• Freedom 250 staged on White House South Lawn

• Invitation-only event cost an estimated $60m in all

• Gaethje won title on night marred by Obama smear

The UFC staging its Freedom 250 card on the South Lawn of the White House in June led to losses of around $30m (roughly £22m), the company’s owners announced.

US president Donald Trump, a longtime fan of the UFC, and vice-president JD Vance were in attendance for the event which marked celebrations for 250 years of American independence.

• Larry Berg officially introduced to media and MLS staff

• Berg to take over for Don Garber on 1 January 2027

MLS will have a new commissioner starting in 2027, but don’t expect the league to adopt the promotion and relegation system seen in league systems throughout the world anytime soon.

Larry Berg, a co-owner of MLS club Los Angeles FC and the league’s incoming boss, said in his introductory press conference on Tuesday that he doesn’t think that the long-mooted idea of bringing “pro/rel” to the North American league is “appropriate”.

• Two-time Pro Bowler expected to get $51m guaranteed

• Average value surpasses that of Eagles’ Saquon Barkley

The Atlanta Falcons have agreed to a three-year contract extension with Bijan Robinson through the 2030 season that makes the fourth-year player the highest-paid running back in NFL history.

Robinson reposted the NFL’s Instagram post detailing the extension on Tuesday morning, writing “God this is for you! Blessings. Love this team and this city!”

• Fall opponents also include Peru and Chile

• Matches set for 26 September to 6 October

• First games since Pochettino agreed to return

The US men’s national team will kick off the next World Cup cycle with four matches over 11 days on home soil.

The friendlies include games against Peru, Chile, Mexico and Canada in US cities that didn’t host World Cup action this summer.

Ukrainian aerial- and sea-drone attacks have turned Russia's busiest seaport into a place cargo ships increasingly refuse to sail, choking both imports from China and exports of grain and oil, according to The Moscow Times. Logistics and trade executives describe a route to Novorossiysk grown too risky to use, and a Russian grain-industry group warns the Black Sea export corridors could shut down entirely. The strikes that once spared container ships have now reached them too.

The China route importers are told to skip

"On the China–Novorossiysk route everything is now difficult, the delays are huge," one importer told The Moscow Times. 

Freight forwarders now tell clients to avoid the route outright, three colleagues said. Aerial drones and unmanned boats make the approaches too unpredictable. Earlier strikes fell mostly on grain carriers and oil tankers. Ukrainian drones hit a container ship carrying imports in late July. Then, overnight on 1 August, a sea drone sank the FESCO vessel Yanina about 130 miles offshore. The crew got out. The cargo did not.

Explore further

Ukraine hits 201 Russian shadow fleet ships in three weeks. Commander says Crimea’s supply route is now blocked indefinitely

Sailings drop as the campaign widens

Large-ship sailings from Novorossiysk fell 38% in July, the Moscow Times says, citing ship-tracking data, with tanker runs down by half. 

"But now the situation will get worse, because container ships have also become a target," a logistics manager told the publication. 

This is one edge of a wider Ukrainian drone campaign against Russian shipping, codenamed MoLoChKa. The name is an acronym for "Moscow will fall through Crimea." Its own public scoreboard counts 206 vessels hit in July by the Unmanned Systems Forces (SBS) alone, with another logged in August. The SBS have mostly burned the small tankers and support ships that keep Russia's sanctioned shadow fleet moving.

Explore further

Ukrainian drones slash Kerch ferry crossing capacity by 75%, as daily strikes continue on Russian vessels and occupation energy infrastructure

What Russia stands to lose

Novorossiysk carries every fifth ton of Russia's seaborne exports: Urals oil, Kazakh crude, wheat for Egypt, and fertilizer for Asia and Africa. 

Attacks across the Azov–Black Sea region could cost Russia up to 30–35 million tons of wheat exports this season, a grain-exporters' union estimated. That would gut a harvest analysts expected to top 44-45 million tons. 

"Systematic attacks that began in July could soon lead to the complete blocking of the export corridors of the Black Sea basin," the union said. 

Ukraine's drones had already cut into Russia's seaborne grain trade this summer, and repeated hits on the port's main oil terminal have dented crude loadings. Russia keeps pouring money into the port, building a new terminal worth 120.7 billion rubles (about $1.5 billion), even as ships stay away, The Moscow Times said.

• UFC says Nascimento died in his sleep

• Brazilian flyweight was 34 years old

• Last fought in split-decision loss in June

UFC fighter Allan Nascimento has been found dead at home at the age of 34, the organisation has announced.

The Brazilian flyweight was pronounced dead after suffering an apparent heart attack in his sleep.

• Israeli striker scored, then gestured at CF Montréal fans

• Revolution ‘strongly condemn’ the chants

The New England Revolution have denounced chants they deemed “antisemitic” and “discriminatory” from CF Montréal fans during Saturday’s MLS matchup between the sides in Quebec. The specific chants were directed towards New England’s Israeli striker Dor Turgeman, with broadcast microphones capturing fans chanting “free Palestine” shortly before he scored a goal.

MLS on Monday confirmed it was “aware of reported antisemitic and discriminatory language directed at a New England Revolution player” and that the matter is under investigation.

• Berg is a senior partner at private equity firm 26North

• Commissioner will take over on 1 January 2027

The Major League Soccer board of governors has voted to install Los Angeles FC co-managing owner Larry Berg as the league’s next commissioner.

Berg will succeed Don Garber as the head of the 30-year-old league, with a term starting on 1 January 2027. He will be the third commissioner in MLS history.

• Filipino sensation beats Jessica Pegula 4-6 6-4 6-0

• Fritz beats Jodar in men’s final for first title of season

Alexandra Eala became the first player from the Philippines to win a WTA Tour-level singles title and Taylor Fritz ⁠claimed his first trophy of the season after both rain-delayed DC Open finals were completed on Monday.

Eala stunned top seed Jessica Pegula 4-6 6-4 ⁠6-0 after the weather-hit ⁠women’s final resumed ​with the 21-year-old trailing by a set but leading 2-1 in the second, while third-seeded Fritz beat Spanish teenager Rafael Jodar 7-6 (2) 6-4 ⁠in a tight men’s decider.

• Pair last played doubles at the 2022 US Open

• Serena returned to action at Wimbledon before injury

• US Open begins 31 August in New York

Serena Williams and Venus Williams are ⁠set to make their Cincinnati Open doubles debut this ⁠month after being ⁠awarded ​a wild card on Monday, marking their return ⁠to doubles action for the first time since 2022.

The Williams sisters ⁠have won 14 major doubles ​titles, including six ‌at Wimbledon, ‌plus three Olympic gold medals.

• Irish golfer one of four wildcard picks for Europe

• Rookies Ramirez, Nadaud and Rhodes also selected

Leona Maguire has retained her place in Europe’s Solheim Cup team despite a disappointing 2026, with the Irish golfer one of four wildcard picks named on Monday by Anna Nordqvist.

Maguire joins three rookies – Julia López Ramirez, Nastasia Nadaud and Mimi Rhodes – in completing the Europe side who will attempt to reclaim the trophy in the Netherlands next month.

In giving the head coach another World Cup cycle, US Soccer is tempting fate for negligible benefit

Mauricio Pochettino and US Soccer enjoyed their time together.

Or, rather, they enshoyed it, as Pochettino would pronounce it in his thick Argentinian accent, which charmingly carries over when he speaks English.

Ukraine set a major Russian oil terminal ablaze on the Black Sea coast. Operators of the SBS 413th "Raid" Regiment, in a joint operation with comrades from the 1st Separate SBS Center and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), struck the Taman maritime terminal near the village of Volna in Krasnodar Krai on 30 July, the regiment reported.

The strike destroyed a volume of fuel equal to 1,000 rail tank cars. According to updated data, 12 reservoirs, each holding 5,000 tons, were destroyed at the Taman terminal, and the fire covered more than 17,000 square meters.

The terminal is a key southern export node

Taman is one of the most important fuel facilities in southern Russia. The terminal specializes in the transshipment and export of oil, fuel oil, diesel, and liquefied petroleum gases, operates a large tank farm, and supplies fuel to Russian forces, according to the regiment.

Destroying 12 of its tanks strikes both Russia's fuel exports and its military supply at once, the dual purpose of Ukraine's campaign against Russian oil infrastructure, which targets the refineries, depots, and terminals that turn crude into export revenue and military fuel.

Satellites confirmed the fire

The strike's effect was visible from orbit. The Ukrainian drone strikes caused a large-scale fire on the terminal's territory, recorded by the NASA FIRMS satellite fire-monitoring service.

The reported date corroborates that something large burned there, moving the claim beyond a single belligerent's word.

The unit pioneered Ukraine's long-range drone strikes

The 413th "Raid" Regiment is one of the units that started Ukraine's deep-strike campaign. In 2022, at the start of the full-scale war, a group of special operations fighters first used drone technology to reconnoiter and strike enemy forces at distances up to 500 kilometers, the origin of the regiment.

The Taman strike extends the near-nightly Ukrainian campaign that has idled a large share of Russian refining capacity and now reaches the export terminals on the coast, raising the cost of the oil trade that funds Russia's war.

• Pochettino joined US national team in 2024

• Coach led US to last 16 at 2026 World Cup

US men’s national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino and the US Soccer Federation have agreed to a contract extension that will keep Pochettino attached to the program through 2030, US Soccer announced on Monday.

The two sides had been actively engaged in discussions on a contract extension for several months, long before the USMNT’s disappointing, last-16 exit in this summer’s World Cup, with the federation making it clear it desired Pochettino to stay. Conversations picked up in the weeks following the World Cup, with the Guardian reporting last week that the sides had been in the “final stages” of agreeing to a deal. Financial details of the contract extension were not released, but Pochettino is expected to get a raise on top of the $6m per year he earned under his previous deal with the federation – already the largest outlay for a US head coach.

[L'article Un joueur originaire de Victoriaville devient l’athlète québécois le mieux payé a d'abord été publié dans InfoBref.]

• Defending champions send prospects to Tigers

• Cy Young-winning Skubal joins stacked rotation in LA

The Los Angeles Dodgers have acquired the biggest prize on the trade deadline market, getting two-time reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal from the Detroit Tigers on Saturday night.

Skubal got the news during the Tigers’ 8-6 win over the Athletics and was emotional after the game as he prepared to leave the team that drafted him in 2018 and developed him into a star to join the two-time defending World Series champions.

• Poland striker scores double on his home MLS debut

• Messi returns as Inter Miami draw 2-2 with Columbus

Robert Lewandowski scored two goals on his home debut as the Chicago Fire eked out a 2-1 victory over Charlotte FC on ⁠Saturday. The win is Chicago’s first in Major League Soccer since the end of the international break.

Lewandowski, signed in late June as a free agent, produced a vintage performance to help the Fire (9-6-2, 29 points) close an ever-narrowing gap with the Eastern Conference’s top three clubs. Charlotte (7-7-4, 25pts) has now lost four of its last five road matches.

• Cunningham says rallies aren’t a distraction

• Supporters gather outside second straight game

• White: team wants focus to stay on basketball

Sophie Cunningham says she’s unconcerned that the rallies against transgender participation in women’s sports that have accompanied the Indiana’s Fever’s recent games are a distraction for the WNBA team.

Cunningham made the comments before the Fever’s game Friday night against the Portland Fire. Outside, a group rallied for the second straight game in support of Cunningham and her recent comments about transgender athletes.