Carla Vall, lawyer for Spanish soccer star Jennifer Hermoso, reiterated that the kiss by ex-Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) president Luis Rubiales to her client after the Women’s World Cup final was non-consensual.

Rubiales was in court on Friday to testify after being summoned by the presiding judge to aid in the court’s investigation into potential charges of sexual assault and coercion against him.

The Spanish Prosecutor’s office said Rubiales answered questions from the judge and all parties and denied the charges.

“The whole world could see it was not consensual. That’s what we’ll show,” Vall said after leaving the National Court in the capital of Madrid.

Prosecutors also asked the judge to request that Rubiales appear in court twice a month, stay at least 500 meters (roughly 1,640 feet) away from Hermoso and to not communicate with her in any way during the investigation process.

“it’s just the beginning of the investigation at court,” Vall added.

Rubiales entered the court on Friday morning with his lawyer, Olga Tubau, and made no comment to the media.

Earlier this week, the National Court announced it had admitted a complaint made against Rubiales by Spanish prosecutors for sexual assault and coercion.

The hearing lasted just under an hour and was closed to the media, but local and international crews had been waiting outside the court.

Rubiales resigned from his position on Sunday following weeks of pressure from all spheres of Spanish society.

How we got here

It all began when video from the World Cup medal ceremony on August 20 showed Rubiales embracing Hermoso, then putting both hands on her head before forcibly kissing her. He then patted her on the back as she walked away.

Later, Hermoso said of the kiss, “Hey, I didn’t like it, eh,” as she apparently answered questions about the incident in an Instagram live video from a celebratory locker room.

It would be several days, on August 25, before Hermoso spoke out again on social media after Rubiales defiantly refused to step down as RFEF president, saying, “I felt vulnerable and a victim of an impulse-driven, sexist, out of place act without any consent on my part … Simply put, I was not respected.”

More than 80 Spanish soccer players then put their name on a statement supporting Hermoso and saying they would not return to the national team “if the current leaders continue” in their posts.

Interim RFEF president Pedro Rocha then began to make moves as part of his “regeneration” of the federation, firing controversial coach Jorge Vilda and appointing his deputy, Montse Tomé. Rocha then vowed in a meeting with the president of the High Council of Sport, Víctor Francos, to make more “structural changes” in RFEF.

A United Airlines flight bound for Rome returned to New Jersey just after midnight Thursday “to address a possible loss of cabin pressure,” according to a statement from the airline.

Data from the tracking site FlightAware show the plane rapidly descended over about 8 minutes from 37,000 feet at 10:07 p.m. to just below 9,000 feet at 10:15 p.m. Pilots will often quickly descend to lower altitudes when there is a concern about the plane’s pressurization.

United Airlines Flight 510 returned safely to Newark Liberty International Airport around 12:25 a.m. ET on Thursday after the crew reported a “pressurization issue,” according to a statement from the Federal Aviation Administration.

The Boeing 777 flight, with 270 passengers and 14 crew members, landed safely and never lost cabin pressure, United Airlines said.

Customers were taken to their destination on another aircraft, United added.

Jimmy Lippert Thyden says he always knew he was adopted. He also knew that he had been born not in the United States, but in Chile. Raised in Virginia by very loving and committed adoptive parents, he says he never lacked anything. The 42-year-old who served in the US Marines is now an attorney who is married and has two young daughters.

“I was told that I was given up for adoption out of love,” Thyden said. “Given by a mother who loved me and wanted the best for me: a life full of opportunity, education and meaning.”

That all started to change in 2012 when his adoptive mother gave him his adoption paperwork as he was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. Thyden says that when he started looking closely at the adoption files, he found out that there were many discrepancies and inconsistencies.

There was one document that said he had no known father or mother. Another provided the name of a biological mother and her address. A third document specified the baby had no living relatives, and a fourth stated that he had been given up for adoption days after birth. Yet another document said he had been given up for adoption when he was two years old.

For years, Thyden wondered about his origins. He wanted to know more but didn’t know where to begin or who to reach out to in Chile.

Thyden says it was not until a few months ago, when his wife read about the case of Scott Lieberman, that he became actively engaged in uncovering the truth about his adoption.

During the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, from 1973 to 1990, many babies were funneled to adoption agencies. Some of the children came from rich families, who in many cases gave up babies born out of wedlock. Other babies from poorer backgrounds were simply stolen.

Chilean officials say the number of stolen babies could be in the thousands, but the country’s investigation into the controversial adoptions has languished. Some who took part in the illegal adoptions have died. Many clinics or hospitals where the babies were allegedly stolen no longer exist.

After reaching out to “Nos Buscamos,” Thyden says he got an email the next day from its director, Constanza del Río, who told him to call her right away. She suggested a DNA test, which he did on April 17. With the help of MyHeritage, an online genealogy company, Thyden got a match within a few weeks. When the match came back, del Río says she knew the next step was making a phone call to María Angélica González, 69, a woman who had believed for decades her son had died shortly after being born.

“She could not believe it. She thought it was a joke in poor taste because she had been told her premature baby boy had died,” del Río said. Del Río says González had been told the baby’s body had been disposed of in the trash. During the Pinochet dictatorship, when several thousand people were killed and disappeared, asking too many questions or protesting in a loud way could be dangerous. (Chile will mark the 50th anniversary of the coup that brought Pinochet to power on September 11.)

Learning the truth has been bittersweet for Thyden. He’s happy to finally know his true origins but sad about what his biological mother went through.

“She didn’t know about me because I was taken from her at birth, and she was told that I was dead and when she asked for my body, they told her that they had disposed of it. And so, we’ve never held each other, we’ve never hugged,” Thyden said.

After three agonizing months, he was finally able to travel to Chile to give his biological mother the hug that had to wait for 42 years. When they met in the southern city of Valdivia in mid-August, he was finally able to utter the words he had been rehearsing for weeks. “Hola, mamá!,” he said when they finally embraced.

“I’m 42 years old and I’m meeting her and hugging her and holding her for the very first time. That’s so unnatural!” Thyden said later, reflecting on the moment. “It kind of brought me to grips with the wrong that had been done. And then, to know her is to love her. She is a sweet, caring, loving woman of faith and, to know that someone would harm her […] who could hurt such a little, sweet, innocent woman.”

Once in Valdivia, and after also meeting his extended family, there was a very special birthday party that had been organized for him in advance. There were 42 balloons symbolizing the 42 years that he could not celebrate a birthday party with his biological family. As he popped one by one, the family he never knew he had shouted out the number: uno, dos, tres…

“I felt like a lost puzzle piece, a piece that had been lost for 42 years and, in that moment, I felt like I was where I was meant to be, and it felt very much normal, almost as if no time had passed once we got connected,” Thyden said later.

Thyden says that learning the truth has also been painful because his adoptive parents were also lied to and victimized. He says his adoptive parents first contacted an adoption agency in Virginia and specifically asked to adopt a child the right way, through a reputable agency, something that they put in writing.

“They never believed for one second that they were buying a child. They never would have done that,” he said.

Asked about what might have been, Thyden says it’s impossible to know.

“My life came to a T intersection, where I could go either left or right. And instead of going right, it went left. But instead of being the person behind the steering wheel, instead of being a passenger in that car, aware of what was happening, I was the baby in the trunk,” Thyden said.

“It’s not wasted on me that I recognize that I’m blessed in the fact that I have loving families on both sides of the equator. But I don’t know that I wouldn’t have been a lawyer. I don’t know that I wouldn’t have served in the military. Are those things that I did because of where I was or are those things that I did because they are at the core of who I am?,” said Thyden, who pointed out that he says “mom” or “mother” when he’s speaking about his American adoptive mother and “mamá” when he refers to his Chilean, biological mother.

In the end, he says, the wisdom about what happened to him came from his five-year-old daughter, who told him if a bad thing hadn’t happened, she wouldn’t be here. And her father, she told him, has not one but two families who love him deeply.

Vladimir Putin has said Russia will build “good neighborly relations” with North Korea on the fourth day of Kim Jong Un’s lengthy visit to the country, amid warnings from the West that Moscow must not break international sanctions targeting Pyongyang.

“Korea is our neighbor. One way or another, we must build good neighborly relations with our neighbors,” Putin said at a press conference on Friday, after the Russian president’s meeting with Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko.

“Yes, there are certain special [circumstances] associated with the Korean peninsula, we are discussing this, discussing it openly,” Putin said, claiming Russia “never violate anything, and in this case, we are not going to violate anything either.”

His comments came after Kremlin officials talked up channels for cooperation between Moscow and the secretive state, which is the target of numerous international sanctions. The national security advisers of the United States, South Korea, and Japan on Thursday jointly issued a warning regarding potential violations of international sanctions by North Korea and Russia.

Kim visited an aircraft plant in the eastern city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur on Friday, according to Russian state media. Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Denis Manturov, said after the tour that Moscow saw “the potential for cooperation both in aircraft manufacturing and in other industries” with North Korea, according to a Russian government press release Friday on its Telegram channel.

“We see the potential for cooperation both in aircraft manufacturing and in other industries – this is especially relevant for achieving the tasks our countries face to achieve technological sovereignty,” he said.

The facility is the country’s largest aviation manufacturing plant and builds and develops warplanes for the Ministry of Defense, including the Su-35S and Su-57 fighter jets, state media TASS reported. Kim’s late father, Kim Jong Il, also visited the plant in 2002.

Images showed Kim and his delegation at the Yuri Gagarin Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Plant (KnAAZ), which is named after the famed Russian cosmonaut, and being shown the inside of a fighter jet, according to Russian state media RIA Novosti.

Accompanying Kim on the tour was the city’s mayor, Alexander Zhornik, and the Khabarovsk Region Governor Mikhail Degtyarev.

The North Korean leader is also expected to travel to the port city of Vladivostok where he will view the military capabilities of Russia’s Pacific Fleet, Russian President Vladimir Putin told state news agency Russia 1.

The tour of key sites in the Russian Far East region came after Putin previously said Russia is considering and discussing some military cooperation with North Korea, following a summit at which Kim appeared to endorse Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

Wednesday’s five-hour meeting at the Vostochny Cosmodrome signaled closer relations between the two countries, both of which face international isolation – Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine and Pyongyang for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program.

The Kremlin said Thursday that Putin had accepted Kim’s invitation to visit North Korea and that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov would also visit the country in October, according to spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Asked if the two leaders discussed military and technical cooperation during the talks, Peskov said it was a “sensitive sphere of cooperation” and reiterated Moscow’s commitment to further developing ties with Pyongyang.

Later on Friday, Peskov said that “no agreements were signed” between the two countries during the visit.

Efforts to showcase that closer relationship were on full display during the summit. Putin presented Kim with a space suit glove that had gone into space and a high-quality domestically manufactured carbine – a type of rifle – while Kim also offered Putin a carbine crafted by North Korean artisans, according to Peskov.

At a state banquet with Putin Wednesday, Kim vowed to establish “a new era of 100-year friendship” between the two countries.

In the weeks before the summit, US officials warned that Russia and North Korea were “actively advancing” in a potential arms deal that could see Pyongyang provide weapons for Moscow to use in its faltering Ukraine war in exchange for sanctioned ballistic missile technology.

Putin was asked if he discussed military-technical cooperation with Kim during the leaders’ meeting. In response, Putin acknowledged there were certain restrictions in place, saying Moscow fully complied with them. But he also said there were areas open for discussion and consideration, suggesting potential points of cooperation.

Kim said before a toast at the state dinner with Putin that he is “certain that the Russian people and its military will emerge victorious in the fight to punish the evil forces that ambitiously pursue hegemony and expansion.”

Without naming Ukraine, Kim said the “Russian military and its people will inherit the shining tradition of victory” and demonstrate their reputation on the front line of “military operation,” the euphemistic phrasing Moscow uses to describe its illegal invasion of Ukraine.

“I will always be standing with Russia,” Kim said, praising Moscow for having “stood up against the hegemonic forces” to defend its sovereignty and security, a veiled reference to the United States and the West.

In return, Putin signaled a willingness to assist North Korea in developing its space and satellite program.

On Thursday, a Ukrainian presidential adviser called the talks “a manifestation of incapacity” and said Ukraine was “taking the actions of Moscow and Pyongyang very seriously and making its own calculations.”

“Moscow’s need to beg for help from North Korea is certainly a reason for jokes, a manifestation of Russia’s incapacity, and a verdict on Putin’s 23-year policy,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the Head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence said Wednesday that military cooperation between Russia and North Korea was not new. Russian requests for projectiles for artillery and MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket Systems) are already known to Ukrainian authorities, Andrii Yusov, representative of the Defense Intelligence, said in an interview with Ukrainian state media.

“We can’t neglect this. This is an important factor that will be felt, unfortunately on the battlefield, but this is not news in this situation. This is a scenario, the reaction to which Ukraine is working on,” Yusov reportedly said.

When asked in a background briefing whether North Korea’s rockets were being supplied to Moscow, an official from South Korea’s presidential office said, “We have long confirmed that weapons provided by North Korea were used by Russia in the Ukraine battlefield.”

The Biden administration believes North Korea delivered infantry rockets and missiles for use in Ukraine by Russian mercenary force Wagner last year.

Meanwhile, the national security advisers of the United States, South Korea, and Japan said in a Thursday statement, released by South Korea’s presidential office, that there would be would be “clear consequences” if either Russia or Norther Korea were to breach their obligations under the United Nations Security Council resolutions and sanctions, particularly those relating to arms trade and military cooperation.

“All three countries expressed grave concerns over the discussions between the two leaders, which included topics related to military cooperation, including the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), despite repeated warnings from the international community,” the statement said.

Lampedusa has seen an influx of migrants with 7,000 people arriving in two days, prompting its mayor and the United Nations refugee agency to warn the Italian island is becoming overwhelmed.

The island – whose population is under 7,000 – has long been a first port of call for people crossing from north Africa and has been a flashpoint in Europe’s migration crisis.

Mayor Filippo Mannino on Thursday said the migrant crisis had reached a “point of no return.”

“In the past 48 hours, around 7,000 people have arrived on my island, an island that has always welcomed and saved in its arms,” Mannino told Italy’s RTL 102.5 radio.

“Now we have reached a point of no return where the role played by this small rock in the middle of the Mediterranean has been put into crisis by the dramatic nature of this phenomenon.”

The UN refugee agency’s (UNHCR) Representative for Italy, the Holy See and San Marino, Chiara Cardoletti, said Friday the situation on Lampedusa is “critical,” and moving people off the island is “an absolute priority.”

Cardoletti said that “urgent action” was underway to “bring the island back to normality” and that authorities had transferred around 5,000 people off the island in the last 28 hours.

Many of the latest people to arrive have fled political instability in Tunisia. In previous years, most came from Libya and had been rescued by NGO charity vessels and Italian rescuers rather than reaching the island, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The group now fears numbers will rise even further following the catastrophic floods in Libya.

On Wednesday, Germany said it informed Italy of its decision to postpone “until further notice” its intake of migrants under a European voluntary solidarity plan, according to the country’s interior ministry. That program oversees the relocation of asylum-seekers for a year and is aimed at easing pressure on EU borders.

Separately, France’s Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin said earlier this week that due to “the destabilization of Libya and Tunisia, which has accelerated,” more migrants were arriving at the French and Italian border.

Many of those arriving in Lampedusa, and who are transferred to the Italian mainland, try to cross the Ventimiglia border into the French seaside town of Menton.

Darmanin who was speaking from Menton on Tuesday, said “we have a 100% increase in flows on the Italian border, which obviously affects the Alpes-Maritimes department as well as all the departments in the Alps,” announcing “very significant reinforcements” to tackle the situation at the border and “fight illegal immigration.”

“I look at our German friends, they have four times as many asylum applications as we do, which is proof that when you put a lot of resources at the border you also limit attractiveness of our country,” Darmanin said.

“A large proportion of the people who cross the Italian border here want to go to Great Britain, which is also an incentive to negotiate with our British friends and in particular develop a European treaty between the European Union and Great Britain,” he added.

Rosario Valastro, president of Red Cross Italy, whose facility on Lampedusa hosts thousands despite being built for 500 people, said he was expecting some relief after this week’s surge.

“Activity continues incessantly at the Lampedusa hotspot where 3,800 people are present this morning,” the Red Cross said in a statement Friday.

“The over 130 operators and volunteers of the Italian Red Cross are doing beyond the impossible to ensure basic necessities. Yesterday, 5,000 lunch meals and 5,000 dinner meals were produced. We are tested but operational,” Valastro said.

“For us, people come before anything else,” he added.

As of September 14, 125,928 people had arrived in Italy, according to the Interior Ministry, a number that’s in line with those from 2016, when migrant numbers surged in the wake of the Syrian war. However, Flavio Di Giacomo, from IOM, said the number of arrivals in Lampedusa now was much higher than before.

A lack of Libyan Coast Guard presence due to the floods, and the high number of migrants in Libya (a transit country for migration to Europe) kept in detention centers who are now desperate to leave, could also affect arrivals in the coming weeks.

This week, Italy’s Minister of Infrastructure Matteo Salvini called the arrivals “an act of war” during a press conference with Italy’s Foreign Press Association.

He suggested the arrivals were being “orchestrated” and said the government would “stop at nothing” to curtail the arrivals, applauding Italian PM Giorgia Meloni’s attempts to negotiate with Tunisia.

In July, Meloni, along with EU chief Ursula Von der Leyen, traveled to Tunisia with a promise of investment funds as an incentive to stop the boats, including 105 million euros ($111 million) dedicated to stop smugglers, but the EU this week largely stalled the plan in Brussels.

Meloni, under pressure from within her own coalition on migrant numbers, has not commented directly on Lampedusa, but told RAI on Thursday that relocation was not the issue – stopping the arrivals was.

Driving into Derna in the early hours was like arriving in a ghost town. The city, decimated by flash floods that tore through homes and streets earlier this week, was eerily quiet.

Even at night, damage and destruction could be seen everywhere you looked. In the light of day, a scene of utter devastation unfolded.

For our team, which traveled into the area with the Libyan National Army (LNA), it felt like driving into a war zone where massive bombs had gone off.

At least 5,000 people have died in Libya, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Thursday, and thousands more are feared missing.

Everyone we’ve spoken to here fears and believes the death toll is only going to rise significantly in the coming days.

Officials told us the destruction and loss of life happened within the span of 90 minutes or so after the two dams above Derna burst, sending flood waters sweeping through the city, wiping out entire neighborhoods, homes and infrastructure, and carrying them out to sea.

People are in shock. This is a country that has experienced years of turmoil since the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi’s regime in 2011 – but the disaster has hit Libyans hard.

They say they still can’t comprehend what happened. They are used to war and death but nothing could have prepared them for this: They feel like a whole city has been wiped out.

Driving in through one of the city’s entrances in the early hours, there was a large handwritten board that read “Sad Derna.” Two young men sat next to it, around a fire, in an otherwise pitch-dark street, their feet covered in mud and clothes in dust. They waved at the LNA escort, smiled and gave a “V” hand gesture.

Libyan officials say bodies are still washing back up on the shores of Derna, days after the wall of water swept through the city.

The detritus of people’s lives can also be seen in the Mediterranean waters – homes, door frames, windows, furniture, clothes, cars – everything.

Meanwhile, at least 30,000 people there have been displaced, the International Organization for Migration said Thursday. Concern for the welfare of survivors is growing.

The head of the ICRC’s Libya delegation said it would take “many months, maybe years,” for residents to recover from the devastation wreaked by Storm Daniel’s heavy rainfall.

The flooding has damaged roads and bridges, making access to the city and surrounding areas difficult. It took more than seven hours to drive from Benghazi airport to Derna on Thursday night – a journey that would typically take three hours.

Libya has been riven by political turmoil since civil war erupted in 2014, and now has two rival governments, the eastern parliament-backed government in Benghazi and the internationally recognized government in Tripoli.

But on the drive from Benghazi, many cars could be seen coming in from different cities from across Libya – from the far west and the western mountains, or the coastal city of Misrata to the south – carrying volunteers or bringing in aid.

Some drivers had spray-painted their cars or were flying flags with a phrase that might translate as “brotherly solidarity” or “rushing to the aid of our brothers.”

One young man described how volunteers were tying ropes around their bodies to dive into the sea and haul out bodies. He recounted having pulled out 40 bodies by himself in the course of one day.

Volunteers are saying they need heavy equipment that can remove large objects, such as cars that are feared to contain dead bodies, from the sea. They need divers and diving equipment, they say.

There is some international support to be seen here, including a Turkish rescue team on a rubber boat. But nowhere near enough to deal with this disaster.

And on landing at Benina airport in Benghazi, there appeared to be no big influx of aid, as one might expect following a catastrophe of this scale.

LNA officials said, though, that the support they have received from countries that have sent in teams has helped them to deal with an unprecedented situation.

‘Immense pain’

“Divers told me that they saw hundreds of bodies about 15-20 kilometers east from the Derna harbor,” he said in a phone call.

“I saw so many bodies in the last two days. I counted at least 200 bodies that were washed up on the shore. These were bodies that were in buildings, swallowed by the sea and pushed back to the shore. The statistics are not accurate, there are many numbers floating around. All I can tell you is the operations are ongoing. I pulled out bodies myself.”

Shteiwi said his “heart aches for all those who have been lost” but that he saw a positive sign with Libyans from east and west coming together.

“Security forces that were once separated are now working together, as if those differences are in the past. It hurts to see that this unification is a result of immense misery and immense pain.”

Aaron Rodgers provided fans with an update following his season-ending Achilles injury just four snaps into his New York Jets debut, indicating that his surgery was successful.

The 39-year-old was sacked by Buffalo Bills edge rusher Leonard Floyd and suffered a complete tear of his left Achilles tendon in the Monday Night Football matchup – much to NFL fans’ disappointment.

“Surgery went great yesterday. Thank you for all the love and prayers and support,” Rodgers shared via an Instagram story on Thursday.

Rodgers also thanked Dr. Neal ElAttrache and his staff for “starting [him] on the road to recovery.”

This will come as positive news for Jets fans who will be hoping Rodgers can make a speedy recovery ahead of next year’s NFL season.

After suffering the devastating blow, Rodgers’ mindset has been praised by those in the Jets franchise who believe he will be back next year.

When asked if Rodgers will be making a return to football, Jets offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett was resolute.

“Oh, yeah,” Hackett told reporters. “Whenever Aaron has his mind set on something, good luck for anybody that wants to change his mind.”

The sentiment was echoed by Jets head coach Robert Saleh.

“I’d be shocked if this is the way he’s going to go out,” Saleh said during Wednesday’s media availability. “He’s working through a whole lot of headspace things that he needs to deal with, and that will be the last thing I talk to him about.”

It’s not just the coaching staff in New York who have high hopes for Rodgers’ recovery; his Jets teammates have also spoken highly of the four-time MVP.

“I know he’s in surgery here soon and he’s going to attack this rehab and I think he’ll probably heal faster than anyone has ever seen someone come back from Achilles,” Jets center Connor McGovern added on Wednesday.

The onus will now be placed on 24-year-old Zach Wilson to carry the New York Jets’ quarterback load.

Wilson has come under criticism in the past for poor performances while donning a Jets jersey, but he says he is “absolutely” a better player for being around Rodgers.

“I feel like I’ve been trying to copy every little thing he’s doing, from his footwork to the coaching tips he has given us,” Wilson said. “He’s done an amazing job, more than we could ask for as quarterbacks.”

The Jets face the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday in Texas with a chance to kickstart their season with a 2-0 record.

D’Andre Swift put in a dominant performance as the Philadelphia Eagles punished an error-prone Minnesota Vikings on Thursday in 34-28 win.

In his first home game since joining the Eagles, the Philadelphia native ran for a career-high 175 rushing yards and a touchdown as the team’s rushing attack routinely dissected the Vikings defense.

Swift, who arrived from the Detroit Lions in the offseason, became the first Eagle with 175 yards and a touchdown on the ground since LeSean McCoy in 2013, per NFL Research.

“He just showed vision, explosiveness,” said Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni. “I thought the offensive line did a phenomenal job of pushing them off the ball. So, I was really pleased he protected the ball.

“That was a lot of touches, too. Not only pleased with how he saw it and how he hit it, but also thought he protected the ball. Especially, when they are coming after it in situations at the end of the game like that.”

It was another less-than-convincing performance from last year’s Super Bowl runners-up, with some moments of sloppiness creeping into an offense that was so dynamic in 2022, despite beginning its season with two wins.

However, between Swift and quarterback Jalen Hurts, the Eagles were able to find enough explosive plays to keep Minnesota at bay.

Hurts looked towards his wide receiver DeVonta Smith when he needed a big play, connecting with the third-year pass catcher on two 50-plus passes. It was a 63-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter that gave Philadelphia a 27-7 lead.

Costly Minnesota errors prevented a serious comeback, with the Vikings losing four fumbles and Philadelphia’s dominant defensive line making Kirk Cousins’ life difficult. The Vikings’ quarterback was hit 10 times, including two sacks.

The Vikings have lost their opening two games of the season and the team’s head coach Kevin O’Connell bemoaned the sloppy errors.

“You lose the turnover battle 4-1 … 7-1 in turnovers lost in two games, and we’ve lost by a combined nine points to two playoff teams from a year ago,” O’Connell said.

“So clearly, I’ve gotta coach it better from a standpoint of something we talk about every single day – ball security is a major, major focus in our football philosophy, but clearly I need to do a better job.

“And our staff, we need to go back and continue to find ways to re-emphasize how important it is when you have the football in your hands playing for the Minnesota Vikings.

“Because like I said, we’re really not giving ourselves clean opportunities to win these games, the way we’ve started.”

A silver lining

Amid the gloom, there was a moment to celebrate for the Vikings with their superstar wide receiver Justin Jefferson reaching a historic NFL milestone.

Jefferson became the fastest player to reach 5,000 career receiving yards in 52 games, surpassing the previous record set by Odell Beckham Jr. which was 54 games.

The 24-year-old finished the defeat against Eagles with 159 receiving yards, after racking up 150 yards in the Week 1 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

In his first three seasons in the NFL, Jefferson has surpassed 1,400 receiving yards in each of them, finishing with a mammoth 1,809 yards last year.

Lewis Hamilton has described comments made by Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko about Mexican driver Sergio Pérez as “completely unacceptable.”

After this month’s Italian Grand Prix, Marko attributed Pérez’s form to his ethnicity, telling ServusTV: “We know that he has problems in qualifying, he has fluctuations in form, he is South American and he is just not as completely focused in his head as Max [Verstappen] is or as Sebastian [Vettel],” according to Reuters.

The 80-year-old Austrian later apologized for his remarks, and Pérez, speaking ahead of this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix, said that he had also received a personal apology.

“It’s completely unacceptable what he said,” Mercedes driver Hamilton, who has long spoken out against racial discrimination in Formula One, told Sky Sports when asked about Marko’s comments.

“Whilst we say there’s no room for any type of discrimination within this sport … to have leaders and people in his position making comments like this is not good for us moving forwards.

“I think it just highlights firstly the work that still needs to be done. There are a lot of people in the background that really are trying to combat these sorts of things but it’s hard to manoeuvre when you have people that are at the top that have those sorts of mindsets that just stop us from progressing.”

In a public apology issued via ServusTV, Marko said that he wants “to make it absolutely clear that I do not believe that we can generalise about the people from any country, any race, any ethnicity.”

He added: “I was trying to make a point that Checo has fluctuated in his performance this year, but it was wrong to attribute this to his cultural heritage.”

Pérez, currently second behind teammate Verstappen in this season’s driver standings, said that receiving a personal apology from Marko was “more important than anything else.”

He told reporters: “I know him and I know that he doesn’t mean it that way as well, and that to me is what matters. When you have a personal relationship with someone, I think it’s a feeling you’re going to have.”

Verstappen is aiming to win a record-extending 11th consecutive race in Singapore on Sunday, though he said this week that he doesn’t think Red Bull is as competitive on street circuits compared to other tracks.

“The street circuits are a little bit tougher for our car,” he said. “I still think that we can do a good job but it will be very tight.”

Qualifying gets underway at 9 p.m. local time (9 a.m. Eastern Time) on Saturday and the race itself begins at 8 p.m. local time (8 a.m. ET) on Sunday.

Hurricane Lee is expected to lash parts of coastal New England and Atlantic Canada on Friday with heavy rain and strong winds that could lead to flooding in some areas and knock out power across communities.

Inland areas of New England are not expected to see significant storm impacts as Lee’s core is on track to continue churning off the US East Coast.

Still, the massive storm could drench portions of eastern New England into portions of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia with up to 4 inches of rain beginning Friday night into Saturday. Lee’s mammoth size will allow its strong winds to knock down power lines and possibly cause some flooding.

The Canadian Hurricane Center issued a tropical storm warning for New Brunswick from the US-Canada border to Fort Lawrence, including Grand Manan Island, the National Hurricane Center said late Thursday. Another tropical storm warning is also in effect for the coast of Nova Scotia from Fort Lawrence to Point Tupper.

Tropical storm conditions – winds of at least 39 mph – are expected to start in southern New England on Friday afternoon, the hurricane center said.

By early Friday morning, beach conditions continued to deteriorate as dangerous rip currents and surf were ongoing along much of the East Coast, the hurricane center said.

As Lee approached the New England coast, Maine Gov. Janet Mills declared an emergency Thursday, requesting federal aid in preparation for the storm.

The center of Lee, a Category 1 hurricane, was about 215 miles northwest of Bermuda as of early Friday, carrying maximum sustained winds of 85 mph, the hurricane center said at 5 a.m. ET.

Lee whipped strong winds and tropical storm conditions in Bermuda throughout Thursday, triggering power outages on the island. Those weather conditions are expected to continue through Friday morning, and an island-wide tropical storm warning is in effect as the hurricane treks west of Bermuda.

Meanwhile in the US, a combination of hurricane and tropical storm alerts are in effect for many New England coastal communities in anticipation of Lee’s potential impacts Friday and through the weekend.

A tropical storm warning issued along New England’s coast was extended northward to the US and Canada border, the hurricane center said Thursday.

Another tropical storm warning in effect for the coast of Massachusetts was also extended westward to Westport, the agency added. Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket are included in the warning area.

Additionally, a hurricane watch is in effect for Petit Manan Point, Maine, to the Canadian border.

Forecasters expect Lee to weaken as it nears land. But because it’s already a massive storm in size, its strong winds have the bandwidth to batter coastal New England and Canada’s Atlantic provinces.

Hurricane-force winds extended up to 105 miles from its center and tropical storm-force winds stretched for up to 320 miles, the hurricane center said early Friday.

On Saturday, hurricane-strength winds (at least 74 mph) are possible from the northern coast of Maine into portions of the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. But tropical storm-force wind gusts are possible across a much larger area of New England and Atlantic Canada.

Provincial and wildlife parks in Nova Scotia will close Friday as Lee inches closer to the area.

“Safety is our priority as we prepare for storm conditions forecast for the weekend,” said Tory Rushton, provincial minister of natural resources and renewables. “We are closing our parks for the storm and will reopen when it is safe.”

Lee is expected to dump its heaviest rain load over Maine on Saturday. Neighboring states including New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island could also see rainfall from Lee.

Over the weekend, communities from Rhode Island to northern Maine may see 1 to 2 inches of rain. Another 2 to 4 inches of rainfall may impact the Massachusetts Cape and much of Maine. Recurrent downpours could boost rainfall totals to 6 inches.