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  • Comcast adds heft with Sky’s deal for British broadcaster ITV

    Comcast adds heft with Sky’s deal for British broadcaster ITV

    LONDON — Sky, the British media group owned by Comcast, said Monday that it was buying the television arm of ITV in a deal that would vastly expand its audience and help Comcast compete with rival streaming platforms.

    The 1.6-billion-pound ($2.1-billion) takeover would combine two major media brands into a broadcaster that is expected to account for 20% of home viewing in Britain. The deal includes ITV’s free-to-air channels and its streaming platform.

    Last week, Philadelphia-based Comcast announced it would spin off NBCUniversal and Sky into a separate company focused on media and entertainment, while Comcast would center on its cable and internet services. Earlier this year, Comcast moved its cable channels, including MS NOW and CNBC, into a new company called Versant.

    Dana Strong, the CEO of Sky Group, called the merger “a defining moment for British media” in a statement. Comcast acquired Sky in 2018.

    “ITV will remain a public service broadcaster at the heart of British life, and we’re excited about the future we can build together,” she said.

    ITV, the oldest commercial network in Britain, has suffered as viewers and advertisers have shifted to YouTube and streaming giants such as Netflix and Disney. Sky said that under the merger, ITV’s channels would remain free to air and that ITV News and Sky News would remain distinct news outlets.

    Sky is acquiring ITV for 1.2 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) in cash, with add-ons for advertising performance potentially bringing the transaction up to 1.6 billion pounds. As part of the deal, Comcast is expected to sell its Love Productions business, which makes The Great British Baking Show, to ITV.

    ITV Studios, the production arm, is not included in the acquisition by Sky and is to operate independently. Sky has agreed to spend at least 2.1 billion pounds ($2.8 billion) over five years on content from ITV Studios, which the company said would help to support creative jobs and British-centric production.

    The deal faces regulatory approval and is not likely to be completed until next year.

    This article originally appeared in the New York Times.

  • A former Defense Department employee pleaded guilty to laundering money for Nigerian scammers

    A former Defense Department employee pleaded guilty to laundering money for Nigerian scammers

    A former Department of Defense employee from Oreland pleaded guilty Monday to helping Nigerian scammers launder millions of dollars they collected during phishing or extortion operations.

    Samuel D. Marcus, 33, was arrested earlier this year and charged with crimes including conspiracy and money laundering. Prosecutors said he served as a “money mule” for fraudsters who used aliases to target victims in schemes including cyber or tax fraud, romance fraud, or attacks on business email addresses.

    The FBI said those types of crimes cost Americans more than $20 billion last year, with scammers targeting vulnerable people using a variety of tactics designed to exploit or steal peoples’ personal information and money. The Pew Research Center said nearly three-quarters of American adults have been subjected to some form of online fraud, such as credit card fraud, ransomware, or unwittingly giving away personal information.

    Marcus knew that the fraudsters he was interacting with — who used the names “Rachel Jude” and “Ned McMurray” — were committing sophisticated digital crimes, prosecutors said, in part because he was first targeted by those same fraudsters in an online romance scam.

    Still, Marcus went on to help the scammers collect and transfer millions of dollars through bank accounts he created and into overseas accounts or cryptocurrency exchanges between 2023 and 2025.

    Prosecutors did not say how much Marcus was able to keep for himself, but said in court documents that he was able to collect small amounts from each transaction. At the time, prosecutors said, he was also working as a logistics specialist for the Department of Defense.

    He continued committing his crimes even after FBI agents told him that money passing through his accounts had been stolen from other people, prosecutors said.

    Marcus said little in court Monday beyond responding to routine legal questions from U.S. District Judge Joel H. Slomsky, and he has been held in federal custody since earlier this year.

    He is scheduled to be sentenced in October.

  • Islandwide blackout hits Cuba as its fuel reserve dwindles and aging grid crumbles

    Islandwide blackout hits Cuba as its fuel reserve dwindles and aging grid crumbles

    HAVANA, Cuba — An islandwide blackout hit Cuba on Monday as fuel reserves dwindle and its electric grid continues to crumble.

    The blackout in the country of 10 million people was reported by the state-run Electric Union, which said on X that the cause is under investigation. The Ministry of Energy and Mines wrote on X that it has activated protocols to restore electricity.

    Fuel has been running out across Cuba since January, when U.S. President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to the island, deepening the island’s ongoing economic and financial crisis. Public transportation has largely been halted, and officials have canceled tens of thousands of surgeries.

    Cuba produces only 40% of the fuel it needs, while the 730,000 barrels of oil delivered by a Russian tanker in late March ran out by the end of April.

    The government also has been rationing power with intentional outages that can stretch to more than 24 consecutive hours.

    A blackout in mid-May affected the island’s eastern provinces, while a blackout in mid-March struck the entire island.

  • After America’s 250th, Trump will test how far he can push NATO allies

    After America’s 250th, Trump will test how far he can push NATO allies

    Fresh off a week of star-spangled celebrations of America’s 250th, President Donald Trump departs for Turkey on Monday to meet with fellow leaders of NATO. They hope he wouldn’t declare independence from them.

    Trump has long been skeptical about NATO and European allies, asserting that the alliance the United States forged after World War II to fend off the Soviet Union has been taking advantage of Washington’s largesse. Deep into his second term, the president is now well acquainted with the theatrics of NATO gatherings, reveling, according to his associates, in the drama of threatening fellow leaders and watching them scramble to keep him happy.

    The strains increase every year, with Trump’s popularity sinking in Europe after he threatened to seize Greenland in January and sent energy prices spiking with his attack on Iran. The president has fumed that European allies didn’t do enough to help Washington in its war. And in recent days, he has renewed complaints about their defense spending, though he has successfully driven big increases.

    Now, the alliance will again attempt to weather Trumpian pressure, by flattering him where possible and avoiding unnecessary confrontations.

    Trump is scheduled to arrive in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Tuesday and will meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before having dinner with fellow NATO leaders that evening.

    The substantive meeting will be Wednesday morning, which diplomats have kept short to minimize potential disruptions. Afterward, Trump plans to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa before holding a news conference and returning to Washington, according to White House spokesperson Anna Kelly.

    The president’s grievances have already subsumed much of NATO’s business. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte laid the foundation last month, praising the president’s stewardship and delivering a presentation in the Oval Office of what he called the “Trump trillion,” with poster boards in golden, “Art of the Deal”-style lettering boasting increases in Europe’s defense spending over the last decade.

    Trump told Rutte that he would skip the gathering altogether were it not being hosted by Erdogan, who for 23 years has ruled his nation with an increasingly tight grip.

    Asked what he wanted from allies, Trump said alongside Rutte that “I just want their loyalty.”

    He has rewarded allied leaders in recent months whom he perceives as friends, including Polish President Karol Nawrocki, whose country has been promised 5,000 more U.S. troops. And he has moved to punish those he views as insufficiently deferential, including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who faced weeks of open criticism from Trump after questioning the president’s Iran strategy during a public conversation with schoolchildren.

    Trump began and ended one day last week with angry posts about NATO on his social media account, declaring that “the United States spends more money on NATO than any other country, by far, to protect them, without getting any benefit from so doing.” But behind the public criticism, a senior White House official said, the president views the summits as an opportunity to impose pressure, leaning into his tough-guy role and seeing how leaders respond.

    The last summit, held in June 2025 in the Netherlands, “was great fun,” the official said, referring to an event in which Rutte called Trump “daddy,” comparing him to a father who needs to use authority to stop kids from fighting on a schoolyard. The comment went viral online and was boosted by the White House’s edit of the video clip with the Usher song “Hey Daddy (Daddy’s Home).”

    “The president always has fun at NATO, contrary to what people think,” the White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the sensitive politics of these encounters.

    NATO officials and diplomats from NATO countries don’t expect Trump to threaten to pull from the alliance this year, as he did in 2018. But they know the president likes to surprise, and they say much will depend on his mood when he lands in Turkey. It is expected to be the first international trip on the refurbished, luxury Boeing 747 that he pushed Qatar to give him for use as Air Force One.

    One senior European diplomat fretted that Trump would arrive in Turkey exhausted and angry after a week of tiring travel, including a 3:30 a.m. Saturday return from an event at Mount Rushmore and a rally on the National Mall later that day in the sweltering Washington heat.

    Europeans are “nervous that the way [Trump] feels about NATO is that this is not fundamentally in U.S. interests and so [they] are nervous that the summit could be more calamitous,” said Max Bergmann, an expert on U.S.-Europe relations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank. “Especially now as there’s more domestic political pressure on European leaders to be seen as standing up to Trump.”

    NATO officials are coming to the summit armed with big numbers that play to Trump’s wishes. They will trumpet an extra $139 billion spent on defense by European allies and Canada last year. They will make a show of signing billions of dollars of weapons deals and letters of intent, according to senior NATO diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive planning around the meeting.

    And they hope to promise as much as they can to help ensure security in the Strait of Hormuz, although many countries say they need Tehran’s assent if they are to deploy naval missions there to remove the Iranian mines that are hampering shipping traffic.

    But many of NATO’s core security issues have been overshadowed by Trump’s dispute with the alliance. Ukraine and Russia have stepped up attacks on each other in recent weeks, but U.S. efforts to mediate a peace deal have all but halted. Trump’s peace envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, have been focused on Iran, and the White House hasn’t empowered other officials to engage, despite the deep ranks of policymakers who might do so.

    NATO diplomats are negotiating a pledge for Ukraine of about $70 billion in military aid for this year and the next, to be announced at the summit. Washington would not take part, but it has not opposed language supportive of Ukraine, as it sometimes did last year, two diplomats said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share internal deliberations.

    The alliance has shelved work on a strategy for responding to threats from Russia, a consequence, European diplomats say, of White House caution about doing anything that would portray Moscow as an adversary.

    Some U.S. officials have downplayed the tensions. The U.S. ambassador to NATO, Matthew G. Whitaker, said last week that the summit “really is going to be a measurement of the progress,” since allies pledged last year to each spend 5% of their annual economic output on defense by 2035.

    Whitaker offered assurances that “the U.S. isn’t going away” but said the administration would try to reward the countries that are spending the most. He said the Pentagon and State Department have discussed possible benefits such as “more time with leaders” and “priority in acquisition and procurement.”

    Asked if the U.S. was considering measures targeting nations that are lagging behind, he said yes, but did not elaborate.

    The Trump administration has made disjointed troop announcements in recent months, with the Pentagon at times out of step with the White House. After the Pentagon surprised Poland by canceling a planned troop rotation, for instance, Trump scrapped it and promised an increase. In other cases, the president has suggested some cuts were punishment for European criticism of the war on Iran.

    European leaders plan to declare their commitment to assume increased responsibility of the continent’s defenses — a message many of them have converged on with the Trump administration, which is intent on pulling U.S. resources.

    European policymakers describe their vow to rearm as a response to an increasingly tense confrontation with Russia and shifting U.S. priorities, rather than just a bid to placate Trump. But policymakers including in France and Germany have pressed their U.S. counterparts to coordinate any military drawdown.

    Some Europeans, especially those in Western Europe, have started to work with Pentagon planners on an orderly handover. French Deputy Defense Minister Alice Rufo said Paris has long led calls for greater European autonomy, and “today it is the Americans saying it” too.

    “What we need to achieve at this summit is for this shift to happen in a coherent manner for collective defense, which also concerns the Americans,” Rufo said. “It’s in our best interest to ensure that this shift takes place in an orderly, efficient manner to deter our adversaries, and not to create frictions among us.”

    But the effort is creating strains in the alliance. Rutte is still trying to preserve a robust U.S. presence in Europe. And many policymakers in countries that border Russia still trust Washington more than France and Germany to defend them in a war with Moscow. They believe that old American instincts to defend democracies would kick in, along with pressure from hawkish Republican lawmakers.

    A senior NATO diplomat said there was a sense of optimism ahead of the summit but also a recognition that “things can derail.”

    The diplomat mentioned Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a far-right leader who shares much of Trump’s skepticism about migration and is sympathetic with many of his issues. But the two leaders traded barbs in recent weeks in a dispute that originated with Trump’s anger at Italy’s caution about allowing its bases to be used to attack Iran.

    “Can I totally exclude that something like that will happen? No. I’m optimistic because I think the leaders know what is at stake,” the NATO diplomat said. “And if something does occur, then we always have the ultimate marriage counselor, Mark Rutte, to smooth things over.”

    The Trump-Meloni kerfuffle took on a new dimension after Trump claimed she had “begged” for a photo with him at a recent Group of Seven meeting in France.

    It escalated further over the weekend as the president posted a meme to Truth Social of Meloni looking at him during the G7, under the headline “Restraining Order Needed.” The post sparked a fresh wave of coverage in the Italian press and thinly veiled distaste within the ranks of Meloni’s coalition.

  • Fatal crash on Route 55 in Deptford kills two, injures another

    Fatal crash on Route 55 in Deptford kills two, injures another

    A single-vehicle crash late Sunday night on southbound Route 55 in Deptford Township killed two women and injured another.

    New Jersey State Police responded to the crash at 10:55 p.m., Trooper Christopher Postorino said via email. A preliminary investigation shows some of what happened, though the crash is still under investigation.

    Ayzia J. Toledo, 22, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was driving a BMW with Henrietta F. Carter, 22, of Darby, Pennsylvania, in the front passenger seat and another passenger in the rear when she lost control of the vehicle and ran off the roadway. The BMW overturned and struck a tree. Toledo and Carter died of their injuries, and the rear seat passenger was transported to an area hospital for minor injuries.

    The families of Toledo and Carter have been notified, Postorino said. No traffic delays were reported after the accident. A GoFundMe has been established in Toledo’s honor.

    Last March, three teens, including a student and a graduate of Delsea Regional High School, were killed in a car crash on northbound Route 55 in Elk Township.

    This is a developing story and may be updated.

  • Efforts to help smokers quit stall under Trump

    Efforts to help smokers quit stall under Trump

    WASHINGTON — The ads were jarring: a man with a hole in his throat where his larynx, or voice box, had once been. A woman whose teeth and jaw had been removed after oral cancer. Another woman speaking in a robotic voice, which was altered when her larynx was removed: “I wish I’d never seen a cigarette in my entire life.” A black screen followed, saying she died two days later.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 14-year ad campaign, called Tips From Former Smokers, was highly memorable and, research shows, highly effective in motivating people to quit. Last year, though, as tobacco companies gave millions to political organizations related to the Trump administration, the campaign went dark.

    There is no definitive evidence linking the donations to the lapse of the ad campaign. But the decision to terminate it was one of several steps the administration has taken to unravel federal government antismoking initiatives that had long had bipartisan support during a time when the administration has delivered significant policy wins to tobacco companies.

    The CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, which managed the campaign and worked with states on smoking cessation measures, has been shut down for more than a year, after its staff was laid off as part of the administration’s government downsizing efforts. While hundreds of other federal health employees were eventually rehired, the smoking office staff members have not been.

    Even after Congress restored the office’s funding late last summer, its employees have remained on paid leave as litigation challenging the firings plays out.

    In recent weeks, under pressure from Congress, the CDC has given states diminished funding to air ads from the campaign’s archive, but the federal government will not produce new ads or negotiate contracts for them to air nationwide. The ads had prompted millions of smokers to dial state quit lines for help on how to stop smoking. In interviews, people who ran quit lines in several states said that since the ads went off the air, calls have plummeted along with enrollment in programs that offered counseling and nicotine gum and patches.

    The abandonment of an effort that was widely regarded as a public health triumph has puzzled antismoking activists who point out that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s platform was based on ending chronic diseases, which are a well-known consequence of smoking.

    “We find it very ironic in an administration that wants to make America healthy again that we’re cutting all of these resources related to smoking and vaping,” said Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association.

    Helping adults stop smoking is one of the most evidence-backed ways to improve the public’s health. Smoking rates in the United States have fallen significantly, to less than 10% of adults, compared with 42% of adults in the early 1960s. Still, smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the country, causing about 490,000 premature deaths each year.

    A national survey of adults who smoked from 2012 through 2018 found that the Tips from Former Smokers campaign was associated with more than 16 million people attempting to quit smoking and 1 million succeeding. During those years alone, the campaign was associated with saving an estimated $7.3 billion in healthcare costs.

    “It’s crazy that they have cut this funding if they really want to save lives and save money,” said Sally Herndon, who ran North Carolina’s tobacco control program until her retirement last year.

    Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement that the CDC “remains committed to tobacco prevention and control and continues to support this priority through outreach, education, and surveillance.”

    The cuts have come as tobacco companies have aggressively lobbied the administration for policy changes that would likely increase their market share of vaping and other nicotine products.

    The New York Times recently reported that Reynolds American, which makes Newport and Camel cigarettes, saw a coveted new federal policy take shape that would allow an entire new class of flavored e-cigarettes onto the market. The initiative was announced just days after a $5 million donation and lunch with President Donald Trump at his golf course in Florida. Executives from Altria, which makes Marlboro cigarettes, were also present.

    The new policy was crafted over the objections of Marty Makary, then the FDA commissioner, who cited it as the reason for his resignation in May. It stunned some public health experts, who say the FDA set aside one of its central authorities: to approve or reject individual products based on their merits.

    “It’s very clear this guidance is a gift to the tobacco industry on a silver platter with a side of public health malpractice,” said Brian King, a former leader of the FDA’s tobacco division and executive vice president for U.S. programs of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

    Opponents of the policy say flavored vapes will introduce young people who have never smoked to nicotine products.

    But Hilliard, the health department spokesperson, said the FDA was focused on protecting youth and a “science-based review process for tobacco products.”

    She added: “Cigarette smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States. And the agency supports the development of products that may provide less harmful alternatives for adults who smoke.”

    The federal cuts to antismoking programs and what some view as lenient new policies represent a reversal of decades of setbacks for tobacco companies under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

    The CDC’s shuttered Office on Smoking and Health employed experts on effective tobacco interventions who worked with state health officials to advance antismoking policies such as bans on indoor smoking, higher tobacco taxes, and education for parents about e-cigarettes.

    The office sent most of its $240 million budget to states each year, but shortly after laying off the staff, in April 2025, the CDC notified states that their annual funding for tobacco control would not be coming.

    Many state tobacco control offices cut their own staff as a result, including in New York, Texas, and North Carolina. Late last year, Congress reinstated some funding to states that had relied on the CDC office for expertise.

    “We know that we really save lives and save money with tobacco prevention and control,” said Herndon, who until recently led North Carolina’s tobacco control efforts. “But without the training and technical assistance and support from the Office on Smoking and Health, a lot of the newer staff coming along are struggling to know what to do.”

    The Tips From Former Smokers campaign went off the air around September of last year, though some larger states such as New York and California continued to run some antismoking ads.

    Since then, calls to 1-800-QUIT-NOW lines — which traditionally experience a 30% spike in the weeks after an ad campaign — have fallen off significantly.

    National data on the quit line call volume was not compiled for the last year after the federal employee in charge was let go, said Thomas Ylioja, president of the North American Quitline Consortium.

    But at Quit for Life, an organization that operates quit lines in 19 states, Guam, and Washington, D.C., calls fell by 25% in the first half of 2026 compared with the first half of 2025 when the ads were on the air, according to Nick Fradkin, the group’s director of public health strategy.

    Officials in other states said calls had fallen off too — by about 45% in Texas, 25% in California, and 18% in New York. In Virginia, enrollment in the quit line counseling services fell by half from October 2025 through February 2026, said Logan Anderson, a spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Health.

    In recent weeks, the CDC offered $40 million, down from the usual $65 million, for states to air archived antismoking ads. It is unclear whether new ads will be created.

    In North Carolina, at least, “we don’t have the media machine that produced those fabulous ads,” Herndon said.

    This article originally appeared in the New York Times.

  • Downpours set off flood alerts and road closings — but now the Philly region could use some more rain

    Downpours set off flood alerts and road closings — but now the Philly region could use some more rain

    The waterfall downpours came just as the sun-cooked vegetation was showing those hay-brownish tints and taking on that desperate we-need-a-drink-now look.

    “You have to be careful what you wish for in the summer,” said Scott Kleebauer, branch forecaster at the national Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Md.

    But sometimes too much is not enough.

    While downpours flooded streets and caused Regional Rail problems for SEPTA, which also reported weather-relates signal problems, Kleebauer suggested it wouldn’t hurt for Philadelphia and other parts of the Mid-Atlantic to place an order for more rain.

    Through Sunday, Philadelphia’s year-to-date precipitation was about 75% of normal, and even with additional rains on Monday, still was roughly 4 inches — or a month’s worth — below long-term averages, according to the Middle Atlantic River Forecast Center.

    More rain might be about the last thing some people would want after rounds of strong storms on Sunday with frequent lightning and downpours on Sunday and Monday, when as much as 2 to 4 inches fell in a short period upon parts of Philadelphia, Bucks, and Burlington Counties, the National Weather Service said.

    And in the city of Camden, 4.38 inches was measured, the agency said.

    “Numerous roads remain closed due to flooding,” the agency said.

    In late morning, moderate flooding was reported along Frankford Creek, and the weather service posted a flood warning that remained in effect until early evening. At one point Kelly Drive was closed due to flooding on the Schuylkill.

    Comden County received about 1,000 911 calls just in the stretch of the morning storm, said Dan Keashen, Camden County’s public affairs director.

    SEPTA train service on the Trenton line was suspended due to water over the rails. A car got stuck in floodwaters by a rail bridge and Eighth Street and Fairmount Avenue, the weather service reported.

    The rains backed off during the afternoon, but the weather service has shower possibilities every day this week, except Wednesday.

    The federal Climate Prediction Center’s outlook for the 8-to-14-day period favors above-normal precipitation for the region.

    So, is the drought on the run in the Philly region?

    Maybe, but droughts are slow to develop and slow to abandon their methodical harvests.

    All of New Jersey and Chester County remain under state-declared drought “warnings,” and the majority of the region is under “moderate drought,” according to the interagency U.S. Drought Monitor.

    “There’s definitely been some improvement,” said Kleebauer. “Unfortunately there’s been some losers.”

    Summer rains are notoriously capricious and random.

    “My grass has been happy the past few days,” said Lee Robertson, a weather service meteorologist in Mount Holly, but he added that it’s going to “take a while” to make up the accumulated rain deficits.

    But in reality, “It’s really difficult to get everybody to win,” said Kleebauer.

    The steering currents aloft that move storms get as lazy as a lot of humans in the heat.

    “Stuff just kind of meanders or has slow general motion,” he said. Storms can get stuck in place, and the more one place gets, the less other places will get. Even in a juiced atmosphere, moisture is finite.

    Joe Puccio of Williamstown rolls up his pants legs to make his way to his truck in the flooded parking lot at the Ferry Avenue PATCO station in Camden Monday, July 6, 2026, as a flash flood threat continues for the region. He said he commutes to work in Philadelphia every day and the flooding is something that happens a lot in the area, but he has never seen it as bad before. His truck started okay, but Route 130, his normal way home was also under water so he had to take back roads.

    The extreme heat appears to be over, for now

    The rains at least have marked the end of the region’s extreme heat as the “heat dome” has migrated westward. It is not uncommon for storms to break out as a hot spell deteriorates.

    But that three-day stretch ending with that torrid 250th birthday party on July 4 was historic in its own right.

    It marked the first time in records dating to 1873 that the temperature had reached 101 or higher three consecutive days and only the third time it had hit 100 three days straight, according to the weather service.

    It may be hard to remember, but on Feb. 8 it got down to 8 degrees at the airport, proving that Philly truly is a four-season resort.

    Inquirer staff writers T.J. Furman and Sarah Nicell contributed to this article.

  • Trump says red card call on Folarin Balogun was ‘horrible’ but insists he left outcome to FIFA

    Trump says red card call on Folarin Balogun was ‘horrible’ but insists he left outcome to FIFA

    Editor’s note: This article was updated to reflect a statement made by FIFA president Gianni Infantino

    President Donald Trump on Monday took credit for getting FIFA to review a red card issued against the United States’ star forward Folarin Balogun at the World Cup but said he did not demand an outcome.

    “All I did was ask for a review,” Trump said when asked about it during an unrelated Oval Office event. “I didn’t say, ‘You have to do this.’”

    Trump confirmed that he called FIFA president Gianni Infantino and asked for a second look at the punishment against Balogun in the United States’ 2-0 win against Bosnia-Herzegovina last week. But he said FIFA made the final call to lift Balogun’s mandatory one-game ban for a foul tackle, allowing him to play in Monday’s round of 16 match with Belgium in Seattle.

    Hours later, Infantino released a statement coming off of Trump’s remarks, which read, in part:

    “Yes, I regularly discuss matters related to the FIFA World Cup with the President of the United States, and on this matter, I did receive a call from President Donald Trump, just as I receive calls from heads of state, government officials, football stakeholders, and business executives from around the world on many different issues.

    “During our conversation, I explained that there was an ongoing legal process involving FIFA’s independent judicial bodies and that the case would be decided in due course by those competent bodies. That is how FIFA’s system works, and it is a principle I will always uphold. I read the decisions of the FIFA Disciplinary Committee when they are issued. Sometimes, I am surprised by them. Sometimes I agree with them, and sometimes I disagree.”

    FIFA’s decision to suspend the one-game ban was celebrated by many in the United States but brought condemnation in the international sports world, where some called it an improper intrusion.

    In remarks on Monday, Trump called the referee’s decision a “horrible” call. He added that it would have been a stain on the tournament if Balogun, the U.S.’s leading scorer at this year’s World Cup with three goals, was held out against Belgium and the U.S. lost. He praised FIFA for making what he described as a brilliant decision in suspending the punishment.

    “I didn’t think it was a foul,” Trump said. “I thought it was two great athletes that crashed into each other and got entangled.”

    The president, who said he understands sports “really well,” acknowledged that he did not initially know what a red card is or the consequences it brings. When he learned it would lead to a one-game suspension for Balogun, he said, he decided to step in. He also took issue with the use of video review to issue the red card, arguing that slowed-down reviews can make plays look aggressive.

    Among those joining Trump for the Oval Office event was Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who thanked Trump for stepping in.

    “On behalf of all Americans, thank you for getting rid of that ridiculous red card,” Cruz said. “It was spectacular. There was a reason the FIFA trophy sat here for as long as it did.”

    Cruz appeared to be referring to a White House event last year at which Infantino visited and brought the World Cup trophy.

  • Lillian’s opens in Point Breeze with rotating chefs and a parlor-style cocktail bar

    Lillian’s opens in Point Breeze with rotating chefs and a parlor-style cocktail bar

    For years, Sam Ahern imagined opening a place that felt less like a restaurant than a gathering spot.

    Now, just a few doors from her first Philadelphia apartment, she’s done exactly that.

    Lillian’s opened last week at 19th and Mifflin Streets in Point Breeze, transforming a onetime barbershop into a bistro and cocktail bar decorated like an old-fashioned living room parlor, complete with vintage furnishings and an evolving food program that will regularly hand over its kitchen to guest chefs.

    Owner Sam Ahern and bar manager Avdo Babic at Lillian’s. They met while working at Fitler Club.

    “I wanted something that felt like you were hanging out in somebody’s house,” Ahern said.

    Ahern took the name from her great-great-grandmother, who had a speakeasy in her basement in North Jersey and was known in the family as Diamond Lil. “The story goes that she would keep jewelry if you couldn’t pay with cash, and apparently she made her own gin,” said Ahern, who accepts cash and credit cards at Lillian’s.

    The project is the culmination of a path Ahern never expected to follow. She studied graphic design and fiber arts in graduate school in Savannah, Ga., where she began helping a friend open a restaurant. Hospitality stuck.

    After moving to Philadelphia in 2018, she worked behind the bar at Cicala at the Divine Lorraine, then at the private Fitler Club, before becoming bar manager at Fabrika in Fishtown.

    She also put down roots in Point Breeze eight years ago. Her first apartment was three houses from where Lillian’s is now.

    Three brioche toasts (anchovy, sardine, and enoki mushroom) at Lillian’s.

    During the pandemic, Ahern and friends hosted backyard supper clubs featuring rotating chefs. The dinners proved there was an audience for intimate, chef-driven experiences outside the traditional restaurant model.

    When a property around the corner from her home came on the market, “it felt meant to be,” Ahern said. “At the same time, someone I knew was selling a liquor license and it also became available, so everything just fell into place.”

    Rather than hire a permanent executive chef, Ahern decided to build Lillian’s around residencies. The idea, she said, is to tie the supper-club ethos into a neighborhood bar where someone can stop in for a martini and a sandwich one night, then return weeks later to discover a different chef, menu, or cocktail.

    Chef Alejandro Martín Sánchez, who is location-shopping for his fine-dining restaurant Mesona, consulted on the opening menu, kitchen layout, and operations. Kitchen operations are managed by Isobella “Izzy” Ioffreda, while guest chefs rotate through for weekend or monthlong engagements.

    Panzanella salad at Lillian’s.

    The opening menu is intentionally concise, built around Mediterranean-inspired snacks and light meals meant to accompany cocktails. It includes mixed pickled vegetables ($5); panzanella salad ($12) with optional toppings; brioche toasts ($6 each), topped with anchovies, sardines, or enoki mushrooms; shrimp cocktail ($15 for five); a cheese and charcuterie board ($25), and sandwiches including vegetable ($13) with whipped ricotta, roasted piquillo peppers, and confit garlic; prosciutto and Manchego ($15) with house-made fig jam; and grilled chicken salad with Calabrian tomato jam ($15), topped with arugula and Parmesan on brioche toast. Desserts include flavored shortbreads ($2 each), chocolate mousse ($11) with Marsala and pretzel streusel, and olive oil cake ($13) with orange syrup, fig jam, and Greek yogurt. The menu is expected to evolve alongside the rotating chef residencies.

    The residency program begins this month with Miled Finianos’ Lebanese-focused Habibi Supper Club, which is on its way to a permanent location on Passyunk Square. On July 9-11, 17-18, and 23-25, Finianos will offer a six-course ticketed dinner at 8 p.m., preceded by a public happy hour from 5 to 7 p.m. featuring a more casual Habibi menu. August will be devoted to refining Lillian’s own operation before residencies resume in September.

    Lillian’s at 19th and Mifflin Streets on June 30, 2026.

    The cocktail program comes from Ahern’s former Fitler Club colleague Avdo Babic. Like Ahern, Babic came to Philadelphia through the arts, arriving to attend art school before discovering bartending under Katie Loeb at the Trestle Inn.

    The menu leans on classic cocktails interpreted through house-made ingredients. Babic prepares his own tinctures, bitters, shrubs, syrups, and cordials, drawing inspiration from Prohibition-era recipes as well as the homemade herbal infusions his family made while he was growing up in Bosnia.

    The Ms. Martinez ($15), for example, infuses Beefeater gin with osmanthus flowers and linden honey to lend floral, honeysuckle notes to the classic cocktail. Persephone’s Garden ($14) turns the martini savory through clarified pickle juice, dill, celery, coriander, black pepper, caraway, and Greek yogurt. La Molina ($16), a pisco sour, grew out of a recent research trip to Peru while incorporating a lime cordial recipe Babic has refined over several years.

    “We built it around seasonal ingredients, but the foundation is classic cocktails,” Babic said.

    Lillian’s, 1900 S. 19th St. Hours: 5 to 11 p.m. Tuesday to Thursday, 5 p.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday. Kitchen open to 10 p.m.

  • La Salle names Jarett Gerald as its new director of athletics

    La Salle names Jarett Gerald as its new director of athletics

    La Salle has found its new athletic director after Ash Puri departed from 20th and Olney for the same job at St. Joseph’s.

    The university announced Monday that Jarett Gerald will take over as vice president of athletics & recreation and director of athletics, starting in August. He’ll oversee the school’s 23 Division I programs, while managing a recreation department that serves nearly 3,500 students.

    “We are building tremendous momentum across our university, and I believe Jarett is exactly the kind of leader who will accelerate that momentum within Explorer Athletics,” wrote La Salle President Daniel J. Allen. “He understands that athletics is about far more than competition. It is about developing young people, strengthening our university, inspiring alumni and donors, and elevating the La Salle experience for our student-athletes and our entire campus community.”

    La Salle AD Ash Puri leaving to take the same role at St. Joseph’s

    Gerald, who has spent 15 years in college athletics, previously served as assistant athletics director for major gifts at the University of Missouri, where he developed a naming rights and an endowment strategy, and secured six- and seven-figure commitments from donors.

    “Great institutions are built by people who believe deeply in a purpose greater than themselves,” Gerald wrote. “Throughout this process, I came to appreciate the strong foundation of faith, hope, and service that defines La Salle, along with the shared belief that the university’s best days are still ahead.”

    Prior to Mizzou, the Columbia, S.C. native spent about four years at Duke, where he moved roles from director of revenue strategy and associate director of administrative operations to the major gifts officer. He was credited for landing $11 million in athletic commitments, including multiple seven-figure gifts.