Welcome to another damn week; yes, it’s Monday, June 29, 2026, and National Darts Day. Here’s the finals of the 2026 World Darts Championship, with the winner, getting a million pound. And that winner was Luke “The Nuke” Littler, making his last three throws at 17:56 on the video below. These guys are amazing! And this is one sport in which you don’t have to be in shape to be the best in the world.
It’s also National Almond Buttercrunch Day, Nation Camera Day, and National Waffle Iron Day (what?).
Click on the screenshot below to see the World Cup scores and today’s schedule of games:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 29 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
Footy news: In the only World Cup game played yesterday, Canada beat South Africa 1-0, winning their first match in the knockout round and advancing to the round of 16.
Stephen Eustáquio scored in the second minute of second-half stoppage time, and Canada beat South Africa 1-0 on Sunday for their first knockout match victory in a World Cup.
A tense match at SoFi Stadium appeared to be headed for extra time until Eustáquio — who plays professionally for Los Angeles FC several miles away — put a stunning volley from outside the penalty area into the bottom corner of Ronwen Williams‘ net.
Co-host Canada hung on with strong defensive play in the final minutes and advanced to face the Netherlands or Morocco in Houston on Saturday, July 4.
Coach Jesse Marsch gathered his players in a huddle after the whistle and gave a spirited speech, declaring: “You guys are Canadian heroes! Canadian heroes!”
Here are about 13 minutes of highlights; the play that scored the winning goal begins at 10:04:
And from yesterday’s NYT:
Lionel Messi became the first player in history to score in seven consecutive World Cup games.
The 39-year-old scored with a free kick after coming off the bench as Argentina won 3-1 against Jordan. It was Messi’s sixth goal of the 2026 World Cup and he leads the Golden Boot race by two goals.
*The fighting is still going on in the Middle East, with Iran and the U.S. trading strikes.
Iran and the United States traded new attacks and threats on Sunday, the fourth straight day of hostilities, with little sign of a de-escalation that would get their two-week-old cease-fire back on track.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said in a statement carried by Iranian state media that it had targeted a U.S. naval base in Bahrain and the Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait in retaliation for American attacks.
The governments of Kuwait and Bahrain said the attacks had not caused any casualties. There were also no reports of American casualties or of major impact or damage to U.S. assets, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations.
But the persistent attacks further eroded hopes for a speedy return to normalcy in the Middle East after the initial truce that the United States and Iran agreed to this month.
The new hostilities began on Thursday, when Iran fired attack drones at a commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz, according to U.S. officials. American forces responded with a wave of attacks Friday, prompting drone strikes Saturday on another ship and on Bahrain, a U.S. ally, that were widely blamed on Iran.
Iranian officials have not claimed responsibility for attacking ships in the strait, which Tehran was supposed to fully reopen as part of the cease-fire. But the attack came hours after Iran had warned ships that they could travel only through its waters; many had been using an alternate route along the coast of nearby Oman.
. . . The U.S. military said that its latest attacks had hit air-defense sites and other military infrastructure. Iran’s state broadcaster reported explosions in three cities near the strait, and the U.S. official said that the U.S. airstrikes were more expansive than the previous day’s.
And so it goes, with the U.S. and Iran trading attacks, each in retaliation for another. I’m wondering why Trump haasn’t even threatened to hit Kharg Island, which handles 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports. That would surely cripple the nation’s economy and seems to me a good bargaining chip, since we could destroy the facilities at will. And what would be the objection of America, since that doesn’t require “boots on the ground”?
*At It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal describes the peace deal between Israel and Lebanon (the U.S. was also involved) as “history in the making”, and possibly good for both secular Lebanon and Israel.
On Friday, Israel announced a framework agreement with Lebanon, its first accord with the country since the short-lived 1983 treaty. The two sides commit to formally end their state of war and pursue normal relations through later negotiations. The engine is a reciprocal, sequenced process: Lebanon pledges the complete, verified disarmament of all non-state armed groups—Hezbollah is named—and the restoration of Lebanese Armed Forces control over all its territory, while, in exchange, the IDF redeploys zone by zone as disarmament is verified. Two initial “pilot zones” are agreed, with the rest left to a forthcoming Security Annex. Lebanon affirms Israel’s right to exist and that only the Lebanese state may authorize force on its soil; Israel disclaims any territorial ambitions.
In short: Lebanon sublets its own territory to Israel so Israel can evict the problematic tenant, Hezbollah, and hands the keys back once the premises are cleared—with normalization as the reward at the end of the eviction. On paper, it’s a phased withdrawal. In practice, it’s an admission that Israel stays in southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is gone. The price of that presence was paid again early this morning, when Captain David Hazut, 21, fell in a firefight with a Hezbollah operative in southern Lebanon. For the past four months, Iran has been demanding Israel withdraw from sovereign Lebanese soil; Lebanon’s own government has effectively answered, “You first.”
Even if the ultimate goal of normalization goes unmet, this is a genuine achievement for Israel because it upends the entire conception that has governed Lebanon until now. The old arrangement was simple: If Israel wanted to stay, the authority it had to consult was Washington, while Hezbollah took its marching orders from Tehran. The Lebanese government, meanwhile, oscillated between the roles of Hezbollah cutout and impotent failed state.
Now the United States has pulled the Lebanese government itself into the anti-Iran camp. And unlike Israel’s first treaty with Lebanon, this one is built to require America as a partner. Lebanon isn’t merely choosing a future without Hezbollah; it’s choosing a new Lebanon—rebuilt and bankrolled by the United States. Put plainly: It needs Trump to hold its spine straight for the confrontation with Hezbollah, and it needs Israel to do the dirty work to win that confrontation.
The agreement is a godsend for Netanyahu. Hezbollah won’t be eliminated by Election Day even if it’s pushed to the last possible day, but if the Israeli public reads southern Lebanon as a story of progress rather than an attritional swamp, he has a chance. Internationally, the framework isn’t about to get his face taken off the dartboard—but it has validated a strategy that drew enormous criticism. It turns out you don’t always need to know the “day after” before you launch an operation. As in Gaza, if you focus on degrading capabilities and keep your options open, opportunities may materialize on their own.
Segal lists several negatives, foremost among them is Hezbollah’s resolute opposition to this agreement, and its ability to mobilize supporters in Lebanon to oppose it. Further, opponents say the agreement is unlawful, and Iran may not sign a ceasefire if Hezbollah is stripped of power, even in a treaty. However, Segal is hopeful, and ends this way:
As we have experienced recently, history in this region is written and rewritten by the week, and there is every chance this agreement ends up where so many others have: abandoned, unenforced and simply a footnote to the next war. But should it hold, June 26 may be remembered as the date a broken country began the long climb back to being the Paris of the Middle East. For now, that possibility alone is more than Lebanon has had in decades.
*Many folx spurn James Carville as an outdated curmudgeon irrelevant to the Democratic Party. But I love the old guy because he often speaks sense (that said, he did endorse Kamala Harris for the Presidency though, after the election, said that choosing her as a candidates was a mistake). Here he is in two short videos ranting about the victories of the Democratic Socialists in New York (h/t Enrico).
The YouTube notes on this one: “Democratic strategist James Carville discusses the socialist takeover of the Democratic Party on ‘Saturday in America,’ stating he has nothing in common with candidates who want to abolish prisons.”
As the following YouTube video notes, “Speaking with Elizabeth Vargas on Wednesday, he said the two Democratic socialists and the self-styled liberal Zionist would be better off starting their own movement.”
*The Washington Post has an article about a group of trolling demonstrators who pretend to be on the side of the algae polluting Washington’s Reflecting Pool. But it’s a joke, meant to mock Trump and his renovation efforts (h/t Thomas; article archived here).
Since last week, Paulette and a small group of others — dubbed Team Algae — have spent almost every evening at the Reflecting Pool, chanting, they said, in support of the algae that has thrown a high-profile wrench in President Donald Trump’s multimillion-dollar plans to beautify the landmark.
Paulette may have green hair, but Nadine Seiler is the one that passersby want to take photos with. That’s what happens when you wear a pink blow-up frog costume emblazoned with the word “AMPHIFA” across the belly.
“I’m an all-or-nothing kind of person,” said Seiler, 61.
The demonstration is absurd — and that’s the point. The protesters — Paulette, Seiler, Karen Irwin and Michelle Peterson — said they care about algae, but what they really care about is drawing attention to what they said the algae represents: the ludicrousness of the president’s Reflecting Pool project.
. . . .“The Reflecting Pool is a reflection of the incompetence of this administration,” Seiler said.
Paulette said the group has faced its fair share of heckling from Trump supporters, but most onlookers have been in on the joke. “It’s wild how much people are embracing it. I think that’s because it’s ridiculous. The cost of entry is really low,” said Paulette, 52.
Somebody told me the algae is not gone, and hooray for that. We could use a good removal system in Botany Pond, as it’s spreading like wildfire here.
Here are the demonstrators, which the NY Post doesn’t like because they’re mocking Trump:
*And if you care about such things, the NYT has sussed out when and where Taylor Swift is marrying football star Travis Kelce. I should have placed a bet on it, but given the data, the payoff would have been small.
One of the biggest events of the summer has been a mystery: When and where are Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce getting married? And when does everyone get to celebrate?
New details confirmed by The New York Times suggest a multiple-day event at Madison Square Garden, which an entertainment industry executive said Ms. Swift had rented.
The entertainment industry executive and another person with knowledge of the matter described the anticipated festivities: On July 2, the plans call for an intimate gathering of about 100 people at the Garden. The next day on July 3, about 1,000 guests would gather there for a splashier celebration, with possible stage appearances.
The preparations extend beyond the arena: A permit was filed with New York City to close the streets around Madison Square Garden from July 2 to midday July 4 for the events, according to three people who have knowledge of the matter. Several members of the Kansas City Chiefs have booked hotel rooms for dates around July 3 at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, according to a person told of the accommodations. Amtrak police officers, who patrol the station beneath the arena, have been told to expect a Swift wedding the weekend of July 4.
Since Ms. Swift and Mr. Kelce first announced their engagement last August, their relationship has garnered outsize attention. America does not have royal weddings, but the union between, arguably, the biggest pop star in the world and the Chiefs three-time Super Bowl champion comes close.
Go ahead and bet on Polymarket, though you’re not going to win much! What I want to know is why somebody would rent out Madison Square Garden for “an intimate gathering of about 100 people” when the Garden holds about 20,000 people! And I wonder if some day there will be a Taylor Swift song about Kelce, which assumes they would break up. That might not be a good assumption, and I’m not hoping for it, but it would give us another bad song.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Editor Hili is broiling, but I bet it’s hotter in Chicago (today’s high will be 90ºF or 32ºC, but it will be several degrees higher than that until Friday):
Hili: It’s so hot, even deep in the shade.
Andrzej: It’s cooler indoors.
Hili: But they expect you to work there.
In Polish:
Hili: Strasznie gorąco nawet w głębokim cieniu.
Ja: W domu jest chłodniej.
Hili: Ale tam każą pracować.
*******************
From Simon, a new drink!:
From TherionArms, another great medieval letter:
From Cheryl’s Amazingly Positive, No Politics Allowed, Interesting People Group:
Masih is posting repeatedly about the hypocrisy of Iran and other Islamist countries. But she’s right.
When you Westerners visit Iran, the Islamic regime say: “Our country, our rules.” Wear the hijab. Cover your hair. No handshakes.
But when they come to the West, somehow it’s still their rules. Cover the nude statues. Hide the wine. Tone down your traditions. Don’t offend Islam.… pic.twitter.com/RlIY76ek7Y
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 27, 2026
From Jeff Maurer. I’ll take socialism! This cartoon has convinced me.
Whoa…no possible counter argument to this!!! https://t.co/uG1Wdtg6Hw
— Jeff Maurer (@JeffMightBWrong) June 28, 2026
Emma must be watching the World Cup in Germany:
We singing for England
In-Ger-Land!! pic.twitter.com/H3GS8DNbsl— Emma Hilton (@FondOfBeetles) June 27, 2026
From Luana; the paper is on BioArχiv with a gazillion authors:
🧬Possibly one of the most important genetics preprints of 2026 has just been published: the flagship paper of the Vertebrate Genomes Project.
An ambitious effort to generate near-complete and near-error-free reference genomes for all living vertebrate species.
The authors… pic.twitter.com/6aIKIHAR05
— Alexandr Rakitko (@AlexRakitko) June 26, 2026
Two from my feed. First, an animal rescue:
Смелый поступок. Мужикам респект и уважуха!!! 💪 pic.twitter.com/ymZ9duJhwv
— Кефирный алк⭕г⭕лик (@sekretnyy_igrok) June 27, 2026
Not all Muslims, but many. . .
A 9-year-old girl cries as she is being sold by her own family and forced into an arranged marriage with a 60-year-old man. This is Islam. pic.twitter.com/CoReh1mhix
— Dr. Maalouf (@realMaalouf) June 28, 2026
One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial; the mother was in her ninth month of pregnancy.
This four-year old Hungarian Jewish boy, along with his pregnant mother, were gassed as soon as they arrived in Auschwitz. https://t.co/PGILpQOlxM
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) June 29, 2026
And a video tweet from Dr. Cobb. Look at this deep-sea isopod. I bet it plays a good game of ping pong:
This is a deep-sea isopod. Dr. Johanna Weston, deep-ocean biologist and guest investigator at @whoisryosuke@mastodon.gamedev.place is confident this is Bathyopsurus nybelini, one of her favorite animals. http://www.youtube.com/@SchmidtOcea…@SchmidtOcean #gloobalmuseum #marinescience #biology
— Global Museum (@globalmuseum.bsky.social) 2026-06-16T19:03:32.520Z
The cartoon is a distortion of history. The roles of Mamdani and Musk need to be swapped.
Just ask the people in Poland or the GDR who had to live under socialist rule for 40 years. Ask the residents of North Korea, who still live under socialist rule. The nomenklatura ALWAYS had/has enough to eat (including luxury goods), while the population had to make do with whatever the planned economy provided or whatever they could grow in their own gardens.
Jeff Mauer is a comedian. He used to write for John Oliver’s show. He was making a joke.
Yes, I’m aware of that!
My response was to the original poster. He or she seemed unaware of that.
I understand that Jeff Maurer’s comment was meant to be ironic. My remark was directed at the original cartoon. Apparently, I didn’t make that clear enough.
Re: liberal Lisa cartoon.
Right! All we have to do is confiscate the wealth of Elon Musk and give it to impoverished families. Then everyone will be equal and their dinner plates full.
Musk … and all entrepreneurial rich people have no other motive than greed greed greed. USA had the wrong revolution; the French Revolutionists had the correct gizmo for justice, while the USA just lets them thrive.
I think Democrats should run on this, blatantly, in elections.
I’m cautiously optimistic about the Lebanon deal – love that country – but I honestly doubt it’ll work. The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) are kinda a joke and Hezb has spent 40 years like a cancer rotting the republic, South and Beqqa ends first.
LAF let tourists ride their planes out of an air base in Tripoli for money…
I’m a classical music guy with a love of Beatles and other 60s and 70s music so I really don’t know Taylor Swift, or her fiancé (don’t know football) but that they’re getting married at Madison Square Garden isn’t surprising. I mean – big shots like that will fly like moths to the gravitational center of the universe. Right here. 🙂
I❤️NY
BTW – we had the Pride parade downstairs yesterday. It is so big they block off my street and I always buy the cops cokes and snacks. One cop told me its actually not a bad shift as everybody is happy and there’s little nonsense or trouble.
The Parade which I’ve been attending for decades even before I moved to gay Chelsea is excellent – my favorite religious holiday after 9.11.
And you don’t even have to be gay – you can be straight like me (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and still have a cool time.
D.A.
NYC 🗽
I am pro-Taylor Swift. I appreciate that this is a unwelcome opinion around here. I have actually been to, two TS concerts!. Note, that I have never been inside a TS concert. My job was a designated driver. However, I have listened to quite a bit of her music and the lyrics are (in my opinion) somewhat good. Is she revolutionary/groundbreaking? I would say, no. Is she good? I would say, yes.
I also think Taylor Swift is often underestimated in this forum. And I’m not even a huge Swiftie, as it’s not really my kind of music, for the most part. But I am convinced that in 30+ years, when we look back at music history, we will increasingly recognize her work as very significant.
It’s not my kind of music. But it’s not bad, and way above average when you consider some of the other stuff out there.
When our daughters finished their IDF and National Service, we wanted to give them a gift, but were at a loss. Then I found out that one of my friends has a business that involves getting tickets for events—no matter where. I asked him about Swift, and he told me to pick a place.
My wife and daughters ended up at a Taylor Swift concert in Paris. there were actually many Israelis there, though no one wanted to speak Hebrew on the streets of Paris. (And this was before the Hamas attack.) Ny daughters said it was fantastic, and even my wife said that she threw a helluva concert.
My dad cred went way up! So thanks, Taylor.
I can match (but not top) your story. My daughter went to a Taylor Swift concert in London. I thought “only we could be that crazy”. I was wrong. There were tons of non-UK people at the concert.
Re: liberal Lisa cartoon.
Right! All we have to do is confiscate the wealth of Elon Musk and give it to impoverished families. Then everyone will be equal and their dinner plates full.
Musk … and all entrepreneurial rich people have no other motive than greed greed greed. USA had the wrong revolution; the French Revolutionists had the correct gizmo for justice, while the USA just lets them thrive.
I think Democrats should run on this, blatantly, in elections.
I expected Canada to win. They will play Netherlands or Morocco. I expect Netherlands to win, or Morocco, or Netherlands… 🙂
I expect USA to get into the quarter finals.
Morocco won. Canada versus Morocco it will be. The German statistician and part-time clairvoyant octopus Joachim Klement goofed. Brazil beat Japan and Netherlands was edged out. Brazil probably consider themselves lucky to have escaped with a point against Morocco in their first round game. Germany lost. They were beaten by a team that was hammered 4-1 by the US. Strange.
Where I worked back in the 90s we had a very large pond, (more of a small lake really, the site was rural and used the lake for surface water drainage). It suffered with such excessive algal growth that a small boat had to be procured for clearance, and after fighting what seemed to be an uphill battle, someone suggested that the solution was a bale of barley straw. Despite much scepticism it actually worked, and years later I came across bottles of what was billed as barley straw extract for the same purpose in domestic scale ponds – I have no idea if that product worked, but the place selling it was a well respected garden centre with an extensive section for the discerning pond owner, so I have to assume that it was tried and tested.
That is strange. Why does it work?
According to Penn State: Barley straw does not kill existing algae, but it inhibits the new growth of algae. The exact mechanism is poorly understood, but it seems that barley straw, when exposed to sunlight and in the presence of oxygen, produces a chemical that inhibits algae growth.
Barley straw does not reduce the growth of other aquatic plants. In fact, in some cases aquatic plant growth has increased after barley straw applications because algae are no longer present to compete with the aquatic plants.
https://extension.psu.edu/barley-straw-for-algae-control
That explains a lot, at the time it was pretty much word of mouth from a local farmer and we were desperate enough to try anything because the algae was impeding the establishment of a wildlife ecosystem. After the first bale that was simply dropped in the shallow end near the island, the maintenance team just popped a new bale in each year and the boat gathered cobwebs in the storeroom.
.
I tried it in a turtle pond (maybe 300 gal.), but it didn’t seem to work. Maybe turtles are too dirty or I didn’t have enough circulation- low oxygen? Now I use a UV treated, wet/dry filter that keeps it clear; though I still have to clean the filter and pump out/refill the pond a couple times a year. Algae is a tough life form to keep under control.
I’d try that Reflecting Pool drink, but I’d omit the fruit rollup- though I do like the effect.
With three generations of girls in the family, I stay aware of the Taylor Swift goings on. So she and the football guy are giving a whole new meaning to “garden wedding”.
The market is rather bullish on the Strait of Hormuz. The current price is $70.39 (as of 2026/6/29 – 10:39 AM). My guess is that both sides (the US and Iran) are under intense pressure to avoid hostilities. No one will be too surprised to hear that I have zero sympathy for the IRGC.
I can see why Dr. Johanna Weston views the Bathyopsurus nybelini as one of her favorite animals. Quite interesting to watch its fluid movements. Thanks for sharing this clip.
Wow! Love the giant vertebrate cladogram!
And, the deal between Israel and Lebanon is indeed historic. It ends the state of war between the two countries, and allies them in the fight against Hezbollah. It strengthens the Aoun government and weakens Hezbollah. The big risk is whether the effort to get rid of Hezbollah will start a new Lebanese civil war. Aoun will need to tread carefully.
Since I have friends in Germany, I’ve been following the heatwave there. Much of last week the temperature was 39 C. plus, which is about 103. While it’s cooled down significantly, that heat has moved into in Poland, where it is 99 today. So no, it’s hotter in central Europe than Chicago today.
Yes, it was scorching hot over the last few days. Here at the (almost) westernmost edge of Germany we had over 38°C (last Friday ~14:00).
My friends from Freiburg, on the edge of the Black Forest, compared the heat last week to that in Eilat in the summer. Except that Eilat cools down in the evening.
Freiburg! Yay, I participated in a foreign exchange program while in High School and my “family” lived in Freiburg. I lived there for a couple Summer months…maybe ‘84? Lovely city and people; we had a lot of fun im Schwarzwald. I don’t remember anyone having air conditioning, which I think is typical in Europe. Hopefully your friends can find ways to get comfortable. Heat waves are taxing!
Maybe the location at the coast also has some effect (how’s the situation in Be’er-Sheva, for instance?).
Freiburg is pretty far from any coast and it gets even worse the farther southwest you go into France and especially Spain. Over there, temperatures exceeding 40°C are quite common during a heatwave. And it’s mostly the humidity that makes them so taxing.
I am from Ravensburg (for American readers: The town lies about 25 km north of Lake Constance), and the temperature was about 36-37 °C on the weekend. Today, the temperature has dropped to about 28 °C. It’s almost refreshing.
The 2nd German serendipity today! While staying with a family in Freiburg (see post above) we went to Lake Constance where they kept a sail boat. It was a beautiful weekend cruising around the lake. We didn’t do much swimming as it was a bit chilly- I know people on the lake will be swimming right now!
What an isopod!
Marginal eyesight is sometimes entertaining. I got very interested in the “Bathyosaurus” (an abyssal ichthyosaur?). Too bad underwater ping-pong isn’t a thing. Although, 3-D zero-G normal-atmosphere ping-pong in an appropriately shaped room (spherical or icosahedral maybe) might be popular in space habitats.
Carville saying he is no longer a Democrat; Bill Maher saying he will consider voting Republican in 2028 – the times they are a changing!