Here is today’s latest on the 2026 FIFA World Cup, plus a breakdown of yesterday’s security meeting between officials from Washington & Mexico City.
U.S.-Mexico Talk Security at National Palace — But Tardy Official On Motorbike Earns the Headlines
CDMX — U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin arrived at Mexico City’s National Palace on Thursday for a two-day visit that was anything but routine — two CIA agents dead in Chihuahua without federal authorization, ten Mexican officials federally indicted in New York, and the DEA caught operating on Mexican soil without consent. Sheinbaum met him with two words: “mutual respect.”
The Mexican Foreign Ministry framed the outcome as “coordination without subordination” — cooperation with Washington on drug trafficking, arms, and intelligence sharing, without surrendering the sovereignty argument Mexico’s domestic audience demands. And before any of that could be fully digested, Mexico’s Interior Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez arrived to the security cabinet meeting late, on the back of a motorcycle — and the internet did the rest.
Messi’s Final World Cup Tango. Here’s Who Is Going With Him & What Argentina Is Building
MIAMI — Lionel Messi is going to his sixth World Cup — a record no male player has ever reached. But the most revealing thing about Argentina’s 55-man preliminary squad is not Messi at 38. It is who is standing next to him: Franco Mastantuono, 17, at Real Madrid; Claudio Echeverri, 19, at Girona; Nico Paz, 20, at Como — a generation of teenagers and 20-year-olds at Europe’s biggest clubs, built alongside the greatest of all time.
Defending champions chasing back-to-back titles for the first time since Brazil in 1962, three goals from the all-time World Cup scoring record, opening June 16 in Kansas City. The final 26 drop June 1.
Colombia Names World Cup Squad. Eight Days Later, the Country Votes
MIAMI — Colombia names its final World Cup squad on May 29 — two days before the country votes in its most consequential presidential election in a generation. Luis Díaz carries the attacking weight of a team whose entire structure revolves around him, James Rodríguez has played fewer than 200 minutes all season and is working with a personal trainer to get fit in time, and Jhon Durán’s inconsistency leaves Colombia’s strike options thin behind their star winger.
The political backdrop is something beyond a challenge for the national team: 35 massacres in the first quarter of 2026, a FARC dissident offensive that killed a soldier with a drone and ambushed a senator’s convoy, and an election whose outcome will define the country Colombia's players represent all summer long.
Neymar Is Back as Ancelotti Names Brazil World Cup Sqaud
Brazil also named its World Cup squad and the headline was Neymar — back in the Seleção for the first time since 2023, called up by Carlo Ancelotti after a return to boyhood club Santos following two serious knee injuries and a forgettable spell in Saudi Arabia.
But the real story is quieter and more consequential: Endrick, 19, on loan at Lyon after leaving Real Madrid in January, has been one of the most efficient forwards in Ligue 1 this season — and Ancelotti must decide whether to start him ahead of Vinicius Jr., Brazil’s figurehead, whose conversion rate for the national team has never matched his club-level dominance. Brazil — five-time world champions that haven’t lifted the trophy since 2002 opens against Morocco at MetLife Stadium on June 13.
