in the first year of the Kennedy administration, and there is something of that new White House, torch-passed-to-a-new-generation spirit in the Petries’ New Rochelle, N.Y., home. (Van Dyke was 35 when the show premiered — just old enough to be president himself — to Moore’s 24, but the two never seemed generationally distinct.) They were modern, with modern tastes. This was not the old-fashioned, small-town family comedy of “Father Knows Best” or “Leave It to Beaver.” If you lived in my household, you might have felt right at home with them.

Then again, “Dick Van Dyke” was not really a family comedy; some episodes might involve their son, Richie (Larry Mathews), but many more would not, and when child-rearing was the subject, it would more likely highlight the foolishness of the parents. The Petries were suburban in the sense of being connected to, not remote from, the city — sophisticated, fun, elegant. They threw parties, went out in formal wear, tried the latest dances. They were sexual. And they held the stage with equal strength and force.

If they were well on the safe side of bohemian, they were arty in their way, Rob a comedy writer, Laura, like Moore, a dancer — a former dancer in the show, which was not so ahead of its time to imagine a working mother. Still, the series found opportunities to let her dance. (“I will go to my grave thinking of myself as a failed dancer, not a successful actor,” Moore says in the documentary.)

Famously — and at once realistically and, for TV at that time, radically — she wore pants, tight ones; Moore is nearly synonymous with Capris. I turned on a random episode the other night (Season 4, Episode 1, “My Mother Can Beat Up My Father”), one I’d somehow never seen, in which a drunk at a restaurant bar begins to harass Laura. Rob tries to get him to back off, claiming he knows karate, and gets a punch in the nose — at which Laura, to her own surprise, flips the drunk with a judo move. (She’d learned self-defense when she was entertaining at Army bases.)

It winds up in a society column. Laura finds it funny. Rob, whose ego is as bruised as his proboscis, childishly lashes out.

Rob: “How come you never dress like a girl?”

Laura, incredulous: “What?

“Well, honey, I mean, shirts and slacks, shirts and slacks, that’s all I ever see when I come home.”

“You love me in shirts and slacks.”

“Yeah, well, but whatever happened to dresses?”

“Rob, you know, this is the stupidest conversation we’ve ever had.”

Mary Tyler Moore with Dr. Robert Levine, to whom she was married from 1983 until her death in 2017. Levine is an executive producer on “Being Mary Tyler Moore.”

(From Robert Levine / HBO)

“Dick Van Dyke” stories were divided equally between home and work, with the two worlds frequently intersecting. “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” took that model and put Moore in the center of the action, amid a brilliant comic cast. Her move to Minneapolis, which begins the series and lands her in the newsroom at WJM, was not born from tragedy or pressure; she moves on her own initiative, recovering from nothing but the possibility of a life that won’t suit her.

That Mary was a single woman in no rush to be married was something new for television — but it could hardly be said that she lived alone; her apartment was subject to regular incursions from Rhoda (Valerie Harper) and Phyllis (Cloris Leachman), a company of women hashing out their different lives in a sort of dialectical comedy. (There were women in the writing room; Treva Silverman, whose comments are featured prominently in “Being Mary Tyler Moore,” was the first woman to win an Emmy with a solo credit.)

Whether this was or was not a feminist series is a question that still prompts think pieces. Gloria Steinem thought not, and Moore did not identify herself as such — though in the opening scene of the documentary, in a 1966 interview with a backward David Susskind, she does say, “I agree with Betty Friedan and her point of view in her book ‘Feminine Mystique’ that women are, or should be, human beings first, women second, wives and mothers third.”

Unlike the Norman Lear comedies — “All in the Family,” also on CBS, premiered a few months after “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” — the MTM-produced comedies, which also included the “Moore” spinoffs “Rhoda” and “Phyllis,” were contemporary and “adult” without being issue-oriented. But because they were realistic about their characters, they couldn’t help but engage with their times and the culture. If the feminism of “Mary Tyler Moore,” which is in a sense just a function of its intelligence, is not explicit, it is in the bones of the show. And Mary, like the woman who played her, “inspired as many women as Eleanor Roosevelt,” in the words of series co-creator James L. Brooks.

If Moore never repeated the massive television success of her first two series, well, that would have been practically impossible. Some failed later shows, including the sitcom “Mary,” which found her working at a Chicago tabloid, and “The Mary Tyler Moore Hour,” which blended variety with a backstage sitcom, go unmentioned in the documentary, but are not without interest and may be found floating in cyberspace. Various dramatic roles, onscreen and onstage, demonstrated the subtlety and depth of her acting, though you could find that in most any episode of “Mary Tyler Moore” as well.

Her last great triumph — though not at all the end of her career — was her Oscar-nominated turn in Robert Redford’s “Ordinary People,” whose cold mother is deemed closer to her own character; she had a reputation, she says, for being “an ice princess.” Redford decided to cast her having once seen her walking on the beach, looking sad. (“He saw my dark side.”)

It is the point of nearly any show business biography that the person we know from their work is and is not the person who lived the life. Indeed, the very title “Being Mary Tyler Moore” suggests that “Mary Tyler Moore” was both a part she played and a person she was, similar in some respects and markedly different in others. Directed by James Adolphus, with Moore’s widower, Dr. Robert Levine, on board as an executive producer, the film has access to a wealth of family photos and home movies — including footage of her bridal shower, featuring a hilarious Betty White — and does a fine job of illuminating the private Moore, with testimony from (unseen) colleagues, friends and family.

It’s no secret that her life was marked by tragedy. (She was a private person, but she wrote books. And some things you can’t keep out of the papers.) She had a drinking problem. Her sister died from an overdose of alcohol and painkillers. Her son, Richard, accidentally shot himself. Diabetes led to numerous problems with her health. But “Being Mary Tyler Moore” is a happier story than one might expect, which in itself makes it a moving one. Moore and Levine were married from 1983 to her death in 2017, and they settled into a life filled with dogs and horses; there were good works too, on behalf of juvenile diabetes.

We can too easily measure the worth of a performer’s life by their professional success, as if there’s nothing more terrible than a canceled sitcom, a box office flop or the lack of good roles all but a few actors eventually face. “Being Mary Tyler Moore” reminds us not to make that mistake.

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Letters going out

What trade deals has the US agreed?

That leads nicely to England’s pace bowlers. Having opted to pick an unchanged side for Edgbaston, Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse and Josh Tongue have now bowled 82, 77 and 81 overs respectively.

Mohammed Siraj is the only India quick to have bowled more than 62.

All three of England’s pacemen struggled at times in Birmingham. Woakes was not as threatening after his new-ball spell while Tongue has been played well by India’s top order and was not as successful against the tail as in the first Test.

Change will surely come at Lord’s given three days off is little time to recover and Jofra Archer is waiting in the wings.

Could England conceivably leave out all three?

Gus Atkinson, who has not played since May because of a hamstring injury, is back in the squad but it would be a risk to play Atkinson and Archer, who has bowled in two innings in a match once in four years, in the same XI.

Woakes, 36, may need a rest but England like variety in their attack and he averages 12.9 at Lord’s – the best of any bowler in Test history.

England would also need to replace his batting at number eight if he is left out – even more so if Carse, an able batter, was also absent at number nine.

Sam Cook is the Woakes replacement in England’s squad but does not offer that same batting depth.

Do not rule out bowling all-rounder Jamie Overton adding to his one Test cap, which was earned in 2022.

Celebrities and the world’s toddlers adore the long-running Aussie children’s TV entertainers, but now in it’s third reincarnation, the punishing schedule has taken its toll on the kiddie supergroup

Robert De Niro, Dolly Parton and Jessie J are fans, they’re worth millions and play sell-out concerts around the world. The Wiggles – aka The Beatles for toddlers – are a preschooler’s entertainment juggernaut that has taken over the world.

They’ve got a new country album out, Wiggle Up Giddy Up, featuring two songs with the rhinestone queen herself, Dolly Parton. And tickets to their current world tour are hotter than an Oasis reunion gig.

They have previously sold out Madison Square Garden in New York for 12 days in a row and, ahead of this week’s show in the US, Hollywood legend De Niro, 81, was granted a backstage pass with his two-year-old daughter, Gia, to meet her idol – founder member, Anthony Field (Blue Wiggle).

Like most people over the age of five, De Niro didn’t have a clue about this global phenomenon until he had Gia with professional martial artist girlfriend Tiffany Chen, 45.

The Wiggles sang their classic banger Rock-A-Bye Your Bear for the veteran actor’s family, which drew a rare smile. And De Niro admitted: “I didn’t know of them until I started seeing them and my daughter loves to watch them… but they’re great!”

With the advent of YouTube and the arrival of their shows on Netflix, a new British audience is embracing The Wiggles.

When they came to the UK recently, Jessie J met them with her son Sky and was treated to some of the Tree of Wisdom’s viral TikTok dance moves.

They’re also part of a wave of Australian children’s TV, like Bluey, that is captivating British kids, giving them Aussie accents and pushing CBeebies off the map.

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Borkowski PR’s Gregor Cubie expects his 19-month-old to join the fan club soon, and wonders if ‘Aussie-ness’ is the magic ingredient wooing international audiences.

“In the same way that Bluey is almost universally popular and accessible, The Wiggles’ sheer Aussie-ness might work in their favour when it comes to their reputation,” he says.

But, scratch the surface, according to Gregor, and you’ll find a long-running supergroup, dogged by controversy, ill health and accusations of “going woke”.

One of Australia’s most successful exports, The Wiggles take it in turns with pop sensation Kylie Minogue and Hollywood actor Russell Crowe to top the Aussie rich list.

Majority owner Anthony is estimated to be worth £25m, on top of the £10 million a year the band rakes in from tours, TV shows, new releases, merchandise and sponsorships.

They have their own TV series Ready, Steady, Wiggle, have produced 62 studio albums, sold 40 million books, CDs and DVDS, and attracted more than 5 billion views on YouTube and 3 billion streams across various music services.

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They’ve been making ear-worm sing-a-long pop since 1991, when kindergarten teaching students Anthony and Jeff Fatt, who were members of the R&B pop band the Cockroaches, and got together with two fellow students – Murray Cook and Greg Page – in Sydney, to make an album of simple, catchy songs for pre-schoolers

After Anthony’s infant niece tragically died from sudden infant death syndrome, the Cockroaches disbanded.

One of the songs Anthony wrote, Get Ready to Wiggle, inspired the new band’s name because they thought “wiggling” describes how children dance.

“We met at university doing a course in early childhood – this connection with music and teaching is what became The Wiggles,” explains Anthony.

While The Wiggles has evolved since those early days, the four original members hold a special place in people’s hearts – Anthony and Jeff Fatt (Purple Wiggle), Murray Cook (Red Wiggle) and Greg Page (Yellow Wiggle). And their hits like Hot Potato and Fruit Salad, were toddler dance floor fillers for the next two decades.

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While members have changed, the primary colours of red, yellow, blue and purple that they wear is no doubt the secret of the Wiggles’ success with the ankle biters.

In Hot Potato: The Story of the Wiggles 2023 documentary, Anthony says: “It doesn’t matter who wears the skivvies, as long as we reflect our audience and communicate with children.”

Like any band, they had to break America to go truly global – and when the Disney Channel played them four times a day to their 85 million subscribers, their success was meteoric. All of a sudden, they were playing 10,000 seater arenas.

PR, Gregor puts their success down to a “combination of their prolific output with its ceaseless ability to hypnotise toddlers”.

He adds: “Also, a less extreme version of the Royal Family’s ‘never complain, never explain’ approach. Instead of saying nothing, they say the bare minimum and carry on as if nothing happened.

“You rarely see naval-gazing and the consistency and popularity of their work keeps generations of kids coming back for more.”

While there aren’t many skeletons to rattle in The Wiggle cupboards, behind their happy faces and signature finger point, members have been dogged by setbacks.

Controversies include the Hot Potato incident two years ago, when a council in Western Australia played their famous song on loop to deter anti-social behaviour at a homeless shelter.

The Wiggles complained, saying their music should only be used to “spread joy and happiness” but the damage was done.

But the fact De Niro was happy to be pictured with The Wiggles is a massive endorsement.

“Robert De Niro seems increasingly like the kind of guy who considers how his every public appearance and utterance might affect his legacy, so it’s a pretty major stamp of approval that he’s happy to be publicly associated with the Wiggles. Fundamentally they are free of reputation risk,” says Gregor.

“The irony is that the Wiggles have had a few controversies which are fairly stereotypical of long-running bands – walkouts, inter-band marriages and divorces; allegations that a song is racially insensitive, accusations of going ‘woke.’ They’ve been ruthlessly parodied on 30 Rock and, of course, the Hot Potato incident was unpleasant.”

For members of The Wiggles, the squeaky clean expectations can be tricky.

“During my time in The Wiggles, I was out at a gig one night and I was having a drink, and the next day a newspaper reported: ‘The Wiggles member caught having a beer’, and that was a shock. I am an adult!” says Murray.

And doing 400 to 500 shows a year – cramming up to three gigs into a single day – took its toll on the original members, with Jeff, Murray and Greg retiring for health reasons in 2012.

A mystery illness forced Greg to leave in 2006. He was replaced by Sam Morans, but came back in 2012. Then he suffered a heart attack on stage during a 2020 reunion show. That same year, Murray had open heart surgery.

Revealing his own struggles, Anthony released a memoir Out Of The Blue last year, detailing the years of mental and physical health problems he’s suffered, including depression, undiagnosed ADHD and chronic pain.

Yet Field created a second generation of Wiggles with Simon Pryce (Red Wiggle), Lachlan Gillespie (Purple Wiggle) and the first female, Emma Watkins (Yellow Wiggle).

“We might be responsible for their first experience of music,” says Emma, speaking about their responsibility to their tiny fans

Sadly, trouble soon upended their paradise, as shortly after Yellow Wiggle Emma married Purple Wiggle Lachie, they divorced and she left the group not long after.

Another shake-up in 2021 saw 15-year-old Tsehay Hawkins becoming Yellow Wiggle.

Now 62, Anthony is the only remaining original Wiggle, in a group of eight performers – Tsehay, Lachlan, and Simon, as well as Caterina Mete, Lucia Field, Simon Pryce, Evie Ferris, John Pearce – who are as gender-diverse and racially-diverse as their millions of fans.

Costumed characters, played by the more junior Wiggles, include Dorothy the Dinosaur, Henry the Octopus, Wags the Dog, and Captain Feathersword.

While some of the newer members say their estimated £72,000 earnings are a fraction of the big bucks of the original members, they have given the group a bigger presence on social media, where the Tree of Wisdom (played by Anthony’s nephew, Dominic Field) regularly goes viral on TikTok, with his exuberant dance moves.

And, in recent years, they’ve been noticing something new – a generational crossover, as kids grow up, but remain fans.

Dorothy the Dinosaur is also now a DJ, who remixes the original Wiggles classics for the older audience. And they’ve been getting down with the cool kids – covering songs by Fatboy Slim, White Stripes and Tame Impala’s Elephant.

“We’re bringing back happy memories,” says Anthony. “And it’s a real privilege to do that.”

Altogether now, kids, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle!

Classic kids TV groups down the years:

The Monkees, 1960s – Four cute surfer boys Davy Jones, Mickey Donlenz, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith running around in zany plots to brilliant pop tracks, in a sitcom that captured the spirit of the era.

The Banana Splits, 1970s – Four costumed animal characters who’d perform songs and comedy skits in a psychedelic world, was just as weird and fun as it sounds. The makers had clearly been on the wacky baccy.

Rainbow, 1980s – Presenter Geoffrey and his camp puppets Zippy, George and Bungle and hippy singers Rod, Jane and Freddy took us “Up above the streets and houses, Rainbow climbing high” every week. I still miss them.

Teletubbies, 1990s – Some called it the most disturbing children’s show on TV – but even now millions of babies are glued to repeats of these four tubby aliens, Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, Laa-laa, and Po, with coat hangers on their heads living on a mini golf course.

Zingzillas, 2000s – Puppet monkey band Zak, Tang, Panzee and Drum lived on a tropical island and made real music together and introduced tots to rock, soul, jazz and samba styles – along with some dodgy titles like Do You Didgeridoo?

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Wales captain Aaron Ramsey has completed his move to Mexican side Club Universidad Nacional, – known as Pumas UNAM.

It is understood Ramsey has joined the Mexico City-based club on a one-year deal and becomes the first high-profile British player to play in the Mexican league.

The 34-year-old shares the same agent as Pumas manager Efrain Juarez.

Ramsey was appointed Cardiff interim manager for the final three games of the 2024-25 Championship season after the club sacked Omer Riza.

But he was unable to prevent relegation to League One and his departure from the club was confirmed in June.

Ramsey posted on social media that he had left League One-bound Cardiff City with “a lot of different emotions”.

“For now I am on a new adventure but I will be keeping a close eye on the club as always and it will forever have my support,” he posted.

He has made it clear he wants to continue his playing career and lead Wales at the World Cup next summer.

Ramsey returned to his boyhood club Cardiff in 2023, but injuries have restricted his game time.

Pumas finished sixth in the 2024-25 Mexican standings and qualified for the Concacaf Champions Cup.

Alec Baldwin and additional “Rust” movie producers have agreed to settle a negligence lawsuit brought by three New Mexico crew members who witnessed the 2021 fatal shooting of the film’s cinematographer.

Crew members Ross Addiego, Doran Curtin and Reese Price filed the lawsuit in 2023, seeking compensation for the trauma they said they suffered after Baldwin accidentally shot Halyna Hutchins. The crew members were setting up their gear in a small wooden church on the movie set when the shooting occurred.

In the lawsuit, the crew members blamed the tragedy on “dangerous cost-cutting” and a “failure to follow industry safety rules.” The movie’s star, Baldwin, also served as a producer on the low-budget western.

The plaintiffs sued Baldwin, his El Dorado Pictures company and Rust Movie Productions LLC, alleging negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. In the suit, the crew members argued that Baldwin and other producers “cut corners, ignored reports of multiple, unscripted firearms discharges, and persisted, rushed and understaffed, to finish the film.”

Baldwin and fellow producers have long denied such allegations.

Last week, the two sides asked a New Mexico civil court judge to dismiss the case.

“All claims have been settled and compromised,” attorneys for both sides wrote in a joint June 25 motion.

Terms of the proposed settlement were not disclosed. Representatives for the two sides declined to comment.

“Each party has agreed to bear its own costs and fees,” the lawyers wrote.

The film was running behind schedule the day of the shooting after camera crew members had walked off the set. The camera technicians have said they were frustrated by inaction over their complaints of a lack of nearby housing, rushed conditions and safety violations, including accidental gun discharges.

The shooting claimed the life of Hutchins, 42. She died that day, leaving behind her husband, their son and her family in Ukraine. The producers previously settled a wrongful death lawsuit brought on behalf of her husband, Matthew Hutchins.

The film’s director, Joel Souza, suffered a gunshot wound. He, Addiego and other crew members testified that they struggled for months with the physical and emotional toll after the shooting.

Addiego was the film’s dolly operator, responsible for operating the mechanisms for camera movement. Curtin was the set costumer, overseeing costumes and accessories. Price was the key grip, who handled the nonelectric support gear.

New Mexico authorities brought three criminal prosecutions, including against Baldwin, who pointed the gun at Hutchins during a setup shot for a close-up of Baldwin’s prop revolver.

Baldwin pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and his high-profile trial ended abruptly last July after former New Mexico 1st Judicial District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the charge.

The judge found the special prosecutor and Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputies had concealed evidence from Baldwin’s legal team, which the judge said prejudiced the case against Baldwin.

At the time, the actor-producer’s team was exploring whether prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies botched the investigation into how the bullets made their way onto the desert set.

The weapons handler Hannah Gutierrez was convicted of involuntary manslaughter following a two-week trial last year. The Arizona woman was released from prison last month after serving 14 months.

Assistant director David Halls was also charged. He pleaded no contest to negligent use of a deadly weapon and received a suspended six-month sentence.

Baldwin and other producers resumed production of “Rust” in Montana 18 months after Hutchins’ shooting. The film was released this spring.

Helmets, padding and the ability to practice better has made everyone fair game and you’re acutely aware that you’ll receive a bouncer when you walk out there, especially as you’ll be tasked to do the same when you have the ball in your hand.

Your palms get sweaty, you need a nervous trip to the toilet every five minutes and you can’t take your eyes off who the opposition captain is gesturing at to bowl next.

I made the mistake of bouncing Jofra Archer in a County Championship match in 2018, hitting him on the head.

As soon as it was my turn to bat, I knew who’d have the ball in his hand.

The index finger on my right hand is still swollen from where the first ball I faced from him squeezed in against my bat handle in front of my face. He got me out next ball for nought.

The psychological lift a wagging tail gives to a dressing room is also huge.

It lightens the mood, it gives players the confidence that the momentum in the game is in their favour and you can physically see the frustration in the opposition as they toy with how to extract the last few wickets.

The top order batters’ minds are distracted from facing the opening overs of the following innings and if the tail really wags it can descend into chaos.

England were the sixth worst at removing the tail in the previous cycle of the World Test Championship, with the opposition averaging 87.04 after the sixth wicket fell in that period.

With the best in the world, New Zealand, conceding an average of 61.92, that is a significant 50.24-run swing across a Test.

Cast your mind back to the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston in 2023 that Australia won by two wickets.

In a chase of 282, Scott Boland as nightwatchman scored 20 from 40 balls, Pat Cummins 44 not out from 73 and Nathan Lyon a 28-ball unbeaten 16.

More was made of the Stokes declaration on day one, but fundamentally, the inability to blow the tail away in the second innings was where the game was lost.

Killing the tail is going to be imperative to England’s success not only in this series, but in this winter’s Ashes too. Tongue has shown he has the skills. The likes of Carse, Archer or Gus Atkinson could do it too.

Gobbling up rabbit pie could be more important than anyone thinks.

Ireland’s Dan Sheehan will captain the British and Irish Lions in their opening game on Australian soil against the Western Force on Saturday.

Sheehan is one of five players in the starting line-up who will make their Lions debut in Perth, his Leinster team-mates Garry Ringrose, James Lowe, Joe McCarthy and Josh van der Flier being the others.

Four more Lions are set to make their debut off the bench – Ollie Chessum, Huw Jones, Andrew Porter and Will Stuart.

Northampton tyro Henry Pollock will make his first start having come off the bench against Argentina last Friday night.

Head coach Andy Farrell is still without Jamison Gibson-Park and Hugo Keenan, both inching their way back from injury, so Elliot Daly is in at full-back and Tomos Williams is rewarded for a fine cameo against the Pumas in Dublin with a start in the nine jersey.

Finn Russell also makes his starting Lions debut having only appeared as a replacement in his one appearance against South Africa four years ago – although he did play in two of the tour games.

Farrell goes with a new midfield combination in Ringrose and Scotland’s Sione Tuipulotu, who will make successive starts.

Tuipulotu and Tadhg Beirne are the only two players selected to start against Argentina and the Force, albeit both have moved position, the Scot from outside to inside centre and the Irishman from lock to blindside flanker.

VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo XIV urged the warring sides in the Israel-Iran war to “reject the logic of bullying and revenge” and choose a path of dialogue and diplomacy to reach peace as he expressed solidarity with all Christians in the Middle East.

Speaking at his weekly Wednesday general audience, the American pope said he was following “with attention and hope” recent developments in the war. He cited the biblical exhortation: “A nation shall not raise the sword against another nation.”

A ceasefire is holding in the 12-day Iran-Israel conflict, which involved Israel targeting Iranian nuclear and military sites and the U.S. intervening by dropping bunker-buster bombs on Iranian nuclear sites. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful.

“Let us listen to this voice that comes from on High,” Leo said. “Heal the lacerations caused by the bloody actions of recent days, reject all logic of bullying and revenge, and resolutely take the path of dialogue, diplomacy and peace.”

The Chicago-born Leo also expressed solidarity with the victims of Sunday’s attack on a Greek Orthodox church in Damascus, Syria, and urged the international community to keep supporting Syrian reconciliation. Syria’s Interior Ministry has said a sleeper cell belonging to the Islamic State group was behind the attack at the Church of the Holy Cross, which killed at least 25 people.

“To the Christians in the Middle East, I am near you. All the church is close to you,” he said. “This tragic event is a reminder of the profound fragility that still marks Syria after years of conflict and instability, and therefore it is crucial that the international community doesn’t look away from this country, but continues to offer it support through gestures of solidarity and with a renewed commitment to peace and reconciliation.”

Yellow card – Mayco Vivas (Argentina)

Penalty try – British & Irish Lions

With his arm forming a 90-degree angle at his elbow, Shohei Ohtani clenched his right hand like an umpire signaling an out.

The actual home-plate umpire, Tripp Gibson, didn’t make the same gesture.

Fernando Tatis Jr. was ruled safe at home. Three batters into his first game pitching for the Dodgers, Ohtani was charged with a run.

Ohtani pointed his glove at Gibson. He screamed. He turned his head in the direction of the Dodgers dugout, waving his glove as if to urge the bench to challenge the call.

The Dodgers saw another side of Ohtani on Monday in their 6-3 victory over the San Diego Padres, but that entailed more than him taking the mound and throwing a couple of 100-mph fastballs.

Ohtani the pitcher, they learned, isn’t as playful as Ohtani the hitter. He snarls. He barks. He’s emotional, even downright combative at times.

This temperament could explain why Ohtani pitched the way he did in his first game in two seasons — why he threw as hard as he did, why he couldn’t control his fastball, why his sweeper lacked its usual movement.

Hitting is what Ohtani does for fun. Pitching is what he treats as work, and Ohtani was amped up to return to the mound.

“I was more nervous than when I’m just a hitter,” Ohtani said in Japanese.

His performance reflected that. In the one inning he pitched as an opener, he was charged with a run and two hits. He threw 28 pitches, of which only 16 were strikes.

Shohei Ohtani takes the mound for the Dodgers for the first time since signing with the team.

“My arm was moving a little too fast, so pitches were going more to the glove side than I anticipated,” Ohtani said.

His first pitch was a 97.6-mph fastball that was fouled off by Tatis. He averaged 99.1 mph with his four-seam fastball and 97.4 mph with his sinker, throwing 13 pitches at 98 mph or faster. He was clocked at 100.2 mph against Luis Arraez and 99.9 against Manny Machado.

That was considerably faster than Ohtani threw in live batting practice and considerably faster than the Dodgers were expecting him to throw in this game.

“I wanted to be around 95-96 as much as possible,” Ohtani said.

Ohtani gave up a single to Tatis on a 99.1-mph fastball that was left over the heart of the plate. Tatis advanced to second base on a 98.3-mph wild pitch and third on a single that Arraiz hit off a 98-mph sinker.

With runners on the corners, Ohtani thought he struck out Machado on a sweeper, but he was ruled to have checked his swing. Ohtani pointed at Gibson and appealed for a strike but to no avail. Ohtani unironically made a Joe Kelly pouty face.

Two pitches later, Machado scored Tatis with a sacrifice fly to center field.

“A little more animated than he usually is,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Ohtani.

Roberts already knew Ohtani would be like this, as he’d spoken to people familiar with Ohtani, including former Angels manager Phil Nevin.

“I guess as a pitcher, he shows a lot more emotion and gets frustrated when things don’t go well or he doesn’t do what he’s supposed to do on the mound,” Roberts said with a chuckle.

Ohtani was more in control when he retired Xander Bogaerts for the final out of the inning, and he pointed to the at-bat as a highlight.

“I was able to relax and pitch,” he said.

Ohtani started by attacking him with a sweeper that was called for a strike. He followed that up with a 95.6-mph sinker that missed low, but forced Bogaerts to ground out for the third out on another sinker, this one on the inside half of the plate. That pitch was 95.4 mph.

After that, Ohtani strapped on protective gear and slipped on batting gloves while standing on the railing in front of the Dodgers’ bench. As a hitter, he finished the game two for four with a walk, two runs scored and two runs batted in.

In the batter’s box and on the basepaths, his demeanor softened. By the time he reached third base in the Dodgers’ five-run fourth inning, he was sharing laughs with Machado.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia escalated its cold war with Thailand on Friday when it announced a ban on Thai movies and TV shows and a boycott of the neighboring country’s international internet links.

Tensions between the Southeast Asian countries have soared since an armed confrontation in a border area on May 28 that each side blamed on the other and which left one Cambodian soldier dead.

Cambodian officials said the import and screenings of Thai movies would be banned, and that broadcasters would be ordered not to air Thai-produced shows, which include popular soap operas. The government said it would inflict a financial blow on Thailand by rerouting its international internet traffic through other countries instead.

Cambodian and Thai authorities engaged in saber-rattling last week, though they have since walked back much of their earlier statements emphasizing their right to take military action.

But they continue to implement or threaten measures short of armed force, keeping tensions high. Thailand has added restrictions at border crossings. Much of their war of words actually has appeared intended to mollify nationalistic critics on their own sides.

The confrontation reportedly took place in a relatively small “no man’s land” constituting territory along their border that both countries claim is theirs.

The area is closed to journalists, but it appears that both sides withdrew soon after the fatal confrontation to avoid further clashes, without explicitly conceding the fact in order to save face.

“Neither side wants to use the word ‘withdraw’. We say ‘adjust troop deployments’ as a gesture of mutual respect—this applies to both Cambodia and Thailand.” Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was quoted telling reporters this past week.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said Friday on the Telegram social network that his government would act preemptively to establish self-reliance in response to exhortations by Thai nationalists to cut off electricity and internet connectivity to Cambodia.

Camboia’s Minister of Post and Telecommunication Chea Vandeth announced on his Facebook page that “all telecommunications operators in Cambodia have now disconnected all cross-border internet links with Thailand,” and that the move would deprive Thailand of as much as hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, a claim that could not be immediately checked.

The reported move to use circuits bypassing Thailand temporarily disrupted internet connectivity for users of at least one Cambodian service provider.

Thai officials said any plans to cut services to Cambodia were unrelated to the territorial conflict and would actually be targeting the infamous online scam centers in the Cambodian border town of Poipet that have been a problem for several years.

Cambodia’s Ministry of Fine Arts meanwhile informed all film distributors and cinemas owners that starting Friday, the import and screening of all Thai films must be immediately suspended.

Som Chhaya, deputy director general of a popular Cambodian TV channel, People Nation Network, told The Associated Press that his company will comply with another government order to drop Thai-produced shows, and in their place broadcast Chinese, Korean or Cambodian dramas.

Thai films and TV shows have a large audience in Cambodia.

Friday’s actions in Cambodia were taken one day ahead of a planned meeting in the capital Phnom Penh of the two countries’ Joint Commission on Demarcation for Land Boundary to help resolve the conflicting territorial claims that led to last month’s deadly confrontation.

There is a long history to their territorial disputes, Thailand is still rankled by a 1962 ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands that awarded to Cambodia the disputed territory where the historic Preah Vihear temple stands. There were sporadic though serious clashes there in 2011, and the ruling was reaffirmed in 2023.

Cheang writes for the Associated Press.

Wales captain Aaron Ramsey has agreed a deal to sign for Mexican side Club Universidad Nacional – known as Pumas UNAM – according to the PA news agency.

The former Arsenal and Juventus midfielder would become the first high-profile British player to play in the Mexican league should the formalities of the move be completed.

Ramsey was appointed Cardiff interim manager for the final three games of the 2024-25 Championship season after the club sacked Omer Riza.

The 34-year-old was unable to prevent Cardiff from being relegated to the third tier, but reports had linked him with taking charge of the Bluebirds on a full-time basis this summer.

Ramsey shares the same agent as Pumas manager Efrain Juarez.