by dap | Jul 11, 2025 | The Guardian
The R&A has installed a Spidercam above the 18th green at Portrush for next week’s Open – the first time the technology has been used in golf.
The four-point wire-cam system has been suspended above the final hole using four 25-metre-high pylons and will be used to provide spectacular aerial views and unique angles of play, as well as capturing the Open champion’s final walk up the 18th in unprecedented detail.
by dap | Jul 11, 2025 | The Guardian
Donald Trump is closing the borders even though the World Cup and 2028 Olympics will take place in his country
Call it big, beautiful timing. On Tuesday, Fifa announced it had taken an office in Trump Tower. On Wednesday, Donald Trump announced he would attend the Club World Cup final. And who could begrudge the US president a little sporting entertainment after the week he has had? Those Nobel peace prize applications don’t write themselves.
Trump’s attendance at a tournament that we can be 95% sure he doesn’t understand is, doubtless, a huge coup and political victory for football. This is a sport that only a decade ago was openly considered un-American, scrawled into the rightwing commentator’s list of pet peeves between meteorologists and Judy Blume. Ann Coulter described soccer’s growing popularity as a “sign of the nation’s moral decay”. Glenn Beck likened it to Obamacare: “It doesn’t matter how you try to sell it to us, it doesn’t matter how many celebrities you get … we want nothing to do with it.”
by dap | Jul 11, 2025 | The Guardian
Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano have already shared 20 rounds and two razor-thin decisions. On Friday, they return to Madison Square Garden to settle their rivalry for good
Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano have thwacked one another with 861 punches across two punishing, brilliant encounters. There’s been not a single knockdown between them, nor an ounce of quit. And not, it seems, a shred of closure either. That will change, or so they hope, on Friday night in New York.
For the third and likely final time, two of boxing’s most decorated champions and fate-bound dance partners will meet inside the ropes, returning to Madison Square Garden, the
, for what is being billed as the decisive chapter in a rivalry that helped transform women’s boxing. Taylor’s WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO junior welterweight titles are once again on the line. So is a legacy greater than any belts.
by dap | Jul 11, 2025 | The Guardian
As the US president’s 9 July deadline came and went, the White House launched a range of new trade ultimatums at countries across the world
Donald Trump ramped up his trade rhetoric this week, firing off more than 20 letters to governments outlining new tariff rates if agreements aren’t reached by 1 August.
In April,
a 10% base tariff rate and additional duties ranging up to 50% for many other countries, although he later delayed the effective date for all but 10% duties until 9 July after market panic.
Trump
Japan, South Korea and a number of other nations at the start of this week that they will face tariffs of at least 25% starting from August unless they can quickly negotiate deals.
On Wednesday he announced more tariffs on countries like the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Algeria, as well as a
, tying the move to what he called the “witch-hunt” trial against its former president, Jair Bolsonaro. Trump criticised the trial Bolsonaro is facing over trying to overturn his 2022 election loss. Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,
with reciprocal 50% tariff on US goods.
On Thursday, Trump announced the US would
, despite ongoing negotiations and prime minister Mark Carney’s decision last month to rescind a digital services tax that faced criticism from the US president. Carney said his government would continue to defend Canadian workers and businesses in their negotiations and work towards the 1 August deadline.
Trump also said on Thursday that a letter would be sent to the European Union, the US’s biggest trading partner, “today or tomorrow”. Last week the EU and US were
that would avert 50% tariffs on all exports from the bloc.
The
, with some of the harshest levies imposed on developing nations in south-east Asia, including 32% for Indonesia, 36% for Cambodia and Thailand and 40% on Laos and Myanmar, a country riven by years of civil war.
On his
, US secretary of state Marco Rubio sought to reassure regional powers of Washington’s commitment to them, saying countries there may get “better” trade deals than the rest of the world. Prior to Rubio’s arrival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim condemned the tariffs at the opening of an Asean foreign ministers’ meeting.
Trump has also vowed to implement tariffs of up to
. Copper prices
in the US after the announcement.
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said he expected several trade announcements this week, but to date the US has secured just two deals with trading partners. The
, signed on 8 May, includes a 10% tariff on most UK goods, including cars, and zero tariffs for steel and aluminium. A second
last week that sets a 20% tariff for much of its exports, although the full details are unclear, with no text released.
On Thursday, Trump said the tariffs had been “very well-received”, adding that the stock market “hit a new high today”.
Global stock markets have largely shrugged off the latest threats. Analysts say traders now expect a deal or another delay, while investors appear to be waiting until a deal is done or the tariffs kick in.
by dap | Jul 10, 2025 | The Guardian
Demonstrators clashed with federal immigration officials carrying out a raid on a farm in southern California, with authorities throwing what appeared to be smoke canisters to disperse the crowd. The confrontation came as federal immigration enforcement agents have ramped up arrests in Southern California, heading to car washes, farms and Home Depot parking lots to take people into custody while stoking widespread fear among immigrant communities
