An eight-month-old baby in Gaza died from exposure to torrential rains and cold temperatures in her family’s tent in Khan Younis. There are many more like her at risk as Israel continues violating its ceasefire commitments, blocking the entry of essential supplies.
A judge in the United States has ordered the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from immigration detention.
The ruling on Thursday from US District Judge Paula Xinis is the latest turn in the case of Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported by the administration of US President Donald Trump to El Salvador in March.
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The Maryland resident was later returned to the US, but the Trump administration has continued to seek his deportation to another country.
“Since Abrego Garcia’s return from wrongful detention in El Salvador, he has been re-detained, again without lawful authority,” Xinis wrote in her decision. “For this reason, the Court will GRANT Abrego Garcia’s Petition for immediate release from ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] custody.”
Abrego Garcia entered the US as a teenager without documentation and has resided in Maryland with his wife and children for years.
An immigration judge in 2019 ruled Abrego Garcia could not be deported to El Salvador because he faced danger from a gang that targeted his family.
The Trump administration’s violation of that order became a rallying point for critics of the president’s mass deportation campaign.
Authorities have since been seeking to deport Abrego Garcia to a series of African countries.
The Maryland resident has filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming the Trump administration is illegally using the deportation process to punish him due to the attention his wrongful deportation created.
Since his return, federal authorities have also filed charges against Abrego Garcia for alleged human smuggling related to a 2022 traffic stop.
The 23rd FIFA World Cup draws ever closer with organisers promising the largest global showcase of football ever.
With just six months until kickoff, many tournament milestones have already been reached: Forty-two of the 48-team teams have qualified, the competition draw is completed, two-million-plus tickets have been sold and the 16 cities – 11 in the United States, three in Mexico, and two in Canada – have now been confirmed and are making final preparations to their stadiums and surrounding infrastructure.
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Now, Al Jazeera Sport lays out all to know in advance of the 2026 edition of the world’s marquee football tournament.
The tournament is being staged across the United States, Canada and Mexico, and will begin in Mexico City on June 11.
Due to the expansion of the tournament – from 32 teams to 48 – the 39-day event is the longest in its history.
The US will stage the final, which will be played at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
The US will stage games in 11 places: Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New Jersey/New York (joint host region), Philadelphia, Seattle, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Canada will host 13 games in total, split between Toronto and Vancouver. Mexico will also get 13 games, which will be played in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey.
All the stadiums for the World Cup are already in place, although two are having upgrades for the tournament.
The Boston Stadium, with a 63,815-capacity, is home to the NFL’s New England Patriots and the MLS’s New England Revolution, and is undergoing a $225m refurbishment.
Toronto Stadium in Canada is also having an upgrade, but on a much more modest level. The home to MLS side Toronto FC and the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts holds 44,315 spectators, and that is being expanded to more than 45,000 as part of its redevelopment.
Argentina won the last edition of the FIFA World Cup, beating France in the final of Qatar 2022.
With the game level at 3-3 after extra time, Argentina won the penalty shootout 4-2.
Euro 2024 winners Spain are ranked first by FIFA before the tournament. Argentina, the reigning World Cup champions from Qatar 2022, are also considered a frontrunner for the title.
The FIFA World Cup 2018 winners – and 2022 runners-up – France, led by star striker Kylian Mbappe, are also a top contender for the crown.
Brazil, Portugal, England, Netherlands, Germany, Colombia, Croatia, Morocco and Mexico are in the second tier of strong contenders, based on their FIFA rankings from four to 15.
Highly talented nations, who also have a puncher’s chance of winning it all, if everything went their way, include Norway, Uruguay and Egypt.
Yes. Messi will lineup with Argentina in defence of their crown, while Ronaldo will play for UEFA Nations League champions, Portugal. At 38 and 40 years of age, respectively, it is widely expected that this will be the last World Cup that the iconic pair play at.
Forty-two of the 48 teams have already qualified, with a series of options still available for the final six teams.
FIFA’s intercontinental playoffs will be the absolute last chance saloon for nations to reach next year’s event. The finale of that route will be on March 31, 2026, less than three months before the World Cup kicks off.
The European qualification process runs until March, but most of the remaining confederations will have finished their continental qualification processes long before then.
Once the respective confederations finish their qualification process, FIFA offers two final spots to be contested by the best-placed team from each of the six continental routes that have not already qualified.
With the expansion to 48 teams, the World Cup will now feature 12 four-team groups. That will lead to a round of 32, an extra knockout round compared with previous editions.
Indeed, the tournament has doubled in size since it was staged in the US in 1994, when only 24 teams competed.
The groups are mostly completed following the draw, but for the six final slots, although the potential teams that can fill those places are now also known:
Trump has been quite clear and consistent on the staging of games within the US, saying he will move the games from any cities that he deems to be unsafe.
On September 26, when Trump was asked about games being moved, he warned, “Well, that’s an interesting question … but we’re going to make sure they’re safe. [Seattle and San Francisco are] run by radical left lunatics who don’t know what they’re doing.”
The 2025 FIFA Club World Cup was staged in the US, and the heat and resulting thunderstorms proved to be a huge problem for the tournament.
Three stadiums – in Arlington, Atlanta, and Houston – have retractable roofs that are expected to be closed due to the summer heat, while Inglewood and Vancouver have fixed roofs.
More than two million tickets have already been sold for the tournament, but the main ticket ballot only opens on Thursday.
It will give fans their first opportunity to buy tickets since the full match schedule was announced last week, following the draw for the group stages.
The ballet will open at 16:00 GMT on Thursday, on FIFA’s website, and will run until 13 January 2026. Thereafter, FIFA will run a lottery to decide which applications are successful.
Intercontinental playoffs: Six teams will take part in the playoffs in Mexico in March, with two qualifying.
Seeded teams Iraq and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will receive byes to play in the two playoff finals, awaiting the winners from the semifinals.
Europe: UEFA’s playoff competition, also taking place in March, will feature 16 teams, who need to win their semifinal and final to become one of four to qualify.
The draw is as follows:
Path A
Path B
Path C
Path D
Which nation will top each group? 🧐@aramco | #FIFAWorldCup pic.twitter.com/aPr4FD2mDB
The Paris Saint-Germain team bus was pelted with stones outside the team hotel in Bilbao during the night after their Champions League game with Athletic.
The bus was parked and had no passengers at the time of the attack on Thursday morning.
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Media reports said two cracks were visible on the coach and two people were arrested.
The PSG players and staff were able to travel to the city’s airport for their Thursday morning flight back to Paris.
On Wednesday evening, European champions PSG drew 0-0 at Bilbao, a result which left PSG third in the 36-team qualifying league. Bilbao are 28th.
The French club are considering a complaint to UEFA, European football’s governing body, a source close to the club told AFP on Thursday.
There was more violence surrounding a European fixture as three people were hospitalised after an attack on supporters of Rayo Vallecano travelling to Thursday’s Europa Conference League match at Jagiellonia in eastern Poland, local police announced.
Then, “around 50 people, some of them masked, emerged from the nearby forest. A confrontation ensued,” the Masovian regional police said on the social media platform, X.
“Thanks to the arrival of the police, escalation was avoided. On site, an ambulance team provided care to the injured, and three people were transported to hospital,” the police added, without specifying the injured parties’ nationality.
According to the police, two coach buses carrying the Spanish supporters were blocked by two passenger cars on an expressway near Ostrow Mazowiecka, in the east of the country, during the night from Wednesday to Thursday.
Police did not specify that the fans were supporters of the Madrid club, but local media reported they were travelling to see Rayo, who face Jagiellonia in nearby Bialystok, close to the Belarusian border, on Thursday.
The police say seven people have been arrested so far in connection with the incident.
Thousands of displaced people in Gaza are battling flooding which has swept through their tents and temporary shelters. Storm Byron brought torrential rain to the enclave, swamping camps in mud and vast pools of water. Tareq abu Azzoum sent this report from a camp in al-Mawasi.
Bulgaria’s government has resigned following weeks of street protests against its economic policies and its perceived failure to tackle corruption.
Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov announced the resignation of his cabinet in a televised statement on Thursday, minutes before parliament had been due to vote on a no-confidence motion.
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The resignation comes weeks before Bulgaria is due to join the eurozone on January 1.
“Our coalition met, we discussed the current situation, the challenges we face and the decisions we must responsibly make,” Zhelyazkov said, announcing the government’s decision to step down.
“Our desire is to be at the level that society expects,” he said. “Power stems from the voice of the people.”
Thousands of Bulgarians rallied on Wednesday evening in Sofia and dozens of other towns and cities across the Black Sea nation, the latest in a series of rolling demonstrations that have underlined public frustration with corruption and the failure of successive governments to root it out.
Last week, Zhelyazkov’s government withdrew its 2026 budget plan, the first drafted in euros, due to the protests.
Opposition parties and other organisations said they were protesting plans to hike social security contributions and taxes on dividends to finance higher state spending.
Despite the government’s retreat over the budget plan, the protests have continued unabated in a country that has held seven national elections in the past four years – most recently in October 2024 – amid deep political and social divisions.
President Rumen Radev also called on the government earlier this week to resign. In a message to lawmakers on his Facebook page on Thursday, Radev said: “Between the voice of the people and the fear of the mafia. Listen to the public squares!”