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The ruling holds that a company that designs, trains, operates, and manages an AI system must assume legal liability for any damages caused by the responses it generates.

New Yorkers waited hours in line for Zohran Mamdani's limited-edition $50 World Cup jerseys. Sydney Bradley/BI New York City's swag (democratic) socialist renaissance has arrived. Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled an affordable Big Apple-themed World Cup jersey — going for about $50 while FIFA's are topping $150 — this week, and people lined up for it in the thousands. Available only at the city-government-run NYC City Store location in Manhattan on June 12, residents woke up at dawn, played hooky from work, and spent hours outside for a chance at the merch. Most were also fans of the mayor. After waiting hours in line, lucky New Yorkers got their hands on Mamdani's soccer jerseys. Sydney Bradley/BI "Our computers are kind of overheating," Colleen Litchfield, a 30-year-old actor who works in the theater industry, told Business Insider while they waited in line Friday morning. Litchfield and their coworker, Cameron Wycoff, 23, had been in line since 7:45 a.m. The two held their laptops in their hands and took customer service calls, using the fans City Hall gave out to cool down their computers — and themselves — in the nearly 90-degree weather. Colleen Litchfield and Cameron Wycoff were working from the line. Sydney Bradley/BI Peter Bowman, 26, got to the line relatively "late," a little after 10 a.m. In his tote bag, he's got his work computer, ready to clock in to his software marketing gig at any minute. He described himself as a pop-up "veteran," used to waiting in long lines around the city, and then showed off his new Oura Ring, which he got at a recent pop-up. Making ends meet in New York City is "tough," Bowman said, but there's opportunity. Maybe, just maybe, if you get in line at the right time, you can get hold of something you ordinarily couldn't afford. The jerseys include nods to New York, with a pigeon and Big Apple-themed soccer logo on the chest. Mazzi x City Hall The long, humid wait for a piece of the NYC World Cup In true New Yorker spirit, LizaBanks Campagna, a content creator and tour guide for the city's Metropolitan Museum of Art, was unfazed by the line. She got in line around 7 a.m. on Friday, and it took three hours to claim her jersey. She took a photo in her new jersey with her line mates, whom she'd met that morning, adding that the "vibes were immaculate." The line wrapped around the block hours after the store opened at 9 a.m. A security guard managing the line estimated it could have been thousands of people in total. At around 11 a.m., we spotted at least four people with open laptops attempting to work remotely. Several people tried to cool off with soccer-themed paper fans, while others pulled out sun umbrellas and reapplied sunscreen. City employees handed out water. One person was spotted in line working from a tablet. Sydney Bradley/BI Designed by local artist Arsh Raziuddin and manufactured in a Brooklyn factory by Mazzi Sports, the jerseys were produced on a limited run — with only 1,500 total available. There are 500 of each colorway, a red-and-blue, black-and-white, and black-and-yellow version, all with the signature NYC World Cup logo on the chest and a "26" on the back. The primary color palette and font style is strikingly similar to the branding on Mamdani's videos, social media, and posters. Several of the jerseys have since been posted on resale websites for $900 or more. A bundle of two was listed for $1,400. Artist Arsh Raziuddin designed the city's jerseys, which were manufactured by Mazzi Sports. Mazzi x City Hall "Jerseys represent more than just the team you support," the mayor said in a press release. "They are about pride in where you come from and who you are." He added that "nobody is priced out." Robin Blosvern-Ruddy, a native New Yorker, was pretty far back in the line when Business Insider spoke with her: "I would have gotten here earlier, but I had to drop my kids off." People made new friends in line, including Robin Blosvern-Ruddy (right), who came from Queens to get a jersey. Sydney Bradley/BI Two women who were lucky enough to get jerseys each arrived shortly after 7 a.m. Jessica Nguyen — who picked the black-and-yellow jersey — said she could wait in line for so long because she didn't have a work call until the afternoon. Her friends, who joined her in line, had to re-arrange their work schedules, she said. "We are all really privileged to work from home," Nguyen, a 34-year-old who works in biotech, said. "Maybe he'll do another drop that feels a little more equitable," she added, hoping that Mamdani offers up another chance for New Yorkers to get jerseys, perhaps on a weekend. The other lucky line-waiter, Saku Gopinath, 28, left with two red and blue jerseys for her and a friend, feeling ecstatic. "It feels good to actually walk away with something," she said, adding that she's waited in lines before only to be told there's nothing left. Saku Gopinath (left) and a friend show off their $50 New York City World Cup jerseys. Sydney Bradley/BI After scoring a jersey, Gopinath said she was off to her work shift. Beyond the merch, City Hall has made efforts to make the World Cup more accessible to residents and visitors. Last month, Mamdani announced the release of 1,000 $50 game tickets through a lottery system. Bowman, who said he voted for Mamdani and is an avid soccer fan, didn't get his hands on World Cup tickets, but said he was "glad" City Hall was "doing that." Peter Bowman said he is a pop-up "veteran" — he's used to waiting in long lines. Sydney Bradley/BI Mamdani has been all-in on fitting NYC's sports summer into his broader affordability agenda and messaging. He has worked with local businesses to organize free programming, pick-up games, and watch parties around the five boroughs. It comes alongside ongoing efforts by the mayor's team to organize free NBA Finals watch parties for Knicks fans in parks and centralized streets. "Affording New York? That's an oxymoron," one 24-year-old New Yorker — who didn't share her full name because her job didn't know she was clocking in from the line — told Business Insider. She was a long way from the front, but held on to hope. "If the Knicks can come back from 30 points, anything's possible," she said, referring to the historic 29-point comeback in Game 4 of the Finals on Wednesday. Read the original article on Business Insider

Zohran Mamdani recently created his answer to DOGE — the NYC Commission on Government Efficiency. Getty Images, Allie Kelly Mayor Zohran Mamdani launched COGE, New York's new government efficiency effort. The commission is hosting hearings where New Yorkers can testify on city spending. Attendees in Brooklyn spoke about AI, benefit programs, the local job market, and their affordability concerns. Jessica Ariel-Wamala told representatives from New York City's government that she's used to sitting in traffic. She typically rises early and rushes to feed her daughter breakfast before driving to a Brooklyn preschool, but they always end up waiting in the same jam. The 30-something said it's because a crowd of her neighbors must line up at their local civic office each morning, spilling into the street as they wait to prove their SNAP eligibility. The city recorded tens of thousands of cases last year in which missed calls or incorrect contact information caused a family to lose access to SNAP — a situation that is sometimes best rectified with in-person meetings. "Sitting in traffic has become a monument to this inefficiency every single day," Ariel-Wamala told NYC's new Commission on Government Efficiency. Ariel-Wamala argued that administrative issues like this, which she believes can be prevented by AI, are causing people to go hungry. In a Brooklyn Law School lecture hall, she was among about four dozen New Yorkers gathered at one of the hearings that COGE — which Mayor Zohran Mamdani created last month to reduce the city's "outdated bureaucratic barriers"— is hosting across the five boroughs. Forums like this have become a signature of the Mamdani administration, with the mayor also encouraging tenants to testify at "Rental Ripoff" and housing authority "In Your Neighborhood" hearings. The commission asked attendees their opinions on government operations and how the city should be spending its money. Those attendees, living in a place where childcare costs rival rent payments and affordability is a top concern, wanted to know their tax dollars are being allocated thoughtfully — and efficiently. New Yorkers spoke lots about efficiency, less about cuts In three-minute testimonies, Brooklynites of all ages told COGE leaders their thoughts on AI, the job market, the budget, land use, and wasteful spending. Many took notes and nodded along as others spoke. A few suggested streamlining the city's contract process with private companies, spoke about ways to improve local elections. There were AI evangelists, skeptics, and naysayers. One attendee said the city should be fully running its own websites and digital infrastructure: "Every licensing fee paid to an external software company is a dollar diverted from more critical services," she said. Another said that some of the police department's funding should be diverted to harm reduction and rehabilitation programs, adding that "My neighbors and I deserve to be able to call for medical help without fearing a misunderstanding by the police." A third said the government should only hire for positions that directly fit into five-year policy goals — which might look like "title combination reforms and hiring process and management reforms." Mamdani doesn't want people to confuse COGE with DOGE, the White House's now-defunct efficiency effort that sparked widespread firings and funding cancellations across the federal government. Leader Elon Musk "used that as a justification to simply slash and burn so many of the city services that Americans rely on," he said. Earlier this year, the Mayor's Office asked all city departments to appoint savings officers and suggest concrete ways to cut costs. Agencies suggested downsizing office space, reevaluating leases, and upgrading outdated technology. Savings so far are a drop in the bucket for a city with an annual operating budget of over $116 billion. But Mamdani hopes that — aside from dollar savings — an efficiency push in NYC will give residents stronger faith in their government. At Thursday's three-hour hearing, a handful of the speakers were policy advocates or government employees. But most were completely outside politics. They were parents, small business owners, college students, teachers, and artists who care about NYC. "I'm inspired that you are as excited about a chapter of the city charter as some of us are about the Knicks," a commission leader joked after one testimony. "It's a really cool thing." Still, despite dozens of passionate testimonies from residents about everything from AI applications to benefit access, one hallmark of efficiency (and the DOGE mission) was noticeably missing. There wasn't much talk about actually slashing spending — a point one of the last speakers clocked. "We won't have COGE unless we talk about cuts," the man said. He spoke for just two minutes. "In the spirit of efficiency, I will yield my time." Read the original article on Business Insider

The US has been seized by World Cup fever. Spencer Platt/Getty Images The 2026 World Cup comes after a decade of diplomatic maneuvering and FIFA intrigue. The US lost a 2010 bid to host soccer's biggest event. Trilateral dealmaking has brought the World Cup to North America. In June 2018, the architects of the United Bid gathered for the last time in London, which a month earlier had become the base for their campaign to sell the world on the first-ever World Cup shared by three countries. The following morning, they would hand over their cellphones as a security precaution before boarding a flight to Moscow, where the 211 members of FIFA were primed to vote on whether to place its 2026 tournament jointly in Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Eight years earlier, soccer's governing body had voted to award its 2022 showcase to Qatar — a tiny desert nation with not a single stadium ready for World Cup play and summer temperatures exceeding 100 degrees — over the favored United States. The result stunned American soccer executives and triggered years of bitterness, suspicion, and eventually federal investigations that helped bring down much of FIFA's old leadership structure. In a private room at the River Cafe on the north bank of the River Thames, those who had spent years plotting an American comeback participated in a ritual that carried the feel of a closing dinner before a decisive battle. Over plates of Italian food and wine, they reflected on what would be at stake in Moscow — a referendum on the United States' place in the world of soccer. "We didn't know for sure what the outcome was going to be," said Neil Buethe, then-chief communications officer at the US Soccer Federation. "We felt strongly that if North America hosted 2026, we would put on the biggest and best World Cup ever, but we didn't know for certain if the rest of the world thought the same." Now, eight years after that dinner in London, FIFA has kicked off a tournament far larger than any it has ever hosted before — a 48-team, three-country competition that is stretching from Guadalajara to Vancouver to the Meadowlands. The decadelong maneuvering to bring the World Cup back to the United States represented a venture in trilateral cooperation just as other relations with Mexico and Canada were growing more fractious than they had been in recent memory. The unlikely success of that collaboration transformed the internal politics of FIFA, became a defining aspect of President Donald Trump's second term and may permanently change the way the US government participates in sporting mega-events. This insider account of the long road to the 2026 World Cup is drawn from interviews with organizers and government officials, some of whom were granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations, along with internal documents and contemporaneous notes reviewed by POLITICO, which is, along with Business Insider, part of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network. This is the story of how the US government broke FIFA and then helped build the organization back into something bigger and more politically powerful than before. Death in Zurich The Americans were optimistic as they trekked through snow to enter the Messe Zurich convention center on December 2, 2010. The two dozen members of the US bid team took their seats in bleachers from which they would watch a consequential vote that would determine the trajectory of the sport for years to come. Days earlier, a delegation — including executives from the US Bid Committee, the US Soccer Federation, and Major League Soccer — had presented the American case to FIFA's leadership in the auditorium of the organization's dungeon-like headquarters. There were four other countries in the competition, all from soccer's Asian region: Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Qatar. President Bill Clinton looks on during the FIFA World Cup 2018 & 2022 host announcement on December 2, 2010, in Zurich. Michael Regan/Getty Images The bid was the result of two years' work by the American bid committee, which had selected 18 US cities that had the stadium facilities as prospective hosts. The bid's technical advantage was never in doubt: The United States had shown it could stage a successful World Cup in 1994, and possessed a surfeit of the large stadiums and big-city hotel rooms along with the headquarters of many of FIFA's leading corporate sponsors. The Americans were so confident with their chances that they arrived in Zurich already having booked a celebration venue, a restaurant bar within walking distance of the luxury Baur au Lac hotel, which served as FIFA's de facto headquarters when foreign soccer officials were in town. The decision rested with FIFA's executive committee, a collection of 24 power brokers elected or appointed by their respective continental federations who would make the choice via secret ballot. It was a structure that critics had long alleged made vote trading and corruption easy. In fact, two of the committee's members had already been suspended from the 2022 vote after a London newspaper reported allegations that they had solicited bribes in exchange for their votes in the World Cup selection process. The US Bid Committee treated its presentation as a show of political force. Former President Bill Clinton, who was in office during the last World Cup in the US, led the delegation as non-executive chair, joined by Attorney General Eric Holder. The 88-year-old former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a huge soccer fan who had played a crucial role promoting the 1994 tournament, was honorary chair of the bid. (He did not travel to Zurich for the final vote, but spoke of wanting to attend the 2022 tournament at almost 100.) Then-President Barack Obama had written to then-FIFA President Sepp Blatter with childhood memories of playing soccer while living in Indonesia as a way of expressing support for the US to again host. When Blatter opened the envelope with the results of the executive-committee vote that had been taken earlier in the day at FIFA headquarters, some members of the US team thought they had misheard him. Celebratory screams came immediately from the Qatari delegation seated nearby. FIFA President Sepp Blatter holds up the name of Qatar during the official announcement of the 2022 World Cup host country on December 2, 2010, at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich. PHILIPPE DESMAZES / AFP via Getty Images A shocked US delegation decamped to the restaurant where they had planned to celebrate because the alcohol had already been purchased. Then Clinton and actor Morgan Freeman went to a smaller group dinner at the Savoy Hotel. "It was so sad. It was like a death," said Buethe. "Nobody was really talking at first." It was hard to know where the US bid had gone wrong. Obama received a courtesy call a few days before the vote and was told the US was likely to lose, according to a FIFA insider's memoir, but the result caught most of the bid team by total surprise. All the Americans knew was that they had lost 14 votes to 8. "I was undecided with whether I never wanted to see these people ever again, because we had a pretty good idea of what had happened," said US Soccer President Sunil Gulati. "Or if I want to start bidding the next hour." The rat in Trump Tower Events over the next year would feed American suspicions that the vote to award the 2022 tournament had never been fully on the level. In June 2011, one of the architects of Qatar's bid was booted from FIFA's presidential elections after whistleblowers alleged he had attempted to bribe 24 Caribbean delegates for their votes, offering unmarked brown envelopes containing $40,000 cash each. The revelations opened up a wide-ranging probe of corruption in global soccer. FIFA Vice President Jack Warner resigned in 2011, threatening a "tsunami" of revelations and was later accused of receiving $1.65 million from Asian Football Confederation President Mohammed bin Hammam, which Warner denied influenced his vote. FIFA responded by establishing a series of governance initiatives intended to restore confidence in the organization. Between 2011 and 2013, the organization created committees, task forces, and an Independent Governance Committee, but the core power remained concentrated around Blatter and the Executive Committee. US officials criticized the narrow set of reforms that were implemented as cosmetic. FIFA president Sepp Blatter looks on as fake dollars thrown by a protester fly around him in 2015 in Zurich. FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images The United States made reform a litmus test during the next campaign for FIFA's presidency, making it clear the United States would put itself forward as a World Cup host again only if there were changes that made the process more transparent and accountable. Gulati, a former World Bank economist, pushed for commitments that would oblige FIFA to abide by its technical standards on issues like stadium capacity, along with public disclosure of how each country voted. In May 2015, American soccer officials threw their support behind a challenge to Blatter. Carlos Cordeiro, then a vice president of the US Soccer Federation, worked for the campaign of Jordanian Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein. "We knew it would hurt us going against the favorite," Gulati said of his federation's decision to support Al-Hussein rather than Blatter. "There are some things more important than hosting a World Cup." Blatter would not remain in office long. In the early morning hours of May 27, 2015, Swiss police arrived at the Baur au Lac, where top FIFA officials had gathered for the organization's annual congress. Guests awoke to flashing lights outside the lakeside hotel as plainclothes officers escorted bleary-eyed soccer executives through the lobby and into waiting vehicles. The police were, it soon became clear, working at the behest of the US government. Later that day, at a Brooklyn press conference, Attorney General Loretta Lynch released a 47-count indictment against 14 defendants, accusing senior FIFA-linked officials of racketeering, wire fraud, and decades of systemic bribery tied to marketing rights and international tournaments. The key to the five-year Eastern District of New York investigation was Chuck Blazer, a longtime American soccer executive who occupied two Trump Tower apartments, one reportedly just for his cats. After coming under scrutiny for tax evasion and financial misconduct, he pleaded guilty in 2013 and became an FBI informant as they probed world soccer's financial workings. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announces the arrest of FIFA officials on May 27, 2015. Spencer Platt/Getty Images Blazer covertly recorded conversations with fellow soccer officials, helping prosecutors expose a culture in which bribes and backroom deals were treated as routine business. While the initial US indictment announced by Lynch the day of the Zurich raid focused largely on marketing and media-rights corruption, subsequent probes — including one initiated by Swiss authorities — came to focus on the process FIFA used to choose World Cup host countries. Blatter went on to win reelection for FIFA president that Friday, May 29, before resigning the following Monday, as it became clear the investigation would continue and even widen. Blatter's resignation set up a wide-open race for FIFA's presidency early the next year. Subsequent indictments revealed that executive-committee votes to award the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar had been tainted by vote-buying. Within days of the raid, FIFA suspended the 2026 World Cup bidding process, arguing that it was impossible to proceed with another host-selection process while the process was under such scrutiny. In December 2015, FIFA's Reform Committee issued a 12-page blueprint for overhauling the organization, including by replacing the Executive Committee with an expanded FIFA Council. Over the next year, the organization fundamentally reshaped the World Cup bidding process. The 2026 host would be chosen by all 211 member associations, replacing a system in which a small group of executives made the decision. The logic was simple: Influencing the larger, more diverse electorate would be far more difficult than swaying a handful of insiders. Bid requirements became more rigorous, while disclosure, transparency, and ethics rules were tightened. "FIFA underwent deep-rooted governance and management reforms over the last decade with a clear focus on transparency and on its mandate to develop football all around the world," the organization said in an emailed statement. FIFA President Gianni Infantino at the Group A match between Mexico and South Africa at Mexico City Stadium on June 11, 2026. Eva Marie Uzcategui - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images Gianni Infantino, a Swiss-Italian lawyer who had helped lead soccer's European confederation, used his work on the Reform Committee as a launchpad for a run to succeed Blatter. The United States went into the February 2016 vote again backing Prince Ali, but he finished a distant third in the first round. The US then threw its support to Infantino, triggering a stampede from other countries in the hemisphere, helping deliver a conclusive 115-vote majority. A fourth candidate, former French diplomat Jérome Champagne, attributed Infantino's victory to "a strong alliance between Europe and North America and the Anglo-Saxon world." One of Infantino's earliest moves was leading the newly created FIFA Council to block European and Asian confederation members from bidding again so soon after Russia was awarded the 2018 World Cup and Qatar the 2022 tournament. The move eliminated half the potential host countries and dramatically tilted the odds in favor of the World Cup returning to North America. A coalition of the willing In May 2016, FIFA gathered in Mexico City for its first annual congress under Infantino's leadership. For the Americans, whose interest in seeking the tournament again had been satisfied by FIFA's reforms, the Mexico City gathering represented a chance to cultivate support for an entirely different theory for how to win hosting rights. "We knew we could host it alone, but a combined bid would be stronger," Gulati later acknowledged. Joining with Canada and Mexico had both a practical and symbolic logic. Given the potential importance of regional blocs under the new voting system, three federations would have a stronger chance together than if they competed against one another. There also could be something powerful about seeing the United States partnering with its neighbors at a time then-presidential candidate Donald Trump was questioning whether the country should even bother with NATO, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, or Paris Climate Agreement. That case was made by Canadian Soccer Association President Victor Montagliani, who argued that a multi-country bid would be more politically attractive to FIFA than a purely American one. There was some opportunism to the argument: Canada lacked the capacity to mount a competitive bid for a men's World Cup of its own, and a partnership with the United States was likely the only route to getting one in the near future. Victor Montagliani during the 66th FIFA Congress in Mexico City on May 12, 2016. ALFREDO ESTRELLA / AFP via Getty Images "Victor's comments, which pulled some truth, literally was: 'Listen, you guys aren't particularly liked around the world,'" said Gulati. "Canada, on the diplomatic level, was more well-liked." The Mexicans had different considerations. Gulati's negotiating partner, Emilio Azcárraga Jean, was chair of the powerful mass-media company Televisa, and he had a patrimony that spoke to Mexico's experience around the World Cup. Azcárraga's father had served as local organizing committee chair for two World Cups, and Azcárraga sat atop the company that owned Estadio Azteca, the Mexico City stadium that had hosted Pelé's Brazil team in 1970 and Diego Maradona's "Hand of God" goal in 1986. As Azcárraga stood next to Gulati on the pitch of one of the most iconic venues in soccer history, he mentioned to Gulati that he wanted any jointly hosted tournament's opening match to take place there. Gulati jokingly threatened to walk away from the entire bid, leaving the Mexicans to coordinate with the Canadians alone, if Azcárraga insisted again. "You guys can do it together," Gulati recalled telling Azcárraga, "but you can't use American airspace either." The three countries still had to determine the internal balance of power between them in a joint bid. Gulati, Montagliani, and Mexican Federation President Decio de María — who had taken over for Azcárraga as his country's point person in the negotiations — debated how many matches would take place in each country. During the only other jointly hosted World Cup, in 2002, Japan and South Korea split the schedule evenly. Over the next few months, on the sidelines of soccer-governance meetings in Zurich, Hawaii, and Aruba, representatives of the three countries came to an agreement: Three-quarters of the tournament matches would go to the United States, including all decisive contests in the quarterfinals and beyond. In April, the countries' soccer officials decided they were ready to tell the world that the United States, Mexico, and Canada would jointly pursue the 2026 World Cup. US Soccer President Sunil Gulati Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images They scrambled to secure a venue for an event that would give the appearance of a carefully orchestrated international announcement. But the off-stage politics were more complicated, especially as Trump entered 2017 planning to withdraw from the primary vehicle for cooperation between the US and its neighbors — the quarter-century-old North American Free Trade Agreement — and spent the year sparring with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. A single negative comment from Trump about partnering with them on the World Cup could easily torpedo the bid. Gulati asked Boston sports executive Bob Kraft, a Trump friend, to make introductions to White House staff so he could brief the administration on the intention to mount a joint bid. Gulati explained that the bid process was more transparent under FIFA's new leadership and stood a greater chance of success than the effort to win the 2018 cup had. The White House designated Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner to serve as its point person on the effort, and the bid committee began to prepare monthly updates on its progress to the White House. "The president of the United States is fully supportive," Gulati declared from a stage on the 102nd-floor observatory of One World Trade Center days later. "He is especially pleased that Mexico is a part of this bid, and in the last few days, we've gotten further encouragement on that. We are not at all concerned about some of the issues that other people may raise. We looked at bidding alone and decided in the end, we wanted to bid with our partners in North America, and we have strong encouragement from President Trump to that end." Campaign kickoff Veterans of the failed bid for the 2018 tournament returned to the Midtown Manhattan headquarters of Major League Soccer to begin the process of preparing a new bid. They were under a far more grueling timeline than the previous effort, which had taken more than two years to prepare. It had generated tens of thousands of contracts, thousands of pages of technical documents, and countless political negotiations. This time, there would be just eight months, the result of an "expedited" bidding process imposed by FIFA as it expanded the tournament in search of greater revenue opportunities: increasing the number of teams from 32 to 48, doubling the number of required venues from eight to 16. The North Americans named their project the United Bid. The ultimate product it would present to FIFA would be a prospectus known as a "bid book" — a sales and marketing pitch for the three-country project filled with data addressing FIFA's technical requirements around issues like transportation infrastructure and stadium accessibility. For months, the United Bid proceeded without any competition. Then, on the August 2017 date that FIFA set as a deadline for countries to express interest, that changed. Morocco entered the fray, and while the country would go months without disclosing much about its plans, the North Americans knew it would rely on promises of ambitious stadium construction and new infrastructure plans they did not intend to match. For John Kristick, who had been managing director of the bid in 2010, memories of losing out to Qatar had never fully passed. He had moved on to a successful career at WPP, the global advertising giant, where a copy of the 2022 bid book sat on a shelf in his office. Photographs from the experience still hung on the walls. "They taunted me every day," he recalled. The US bid book for the World Cup presented to FIFA in 2010. Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images The team working on the bid resembled a presidential campaign crossed with an Olympic organizing committee. Former FIFA competitions executive Jim Brown became managing director, an Al Gore speechwriter named Brian Reich took charge of communications, and the former manager of stadium operations for the 1994 World Cup, Tim Larkin, led on stadiums. Around them grew an ecosystem of lawyers, lobbyists, communications operatives, stadium consultants, and city officials. One internal presentation described the operation as encompassing more than 750 people across dozens of cities, who had to commit as prospective hosts before the bid book itself could be drafted. "The democracy that we live in required us to essentially marshal that out across the federal government. It's not like any one signature. It's a series of commitments, and we had to do the same in Canada and Mexico," Cordeiro said. Carlos Cordeiro, left, with Gianni Infantino, and President Donald Trump in the Oval Office in 2018. Bloomberg/Getty Images After losing the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, many of the people involved in the American bid assumed it would be difficult to persuade cities to sign up. The failed campaign had consumed years of work. Mayors had held press conferences. Sports commissions had spent money. Local organizers had rallied business leaders and stadium owners. Then they had all watched FIFA hand the tournament to Qatar. Kristick worried that many cities would simply refuse to go through the process again. It was a weariness matched among United Bid strategists whose lingering distrust of FIFA led them to wonder whether anyone in Zurich would actually care about the hotel-occupancy rates detailed in their bid book. "We didn't trust the competence or the process," recalled a senior participant in the bid. "I didn't think their reforms were serious reforms." One moment stuck with that person, who traveled to FIFA headquarters in Zurich as preparations for the 2026 process slowly took shape. At one meeting, FIFA officials proudly introduced outside auditors sitting at the end of the table who were supposedly monitoring the integrity of the process. Then the meeting broke for coffee and a smoke break. "And the auditors disappeared for a break, too," the person recalled. "The whole thing was so obviously window-dressing." The 'idiot' ratio Kristick's first call was to Dallas, which had hosted matches at the Cotton Bowl in 1994. He was surprised by the speed with which Monica Paul, the longtime executive who led the city's sports commission and had been part of the failed 2022 effort, said, "We're in." The response repeated itself across North America, with more than 50 cities across the continent expressing preliminary interest in hosting matches, an enthusiasm that reflected how much the sport had changed since 2010. Major League Soccer had grown significantly, through television audiences and attendance in dedicated stadiums across the country. Soccer finally felt like a sport of the American present, rather than of its perpetual future, and the World Cup no longer a speculative investment. Representatives from 32 candidate cities, a mix of sports administrators and city managers, descended on Houston in November 2017 for a host-city conference, in which United Bid staffers laid out a set of contractual requirements that FIFA treated as rigid and nonnegotiable. (The documents outlining those standards had arrived from Zurich later than expected, compressing an already impossible schedule.) Cities had to commit to sweeping legal guarantees, transportation obligations, stadium modifications, and security arrangements, while indemnifying FIFA against potentially enormous liabilities. In other words, if something went wrong during the tournament, FIFA wanted cities to absorb much of the risk. "It was sort of take it or leave it with FIFA," one person involved in the process said. The cities wanted to know what was in the contracts and whether they should sign them, cycling through a conference room in a series of hourlong meetings with United Bid personnel that another participant likened to "speed dating." "We were the intermediary between the cities on the one hand and FIFA on the other," said Michael Kuh, the bid's top attorney, who now leads the sports practice at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. "I just kept telling the cities that if they wanted to participate, they would have to take a leap of faith, which is advice lawyers only reserve for rare occasions." Three of the five finalists for the 2024 Olympics, whose countries had already spent millions to get that far, abandoned their bids before the final selection was made, in two cases (Hamburg and Budapest) once voters expressed their disapproval in referenda. Already, American candidate city Boston had withdrawn after activists aroused popular opposition. Municipal officials returned to their cities from Houston having to sell elected officials on why they should buck that trend. Some simply struggled to explain why taxpayers should assume enormous risks without a clear guarantee of financial return. Over time, some cities dropped out. Others revolted at the terms. Chicago, which carried scars from another failed international bid, did both. In 2009, the city had mounted an expensive campaign to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Obama had personally lobbied the International Olympic Committee to bring its games to his hometown. Nonetheless, the city was eliminated in the first round of voting. Years later, Chicago officials remained skeptical of global sporting organizations and the promises they made. Mayor Rahm Emanuel pulled Chicago out of the running to be a host city. Scott Olson/Getty Images Chicago had sent its representatives to Houston, where they offered assurances that the city would join the bid. But when the contractual documents were returned to the United Bid office, they included handwritten caveats next to Mayor Rahm Emanuel's signature. "Chicago would take all the risk, and FIFA would get 60 percent of the reward," said Emanuel, who served as Obama's chief of staff in 2009 before becoming mayor. "Only idiots do transactions with those ratios." FIFA disputes the characterization that host cities were asked to shoulder disproportionate risk. A FIFA spokesperson said host cities were responsible for a defined set of obligations, and noted that host cities in all three host countries received government assistance. The spokesperson added that FIFA is covering expenses, including stadium and venue rentals, temporary infrastructure, power requirements, broadcasting operations, private security, and venue operations. FIFA also emphasized that, unlike many previous World Cups, the 2026 tournament requires little new infrastructure investment because existing stadiums are being used largely in their current configuration. When Emanuel was told that such changes would not pass muster with FIFA, he eventually withdrew the city from the process, releasing a public statement that criticized the bid and FIFA. United Bid strategists worried about the potential precedent: If one city publicly rejected FIFA's terms, others might follow, throwing the entire bid into jeopardy. "We were only as strong as our weakest link," said Kristick, who assuaged the anxieties of another US city that considered withdrawing after Chicago did. Kristick declined to name the city. Vancouver, which had withstood an organized left-wing opposition to its decision to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, had its own qualms. The provincial government of British Columbia, which controlled the BC Place stadium, worried about exposure to financial risk. Vancouver asked for an extension, and got one. Vancouver promised the paperwork was coming, but nothing made it to New York. As the late January deadline approached to finalize the 1,000-page bid book, officials printed out two different versions: one including Vancouver as a host city and one without. A bid official was relieved to finally find a package from Vancouver arrive by mail. But when he opened it, every document was unsigned. Months of negotiations had ended with a box full of blank paperwork. "It wasn't just that they declined to participate," the official recalled years later. "It felt like a real 'fuck you.'" The bid book, sans Vancouver, was organized along with other necessary components of the United Bid submission. One was a letter from the U.S. State Department authorizing visa access in compliance with requirements set by FIFA, which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had signed and dated on March 12. By the time it arrived, via FedEx, the next morning in New York, Tillerson had been fired by Trump via Twitter. The battle against Morocco The American play to become a soccer power was derailed by an on-field defeat. The men's national team lost to Trinidad and Tobago in their final match of the World Cup qualifying campaign in October 2017, denying the United States a spot at the sport's leading tournament for the first time since 1986. The shock result caused a leadership crisis at US Soccer, the nonprofit federation that serves as the sport's governing body in the United States. Facing criticism for the team's failure, Gulati — who had served as the federation's president since 2006 and had spent years laying the groundwork for the 2026 bid — decided not to seek reelection. Christian Pulisic of the United States reacts to their loss to Trinidad and Tobago during the FIFA World Cup Qualifier match in 2017. Ashley Allen/Getty Images A wide-open race to be US Soccer's top official loomed, featuring a number of retired players who promised a break from the status quo. Cordeiro, who had served on the US Soccer board since 2007, was the establishment candidate in an election dominated by reformers promising to blow up the system. When he won the presidency in February 2018, he inherited responsibility for the World Cup bid. Cordeiro, a former Goldman Sachs executive, knew that the early days of his presidency would be measured by the success of the bid and approached the bid like a high-stakes corporate merger. "There was an intensity shift," a person working on the bid said of the change in leadership from Gulati to Cordeiro. "Carlos came in, and this was going to be his thing. It was helpful in a sense — new energy, new ideas — but it was also a lot." The day after winning the presidency, Cordeiro flew from Orlando to New York for meetings at Major League Soccer's offices and onward to Bratislava, where European soccer officials were gathering for a UEFA meeting. There, Cordeiro heard something that startled him: The United Bid was in trouble. North American officials felt that they possessed a stronger technical case than Morocco could offer. The United States, Mexico, and Canada had stadiums, airports, training sites, hotels, transportation networks, and corporate infrastructure — strengths that FIFA's own revamped process was supposed to reward. "Everybody knew that the infrastructure was going to be very good. All the stadiums were there, all the facilities to train were there, all the hotels were there," said de María. Morocco represented serious competition, in part due to geographical advantages. The new process meant that the 2026 vote would be decided by more than 200 national federations rather than a select group of FIFA insiders. Morocco had substantial support from across the more than 50 members of the Confederation of African Football — CONCACAF, which includes North America, had just over 40 — and a foothold in the Middle East. Fouzi Lekjaa, president of Morocco's Royal Football Federation, after a meeting to present their bid to host the World Cup 2026. Anders Kjaerbye / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP via Getty Images Morocco also seemed to be making inroads in Europe, through appeals based on ties of language, culture, and colonial history. France had become one of Morocco's most important sporting allies in Europe, Cordeiro believed, because French architects, engineers, and construction firms stood to benefit from Morocco's need to build or renovate stadiums and transportation infrastructure. "Europe was the toughest," Cordeiro recalled. "France was not supporting the US for one particular reason: They saw a unique opportunity to get all the business that would follow had Morocco won." Cordeiro wanted the bid team to be more proactive in its outreach to the 211 federations that would have a say in who was awarded the World Cup. They started a tracking sheet based on where each country stood: likely United Bid supporters in green, persuadable targets in yellow, and likely Morocco backers in red. The vote would be won, Cordeiro believed, in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, with crucial swing votes from the former Soviet bloc split across the regional confederations. The North Americans could argue that their tournament would generate more revenue than any World Cup in history, producing larger distributions for FIFA member nations. They also knew they could not rely on technical superiority alone, outlined through facts in the bid book. To assuage members who could be worried about the impact of Trump's policies — especially the travel ban on majority-Muslim nations upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in December 2017 — the United Bid asked Kushner to extract a commitment from Trump about free travel around the World Cup. Over three letters addressed to Infantino, Trump vowed that foreign teams, officials, and fans from qualifying countries would face no restrictions entering the United States for the tournament. Trump's increasing enthusiasm for securing the World Cup also risked generating backlash. "The U.S. has put together a STRONG bid w/ Canada & Mexico for the 2026 World Cup," he wrote in an April 26, 2018, social media post. "It would be a shame if countries that we always support were to lobby against the U.S. bid. Why should we be supporting these countries when they don't support us (including at the United Nations)?" The U.S. has put together a STRONG bid w/ Canada & Mexico for the 2026 World Cup. It would be a shame if countries that we always support were to lobby against the U.S. bid. Why should we be supporting these countries when they don’t support us (including at the United Nations)? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2018 FIFA responded by obliquely pointing out that Trump had likely defied its bidding rules, which are supposed to keep the process immune from external political influence. One member of Morocco's 2026 bid committee told CNN, "I think the Donald Trump factor is helping Morocco." If they were going to sell the world on awarding its tournament to Trump's America, they needed to launch FIFA's first global political campaign. The three amigos The campaign had to acknowledge the reality of the Trump era, Cordeiro concluded upon his return from Europe. He envisioned one major messaging shift: The bid that had launched at an iconic New York location would no longer present itself as a U.S.-led effort supported by its smaller neighbors, but as a North American partnership. The three countries would campaign as equals. "We elevated Canada and Mexico presidents to co-chairs as equals with me to demonstrate to the world that this was a truly joint bid," Cordeiro said. From then on, the bid's lobbying teams traveled in threes whenever possible: one representative from the United States, one from Mexico, and one from Canada. Cordeiro believed the visual mattered, showing skeptical federations that the bid was not simply the United States asking for the World Cup again. "What we were putting together was a North American face in which the three countries can work together," said de María. The campaign set up its headquarters in London, where strategists tailored regional approaches from the color-coded list. Cordeiro asked Brown, a former FIFA executive with African relationships, to look for places where the United Bid could pick off votes from Morocco on its home continent. In the Maghreb and Francophone Africa, Morocco's support was locked down, but Brown saw a plausible opening beyond: English-speaking southern Africa, Portuguese-speaking countries, and Spanish-speaking Equatorial Guinea. "Get us 10 to 15 votes," Cordeiro recalled telling Brown. "That's all we need." In Europe, where the bid team had to work beyond France's sphere of influence, the bid officials tried to get in front of all 55 members of the continental confederation UEFA to make their case. A vote from Montenegro or Malta counted exactly the same as one from Germany. "There was a collective effort not to ignore anybody," Buethe said. "No one was too small." For nearly a month, the bid's leadership team used London as the hub of a global lobbying campaign, dispatching delegations across continents for whirlwind meetings that often lasted just a day before the next flight. At one point, one team met with representatives from four countries in a single day. In Belarus, the delegation arrived without visas and was barred from leaving the airport, so federation officials came to them instead, gathering in a VIP lounge for an impromptu pitch session. The campaign soon became a blur of red-eye flights, hotel conference rooms, and federation headquarters, with staffers sometimes learning their next destination only hours before departure. "We'd come back to London and regroup," Buethe recalled. "Then we'd find out where we were going next." Personal familiarity with the United States was a huge source of advantage. Foreign officials who had attended American universities reminisced about bars in Washington. Latvian federation president Kaspars Gorkšs, a former captain of the country's national team, recalled watching the 1994 World Cup as a young player. When Gorkšs invoked Alexi Lalas, the defender who was among the most recognizable members of the US team, Buethe promised to introduce them. Peter Montopoli, general secretary of the Football Association of Canada; Carlos Cordeiro; and Decio de Maria, president of the Football Association of Mexico, pose after a meeting with the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish soccer unions to present their bid. Anders Kjaerbye / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP via Getty Images The United Bid made its first major breakthrough in the Nordic bloc. In the spring of 2018, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland convened a meeting near the Copenhagen airport to hear from both campaigns."The fact that the US was prepared to share the World Cup with its two neighbors during a time of heightened political tension was very well received," Cordeiro said. The Scandinavians endorsed the United Bid, which began a rush of favorable announcements. England was supportive, and Germany was, too. As the June 13 vote approached, bid strategists were confident of backing from a majority of the 211 voting members. But after their experience in 2010, they worried about the possibility that some federations would change their vote at the last minute, triggering a rush away from the frontrunner. "You lose a few dozen votes and all of a sudden it's a tie game," Cordeiro said. In London, the United Bid delegation prepared for a trip to the FIFA Congress in Moscow, which would take place as Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation intensified its focus on the role of Russian security services in the 2016 U.S. election. Security advisors walked delegation members through the process of using burner phones, laptops, and hard drives, a routine demand complicated by the large file size of the bid materials themselves. The team, whose members had been spread across the continents, gathered for their farewell dinner the night before they would fly together to Moscow. Cordeiro arrived at River Cafe with a version of deal toys — soccer-themed Hermès ties. He handed one to each of the three federation presidents, who would dress for the FIFA Congress in identical ties but for different national colors: de María in green, Cordeiro in blue, and Montagliani in red. The United Bid officials in their color coordinated ties. Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP via Getty Images The final pitch to the FIFA Congress reflected the United Bid's delicate navigation of the moment's politics. Instead of showcasing the countries' elected leaders — who were then frequently sparring over issues from a border wall to dairy and aluminum tariffs — the presentation featured three young players, one from each country. This time, when Infantino read out the name of the winning bid, there were no surprises: The United Bid carried 134 votes to Morocco's 65. (In Washington, Kushner's allies quickly claimed credit for his contributions to winning over Persian Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.) It was not lost on any members of the bid team — who were delighted when The Washington Post editorial page approvingly called it "the NAFTA World Cup" — that their undertaking represented the type of cross-border venture that Trump's vow to sever the continent's free-trade pact could make a thing of the past. "Prior to this project, Mexico and Canada and the U.S. had the NAFTA agreement, so we worked together for many years with the U.S. and Canada on a commercial basis," reflected de María. "What we were putting together was a North American face in which the three countries can work together to put together their abilities to handle an event like this." Trump takes the field Later that summer, Infantino made the first of what would be many trips to the Oval Office. He presented Trump with a referee's red card and a soccer jersey emblazoned TRUMP 26, even though it was then unimaginable that Trump would be in office during the year when the tournament took place. Nonetheless, it was clear from the zest with which Trump brandished the red card for the cameras and associated himself with the bidding process — "it only took one call because when I heard 'World Cup,' I wanted to do it," he recounted — that he was ready to claim the tournament as his own. It was a dynamic that would repeat itself just two weeks later, when the 2028 Summer Olympics were formally assigned to Los Angeles. President Donald Trump and FIFA President Gianni Infantino pose with a jersey presented to Trump by Infantino on August 28, 2018. MANDEL NGAN / AFP via Getty Images FIFA turned its attention to the 2022 tournament in Qatar, which had to be staged under pandemic conditions (and in the winter due to the country's hot climate). Meanwhile, North American cities jostled for the right to be one of the 16 that would get to host matches in 2026. In 2022, Montreal withdrew from contention after the provincial government refused to fund stadium renovations, allowing FIFA to replace it with Vancouver, which was also Montagliani's hometown. (Washington, DC, also dropped out of contention as a solo city during this period, merging its bid with Baltimore.) While both Mexico and Canada have sports ministries, the United States does not have a major federal office set up to coordinate the country's participation in global competitions. In 1994, a single national committee run out of the U.S. Soccer Federation served as the domestic organization responsible for actually putting on the World Cup, leasing stadiums and selling tickets. For the 2026 tournament, FIFA changed its approach. Each of the 11 U.S. cities selected by FIFA in June 2022 to host matches developed an individual contractual relationship with the organization, managed through a so-called host city committee. The set-up gave FIFA, which opened a Miami office to oversee tournament planning, more control and access to match revenue. That left open the question of who would serve as a point of contact for both FIFA and the cities on nationwide policy concerns that were sure to affect tournament planning, touching on security, infrastructure, and immigration. Then-President Joe Biden designated Secretary of Cabinet Affairs Evan Ryan to lead an interagency working group that would consider what role there was for the federal government to play. FIFA gingerly attempted to build relationships with Biden, hiring former administration staffers at the lobbying firm Foley & Lardner to help navigate Washington. "There were very early discussions about visas, for example, and how would you go from one country to another country and come back in here," said Cordeiro, who, after resigning from the US Soccer foundation in 2020, joined FIFA as a senior advisor to Infantino and his primary liaison to the US government. When US voters decided to send Trump back to the White House in 2024, Cordeiro saw an opening for a different relationship with the federal government. Infantino joined the trail of world leaders to Mar-a-Lago during the transition period, where he told Trump about the first-ever FIFA Club World Cup that would come to the United States in the summer of 2025 as something of a logistical dry run for the World Cup a year later. The night before Trump's inauguration, Infantino sat in the audience for a rally in Washington where Trump mentioned him by name five times. During the swearing-in ceremony the next day, Infantino sat a few rows behind Trump, the rare foreigner visible to television cameras during the transfer of American power. A decade after plans for it were first hatched, the 2026 World Cup would be Trump's tournament. Meet me at the Meadowlands In March 2025, Trump welcomed Infantino back to the Oval Office, calling him "the king of soccer." This time, Infantino was not there just for pleasantries: He had already secured the White House's commitment on FIFA's first major procedural demand of his administration. Infantino, who had overseen tournaments in Russia and Qatar, was used to dealing with a strong central authority in World Cup host countries rather than 11 different private-sector entities in communities as different as Boston, Miami, and Kansas City. When Infantino asked Trump in early 2025 to establish a body within the White House that would lead the federal government's role in World Cup preparations, the president immediately agreed. Trump appointed Andrew Giuliani — a former pro golfer, failed New York gubernatorial candidate, and son of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — to lead the White House Task Force on the FIFA World Cup. The body included Cabinet secretaries from the departments of state, transportation, and homeland security, where it set up an office to coordinate efforts across government at all levels. Andrew Giuliani poses on the red carpet prior to the FIFA World Cup 2026 Official Draw in Washington, DC, last year. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images "I think it's really helpful that the decision-makers in that room are also task force members," Giuliani told POLITICO in January of the complexities of preparing to welcome millions of visitors with global conflicts going on. The task force ensured that host cities could access the $625 million in security funding in Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" through a grant program managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It worked with the Pentagon to organize tabletop exercises anticipating security threats and FBI on counter-drone training for local law enforcement officials. "The task force did one thing for us," said a FIFA official, "which was it gave us a credibility that we didn't have and a visibility that we didn't have before this administration." Infantino, meanwhile, embarked on his own efforts to win over the American political class. Repeating the mantra "You have to be local to be global," he set off on a campaign-style tour barnstorming governors' mansions, city halls, and tribal authorities, pledging donations to their causes along the way. He used last summer's FIFA Club World Cup as an occasion to raise his public profile. He hosted Trump during the tournament's final at MetLife Stadium, in New Jersey's Meadowlands, with the two men sitting together during the match and Infantino leading Trump out on the field at its conclusion. Some members of London-based Chelsea were visibly confused to find themselves sharing the winner's platform with an American politician. Infantino's sustained attention remained on the man in the White House. (The World Cup host committees abandoned their Democratic-led lobbying team in favor of one headed by former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman that specialized in outreach to Republicans.) Infantino appeared more frequently in public with Trump than any other world leader over the course of 2025, with the two men seeming to genuinely enjoy each other's company. In December, Infantino appeared to program the lottery draw that set the World Cup's match schedule with Trump foremost in mind, booking the Village People to perform "Y.M.C.A." as a finale. President Donald Trump dances to the final performance of the Village People during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Official Draw. Hector Vivas - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images Most notably, Infantino used the occasion at Washington's Kennedy Center to present Trump with a novel confection known as the FIFA Peace Prize, without first consulting the FIFA Council that is supposed to set policy, as POLITICO reported at the time. At least three of FIFA's eight vice presidents publicly or privately expressed their concerns about the lengths Infantino was willing to go to please Trump. "I have a great relationship with President Trump. I'm very happy about that. I got to know him during his first mandate, and we have been working very closely together now in his second term," Infantino said at a pre-tournament press conference in Mexico City on Wednesday. "Without his engagement and his involvement, I think it would have been impossible — simple as that — it would have been impossible to organize a World Cup in the United States. He understood immediately the magnitude of the World Cup, the impact of the World Cup and instructed as well, of course, the administration to help and assist." Infantino and Trump are likely to be back together in the Meadowlands next month, when the World Cup wraps up with its final match on July 19. At that point, both men are likely to consider themselves winners. Infantino will likely be able to claim he has staged the most lucrative single event in sports history, with estimated tournament revenues of $9 billion to his nonprofit. Trump will have been able to preside over one of humanity's great uniting cultural pageants, a worldly complement to the United States' 250th birthday celebrations and precursor to the 2028 Olympics. Yet for all of Infantino's highly personalized political outreach, he has remarkably little to show for it. The run-up to the tournament has been marred by distractions caused by Trump's policy choices and FIFA's financial priorities. Politicians of both parties are alleging that high prices to attend the World Cup are a function of FIFA's manipulative and opaque ticket-selling procedures, while the global soccer establishment has been aghast to see players, team support staff, and referees denied entry to the United States due to immigration rules. "We are not the kings of the world who can rule over governments and police forces," Infantino said in Mexico City, one of the rare instances where he has faced adversarial questioning. "We are a sports organization. We do our best with the means that we have to do as much as possible." Lost on the road to the 2026 World Cup was the dream that animated the original architects of the United Bid: a truly North American experience. The World Cup has begun to resemble three separate tournaments played in parallel, due to national policy choices that FIFA has been unable to smooth out. After the United States could not negotiate security assurances for Iran's delegation — the first time a country has played in a World Cup while at war with its host — Mexico scrambled to set up a training camp in Tijuana, from which the team will fly to U.S. cities where they are legally forbidden from staying the night under the terms of their limited visas. When a Somali referee was turned away this week by border officials at the Miami airport without clear explanation, the BC premier said he was welcome to officiate a match in Vancouver. The only time Trump has appeared together with the neighboring heads of state was at the lottery draw in December. While the event began with the three leaders sharing a photo op as equals, it ended with Trump dancing to his favorite song. Shia Kapos contributed to this article. This story originally appeared on POLITICO and is courtesy of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which harnesses the resources of the company's newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces, and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, Onet, and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms. Read the original article on Business Insider

Bang Cookies co-owner Corey Bonalewicz (left) and Gen Z franchisee Kugan Suppiah (right) pose together at the grand opening of Suppiah's store. Arrow Marketing Young entrepreneurs are turning to restaurant franchising as a path to business ownership. Millennials and Gen Z value franchise stability and guidance over the risks of independent startups. Social media-savvy young franchisees boost engagement and bring fresh ideas, benefiting brands. When Kugan Suppiah was 24, he wasn't thinking about climbing the corporate ladder. He was thinking about cookies. The University of Oklahoma graduate spent months persuading his parents to invest with him in a Bang Cookies franchise in Oklahoma City after becoming convinced the gourmet cookie chain could succeed there. Now 25, Suppiah is already scouting locations for a second store, though he doesn't necessarily see baked goods as his end goal. "I've always been business-minded, so this was something that I've always wanted to get into," Suppiah said. "I'm definitely interested, down the line, in opening something of my own." For now, he sees franchising as a way to get there. He's part of a growing group of young entrepreneurs turning to restaurant franchising as a middle ground between traditional corporate careers and the risks of launching an independent startup. Franchise brands say they're seeing increased interest from millennials and Gen Z buyers who want the freedom and ownership that come with running a business but value the training, support, and established customer base that the corporate connection provides. Young entrepreneurs are buying into franchising "A lot of Gen Z is less focused on following one traditional path and more interested in creating opportunities for themselves," said Ashleigh Ewald, a 23-year-old public policy graduate student and entrepreneur. "The appeal is really about independence and ownership." At the sandwich and salad chain Chicken Salad Chick, executives say it's seeing a surge in younger franchise candidates, who frequently cite stability, structure, and built-in support as key reasons for exploring ownership. Gong Cha, a bubble tea franchise, said it has also seen growing interest from younger prospects. At 16 Handles, executives for the frozen yogurt chain say more than half of current and incoming franchisees are millennials, including two 30-year-old finance professionals in Brooklyn who opened a location last summer while keeping their day jobs and are already preparing to open a second store. Andrew Titus, president of United Franchise Group, said the shift is noticeable. Historically, many franchisees were in their 40s or 50s. These days, Titus said he increasingly encounters owners closer to his own age, 29. "I've definitely seen more and more millennials, Gen Zs getting into business ownership," Titus said. He underscored that franchising offers a level of certainty many younger entrepreneurs find appealing because franchisees receive support, training, and a proven playbook for operating the business. A lower-risk path to business ownership For many younger entrepreneurs, franchising is less about avoiding work than avoiding unnecessary risk. The model offers the opportunity to own a business, build equity, and make independent decisions without having to build a brand, operating system, and customer base from the ground up. For some, franchising is the next step in an entrepreneurial journey that started long before they signed a franchise agreement. Amaan Bhanji, now 22, began planning his Graze Craze franchise during his senior year of high school. After two years spent finding a location, coordinating a buildout, and completing franchise training, he opened the Arlington, Virginia, business in 2024. "I knew in my gut that I needed to build something of my own," Bhanji said. "Attending university and working for someone else just did not appeal to me." Bhanji said franchise ownership offered something he felt he lacked at the time: structure. "I had no experience with building, opening, and launching a successful business," Bhanji said, adding that collaborating with United Franchise Group, which owns and manages the charcuterie board franchise Graze Craze, offered him the tools and hands-on training to support his venture. That desire for guidance and support is a recurring theme among younger franchisees. For many, the appeal of franchising is not simply ownership — it's learning how to operate a business while still having the opportunity to shape it. (From left to right) Corey Bonalewicz, Kugan Suppiah, Ganes Suppiah, and George Kuan pose at the grand opening of the Suppiah family's franchise. JoJo Cipriano Suppiah said he was drawn to Bang Cookies not only because he liked the product but because the brand was still young enough for franchisees to influence its direction. He pitched adding a curbside pickup window to his Oklahoma City store; the executives loved it, and Suppiah worked with them to refine its design and marketing strategy. That kind of involvement can also benefit franchisors. Several executives told Business Insider that younger operators often bring fresh ideas around social media, community engagement, and customer engagement. At 16 Handles, executives said millennial and Gen Z franchisees have been particularly effective at turning online buzz and viral menu items into store traffic. The next generation of franchise owners Industry executives say younger franchise candidates are also gravitating toward brands that feel authentic, community-driven, and culturally relevant. Still, there are significant barriers to entry. Ewald said many of her peers are interested in entrepreneurship, but startup costs remain a major obstacle. Titus said the high startup costs associated with larger, household-name chains such as McDonald's often put them out of reach for first-time operators, instead pushing many younger entrepreneurs toward smaller, faster-growing concepts with lower barriers to entry and more opportunities to help shape the business. Bhanji used savings from jobs he'd held since middle school, support from family members, and financing to launch his Graze Craze franchise. It was worth the risk, he said, to have a proven framework to follow while learning how to run a business. Suppiah sees franchising similarly. Running his Bang Cookies location has given him a crash course in operations, marketing, site selection, hiring, and securing an SBA loan — skills he hopes to apply to future ventures, including potentially launching a Malaysian-inspired concept rooted in his family's background. Like Suppiah, Bhanji sees franchise ownership as a beginning rather than an endpoint. "I have many aspirations and am open to continuing with franchise ownership as well as other ventures," Bhanji said. "I'm not closing any doors." In a generation often associated with side hustles, creator businesses, and multiple income streams, franchising is increasingly being viewed not as a retirement plan or a fallback career, but as an entry point into entrepreneurship. Read the original article on Business Insider

Michael Peel / Financial Times: After years of false dawns, Big Tech, startups, and governments are betting on commercially useful quantum computers by 2030, as skeptics worry about hype  —  Companies are betting on big implications for pharmaceuticals, financial services and crypto.  But sceptics worry about hype.

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal: An interview with Corning CEO Wendell Weeks on risk-sharing provisions that protect the company in multibillion-dollar fiber deals with Nvidia, Meta, and Amazon  —  CEO Wendell Weeks remembers the dot-com crash and other hardships, and those lessons help him hedge even the most optimistic data-center bets

Daniel Tudor / Financial Times: South Korea's “semiconductor belt” town Dongtan has become one of the fastest-rising affluent areas, driven by windfall bonuses for Samsung and SK Hynix workers  —  Windfall bonus for workers drives up property prices and department store purchases

Iris Deng / South China Morning Post: Huawei unveils HarmonyOS 7, introducing an “agent-friendly” architecture that connects to 2,000+ specialized AI agents and features an enhanced voice assistant  —  HarmonyOS 7 introduces an agent-friendly architecture and upgraded AI assistant as Huawei seeks to capitalise on Apple's China AI gap

Andrew Yang made a list of everything Americans overpay for — housing, food, wireless — and thinks the next startup gold rush is giving that money back.

Discussion | Link

Commerce dept. worries that a Fable 5 "jailbreak" could be a national security threat.

Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer: A Ukrainian extradited from Ireland to the US pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud for his role in Conti ransomware attacks between 2021 and 2022  —  A Ukrainian national extradited from Ireland to the United States last year has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges tied to the Conti ransomware operation.

Anthropic isn't hiding its frustration. "We disagree that the finding of a narrow potential jailbreak should be cause for recalling a commercial model deployed to hundreds of millions of people," the company wrote in a blog post.

“The government believes it has become aware of a method of bypassing, or ‘jailbreaking’ Fable 5,” the company said in a blog post.

Ananya Palyekar / Reuters: Anthropic says it believes the US government's export control order for Mythos 5 and Fable 5 is a “misunderstanding” and that it is working to restore access  —  Anthropic said on Friday it has been ordered by the U.S. government to suspend access for all foreign nationals …

Anthropic walked back a policy it had for AI research. Bloomberg/Getty Images Fable 5 and Mythos 5 are Anthropic's latest top AI models, released this month. Anthropic said a US order bars any foreign entities or individuals from using its models. The company said the "net effect" of the order is to abruptly disable the models for all customers. Anthropic said it would disable access to its latest top AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, following a government export control that would bar foreign individuals and entities from using the products. The company said in a blog post on Friday evening that it had received a letter from the US government at around 5:21 p.m. ET, citing national security concerns regarding Anthropic's models. Anthropic said the government's order included any foreign national inside or outside the US, "including foreign national Anthropic employees," and that the "net effect" of the order is to disable the models for everyone to ensure compliance. The company added that the letter "did not provide specific details of its national security concern." Anthropic said it believes the government's concern is a potential way to "jailbreak" Fable 5, but disputed the issue's severity. The company said the technique appeared narrow, not universal, and involved known vulnerabilities that could be identified by other publicly available models. The move marks the latest escalation in Anthropic's clash with the Trump administration over AI safety, national security, and the extent of government control over frontier AI models. In February, the Pentagon moved to designate Anthropic as a supply chain risk after the startup sought limits on its AI model for certain defense applications. Anthropic sued the Defense Department over the designation. Two lawsuits related to the government's supply-chain risk label remain pending. A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Pentagon's chief information officer expressed support for the move in an X post, writing, "Some things are simply more important than revenue cycles, clickbait, and pre-IPO valuation." We fully support @POTUS and @SecWar in prioritizing national security and the security of our warfighters, DIB partners, critical infrastructure, international partners and allies. Some things are simply more important than revenue cycles, clickbait, and pre-IPO valuation.… https://t.co/GU9kkHqiOu — DoW CIO Kirsten Davies (@DoWCIODavies) June 13, 2026 Anthropic said it was complying with the order but disagreed with the government's finding. An Anthropic spokesperson did not say when exactly the company would disable access. Access to Anthropic's other models will not be affected, the company said. Read the original article on Business Insider