Jordan Spieth won golf’s British Open on Sunday, outdueling fellow American Matt Kuchar over the final holes to capture his third major championship.

Spieth, just shy of turning 24 in the coming week, won the tournament at the Royal Birkdale course in Lancashire, England by three shots over the 39-year-old Kuchar, long a fixture on the world golf scene.  

Spieth, who won the Master’s and U.S. Open championships in 2015, led the British tournament by three shots over Kuchar after the third round and both carded final round scores of 69, one under par.

But through 13 holes Sunday, Kuchar had pulled a shot ahead of Spieth before he regained control with three birdies and an eagle on the 14th to 17th holes to win the Claret Jug, the tournament’s signature trophy.

Three different golfers have now won the first three major tournaments this year, with Spain’s Sergio Garcia winning the Master’s in April and American Brooks Koepka the U.S. Open in June. The last of the sport’s four annual major championships, the Professional Golfers’ Association tournament, will be contested next month.

 
…

You may have heard of the downward dog pose in yoga, or the cobra or the cow. Now, get ready for the goat, it’s goat yoga. Faith Lapidus explains.
…

The U.S., Canada and Mexico have joined forces for a bid to host the 2026 Football World Cup. If they get the nod, the three nations would be the first joint hosts of football’s (soccer’s) most prestigious international tournament. The bid comes as the sport continues to gain in popularity with American kids, both boys and girls — especially as the U.S. Women’s Team has won several World Cup Titles . Behzod Muhammadiy has this report from a Virginia children’s tournament.
…

A New Jersey resident with a degree in accounting is this year’s World Series of Poker champion.

 

Scott Blumstein won the series’ marquee no-limit Texas Hold ‘em main event early Sunday in Las Vegas and is now more than $8.1 million richer. The 25-year-old Blumstein eliminated Pennsylvania’s Daniel Ott on the 246th hand of the final table, more than 60 hands with just the two of them with bricks of bills and a gold bracelet separating them.

 

Blumstein’s final hand of an ace of hearts and a two of diamonds was stronger than that of Ott, who went all in with an ace of diamonds and an eight of diamonds. The community cards were a jack of spades, a six of spades, a five of hearts, a seven of hearts and a two of hearts. 

Four countries represented at final table

 

Blumstein, Ott and seven other players reached the final table after having bested more than 7,200 participants. Unlike the past several years, the final nine players didn’t have to wait until November to take their spots at the final table. Each of them was guaranteed at least $1 million. 

 

The famed tournament marked the end of this year’s series, in which dozens of tournaments drew 120,995 entrants from around the world, shattering attendance records. The men who made the final table represented the United States, Argentina, France and Britain.

Top two were rookies at main event

 

Ott, of Altoona, Pennsylvania, earned $4.7 million. Neither he nor Blumstein, of Brigantine, New Jersey, had previously played at the main event. 

Both had dozens of supporters who cheered and gasped — depending on the hand — throughout the night. Some in Team Blumstein sported T-shirts that wondered “Is this real” and others that declared “I don’t like folding.”

 

Blumstein, a graduate of Temple University, is a regular on New Jersey online poker sites but had never cashed in the World Series of Poker. His total live winnings stood at more than $300,000 before Sunday. Besides his multimillion-dollar payout, he also took home a bracelet made from white and yellow gold and diamonds and rubies.
…

Chris Froome stands on the doorstep of the Tour de France’s greatest champions.

Sewing up his fourth Tour crown with a cool-as-a-cucumber ride in a high-pressure time trial in heat-baked Marseille on Saturday means he needs just one victory more to join the record-holders who have five.

His winning margin in this Tour, 54 seconds over Rigoberto Uran of Colombia going into Sunday’s processional final stage, is narrower than Froome’s previous wins in 2013, 2015 and 2016. It is the first he has won by less than one minute.

Over the three weeks, Froome executed fewer of his trademark devastating accelerations in the high mountains. He ran out of gas and temporarily lost the race lead on a super-steep climb in the Pyrenees. He didn’t win any of the 20 stages before Sunday’s Stage 21, which is traditionally a peaceful ride into Paris with only the sprinters dashing for the line at the end, for the bragging right of winning the stage on the Champs-Elysees.

But Froome at 90 or 95 percent of his previous best still proved plenty.

Certainly good enough to be able to start dreaming of win No. 5 — and of joining the exalted company of Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. They have been the joint leaders since Lance Armstrong’s string of seven doping-assisted victories was expunged from the history of the 114-year-old race.

“It’s a huge honor just to be mentioned in the same sentence as the greats,” Froome said, adding that he had newfound appreciation for the five-time winners. “It certainly isn’t getting easier each year.”

Crowd backed Bardet

Yet he made the deciding time trial look easy enough. To boos and whistles from the partisan crowd backing Romain Bardet, the French rider who was only 23 seconds behind him in the overall standings, Froome set off last from the Stade Velodrome football stadium. Bardet had set off two minutes ahead of him.

Froome rode so strongly that by the end, he had Bardet in his sights. The French rider wilted on the twisting, tricky course with long, wind-affected straightaways by the sea and a short sharp uphill to Notre-Dame de la Garde cathedral, the dominant landmark in France’s second-largest city.

The suspense was quickly over. By the first time check, after just 10 kilometers (six miles) of riding, Froome was already 43 seconds quicker than Bardet. The only question became whether Bardet would even be able to save a place for himself on the podium. He did, by the narrowest of margins. Just one second was all that separated his third place from Mikel Landa of Spain, Froome’s teammate in fourth.

“It’s just an amazing feeling,” Froome said. “It was so close coming into this TT. This was my closest Tour de France, the most hard-fought between the riders. … I didn’t think it would come down to this TT in Marseille. There was a bit of pressure but, for me, it’s always a good thing having pressure.”

Uran was far quicker than Bardet over the 22.5-kilometer (14-mile) stage, despite overshooting a left-hand bend before the stadium finish and ricocheting off barriers. He vaulted over Bardet in the overall standings, into the runner-up spot. And with that, the 104th Tour had its podium. All that’s left for the 167 survivors — from 198 who started on July 1 — is to cross the line in Paris.

No risks

“Today I did not take risks, I took all the bends carefully. You can lose everything on a day like this,” Froome said.

Bardet endured his first bad day of the three grueling weeks. He said he woke up feeling poorly on Saturday, “and I paid for it, in cash.”

Twice a runner-up at the Giro d’Italia, Uran added another second-place finish at a Grand Tour to his resume.

The time trial was won by Polish rider Maciej Bodnar, who covered the distance at an average speed of nearly 48 kph (30 mph) on the special aerodynamic bikes the riders used for the discipline. Froome has long excelled in it, winning Olympic bronzes in 2012 and 2016.

“I still can’t believe it,” Bodnar said. “Last year was close and this year was even closer, and now I finally get one. It’s amazing.”

Froome’s teammate, Michal Kwiatkowski, placed second, one second slower than Bodnar. Froome was third, just six seconds off what could have been a stage win to adorn his Tour crown.

But Froome wasn’t even slightly bothered about that.

 

He’d known from the start in Germany that this Tour would be unusual and likely open, because it had few mountain-top finishes, not huge amounts of time-trial kilometers, and many tricky days over all five of France’s mountain ranges. Unlike at previous Tours won with knockout blows in the high peaks, this victory had to be pieced together bit-by-bit like a jigsaw puzzle.

 

“Just chipping away on every stage,” he said. “It was always the tactic to ride a three-week race and basically not to go out there on one day with the aim of trying to blow the race apart and smash it.”
…

Actor John Heard, whose many roles included the father in the Home Alone series and a corrupt detective in The Sopranos, has died. He was 71.

His death was confirmed Saturday by the Santa Clara Medical Examiner’s office in California. TMZ reported that Heard, who lived in southern California, was found at a Palo Alto, California, hotel where he was recovering from back surgery.

Heard played Peter McCallister, the father of Kevin, played by Macaulay Culkin, in Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. He said in later interviews that he sought a movie with kids in it so his son, age 5 at the time, could come to the set and have someone to play with.

After it became a big hit, he was reluctant to revisit the role but his agent convinced him the money was too good to pass up.

“I didn’t want to be the Home Alone dad for the rest of my life,” he told Yahoo News in 2013.

He was born March 7, 1946, in Washington, D.C., and grew up performing in local theater. One of his memorable early roles was as a disabled Vietnam War veteran in the 1981 film Cutter’s Way.

He was active in film for the next decade, playing Tom Hanks’ rival in Big, actress Geraldine Page’s son in The Trip to Bountiful and in the movies The Pelican Brief, Beaches, Gladiator, Rambling Rose and After Hours.

He earned an Emmy nomination for playing Vin Makazian in The Sopranos. Television also kept him busy. He acted in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Elementary, Prison Break, Modern Family and Entourage. One of his favorite jobs came in the original Sharknado television movie in 2013.

“I knew it was going to be a cult classic,” he told the Baltimore Media Blog last year. “It’s just ridiculous. I thought it would replace people calling me the `Home Alone’ dad.”

Fellow actor Michael McKean paid tribute on Twitter Saturday: “RIP John Heard. Never not good.”

Heard was married and divorced three times, including briefly to actress Margot Kidder. He had three children.
…

Food halls, communal dining spaces featuring a variety of food vendors under one roof, are becoming a popular option for dining out in New York City. In a city where high rents and operating costs have made it difficult for aspiring restaurateurs to establish themselves, food halls offer an alternative path to profit. Foodies, culinary upstarts and investors are flocking to get a seat at the table. VOA reporter Tina Trinh explores.
…

You may have seen her in magazines, modeling the latest fashions, whether they be for men or women. Rain Dove is becoming a fashion icon, and along the way, altering perceptions of masculinity and femininity. VOA’s Maxim Moskalkov profiles this gender-bending model.
…

Nigeria’s top female golfer, Uloma Mbuko, has won more than 200 trophies in her 17-year career as an international player. Now, she’s passing on her crown, training the next crop of young golfers in Nigeria. VOA’s Chika Oduah reports.
…

About 30 youngsters were on a golf course, practicing their swing on a hot Saturday morning in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

The students were as young as 3 and as old as 16. For nearly a year, they’ve come out every Saturday to Abuja’s IBB International Golf and Country Club to learn the rules of the game.

Uloma Mbuko guided them with a watchful eye.

“Princess, I want to see you hold your swing,” she said to one of them.  

Mbuko walked up and down the line of students.

She is the lead instructor at this beginners’ golf training program for boys and girls. Nigeria’s premier female golfer, Mbuko has played in tournaments across Africa, winning a place in nearly all of them and garnering about 200 awards. She has been called the Queen of Golf in Africa. After 17 years as a Class A professional, she has risen to a level in sports that few women in Nigeria ever reach.

Ambitious youth

Even from a young age, Mbuko showed ambition, said her sister, Chinyere Mbuko.

“She’s always been a sports lady. She started with football, then handball. So when she was starting, you know, playing golf, I was like, ‘Ah! Serious?’ ” Chinyere Mbuko said with a laugh. “But I knew she could do it.”

The golfer comes from a working-class family, so getting into the sport was not easy.

“We all know that golf is expensive, even though we try to shy away from it. But it is expensive,” Uloma Mbuko said. “Now, to be a member of a golf club in Nigeria, definitely you’re talking about nothing less than 500,000.”

The 500,000 naira ($1,640) covers only the membership. At the IBB club where Mbuko spends most of her time, the fee is upward of 800,000 naira ($2,622). A golfer has to pay for access to practice facilities, training, a caddy, proper clothing and equipment.

WATCH: Nigeria’s ‘Queen of Golf’ Trains Her Potential Successors

More Nigerian golf professionals, like Mbuko, are trying to help young people overcome the financial hurdles of playing golf. Emeka Okatta, president and founder of the West Africa Golf Tour, said the government should help make golf more affordable.

No public courses

“There are no facilities for common people to play golf. We only have absolute member golf courses and a common man cannot walk into here and play. For you to walk in here just to have green fees is 10,000 naira ($32); that’s a lot of money. That’s probably some people’s salary in a month,” Okatta said. “But in other parts of the world, the government provides public golf courses, public drive ranges; but here there’s none and so a common man cannot play. That’s why it’s called a rich man’s game.”

Okatta founded the West Africa Golf Tour to give young golf enthusiasts more opportunities and exposure. Okatta said he was looking forward to collaborating with Mbuko’s Ladies Professional Golfers Association of Nigeria to organize tournaments.

Mbuko created the LPGAN in 2016 because there was no professional golf group for women in Nigeria. That was one of the challenges she faced in her early years. Women who wanted to become professionals had to join associations outside the country. Mbuko joined the Professional Golfers Association in South Africa and was able to attract sponsors for her training.

Mbuko has slowed down from playing in tournaments to focus on training the next generation of Nigerian women to reach the level of success she has attained. They meet several days a week under the LPGAN banner.

Mbuko’s students, like Stella Kadiri and Obiageli Ayodele, all hope to become pros.

“I’m here Monday to Friday. I’ve been playing golf since 2011,” said Kadiri, 25. “I’ve been going to Ladies’ Open, different places, and I’ve been winning. When I see my medal, it inspires me to play more.”

Swing barrel

Mbuko instructs the women to stand in a swing barrel. It’s a metallic circle that goes around the body. The golfer runs the club across it. The prop helps the golfer learn the proper hip rotation to get that perfect swing.  

“Wow, it’s fantastic,” Ayodele said after using the barrel. “The few days that I took lessons from her, I found out that my game changed automatically.”

The 29-year-old golfer is one of the few female players whose husband supports her athletic goals.

“In our country, Nigeria, they find it difficult for the ladies to get into sports because of their husbands — I mean, the ones that are married. They don’t want their wives to be out there. They don’t want them to be in the midst of other men. They feel they will not properly take care of their home,” Ayodele said.

IN PHOTOS: Nigeria’s ‘Queen of Golf’ Mentors Next Generation of Potential Pro Golfers

Mbuko said she wanted to see her ladies playing internationally in the next three years.

“Yes, we are ladies, yes, we are African, but we have what it takes, we have the talent,” she said. “I want to sit down and watch television and see Nigerian ladies competing in ladies’ Masters and say, ‘This is my girl, this is my girl.’ ” 
…

A team of forensics experts Thursday opened the tomb of famed Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali to take DNA samples to settle a paternity suit.

In a spectacle that most likely would have pleased the eccentric Dali, a crowd stood outside the Dali Theater-Museum in Figueras, Spain, to watch the experts file in.

The undertaker who embalmed Dali’s body when he died in 1989 told Reuters it would be easy to get a tooth or bone sample because the body would be “in relatively good condition.”

The sample will be sent to Madrid, where it will be analyzed for a match with the DNA in a saliva sample provided by Maria Pilar Abel, 61.

Abel alleges her mother and Dali had an affair in the fishing village where he lived and that it was no secret among the villagers.

The Dali estate is worth about $460 million. But Abel has said she’s not interested in money and only wants to be recognized as Dali’s daughter.

Dali is the world’s most renowned surrealist painter. His picture of melting watches, The Persistence of Memory, is an icon of surrealism.

Dali was was also known for his long, pencil-thin mustache that curled on each end. He delighted in painting mustaches on the upper lips of those he met.
…

From the dragons of Westeros and the “Walking Dead” zombies to the deadly humanoid robots of “Westworld,” the golden age of television is dominating the limelight at San Diego’s annual Comic-Con.

Kicking off on Thursday, this year’s four-day Comic-Con gathering of nerd and pop culture fans will see fewer films being marketed by movie studios, which are instead focusing more narrowly on projects that tie directly into the interests of the convention’s fandom.

Meanwhile, numerous hit sci-fi television shows have garnered avid viewers and Emmy nominations, and can drum up buzz for upcoming seasons with an already engaged fan base.

Drawing more than 100,000 attendees, Comic-Con has become an increasingly important tool for Hollywood to generate interest in upcoming projects. Yet this year, only three major Hollywood film studios – Fox, Warner Bros and Disney – and newcomer Netflix will hold panels for upcoming movies, a vast difference from five years ago when movies dominated the buzz from the convention.

Warner Bros. will bring its sci-fi sequel “Blade Runner 2049,” virtual reality thriller “Ready Player One” and its DC movie franchise of superheroes, while Disney will bring its Marvel superhero franchise.

“Studios are eyeing more quality than quantity at Comic-Con,” Entertainment Weekly’s senior writer Darren Franich told Reuters.

“There are less films debuting now, but there’s high stakes for the ones that are, as studios are thinking ‘if we do well here then that can create buzz over a year,'” he added.

On Thursday, Fox hosted a panel on upcoming British spy comedy sequel “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” with Colin Firth and Halle Berry.

“You really feel like [Comic-Con] is owned by fans,” Firth told Reuters Television. “I don’t think I’ve been in an environment where it’s more about the passion for the material.”

The fandom of Comic-Con attendees is what drove organizers in 2012 to give medieval fantasy “Game of Thrones,” zombie drama “The Walking Dead” and nerd comedy “The Big Bang Theory” a coveted spot at Comic-Con’s prestigious Hall H. The 6,500-capacity hall is usually reserved for movie studios bringing in A-list talent, and fans often sleep outside overnight to gain access.

Hall H is where Netflix’s 1980s-set supernatural mystery series “Stranger Things” will make its Comic-Con debut on Saturday, almost a year after it became a breakout hit “largely thanks to the passion of the fan base,” producer Shawn Levy told Reuters.

“Comic-Con is such a hub of fans and passionate fanhood, so it feels like an organic match to the ‘Stranger Things’ franchise,” he said.

But celebrity panels alone aren’t enough for engaging fans.

This year, Warner Bros has a virtual reality experience of its upcoming “Blade Runner 2049” sequel, HBO has installations of the futuristic theme park of “Westworld” and “Stranger Things” fans can experience the dark, evil “Upside Down” world from the show.

“It’s no small thing to get yourself to Comic-Con and spend money and time in a high-intensity environment, and we want to reward that interest level and commitment with something special,” Levy said.
…

Rio de Janeiro’s port area may be one of the city’s most inviting spots since being renovated for the Olympic Games last year. But while the area is home to attractions that include two museums and an aquarium, its rich history remains unknown to most locals and tourists.

 

A new app seeks to educate visitors about the area’s role in Brazilian history, from colonization and the arrival of slave ships to recent cases of corruption.

 

Launched in late June by the nonprofit investigative journalism agency Agencia Publica, the app called “Museum of Yesterday” offers tours of the port in Portuguese and English.

 

But there’s a catch. Inspired by Pokemon Go, the app detects users’ geo-location and only reveals the stories once users arrive at the location where the story took place.

 

With over 160 points of interest, the app offers five options. The terror tour explores slavery, colonization and the country’s military dictatorship, along with other incidents like the 1993 Candelaria massacre in which eight people — many of them teenagers — were killed while sleeping on the steps of the Candelaria church. The corruption tour investigates bribery from the time of King John VI of Portugal to recent kickback schemes. The samba tour explores the roots of Rio’s traditional Carnival music. Finally, the tour of ghosts explores important historical figures that are sometimes forgotten.

“Rio’s port carries a lot of the history of Brazil,” said Gabriele Roza, a journalist at Agencia Publica who contributed to the stories in the app. “What we realized was that these stories are not present here.”

 

Indeed during the Rio Olympic Games, local authorities emphatically promoted the port’s new attractions such as the futuristic looking Museum of Tomorrow designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava that cost $55 million, and a new boulevard decorated by internationally acclaimed street artists.

 

But the city neglects other historical attractions located a few blocks away such as the Valongo Wharf, an archaeological site where hundreds of thousands of slaves debarked after their harrowing journey across the Atlantic.

Francesca Declich, an Italian anthropologist visiting the Valongo Wharf on July 9, the day it was named a UNESCO World Heritage site, complained that the wharf was hard to find and that there was only basic information available on a three-paragraph-long plaque next to the pit.

 

The port is also connected to the present-day Car Wash corruption investigation. For example, Eduardo Cunha, who led Brazil’s impeachment effort against former President Dilma Rousseff, is now being investigated over allegations that he received $16 million in kickbacks related to the port renovation, which cost the city of Rio over $4 billion.

 

Rio’s former mayor Eduardo Paes is also being investigated for taking bribes in the port renovation. Despite the scandal, the revitalized area is considered one of the few positive legacies from the Rio Olympics.

 

The app, which has been downloaded over 2,000 times so far, tells these and other stories through text but also through illustrations, photographs, audio, videos and a map from the 1830s when most of today’s port was still ocean.

“As you start walking along the port area you can actually capture the stories from Rio’s past and put them in a vault,” explained Mariana Simoes, another journalist from Agencia Publica who was part of the team that developed the app.

 

“You are actually being encouraged to walk and discover the area, discover these elements of our past as you walk through them.”
…

The lead singer of rock group Linkin Park, Chester Bennington, was found dead in his California home Thursday. He was 41.

According to news reports, Bennington committed suicide by hanging himself in his home. The Los Angeles County Coroner’s office is investigating.

Bandmate Mike Shinoda confirmed the news via Twitter, saying, “Shocked and heartbroken, but it’s true.” He promised an official statement from the band “as soon as we have one.”

Successful records, MTV darling

​Linkin Park’s blend of rap, electronica and heavy metal had wide appeal; nearly all of the band’s records took the top spot on the charts when released. Its style, dubbed “nu-metal,” made it an MTV darling in the early 2000s.

Linkin Park released its debut album, Hybrid Theory, in 2000, and sold 10 million records. The band went on to produce a string of successful records, including this year’s One More Light, released in May.

The band had a show scheduled next week in New York with the group Blink 182.

While playing an essential part in Linkin Park’s sound, Bennington also participated in side projects Dead by Sunrise and Kings of Chaos, groups of high-profile musicians working together on short-term projects. Bennington also served as the lead singer for Stone Temple Pilots from 2013 to 2015 after the departure of vocalist Scott Weiland. In interviews, Bennington said performing with Stone Temple Pilots was the realization of a lifelong dream.

Difficult childhood

Born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1976, Bennington had a difficult childhood. He was the son of a police officer, and he spoke openly about being the victim of physical and sexual abuse by an older friend. He also suffered bullying in his teen years. He said in interviews that he channeled frustration in his early years into poetry, art and songwriting.

In his teens, he took up drugs and alcohol, developing the addictions that haunted him for much of his life, despite periods of sobriety. He also took up music, but found little success until the late 1990s when he won a spot in the band that would become Linkin Park.

The pains of Bennington’s childhood and young adulthood played into the band’s music, connecting with fans with songs of anger, disappointment, frustration and pain. Their videos were dramatic as well, featuring elaborate sets and scenes of deep emotion, even the one released Thursday morning, Talking to Myself, a song about disconnection and sorrow.

In 2002, Bennington told Rolling Stone magazine, “There’s something inside me that pulls me down.”

Creativity, addiction

While Bennington used creativity to cope with his feelings, he also used drugs and alcohol off and on, he said, starting in his teenage years. He spoke openly about his struggles, telling reporters about his bandmates staging an intervention for him in the early years of Linkin Park’s success. Later, he performed in concerts to benefit anti-addiction causes.

The band’s One More Light, was released just days before the death of Bennington’s close friend Chris Cornell, singer for the band Soundgarden who died of apparent suicide in a Detroit hotel room May 18.

Bennington sang Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah at Cornell’s funeral in May. His death fell on what would have been Cornell’s 53rd birthday.

Bennington was married twice and had six children.
…