By Harmeet Kaur, CNN

(CNN) — Giovanni Canales only knows one way to watch the World Cup: In Spanish on Telemundo.

Canales, 24, was raised in Rhode Island by a father who formerly played for the Honduran national team. And in his household, the Spanish-language network’s spirited soccer commentary, with sportscaster Andrés Cantor’s signature cries of “goooooooool,” are essential to the viewing experience. Never mind that Canales doesn’t speak Spanish himself — the way that Telemundo announcers start talking faster as the action on the pitch intensifies is its own kind of language. Even if he steps away from the TV for a moment, he can rest assured that he won’t miss anything important (something he made light of in a recent Instagram reel).

“Sometimes I just doze off if it’s in English,” he adds.

For many Latin American fans in the US, watching the World Cup in Spanish is a given. But for the 2026 tournament, even some people who don’t have Latin American roots or who don’t speak Spanish are opting for Telemundo over Fox. Meghan Dyer Pavs, a former elementary school teacher outside of Worcester, Massachusetts, calls Telemundo broadcasts “the best thing in American culture right now.” Having already convinced her kids and husband of her position, she recently converted her college roommate, too. Comedian Trevor Noah is also a fan, declaring Telemundo “the best coverage in town.”

This World Cup has been particularly successful for Telemundo. Last month, the network reported that it was pacing at “more than double” its audience for the 2022 tournament in Qatar. The July 5 match between Mexico and England drew in a record 23.2 million viewers for the network, according to Variety. Fox Sports, which holds the English-language broadcast rights, saw around 21.7 million viewers for the same game. And while Fox’s viewership has generally been higher than Telemundo’s for games with no connection to Latin America, Defector’s Diana Moskovitz notes that the difference is not as vast as one might expect. (Given the tension this has caused between the two networks, CNBC’s Alex Sherman reports that FIFA is potentially looking to package English- and Spanish-language US rights together for the next men’s tournament.)

Telemundo is well aware of its new viewer base. If anything, the hype around Telemundo’s World Cup coverage is the result of a deliberate strategy: The network began courting non-Spanish speakers months ago, with a Super Bowl ad featuring Owen Wilson, noted non-Latino, getting swept up in the energy of Telemundo’s commentators. And during last month’s France-Sweden match, one announcer briefly switched into English to thank viewers who don’t speak Spanish for watching.

As Spain faced Belgium in the quarterfinals last Friday, Socceria, a new soccer-themed cantina in Brooklyn, was streaming Telemundo on its screens. Owner Tania Apolinar, who hails from Torreón, Mexico, says the bar has been showing around 95% of the matches in Spanish, though it has occasionally experimented with Fox for games that don’t involve Spanish-speaking n

By Nick Paton Walsh, Victoria Butenko, Daria Tarasova-Markina, CNN

(CNN) — It is the fate of just one town, over a year, but provides a rare insight into Russia’s ill-fated war of choice.

The slow and costly infiltration of Kostyantynivka, key to Moscow’s advance in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas and claimed as occupied by the Russian defense ministry on July 3, lays bare the persistence of the Kremlin’s forces and the devastating casualties they will tolerate to obtain even the smallest of goals.

On July 3, the Ministry of Defense posted a series of videos of Russian troops at various points inside the town’s center, waving Russian flags, to bolster its assertion they had taken the town. The false claim – contradicted by recent videos, testimony from Ukrainian troops, and independent mapping of the frontlines – was one of several made in past months by Russia’s leaders, seeking to suggest their battlefield progress was greater than it is, to perhaps persuade their domestic audience, or counterparts in the White House, that their military campaign had not stalled.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky swiftly seized on the falsehood, and urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet with him in the town to talk peace, if indeed it was under Moscow’s control.

CNN, which has reported in or near Kostyantynivka twice over the past year, has used geolocated videos and testimony, to show the horrific cost and slow pace of the Russian advances that led up to the false claim of the town’s capture. The town’s fate exposes both the dogged, relentless nature of Moscow’s assault, and the relatively minute nature of the victories it claim, even if falsely.

July 29, 2025

Mapping by the independent Ukrainian analysts Deep State shows Russian forces outside the town, trying to push in. The road into the town is already lined with fishing nets, to protect traffic from Russian attack drones. Cars safely drive into town and the market, in its center, remains busy, despite the occasional threat of drones.

A CNN team that visited in July last year, found streets bustling with civilians, although some were reluctant to be filmed, perhaps fearing future Russian occupation and being sanctioned for “cooperating” with Western media.

November 2025

By the first winter months, the map shows the so-called gray zone of disputed territory edging closer to the town center. Russia’s assault with airstrikes had escalated. Videos posted by Ukrainian forces show apartment blocks in the town’s southwest in flames.

And a Russian drone captures the damage caused by an airstrike, just a few streets away.

But the Ukrainians are still confidently inside the town center, with the General Staff posting a video of one officer casually standing in Victory Square in November.

Russian footage posted from that time shows what appears to be their infantry’s point of view from inside an apartment complex courtyard, off the town’s Gromov Street, on the southwestern edges again.

January 2026

It is in the latter days of the year that Russia appears to take its largest steps forward, recorded by Deep State in the first week of 2026. The gray zone has reached the town and two separate Russian prongs edge closer to its main access roads.

Two key factors inform the extent of Moscow’s progress. The range of attack drones – either the tiny First-Person View drones that target individuals or vehicles, or the larger-payload machines that hit buildings – grows monthly, slowly putting the safe space around Kostyantynivka at a greater distance and complicating its defense by Ukraine. More significantly, at this

By David Wright, CNN

(CNN) — As Maine Democrats scramble to find a new nominee for the state’s highly consequential US Senate race, CNN will host a debate in partnership with the Bangor Daily News on Thursday, July 23, two days before 601 delegates gather at a convention to choose a new candidate.

The two-hour debate will take place at 8 p.m. ET. The candidates will take questions from CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash as well as Bangor Daily News Political Editor Michael Shepherd. There will be a live audience including some of the delegates who will vote to decide the nominee along with Maine primary voters.

A crowded field is vying to replace former nominee Graham Platner, whose campaign imploded earlier this month after he was accused of rape – an allegation he denies – weeks after he’d won the Democratic nomination for US Senate.

Under pressure in a key battleground contest, where incumbent GOP Sen. Susan Collins has defied Democratic opponents for nearly two decades, state party officials have assembled plans to replace Platner just before the legal deadline at a June 25 state party convention.

Two days after CNN’s debate, 601 delegates will meet in Bangor to vote on a new nominee, with 500 to be selected at county meetings across Maine this weekend, and the other 101 automatically included from Maine’s Democratic State Committee.

Candidates have until the end of Monday to submit 500 signatures to qualify for the convention ballot, including 50 signatures from at least eight separate counties.

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The post CNN and Bangor Daily News to host July 23 debate for Maine Democrats running to replace Graham Platner appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Nick Paton Walsh, Victoria Butenko, Daria Tarasova-Markina, CNN

(CNN) — It is the fate of just one town, over a year, but provides a rare insight into Russia’s ill-fated war of choice.

The slow and costly infiltration of Kostyantynivka, key to Moscow’s advance in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas and claimed as occupied by the Russian defense ministry on July 3, lays bare the persistence of the Kremlin’s forces and the devastating casualties they will tolerate to obtain even the smallest of goals.

On July 3, the Ministry of Defense posted a series of videos of Russian troops at various points inside the town’s center, waving Russian flags, to bolster its assertion they had taken the town. The false claim – contradicted by recent videos, testimony from Ukrainian troops, and independent mapping of the frontlines – was one of several made in past months by Russia’s leaders, seeking to suggest their battlefield progress was greater than it is, to perhaps persuade their domestic audience, or counterparts in the White House, that their military campaign had not stalled.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky swiftly seized on the falsehood, and urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet with him in the town to talk peace, if indeed it was under Moscow’s control.

CNN, which has reported in or near Kostyantynivka twice over the past year, has used geolocated videos and testimony, to show the horrific cost and slow pace of the Russian advances that led up to the false claim of the town’s capture. The town’s fate exposes both the dogged, relentless nature of Moscow’s assault, and the relatively minute nature of the victories it claim, even if falsely.

July 29, 2025

Mapping by the independent Ukrainian analysts Deep State shows Russian forces outside the town, trying to push in. The road into the town is already lined with fishing nets, to protect traffic from Russian attack drones. Cars safely drive into town and the market, in its center, remains busy, despite the occasional threat of drones.

A CNN team that visited in July last year, found streets bustling with civilians, although some were reluctant to be filmed, perhaps fearing future Russian occupation and being sanctioned for “cooperating” with Western media.

November 2025

By the first winter months, the map shows the so-called gray zone of disputed territory edging closer to the town center. Russia’s assault with airstrikes had escalated. Videos posted by Ukrainian forces show apartment blocks in the town’s southwest in flames.

And a Russian drone captures the damage caused by an airstrike, just a few streets away.

But the Ukrainians are still confidently inside the town center, with the General Staff posting a video of one officer casually standing in Victory Square in November.

Russian footage posted from that time shows what appears to be their infantry’s point of view from inside an apartment complex courtyard, off the town’s Gromov Street, on the southwestern edges again.

January 2026

It is in the latter days of the year that Russia appears to take its largest steps forward, recorded by Deep State in the first week of 2026. The gray zone has reached the to

The post Three Cheers for the Foresters appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.