Ted Lasso will deliver a message of hope before the USA’s first game, in an America that is not a fit or desirable host right now

Shortly before 6pm local time on Friday night at the Los Angeles Stadium, the actor who plays Ted Lasso – the fictional manager of a fake team in a falsely heartwarming version of football – will tell hundreds of millions of TV viewers tuning in to watch the start of the American leg of the Fifa World Cup that football unites the world.

In an interesting twist, the actor Jason Sudeikis will do this at a time when the World Cup host is simultaneously bombing the second-ranked country in Group G, having recently murdered its head of state. The message of unity is one likely to be heard by the US president, Donald Trump, who has initiated six military conflicts in his second term, and whose brutally divisive immigration policies have now led to the barring of Omar Artan, the reigning African referee of the year.

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The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

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PSNI receive reinforcements from Great Britain amid further condemnation of violence

Police have fired plastic bullets and received reinforcements from Great Britain in an effort to contain race riots in Northern Ireland.

The force has fired 17 of the projectiles since disturbances erupted on Tuesday, pitting officers against crowds that have thrown rocks, petrol bombs and other missiles.

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Pregnant woman in Scotland ‘stressed’ and unsure what will happen as result of UK government visa clampdown

A heavily pregnant mother living and working in the UK legally fears the Home Office could try to separate her from her unborn baby after her husband and first child were sent “go home” letters.

Sachintha Warnakulasuriya lives in Scotland with her husband, Indika Kumara and their six-year-old daughter Heily. Warnakulasuriya, 36, has a visa permitting her to work in the UK as a care worker and is sponsored by her employer. Her husband, also 36, and daughter are legally entitled to live in the UK as her dependents.

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Oracle has lifted capital spending plans above analyst estimates and expanded borrowing to chase the opportunity it says exists in building datacenters for AI workloads. Despite revenue for Q4 (ended May 31) rising 21 percent year-on-year to $19.2 billion, Oracle's share price fell as markets reacted to its increasing capex, as analysts raised concerns about how Big Red would fund the investments in datacenters. Capex for fiscal 2026 reached $55.7 billion, up from $21.2 billion a year earlier. Speaking to investors, CFO Hilary Maxson said Oracle planned to support its capital investments program by raising around $40 billion in debt and equity in fiscal 2027, including a $20 billion equity issuance already announced. "We don't anticipate raising additional debt funding in calendar year 2026," she said. Last year, Oracle raised $18 billion in debt to help fund its massive datacenter investments. Big Red's market value jumped after it declared $455 billion remaining performance obligations (RPOs) – contracted revenue not yet recognized – more than 300 percent higher than a year earlier. That figure reportedly includes $300 billion for OpenAI alone, as the LLM slinger tries to support its expansion with compute capacity. Maxson said on an earnings call this week: "In order to unlock this unique growth opportunity, we started a program of capital investments. We'll continue those investments in our fiscal year 2027, with an expected net cash outlay for capital expenditures of around $70 billion. This includes customer prepayments and timing impacts expected at around $20 billion-$25 billion, so our reported capex will be higher by this amount." CEO Clay Magouyrk said any increase in capex was not due to component prices but largely due to timing. "Part of my job is to figure out ways to actually accelerate capex. My job is to try to spend the money a little bit faster so I can get ramped revenue sometimes. Component prices in general… I think everyone knows that memory prices have definitely gone up, SSD prices, hard drive prices, etc." However, Magouyrk said Oracle had also been able to lock prices "across the spectrum, whether it be space and power costs, energy costs, people costs, component costs." Oracle added around 400 MW of capacity in Q4 – similar to the last two quarters – and expects to add nearly 1 GW of capacity in fiscal Q1 2027. One analyst told Reuters there is real demand for cloud infrastructure, but the question over how Oracle funds its datacenter expansion "is getting harder, not easier, with capex coming in well above estimates and free cash flow still negative." Oracle announced a number of new customers with its latest financial figures, including a deal for a Fusion HCM system with the US Office of Personnel Management. ®

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Okay, Trump kondigt hier dus grootschalige aanvallen op Iraanse doelwitten aan voor vanavond. Maar eigenlijk staat er ook wel degelijk dat olie-exporteiland Kharg en andere olie-infrastructuur binnenkort "ingenomen gaan worden." En eilanden innemen, dat doe je niet vanuit de lucht, maar met mariniers en/of parachutisten, oftewel: boots on the ground. We gaan het meemaken en LIVE.

Oefenen jongens!

SocialDoneer hier

Een Kamermeerderheid wil een campagne van de tabakslobby om EU-wetgeving te beïnvloeden met door AI-gegenereerde bezwaren van burgers een halt toeroepen. Een motie roept het kabinet op met relevante instanties te onderzoeken hoe dit tegengegaan kan worden.

LONDEN (ANP) - Wimbledon heeft het prijzengeld voor de tennissers met 20 procent verhoogd. De organisatie meldt dat er een prijzenpot is van in totaal 64,2 miljoen Britse pond, zo'n 74,4 miljoen euro.

Het is de grootste jaarlijkse toename van het prijzengeld in de geschiedenis van het grandslamtoernooi, meldt Wimbledon. De verhoging komt na weken waarin tennissers opriepen tot een groter aandeel van de inkomsten van de grandslamtoernooien. In de aanloop naar Roland Garros hielden enkele spelers korte persmomenten als reactie op het in hun ogen geringe deel van de inkomsten voor de tennissers.

De winnaars van het enkelspel verdienen 3,6 miljoen pond, ongeveer 4,2 miljoen euro. Een verliezer in de eerste ronde verdient 80.000 pond (93.000 euro), vergeleken met 66.000 pond (76.400 euro) vorig jaar.

Kwalificaties

Ook het prijzengeld voor de kwalificaties is met 6,2 miljoen pond (7,2 miljoen euro) 25 procent hoger dan vorig jaar.

"We beseffen dat als Wimbledon groeit, de spelers ook delen in dat succes", zei voorzitter Debbie Jevans van de All England Club.