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FIFA have come in for criticism for the inflated prices of tickets at World Cup 2026 in US, Canada and Mexico.

President Donald Trump is the latest person to ‌take a shot at the sky-high World Cup ticket prices, saying he would not pay $1,000 to watch the United States ⁠play against Paraguay on ⁠June 12 in Los Angeles.

Trump said he was unaware of the prices football fans are being asked to pay to watch a group-play match at the World Cup.

“I did not know that number,” ⁠Trump told The New York Post. “I would certainly like to be there, but I wouldn’t pay it either, to be honest with you.”

Earlier this week, FIFA President Gianni Infantino defended the cost of seats for the World Cup, saying ⁠they were in line with prices for major US sporting events.

“We have 25% of the group stage tickets which can be bought for less than $300,” Infantino said. “You cannot go to watch in the US a college game, not even speaking about a top professional game of a certain level, for less than $300. And this is the World Cup.”

The average cost of a ‌ticket for the World Cup final on July 19 in East Rutherford, New Jersey, is $13,000, according to reports. It was $1,600 for the 2022 final in Qatar.

Trump is worried the pricing will shut out working-class Americans from being able to attend a game.

“If people from Queens and Brooklyn and all of the people that love Donald Trump can’t go, I would be disappointed, but, you know, at the same time, it’s an amazing success,” he said of the World Cup that he helped land for the US during his first term as president. “I would like to be able to ⁠have the people that voted for me to be able to go.”

FIFA also released some ⁠tickets on Thursday, which gives fans a chance at first-come first-serve tickets.

According to TicketData.com, the current average price for Group Stage games is $567, down from $684 14 days ago and $720 from 30 days ago.

Field Level Media took a quick look Wednesday on the Ticketmaster website for the June 19 group-stage ⁠match between the US and Australia in Seattle, and that search did not display any bargains.

The lowest price for two tickets early Wednesday evening was a resale pair ⁠for $2,725.10, which broke down to $2,290 for the tickets and $435.10 in service fees. However, ⁠a new search 30 minutes later showed the total price climbing to $2,770.90 for seats high in the upper deck along the sideline at Lumen Field. For fans more familiar with football than futbol, they could be considered on the 25-yard line.

On Thursday afternoon, a newly listed pair of resale tickets ‌was the lowest offering – two for $2,553.10. Those tickets were in the upper deck around the football end line and NFL end zone.

On its own marketplace, FIFA takes a 15% purchase fee from the buyer of a resold ticket and a ‌15% ‌free from the seller.

TicketData.com said the cheapest available ticket has dropped in price for 87 of the 91 matches in the US and Canada over the past 14 days.

The World Cup will be played at 16 sites in the United States (11), Mexico (three) and Canada (two).

Donald Trump entered his second term promising “mass deportations”. He also promised he’d target the “worst of the worst”. The Guardian wanted to know who, exactly, would be pulled into this deportation dragnet.

That question led us to “Record of Deportable/Inadmissible Alien” forms, also known as I-213 forms. Immigration agents fill out these forms each time they make an arrest, alleging that the person is in the country without authorization. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) then uses these forms in court to prove that a person is in the country illegally.

The Guardian filed a series of records requests seeking I-213 forms from the Trump administration. When the government didn’t respond, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a non profit organization providing legal services to journalists, filed a lawsuit on the Guardian’s behalf. Months later, through this litigation, the Guardian received a series of spreadsheets with data extracted from I-213 forms covering fiscal year 2023 through August 2025.

The Guardian is releasing all of the documents that we have received through our lawsuit so far. The spreadsheets contain biographical details about each person, including criminal history and the number and nationalities of their children under the age of 18. This data has been minimally processed to remove potentially identifiable information.

These documents proved crucial in our reporting on who the administration is arresting and deporting. The Guardian used I-213 data to investigate the government’s claims about immigrants and their criminal convictions and the impact of the mass deportation campaign on families.

We hope this data will be equally valuable to fellow reporters at local and national newsrooms, and to researchers and advocates.

In order to report on the impact of family separation, we matched 86% of the I-213 records with a unique record in the data released by the Deportation Data Project, a team of academics and lawyers at the University of California, Berkeley tracking immigration enforcement using government data.

We used the combined dataset to report the number of parents who were arrested and deported each month, as well as the number of children affected. The Guardian combined the I-213 and Deportation Data Project data by filtering both datasets to the same date range, and used the apprehension date, area of responsibility, age, gender and apprehension site to match the records in the datasets.

View and download the records obtained by the Guardian here.

Donald Trump’s approval rating has dropped to 34 percent among the American people, the lowest level of his second term. Given the U.S. war against Iran, the growing internal divisions within his administration and the rising inflationary pressure at home, Trump now has juggle a lot at once.

(FoxNews)

U.S. President Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 34 percent, the lowest point of his second term, according to a public opinion poll released by Reuters and Ipsos on April 28. Confronted with the war against Iran, internal divisions within his administration and accelerating domestic inflation, Trump’s presidency is under severe strain. With his policy agenda facing obstacles, Republican elites are increasingly concerned that he could become a political liability in the upcoming congressional midterm elections.

Trump has sought to build a loyalty-driven administration in his second term, appointing several close allies to key cabinet positions. However, internal turmoil has intensified recently. Former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned over scandals, including alleged abuse of power and misuse of public funds. She became the third cabinet member to step down since Trump took office last year. Previously, in March, Kristi Noem was dismissed as secretary of Homeland Security, and Attorney General Pam Bondi was removed in early April. All three were seen as staunch Trump loyalists. Notably, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is also under growing pressure, clashing with multiple senior military commanders and service chiefs. As the U.S. maintains a maritime blockade against Iran, Navy Secretary John Phelan left office because of strained relations with Hegseth, who resented Phelan for frequently communicating directly with Trump without going through him. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, a close associate of Vice President J.D. Vance, has also repeatedly quarreled with Hegseth.

Another hallmark of Trump’s second term is his challenge to the independence of federal agencies. In particular, he has been highly critical of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, even attempting to direct the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation into him. Powell stated that the threat of criminal charges stemmed from the Federal Reserve’s refusal to set interest rates in line with the president’s preferences. The move to investigate Powell drew widespread criticism at home and was ultimately halted under congressional pressure.

Further, many of Trump’s policies have encountered legal challenges, with the U.S. judicial system acting as a significant check on executive power. Since returning to the White House in January last year, Trump has issued more than 400 executive orders (as of April 20). Yet roughly one-third of those have been challenged in court, spanning areas such as immigration, tariffs, healthcare, education and reductions in the federal workforce. Notably, in February, the Supreme Court ruled that the sweeping global tariffs imposed by the administration under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act were illegal, finding that the president lacked authority to impose such duties unilaterally. In response, Trump invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to announce a 15 percent tariff on most global products. In March, 23 states filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade, seeking to block new tariffs.

Tariff policy is a centerpiece of Trump’s second-term agenda, yet its domestic costs have been considerable. An analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that roughly 90 percent of tariff costs last year were borne by domestic consumers and businesses. It characterized Trump’s tariff policy as economically detrimental.

The primary driver of Trump’s declining approval rating is the widespread perception that he has failed to address the cost-of-living crisis, a situation exacerbated by the military campaign against Iran. Surging energy prices are fueling inflation and living costs for ordinary Americans. Former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a Trump supporter, has accused him of betraying the “America first” agenda and sharply criticized his war on Iran and his failure to ease the financial pressures being felt by domestic households. In the United States, average gasoline prices have jumped above $4 per gallon, and the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index rose 3.5 percent year-on-year in March, up from 2.8 percent the previous month. It was a four-year high that further narrowed the Federal Reserve’s room to cut interest rates.

For the first time since 2010, U.S. voters favor Democrats on economic issues, according to recent polling. President Trump’s approval ratings on core issues—inflation, immigration and foreign policy—are all weak, with more than half of Republicans expressing disappointment with his handling of inflation. Ahead of the November midterms, Democrats are seeking to highlight Trump’s neglect of domestic issues and link it to the quagmire of the Iran war. Senior officials have disclosed that the war has cost more than $25 billion to date—and actual spending is believed to be higher. Meanwhile, the administration is pushing Congress for hundreds of billions of dollars in special appropriations.

A recent survey by The Washington Post and other outlets found that 61 percent of Americans believe the military strike on Iran was a mistake. As the unauthorized military campaign continues, the political costs for Trump continue to mount.

Trump appears increasingly focused on building his political legacy ahead of the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, insisting that economic volatility stemming from the war is a necessary price for long-term U.S. security. But several Republican lawmakers concede that high energy and consumer prices have become a critical electoral vulnerability. With about five months until the midterms, which will determine control of Congress and state governorships, some Democrats predict a “blue wave” similar to 2018. Should Democrats retake the House or even both chambers of Congress, Trump risks seeing his policy agenda effectively stalled and could potentially face impeachment.

He is now attempting to push the SAVE America Act through Congress as he seeks to mobilize greater support to restrict voting rights. At the same time, some Republican lawmakers are advancing housing legislation to signal their attention to livelihood issues in hope of winning votes. In states such as Texas and Florida, Republicans are attempting to shore up their electoral position through partisan redistricting, a move that has sparked legal disputes and interparty tensions.

In short, Trump is politically on the defensive. He faces steep challenges in managing the economic turmoil exacerbated by the Iran war, alongside widening rifts within his administration and the wider Republican Party. He has long relied on shaping media narratives to influence the economy or divert public attention by manufacturing new crises, but these tactics are less effective lately. His self-crafted image as a perpetual winner is now being met with growing skepticism.

• Child welfare
• Health

‘We inherited a really brutal system. We’re working hard on it,’ said Gov. Patrick Morrisey.

West Virginia will join the Trump administration’s “A Home for Every Child” initiative meant to address a shortage of foster homes in the state.

There are 5,580 children in the state’s foster care system, which has faced scrutiny for children sleeping in hotels or short-term rental homes. There are currently 549 foster children in out-of-state homes and institutions because there aren’t enough in-state options. 

The new federal initiative seeks to increase the ratio of foster homes to children in foster care while giving states greater flexibility to modernize child welfare systems and reduce unnecessary bureaucracy. It followed President Donald Trump’s executive order focused on improving child welfare nationwide. 

“West Virginia is committed to strengthening families, supporting foster parents, improving permanency outcomes and ensuring our child welfare system is focused on what matters most — protecting children and helping them thrive,” Morrisey said Thursday at the state Capitol.

West Virginia will redesign its foster care parent screening process to reduce barriers, he said. 

Assistant Secretary Alex Adams with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families joined Morrisey at the announcement.

“The Trump administration is thrilled to welcome West Virginia as the 19th state to join our national initiative aimed at increasing the ratio of foster homes to children in foster care,” Adams said. “Under Gov. Morrisey’s leadership, the state will be able to strengthen efforts that keep families safely together and support foster family recruitment and retention to ensure no child has to wait on a safe, loving, stable home.”

The federal government will renegotiate its program improvement plan with West Virginia and provide “record red tape relief” to reduce time-consuming paperwork for caseworkers, Adams explained.

Morrisey stressed that his administration is making improvements to the troubled foster care system, noting a new child welfare screening tool and a focus on improving consistency statewide in the handling of children’s cases.

“We inherited a really brutal system,” he said. “We’re working hard on it. What we’re doing isn’t perfect but we are making progress … This administration is committed to putting more time in than people have ever seen before.”

Morrisey recently vetoed multiple foster care bills, including a Republican-sponsored measure meant to expand support for youth exiting the foster care system.

The governor also vetoed a measure that would have required the state to develop and implement a plan for preventing children from entering the foster care system. 

At the press conference Thursday, Morrisey said the state is focused on improving prevention efforts.

“Too often the children entered the foster care system because support systems had failed earlier in the process,” he said. “We’re working to change that.”

Morrisey said his administration continues to focus on partnering with churches and faith-based organizations to address the foster care crisis, including recruiting foster homes.