Phoenix Mercury superstar Brittney Griner will not travel with the team on its two-game road trip to focus on her mental health, the team announced on Saturday.

“The Mercury fully support Brittney and we will continue to work together on a timeline for her return,” the team said in a statement.

The two-time Olympic gold medalist spent nearly 300 days in Russian custody following her detention in February 2022 and was sentenced to nine years in prison under drug-smuggling charges after authorities in the country found cannabis oil in her luggage.

She was released in December in a prisoner exchange with Russia.

The 32-year-old Griner has played in 20 games for Phoenix this season and is averaging 18.2 points 6.7 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.7 blocks per game. Earlier this month, Griner participated in her ninth career WNBA All-Star game.

The Mercury’s record is 6-17 and currently sits in 10th place in the standings. Phoenix plays at the Chicago Sky on Sunday and the Indiana Fever on Tuesday.

Severe thunderstorms caused damage across the Washington, DC, region Saturday, with downed trees and power lines and suspended service on parts of the Metro train system.

DC Fire EMS said on its Twitter account it is responding to multiple emergency calls for trees and wires down, and is prioritizing calls for trees on vehicles or structural damage.

The agency also said crews are responding to a vessel taking on water in the Potomac River, and boats adrift in the Georgetown area.

Across the country, more than 100 million people are under heat alerts, according to the National Weather Service. Most are set to expire Saturday night.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Agency has suspended service on a portion of the Red Line due to a downed tree, while other stations are being bypassed due to power outages, according to its Twitter feed.

The area’s utility provider, Pepco, reports some 64,000 power outages on its website.

In nearby Arlington County in Virginia, the fire department said on Twitter it is experiencing “significant increase in call volume” and responses would be delayed.

The National Weather Service had issued a severe thunderstorm warning for portions of the area and warned of 80 mph winds.

Three four-hour flights high above the jungles of Campeche on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula exposed a hidden gem on the ground below: a lost city that was likely abandoned more than 1,000 years ago.

It was all in a day’s work for Juan Carlos Fernandez-Diaz, an assistant professor in civil engineering at the University of Houston, who spotted the city in March during an airborne archaeological survey of the area.

For the past decade, he’s been a trailblazer in the archaeological application of LiDAR, airborne light detection and ranging equipment that can find structures obscured by dense tree canopies and other vegetation — relics that in some cases reveal traces left by a lost civilization.

Archaeologists subsequently surveyed the site, which they’ve named Ocomtun, for six weeks in May and June and found 50-foot-tall (15.2-meter-tall) structures resembling pyramids, pottery and engravings that they believe date back to between 600 and 900 AD — known as the Late Classic Period in the Maya Civilization.

“When we see the (LiDAR) images, we can see that there’s something amazing [but] the real discovery happens after a lot of investigation and exploration,” said Fernandez-Diaz, who is also the co-Investigator at the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping.

While LiDAR revealed the location of structures, archaeologist Ivan Šprajc — a researcher at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU) — still faced an enormous hurdle when he and his team went to survey the area.

Ocomtun’s ‘peculiar features’

Unused tracks and roads that got them fairly close to the site, but the researchers had to hack their way through thick jungle, using machetes and chainsaws to cut down trees and slash through other vegetation to reach what Šprajc describes as a “major site.”

“When we got there we saw that the buildings were truly massive,” he said.

Maya civilization is best known for its pyramid temples and impressive stone structures that have been found across southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador.

Šprajc and his team found three plazas complete with large buildings and a ball game field. He said that the city resembles other Maya cities from the same period, but there are “certain peculiar features.”

“For example, we have several very curious architecture complexes of structures which are arranged in almost concentric circles. So we are only guessing what this could be. Perhaps marketplaces,” he said.

During the six-week survey, Šprajc and his colleagues conducted archaeological reconnaissance and dug a 2-meter by 2-meter test pit and the pottery fragments they found helped them understand the age of the site. They plan to return next year for further investigation.

Transformative technique

Remote sensing technology, first used in archaeology at the turn of the century, has revolutionized the field, particularly for researchers working in densely forested areas that are difficult to explore on foot, such as those in central America, Šprajc said.

“We can now practically see through vegetation,” he said.

From an airplane or in some cases a drone, a LiDAR sensor tracks the amount of time each laser pulse takes to return and uses that information to create a three-dimensional map of the environment below.

“The simplest analogy is like playing tennis, you know, you basically throw a ball to the wall and see the ball come back and basically measure the time it (takes to go) to the wall and come back. And because it’s a laser, it’s traveling at the speed of light,” Fernandez-Diaz explained.

He’s mapped more than 20,000 square kilometers (7,722 square miles) of Central American jungle and been involved in 45 archaeological projects, including the discovery of the largest and oldest Maya temple near Tabasco, Mexico, and tens of thousands of Maya structures and settlements in the Guatemalan jungle.

Understanding sites like these can shed light on the origins of cities and community life and whether large construction projects in the past required the support of powerful elites and centralized authority of some kind. In the case of the newly discovered city, though, many questions remain unanswered.

Unraveling Ocumtun

It could take years to fully excavate Ocomtun and get a deeper understanding of the site and why it was abandoned. Many once densely populated settlements, particularly in the southern and central Yucatan Peninsula, were abandoned in the space of about 200 years in the ninth and 10th centuries, he said.

Šprajc said people left these cities for a combination of reasons — soil depletion, overpopulation, depression, prolonged drought and warfare — but the researchers don’t know which was the main cause or the sequence of events.  

While LiDAR saves time in the research process — in some cases one day in the air can replace a lifetime’s work of an archaeologist on the ground — Šprajc says the work he pursues is still costly.

He raised funds from seven different institutions and companies to fund the field work, including four Slovenian businesses — publisher Založba Rokus Klett, transport company Adria kombi, lender Kreditna družba Ljubljana and travel agency AL Ars Longa — and two US-based organizations, Ken & Julie Jones Charitable Foundation and Milwaukee Audubon Society as well as his own institution ZRC SAZU.

Despite the thrill of discovery, Fernandez-Diaz said it’s not glamorous work. There are no live images to check during the flight. Nor is there a bathroom on board the tiny plane.

“It’s a bit like mowing the lawn — going one direction turning around in a parallel direction and repeating that back and forth to get the coverage we want,” he said.

Israel’s Supreme Court announced Wednesday that it would hear appeals against a controversial new law that curbs its power, setting up a showdown with the government over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s divisive plans to weaken the judiciary.

The court said it would debate the law in September but would not issue an injunction to block it before then.

The new law, which strips the Supreme Court of the ability to reject some government decisions on the basis of the “reasonableness” standard, was the first of the government’s major judicial reforms to be passed by the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

Netanyahu’s coalition – the most far right in Israeli history – pushed the law through by a narrow margin on Monday with the opposition boycotting the vote, despite months of mass protests and unusually public criticism from the White House.

The court said it would hear challenges from seven groups who are seeking to throw out the law, including the Movement for Quality Government, whose chairman praised the announcement Wednesday.

“We are ready,” Eliad Shraga said in a statement. “We will appear in the Supreme Court to defend Israeli democracy, and we will do everything we can to stop the coup!”

The court’s decision to take up the case brings Israel to the brink of a constitutional crisis, with judges considering whether to strike down legislation that was created to limit their power.

“An injunction wouldn’t be meaningless, but it wouldn’t change much,” he said. “It’s unlikely this reasonableness clause will do a lot of damage between now and September that would be irreversible.”

Shinar said it could be months before the court comes to a decision on the new law.

“You have to give all the parties, the respondents, time to prepare their briefs. So you can’t just say, let’s discuss this next week. Because obviously this is a very big issue, and they have to think hard about it, and there are a lot of parties involved.”

Israel does not have a written constitution and is instead governed by a series of Basic Laws and previous court rulings, including the one that was amended on Monday. These laws were originally enacted by the Knesset with the view that they would form a formal constitution in the future – but that has not happened yet.

The country has no upper chamber of the parliament, but it has a relatively strong Supreme Court. Netanyahu and his supporters argue the court has become too powerful, and that their overhaul would rebalance powers between the judiciary, lawmakers and the government.

But opponents say the Supreme Court is the only check on the power of the government and the Knesset, since the executive and legislative branches are always controlled by the same governing coalition. They argue that the reforms would erode Israeli democracy by granting Netanyahu and his government almost unfettered powers.

The conflict goes far beyond the political class and has caused deep division within Israel, sparking the largest and longest protests in the country’s 75-year history and pitting right-wing and religious groups against more liberal and secular parts of society.

Other parts of the planned overhaul which are yet to be voted on by the Knesset would give Netanyahu’s coalition more control over the appointment of judges, and would remove independent legal advisers from government ministries.

Uncharted territory

The reasonableness standard has allowed Israel’s Supreme Court to strike down government decisions when they are deemed to have been made unfairly and without taking into consideration all relevant factors.

“The court cannot revoke a government decision in cases in which the judges disagree with the government decision; but rather only in cases in which the balance between the various considerations that were made is unreasonable in the extreme,” wrote Yuval Shany of the Israel Democracy Institute earlier this month.

The concept is not unique to Israel – the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada have a similar principle in place – and the court only has only used the power sparingly, according to the Israel Democracy Institute.

The Supreme Court used the standard earlier this year when it ruled that the government’s decision to appoint Aryeh Deri as a cabinet minister was unreasonable because Deri was previously convicted of tax fraud and had said he would retire from public life, forcing Netanyahu to dismiss him.

Shinar said the government could attempt to reinstate Deri. “That was one of the points why the government passed this amendment, was because it didn’t want judicial review over ministerial appointments,” Shinar said.

“The previous time when the court said he can’t be a minister, most of the judges agreed it was on reasonableness grounds. Other judges gave a different reason, but that was in the majority. So right now at least, if they can’t strike it down on reasonableness, it stands to reason that they can reappoint him,” he said.

The Supreme Court has never annulled a Basic Law, though it has previously set a precedent for the possibility of doing so.

In 2021, it declared a law to delay the deadline to pass the state budget an improper use of parliamentary power but stopped short of annulling it, according to the Jerusalem Post. The same year, court president Esther Hayut said the “narrow” circumstances in which a Basic Law could be struck down included cases where a bill “dealt a mortal blow to free and fair elections, core human rights, the separation of powers, the rule of law, and an independent judiciary,” the Times of Israel reported.

While the court’s review of the law may take the tension between the hardline government and the judiciary to a new level, Netanyahu’s government has indicated it will comply with its ruling.

The mass protests that have engulfed Israel since the reforms were first announced in January are unlikely to stop now.

Netanyahu appears determined to keep pressing ahead with the overhaul, while the protesters are equally determined to stop it. The Israel Medical Association went on strike Tuesday in response to the Knesset vote and thousands of military reservists – including more than 1,100 Air Force officers – said even before the bill passed that they would refuse to volunteer for duty if it did.

The government’s plan to push the overhaul through despite the protests has attracted an unusual level of public criticism from some of Israel’s closest allies.

US President Joe Biden had warned Israel’s government against moving ahead with the vote, urging Netanyahu “not to rush this.” After the law was passed on Monday, the White House called it “unfortunate.”

The smiles on Spain’s election night told part of the story. Although Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez came in second place in the vote and his ally Yolanda Diaz finished fourth with her new Sumar leftist alliance, they both wore big grins when addressing their respective supporters celebrating the results on Sunday evening.

But the election winner, the conservative Popular Party (PP) leader Alberto Nuñez Feijóo appeared less jubilant speaking to his large crowd of faithful, while third-place finisher, Santiago Abascal of the far-right Vox party, looked downbeat when he took to the stage.

No single party won enough parliamentary seats to form a government with a majority in Spain’s 350-seat legislature. Feijóo’s PP won 136 representatives, followed by Sanchez’s Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) with 122, then Vox’s 33 and Sumar’s 31. The complex process of horse-trading and negotiations to reach a minimum number of 176 deputies must now begin.

Sanchez had called this snap vote after his ruling coalition of left-wing partners suffered major setbacks in May’s regional and local elections.

Since then, the Spanish left had warned voters that this election could put a far-right party into government – with a PP-Vox coalition – for the first time in decades. Vox takes a hardline on immigration and had pledged to roll back protections for women and LGBTQ people.

While some polls predicted Feijóo’s conservative party would get close to a parliamentary majority on its own, voters instead left him 40 seats short. And even when combined with Vox – which lost 19 seats from its showing in the 2019 election – the duo would still be seven seats short of a majority.

That’s different than in some other European countries, where far-right parties have scored gains, now governing in Italy under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and entering the government in Finland.

In Spain, parliament is now due to convene in mid-August to select a new prime minister – a process which includes the parties discussing their preferences and abilities to govern with King Felipe VI, the head of state. Spanish media reported that the contacts have already begun, just hours after the voting concluded.

Shaping up as potential kingmakers for any coalition government are the nationalist parties in Catalonia and in the northern Basque region.

Spanish media reported Monday that Feijóo says he’ll talk to the Socialists about letting the conservatives govern. But Sanchez reportedly told aides that a formula will be found for a government without repeating the elections.

Villena said Feijóo could talk to the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) who won five seats and, in Catalonia, the Junts party with seven seats, because their predecessors helped a previous conservative leader to govern. But Villena said that Feijóo’s “scorched Earth” stance against independence for those regions could make negotiations difficult.

In addition, nationalist parties have expressed misgivings about joining a coalition with PP if Vox were involved. Vox’s platform seeks a return of control to the central government from Spain’s autonomous regions that for years have gained greater powers in policing, education and health. Its manifesto, for example, promised to replace autonomous regional police forces – such as the Mossos d’Esquadra in Catalonia – with national police.

Sanchez was with US President Joe Biden in the Oval Office in May, and earlier this month visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, where Spain has sent weapons and other aid. Having survived the election that he gambled his career on, analysts say Sanchez may be the best placed to renew a coalition government.

A coalition headed PSOE and Sumar may indeed have more routes to forming a governing alliance than one on the right wing, but it remains complicated.

The leader of Junts, Miriam Nogueras, said Sunday night in Barcelona: “We will not make … Sanchez the next prime minister in exchange for nothing. Our priority is Catalonia, not the governability of the Spanish state.”

But for Sanchez and Feijóo, running Spain is the priority. Sanchez, the incumbent leader, starts this coalition-building process after helping to successfully halt the advance of the far right. Meanwhile, Feijóo, the election “winner,” must balance developing new potential partners with his thorny relationship with Vox.

There’s a lot going on behind the politicians’ smiles, and it could be weeks or months before we find out who will form Spain’s next government.

One fighter was shot twice, sent from the hospital back to the front, where he drank melted snow to live. Forced to assault Ukrainian positions repeatedly, until a grenade blinded him. Saved from the trenches by a doctor who made him a hospital orderly.

Another was jailed at 20 for minor drugs charges, sent to the front aged 23. Given almost no training, he was dead three weeks later – among likely 60 Russians killed in an assault on the very day Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated the defeat of the Nazis in Red Square.

These two stories, of remarkable survival and premature death, epitomize the squalid and exhausting loss of life in Russia’s trenches. Yet there is one distinction: the dead are prisoners, promised respite from their jail terms if they join so-called Storm-Z battalions run by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Life expectancy is short, conditions themselves tough to survive, and convicts describe being used as cannon fodder. Tens of thousands of convicts have been recruited to serve at the front line, at first by the mercenary group Wagner – a scheme then taken over by the defense ministry.

Sergei now works two jobs to keep his family fed, but said he is still waiting for military compensation for his multiple injuries. His ears ring at night from the shell shock, making it hard to sleep in the silence of his home.

He said he was concussed nine times from artillery shells landing nearby while on the front line, over an eight-month period. Last winter he was shot in the leg, then sent back to the front after 10 days’ treatment, he said. He was shot again, in the shoulder, and properly hospitalized. Two months later, a manpower shortage meant he was sent again to the front lines, where he said he found convict amputees had been given radio duties, and troops were discarding their bulletproof vests as they had minimal protective value.

“They don’t help against shells, since their [Ukrainian] artillery strikes with high accuracy,” Sergei said. “Our artillery can fire three or four times, and God willing something explodes. It’s crooked and most often, it hit us first.”

Quotidian horrors

The casualty rates are hard to conceive. Sergei said that from his unit of 600 prisoners recruited in October, only 170 were still alive and all but two of them wounded. “Everyone was injured, two, three, some four times,” he said. He recalled seeing colleagues blown apart by shells landing close to them, and his marvel at surviving. One assault was particularly vivid.

“I remember most clearly the last of the nine concussions I had,” he said. “We attacked. RPGs, drones few at us. Our commander yells on the radio, ‘I don’t care, go ahead! Don’t come back until you take this position!’ Two of us found a small foxhole and dived in there.”

But their ordeal was not over. “A (Ukrainian) drone threw a grenade at us, and it landed in the 30-centimetre gap between us. My friend was covered with shrapnel all over. Yet I was untouched somehow. But I lost my sight for five hours – just a white veil in front of my eyes. They carried me out by hand.”

He finally found doctors who took pity on him, giving him a job as a hospital orderly – moving corpses, checking bodies for identifying papers, cleaning – until the last month of his contract was served out.

Sergei recalls the quotidian horrors of the Russian trenches. Food was mostly tinned meat with instant noodles added, but water was the hardest to obtain. “You have to walk three to four kilometers to get it. Sometimes we didn’t eat for several days, we didn’t drink for several days.” He said in winter they would survive by drinking melted snow. “It wasn’t very pleasant, but we had to.”

Discipline was maintained through executions, he said. “Sometimes the commander ‘reset’ people. He zeroed them out, killed them. I only saw it once – a fight with a man who stole and killed his own people in the trenches. I didn’t see who of the four people around him shot. But when he tried to escape, a bullet hit him in the back of the head. I saw the head wound. They carried him away.”

‘Just about freedom’

For Andrei, the horrors at the frontline were short-lived. His mother Yulia described how he was “not yet a man” when he was sent, aged 23, to the front line. His voice messages – joking about the weather – and boyish looks in uniform, betray a young heart caught in an ugly world.

She said: “He didn’t remember the amount of money he was offered, said he hadn’t checked. So, I didn’t see any financial interest for him. It was just about freedom. He had a long term, nine-and-a-half years, and he had served three.”

Yulia shared a video of Andrei on a training ground in occupied Ukraine, briefly learning assault tactics. His poorly shaven face was pictured in still images, sunburned, under a large camouflage helmet, in the back of an army truck. The images were few, as his time on the front was short.

It was on May 8 that Andrei messaged his mother to say his unit was being sent to the front, one of the most feverishly contested parts of the eastern battlefield. The assault would begin at dawn, on May 9 – a feted day in modern Russian history when the Kremlin marks the anniversary of the defeat of the Nazis by the Soviets with the pomp and grandeur of a military parade across Red Square. Putin presided over a cut-down version of the ceremony this year, which analysts attributed to so much of Moscow’s arsenal being damaged or deployed to the Ukrainian front.

Yulia tearfully recalled that last exchange. “We were arguing. It is horrible to say, but I already thought of him like he was dead. He left (Russia) knowing everything. Every day I told him ‘no, no, no.’ And he didn’t listen to me. When he said, ‘we’re going to storm,’ I wrote him ‘Run, Forrest, Run.’”

Then, like so many convicts with limited cellphone access on the front lines, he vanished completely. In the weeks since, Yulia learned from the relatives of the other prisoners recruited from his penal colony that up to 60 had died in that one assault – a number hard to corroborate, but in keeping with the extraordinary casualties reported by observers from these units made up of convicts.

Yulia received no body, or belongings, only a letter from the Ministry of Defense which records Andrei’s death as being the day he left prison for the front lines.

“The hardest part was that I was afraid, he would kill someone,” Yulia sobbed. “Ridiculous as it sounds, I was afraid he would go through all this and come back to me as a murderer. Because I can live with my son as a drug addict, but with my son as a murderer – it was difficult for me to accept it.”

At times, the horrors Russia’s invasion inflicts on Ukraine are almost matched by what it does to its own.

The first time I watched “Raiders of the Lost Ark” as a kid, it inspired me to explore the little forest behind my house.

Armed with a walking stick and a shovel in my best impersonation of Indiana Jones, I maneuvered through thick clusters of trees, my feet slipping on the waxy leaves from a massive magnolia.

I scanned the ground, thinking any minute I would spy some rock sticking up that had been used to build a long-forgotten city that held buried treasure.

When no discovery emerged, I remember thinking there must be a more efficient way to investigate the past.

While searching for evidence of lost civilizations can still involve traversing jungles and hacking a path through the underbrush, airborne tools are making the job a little easier.

Once upon a planet

A lost Maya city abandoned more than 1,000 years ago has been found in the jungles of Campeche on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.

Juan Carlos Fernandez-Diaz, research assistant professor in civil engineering at the University of Houston, spotted the city, dubbed Ocomtún, during an aerial archaeological survey.

Using light detection called LiDAR, researchers such as Fernandez-Diaz can practically peer right through dense vegetation to see evidence of ancient structures.

Archaeologist Ivan Šprajc of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts and his team used Fernandez-Diaz’s data and found 50-foot-tall (15.2-meter-tall) structures resembling pyramids, pottery and engravings that they believe date back to between 600 and 900. The lost city’s “peculiar features” could take years to excavate.

Dig this

When archaeologists excavated the Oc Eo site in southern Vietnam, they uncovered a sandstone slab and nutmeg seeds that still released a unique aroma.

A newly released analysis of the slab showed it was once a work surface for grinding spices used to prepare curry at least 2,000 years ago. The array of spices detected on the slab and other tools at the site — once an overseas trading hub — originated from different places around the world.

The ingredients used to prepare the ancient curry are incredibly similar to curries made today in Vietnam and elsewhere across Southeast Asia, proving that the dish has deep roots.

Other worlds

The Milky Way galaxy may be home to trillions of rogue planets, or worlds that travel through space without orbiting a star. These cold, faint worlds are incredibly difficult to detect — but not for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

The next-generation space observatory is set to launch between October 2026 and May 2027. Named for NASA’s first chief of astronomy, the telescope may have what it takes to find hundreds of Earth-mass rogue planets as well as thousands of exoplanets that orbit stars.

The telescope, nicknamed the wide-eyed cousin of the Hubble Space Telescope, marks the next big step toward finding life outside the solar system. The Roman telescope will have the same orbit as the James Webb Space Telescope, which just detected water swirling around a nearby planetary system.

Mission critical

If humans continue releasing planet-heating pollution across the globe, a vital system of ocean currents could collapse, according to a new study. And that calamitous event may happen sooner than expected.

Scientists have determined that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which regulates global weather patterns, could shut down as soon as 2025 if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t reduced.

Global warming is also having a more immediate effect on air travel, making it more difficult for planes to take off at certain airports and contributing to summer travel woes.

Two aviation projects from NASA could help revolutionize air travel by the 2030s, creating the next generation of more sustainable flight that burns less fuel.

Across the universe

The Webb telescope has captured the energetic outbursts of two rambunctious young stars.

The stellar pair is still actively forming and is 1,470 light-years away. The space observatory’s capabilities allowed it to peer through the shroud of gas and dust around the stars and spy the jets of material they’ve been blasting into space for thousands of years.

As the stars burp out the gas and dust, the newly ejected material collides with previously released clouds, creating colorful waves seen in the image above.

Separately, an international team of astronomers has discovered an eerily glowing dead star with two completely different faces.

Explorations

Grab a refreshing beverage and settle in with these fascinating reads:

— Carl Sagan’s pristine personal copy of the master recording for Voyager’s Golden Record, including music styles from around the world and the sounds of Earth, hit the auction block this week.

— There is a “gravity hole” in the Indian Ocean where Earth’s gravitational pull is weaker and the sea level dips by hundreds of feet. Scientists now think they have solved the riddle of this anomaly.

— Pieces of bone found inside a safety deposit box might have belonged to composer Ludwig van Beethoven — and the Medical University of Vienna is testing to see whether the skull fragments are a genetic match.

— Scientists revived a 46,000-year-old worm found deep in the Siberian permafrost that lived at the same time as woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats.

And don’t forget to look up for two different meteor showers peaking on July 30 and 31!

Typhoon Doksuri has brought heavy rainfall to several regions in northern China, including the capital Beijing, after lashing the Philippines and Taiwan where it caused dozens of deaths and forced hundreds of thousands to evacuate.

The provinces of Hebei and Shandong are also among those affected, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported Saturday.

The meteorological bureau of Beijing said that the capital will experience heavy downpours from Saturday night to Tuesday next week, according to Xinhua.

An orange alert for rainstorms was issued across the city at around 11:45 am local time on Saturday, but the provincial meteorological bureau upgraded it later in the day to a red alert for rainstorms that are expected over the following three days, according to Xinhua.

The provincial water conservancy department and meteorological bureau also jointly issued an alert for mountain torrents, Xinhua said.

Downpours have also swept many parts of east China’s Shandong Province since Friday night, the agency reported. Due to the continuous rainfall, Shandong has issued a yellow alert for heavy rain and alerts for mountain torrents.

Tens of millions of people could potentially be impacted by Doksuri, which made landfall Friday.

Across China, several coastal cities, such as Xiamen, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, temporarily shut businesses, factories, and schools as of Friday afternoon, Xinhua added. More than 400,000 people were evacuated in Fujian province.

Prior to making landfall in China, the storm battered parts of the Philippines and killed at least 39 people, including dozens on an overcrowded boat that capsized in strong winds.

Like much of the northern hemisphere, China has seen extreme weather this year, earlier this month grappling with a heat wave.

Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton apologized for his critique of the team’s previous coach and staff, calling it a “mistake.”

On Thursday, Payton told USA Today that his predecessors had done “one of the worst coaching jobs in the history of the NFL.”

But speaking to reporters during training camp on Friday, Payton said: “I had one of those moments where I still had my FOX hat on, and not my coaching hat on.

“And, you know, I said this to the team in the meeting yesterday. We’ve had a great offseason relative to that. And I’ve been preaching that message, and here I am, the veteran. You know, stepping in it.

“It was a learning experience for me. It was a mistake, obviously. I needed a little bit more filter … I said what I said, and obviously I needed a little bit more restraint, and I regret that.”

The 59-year-old Payton worked as a broadcaster for FOX last season. He was hired this past offseason by the Broncos, succeeding former head coach Nathaniel Hackett. Last season, Hackett was let go by the team after a 4-11 record under him.

Payton added he would apologize to New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh and offensive coordinator and former Broncos head coach Hackett at “the right time.”

“I think the world of Robert (Saleh). I know him. I don’t know Nathaniel (Hackett). But at the right time. Listen, it certainly will bring more interest in the game when we play them, but that seems like years from now. But I’ll handle it the right way,” he said.

The Jets are scheduled to play the Broncos in Denver in week 5.

Women’s World Cup 2023: Live scores, fixtures, results, tables and top scorers

France put itself in a commanding position to reach the last 16 of the Women’s World Cup after earning a hard-fought 2-1 win over Brazil thanks to Wendie Renard’s late header.

More to follow…

Sweden hammers Italy

Sweden advanced to the knockout stages of the Women’s World Cup thanks to a thumping 5-0 win over Italy.

A disjointed Sweden needed a 90th-minute winner to edge past South Africa in its opening Group G match, but the team looked back to its best at times against Italy as three late first-half goals ended the game as a contest.

After battling well for much of the opening 45 minutes, Italy’s resistance was finally broken six minutes before half time as Amanda Ilestedt, who recently signed for Arsenal Women, lost her marker to head home from a corner kick.

That goal opened the floodgates for Sweden, which doubled its lead five minutes later through Fridolina Rolfö after yet more sloppy Italian defending from a corner. Stina Blackstenius then made it 3-0 in stoppage time, tapping home after a sweeping Swedish attack.

A corner kick proved to be Italy’s undoing for a third time just five minutes into the second half. It was Ilestedt again who stole in at the near post to head past goalkeeper Francesca Durante for her second of the match.

Sweden added more gloss to the scoreline in injury time through Rebecka Blomqvist, who latched onto a long pass and calmly slotted the ball past the onrushing Durante.

There are only a select number of teams in Australia and New Zealand that could take the US’ crown and Sweden, ranked third in the world, is one of them.

This group has regularly felt the pressure of being labeled the country’s ‘Golden Generation’ and came so close to living up to that moniker two years ago, losing to Canada in the gold medal match at the rescheduled 2020 Olympic Games.

But Saturday’s win over Italy marks Sweden’s biggest victory at a Women’s World Cup since it beat Japan 8-0 in 1991.

Sweden reached the semifinals at Euro 2022 and the World Cup four years ago in France, and this performance firmly puts the team back on track to emulate or even better previous results.

Despite the heavy defeat, Italy still has an excellent chance of qualifying for the round of 16. Victory over South Africa would ensure its place in the knockout stages, but a draw would also be enough should Sweden beat Argentina as expected.