New York Post
2026 World Cup Golden Ball odds, picks: Best bets, predictions for Player of the Tournament
Harry Kane and Lamine Yamal headline a talented pool of potential Golden Boot winners at this year's World Cup.
Right
Reason.com
The World Cup Isn't the Best Soccer Has To Offer, but the World Loves It Anyway
Center Right
Plus: Should politicians talk more sports on the campaign trail, Formula 1’s Monaco mess, and who people are rooting for in the NBA and NHL finals
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New York Post
2026 World Cup Golden Boot picks: Best bets, predictions to score the most goals
Kylian Mbappe and Harry Kane are the favorites to win the Golden Boot at the World Cup.
Right
Washington Examiner
America’s restraint is Iran’s best ally
After Hezbollah launched rockets and drones at northern Israel on June 6, Israel bombed several terrorist targets in Beirut’s Dahieh district. Iran responded with roughly 10 ballistic missiles — the first since the April 2026 ceasefire — but all were intercepted by the Jewish state. President Donald Trump then ordered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu […]
Center Right
US news | The Guardian
A (total) beginner’s guide to the World Cup: how does it work and the players to look out for
The tournament kicks off on Thursday in Mexico City. Here’s what newcomers can expect from one of the world’s largest and most watched eventsIt is! Every four years the best men’s teams on the planet gather to see who will be crowned world champions. This year’s tournament will be co-hosted by frenemies Canada, Mexico and the United States in 16 cities as different as Vancouver, Kansas City and Guadalajara. The 48 teams are initially divided into [does arithmetic] 12 four-team groups with each team playing the others in the group once. The top two from each group, along with the eight best third-placed teams – 32 in total – will advance to the knockout stages. Matches from that point on are single-elimination - lose and you’re out. If scores are level at the end of extra-time, the match is decided by a penalty shootout. Continue reading...
Center Left
Raw Story
'Oh my god!' CNN panel detonates as Trump-loving Republican called 'liar' to his face
A Trump megadonor got demolished on live television Monday night after demanding the country trust his voter fraud claims — then refusing to cite a single source to back them up.Hal Lambert, a Republican megadonor and regular on CNN's "NewsNight," clashed with CNN commentator Charles Blow and anchor Abby Phillip over President Donald Trump's long-debunked claims that the 2020 election was stolen.Lambert insisted there were "problems" in Georgia and Arizona. As he fumbled for specifics, Blow had heard enough."Oh my god!" Blow exclaimed."What were they, Hal? It's been six years," Phillip pressed.Lambert never answered. He pivoted to fraud in Medicare, Medicaid, and H-1B visas instead. Blow wasn't buying it."The more that you lie, the more we're going to push back on the fact that you are lying," Blow fired back. "You don't have a single source in your whole body."Blow then wielded the conservative Heritage Foundation's own Election Fraud Database against Lambert. A Brookings Institution analysis of Heritage's data found that in Pennsylvania, the group had to reach back 30 years — spanning 32 elections and more than 100 million ballots — to scrape together just 39 fraud cases. None changed the outcome."In 30 years, they've tracked 32 elections, 100 million votes. They have found 39 total cases of voter fraud," Blow said. "So you think the Heritage Foundation is absurd?"Lambert's response: "That's absurd! That's absurd! That's absurd!"The Brennan Center for Justice has found the Heritage cases represent a "molecular fraction" of total votes cast nationwide. Just 10 cases of in-person voter impersonation appear across the entire database.Phillip finally called it."To be honest, Hal, you're not saying anything of substance," she said.Lambert's exit line: "We'll see what the viewers think."
Far Left
Alternet.org
Sluggish World Cup ticket sales hit Trump where it hurts: his crowd size obsession
President Donald Trump is famously obsessed with crowd size to the point where he will outright lie about visibly poor attendance. With that in mind, the Daily Beast noted on Tuesday that he is poised to be “humiliated” by dismal World Cup ticket sales.According to a new analysis by the Financial Times, “almost 180,000 tickets for the tournament, which kicks off on Thursday, are still available on FIFA’s official resale portals. FIFA also has around 15,000 tickets for group-stage matches unsold on its website.” As a result, “scenes of thousands of empty seats in stadiums across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico could prove particularly embarrassing for the crowd-size-obsessed Trump.”The same analysis found that the U.S. is having a particularly difficult time selling tickets. For example, there are nearly 5,000 tickets still available via FIFA’s resale portal for the USA-Paraguay opener in Los Angeles mere days before the whistle blows.Experts say there are a number of factors contributing to poor sales, but the key problem involves sky-high, unpredictable pricing. Even with resale price cuts, median ticket costs are upwards of $800, and it’s worse when it comes to new ticket sales, with the lowest direct-from-FIFA price at $1,120. “For the first time,” explains the Daily Beast, “FIFA has used so-called ‘variable pricing’ — also known as dynamic pricing, in which ticket prices rise or fall based on demand — at a World Cup. This has seen prices for some tickets, such as Thursday’s World Cup opener between Mexico and South Africa at the iconic Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, skyrocket to as much as $3,000. Even tickets for lower-profile games in the 48-team tournament still cost at least $140. As noted by The Athletic, the ticket price for any game at any stage of the 2026 World Cup is higher than the equivalent ticket at any previous tournament.”As a result, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport and New York Attorney General Letitia James have launched an investigation into FIFA’s ticketing and pricing practices. Whatever the investigation turns up, the games this year are going to be sparsely attended. This isn’t going to look great for FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who famously — and according to some reports, embarrassingly — bestowed Trump with FIFA’s first “peace prize,” which was widely viewed as an effort to curry the president’s favor after he failed to win the Nobel Peace Prize. It’s also sure to rile Trump, who has a famous crowd size fixation. As the Daily Beast explains, “Throughout his political career, Trump has desperately tried to prove his popularity by citing crowd sizes at his rallies and other public events. This obsession dates back to his 2017 inauguration, which the president claimed had the highest-ever attendance for such an event despite photos proving otherwise. Trump has also frequently inflated the size of the crowds at his political rallies, sometimes by tens of thousands of people.”
Left
New York Post
Fox Sports adds Bob Bradley, ex-USMNT stars to FIFA World Cup 2026 broadcasts
Fox Sports is adding some new American faces to this year’s FIFA World Cup broadcast.
Right
US news | The Guardian
Nithya Raman: progressive who bested Spencer Pratt eyes Hollywood ending
Raman shook up LA mayoral race by entering hours before the deadline – now she faces her one-time political allyRaman advances to face Karen Bass in LA mayoral runoffOn election night, Nithya Raman seemed as if she was prepared to lose the second spot in the Los Angeles mayoral race to the reality TV star Spencer Pratt, whose viral campaign appeared on track to upend the contest.“Many thousands of votes will be counted in the days ahead, and we may not get an answer we like. But regardless of what happens next, nobody can take away what all of us have built together,” Raman, a progressive Democrat who sits on the LA city council, told her supporters. Continue reading...
Center Left