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EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey — President Donald Trump stood shoulder to shoulder with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum during the FIFA World Cup final in New Jersey — but his eyes were elsewhere.

Throughout the afternoon on Sunday, the president gravitated toward FIFA President Gianni Infantino instead of gathered world leaders, underscoring the close relationship between the president and global soccer chief. Infantino answered Trump’s phone call about about U.S. striker Folarin Balogun’s red card and seems to have a standing invite to the Oval Office.

This is just the second time the three North American leaders have appeared together, and while it wasn’t quite a snub, it wasn’t exactly a warm embrace.

Perhaps Carney and Sheinbaum are just fine with that considering that when Trump did talk to Carney it was to tell him to get the Canadian wildfires under control.

“I told him you’ve got to stop these fires from coming in and poisoning our air,” Trump told reporters after the match at MetLife Stadium. “Maybe they should pay us some damages or something.”

On Monday, Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on some Canadian imports , with the duties — which would apply to everything from wine and honey to textiles, fishing rods, jewelry and furniture — scheduled to take effect on Aug. 19.

Tensions are also high between the U.S. and Mexico after two CIA agents were killed in a car crash in Mexico this spring and the U.S. unsealed indictments against 10 current and former Mexican officials, including members of Sheinbaum’s own political party.

Mexico also last week filed criminal complaints over the deaths of some of its citizens in ICE custody or as part of immigration enforcement operations.

When the trophy presentation began, Trump walked onto the field alongside Infantino, with Carney and Sheinbaum trailing behind. As players assembled to receive their medals, Trump spent most of the ceremony chatting with Infantino, who stood to his right, rather than with Carney and Sheinbaum to his left.

After Spain lifted the trophy, Trump and Infantino lingered together just off camera for nearly five minutes, watching the celebrations before eventually walking off the field side by side.

The optics reflected a broader reality.

Since returning to office, Trump has made sports a centerpiece of his term, with Infantino becoming a favorite international partner. The FIFA chief has met with Trump more than any other global leader.“No other president in history could have pulled off the historic feat that President Trump delivered for the American people and the world,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement that does not mention Canada or Mexico.

The World Cup final also marked the beginning of the end for the White House task force Trump established to oversee the tournament.

Andrew Giuliani, who has led the interagency effort for the past year, said agencies have been instructed to begin compiling lessons learned from the tournament to help shape preparations for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, the 2031 Women’s World Cup and the 2034 Winter Olympics — what he calls the “golden age of sports in America.”

“We don’t want to spend too much time sitting on the sidelines here because we want things to be fresh,” Giuliani said in an interview before the final.

Among the biggest takeaways, Giuliani said, was proving the United States could balance heightened security with welcoming millions of international visitors.

“The United States can achieve that balance of making sure that we host a safe, secure event, not letting bad actors into our country while making sure also we can open our gates to fans and the world,” he said.

As the task force winds down, Giuliani’s own future remains uncertain.

Asked whether he could move into another role inside the Trump administration — from helping with Republicans’ midterm convention to an ambassadorship or another sports-related portfolio — Giuliani quipped that he first planned to reintroduce himself to his family

But he made it clear that he would welcome another assignment from the president.

“I love this president,” Giuliani said. “I look forward to future conversations with him and his senior staff and his Cabinet, and any way that I can help support this America First vision … I’d be honored to consider it.”

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Covid fatigue is real, but policymakers and policy influencers need to wake up to something important: Post-pandemic polarization threatens to lock our memories into attractive, untrue conclusions that will leave us unprotected next time.

When Covid-19 first arrived, there was little historical experience to guide response. After watching catastrophic results and stress on the health care systems in China, Italy, and Iran, American states rapidly invoked many measures simultaneously to combat a virus with proven destructive power: masks, social distancing, and school and business closures. They turned to the 1918 flu pandemic to understand the importance of rapid and society-wide response.

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QUICK FACTS

Where is it? Lake Skadar, Montenegro and Albania [ 42.201087364, 19.303135741 ]

What's in the photo? A giant, milky-green swirl on the lake's surface

Who took the photo? An unnamed astronaut on board the International Space Station

When was it taken? Feb. 21, 2020

This eye-catching astronaut photo shows a cloud of sediment swirling into a giant, milky-green vortex in one of Europe's largest lakes.

Lake Skadar (also known as Shkodër, Shkodra or Scutari) is the largest lake in Southern Europe, with a surface area between 140 and 200 square miles (360 to 520 square kilometers), depending on the time of year. It is situated on the border between Montenegro, which surrounds the western half of the lake (left in the photo), and Albania, which encircles the lake's eastern shore. The body of water is split 65% to 35% in Montenegro's favor.

The lake's main water source is the Morača River, to the northwest, and its biggest outlets are the Bojana and Drin rivers, which start at the lake's easternmost point and eventually drain into the Adriatic Sea, which is partially visible in the bottom left of the photo. Skadar's southern shore is also hugged by a lofty mountain range, known as the Dinaric Alps.

During late winter and early spring, the lake's water level rises, and it usually fills with a milky-green substance that often gets whipped into a vortex by a combination of wind-driven surface currents and the natural flow of water between the lake's major inlets and outlets.

The swirling material looks very similar to blooming algae , but it is actually made of sediments — predominantly limestone and dolomite — that wash into the lake from the Dinaric Alps and other nearby mountains as the snow melts.

Lake Skadar formed millions of years ago and was once connected to the Adriatic Sea (visible in the background of this image). (Image credit: Wikimedia) Skadar is a karst lake, meaning it was once a cave system that flooded and eventually collapsed, likely because the caves were made from the same easily erodible rocks that now swirl on the lake's surface, according to NASA's Earth Observatory . The lake is a "cryptodepression" because most of the lake's floor is below sea level.

The lake originally formed during the Cenozoic Era (66 million years ago to the present), according to the International Lake Environment Committee Foundation's World Lake Database . It is home to several small islands, some of which can be seen in the photo along the lake's southern shore. These include Beška, which is home to a pair of 600-year-old churches, and Grmožur, where the remains of a 19th-century fortification loom above the lake's surface.

The shipwreck of a paddle steamboat, named Skanderbeg , lies along the lake's western shore. Local partisans sank the vessel in 1942 after Italian soldiers commandeered it during the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia in World War II. When the lake's water levels are at their lowest, part of the shipwreck rises above the surface.

Skadar Lake is a biodiversity hotspot and has protected wildlife status on both sides of the Montenegro-Albania border. It is a particularly important site for birds; more than 280 avian species call it home, including the Dalmatian pelican ( Pelecanus crispus ) and several endemic species, according to BirdLife International .

The lake also hosts around 50 freshwater snail species ‪—‬ more than any other lake on Earth, according to a 2013 study .

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The Trump administration is centralizing and politicizing science grantmaking to an unprecedented degree. Most recently, the Office of Management and Budget proposed a rule to require political appointees to review grants and ensure the projects they fund “demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities” and do not “facilitate” any “initiatives that … promote anti-American values.” If the new rule takes effect, the government will be able to terminate a grant if it no longer “effectuate[s] … the national interest” — in other words, if it’s no longer to the president’s liking.

The comment period on the proposed rule ended July 13. Before it can take effect, the OMB must still finalize the rule , which the agency aims to do by the end of August .

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