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White House confirms Trump will attend World Cup final

Shakira, Madonna and BTS headline first half-time show

World Cup final liveblog: all the football | Mail Tom

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan says the World Cup has generated around $20bn of economic activity in the US, roughly the equivalent of the price of three tickets to today’s final. It should be noted that the figures sporting events generate are often dubious at best:

Hello. And welcome to our Everything But The Football liveblog of the World Cup final, which suddenly becomes a little more relevant now that Fifa has decided to turn the World Cup final into a Super Bowl (allegedly one of 104 Super Bowls at this year’s tournament!).

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League of Legends Classic, the new mode which remixes the MOBA by deleting most of the roster and restoring all sorts of old builds and character kits from 2013 and prior, has hit Riot's public test environment.

It's been met with mixed reception since then, in part due to its approach to old visuals—when the PBE version launched, players had modern character models, voice work, and spell effects by default, with "classic skins" unlockable with earned tokens or real money. A thread from user prime_desire with over 6,000 upvotes on the League of Legends subreddit called the mode "League 'not so' Classic," saying "honestly I would be embarrassed to release something like this. Charging for Classic Skins is genuinely wild."

That was reversed within a few days, with Riot's Brian "FeralPony" Feeney addressing feedback concerning the skins and more in a video blog July 16. "Feedback received," he said. "If you're on PBE, you probably already noticed that all classic skins are unlocked for all champions that have one." They've since been made the default option, replacing their respective champions' modern appearances.

Hey everyone. Thank you for your feedback on League Classic. We have a small update we wanted to share on:👗Classic skins💰Gameplay🔧Champion kits pic.twitter.com/CkoW1EJHZj July 17, 2026

He also addressed negative feedback regarding the mode's "greatest hits" approach, clarifying why Riot decided to mix a bunch of old patches together rather than pick a single patch from the game's history and stick to it.

In short, player surveys were all over the place and Riot wants to cast as wide a net as possible. "The answers were almost identical. League was classic the year they started playing, League was best the year after they started, and League was too old before they started." That said, changes will be made as players vote on new patches once the mode hits standard servers.

Other Riot devs have been on social media assuring players the mode is being changed to look even older by default. "It's been fun to basically undo my years of work," said senior VFX artist Sirhaian in a post on X .

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LawBreakers was, by many accounts , a great game. But the 2017 shooter was a commercial failure, and developer Boss Key shut it down just a year after release. There's been much speculation about why it stumbled, including from Boss Key co-founder and Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski himself. In a new interview with 80.lv, he offered his latest theories.

For one, a desire for Boss Key to be 'his' studio cost him an opportunity to work with Rod Fergusson, who he worked with on Gears of War.

"I could have used Rod, but I wanted it to be my show, and that was the first step of my ego creeping in right there," Bleszinski said, "believing that ... if I built it as Cliff, people will come. I thought there was this brand loyalty from the people who knew who I was, but it turns out people are loyal to the game, but they're not necessarily loyal to the person."

Bleszinski went on to say that the publishing deal Boss Key secured with Nexon had the wrong priorities. That deal included Boss Key retaining the rights to its IP, but as Bleszinski recalled it, "When the deal is so good for one side, the other side isn't as incentivized … they're not going to make it the next big thing because they're really not going to see that much of the profit."

Bleszinski offered a few other causes too, calling Boss Key's demise "death by 1,000 paper cuts." LawBreakers' art could have stood out more, an earlier launch on Xbox would have brought over more Gears of War fans, his struggle with alcoholism played a role, and he felt he was less involved than a lead should be, going home when others stayed late.

Despite all the turmoil, Bleszinski told 80.lv he still has a craving to make games again . "At the end of the day, I want to create characters and worlds," he said. "I want to make stuff that people will cosplay as and get tattooed on their bodies."

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Best FPS games : Finest gunplay

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US Federal workers must install an app powered by a Russian-founded software vendor

Security researchers discovered outside code controlling parts of the government application

Elfsight’s Russian operations continued growing despite global geopolitical tensions

The FAA and other federal employees must now install a $1.4 million White House app containing code built by Elfsight, a Russian-founded vendor.

Elfsight was founded in 2016 in the Russian city of Tula by chief executive Andrey Yusupov and chief technology officer Vladimir Fedotov.

The company now markets itself as a European software provider headquartered in Andorra, though its original Russian entity remains active and growing.

Business ties that persist

In 2025, the Russian entity reported revenue of about 126.5 million rubles, roughly $1.6 million, marking a 71% increase year on year.

The company’s headcount also grew to 61 employees, and job postings show continued hiring of Russian developers into 2026.

One 2026 job posting sought a Moscow-based support specialist, offering between 60,000 and 100,000 rubles per month for full-time work.

Under Russian law, companies handling user data can be compelled to store that data locally and hand it over to state authorities.

However, an Elfsight customer support specialist claims that the company has "never received any request" from Russian authorities for user data or access.

Security review and data practices

A network analysis by the security firm Atomic Computer found that Elfsight's servers determine which JavaScript files run inside the White House app.

The same session also accepted more than ten cookies from Elfsight, alongside Google DoubleClick advertising domains loaded through the app's YouTube sections.

Olivia Wales, a White House spokeswoman, said the app "does not request or collect any user locations" and called all its information "safe and secure."

A White House official later said Elfsight's only remaining script loads a tax calculator inside a sandboxed webview, disconnected from cookies or files.

The official added that Elfsight passed a full security review and is used widely by brands including UFC, FIFA, the NBA, and Cartier.

That same security clearance sits uneasily alongside records showing Elfsight's founders retained accounts at sanctioned Russian banks and kept traveling to Russia.

One founder wrote in a private message that Russian tax authorities had summoned him for questioning tied to a separate investment platform.

That legal exposure means a Russian-rooted vendor still effectively controls code running inside a mandatory application on federal government devices.

Since the Russia-Ukraine conflict started in 2022, the United States and its allies have imposed sanctions on numerous Russian companies and individuals.

It remains unclear why an app with such ties to Russia was cleared for use on White House and federal government devices in the first place.

So far, neither Elfsight nor the White House has offered a clear justification for that approval decision.

Via The Newsground

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Marvel has put out plenty of successful movies in the years since Avengers: Endgame , and one of the first that comes to mind is Spider-Man: No Way Home . Tom Holland ’s third solo Spider-Man movie was one of Marvel’s first true multiverse blowouts, and the studio will look to continue its success in just a few weeks with the launch of Spider-Man: Brand New Day . No Way Home was one of only two movies in the Multiverse Saga to hit $1 billion at the global box office, the other being Deadpool & Wolverine , another multiversal film starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman . Deadpool & Wolverine gave fans the on-screen team-up that so many people had been waiting for, and it did well enough to become the highest-grossing R-rated movie in history, even passing Joaquin Phoenix ’s first Joker .