Angel Reese broke the WNBA single-game rebounding record with 26 while also breaking the league’s season record for rebounds as the Atlanta Dream beat the Sparks 78-71 on Monday night.
Reese surpassed Chamique Holdsclaw’s record of 24 rebounds, set on May 23, 2003 for Washington.
The Dream star has 458 rebounds this season, seven more than A’ja Wilson’s mark set in 2024. Atlanta still has six games remaining in the regular season.
“I’m just in awe watching her rebound,” teammate Allisha Gray said. “That’s a talent.”
Reese finished with 11 points. She secured her WNBA-leading 27th double-double of the season on a basket with 13.9 seconds left in the game.
The Dream have won four straight games — all on the road — and have beaten the Sparks nine straight times.
Gray led Atlanta (25-13) with 20 points. Rhyne Howard added 18 points to eclipse 3,000 for her career. Gray set an Atlanta record for field goals in a season with 247.
Atlanta trailed 37-36 at halftime before starting the third quarter on a 9-2 run. The Dream also began the fourth on a 9-2 run to make it 71-57 with 6:57 left.
Up next for the Sparks: host Washington on Friday.
Exit polls give Kazakhstan’s pro-Tokayev Adilet party about 70 percent of the vote in the country’s parliamentary elections. The result tightens President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s grip on power in the major oil, uranium and minerals exporter with close ties to Russia and China.
It’s as though Kyle Tucker accidentally became important at work and it ruined his life.
He just so happened to be the best available right fielder on the free agent market at the moment in time that the Dodgers were craving an uptick in right field and another functional bat to further fortify their lineup.
Basically, they wanted just another cog in the machine to help clear a path to a third consecutive World Series championship.
And because money is no object — to the objection of the rest of baseball — instead of offering Tucker a long-term deal with annual pay more in line with his talents, the Dodgers slapped a four-year, $240-million deal on the table.
Dodger Kyle Tucker talks with manager Dave Roberts in the dugout on Aug. 15.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Said, essentially: Hey, guy, how would you like a Major League Baseball record for average annual value — about $57.1 million per year — not to be the man, but to be a guy?
Not to outshine Shohei Ohtani and his starry pals, not to move merch off the field or do huge numbers on it. Just to quietly do what he did the previous season as a Chicago Cub, when he slashed .266/.377/.464 with 22 home runs, 73 RBIs and 25 stolen bases in 136 games.
It must have felt like winning the lottery. All the introverted Tucker had to do was be his normal self with the understanding that no one expected him to live up to that Ohtani-type contract, that Juan Soto-esque dough, that Aaron Judge-level cheddar.
It wasn’t that too much was expected of Tucker, it was that only so much was.
That was a weird place to start. And it obviously didn’t help him find his footing as a Dodger, because he still hasn’t gained traction.
“I mean, it’s been a struggle in the sense that I’d like to help our team win and perform better for the guys in the clubhouse and the fans that come to the games,” Tucker said Friday. “In that aspect, I wish I would’ve done better this year. But like I said, we’ve still got a month and a half left and the playoffs coming up, so it’s not over yet.”
We can’t, of course, say “poor Kyle Tucker” as he strains — less stoically now — to figure it out with the postseason closing in.
But we can wonder if it was a poor decision by the Dodgers, with all of their top-flight minor league outfield prospects, to splurge so steeply?
We can ask whether they should have taken into account the mental makeup of a man who they were asking to carry the weight of a contract so unwieldy he should be embarrassed by it — which is how Tucker looks when he does his inhibited version of the hip-lock, arm wiggle-and-wave dance moves all the Dodgers do when they reach base.
Tucker just hasn’t looked like a true blue Dodger yet; he hasn’t been able to cut loose — especially not here in L.A.
Brandon Gomes, Dodgers executive president and general manager, helps new signee Kyle Tucker put on a Dodgers jersey during a news conference at Dodger Stadium on Jan. 21.
(Ronaldo Bolaños/Los Angeles Times)
After going 0-for-4 in Friday’s 5-4 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates, Tucker is hitting .186 with a .552 OPS at Dodger Stadium. He went 0-for-19 in the Dodgers’ last homestand, when even a game off did nothing to unscramble his mind.
Overall, he’s had it rough in the outfield too, where Statcast’s Fielding Run Value (FRV) measuring a player’s overall defensive value has him rated 96th of 97 right fielders this season.
At present, it doesn’t help that Tucker is one of two high-profile Dodger free-agent busts-so-far.
All-Star closer Edwin Díaz has blown four saves while saving just seven games this season in between stints on the injured list — Tucker and Díaz, insult to injury. For the high-high price of a combined $309 million.
Still, the Dodgers are 78-51. They have the second-best record in baseball, with two fewer wins than the Milwaukee Brewers.
And on the road, Tucker has given the Dodgers more of their money’s worth, hitting.272 with a .820 OPS.
So after Wednesday’s two-hit game to close out a sweep in Colorado on Wednesday, Tucker came home and tried the slump-busting tactic of taking batting practice outside on the field Friday for the first as a Dodger.
“Just trying to put up good swings tonight, good at-bats,” he said. “Just trying to move guys over, get guys in, do my part to try to win.”
The crowd participated too Friday, giving Tucker ovations more befitting a hitter on a heater than one on ice each time he stepped to the plate, where he put up a fight all night.
He saw 31 pitches, walked and hit into a 10th-inning fielder’s choice that moved Kiké Hernández to third base before he scored on Tommy Edman’s walk-off single.
Moral victories for $240 million, Alex? That’s not what the Dodgers bargained for.
But they’ll take it.
“I loved his at-bats,” said Roberts after Friday’s victory, picking up where the Dodgers’ crowd left off. “That’s one of the things I’m going to make sure I do, is encourage him.”
Because one magic moment in October will make it all worth it.
Progressive state Sen. Aisha Wahab will replace former Rep. Eric Swalwell in Congress and finish his current term.
Wahab (D-Hayward) defeated Melissa Hernandez, the president of the Bay Area Rapid Transit Board and the former mayor of Dublin who was seen as the more moderate candidate. The two faced off in a special runoff election on Tuesday, and the Associated Press declared Wahab the winner Thursday afternoon.
The two Democrats will face each other again in the Nov. 3 general election to determine who will represent a slightly redrawn district in the East Bay for a full term beginning in 2027.
Following a Thursday update from Alameda County elections officials, Wahab led with 53.1% of the vote to Hernandez’s 46.9%, according to the secretary of state’s website. The additional ballots widened the slim lead Wahab held on election night.
“This victory belongs to the voters who made clear that our district cannot be bought,” Wahab posted on Facebook Thursday after the race was called. “Through one of the ugliest, most expensive elections we’ve ever seen, we never took the bait or went negative. We stayed focused on the people, and I will fight for this district that raised me. From foster care to Congress, this journey shows the possibility of the American Dream. Today this district made history by electing the first Afghan American to Congress.”
In an email to supporters, Hernandez said the November election “will be in the new district lines, adding 26,000 Dublin voters who didn’t have the chance to vote for me in August. We’re looking forward to winning this on November 3rd with a more favorable district and a much larger electorate. Game on!”
Swalwell, a Dublin Democrat, resigned from the seat and dropped his bid for California governor in April after multiple women accused him of sexual assault and misconduct, which he denies.
Though Wahab was favored to win the seat and finished first in both the regular and special election primaries, the race became more competitive after the pro-Israel group American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent millions of dollars on ads attacking her. Though the war in Gaza was not a central campaign issue, Wahab has criticized Israel’s military actions in Gaza and described it as a genocide. Hernandez has defended Israel’s right to defend itself.
Progressives celebrated Wahab’s victory despite the heavy spending against her.
Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, a group founded by progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said her campaign “should be studied by every progressive running for office in America.”
“The lesson from CA-14 is simple: Democrats do not have to surrender to the biggest checkbook in the race,” Geevarghese said. “Big money can buy television ads, mailboxes and endless attacks. It cannot buy the trust built through thousands of conversations between neighbors. That is the model: Unite the movement, organize everywhere, and make billionaire money fight us on our terrain.”
Iran’s Parliament speaker and top negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf has declared both a military and political victory in the war against the US and Israel. Qalibaf’s remarks came on the day the 60-day so-called MoU US-Iran agreement is set to expire.
The Times’ top 10 high school flag football rankings:
1. JSerra (6-0) Won the Gold Division at the Chargers Invitational. MVP quarterback Kate Meier has accounted for 11 scores in the last three games. Next: Tuesday vs. Woodbridge.
2. Newport Harbor (5-1) The Sailors outscored their first five opponents 97-0 before falling to JSerra 23-6 in the Chargers Invitational championship game. Next: August 24 vs. Woodbridge.
3. Edison (5-1) All five of the Chargers’ wins so far have been shutouts. Their biggest test comes Thursday night in a nonleague game at JSerra. Next: Thursday at JSerra.
4, Orange Lutheran (3-1) Lost to JSerra at the Chargers Invitational but will have two chances to avenge it in Trinity League matchups Sept 22 and Oct. 13. Next: Thursday at La Serna.
5. Beckman (5-0) Won the Division 2 Navy bracket at the Chargers Invitational, beating Mira Costa in the final on Hayden Freedman’s clutch catch. Next: Wednesday vs. San Juan Hills.
6. Westlake (3-2) The Warriors gave JSerra its toughest game at the Chargers Invitational, losing by only 13 points. They also nearly beat Torrey Pines. Next: Tuesday vs. Oak Park.
7. Huntington Beach (3-1) Fast start behind quarterback and captain Roxie Shaia, highlighted by 18-point victory over Torrey Pines at Chargers Invitational. Next: Aug. 24 vs. Los Alamitos.
8. Corona del Mar (4-1) Convincing victories over Ocean View, La Serna and Bishop Amat. Will host a showdown against Huntington Beach on Aug. 26. Next: Tuesday vs. Santa Margarita.
9. Lakewood St. Joseph (3-0) Senior quarterback Lexi Loya has already thrown for 679 yards and 13 touchdowns, including five in a 40-6 victory over Corona. Next: Monday at Cypress.
10. Eagle Rock (0-0) Quarterback Nylah Moore and the Eagles open the season Monday versus Panorama in a rematch of last fall’s City Open semifinals. Next: Monday vs. Panorama.
Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull spoke to candidate for MP, Count Binface, as votes were counted in Clacton. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage claimed an ‘overwhelming’ victory. Farage refused to attend the result declaration, citing an alleged campaign to disrupt it.
New York City’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani congratulated Abdul El-Sayed on winning Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, praising his focus on healthcare and cost of living. He dismissed Republican claims branding El-Sayed a ‘mini Mamdani’, joking, ‘he can lift a lot more than I can’.
WASHINGTON — The narrow victory of progressive doctor Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s bitterly fought Democratic Senate primary sets up a defining test of the party’s progressive wing in one of the highest-stakes U.S. Senate contests of the midterms.
Whether El-Sayed, a former public health official, can carry swing voters in a battleground state could both determine the outcome of a Senate seat viewed as crucial to determining control of Congress and have broader ramifications on the Democratic Party’s struggle for its identity.
El-Sayed, a 41-year-old epidemiologist, defeated U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, a moderate Democrat, by a narrow margin Wednesday after a long and intense campaign that was seen as a proxy for the party’s fissures.
The race was far closer than some polls had indicated. El-Sayed was leading Stevens by 15,000 votes, about 1 percentage point, with 99% of votes counted Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
El-Sayed will face former Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican, in the general election. The winner will succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, whose seat Democrats see as critical to retain for the party to have a chance at flipping the Senate.
“We’ve got an opportunity to bring ourselves back together, to come together around a movement, to take our democracy back,” El-Sayed said Wednesday on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe.”
El-Sayed’s victory will put to the test in a swing state the broader strength of the progressive movement, which has found success in deep-blue places like New York City, where Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor last year, and Los Angeles, where City Councilmember Nithya Raman is locked in a tight race mayoral contest with incumbent Karen Bass. Both Mamdani and Raman are democratic socialists.
As Democrats struggle over the party’s post-2024 identity and grapple with how to win back voters, the divide between the party’s progressive and centrist wings has been on display in primary fights. Both camps have notched victories: Many of the leftist wins have come in intensely blue districts, such as in New York, while more moderate districts have chosen centrists, as in Iowa.
On Tuesday, two progressive congressional candidates in Michigan beat out establishment Democrats in House races — in one case, ousting an incumbent. But in Missouri, democratic socialist and former Rep. Cori Bush lost to incumbent Rep. Wesley Bell, a moderate, for a key House seat.
In California, a handful of progressive candidates are on the November ballot, including the challengers to Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento) and Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford). In the Aug. 18 runoff to fill the vacant seat of former Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, progressive state Sen. Aisha Wahab is battling it out with fellow Democrat and BART board president Melissa Hernandez.
Progressive leaders celebrated El-Sayed’s win on Wednesday. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who backed El-Sayed, argue that his working-class-centered politics are more likely to have mass appeal.
“If you’re a working-class Republican in Michigan, I think you’re going to listen to what El-Sayed says,” Sanders told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “I think many of them will end up voting for him, independents as well, of course.”
Throughout the campaign, Stevens argued that El-Sayed would not be able to defeat Rogers, a refrain some moderates repeated Wednesday. El-Sayed vowed to unite Democrats around defeating Rogers, who previously served seven terms in Congress, saying that he and Stevens would be focused on “bringing the party back together.”
Rogers on Wednesday portrayed El-Sayed as an “extremist,” saying in a statement that the election is “about deciding whether Michigan has a future built on common sense — or whether we hand the keys to the most fringe extremists in the nation.”
El-Sayed, a former city and county health official, focused on opposing money in politics and pushing for Medicare for All, among other issues. His opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza and Stevens’ support for Israel became a major issue in the campaign. AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, spent millions in support of Stevens.
Early in the primary race, El-Sayed sought to temper some of the concerns around his progressive agenda by presenting himself as a Michigan-first, working-class-focused candidate, said John Barry Ryan, a University of Michigan professor of political science.
But as excitement over his campaign began to mount among progressives on a national level, Ryan said, El-Sayed’s public posture swung to a middle ground.
“The signal he’s trying to send is, I’m not a moderate, but I’m also not an extremist,” Ryan said.
Whether El-Sayed can effectively sell his message to undecided voters against Rogers now becomes a key question of the general election, said Corwin Smidt, a politics professor at Michigan State University.
“[Rogers] has experience. He has credentials,” Smidt said. “El-Sayed doesn’t have that. But I do think he’s got the skill and the right language to get him over.”
At least two key Michigan Democrats signaled a desire to move past the primary’s fights. Late Tuesday, Mallory McMorrow, a Michigan state senator who launched her own bid for the seat but suspended her campaign in early July, released an endorsement of El-Sayed.
“Whatever differences there were between the candidates in this race, those differences are nothing compared to the contrast in November,” McMorrow wrote on X. “The only way we get there is together.”
After conceding, Stevens sent a similar signal in a statement:
Ellyse Perry and Alice Capsey starred as Birmingham Phoenix picked up their first win of the women’s Hundred with a nail-biting seven-wicket victory over Welsh Fire.
Chasing 145 in front of minority shareholder and England midfielder Jude Bellingham at Edgbaston, Capsey, who had earlier picked up two wickets, hit 51 (29) and Perry an unbeaten 68 (46) to help Phoenix home with one ball to spare.
Opener Davina Perrin fell just five balls into Phoenix’s chase while Tammy Beaumont couldn’t capitalise on being dropped on 10, picking out Heather Graham for 14, before Capsey and Perry came together for a match-changing 86-run third-wicket stand.
Capsey’s dismissal, caught cheaply at deep mid-wicket by Graham off the 82nd delivery, nearly proved the turning point, with Phoenix faltering from 24 runs required from 19 balls to needing 12 runs off the final set.
But captain Perry held her nerve, trading singles with Annerie Dercksen before dispatching Graham for a six and a four to see her side over the line.
The victory – only their third in 12 matches since the beginning of the 2025 edition – moves Phoenix off the foot of the table and into fifth place after four matches. Welsh Fire slip down to seventh, with one win and three defeats.
Earlier, the tournament’s leading run-scorer Georgia Voll struck a half-century for Fire against her former side, hitting nine fours and two sixes as she top-scored with 78 (55).
The Australian put on 58 for the first wicket with Ella McCaughan and a further 35 with Sophie Devine, who hit a flurry of late boundaries in her unbeaten 35 (19), but Fire were left to rue their lethargic powerplay, posting a run-a-ball 25-0.
Capsey collected 2-24 but Lauren Filer was the pick of the bowlers, conceding just 15 runs from her 20 deliveries.
A UCLA jersey worn by Lew Alcindor in the 1968 NCAA national championship game and the 1969 Final Four is set to garner more than $1 million at auction.
The man who has owned it for the past half century — a former Los Angeles resident who was a huge fan of the player now known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — didn’t have to pay nearly as much for the historic piece.
In fact, he paid no money at all. Instead, he traded for it after a Lakers game in the Forum parking lot back sometime in the mid- to late-1970s, giving up one of his prized possessions as a teenager living in South Gate:
His transistor radio.
“I used to listen to Dodger games on it under my pillow,” said the auction’s consignor, a man named David who asked to have his last name withheld because of privacy concerns.
Back then, David and some friends would often take the bus to the Forum, where they would try to convince fans to give them their extra tickets to attend the Lakers game that night. Afterward, they would wait in the parking lot for players to leave the building.
A UCLA jersey, worn by Lew Alcindor during the 1968 national championship game and a 1969 national semifinal, is up for bid at Grey Flannel Auctions.
(Grey Flannel Auctions)
“We were young and crazy. We waited till the players came out and kind of talked to them,” said David, who says he once walked with Wilt Chamberlain to his car. “And there were other kids there. We would trade stuff, and that is basically how I got the jersey.”
By then, Abdul-Jabbar was a star with the Lakers, after winning three NCAA titles under legendary UCLA coach John Wooden and leading the Milwaukee Bucks to an NBA championship in 1971.
The young man who was originally wearing the No. 33 Bruins jersey that night was actually a USC fan, David said, so the trade was fairly easy to pull off.
“Back then transistor radios were real popular,” David said.
Over the decades, he mostly kept the jersey stored away neatly, occasionally pulling it out for a look or to show others. Recently, David said, he was “just cleaning things out” and decided it was time to part ways with the cherished item.
“I said, you know, someone else will really enjoy this,” David said. “And they’ll display it, and people can enjoy it more than I will stuck in some kind of storage thing.”
According to Michael Russek, director of operations for Grey Flannel Auctions, David didn’t know a lot about the jersey’s history when he first brought it in, only that it was issued by UCLA and had likely been worn by Alcindor in some game at some point.
Photo-matching revealed that he had worn it in several games, including some very significant ones. He wore it while scoring 34 points with 16 rebounds in UCLA’s 78-55 victory over North Carolina in the 1968 national championship game and also during multiple games the following season, including the Bruins’ 85-82 victory over Drake in a national semifinal game (Alcindor had 25 points and 21 rebounds).
UCLA’s Lew Alcindor steals the ball and dribbles away from a group of North Carolina players
(Harold Filan / Associated Press)
“That’s when it really started to come together that we have something that’s truly special,” Russek said.
As of Friday morning, bidding had reached $850,101, with a 22% buyer’s premium bringing the price to nearly $1.04 million. The auction ends Aug. 16.
David said he was “very surprised at how it took off so quick. I’m not familiar with these kind of auctions or jerseys, really. But there’s a lot of alumni from UCLA down there, and a lot of people would like something like that.”
The current Oregon resident added that he hasn’t thought about what he’s going to do with all that cash.
“I’m not the kind of person who does plans for money until I have it,” he said.
SAN FRANCISCO — Mike Trout had his first four-hit game in more than five years, Jorge Soler and Jo Adell homered and the Angels beat the San Francisco Giants 4-3 on Sunday to snap a three-game skid and avoid a series sweep.
Angels starter José Soriano (9-6) allowed an unearned run in five innings. The 27-year-old right-hander gave up three hits, walked three and had five strikeouts. Mitch Farris got the final two outs for his first career save.
San Francisco, which had its four-game home win streak snapped, is the only team in MLB without a series sweep of three-plus games this season.
Trout’s first four-hit game since April 26, 2021, moved him past Tim Salmon on the Angels’ career doubles and singles lists. He went four for four with a double and three singles.
Trout’s double was his 340th, moving past Salmon for second on the franchise list behind Garret Anderson’s 489. Trout also is now fourth on the Angels’ all-time list with 1,014 singles, trailing Anderson (1,572), Darin Erstad (1,082) and Brian Downing (1,062).
Trout’s four-hit game was the 21st of his career and raised his average to .247.
Soler hit a leadoff homer, Nolan Schanuel walked and Adell’s 446-foot home run gave the Angels a 4-0 lead in the fourth inning.
Luis Arraez had an RBI groundout in the fifth and added a two-run double in the ninth for the Giants. Drew Cavanaugh went two for two and walked twice.
Carson Whisenhunt (2-1), who was recalled from triple-A Sacramento, gave up four runs and had seven strikeouts in five innings.
Up next for the Angels: RHP Walbert Ureña (6-7, 2.78 ERA) starts Tuesday in the opener of a three-game home series against Houston. The Astros have not named a starter.
PARIS — Tadej Pogacar confirmed his status as one of cycling’s all-time greats after winning a record-equaling fifth Tour de France title in emphatic style.
Daring mountain attacks from deep, multiple stage wins and an ice-cool temperament all helped the 27-year-old Slovenian seal his victory on Sunday. He joined Belgian Eddy Merckx, Spaniard Miguel Indurain and Frenchmen Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault as the only riders to win five Tours.
“I’m speechless. It’s an incredible day, there was an incredible atmosphere,” Pogacar said. “I’ve ridden seven Tours already and I’ve always finished on the podium. You might think this is a fairy tale, it’s incredible for me too.”
After competing strongly in Sunday’s 21st and exciting final stage in Paris, Pogacar finished 6 minutes, 26 seconds ahead of Belgian rider Remco Evenepoel in the overall standings.
Two-time Tour champion Jonas Vingegaard was Pogacar’s main rival heading into the race but the Dane crashed out on the 15th stage.
“Shame that Jonas and others crashed out of this Tour,” Pogacar said. “I hope we can all fight again next year.”
Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates XRG teammate Isaac Del Toro, a 22-year-old Mexican making his Tour debut, was third at 9:42 back from Pogacar, who smiled and held up his hand to signify his wins. His teammates then joined him as they stood proudly on the Champs-Élysées.
“I don’t know how I do it,” Pogacar said. “I now have to find a new goal to chase. Which goal? Let’s just not jump ahead of ourselves, and enjoy this moment.”
Pogacar won the Giro d’Italia in 2024 but has not won the Spanish Vuelta, which starts on Aug. 22.
“Will I be at La Vuelta in a few weeks?” he said. “Let’s see.”
Peerless Pogacar
Pogacar won five stages at this year’s race to take his impressive tally to 26 overall.
He tried to win on Sunday, too, but victory ultimately went to Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, who just held off the chasing pack on the home straight for his second stage win at this year’s race and fourth overall.
Sunday’s 55-mile stage looped around Paris and was mostly processional, although less so than in previous years, which were usually entirely flat stages for sprinters and not for the rest of the peloton.
The stage was shortened and its starting point in Thoiry, west of the capital, was changed to Paris so as to reduce pressure on emergency services combating wildfires in the southwest. Some security forces initially mobilized for Paris were redeployed to help response efforts.
For the second straight year the stage featured the hugely popular uphill climb through the Montmartre district, a sharp 0.62-mile dash which riders tackled three times before finishing on the Champs-Élysées.
It proved even too much for Pogacar, who could not match Van der Poel’s raw power in the closing stages.
Shortly before 6 p.m. local time, Pogacar shook hands at the start line with Evenepoel and Ecuadorian veteran Richard Carapaz, wearing the polka-dot jersey for the best climber.
“I battled hard to win this jersey, it was a great fight,” the 33-year-old Carapaz said. “It’s the best feeling to win it.”
Exciting finale
Van der Poel and Dane Mads Pedersen, the green jersey winner as best sprinter, were among the expected contenders for the stage win.
Crowds roared as the riders began the first climb up Rue Lepic in Montmartre, with the famed Sacré-Coeur basilica looming over them.
Pogacar moved ahead after the second ascension of Montmartre, with Van der Poel, Evenepoel and Pedersen alongside him.
Van der Poel attacked on the third and final climb with Pogacar responding well, and the one-day classics rivals surged ahead.
But they were caught with 700 meters left and, after Pogacar faded, the 31-year-old Van der Poel still had work to do.
He got his bike just over the line ahead of Belgian Jasper Philipsen, his Alpecin-Premier Tech teammate, and Pedersen. Pogacar eased up and finished 30th.
“I thought the sprinters would catch us up so I launched [my attack] from very far away,” Van der Poel said. “I gave everything I had left in my legs and it was just enough.”
Cycling pedigree
Van der Poel is widely considered one of the best cyclists in the world. He has multiple victories in one-day classics and Cyclo-cross world championship titles, and is also a former world road race champion.
His father Adri van der Poel won two stages on the Tour in the late 1980s.
His maternal grandfather was French cyclist Raymond Poulidor, who raced in the 1960s and ’70s, finishing second on the Tour three times and third five times. Nicknamed “Poupou” and “The Eternal Runner-up,” he was adored by French fans.
Women’s Tour
The nine-stage women’s Tour starts in the Swiss city of Lausanne on Aug. 1 and finishes in Nice on Aug 9.
Frenchwoman Pauline Ferrand-Prévôt won on debut last year.
SAN FRANCISCO — Rafael Devers homered in his first at-bat and hit a walk-off single in the 10th inning to give the San Francisco Giants a 7-6 victory over the Angels on Friday night.
Casey Schmitt also homered and Luis Arraez had two hits to help the Giants end a five-game losing streak. They rallied after blowing leads of 5-1 and 6-4.
Bryce Eldridge doubled, walked and scored twice while Drew Gilbert added two hits for the Giants.
Vaughn Grissom had two hits for the Angels, including a tying two-run home run in the eighth inning.
Pinch-runner Jesus Rodriguez began the 10th at second base and advanced to third on Arraez’s soft single to left. After Heliot Ramos grounded out, Bryce Eldridge walked before Devers hit a deep fly to left off Chase Silseth (3-2) that bounced on the warning track and landed in the stands.
Devers’ winning hit came moments after the Giants got a big defensive play out of center fielder Grant McCrary in the top of the 10th.
McCrary, who entered the game as a pinch-hitter in the ninth, caught Wade Meckler’s fly ball in the top of the ninth then made a strong throw to third to get Grissom for an inning-ending double play.
Caleb Kilian (3-6) retired three batters for the victory.
San Francisco’s walk-off win came after the Giants bullpen spoiled Logan Webb’s chance at winning for the first time in nearly a month. Webb allowed four runs and six hits with four strikeouts and two walks in six innings.
Devers got San Francisco (43-60) going with an opposite field two-run home run in the first inning. Schmitt added a three-run blast in the third after the Angels (41-63) issued a two-out intentional walk to Devers.
Both home runs came against Angels starter Grayson Rodriguez.
Up next: Giants LHP Robbie Ray (8-6, 3.33 ERA) was set to face Angels RHP Ryan Johnson (2-4, 6.10) on Saturday.
Lukas MacNaughton and Marcel Hartel scored four minutes apart late in the first half to break open St. Louis City’s 3-1 victory over the Galaxy on Wednesday night.
Simon Becher scored in the second half after Galaxy defender Emiro Garcés was sent off in the 49th minute with his second yellow card, and St. Louis cruised to its third straight win.
St. Louis, which is unbeaten in six straight since early May, also leapfrogged the Galaxy into the Western Conference’s playoff positions with this victory.
Troy Elgersma scored his first MLS goal in the 86th minute for the Galaxy, who have lost two home matches by a combined 6-1 since selling top goal-scorer Gabriel Pec to Brazil’s Cruzeiro for a club-record fee of at least $12 million during the World Cup break. Pec had 43 goals and 28 assists across 101 matches for the Galaxy.
MacNaughton opened the scoring in the 42nd minute when he glided through the box and headed Hartel’s corner in off the Galaxy’s back post.
With Galaxy captain Marco Reus down behind the play after a St. Louis player stepped on his foot in the first minute of stoppage time, Hartel dribbled outside the penalty area and looped in a shot that froze goalkeeper JT Marcinkowski, who made eight saves. The teams exchanged shoves after the goal, with Reus and Garcés receiving yellow cards.
Garcés was sent off shortly after the break for kicking the ball away after a foul.
Becher sneaked behind L.A.’s back line and chipped home on the counter in the 68th minute.
Elgersma, a 22-year-old midfielder who starred at Redlands High, entered his second MLS match as a late substitute and ruined Roman Bürki’s clean sheet.
Harbor Miller started in Pec’s place on LA’s front line for the Galaxy, whose fans chanted “We want better!” in the second half. The Galaxy are awaiting the arrival of Kyōgo Furuhashi after acquiring the Japanese striker from Birmingham City on Tuesday.
João Klauss, the longtime St. Louis forward acquired by the Galaxy in January, has been out since undergoing foot surgery in April.
Sam Curran’s all-round brilliance led MI London to a convincing seven-wicket win over Sunrisers Leeds in the opening match of the men’s Hundred.
Chasing 144, Curran finished unbeaten on 60 as MI London eased to their target with 16 balls remaining.
After Brydon Carse’s fine spell of 2-18 had given Sunrisers hope, Curran added 93 from just 40 balls for the fourth wicket with Nicholas Pooran.
The destructive Pooran struck a magnificent 19-ball fifty which took the game from Sunrisers, as he clubbed five fours and five sixes in his 58 not out.
Curran had earlier taken 2-27 and seamer Richard Gleeson also impressed with 4-25 as Sunrisers were bowled out for 143.
Mitchell Marsh top-scored with 41 at the top of the order but Sunrisers struggled for momentum after his departure, though Tom Alsop’s cameo of 31 from 18 balls gave them a late boost.
England white-ball captain Harry Brook fell for eight and Sunrisers skipper Zak Crawley only managed 13.
MI London, who were previously known as Oval Invincibles prior to the private investment in the Hundred, have won the past three men’s tournaments.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — This summer’s World Cup was so good, nobody wanted it to end.
So Spain and Argentina played on and on in Sunday’s final, through 90 minutes of regulation time and then through a 15-minute extra period before Ferran Torres gave Spain the only goal it needed to claim the title with a 1-0 victory over the defending champion at a sold-out MetLife Stadium.
It was an epic finish to an epic tournament, one that set records for everything from attendance and TV viewers to games played and goals scored. And it was almost certainly the last World Cup for Argentine captain Lionel Messi, 39, who finished his record-setting sixth tournament as the all-time leader in games (34), assists (12) and goal contributions (33).
His parting gift was a silver medal, a handshake from President Trump and a hug from the King of Spain. But none of those were the prize he wanted most, so when he left the stage after receiving his medal, he broke down in tears.
A swarming Spanish defense made him little more than a spectator for most of the match. So while Argentina came into the final leading the tournament in goals per game, it also became the first team to go 90 minutes without a shot in a World Cup final. It was outshot 20-2 for the game, and Spanish keeper Unai Simón, who gave up just one goal in eight matches, was not forced to make a save in registering his seventh clean sheet.
He was named the outstanding keeper of the tournament.
That allowed Torres, who started just once in the tournament, to become the hero.
“Honestly, I can’t believe it. I just am trying to enjoy it, but I don’t know what’s happening,” Torres said. “I didn’t think too much. I just saw the ball coming to me and I just shot with the power of all the Spanish people.”
Spain’s Ferran Torres celebrates after scoring in extra time against Argentina in the World Cup final Sunday.
(Julio Cortez / Associated Press)
Rodri, Spain’s captain and the anchor of the team’s smothering defense during its unbeaten World Cup run, won the Golden Ball award as the outstanding player of the tournament. He was equally stunned.
“I’m in shock,” he said. “I cannot express [my feelings] in words. I’m like in a cloud.”
For Rodri, who also led Spain to a European Championship two years ago, Sunday’s victory capped a personal two-year struggle to return from a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament he sustained in 2024, a month before he hobbled onstage with crutches to receive the Ballon d’Or award as the world’s best player.
“It’s been a really tough time,” said the midfielder, who broke the World Cup record for completed passes in the tournament with 747. “I just want new generations to see my example as an opportunity to when you go down, you can rise again. This is my philosophy my entire life.
“Sometimes things go well, things go wrong. But always the positive.”
Highlights from Spain’s 1-0 win over Argentina in the World Cup final on Sunday.
The only goal came seconds into the second extra-time period, with defender Pedro Porro sending a long cross to the left post for Nico Williams, who headed it back into the center of the box for Torres, a second-half substitute who buried the left-footed volley that would give Spain its second World Cup title.
Torres, who entered the game just past the hour mark, is the fifth man to come off the bench and score in a World Cup final and the first since Germany’s Mario Gotze, whose extra-time goal beat Argentina in 2014. Williams, who got the assist, was also a late-game substitute.
“We are world champions. I am very proud,” Luis de la Fuente, Spain’s coach, said through an interpreter after his team ran its unbeaten streak to a record 38 games.
“I’m very happy for my players. We’ve won in all the categories. We’ve grown together. We reached this stage today thanks to their talent, to their attitude, to their comportment, to their values and to the huge footballing talent.”
The goal ruined a superhuman effort by Argentine keeper Emiliano Martínez, who made 11 saves while playing with a fractured right ring finger that will require surgery. That’s two more saves than he had over the rest of the tournament.
But the moment that may have sealed Argentina’s fate came in the final minutes of second-half stoppage time when Enzo Fernández clattered into Spanish center back Pau Cubarsí at midfield, flipping him head over heels. Fernández had been booked minutes earlier for dissent, and the second yellow card led to his expulsion, forcing Argentina to finish shorthanded.
Spain wasted little time exploiting the advantage and appeared to have scored six minutes into extra time when Williams banged in the rebound of a Martínez save, only to have Slovakian referee Slavko Vincic wave it off, ruling that Spain’s Mikel Merino had fouled Argentine defender Nicolás Otamendi in the buildup to the goal.
Spain star Lamine Yamal in congratulated by FIFA President Gianni Infantino, left, and receives his medal from President Trump following Spain’s win over Argentina in the World Cup final Sunday.
(Justin Setterfield / Getty Images)
The capacity crowd of 80,663, matching the second-largest of the tournament’s 104 games, booed Trump when he appeared on a videoboard during the national anthem and again when he walked onto the pitch for the postgame awards ceremony.
During the victory ceremony after the final of last summer’s Club World Cup, played at the same stadium, Trump remained on the podium to celebrate with Chelsea’s players and was seen on TV pocketing one of the winners’ medals. On Sunday, after Trump joined FIFA President Gianni Infantino presenting the World Cup trophy to Rodri, the Spanish captain motioned to Trump to move to the left side of the stage. As Spain lifted the trophy, Infantino escorted the president off the podium and away from the celebration.
When Argentina gave the trophy back to Spain, it likely marked a passing of the torch. Argentina has played in three of the last four World Cup finals, but the average age of its starting lineup Sunday was more than 30, making it the second-oldest to play in a final behind the 11 Brazil used to win in 1962. And it got a bit older when Otamendi, 38, came on for 28-year-old Lisandro Martínez, who left with an apparent injury just before the end of the first half.
Argentina star Lionel Messi reacts after losing to Spain in the World Cup final.
(Pamela Smith / Associated Press)
Spain, meanwhile, had the sixth-youngest roster of the 48 teams. Two of La Roja’s starters — teenagers Cubarsí and wunderkind Lamine Yamal — hadn’t even been born when Messi made his World Cup debut in 2006.
“The way this team has matured, it built every day,” said Rodri, the third-oldest starter on the team despite being just 30. “We faced different opponents. Of course, lots of European opponents. But different moments and different types of games and we managed to play all of them.
“We grew in this sense and this generation is making history for our country.”
A history that de la Fuente said is just beginning.
“This team has a long way to go,” he said. “We are already thinking to what is next, what is coming up.”
Sports Editor Iliana Limón Romeroand staff writers Jad El Reda and Eduard Cauich contributed to this report.
Spain players celebrate after defeating Argentina for the World Cup title on Sunday.
Spanish fans spent the night partying in Madrid after their team defeated Argentina 1-0 in the final of the World Cup. Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler reports from the heart of the celebrations in Madrid.
Spain and Lamine Yamal have grown through the tournament to leave him with the world at his feet and football’s two greatest prizes in his pocket.
As well as having glorious natural gifts, he is also Spain’s lucky charm. They completed their domination of the international stage with Ferran Torres’ decisive 106th-minute strike in extra time.
Lamine Yamal has yet to lose for his country in the 28 competitive matches he has played. He has started 13 games at major tournaments and won all of them – the longest 100% win rate of any European player across major tournaments when starting.
He also became – along with 19-year-old Spain team-mate Pau Cubarsi – just the fourth and fifth teenagers to start a World Cup final and win, after Pele for Brazil in 1958, Italy defender Giuseppe Bergomi in 1982 and Kylian Mbappe with France in 2018.
Spain coach Luis de la Fuente spoke afterwards of his “sincere gratitude” to Lamine Yamal.
“He has played great football that will help him to mature and be even a greater footballer than he already is,” he said.
“He really sacrificed for the collective good. This is very important in my squad. In my opinion he played a great World Cup.”
And this is not simply a special talent, it is a special talent with a special temperament.
He shrugged off Argentina’s obvious attempts to intimidate him as he regularly came into close contact with Nicolas Tagliafico in particular.
Former England goalkeeper and BBC Sport pundit Joe Hart summed it up well.
“Not only did Lamine Yamal not react,” he said. “He stood up to it. He was not rattled and he did not back down. He had the entire team trying to smash him.
“He just stayed real cool. It was real standout performance from him.
“Lamine Yamal is 19 years old. What a beautiful day for him. He’s 19 and has completed football.”
With virtually his whole career in front of him, and taking in the experience and influence of Spain team-mates such as his captain and player of the tournament Rodri, there is every chance Lamine Yamal will add more successes like this before he is done.
When Victor Marx was 3 years old, he was forced into a voodoo ritual involving a beheaded cat. At age 7, he killed a man.
Or so Marx says.
But he was not just a precocious child.
As an adult running a “high-risk” Christian ministry, Marx says he rescued 45,000 women and children from captivity and abuse. As a civilian, he supposedly called in a U.S. military airstrike that killed 70 ISIS fighters. He’s exorcised demons — and can do so over the telephone, he says, if need be.
True or, most likely, false, those woolly claims and epic tales of derring-do aren’t the weirdest thing about Marx.
A political newcomer, Marx eked out his victory in a three-way race by less than 2,500 votes out of more than 520,000 cast. (It took almost nine days to declare a winner, but surely you knew that already, given the national outcry over how long it took Colorado to count its ballots. Oh, wait. Never mind.)
Although slender, Marx’s victory delivered a strong statement: about the grave condition of mainstream Republicanism; about the increasing embrace of oddity and extremism by a deeply disaffected slice of the American electorate; about the unsettled and unsettling nature of today’s politics.
“It’s almost cult-like,” Dick Wadhams, a former Colorado GOP chairman, said of Marx’s support. “You talk to some of these people, and there is no doubt in their mind he will be governor, because God has decided that he’s going to be governor.”
There’s fat chance of that. (Please don’t smite me.)
Colorado has elected only one Republican governor in the last 55 years, and that was back in 2002. It’s been 10 years since a Republican won any statewide office. The Democratic nominee, Atty. Gen. Phil Weiser, is as close to a November shoo-in — after stomping U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in the primary — as it gets.
But Marx, 61, a former Marine and expert in martial arts, is nothing if not swaggering. His role model is, of course, the political disrupter and fabulist-in-chief currently occupying the White House.
Like President Trump, Marx relies heavily on personal charisma, a strong social media presence and the purposeful shunning of campaign norms which, to the politically alienated, speaks to his independence from the establishment and offers a welcome break from the same old, same old.
He casts himself as a problem-solver and negotiator par excellence. He skimps on policy and skipped most of the preprimary debates; at the one he did attend, Marx brought his dog, a Dutch shepherd, onstage. In lieu of a closing statement, Marx prayed.
When asked, he hasn’t backed off his fantastical claims. But Marx hasn’t done a very good job substantiating them.
As a young boy growing up in Louisiana, he says, his abusive stepfather — the one who supposedly involved him in a satanic feline decapitation — drove him to rural Mississippi, where Marx shot and killed a man. Police told Colorado Public Radio they had no record of any unsolved homicides from that time.
“I don’t think that’s important,” Marx replied. “It’s actually kind of — it’s an odd question to me.”
Actually, it’s not.
(Conceding the Republican race, state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer — the runner-up — conspicuously declined to endorse Marx, urging voters to “choose the path that is best for Colorado” in November. “For the record,” she added. “I still haven’t killed anyone.”)
In many ways, Marx is a mainstream conservative Republican. He founded All Things Possible Ministries, a Christian nonprofit that tends to refugees and other victims of trauma. His focus on law and order, tax relief, small government and deregulation are all standard GOP fare.
But his florid tales of youthful homicide, telephonic exorcisms, personally intercepting human smugglers on the U.S.-Mexico border — well, not so much.
Most voters will probably have a hard time getting past those autobiographical extravagances, which could spell trouble — depressed GOP turnout, guilt by association — for other Colorado Republicans, including freshman Rep. Gabe Evans, who’s fighting to hang onto a closely fought congressional seat in the north-central part of the state.
“The Colorado Republican Party right now is impotent and irrelevant,” said Wadhams, who fought unsuccessfully against its takeover by Trump-worshiping zealots. “The ironic twist to this story is that polling has shown over the past several months that voters are getting restless about what they see as the decline of Colorado in terms of education, energy, roads and transportation.”
Just last week, the annual Colorado Health Foundation issued its annual Pulse Poll, a dour report card on the state of the state that found three-quarters of respondents were concerned they may not be able to live there in the future.
But don’t expect Democrats to lose their sovereignty anytime soon.
That’s what happens when a party and its voters stop seriously competing and instead indulge their passions and fever dreams. You get candidates, and political caricatures, like Victor Marx.
South Africa: Fassi; Williams, Kriel, de Allende, Arendse; Moyo, Reinach; Steenekamp, Marx, Sadie, C Wiese, van Heerden, de Villiers, PS du Toit (capt), J Wiese
Replacements: Venter, Wessels, Louw, Dixon, van Staden, Jantjies, Libbok, Willemse.
Wales: Murray; Rees-Zammit, Llewellyn, B Thomas, Mee; Edwards, Tomos Williams; Carre, Lake (capt), D Lewis, Teddy Williams, Beard, Mann, J Morgan, Wainwright
Replacements: Elias, N Smith, Warren, F Thomas, Reffell, Botham, Morgan-Williams, Hawkins.
Yellow card: Warren 65
Referee: Andrew Brace (IRFU)
Assistant Referees: Pierre Brousset (FFR) & James Doleman (NZRFU)
