Out of the post-pandemic travel chaos, a hero has emerged.

Unassuming and undercover, this hero has spent much of the past year traveling the globe, stepping in when airlines mess up to save people’s precious vacations.

Its name? Well, it goes by a few. To you, it may be Tile, Chipolo, Pebblebee or – its best-known incarnation – AirTag. That’s right: compact, portable and potentially snatching your perfect vacation from the jaws of lost luggage disaster, the travel accessory of the moment is the humble luggage tracker.

We’ve seen it month after month, after airlines and airports laying off staff led to travel chaos throughout 2022. Not enough baggage handlers and exploding numbers of travelers meant bags not being loaded onto planes, bags not being taken fast enough off planes, unattended bags piling up by the thousands in airports – and many of them lost.

The bag mishandling rate was up 74.7% in 2022 compared to the previous year, according to data from SITA, which offers various IT solutions (including baggage tracking) for the aviation industry. Out of every 1,000 bags to take to the skies, 7.6 were lost last year, compared to 4.35 per 1,000 in 2021 and 5.6 per 1,000 in 2019.

Bags for international flights are eight times as likely to be mishandled than those on domestic flights, due to the likelihood of them being transferred (connections account for nearly half the incidents). However, you don’t have to have a complex itinerary for the airline to lose your bag – a whopping 17% of mishandled bags in 2022 were simply never loaded onto the plane in the first place.

“The sudden surge in travel has led to increased disruptions that are compounded by a shortage of skilled staff,” Thomas Romig, vice president for safety, security and operations of the Airports Council International (ACI) wrote in a report this year for SITA.

And 2023 could be even worse, according to Rory Boland, editor of UK-based consumer magazine Which? Travel.

“There remain significant problems with lost luggage this year, and this is likely to be worse still in the peak travel period this summer. That’s not just the odd bag going missing, but planes taking off with no luggage because staff shortages meant it wasn’t possible to load them in time,” he warns.

If losing a bag doesn’t sound like the worst thing that could happen on vacation, that probably means you haven’t ever lost one. “If you’ve lost a bag once you’re probably scarred for life,” says tech writer Kate Bevan, to whom it’s happened twice.

If you’re lucky, you’ll get a call or an email saying your missing bag has been located. If you’re not, you’ll be waiting indefinitely, always wondering what happened to that piece of luggage.

But if you put a tracking device inside it, as more and more people are finding, you can tell the airline where it is.

And while knowing where it is doesn’t guarantee you’ll get it back, you have more of a fighting chance.

“For me, tracking devices are essential because they help you help the airline find your luggage faster, but also offer peace of mind that you will get your belongings back at some stage,” says Boland.

A PowerPoint presentation to recover his bag

Jai Rawat was traveling home from London Heathrow to San Francisco in January when his bag went missing. Two days later, his airline, Virgin Atlantic, emailed to say that the bag had been located and would be returned to him “soon.”

Yet nine days after his flight, his AirTag was still showing at Heathrow.

Rawat – CEO of Zinrelo, which powers loyalty programs for brands – sent screenshots of its location to no avail. Virgin said that staff were “trying to locate the bag” – despite him showing them exactly where it was.

In desperation, after 34 days, he created a PowerPoint presentation, entitled “Helpful hints to find my suitcase.”

The six-page document gave a detailed description of the bag, and included maps, satellite photos, Google Streetview screenshots and an annotated map of Heathrow Terminal 4, marking the exact building which he deduced the bag was in.

It was no rush job – Rawat says he “spent a few hours scouring the internet for airport maps,” overlaying his AirTag location map against them. He was, he says, “desperate,” as the bag contained a precious item belonging to his daughter.

The result? Three days later, the bag arrived at his home in California. It had been opened, and “several things” were missing – but he was refunded for them 10 days after making a claim.

This was the first time he’d used a tracking device, and Rawat says he was surprised how long Virgin Atlantic took to find the bag.

“I thought that since the exact location was visible via AirTag, the airline should be able to find it easily. It was really frustrating that they were having a hard time finding the bag even after I gave them all the information – it felt that they were just not putting in enough effort,” he says. Possibly because he was one of many: “At one point the agent I was emailing with told me that the building had thousands of lost bags,” he said.

‘Airlines do too little’

“In years past, that luxury was largely unavailable as travelers had to wait for the airline to let them know where their bag was – and that could often be hard for airline representatives to actually track down,” she says.

“While AirTags aren’t perfect (they rely on Apple’s ‘Find My’ network, so they’re not as reliable in scarcely populated areas), they’ve given travelers the power of knowing exactly where their bag is in many cases before airline representatives can do the same.”

Boland says travelers are taking matters into their own hands for one reason: “Too many airlines do far too little to track bags down in a timely manner.

“Anyone who has had an airline lose their bags will know that you are often fobbed off with no answer as to where your luggage is and when you might be reunited with it.

“Passengers pay increasingly large amounts of money to many airlines to transport luggage, so it is completely unacceptable that it’s down to the passenger to tell the airline where it lost the bag.”

‘The police never called me’

Elliot Sharod was one of the first to go viral for tracking his lost luggage through its AirTag.

In April 2022, he and his wife were returning from their wedding in South Africa when one of their bags – containing mementos from the ceremony – was lost.

Thanks to his AirTag, Sharod could see where it was. But Aer Lingus – which had lost the bag – wasn’t replying.

In desperation, Sharod made a PowerPoint presentation and tweeted it at the airline. It swiftly went viral.

Not that Aer Lingus got the case back for the unhappy couple. Eventually, the pair traced it to a shed outside a block of residential apartments in London, and called the police, who broke in and recovered it.

More than a year on, Sharod’s unimpressed by how it all panned out.

The bag was “ripped to shreds – everything that could have identified us was destroyed,” he says. Their order of service and table settings from the wedding were gone, as were his wife’s perfume, hair straighteners and “anything they could sell.” Only clothes were left.

So what happened next? Not a lot, as it happened. “The police said they’d call me in for a statement but that never happened. They didn’t take it further and neither did the airline,” he says.

Sharod says he sent a 12-page document to Aer Lingus outlining the saga, and was asked “what was it we were looking for?”

“I just said frankly we’re six weeks on, I’d just like an apology and I’d like everything that was stolen to be replaced.”

The airline paid them around $1,000 compensation and threw in lounge access on a forthcoming flight, but refused to share more details, calling it an internal matter.

Sharod now goes carry-on only wherever possible, even on two-week trips.

Google enters the game

AirTags may be in the news, but they’re not the only trackers available. However, until now, alternatives such as Tile or Chipolo haven’t been perhaps as useful – because of how they work.

Lose your bag with an AirTag in it, and the tracker uses Apple’s global network to locate itself – meaning that any iPhone user passing by will passively locate it. Other brands, however, rely on other users of their same network – so if your missing bag has a Tile in it, the only way it’ll ping is if another Tile user is nearby. The closest so far has been the Samsung Galaxy smart tag, which works with Samsung phones – which account for over one in five.

But in May, Google announced that later this year, its Find My Device “ecosystem” would be upgraded to work with trackers including Tile, Chipolo and Pebblebee – making it the largest network in the world. It’ll also alert you if an unknown tracker starts moving with you. (Some tracking devices have been used in stalking cases; Apple and Google are working together on an industry-wide effort to help limit the risk of Bluetooth devices being used for unwanted tracking.)

Bevan says that Google opening up its network is a game-changer. “In the rest of the world [outside the US], Android has much higher penetration [than Apple],” she says. “Google doing this is a big deal.”

The company is also rumored to be working on its own tracker device, codenamed Grogu.

Safety first

Are tracking devices safe? That’s a question the aviation industry appears to have been battling.

The FAA isn’t concerned, however. Its rules say that metal batteries containing less than 0.3 grams (0.01 ounces) of lithium, are OK in checked luggage. Trackers have less – AirTags, for example, contain just over 0.1 grams and Tiles contain less than 0.1 grams on average, according to a spokesperson.

Airlines going DIY

Tracking your bags yourself can never hurt, but some airlines are offering similar services.

SITA offers a Bag Journey service to airlines, which tracks luggage at four stages of the process, and offers airlines the chance to share the real-time data with passengers. Just 25% of airlines have taken them up on this so far, but SITA says that 67% of airlines plan to allow passenger access by 2025.

The company has also developed a system that automatically identifies bags unlikely to make their connecting flight, and rebooks them on the next one, keeping the existing bag tag, while keeping the passenger informed. Again, though, it’s up to the airlines to buy into it.

“SITA is committed to working with the industry to ensure passengers are once again confident to check in their baggage,” CEO David Lavorel wrote in the company’s 2023 “Baggage IT Insights” report.

Meanwhile Delta passengers who use the airline’s app have received push notifications about their bags’ progress since 2016. The airline uses RFID technology in its bag tags.

Taking back control

For Sharod, personal tracking devices have “given the power back to passengers.”

“It’s changed how airlines have to interact with passengers,” he says. “They can’t hide behind generic responses on Twitter. They can’t keep pieing people off because we know where our bags are.”

He hopes that “AirTag awareness… has pushed airlines to look at their internal processes – and if they want to protect their reputations, hopefully that will benefit passengers. Ultimately, it should lead to it being better.”

For Bevan, the devices haven’t yet changed the way we travel, but says they “take one of the stresses out of traveling.”

So how to give yourself the best chance of getting your luggage back?

All our case studies, of course, advise buying a tracking device. And, perhaps, disguising it. Sharod’s wife hid the couple’s tags in balled-up clothing. “If you just chuck it in, you run the risk of [a potential thief] finding it,” he says. Luggage brand Samsara makes cases with hidden, and relatively indestructible slots for tracking devices – but so far they’re only carry-on size. The brand is working on larger versions.

Rawat advises photographing the bag at check-in, making an inventory of what’s in it, and writing your contact details on a piece of paper to put inside – as well as on a nametag outside.

And don’t forget that the majority of people do get their bags back. Last year, four out of five bags that didn’t arrive on time were merely delayed, rather than lost entirely, according to SITA’s data. Just 7% were lost or stolen – the rest were damaged or had items stolen from them.

Meanwhile, Boland – who never travels these days without a tracker – has a novel proposition to change the industry: “Airlines should refund passengers fees when they lose bags, as this would work as an incentive for them to reduce the number of misplaced pieces of luggage.”

Part of the summit of a mountain in the Austrian state of Tyrol has collapsed, sending more than 100,000 cubic meters of rock crashing into the valley below and triggering mudslides.

Rocks started falling Sunday from Fluchthorn, a nearly 3,400 meter (11,155 foot) mountain in the Silvretta Alps on the border between Switzerland and Austria, in an incident state geologists have said was caused by thawing permafrost.

No one was injured by the rockfall, according to Alpine police.

In a reconnaissance flight over the affected area, state geologists made initial assessments of the amount of fallen rock, but they say these may well be conservative as it will take time to get a more accurate picture.

“This is a relatively large incident, we’re talking about at least 100,000 cubic meters of rock that has fallen off, likely more than that,” said Thomas Figl, a state geologist, in a video produced by the Tyrolean state government.

The geologists have pinned the collapse on the thawing of permafrost, a long-term frozen layer of soil and rocks. Most often associated with Arctic regions, permafrost is also found high in the European Alps.

“We can be relatively sure about the cause of this incident: permafrost. The ice is the glue of the mountains and that ice has been thawing over a long period of time due to climate change. That then causes the results that we see here,” Figl said.

When permafrost thaws it can have a destabilizing effect, said Marcia Phillips, permafrost research group leader at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Switzerland.

There isn’t enough data to say whether rockfalls have increased in recent years, as it is usually only large events that are well-documented, said Phillips. Scientists rely on information from the public, she added, and many rockfalls happen in remote areas.

But, as human-caused climate change pushes up global temperatures, leading to thawing permafrost and melting snow and glaciers, rockfalls in this region look set to become more common.

“Along with rising permafrost temperatures, loss of ice and higher ground water contents we expect an increase in slope movements and rockfalls at elevations where permafrost is found in the Alps,” Phillips said.

Rockfalls can cause huge disruption to those living in the shadows of these mountains.

In May, the residents of the Swiss village of Brienz, in the region of Graubünden near Davos, were forced to evacuate after warnings that their homes could be crushed by nearly 2 million cubic meters of rocks falling from the mountain above it.

If you’re a father, you probably have experienced endless anxieties about whether you’re doing enough for your kids while they’re growing up.

What if your children inherit your negative habits? What if you let your kids watch too much television or feed them the wrong foods?

Worrying you’re going to mess up is normal, and you will make mistakes — but you can put things in perspective by knowing some parents are much worse than you, according to comedy writer Glenn Boozan’s book “There Are Moms Way Worse Than You: Irrefutable Proof That You Are Indeed a Fantastic Parent.” Priscilla Witte illustrated the book, which features a few “bad” animal fathers, too.

Questionable animal fathers include grizzly bears that eat their young when food is scarce, and lions that primarily stand guard and look tough while female lions venture out to hunt and kill.

“So when you feel exhausted, or there’s too much on your plate, as long as you don’t eat your baby? Yeah, you’re doing great,” Boozan wrote in her book. “When the panic rises, and the pressure starts to mount, remember that you’re trying … and that is all that counts.”

Here are three other bad animal dads that might make you feel better about your parenting efforts this Father’s Day.

Pipefish

“It’s not just moms, some dads suck too! They’re not all warm and snuggly,” Boozan wrote. “A pipefish dad will eat his kids if he thinks that they’re ugly.”

Male pipefish can get pregnant and give birth, but their interest in being nurturing fathers might only last during the pregnancy. A key factor in this decision-making might be how the male pipefish feels about the mother of his offspring, Texas A&M University researchers found in 2010.

A male pipefish that was fond of a female partner with which he had mated was more likely to be nurturing toward his offspring, the researchers discovered. Male pipefish that were less interested in the pipefish mothers were less nurturing toward their young, investing fewer resources in them. Pipefish fathers have also been known to absorb nutrients from some of their embryos, effectively cannibalizing them, according to a 2009 article in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Horses

“Horses seem like super dads, but, eh, they’re not the best,” Boozan wrote. “They’ll threaten other horses’ kids and kick them straight to death.”

If a stallion is able to breed lots of offspring, he has a genetic advantage over other stallions, according to Good Horse, a horsemanship forum led by horse trainer and behavioral consultant Diamanto Mamuneas. But since a stallion can’t give birth, he can’t ever be fully sure that all the foals in his vicinity are his — which can be stressful since stallions invest lots of time and resources into caring for and protecting their offspring when they could be mating or eating. And as the colts mature, they become competition for the stallions in the mating pool.

Caring for rivals’ offspring is futile, so stallions have evolved strategies to prevent having to raise colts unrelated to them — including killing young foals, according to research published in the journal Applied Animal Ethology.

Poison dart frogs

“The poison dart frog dad is less a ‘hit’ and more a ‘miss,’” Boozan wrote. “To keep his eggs from drying out, he’ll sometimes use his piss.”

Poison dart frog dads guard their offspring for 10 to 18 days, occasionally urinating on them to protect them from predators and keep them moist.

The eggs require “significant additional moisture to avoid” desiccation, according to Animal Diversity Web, an online zoology resource produced by the University of Michigan’s Museum of Zoology.

Easing parents’ anxieties

Many parenting books are geared toward selling things they claim will make people better at parenting, Boozan said.

“I wanted to sell them things to make them feel like they’re a fine (parent), and they don’t need to buy any of that other crap,” she added.

“Buying a specific swaddling blanket or a different kind of Binky isn’t going to make you a better or worse parent,” Boozan said. “I think you’re going to be a great parent no matter what if you try your best. My goal was to alleviate those fears, if only for a moment with a little bit of laughter.”

At least 78 people died after a migrant boat carrying hundreds of people sank off the Greek coast in the early hours of Wednesday, that country’s Coast Guard said, as fears mount that there could be more fatalities.

A total of 104 migrants who were traveling on the boat have since been rescued from the water and transferred to the city of Kalamata.

“All the men who have been rescued are between 16 and 41 years old according to what they said,” Kalamata Mayor Thanasis Vasilopoulos said Wednesday. “They also said there were women and children on board,” he added.

The coast guard, which revised down a previous death toll of 79, said the search and rescue operation will stop once it’s dark in the area and will continue with the first light of day tomorrow.

It is unclear how many people were on board the ship when it went under. Survivors say there could have been as many as 750 passengers.

“We fear that the number of dead will rise significantly,” a spokesperson for Peloponnese prefect Panagiotis Nikas said.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) earlier tweeted that it believed that there were “up to 400 people” onboard.

UN chief Antonio Guterres referred to the shipwreck as “horrific” in a post on Twitter, adding: “As I’ve said before – every person searching for a better life deserves safety and dignity.”

State broadcaster ERT, citing initial information from authorities, said the boat had sailed from Tobruk, in Libya.

The NGO Alarm Phone said it first received a call from the boat Tuesday afternoon and that it was “difficult to communicate with the distressed,” who said that they could not survive the night.

Those on board said the captain left the vessel three hours after the first distress call was made and passengers were in need of food and water, accoring to Alarm Phone.

A merchant vessel is said to have provided the boat with water at around 8 p.m. local time on Tuesday evening.

The last time Alarm Phone was able to contact the boat was just before 1 a.m. local time on Wednesday morning. According to Alarm Phone, all that could be heard was “Hello my friend… The ship you send is…” before the call cut off.

Search and rescue operations are being carried out by the Coast Guard in international waters, 47 nautical miles off the coast of Pylos in the southwestern Peloponnese.

The boat’s destination was Italy, according to Greek officials.

Greek President Katernina Sakellaropoulou visited some of the survivors on Wednesday. “We are shocked, we are shocked like everyone in Greece,” Vasilopoulus said.

Greece has been at the heart of the European migrant crisis, offering a way into the European Union for migrants and refugees coming from the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

The number of undocumented people arriving on European shores by sea has skyrocketed this year due to conflict, global inequality and the climate crisis.

More than 36,000 people arrived in the Mediterranean region of Europe from January to March this year, nearly twice the number compared with the same period in 2022, according to figures from the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR).

It is the highest number since the refugee crisis that peaked in 2015 and early 2016 – during some of the fiercest fighting in Syria’s civil war – when the arrival of more than 1 million people on Europe’s shores led EU solidarity to collapse into bickering and border chaos.

As a journalist, I tend to cover outcomes of the scientific process — a discovery published in a journal or a high-profile award. It’s rare that I get to see the blood, sweat and tears that go into the work.

This month, I spent 10 days as a fellow of the Logan Science Journalism Program at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. I took part in two experiments: gene-editing zebra fish and sampling the bacteria on my tongue to understand the composition of its microbiome, or microbial community.

Getting hands-on experience with the scientific tools I write about was fantastic and humbling — even using a pipette was frustratingly difficult for a fat-fingered newbie like me. I have a deeper respect for scientists and the work they do, which we aim to celebrate in this newsletter. 

Days after I got my first taste of working at a lab bench, a company set forth to prove scientific research can be successfully done in orbit without any humans present.

Look up

The future of medicine may take flight in space.

California startup Varda Space Industries launched its first test mission on June 12, successfully sending a 200-pound (90-kilogram) capsule designed to carry drug research into Earth’s orbit.

The experiment, conducted in microgravity by simple onboard machines, aims to test whether it would be possible to manufacture pharmaceuticals in space remotely.

Research has already established that protein crystals grown in a weightless environment can result in more perfect structures compared with those grown on Earth. These space-formed crystals could potentially then be used to create better-performing drugs that the human body can more easily absorb.

Climate changed

The planet’s coldest, saltiest ocean waters — located in Antarctica — are heating up and shrinking in volume.

This “Antarctic bottom water” plays a crucial role in the ocean’s ability to act as a buffer against climate change by absorbing excess heat and human-caused carbon pollution. The deep waters also circulate nutrients across the ocean.

However, the vital water mass is in decline in the Weddell Sea due to long-term changes in winds and sea ice, according to the British Antarctic Survey, which indicated the trend could have far-reaching consequences for the climate crisis and deep ocean ecosystems.

We are family

Lucy, named for the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” is perhaps the world’s most famous fossil.

Unearthed in Ethiopia in 1974 and representing 40% of a skeleton, the remains revealed an early human relative who lived millions of years before Homo sapiens.

Analysis of the find over the past 20 years has suggested that Lucy and others of her species walked upright. New research by paleoanthropologist Dr. Ashleigh L.A. Wiseman at the University of Cambridge has taken things a step further and recreated a component of this ancient ancestor that didn’t fossilize: her muscles.

Through Wiseman’s computer modeling, researchers were able for the first time to understand the shape and size of Lucy’s muscles and how she used them to move, assessing whether it was like the crouched waddle of an upright chimpanzee or the stance of a human.

Meanwhile, other, more recent fossil discoveries are shaking up what we know about early human migration.

Other worlds

A key chemical building block of life has been found on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The moon’s ice-crusted ocean may be one of the best bets for finding life in our solar system beyond Earth.

Using data from NASA’s Cassini mission, scientists detected phosphorus in salty ice grains released from Enceladus into space by plumes erupting between cracks in the ice shell. It’s the first time the chemical element has been uncovered in an extraterrestrial ocean.

Phosphorus “is essential for the creation of DNA and RNA, cell membranes, and ATP (the universal energy carrier in cells),” according to Dr. Frank Postberg, a professor of planetary sciences at Freie Universität Berlin. “Life as we know it would simply not exist without phosphates.”

Once upon a planet

A recent discovery of organic compounds in ancient rocks in Australia helps illuminate the early history of eukaryotes: life forms with complex, nucleus-containing cells.

Traces of molecules possibly produced by eukaryotes have suggested these organisms — the infinitesimal ancestors of all plants, algae, fungi and animals (including humans) — were abundant 1.6 billion years ago, much earlier than previously thought.

The proto-steroid molecules left by the early eukaryotes revealed they were adapted to a world very different from modern Earth, an international team of researchers said.

Explorations

Check out these remarkable reads:

— Researchers have created the world’s first synthetic human embryo-like structures from stem cells, bypassing the need for eggs and sperm.

— Want to see next year’s total solar eclipse? Make plans now.

— Orcas are popping up in unexpected places, including off the coast of New England.

— NASA’s Curiosity rover has captured a colorful postcard of Mars.

Rickie Fowler will take a one-shot solo lead into the weekend at the US Open following another strong performance at Los Angeles Country Club on Friday.

After he and Xander Schauffele broke the record for the lowest single round score ever shot at the major on Thursday, an eight-under 62, Fowler shot 68 in the second round to pull away from his compatriot.

The 34-year-old, chasing his first major title, holds a one stroke advantage over American Wyndham Clark, who starred yet again to leapfrog tied-third Schauffele into solo second.

Ten-under overall at the halfway stage, Fowler equaled the record for the lowest opening 36-hole score at the tournament, matching Martin Kaymer’s effort in 2014.

It was a rollercoaster round for the world No. 45, who raced out of the blocks with three consecutive birdies. Yet after shooting just two bogeys in his opening round, the five-time PGA Tour winner shot six on Friday, including four across a seven-hole stretch after the turn.

“Being in the lead is nice, but it really means nothing right now,” Fowler told reporters.

“I’m looking forward to continuing to challenge myself and go out there and try and execute the best I can.”

Clark, after missing the cut in both of his previous starts at the major, followed up his opening round 64 with a 67, shooting just one bogey in a composed display to soar into the weekend.

The 29-year-old is comfortably on course to beat his best-ever major finish, a top-75 finish at the PGA Championship in 2021.

McIlroy keeps major dream alive

An electric finish from Rory McIlroy kept the Northern Irishman within striking distance of ending his nine-year wait for a fifth career major.

Two-over par at the turn, the 2011 champion rattled off six birdies across his last nine holes to finish three-under and head into the weekend two shots behind Fowler and tied with Schauffele, who shot an even-par 70.

“No one wants me to win another major more than I do. The desire is obviously there,” McIlroy told reporters.

“I feel like I’ve showed a lot of resilience in my career, a lot of ups and downs, and I keep coming back. And whether that means that I get rewarded or I get punched in the gut or whatever it is, I’ll always keep coming back.”

McIlroy was a whisker away from a walk-off ace when, having started from the 10th hole, his 9th tee shot trickled agonizingly past the cup.

A few inches to the left and the 34-year-old would have become already the fourth player to hit a hole-in-one at the tournament, after defending champion Matt Fitzpatrick made it a hat-trick earlier in the second round.

The defending champion joined France’s Matthieu Pavon and American Sam Burns in finding the 15th hole in one swing, even if he didn’t immediately realize it.

The Englishman struggled to continue the momentum of the first hole-in-one of his PGA Tour career however, double bogeying two holes later and finishing the day at one-over par overall.

“I feel like if I can get the driver going I can shoot a really good score, but could not drive it worse at the minute,” Fitzpatrick told reporters.

Mickelson, Spieth and Thomas crash out

American Harris English sits alone in fifth at seven-under overall, one shot ahead of Australia’s Min Woo Lee and compatriot Dustin Johnson, who rebounded well from a disastrous quadruple bogey at the second hole to card even-par for the round.

“Definitely didn’t get the day started off how I envisioned it starting today,” Johnson told reporters.

“But to battle back and get it back to even par for the day and 6-under for the tournament, still right in the mix going into the weekend, definitely proud of the way I came back and finished off the round.”

Six-time major champion Phil Mickelson and former US Open champion Jordan Spieth headlined a host of big names that failed to progress to the weekend, with the cut line falling at two-over par.

Yet while both only missed out by a single stroke, two-time major winner Justin Thomas endured a truly torrid two days in California, shooting 73 and 81 to finish 14-over par, that tied for the tied-fourth worst score of the 156-player field.

University of Colorado head football coach Deion Sanders is at risk of having his left foot amputated due to poor circulation, according to doctors at the school.

The 55-year-old former NFL and MLB star met with his medical team on an episode of “Thee Pregame Show” on YouTube and revealed he can’t feel the bottom of his left foot.

In the meeting, he discusses the possible next steps to alleviate the daily pain, with doctors suggesting doing an initial surgery on Sanders’ foot to realign one or more of his toes that have had more pressure put on them due to his previous toe amputations.

Earlier this year, Sanders said he had nine surgeries, including eight within a month on the left leg, after developing blood clots that resulted in him having two toes amputated in 2021 while he was the football head coach at Jackson State University. Sanders missed three games due to the amputations.

“You just have to understand what the risks are. Things can cascade,” vascular surgeon Dr. Donald Jacobs tells Sanders, while adding that he was not only at risk of losing another toe but possibly his whole foot if it didn’t heal correctly from the surgery due to the poor circulation.

“Well I know what the risks are. I only have eight toes so I’m pretty sure I understand,” Sanders replied.

“I just want to know what we can do, because I want to do it this summer, because when we get rolling, I’m not going to have time to do it,” he says later.

Sanders’ medical team consists of Jacobs, vascular surgeon Dr. Max Wohlauer, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Ken Hunt and athletic trainer Lauren Askevold, according to the video.

In December, Sanders – now often called “Coach Prime,” derived from his nickname “Prime Time” from his playing days – was hired to become the head coach of the Buffaloes football program. Colorado opens their campaign on September 2 against last season’s College Football Playoff finalist TCU.

“As you know I’ve faced some medical challenges with my foot but I’ve never said ‘WHY ME’ – I keep moving forward, progressing,” Sanders said in a post on Instagram earlier in the week. “I’m CoachPrime and I’m built for this.”

On nothing but a “plank of wood and four wheels,” a group of women are careering down windy mountain roads at breakneck speed, constantly on the lookout for stones, turns and oncoming traffic.

For most people, this could sound less than relaxing – even terrifying. But for Anna Pixner, downhill skateboarding at speed evokes a different feeling: freedom.

Austrian Pixner has been riding concrete like surfers ride waves for six years. When she started competing, she would stand out in crowds of hundreds of men as one of a dozen women. Journalists and spectators are still quick to point out that she is an exception to the norm in the male-dominated world of downhill skateboarding, but Pixner has tired of such comments.

“When I started competing, I realized there are a lot more women out there that are into the same sport, but it was really hard to hear about them or see them because there is no media about it,” the 26-year-old adds.

That is about to change: Pixner’s journey is captured in a new film, “Woolf Women,” which documents the 2019 journey she and four other young women embarked on, taking them 5,700 kilometers (3,541 miles) from London, via Innsbruck, Austria, to the ancient Sumela monastery in the Pontic mountains of Turkey. The women embark on a pilgrimage of sorts, helping fellow rider Jenny Schauerte to come to terms to the sudden death of her father.

The documentary follows the group – German Schauerte, Belgian Jasmijn Hanegraef, Dutch Lisa Peters and Colombian Alejandra Gutierrez – as they navigate bureaucratic border crossings, nail-biting mountain paths and negotiate the ever-present dangers of their sport.

‘Confronting your weakest points’

One of the central themes of the film is mental health, exploring both Schauerte’s battle to process the sudden death of her father and also recovery from a devastating skating accident which left her needing multiple surgeries on her leg and almost took her away from the sport forever.

“In very intense moments, you’re confronting yourself with your weakest points. When you’re skating and you have to push your limits all the time, otherwise you don’t improve and you don’t have fun,” Pixner says.

“I think there’s some part in the sport that feels like a cure, it can also just be purely the adrenaline rush that gives you endorphins and just makes you feel happy physically in that moment. It helps people with depression because it … just gets your body in such a present state.

“If you’re going at that speed, you don’t have time to think about anything else and at that moment, you’re fully present in what’s coming up on the road. That’s all you see and all you are able to focus on. I think it helps us a lot to just be able to feel fully present in the moment, to practice that in whatever way and I think in a playful way, in the end.”

De Angelis says that she was attracted to the women’s story because even now, adventure stories with female protagonists aren’t as common as those featuring men.

“There are very few women adventure stories as a rule, men tend to be the ones that go out there as a pack and, you know, they grab it and then have great adventures. As women, we are slowly learning how to do that: we’re embracing it more and more,” she adds.

“There is not just this physical support for each other to make sure that they’re safe. There is this emotional support, a sort of spiritual support for each other, which I think is quite unusual.”

From the fringes to the mainstream

Once a sport firmly on the fringes of society, skateboarding is becoming more mainstream, and in 2021 became an Olympic event for the first time in the history of the Games.

Pixner is one of a growing number of people who hope that downhill skateboarding will soon become part of the Games’ roster.

“It is a very good spectator sport because it’s kind of like Formula One – in a way we are just racing each other,” she explains, adding that skaters employ similar strategies to car racers.

“Racing sports are always exciting to watch. If it’s a person on just a plank of wood with four wheels, and it’s fully just skill.

“I think it would contribute really well to the Olympics, especially now that skateboarding is already in there. It’s just another discipline… And I would love to see just all those opportunities for the next generation that I always dreamed of.”

“Play big.”

For the last decade, American golfer Wyndham Clark has carried a two-word rule into every competition. This week, the 29-year-old has taken it to Los Angeles Country Club, where he has surged into contention at the US Open courtesy of a blistering first two rounds.

It’s an instruction left by his mother, Lise Clark, who died of breast cancer in 2013 while he was learning his trade at Oklahoma State University.

“When she was sick and I was in college, she told me, ‘Hey, play big,’” Clark told reporters after his second round on Friday.

“‘Play for something bigger than yourself. You have a platform to either witness or help or be a role model for so many people.’

“I’ve taken that to heart. When I’m out there playing, I want to do that for her. I want to show everyone the person I am and how much joy I have out there playing and hope I can inspire people to want to be like me and be better than me.”

The loss left a 19-year-old Clark, out of form and rudderless without his “rock,” seriously considering quitting the sport for good.

Yet he stayed the course, and big plays have defined his US Open start. After opening with a six-under 64, just two shots shy of the tournament-record rounds carded by Rickie Fowler and Xander Schauffele, the world No. 32 followed up with a 67 to soar into the weekend in solo second, just one shot behind leader Fowler.

Having missed the cut on both previous starts at the major, the Denver-born golfer is comfortably on course to beat his best-ever major finish, a top-75 finish at the PGA Championship in 2021.

Clark is enjoying himself, so much so that he even confessed to “feeling a little cocky,” but tangled amid that joy is an ache.

“I was walking down yesterday [Thursday] and was just smiling as I was playing well, and I go, ‘Man, I wish you could be here, Mom,’ because it’s a dream come true to be doing this at the highest level in front of friends and family that are out here,” Clark said.

“I wish she could be here, but I know she’s proud of me, and she’s made a huge impact on my life – I am who I am today because of her.

“She was kind of my rock and my always-there supporter. So when things were tough or when things were going great, she was always there to keep me grounded and either bring me up or keep the high going.

“I’m getting a little choked up. She’s everything, and I miss her, and everything I do out here is a lot for her.”

‘I feel like I can compete with the best players in the world’

It continues a superb 2023 for Clark, who powered to his first PGA Tour crown at the Wells Fargo Championship in May.

A dominant four-shot victory over Schauffele in Charlotte, North Carolina, secured him a $3.6 million winner’s check and ended a run of five years and 133 PGA Tours starts without a win.

Following a string of good performances without silverware to start the year, it was a confidence-boosting triumph for a player who was beginning to wonder if a win would ever come.

“That’s a major championship golf course, and it demands a lot of the same things this does and a US Open would demand, which is all parts of your game being on,” Clark added Friday.

“For me, winning any tournament was big, and then that one in particular felt like a major. I just feel like I can compete with the best players in the world and I think of myself as one of them.”

Clark tees off his third round, alongside overnight leader Rickie Fowler, at 6.40 p.m. ET

Irish island homes

New opportunities are afoot for those dreaming of fixing up a rural idyll far from the chaos of modern life. Ireland has just announced a scheme to revitalize more than 20 of the idyllic islands that lie off its western seaboard, including Inis Mór, whose breathtaking landscape you might recognize from the Hollywood hit “The Banshees of Inisherin,” as well as 10 Irish-speaking Gaeltacht islands.

Increased grants of up to €84,000 (nearly $92,000) will soon be offered to people willing to refurbish vacant or derelict homes and then live in them, with Vacant Home Officers now on the case to identify eligible properties. Would-be islanders should be aware that while there are no restrictions on who can buy property in Ireland, owning a place doesn’t guarantee you the right to live there. The government website has the latest deets on the Our Living Islands policy and the existing refurbishment scheme.

Airplane seats

And in China, Hainan Airlines has faced a backlash after imposing weight restrictions on flight attendants.

Australian airline Qantas has revealed what economy seats will look like on its upcoming record-breaking 19-hour flights between New York and Sydney. The airline promises that its specially designed Airbus A350s will offer passengers more legroom and space to move around the cabin compared with standard flights.

And if the very thought of that is making you a bit crampy, check out our video with five tips on avoiding pain during a long flight.

Our animal friends

A young bear was spotted enjoying a swim alongside beachgoers in Florida on June 11, before hitting the shore and taking off. Woodlands are of course a bear’s usual habitat, and the National Park Service has these safety tips if you encounter one, including not pushing “a slower friend down.”

City leaders in Paris are trying to find out if there’s a way for humans and rats to live peaceably alongside each other. No news as yet on whether that includes rodents living under chefs’ hats à la “Ratatouille.”

How well do you know American food?

Put your culinary knowledge to the test by matching 50 regional dishes with the US states that love them in our 50 states, 50 plates game! Click here to play.

Law and order

Not a week goes by without fresh antics. A man was arrested after jumping into an alligator enclosure in Florida, comedian Marlon Wayans was cited for “disturbing the peace” at Denver’s airport, and Bali is considering banning mountain climbing after a rise in tourist misbehavior, such as semi-nude selfies and other goings-on.

The Republic of Slowjamastan

San Diego late-night DJ Randy “R Dub!” Williams has spent his life attempting to visit every country in the world. And when he was nearly done, he went one further by creating his own: the Slowjamastan micronation in the Californian desert.

In case you missed it

Off the coast of France, a 1,000-year-old citadel rises out of the Atlantic Ocean. 

The stunning creation has played a crucial role in the country’s history.

The heavily armed DMZ separating North Korea and South Korea has become a haven for wildlife. 

Life finds a way. 

Europe is already facing a crazy, blockbuster season of tourism. 

And the madness is about to get a lot worse.

Air travel is toxic for the planet. 

But some airlines are better than others.