New York Post
World Cup picks: Haiti vs. Brazil prediction, odds, best bets Friday
Brazil is required to respond against Haiti on Friday.
Right
New York Post
Meet Merlin, the viral Mexican duck taking the World Cup by storm
Right
As fans gathered to cheer Mexico's goals, the dressed-up duck wandered among the crowds on the capital's busy Reforma Avenue.
Compare Perspectives
Found 8 stories
New York Post
Mexico fans celebrate latest World Cup win from coast to coast
Mexico versus South Korea was one of the early must-watch matches of the 2026 World Cup.
Right
New York Post
Watch: World Cup fans take over Seattle ahead of USA vs Australia
The 2026 World Cup has brought fans from all over the world to America. Groups have taken over cities from the East Coast to the West Coast, and Seattle is no exception. Ahead of Friday’s highly touted match between the U.S. men’s national team and Australia at Lumen Field, World Cups fans have crowded the...
Right
The New Republic
Obama’s Harsh New Takedown of Trump Points to a World After MAGA
All honor is due to whoever decided that the opening of Barack Obama’s presidential center in Chicago should come right before Donald Trump’s planned July 4 gala on the National Mall. The two events will serve as perfect touchstones for the bigger argument that our country’s 250th anniversary is prompting—the argument over American national identity.The forty-fourth president delivered an emotional speech at the Obama Presidential Center’s opening ceremony on Thursday. It offered a blistering indictment of the forty-fifth and forty-seventh president, all without mentioning the words “Donald Trump,” while offering his own ambitious rendering of the American story.Yet in so doing, the speech also sent an implicit message to Democrats: Defeating Trumpism, MAGA, and the right-wing nationalist vision of America that animates them requires something more than small-bore politics and slogans about “affordability.” It requires a bigger and better story, a positive and aspirational vision, a full-throated declaration of what we liberals think the United States is—and should be—instead.Obama has long been a spokesperson for the idea of creedal nationalism, which holds that American identity is defined by our founding ideals, versus a nationalism rooted in heritage or ethnicity or race. And so, Obama declared that the “story of America at its best” rests on “shared values that make democracy possible.” They include:a belief in the intrinsic dignity and worth of all people and that no one is above the law or beneath its protection, a belief in checks and balances in our government … a belief that our military and law enforcement owe allegiance not to any president or political party, but to the people and our Constitution.Let’s be blunt: It’s a defining fact of this moment that Trump and his movement simply do not accept any of those things. And it’s important that Obama used this moment to say so. Obama also lionized “the peaceful transfer of power” and called for a reaffirmation of “character, honesty, integrity” and “a sense of duty and honor” in public life. Guess who he was talking about?But creedal nationalism was the main event here. To reinforce the idea, Obama also declared that these values are embodied in the Declaration of Independence, which provided the “framework that allows each generation to make our union more perfect.” Implicitly targeting Trump, Obama said that when we give up on these ideals:we open the door to the most ruthless, or the most careless, or the most fearful among us, who see some groups as more equal than others, and see government as nothing more than a way to divvy up the spoils and punish enemies, and keep those who are different in their place. I do not believe that is the story of America that prevails in the end.Emphasis mine. That’s as close as I’ve seen any leading Democrat come to stating outright that Trump and MAGA fundamentally do not accept the Declaration of Independence’s promise of equality. This is where liberals should go in the battle over our 250th anniversary. Indeed, in delivering these lines, Obama likely had in mind not just Trump but also recent claims from JD Vance. The vice president—a self-imagined MAGA philosopher-king—has declared that “America is not just an idea.” Citing his own ancestors’ burial on a “mountainside in Eastern Kentucky,” Vance suggests that the “source of America’s greatness” is the “ancestral” bond Americans feel with the “homeland.” Vance mocks the “creedal nation” by insisting that its logic leads to an unacceptable conclusion: that all foreigners, everywhere, might instantly have a claim to U.S. citizenship merely by mouthing agreement with our founding ideals. Few if any prominent Democrats or liberals believe anything like that last bit. The idea, rather, is that immigrants do have a claim to becoming Americans—they are “Americans in waiting”—provided they clear certain civic hurdles, including adherence to the nation’s founding ideals. Their rates of admission, and the conditions that shape their arrival and assimilation, are agreed upon democratically by our elected representatives in Congress and subject to revision over time. But yes, in the liberal vision, the idea that immigrants do have a conditional claim to belonging is fundamental to American identity. Vance’s big claim, by contrast, is that fealty to our founding ideals cannot be the basis for American national identity. Blood and hereditary attachment to the soil are, to him, essential ingredients.True, Vance takes care to praise immigrants and is married to a daughter of them. But he has also mocked immigrant Zohran Mamdani for mildly criticizing the United States, insisting Mamdani should be thankful for his admission here and thus self-censor.
Left
Raw Story
Italy's prime minister cheered across world as she delivers 'thrashing' to Trump
A diplomatic firestorm between President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni sparked global reactions Friday.The prime minister acidly denied Trump's claims to an Italian TV network that she had "begged" him for a photo together during this week's G7 summit and that he agreed because he "felt sorry for her." Meloni claimed his comments were "completely made up.""I am frankly astonished," Meloni said. "I don't know why the president of the United States behaves like this towards his allies. It is not the first time, moreover.""I can only say it is disappointing that he does not show the same determination with the enemies of the West and of the United States, whose leaders he instead treats with far greater indulgence," she added. "There is one thing he should remember: neither I nor Italy ever beg."Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani responded to the row by scrapping his planned U.S. visit, writing on X that Trump's "serious and offensive words" toward Meloni "offend the whole of Italy."The 80-year-old president drew global condemnation for his comments about Meloni, who had been one of his strongest allies in Europe."I believe her," said journalist John McGuirk."She's fabulous," gushed defense analyst Michael Shurkin."Italian fire and brimstone," marveled Bruno Tertrais, of the Foundation for Strategic Research."This dust up with Italy is a perfect example of many of Trump's missteps," observed The Dispatch's Mike Nelson. "He tells a blatant lie without any reason, just because he has to sound like people are so willing to grovel to him. The false story gets him nothing and the fallout costs the United States.""Something to ponder for those Polish politicians who are investing all their chips in the fickle — as we can see yet again — favor of the Orange Genius and Winner of All Wars," noted Polityka's Michal Danielewski."Trump has never met an ally he does not try to screw over in the end," snarled MS NOW contributor Marc Polymeropoulos."Incredible (and real, not fake) thrashing of Trump but the PM who was at one time probably his strongest supporter in Europe (aside from the departed Orban)," noted author Gary Lucas."Trump just can’t keep himself from bullying women. It’s basic to his nature," said Phillips P. OBrien, a professor at the University of St. Andrews."She sounds genuinely fed up with this," added Alex Clarkson, a lecturer at King's College in London."Meloni is a fascist and all that, but it likely took a beautiful blonde who is one of Trump's only European allies to really kick back for his ... abuse of women," argued legal expert Marcy Wheeler."Trump has been crossing far too many lines," opined FirstPost's Sreemoy Talukdar. "An egomaniac whose senility has gone ahead of his low cunning. Behaves like a wet cat before autocrats and dictators, piles on leaders of democracies.""I'm afraid that the war @POTUS is waging with @GiorgiaMeloni will end for the US president just like the conflict with Iran," concluded Marek Magierowski, former Polish ambassador to the U.S. and Israel. "The prime minister has boiled over, like Mount Vesuvius. I know a few Italian women, and I wouldn't want to get into an argument with any of them. By the way, I don't recall such a sharp, public clash between the leaders of two allied nations in recent years."
Far Left
TIME
Gas Prices Could Take Months to Return to Pre-War Levels Even After U.S.-Iran Deal
The securing of a U.S.-Iran agreement, and its emphasis on the full reopening of the Strait, has offered some reassurance, but significant obstacles remain, analysts tell TIME.
Center Left
Washington Examiner
Bank of America scores with free World Cup tickets for military and first responders
American military service members, along with military veterans, first responders, and their families, will be able to secure tickets across all stages of the tournament thanks to Bank of America, the official bank of FIFA World Cup 2026. It is part of a partnership to provide over $2 million in World Cup tickets with Vet […]
Center Right
Raw Story
Trump’s bungled pool project gets vicious review from DC residents: 'Feel for the ducks'
Multiple residents of Washington, D.C. told CNN Friday their unfiltered thoughts on President Donald Trump’s $14 million restoration of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool – and the feedback was scathing.“It looks bad!” one D.C. resident told CNN’s Tom Foreman. “I just see green – green slime.”Trump’s restoration of the Reflecting Pool has been just one of many of his D.C. beautification projects. It’s proven controversial given that the Trump administration handed the project to a contractor with ties to the president in a no-bid deal, bypassing what critics say should have been a competitive bidding process.After the completion of the $14 million renovation project, blue paint from the pool’s bottom appears to have peeled off, and the pool’s water has turned a deep green – as experts predicted it would last month. Federal workers have attempted to combat the growing algae by pouring peroxide into the pool, though as of Friday, it's largely had no effect.“Pouring all that peroxide into it clearly didn't help,” another D.C. resident told CNN. “I feel for the ducks.”Foreman told CNN’s John Berman that, after walking around the pool’s rim “over and over again” Friday, there were “very few places where you can see” any blue “at all.”“Those people behind you, they're just vacuuming full time?” Berman asked Foreman about federal workers seen wading in the pool with suction equipment. “Is this going to be a permanent thing, people standing in the pool vacuuming?”Foreman said, “There were more than a dozen of them out here all day long yesterday doing just that, working steadily to try to clear it. What is here is kind of what was here before in the eyes of many people passing by and about as bad as it's ever been.”"I feel for the ducks"DC residents give scathing reviews of Trump's $14M Reflecting Pool restoration pic.twitter.com/l0lyIFUOpF— Alexander Willis (@ReporterWillis) June 19, 2026
Far Left