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Good morning! Today is Friday, the 26th of June, 2026, and this is the Friday Edition of GEORGE.
GEORGE closes the workweek by bringing the week’s key stories into focus, including developments readers may have missed in the course of a busy week. Here is the reporting, commentary, and context needed before the weekend begins.
The GEORGE editorial team wishes to express its deepest condolences to the people of Venezuela who have lost loved ones in the catastrophic seismic doublet sequence. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Venezuela, and we invite readers who wish to do so to join us in the following traditional Jewish prayer for healing:
May the One who blessed our ancestors… bless and heal the injured of Venezuela. May the Holy Blessed One overflow with compassion upon them, to restore them, to heal them, to strengthen them, and to enliven them. May the One send them, speedily, a complete healing – healing of the soul and the body – along with all who are ill and injured, and let us say: Amen.
The 2026 World Cup continues to dominate sports headlines and the experience that foreigners are having visiting the three host countries – in particular the United States which is host to the overwhelming majority of the matches – is portraying Americans at their very best, GEORGE’s @Diocles on Sports columnist writes. Meanwhile, Merlin the Duck, the No. 1 Fan of the Mexican national team, found out that World Cup matches aren’t all that they are quacked up to be.
The United States and Iran signed a 60-day peace agreement. To demonstrate how well that agreement is working, our @The War Room correspondent writes, on the second day, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps bombed a Singapore-flagged ship for straying out of its lane.
The newspaper’s @The Sketch editorial cartoon columnist reported that he had great difficulty with an appropriate cartoon in support of the Venezuelan people after the catastrophic earth quakes they’ve experienced until he saw a news report from Caracas showing search-and-rescue crews at a collapsed building, where one worker wearing a white hoodie that shone in the dark, had his arm extended, likely to give direction of a crane, but he captured the moment with pen and ink, including two Venezuelans he saw on the sidelines, imagining what their conversation must have been.,
There is more exclusive reporting in today’s GEORGE – but don’t touch that dial. Scroll down for today’s editorial cartoon in @The Sketch, then continue with additional news, commentary, and stories readers will not find elsewhere.
GEORGE will return this weekend with a new editorial cartoon and more original dispatches and reportage, including the latest updates from Venezuela.
Until then, remain curious!
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VOLUME VI… № 1,748
@THE LEDE (above)
@THE SKETCH (above) “For once, it came from below.”
IN THIS ISSUE
@INTERMEZZO I A mural in Bogotá, Colombia
@ON THE PITCH World Cup 2026 Coverage
@INTERMEZZO II Plaza de Mercado de Paloquemao, Bogotá, Colombia
@DIOCLES Warm Welcome from Americans During World Cup Boosts Global Image
@INTERMEZZO III The Omni Mount Washington Resort in New Hampshire
@THE WAR ROOM
@INTERMEZZO IV 1995 Mercedes-Benz S500 Long Wheelbase Sedan
@WORLD NEWS ROUNDUP
@INTERMEZZO V Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
@BARTLEBY ON LANGUAGE What in the world is a Trionda?
ATCHES OF NOTE
@ABOUT GEORGE
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A mural in Bogotá, Colombia
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— Scotland’s national team is decamping to its training base in Charlotte, North Carolina, where it will wait for three days to find out if it has made it to the knockout rounds for the first time in the team’s history, or not. At its training camp, it will prepare for an unknown opponent for a match whose location has yet to be determined, if it turns out to take place at all. Group play wraps on Saturday so the wait won’t be too torturous. In 1994, the U.S. national team was in a similar position in terms of having to wait to find out if it was staying in the World Cup… or not. The U.S. team did officially advance to the Round of 16 but lost to Brazil 1-0 on 4 July of that year.
— The anti-gay chant that has cost Mexico fines and resulted in other sanctions made a return at Mexico’s final World Cup group stage match on Wednesday. Mexico, which has enshrined protections for gays and lesbians in its federal constitution is currently mired in controversy over the persistent use by Mexican football fans of an anti-gay one-word chant, “puto,” which can be translated as “male prostitute.” In the context of how it is employed by some Mexican football fans, is regarded by FIFA, gay advocacy groups, and numerous Spanish-language scholars as a homophobic slur directed against gay men or those men who are perceived as insufficiently masculine. On Wednesday, fans at Mexico’s final World Cup group stage match changed “puto” once again.
— The World Cup’s favorite duck, a canard named Merlin, was denied entry to Mexico City’s stadium before the national team’s match against the Czech Republic. The two-year-old Merlin, who proudly dons a green Mexico Jersey as he accompanies his family as they sell drinks in Mexico City, has become an international celebrity. A FIFA spokesduck told GEORGE that Merlín was permitted to enter the perimeter but not the stadium, as FIFA’s rules to protect animals effectively bar them from live matches.
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— Cristiano Ronaldo became on Tuesday the first man to score in six World Cups when he found the back of the net for Portugal against Uzbekistan. Mr. Ronaldo’s strike in the sixth minute was his ninth career World Cup goal. It was also his first since he converted a penalty kick against Ghana in Portugal’s 2022 opener. The goal came after the Portugal captain faced a torrent of criticism for his poor performance in Portugal’s opening 1-1 draw against Congo on 17 June.
— The Fédération Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, the international, self-regulating body of association football and organizer of the 2026 World Cup, gave Paraguay’s Miguel Almirón a one-match ban for covering his mouth in a situation of confrontation. The ban means he will miss Paraguay’s final group-stage game against Australia next week. That match will determine whether or not Paraguay will progress to the knockout rounds.
— England stumbled to a 0-0 draw against Ghana in the team’s second match at this World Cup after wasting late chances at Boston Stadium. England performed well in its 4-2 win against Croatia in their opening match but Ghana’s defense was resolute and the only chance of the match came in the 86th minute when Nico O’Reilly’s header crashed against the crossbar before England captain Harry Kane missed a golden chance to secure the team’s place in the knockout stage.
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Plaza de Mercado de Paloquemao, Bogotá, Colombia
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Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco
The United States, thanks to the World Cup’s expanded format, is hosting the vast majority of the tournament’s matches and seating approximately 4.5 million football fans in its stadiums. While many of those in the stands are Americans, some ten million visitors have come from the rest of the globe either to sit alongside them, however reluctantly, or simply soak in the atmosphere at pubs or watch parties.
With so many foreigners from so many countries in the United States at one time, now is as good a time as any to see America through the eyes of a tourist, be he a kilted Scotsman or a group of Japanese football fans tidying up the stadium to leave it better than they found it.
How are the visitors are being welcomed? One need only look at social media post after social media post to see how Americans in the host cities and beyond are making ten million houseguests feel extremely welcome. And these visitors leave behind visions of angry and rambunctious politicians angering their allies as depicted in the headlines once they arrive on America’s porch.
“The front porch of your house is the first thing a visitor experiences before they ever step inside,” Darin White, founder of Samford University’s Sports Industry Program in Alabama and a former soccer coach, told the Japan Times. “Sports serves that same function for cities, states and countries. It is often the first meaningful, emotionally charged encounter someone has with a place they might otherwise never have thought much about.”
For the duration of the World Cup, and perhaps even beyond, some Americans have adopted the national teams of countries about which they know relatively little and which they may never visit. Meanwhile, other countries, including Iran and Haiti, have diaspora populations to boost them as well.
The United States is not “a distinctive culture of 24-hour retail, free soda refills, chicken wings dipped in ranch dressing, and a warm welcome from Americans,” as the Japan Times framed it, but even without free beverage refills and absent the distinctly American invention of ranch dressing, the secret sauce is really that warm welcome, which is as sincere and heartfelt as it comes.
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The Omni Mount Washington Resort in New Hampshire
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— Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps attacked a Singapore-flagged cargo ship Thursday in the Strait of Hormuz, it is understood. The attack tests the deal that the United States and Iran signed last week to end hostilities and reopen the vital shipping lane. The attack damaged the ship’s bridge but left no casualties, the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations said, and took place near the coast of Oman just hours after Iran’s paramilitary navy warned ships not to use unsanctioned routes through the strait. The strike came two days after the International Maritime Organization, a U.N. agency told shippers it was coördinating an evacuation route for the hundreds of ships that remained in the Persian Gulf. The IMO said it was working in coöperation with Iran, Oman, other coastal states, and the United States. Hours after Thursday’s attack, the agency suspended the evacuation operation.
— Iran is making it a point to show the world that it can withstand varying viewpoints, including those of unveiled women, and tolerate a new kind of nationalism, one that incorporates those who once led protests against it. In a video made by the pro-government filmmaker, Hossein Shamaghdari, a young woman donning a pink top and acid-washed jeans tells Mr. Shamaghdari: “I was not a supporter of the Islamic Republic, nor the supreme leader.” In the video, she is surrounded by women draped in black from head to toe. The new message: Dissidents and loyalists can both play a part in the fight against foreign interlopers, as the government tries to present a friendlier, more inclusive face for the regime, even as it executes more perceived enemies of the state than at any time in recent memory.
— Oil prices continued to fall on Wednesday as the International Maritime Organization, a U.N. agency, led efforts to move hundreds of stranded ships out of the Persian Gulf, thus increasing the flow of crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Shipping traffic through the strait is on the rise, but it is still a fraction of what it was before 28 February.
— The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, fell 3.8% to $73.72 a barrel for September delivery, while the U.S. Energy Information Agency Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update showed a decrease of $0.138 from the previous week and $0.232 from two weeks ago, but up $0.701 compared to the same time a year ago. The price of a gallon of gasoline averaged $5.07 across the United States, according to the EIA, for the week of 13 June, which means that gas prices have fallen $1.156 per gallon over the past two weeks.
— Israel said it would maintain its military presence in southern Lebanon. The two countries are negotiating potential acceptance of an American-backed plan under which Israeli forces would cede parts of the territory they control to Lebanon’s army. Separately, Iran has demanded that Israel end its campaign against Hizbullah as part of its tentative peace deal with America.
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— A dramatic explosion that caused the lid of an oil tanker to fly into the sky during a Ukrainian aerial assault on Moscow was not caused by a Ukrainian drone. Verified video shows it was caused by a Russian air defense missile. Footage shows a Russian air defense missile traveling toward the fuel silo. The friendly-fire incident illustrates the difficulties that Russian air defenses are facing as Ukraine increases the scale of its drone attacks to break through a layered shield of systems designed to protect the Russian capital.
— Russian forces have been concentrating on the “fortress belt” cities of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka, part of the roughly 20% of Donetsk that Ukraine still controls. Moscow’s troops have fought their way into Kostiantynivka, and Druzhkivka is a wasteland after extensive Russian bombing. Sloviansk and Kramatorsk remain Ukraine’s last real strongholds in Donetsk, although the two cities are not in imminent danger of falling. Донеччина, or the Donetsk Oblast or region, is a province in southeastern Ukraine that has been a heavily contested, active frontline in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. Prior to the Russian invasion, it served as Ukraine’s most populous, densely populated, and heavily industrialized hub, renowned for its major coal mining and steel production
— Scores of targeted attacks against fuel trucks on supply routes to the Автономна Республіка Крим, or Autonomous Republic of Crimea, as part of what Kyiv calls a “logistics lockdown,” has caused gasoline shortages in the occupied territory. The region, internationally recognized as part of Ukraine, has been under Russian occupation since 2014.
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1995 Mercedes-Benz S500 Sedan in the shadow of the Throgs Neck Bridge
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Commodore Solid State Calculator, ca. 1975
6. The percentage of German households that have residential Klimaanlage, or air-conditioning, installed. That figure is 10% in neighboring Austria, and 50% in Spain. In the United Kingdom, 5% have air-conditioning and overall, the figure is 20% across the Continent and the British Isles. While the climate in Europe on average is similar to North America, the percentage of U.S. households with AC is ca. 90%.
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The news from Venezuela is grim as the country struggled Thursday to cope with the aftermath of a catastrophic seismic doublet sequence that struck the country late Wednesday. Rescue workers began to search through collapsed apartment buildings and emergency crews raced to reach communities cut off by damaged roads and widespread power outages. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez said at least 235 people were confirmed dead and more than 4,300 injured and an additional 40,000 people are unaccounted for, while officials warned that those figures were expected to rise sharply as search-and-rescue operations continued. Thousands of people remained unaccounted for, and the U.S. Geological Survey’s predictive modelling suggested the eventual death toll could reach into the thousands. The first earthquake measured magnitude 7.2, followed just 39 seconds later by a magnitude 7.5 event. U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Paul Earle described the earthquakes as “devastating,” while the agency classified them as a severe seismic doublet sequence – a rare occurrence in which two major earthquakes of similar magnitude strike almost simultaneously in the same region. The epicenter lay near San Felipe, a city of approximately 220,000 people in Yaracuy State, roughly 200 miles (320 km) west of Caracas. Severe damage was reported across central and northern Venezuela, including in the capital, where apartment buildings collapsed, electricity and communications were disrupted, and thousands of residents spent the night outdoors amid continuing aftershocks. Authorities warned that aftershocks were likely to continue for days, complicating rescue efforts and increasing the danger to those trapped beneath collapsed structures.
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King Charles said that he does not plan to live at Buckingham Palace after its decade-long refurbishment has been completed in the coming year, it is understood. The palace has served as the British monarch’s primary residence since Charles’ great-great-great grandmother, Queen Victoria, became sovereign in 1837. Since the renovation work began in 2017 under his mother’s reign, a British monarch has not been in residence there. The £369 million ($487 million) refurbishment of Buckingham Palace, which includes replacing aging electrical wiring, pipes, and heating systems, will be completed next year. King Charles, however, will not be far from the palace where he grew up: He intends to continue to live in Clarence House, his longstanding London home, but his work commute will be quite short: The 0.4-mile or 645-meter drive from there to his office at the palace should take no longer than three minutes. Nonetheless, the move will end nearly two centuries of the central London landmark serving as the British monarch’s primary residence.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee recommended that SARS-CoV-2 vaccines for 2026-2027 immunization should be updated to target the dominant XFG variant. Eight out of nine panel members voted in favor of the recommendation, while one abstained. There were no votes against the recommendation. As of mid-April, which is the latest period for which there is sequencing data available, the XFG variant accounted for approximately half of all new Covid cases.
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The FDA’s Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee also voted 9–0 in support of approving Moderna’s seasonal mRNA flu vaccine, known as mFlusiva, which was blocked in February by Dr. Vinay Prasad, a hematologist-oncologist and professor at the UCSF Profiles who served a brief stint as the chief medical and scientific officer and director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the FDA, responsible for overseeing vaccine approval. Dr. Prasad’s decision shocked the scientific community when he rejected Moderna’s filing, refusing to even review the vaccine. The mFlusiva vaccine will be the first mRNA vaccine against influenza to be available in the United States later this year.
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A new study, entitled “2024-2025 COVID-19 Vaccine and Major Adverse Cardiovascular Events Among US Veterans” and published in published in JAMA Internal Medicine, found that current SARS-CoV-2 vaccines continue to show significant protection against cardiovascular disease, especially for those over age 75 and those with underlying medical conditions. The study was based on medical records from 1.04 million patients in the Veterans Administration’sSt. Louis Health Care System, and noted that the vaccine protected against Covid-19-associated “major adverse cardiovascular events,” which include cardiovascular death, heart attack, stroke, and hospitalization for heart failure.
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In October 2022, hospitalization rates for Respiratory Syncytial Virus, or RSV, began to rise, two months earlier than usual, and by the beginning of November, the rate of hospitalizations from RSV per 100,000 members of the population hit a peak of 5.2, far higher than anyone had seen in decades. Steven Szczepanek, an associate professor in the University of Connecticut’s department of pathobiology and vaccine research, wanted to know why pathogens such as RSV were suddenly surging after many pandemic restrictions had been lifted. In the first part of his study, for which limited samples had been available due to the virulent virus’ short duration, Dr. Szczepanek found that the virus had mutated because of human behavior during the pandemic. Since then, the rate of hospitalizations became lower each year, and Dr. Szczepanek in the meantime obtained a grant for a larger study, which is currently underway, and he plans to conduct a large-scale analysis of the nature of the virus’ mutations.
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A new report published by the Gothamist employed a water sommelier, Amalia Ulman, to rate tap water from five U.S. cities, namely Baltimore, Cincinnati, Jersey City, New York City, and Washington, D.C. Ms. Ulman is a water sommelier certified by the Doemens Academy in Gräfelfing, a village near München, or Munich, Germany. She is also an artist and film director. The sommelier rated New York’s water 10 out of 10 points, followed by Washington, D.C., which received a 6.5 rating, in second place. Baltimore and Cincinnati tied for fourth place, both receiving 5 out of 10 points, while Jersey City, which is just across the majestic Hudson River from New York City, saw its water rated 1 out of 10. New York City’s water tastes as good as it does because it comes from extremely clean water reservoirs in the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson Valley, which are forested areas protected from pollution. The Big Apple’s drinking water supply system is the largest unfiltered water supply in the country, according to New York state’s Department of Environmental Conservation.
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Scientists who have studied plastic water bottles have found that they are not inert in the heat and sunlight. As the mercury rises – something that has been particularly notable in the past week in multiple parts of the world – substances in the plastic bottle including the metal antimony, which is used as a catalyst in plastic manufacturing, can and do migrate into water stored within. Experts caution against exposing bottled water to sun and high temperatures, particularly as record high temperature after record high temperature is set.
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Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
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Astute readers of GEORGE may have noticed references in the @On the Pitch column covering the 2026 World Cup to an Trionda.
Trionda is a portmanteau created by sportswear manufacturer Adidas, which also created a product called the Trionda as Trionda is the name of the company’s high-tech connected football that was introduced last fall, is the official match ball of the 2026 World Cup.
The etymology of the name “Trionda” combines the prefix “tri,” a numerical prefix that stems from Proto-Germanic or Proto-European foots and functions as a combining form to denote “three,” “three times,? or “every three” in almost all languages of the Indo-European family including English, Spanish, French, German, and Russian, with the Spanish word “onda,” which means “wave,” hence “Triple Wave” or “Three Wave.”
Tri has also been heavily borrowed into many non-Indo-European languages worldwide through international scientific and numerical terminology.
Common words in English that use “tri” include triangle, tricycle, trilogy, triathlon, tripod, and trio, among others. In anatomy, the triceps is a muscle at the back of the upper arm with three points of attachment, and the tricuspid valve in the heart has three flaps. Common words in German that use the “tri” prefix versus “drei” – a dreieck is a triangle, for example – include Trilogie for trilogy, Trigonometrie for trigonometry, Triangel for a triangle instrument, Triathlet for triathlete, and Triathlon.
The Adidas Trionda, which is the official match ball of this tournament, is a fully “smart” ball — Adidas uses the term “connected” — which means the ball can transmit a record amount of near instantaneous data, assist in making offside decisions in a way never seen before, and offer more statistical insights than any team or fan could reasonably use.
The Trionda’s membrane is made of four thermally bonded polyurethane panels, the lowest number for any FIFA World Cup match ball so far, according to FIFA records. As with the Al Rihla in 2022, the Trionda’s surface is textured with debossed macro and micro patterns – specifically on the ball’s icons – meant to improve the ball’s flight stability, swerve, and grip in wet conditions.
Meanwhile, the ball’s color scheme of red, green, and blue and its symbols are inspired by the iconography of the three host nations of the 2026 World Cup, namely red with a maple leaf for Canada, green with a golden eagle’s head for Mexico, and blue with a five-pointed star for the United States.
The Trionda is the third World Cup ball with smart or connected technology, which goes back to the Telstar 18 in the 2018 match in Russia. This includes a side-mounted inertial measurement unit, or IMU, chip inside one of the four panels. This sensor tracks the ball’s movement 500 times per second and provides real-time data to referees including the video assistant referee, helping to quickly judge offsides, touches, and handballs. This technology was developed with FIFA and Kinexon based in Munich.
There is one thing that the Trionda requires, which other footballs do not: It needs to be charged for some 2.5 hours before a match. And copy editors will need to beware as it is quite easy, as your humble correspondent found out, to type “Triconda” – which would be a type of snake that doesn’t really exist – versus Trionda, so much so that – after it had accidentally been added by mistake (and there is no finger-pointing here) to GEORGE’s The Zoo content management system.
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On the morning of 24 June, as the Shaw Library at the London School of Economics was preparing to host a room full of people who would discuss the consequences of climate change as part of London Climate Action Week, Britain’s Met Office issued, for only the second time, a “red” warning, its highest severity alert. The red warning means that dangerous weather is imminent with a high risk of injury to life, widespread damage, and substantial disruption to travel, power, and infrastructure. The weather conditions existing when such a warning is issued are considered dangerous enough that serious illness or danger to life is likely, even among the fit and healthy. The organizers of the event opted to cancel the meeting, which carried this moniker: “Extreme heat: Improving governance and strengthening action.”
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Five years ago on Wednesday, 24 June, the Champlain Towers South condominium building crumbled, killing 98 in Surfside, Florida. It was one of the deadliest structural failures in U.S. history. While new reports indicate that the collapse may have been weeks in the making, the 40-year-old, 12-story beachfront condo pancaked in a matter of seconds in the middle of the night, a sudden rush of concrete that crushed sleeping families. Many Florida developers viewed rebuilding on the site as too sensitive and stayed away from the now-empty lot. The incident led to a federal safety investigation, a $1 billion court settlement, and a flurry of new building safety laws.
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Jonathan Spira, Alexander Khusid, Tim Perry, Christian Stampfer, Kurt Stolz, Anna Breuer, and Paul Riegler contributed to this issue of George.
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