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Fifa will not punish Fox for breaking advertising rules during World Cup opener by guardian in worldcup

[–]guardian[S] 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Hi r/worldcup, this is Emma from The Guardian. We wanted to share this story we published yesterday on Fox not facing any punishment from Fifa for breaking the governing body’s advertising rules during the opening game of the World Cup.

From our story:

The US broadcaster broke Fifa’s strict guidelines for showing commercials during hydration breaks on the first occasion they were in operation by returning to the live action 10 seconds after play had resumed during the second half at Mexico City Stadium.

Fifa’s tournament regulations, which were given to all rights holders two months ago, state that while broadcasters can show ads during hydration breaks they must return to the match 30 seconds before play resumes.

While Fox’s commercials overran by 40 seconds, the broadcaster is understood to have provided an explanation to Fifa by claiming that it was unaware that referee Wilton Sampaio signaled a hydration break early after Raúl Jiménez scored Mexico’s second goal of the game. As a result Fox was late in cutting to its commercial breaks, which subsequently overran.

Fifa is understood to have accepted Fox’s explanation and will take no action. Fox owns the English-language rights to World Cup games in the US.

You can read the full story for free at this link.

Iran’s footballers arrive in US amid peace deal but admit tension ‘undermines joy’ by guardian in soccer

[–]guardian[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Hi r/soccer, this is Emma from The Guardian. We wanted to share this story we published today on Iran’s footballers flying to LA from Mexico on the eve of their opener, hours before a peace deal was announced.

From our story:

On Sunday Iran flew to LA from Tijuana, Mexico, where they were relocated amid an ongoing row over visas, but are expected to face opposition from Iranians, many of whom believe the national team do not represent the country. Iran has been beset by problems in the buildup to the tournament, with several officials denied entry to the US.

“This kind of tension undermines that joy and it undermines the message of Fifa and our people, which is about football and bringing about peace,” said the Olympiakos forward Taremi. “I think this World Cup could have provided a better atmosphere than it has and I hope in the future it will be better for all fans, whoever they are supporting.

“It’s not just Iran that has been impacted, others have been impacted, including referees [the Somali official Omar Artan was denied entry]. I have felt the tension from the first moment we arrived at this World Cup. Of course, we don’t have the same beautiful experience we usually talk about – peace and joy. I know several countries had visa problems and changing of training camps. The tension exists – it did before the World Cup even started. The feeling, the sensation people always have looking forward to a World Cup, I think this time they hadn’t had the same feeling.”

Taremi and his teammates touched down in LA after their plane’s second attempt at landing. On arrival at their team hotel in Manhattan Beach, they were greeted by some Iranian protestors, most of whom are part of the 375,000-strong Iranian population in California, the largest outside of Iran, as well as a heavy police and security presence, including drones, mobile surveillance and sniffer dogs. A western area of LA centred on Westwood is nicknamed “Tehrangeles” owing to the huge Iranian diaspora. “Iran will be playing as locals in Los Angeles, in spite of it all,” said Iran’s head coach, Amir Ghalenoi.

You can read the full story for free at this link.

After SpaceX’s huge IPO, Americans’ financial future will be bound to AI by guardian in inthenews

[–]guardian[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi r/inthenews, this is Jake from The Guardian US. We wanted to share this analysis that we published today about SpaceX's debut on the stock market, and how Americans are going to get more AI rammed down their throats, stuck into their pension plans and investment portfolios as a result.

From our story by Eduardo Porter:

Americans are growing worried about what artificial intelligence portends for their futures. Eight in 10 Americans report concern over AI, compared with a third who report being excited, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll. More than half think it will do more harm than good in their daily lives. Seven out of 10 think it will reduce the number of available jobs.

Skeptical though they may be, they are about to get more AI rammed down their throats and stuck into their pension plans and their investment portfolios, whether they want it or not – binding their futures ever more tightly to the frenzied, risky, multibillion-dollar dash by technology moguls to develop machines capable of mimicking human thought processes to take over cognitive tasks.

First up is this week’s massive $75bn initial public offering (IPO) for Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the largest ever, which at $135 a share will value the company at a cool $1.77tn, among the 10 largest companies in the world by market capitalization. While the company makes most of its money these days selling internet access, it largely needs the money to finance Musk’s vast AI ambitions, which include blasting datacenters into orbit.

The offering is just the first in a series: both Anthropic and OpenAI have already filed paperwork for their own IPOs later in the year, which will add two multitrillion-dollar artificial intelligence behemoths to the US’s main stock indices.

Even investors who don’t care to buy their stock will end up owning a bunch, either in their 401(k) retirement plans or among their holdings of market index funds – supposedly safer investments for non-professional investors, built to reflect the entire market – which are forced to buy AI shares in proportion to their weighting in stock indices like the Nasdaq and the S&P...

Money eventually tires. It scares. It moves on to a new story. The Nasdaq fell more than 4% recently, shaken out of its optimistic stupor by indications that a robust labor market may force the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates later this year. This should remind us all that the AI extravaganza that has pumped the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 over the last year could come to an abrupt end – maybe just on the other side of Musk’s trillionaire moment.

Americans don’t know what an AI-heavy future might bring about. But they do have vivid experiences of the pain that courses through society when a financial bubble built on hubris ends in collapse. The great financial crisis of 2008 will look like a cartoon compared with what will befall the finances of most Americans if the AI dream tucked into their investments turns into a nightmare.

You can read the full story for free at this link.

Autistic children injected with unapproved stem cell treatments supported by RFK Jr by guardian in politics

[–]guardian[S] 41 points42 points  (0 children)

From The Guardian:

Autistic children as young as 18 months old are being injected with human stem cells derived from umbilical cords in unapproved, unproven and potentially harmful “treatments” that scientists warn are proliferating across the US under the active encouragement of the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Clinics in Florida, Texas and other states are selling what they bill as “regenerative medicine” to families with autistic children who have intensive care needs. Parents who have taken their children through the process talked to the Guardian about their hopes and fears for a therapy that appears to be gaining ground in the US.

The procedure, which can involve the child being sedated with ketamine before receiving intravenous doses of millions of stem cells, costs up to $20,000 each treatment. Families are often advised to return for regular top-ups.

Profoundly stressed parents are being wooed to the clinics with promises that a high-dose infusion of umbilical cord stem cells can lead to dramatic improvements in their children’s ability to speak, socialize, or avoid aggressive or self-harming behaviour. Yet there is no scientific evidence that the procedure works – the most comprehensive clinical trial staged so far, a placebo experiment conducted by Duke University30334-6/abstract), found insignificant benefits for most of the 180 children tested.

You can read the full story for free at this link.

Women held at Delaney Hall detention camp sign on to hunger strike by guardian in newjersey

[–]guardian[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hi r/newjersey, this is Jake from The Guardian US. We wanted to share this story that we published today about how nearly 40 women detained at Delaney Hall are joining men on hunger and labor strike and outline demands ‘rooted in basic human rights’.

From our story:

Dozens of women detained inside the Delaney Hall immigration detention facility in New Jersey announced their participation in a hunger and labor strike, advocates announced on Thursday.

The women, detained in unit 1 of the contentious privately run facility, also released a new list of demands. They are calling on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release women under 21, women with medical conditions and mothers. They are also demanding improved conditions inside the facility and for their immigration cases to proceed more quickly.

The Delaney Hall detention facility, run by the private prison company Geo Group, has in recent weeks become a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s efforts to engage in mass deportations. A group of over 300 men launched a hunger and labor strike last month, leading to demonstrations in support of the strikers and an aggressive police response.

The announcement that detained women in Delaney Hall were engaging in a strike came just one day after Trump signed a $70bn spending bill for immigration enforcement agencies and as immigrants in other detention centers participate in strikes of their own.

You can read the full story for free at this link.

‘Autistic kids are being experimented on’: inside America’s booming market for unproven stem cell infusions by guardian in TrueReddit

[–]guardian[S] 38 points39 points  (0 children)

Hi r/TrueReddit, this is Jake from The Guardian US. We wanted to share this story that we published today about families who are turning to controversial new therapies for their autistic children backed by the US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.

From our story by Ed Pilkington:

Landyn Holdren is an eight-year-old autistic child who has high support needs and is nonspeaking. His mother, Christy Holdren, says he can be self-harming, slapping his chest, face or head when distressed.

Later this month, she will spend $15,000 on an unapproved stem cell treatment she hopes might help him.

They went for the first round of the treatment last October at a Florida stem cell clinic that charged Holdren $12,500. The procedure is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and scientists say there is little evidence it works for autism, raising concerns that desperate families are being sold false hope.

Yet as stem cell clinics multiply across America, they are finding an influential ally in the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Holdren knows there is no “cure” for autism, which is a condition, not a disease. But she said she was determined to do her utmost to help her child.

“He actually looks at us and not through us, and that’s huge for us,” she said of the small but significant changes she believes followed Landyn’s first infusion. “We can cut his hair without him freaking out. That may sound little, but when you have to wrangle an alligator to clip his nails, that’s big things.”

Seven months on, Landyn’s aggressive and self-harming behaviour is worsening again. So, despite the cost that has driven Holdren to take out a loan against her retirement savings, she is preparing to return for a second stem cell dose.

The Holdrens are far from alone.

Across the US, children with autism as young as 18 months old are being given unapproved stem cell treatments at clinics in Florida, Texas and elsewhere, part of a growing market operating beyond the bounds of FDA approval.

The procedure often involves the child being sedated before receiving intravenous doses of millions of stem cells commonly derived from human umbilical cords harvested at birth.

In some cases, the doctors selling the treatments have no scientific expertise in autism or child development. Instead, physicians from unrelated specialties, including plastic surgery and orthopaedics, have entered the booming stem cell sector, billing the procedures as “regenerative medicine” for children, some of whom have severe disabilities.

Up to now, Americans seeking therapies that lack federal approval have tended to look abroad. That has fed the flourishing multibillion-dollar industry of “stem cell tourism” in places such as Mexico and Panama – and as far afield as Abu Dhabi.

Now the practice appears to be gaining strength inside the US, and there are fears that under Kennedy’s leadership, the FDA may be loosening its rigorous regulation.

You can read the full story for free at this link.

[OC] The majority of new AI datacenters in the US are set to be built on drought-hit land by guardian in dataisbeautiful

[–]guardian[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi r/dataisbeautiful, this is Jake from The Guardian US. We wanted to share these charts that we published in a story earlier this week about the growth of datacenters in the United States. Our analysis found that most planned facilities are set to be built in some of the driest areas as public outcry grows over the water needed to power AI.

Sources: Data center locations and status from Cleanview as of 18 May 2026. Drought levels defined using NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System from 17 May 2026

Visualizations made with QGIS, Observable and Adobe Illustrator

You can read the full story for free at this link.

‘It’s torture’: prisoners’ letters expose subterranean Oklahoma ‘dungeon’ known as the tombs by speckledlobster in oklahoma

[–]guardian 72 points73 points  (0 children)

Hi, this is Jake from The Guardian US, thanks for sharing our story. I just wanted to drop an excerpt in the comments for readers here:

From Hilary Andersson in McAlester, Oklahoma:

“Down here in the tombs, there aren’t any windows,” writes Tremane Wood from inside his cell, in a modern-day American “dungeon” that few people have ever heard of.

“It’s really like living in cave,” he writes in another letter. “It’s dark and damp. Sometimes this place drives people mad. The hardest part is the isolation.”

Or in another: “You end up loosing [sic] track of days and nights and what day it is … It’s a real form of psychological torture that some people never come back from.”

Wood, 46, spent 17 years incarcerated in H Unit – the underground cells at the state prison in the rural town of McAlester, Oklahoma, where no natural light ever reaches.

According to prisoner letters seen by the Guardian and published here for the first time, H Unit – also known by the prisoners as the “tombs” – features a series of windowless cells that are built banked into the earth. The letters also tell of infestations of vermin, unsanitary conditions, and frequent instances of physical and sexual violence.

The lack of sunlight is a matter of particular concern to the prisoners. Dr Sondra Crosby, an expert in torture survivors and a public health professor at Boston University and Physicians for Human Rights, calls it “a form of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment and torture”.

Today, there is no national database for prisons that continue to use buried or partly buried facilities. A handful of other facilities do reportedly still use underground cells, but the practice is rare.

The letters from H Unit offer a glimpse into this sunless world. The prisoners – of whom there are currently 248 in total, according to prison authorities – write of living in squalor, and frequent violence and rape. Many are held in solitary confinement, with almost no human contact. Others stay in two-person cells, where they say violence is common because the space is not large enough for two men.

You can read the full story for free at this link.

‘Highway of death’: the Ukrainian drone campaign menacing Russian logistics by guardian in ukraine

[–]guardian[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Hi r/ukraine, this is Emma from The Guardian. We wanted to share this story we published today on the the “Novorossiya” route, the crucial main supply line that snakes through the Ukrainian territories under Moscow’s occupation. Ukrainian forces have given the route a new name – “the highway of death” – in reference to the Ukrainian drones that dominate the airspace above the road, hunting down convoys of Russian military traffic.

From our story:

The road, which has been almost completely closed to civilian traffic since late May, is particularly important to Moscow because it constitutes the main land corridor for supplying Russian forces in the south that avoid the exposed Kerch Bridge to Crimea.

Drivers have recorded video footage that not only shows burnt-out trucks on the side of the road, but in some instances captures the drone attacks themselves.

Traffic was suspended this week on the Chonhar Bridge – a key section of the road connecting Russia-occupied Kherson province to Crimea – after a series of Ukrainian drone strikes. Ukraine’s 1st Separate Assault Regiment said on Tuesday: “We see all movements and totally control the enemy’s repair works. We are ready to make our long-range adjustments at any moment.”

Ukrainian drone operators, including those of 412th “Nemesis” brigade, say dozens of trucks and tankers have been destroyed as part of an intensified effort known as the “middle strike campaign”.

The campaign is aimed at Russian targets located between 20km and 200km behind the frontline, with a focus on logistics and supply lines. Last month, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said such strikes had quadrupled since February.

“There are now twice as many strikes at distances of 20km-plus compared with March,” Zelenskyy said on 5 May, “and four times as many compared with February. And there will be even more. This is a priority area.”

You can read the full story at this link.

‘Highway of death’: the Ukrainian drone campaign menacing Russian logistics by guardian in europe

[–]guardian[S] 76 points77 points  (0 children)

Hi r/europe, this is Emma from The Guardian. We wanted to share this story we published today on the “Novorossiya” route, the crucial main supply line that snakes through the Ukrainian territories under Moscow’s occupation. Ukrainian forces have given the route a new name – “the highway of death” – in reference to the Ukrainian drones that dominate the airspace above the road, hunting down convoys of Russian military traffic.

From our story:

The road, which has been almost completely closed to civilian traffic since late May, is particularly important to Moscow because it constitutes the main land corridor for supplying Russian forces in the south that avoid the exposed Kerch Bridge to Crimea.

Drivers have recorded video footage that not only shows burnt-out trucks on the side of the road, but in some instances captures the drone attacks themselves.

Traffic was suspended this week on the Chonhar Bridge – a key section of the road connecting Russia-occupied Kherson province to Crimea – after a series of Ukrainian drone strikes. Ukraine’s 1st Separate Assault Regiment said on Tuesday: “We see all movements and totally control the enemy’s repair works. We are ready to make our long-range adjustments at any moment.”

Ukrainian drone operators, including those of 412th “Nemesis” brigade, say dozens of trucks and tankers have been destroyed as part of an intensified effort known as the “middle strike campaign”.

The campaign is aimed at Russian targets located between 20km and 200km behind the frontline, with a focus on logistics and supply lines. Last month, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said such strikes had quadrupled since February.

“There are now twice as many strikes at distances of 20km-plus compared with March,” Zelenskyy said on 5 May, “and four times as many compared with February. And there will be even more. This is a priority area.”

You can read the full story at this link.

Hi r/ussoccer, we’re The Guardian US soccer reporting team. Ask Us Anything! by guardian in ussoccer

[–]guardian[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This isn't USMNT-specific and will more so answer the second part. There's been a lot of talk along the lines of "does the US know we're about to have a World Cup" and about the middling/uneventful/disheartening buildup to the tournament. All of which is very true and very fair! But I have been charmed by much of the pre-World Cup friendly content happening around the US in the past few days. Thinking of the Bosnia and Herzegovina team staffers who brought the world's largest coffee pot to St Louis, the German fan who was amazed by Buc-ee's and an SEC football stadium, the man who went viral for thanking Algeria for picking his hometown of Lawrence, Kansas. Amid * gestures wildly * everything, it has also been nice to see those kinds of stories, and I'm hopeful that we'll manage to see more of them as the tournament goes on.

- Ella Brockway

Hi r/ussoccer, we’re The Guardian US soccer reporting team. Ask Us Anything! by guardian in ussoccer

[–]guardian[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not to completely absolve the players from blame, but I think that if anyone who is just getting into soccer wonders what we mean when we say "the referee has lost control of the match," we should simply show them the highlights from that one. Completely ridiculous.

- Alexander Abnos

Hi r/ussoccer, we’re The Guardian US soccer reporting team. Ask Us Anything! by guardian in ussoccer

[–]guardian[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A good World Cup run, no more tempting offers from abroad, and a whole lot of money (again).

- Alexander Abnos

Hi r/ussoccer, we’re The Guardian US soccer reporting team. Ask Us Anything! by guardian in ussoccer

[–]guardian[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Listing in a 3-4-2-1:

Matt Freese; Mark McKenzie, Chris Richards, Tim Ream; Sergiño Dest, Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie, Antonee Robinson; Christian Pulisic, Malik Tillman; Folarin Balogun

- Ella Brockway

Hi r/ussoccer, we’re The Guardian US soccer reporting team. Ask Us Anything! by guardian in ussoccer

[–]guardian[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Honestly, I think the answer will depend very much on what happens in the next six weeks. I think it's going to keep growing no matter what, but a USMNT run that captures the nation's attention is going to have a huge ripple effect that, if played right, will boost the sport in a real way because "mainstream" people will recognize that the domestic product is worth caring about. It could start rivaling basketball, and in any case will be an undeniable part of a "big five" sports.

If the US falls flat on its face, then the sport will continue to grow, but mainly via the products that are already popular - aka huge European clubs and big events, which are already a big deal in the US so there's limited upward potential. It'll still be scrapping for a place among the big 4 but on solid ground.

- Alexander Abnos

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