U.S. #Olympic and Paralympic officials bar transgender women from competing in Olympic women’s #sports.

The new policy, announced Monday with a quiet change on the USOPC’s website and confirmed in a letter sent to national sport governing bodies, follows a similar step taken by the NCAA earlier this year.

The USOPC change is noted obliquely as a detail under “USOPC Athlete Safety Policy” and references Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” signed in February. That order, among other things, threatens to “rescind all funds” from organizations that allow transgender athlete participation in women’s sports.

U.S. Olympic officials told the national governing bodies they will need to follow suit, adding that “the USOPC has engaged in a series of respectful and constructive conversations with federal officials” since Trump signed the order.

“As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations,” USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland and President Gene Sykes wrote in a letter. “Our revised policy emphasizes the importance of ensuring fair and safe competition environments for women. All National Governing Bodies are required to update their applicable policies in alignment.”

The National Women’s Law Center put out a statement condemning the move.

“By giving into the political demands, the USOPC is sacrificing the needs and safety of its own athletes,” said that organization’s president and CEO, Fatima Goss Graves.

The USOPC oversees around 50 national governing bodies, most of which play a role in everything from the grassroots to elite levels of their sports. That raises the possibility that rules might need to be changed at local sports clubs to retain their memberships in the NGBs.

Some of those organizations -- for instance, USA Track and Field -- have long followed guidelines set by their own world federation. World Athletics is considering changes to its policies that would mostly fall in line with Trump’s order.

A USA Swimming spokesman said the federation had been made aware of the USOPC’s change and was consulting with the committee to figure out what changes it needs to make. USA Fencing changed its policy effective Aug. 1 to allow only “athletes who are of the female sex” in women’s competition and opening men’s events to “all athletes not eligible for the women’s category, including transgender women, transgender men, non-binary and intersex athletes and cisgender male athletes.”

The nationwide battle over transgender girls on girls’ and women’s sports teams has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans portray the issue as a fight for athletic fairness. More than two dozen states have enacted laws barring transgender women and girls from participating in certain sports competitions. Some policies have been blocked in court after critics challenged the policies as discriminatory, cruel and unnecessarily target a tiny niche of athletes.

The NCAA changed its participation policy for transgender athletes to limit competition in women’s sports to athletes assigned female at birth. That change came a day after Trump signed the executive order intended to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports.

Female eligibility is a key issue for the International Olympic Committee under its new president, Kirsty Coventry, who has signaled an effort to “protect the female category.” The IOC has allowed individual sports federations to set their own rules at the Olympics -- and some have already taken steps on the topic.

Stricter rules on transgender athletes -- barring from women’s events anyone who went through male puberty -- have been passed by swimming, cycling and track and field. Soccer is reviewing its eligibility rules for women and could set limits on testosterone.

Trump has said he wants the IOC to change everything “having to do with this absolutely ridiculous subject.” Los Angeles will host the Summer Games in 2028.

During an interview on Monday’s “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” Soon-Shiong said the move would allow the Times “to be democratized and allow the public to have ownership of this paper.”

Soon-Shiong said he’s working with “an organization that’s putting that together right now.” He didn’t identify the organization or say whether the deal would involve an initial public offer to sell shares of the company or another investment arrangement.

“Whether you’re right, left, Democrat, Republican, you’re an American. So the opportunity for us to provide a paper that is the voices of the people, truly the voices of the people, is important,” he said.

Soon-Shiong, a biotech billionaire, acquired the Times as part of a $500 million deal, returning it to local ownership two decades after the Chandler family sold it to Tribune Co. Soon-Shiong’s purchase raised hopes after years of cutbacks, circulation declines and leadership changes.

But like much of the media industry, the Times has continued to face financial difficulties, losing money and subscribers. Last year the company said it would lay off at least 115 employees — more than 20% of the newsroom — in one of the largest staff cuts in the newspaper’s history.

At the time, the news organization said it had fallen well short of its digital subscriber goals and needed a revenue boost to sustain the newsroom and its digital operations.

In January 2024, executive editor Kevin Merida suddenly stepped down after a 2 1/2-year tenure at the newspaper that spanned the coronavirus pandemic and three Pulitzer Prizes, as well as a period of layoffs and contentious contract negotiations.

Then in October, the editorials editor resigned after Soon-Shiong blocked the editorial board’s plans to endorse Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris for president. Mariel Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review in an interview that she quit because the Times was remaining silent on the contest in “dangerous times.”

#Israeli far right discusses Gaza ‘riviera’ plans.

#JERUSALEM — Some Israeli far-right leaders held a public meeting on Tuesday to discuss redeveloping the Gaza Strip into a tourist-friendly “riviera”, as Palestinians face a worsening humanitarian crisis in the devastated territory.

The meeting, titled “The Riviera in Gaza: From Vision to Reality”, was held in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, under the auspices of some of its most hardline members.

It saw the participation of firebrand Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, as well as activist Daniella Weiss, a vocal proponent of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, among others.

The name of the event evokes a proposal floated by US President Donald Trump in February to turn the war-ravaged territory into “the Riviera of the Middle East” after moving out its Palestinian residents and putting it under American control.

The idea drew swift condemnation from across the Arab world, and from Palestinians themselves, for whom any effort to force them off their land would recall the “Nakba”, or catastrophe -- the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.

Participants in Tuesday’s Knesset meeting discussed a “master plan” drafted by Weiss’s organisation to re-establish a permanent Jewish presence in Gaza.

The detailed plan foresees the construction of housing for 1.2 million new Jewish residents, and the development of industrial and agricultural zones, as well as tourism complexes on the coast.

Eight Israeli settlements located in various parts of the Gaza Strip were dismantled in 2005 as part of Israel’s unilateral decision to “disengage” from Gaza following years of violence between settlers, Palestinian armed groups and the army.

For the past two decades, a small but vocal section of Israeli society has urged the resettlement of the Strip.

Those voices have become louder after Palestinian militant group Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, with advocates presenting resettlement as a way to maintain tighter security control over the area.

The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel’s ensuing military campaign in Gaza has killed 59,106 Palestinians, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis in the Strip has reached catastrophic proportions after 21 months of conflict and a two-month aid blockade imposed by Israel.

Israel began easing the blockade in late May, but extreme scarcities of food and other essentials persist, and cases of malnutrition and starvation are becoming increasingly frequent, according to local authorities, NGOs and AFP journalists on the ground.

‘He will roll over us like a cement truck:’ Doug Ford says Canada must be prepared to match Trump’s 35 per cent #tariff.

Ford made the comment prior to a meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney and other premiers in Huntsville, Ont. on Tuesday morning.

The face-to-face gathering comes with U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to impose a higher 35 per cent tariff on many Canadian goods as of Aug. 1.

Most Canadian goods not covered by an existing North American free trade pact currently face a 25 per cent tariff at the U.S. border that took effect earlier this year.

“If President Trump increases tariffs and this is my personal opinion, I don’t speak on behalf of COTF (Council of the Federation), we need to make sure we match tariff-by-tariff and dollar-for-dollar and hit him (Trump) back as hard as we possibly can,” Ford said. “There is one thing President Trump understands. It is strength. He doesn’t understand or appreciate weakness. He will roll over us like a cement roller if you show an ounce of weakness with the president in my opinion.”

Carney told reporters last week that it was unlikely that any new trade deal with the U.S. would allow for the complete removal of all tariffs.

Speaking alongside the prime minister on Tuesday, Ford said that Canada’s premiers were eager to hear from him about “the status of the negotiations.”

He subsequently described that update as “very positive” in a media availability afterwards but said he wouldn’t “divulge everything” so as to not interfere with ongoing negotiations.

“Donald Trump is very, very hard to deal with just because it is so fluid, it is constantly moving but we have a strong plan moving forward and let’s see what happens on Aug. 1,” he offered.

During his remarks earlier in the day, Ford stressed that it was his “personal opinion” that Canada should increase tariffs on the United States should no trade deal be reached by Aug. 1 and the higher 35 per cent levy on many goods take effect.

Ford said that while the premiers are all “hoping for the best,” they are also “prepared to do their part” to make sure Trump understands the importance of the trading relationship with Canada.

“When he (Trump) goes out there and says ‘I don’t need Canada’ well I guess he doesn’t need (Alberta) Premier (Danielle) Smith’s oil or (Saskatchewan) Premier (Scott) Moe’s potash or uranium or Ontario’s high-grade nickel,” Ford said. “These are just a fraction of the items where he needs us.”

Ford then added that he is committed to “onshoring everything we possibly can” in Ontario amid the trade uncertainty," arguing that Ontario needs to send “a strong message” that “we don’t have to take a back seat to anyone in the world and we sure the heck don’t need to take a back seat to President Trump.”

“I am speaking for Ontario. We need to start producing (steel) I-beams here in Ontario. Toronto and the GTA has more cranes in the sky in a slow construction period than the top 10 cities in the U.S. and what do those cranes do, they carry U.S. I-beams or rebar,” he said. “Before this happened I didn’t realize we don’t make rebar or I-beams here but we are going to start making I-beams.”

A pilot made sharp turn to avoid a B-52 bomber over North Dakota, then took to the mic to explain.

The Friday incident is detailed in a video taken by a passenger and posted to social media as Delta Flight 3788 approached the Minot International Airport for landing. In the video, the SkyWest pilot can be heard over the plane’s intercom system explaining that he made the hard bank after spotting a B-52 bomber in his flight path.

“Sorry about the aggressive maneuver. It caught me by surprise,” the pilot can be heard saying on the video. “This is not normal at all. I don’t know why they didn’t give us a heads up.”

An Air Force spokesperson confirmed Monday that a B-52 bomber assigned to nearby Minot Air Force Base conducted a flyover Friday of the North Dakota State Fair, which is held in Minot. The Air Force is “looking into” the incident, the spokesman said.

The North Dakota incident comes nearly six months after a midair collision between an Army helicopter and a jetliner over Washington, D.C., that killed all 67 people aboard the two aircraft. That collision and subsequent close calls with Army helicopters over the nation’s capital put the spotlight on the interaction between military and civilian flights. Officials have focused on improving communications between the two and making sure that air traffic controllers know where military aircraft are at all times because the Army helicopters around Washington were flying with a key locating device turned off.

SkyWest, a regional carrier for Delta and other large airlines, said the Friday flight had departed from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and landed safely in Minot after performing a “go-around” maneuver when another aircraft became visible in the SkyWest plane’s flight path. Minot is 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Bismarck, North Dakota’s capital city, and about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the Canadian border.

Minot Air Force Base is about 10 miles (16 kilometers) north of Minot, North Dakota’s fourth-largest city. The base is home to 26 B-52 bombers, intercontinental ballistic missile operations and more than 5,400 military personnel.

In the video, the pilot noted that Minot’s small airport does not operate radar and directs flights visually. When the airport tower instructed the SkyWest flight to make a right turn upon approach, the pilot said he looked in that direction and saw the bomber in his flight path. He informed the tower and made a hard turn to avoid the bomber, he said.

“I don’t know how fast they were going, but they were a lot faster than us,” the pilot said of the bomber.

Passengers can be heard applauding as the pilot wrapped up his explanation.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a statement Monday morning simply saying it’s investigating the incident. By midafternoon, it had issued a second statement to note that air traffic services were provided by a private company that services the Minot air traffic control tower.

“These controllers are not FAA employees,” the agency said.

Some small airports like Minot’s don’t have their own radar systems on site. In fact, the vast majority of the nation’s airports don’t even have towers. But regional FAA radar facilities do oversee traffic all across the country and help direct planes in and out of airports like Minot. The Minot airport typically handles between 18 and 24 flights a day.

The pilot’s frustration is evident in the video.

“The Air Force base does have radar, and nobody said, ‘Hey, there’s a B-52 in the pattern,’” the pilot told passengers.

SkyWest said it is also investigating.

Jack Dura And Margery A. Beck, The Associated Press

Beck reported from Omaha, Nebraska. AP writer Josh Funk contributed to this report from Omaha.

THIS IS LIFE IN #GAZA!

Russia launches a major aerial attack on Kyiv hours before high-level talks on support for Ukraine

A #Bangladesh Air Force jet crashes into a Dhaka school and kills 18. According to the military and a fire official, the Chinese-made F-7 BGI aircraft crashed into the campus of Milestone School and College, in the Uttara neighbourhood, in the afternoon as students were attending classes.

The Fire Service and Civil Defense said that at least 19 people, mostly students, died and another 116 were rescued with injuries. A significant number sustained burn injuries.

The government announced a national day of mourning on Tuesday, with flags to fly at half-staff across the country.

The military said the jet took off from Bangladesh Air Force Base A.K. Khandaker in Dhaka’s Kurmitola neighbourhood at 1:06 p.m. local time and crashed soon after, catching fire immediately. It said the aircraft “experienced a technical malfunction,” but that a high-level committee within the Air Force would conduct an investigation to determine the cause.

Flight Lieutenant Md. Toukir Islam, made “every effort to divert the aircraft away from densely populated areas toward a more sparsely inhabited location,” the military said. “Unfortunately, the aircraft crashed into a two-story building” within the school.

It is the deadliest airplane crash in the Bangladeshi capital in recent memory.

Local media indicated most of the injured were students. Relatives panicked at the scene as rescuers, using tricycle rickshaws or whatever was available, transported the injured to local hospitals.

A desperate scene unfolded as the crash occurred.

Local residents and rescuers carried wounded students on their laps, while worried parents ran frantically. One father sprinted with his daughter cradled in his arms. A mother cried out, having found her younger child, but desperately searching for her elder. Students said the school’s buildings trembled violently followed by a big explosion, sending them running for safety.

Screams and desperation filled the air at a nearby hospital.

Doctors at Uttara Adhunik Hospital reported that more than 60 students, many aged 12-16, were transferred to a specialized burn hospital after arriving with burn injuries.

At the crash scene, soldiers used megaphones to control the crowd, complicated by the area’s dense population, a nearby metro station and numerous surrounding shops and homes.

By Monday evening, rescuers continued to scour the debris, searching for bodies.

Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus pledged an investigation into the crash, expressing his deep sorrow over the “heartbreaking accident” at Milestone School and College.

In a statement, he lamented the “irreparable” loss suffered by “Air Force personnel, students, parents, teachers, staff, and others,” calling it “a moment of deep national grief.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed shock and sadness over the “tragic air crash in Dhaka” that resulted in the loss of many lives, including young students.

“Our hearts go out to the bereaved families,” Modi said in a post on X. “India stands in solidarity with Bangladesh and is ready to extend all possible support and assistance.”

Rafiqa Taha, a student who was not present at the time of the crash, told The Associated Press by phone that the school, with some 2,000 students, offers classes from elementary to twelfth grade.

“I was terrified watching videos on TV,” the 16-year-old said. “My God! It’s my school.”

The Associated Press

David Beckham documents his hilarious haircut mishap

#Google LLC owes almost 27.3 billion rubles (approximately $347.7 million at the current exchange rate) as fines and other penalties imposed by Russian courts, according to court files obtained by TASS.

A total of 16 court enforcement actions against Google, worth over 27 billion rubles ($343.8 million at the current exchange rate) in total, were launched in accordance with rulings issued by various district courts in Moscow. Another 35 court enforcement actions, worth almost 1.5 million rubles ($19,100), have been launched in accordance with rulings of the Moscow Commercial Court.

The court enforcement actions against Google were launched in 2021-2025.